Helen Oyeyemi - Mr. Fox

Mary and Mr. Pizarsky kept their exchanges as brief as possible.

“Morning, Miss F.”

“Good morning, Mr. Pizarsky.”

“Here’s the rent, Miss F.”

“Thank you, Mr. Pizarsky.”

“Off home for Christmas now, Miss F.”

“Merry Christmas, Mr. Pizarsky.”

On Valentine’s Day, Dream-Mary bought herself a single red rose, then immediately ran back into the shop, confused and embarrassed, to return it.

Most days Dream-Mary stayed at her desk until sunset, working in the special quiet of the otherwise empty house, the settling of floorboards and the ticking of clocks. She wrote romance novels under the pen name Wendy Darling. Hers were gloriously improbable tales, stuffed with happy coincidences, eternal devotion, and the unwavering recognition of inner beauty. They were in great demand, Mary’s novels. They were read-them-once-and-throw-them-away sort of books, really. And Mary had seen people doing just that, throwing her novels away, or very deliberately leaving them behind on park benches and bus seats once they had finished. She tried not to let it get her down. She didn’t like to brood. She kept a framed photograph of her parents on her desk, to remind herself of their story, which amazed her. They had fallen in love and kept it up far into old age; that was all. Her father was the hero in every story she wrote, and her mother was the heroine. They had been gone five years, but she brought them together again and again, thirty-five lines of cream-coloured foolscap folio at a time. And they never tired of finding each other, even when she was reduced, in the final chapters, to typing with just one finger, her little finger, jabbing out words until her hand curled up and could do no more. She completed a novel every other month and took August and December off.

It was Dream-Mary’s custom to read the local newspaper as she ate her evening meal in the dining corner of her attic. She read it thoroughly, without omitting a single paragraph or page. It was much more difficult to be alarmed by the events of a day that was almost over. After that she would go for a walk, to keep fit. And upon her return to her attic she would say a few phrases aloud, experimenting with a friendly tone of voice. She didn’t often socialise, but it was important to keep her hand in. She rehearsed small talk about the weather, and about children and the cost of living. From Mr. Pizarsky’s party below, a gramophone puffed jazz up at her like smoke rings until she stopped trying. She put on her nightgown, did her stretching exercises, applied cold cream to her face, and went to bed. Her days were pleasant and her mood was even.

One evening Mary went for her after-dinner walk as usual. She went through town, passing the tidy shop fronts, their signs beautifully lettered in glossy paint and print, striding over the mushy bank of sawdust outside the butcher’s. The entire neighbourhood was at home; wireless sets buzzed gently at her as she passed. Each house stood in its own square of garden, each garden with its own picket fence and its own garden gate. Not a curtain twitched. Mary climbed Murder Hill. It was a funny old hill. It started off as easily as walking on flat ground, and continued to seem flat, even after she had begun to feel short of breath. She looked down at all the chimney tops and picked lavender.

When she returned from her walk she found the house suspiciously quiet.

There was no rustling or giggling, no chiming of glassware to be heard anywhere in the house, she noticed. No party this evening. Mr. Pizarsky appeared, carrying a cake. It prickled with lit candles; at first glance there appeared to be hundreds of them. “Happy birthday, Miss Foxe,” he said, smiling warily.

He was right. It was her birthday. Dream-Mary thought she might be sick. “Mr. Pizarsky,” she said. “You shouldn’t have.” It was meant to sound light-hearted, but it didn’t.

He looked crestfallen. “You don’t like cake.”

“No, I do. How did you know it was my birthday?”

In the kitchen, Mr. Pizarsky carefully dropped his burden onto the table. He stared at the candle flames. They both did. It seemed rude to look at each other just then.

“I gave my room a good spring cleaning last week,” he said. “I found a birthday card. Dated.”

So he slept in her old room. She hadn’t known that, hadn’t checked to see whether or not he’d been keeping the lower half of the house in order, whether he had changed any aspect of the furnishing. The hallway and main stairs were tidy enough, and as long as the house didn’t fall down she didn’t care. In the last few weeks of her mother’s illness they’d spent whole afternoons in that room. Afterwards she’d moved out of that part of the house in a hurry. And she hadn’t gone back for anything since, had waited in the parlour while prospective tenants looked the property over. She must have left a great many things in there.

“I’ve taken a liberty, haven’t I?” Mr. Pizarsky gestured towards the birthday cake. “Even as I bought it, I wasn’t sure. You like to have secret birthdays? You English. . I am forever offending you.”

“No, no—” Mary searched for her manners and caught hold of them again. “It’s a lovely surprise.”

She pretended to make a wish and blew out the candles — only thirty of them, she counted. Such flattery. She found two small plates and put a slice of the cake on each, then remained standing, holding her slice away from her. He stood, too — he couldn’t very well sit down and eat while she stood there, not eating. As they exchanged remarks she was aware of treating him shabbily.

“I hope you didn’t cancel a gathering on my account, Mr. Pizarsky.”

“No, I’ve been abandoned tonight.”

Mr. Pizarsky was unkempt for a man of the law — his hair wanted combing, and the elbows of his jacket could have done with a thorough darning.

“I’m sure they’ll come back,” Mary soothed.

“I hope she will. That is to say — to tell you the truth, Miss Foxe, there is only one of them I particularly care for. The others are just her friends.”

She hadn’t taken a proper look at any of the girls that crowded the downstairs rooms most evenings; they all looked exactly the same to her.

“Well — best of luck, Mr. Pizarsky. Is your name Russian?”

“I’m a Pole, Miss F. . though I have met Russians who bear the name. Have you ever been to my country?”

“Poland? No — no. I haven’t been anywhere. Brighton. The Lake District and the Cotswolds, a few times. London sometimes.”

“A pity. Mine is a lovely country, in parts — simple and honest and strong. The landscapes, the buildings, the mead.”

“Oh — I must go there one day.”

He smiled sadly, with his mouth closed.

“One day. Not now. The rioting. And more to come.”

“Really. .?”

Her question was feeble, but he considered it with a quizzical twist of his mouth.

“Why, yes, of course! ‘Really,’ you say. You don’t think riots are so bad. Are you thinking of them as you do the weather here? A nuisance, but it’s not so difficult to get on with things despite them?” He described the three riots he had witnessed firsthand, in three different cities. He made the anger of the poor and put-upon sound like a storm on the ground; it scorched buildings when it woke, its first touch killed. “That is why I am here,” he finished. “Otherwise, pork pies and jellied eels be damned; give me my country.”

Mary suspected her father would have especially liked this man.

“Are you — forgive me, I know nothing about solicitors — but is it quite usual to find solicitors like you, Mr. Pizarsky?”

She had delighted him. “Let me see. . Perhaps not. I was a poet.”