How to Be Human

by Paula Cocozza

  “I wonder what happened to them,” she said. “I was desperate to post them. So I would receive them. I, erm, borrowed stamps from Mum’s purse.” She raised her eyebrows at him, and he nestled his snout forgivingly between his paws. “I stuck the stamps on, but I couldn’t do it. Post them. Release them into the unknown. It seemed such a…” She looked up again and was aggrieved to see that he appeared to have fallen asleep. She coughed sharply, and the near ear turned frontally to face her. Inside, the dark hair made a narrow black line, as if his ears had pupils too, and through them he saw and heard her in unison.

  “I was going to say ‘risk.’ It seemed such a risk to post the letters. And by the way, it’s fine if you want to sleep but please don’t think this is weird. People talk to animals all the time. All the time.”

  He resettled himself then, folded his haunches into a crouch beneath his rump. Even lying prone, his legs never looked fully relaxed, but already committed to their next move, whatever the next move might be. They pulsed with intention, the quickness of his instinct. And when it was time for him to go—

  he decided this—

  he stood in one fluid motion. Black legs steeped in stealth, he rippled his way to the far corner of the garden and vanished. It was as if he had a secret transportation station tucked away in the dark sliver between her shed and Tangle Wood. He was an escape artist, she thought admiringly. Maybe he could free her too.

  * * *

  WHEN MARY STEPPED outside on Friday morning, she had the distinct impression that Eric had been waiting for her. He was putting out the rubbish, and she took his yellow rubber gloves as another sign of his and Michelle’s prissiness. Then she realized that he was on her side of the railings. A scent of veiled rancidity rose from her front garden: the sort of aroma that warns of its high calorific content. Honey nut loops, sweet food with added sweetness. White things were strewn across the ivy.

  “What’s all that?” she asked.

  “This,” Eric said, with a theatrical sweep, “is what breast milk looks like when it comes out the other end. I’d say there’s two days of Flora’s nappies here. Or there was till I made a start. I was hoping I could clear up before you came out. He left them in your garden.”

  “Who?”

  “Fox.”

  The word wrong-footed her. It sounded abrupt, like hearing a friend referred to by his surname. But she was unsure about Red and had not yet produced any better ideas. (She had wondered briefly about Fantastic, but he was too modest for that.)

  “How do you know it’s a fox?” she said to Eric.

  “They like the smell of breast-fed babies’ nappies,” Eric said, shrugging. “They’re famous for it. Apparently, it’s all my fault. Admittedly, as Michelle mentioned, I put the rubbish out last night. Admittedly, as Michelle also mentioned, I overfilled the bin, contravening her particular instruction to make sure the lid was shut. And now this lot’s all over the garden.” He waved his gloved hands. With his shirtsleeves and tie, he looked like a waiter forced to help with the washing up. “They’re getting worse, Mary. When I got home last night, one was walking down the sidewalk with a Big Mac in its mouth. Still in the box. As if it had come from some animal kingdom drive-through. You’d think it would get off the sidewalk when it saw me, but I had to get out its way and walk in the road! We need a few more like that one in spring.”

  “Which one?” she said.

  He pulled a face. “It was a bit grim actually. In the road. A health hazard. Michelle called the council. The pest people came to shovel it up. Good job too or we’d have had an even bigger problem. The guy told Michelle it was pregnant!”

  “They obviously don’t like me,” she said. “I never see them.”

  Neville stepped onto his path from the front door the other side of Eric’s. “Nappies,” Mary said, to answer his inquisitive look. “Eric thinks a fox did it.”

  “Not thinks. Knows.”

  “Vermin,” Neville said.

  “Hey, while you’re both here,” Eric said, “have you seen Tigger? He didn’t come in last night.”

  “If he’s anything like Baxter he’s probably overindulged in the woods,” Neville said.

  Mary shook her head. “Sorry, Eric. Look, you know you said he left the nappies? The fox, I mean. The one you think did this. I was wondering how you knew it was a he?”

  “What? What the hell does it matter? It’s a crap way to start the day. I’ve got to go and change now. I’m soaking already.” He pulled his shirt free of his chest. “What are you doing up bright and early for work, Mary?”

  “Got an appointment.”

  * * *

  IT WAS LATE in the afternoon when Mary dared to come home. Late, considering she had spent the day doing nothing. After she left the doctor’s, she had taken his letter straight to the post office, then looped the roads around her house for hours, looking for Mark. She knew it was ridiculous to try to catch him in the same place, but she had nothing else to go on. And the whole time the squeak in her shoe tagged every step, as if someone had planted a listening device in her heel. When a shoe got a squeak, did the squeak ever go?

  In the hall she kicked off the sandals beside her mobile, which lay darkly on the floor next to the landline. She had not thought to unplug the other phone, because it almost never rang. But now a red 7 limply flashed on the answerphone. She pressed Play.

  “Hi, it’s a message for Mary. Hi, Mary. It’s Dawn! From work. Umm. Just wondering if everything’s OK? Are you coming in? Umm. Where aaaare yooou? Are you there? Are you there? Nope? Umm. Hope you’re OK … Let me know. OK? Yeah. Byeeee.” Beep.

  “Hi. It’s me again. Dawn. Er. It’s twelve o’clock. No sign of you. Your mobile’s off. Give me a call.” Clunk. Beep.

  “Mary. It’s Michelle. From next door.” A heavy sigh. “The postman’s just woken me up with a parcel for you. It would be good if you could avoid ordering things when you’re not going to be there to receive them. It’s given me a really bad headache. Whatever you do, don’t knock on my door. I’m going to have a sleep. Don’t knock on my door. Don’t knock on my door.” Beep.

  “Hello, love. Just calling because it’s Friday. I know you’re at work, but I’m going out later, so at least you’ll know I rang. Speak soon. Hope you’re well. Love, Mum.” Beep. Mary pressed Delete. Her messages always sounded like brief letters, written under sufferance.

  “This is the UK’s Eco Fund. This allows you to have your loft and cavity walls insulated for free…” Beep.

  Clunk. Beep.

  “Mary. Give us a call. I’m sure there’s a good reason for this, but you need to get in touch. This is an HR issue, for God’s sake.” Beep.

  On Monday, Dawn would get the doctor’s letter and everything would be OK.

  Mary deleted all messages. She wanted no one else’s voice in her house.

  * * *

  IN THE KITCHEN she filled the kettle. The blast of water brimmed in her ears and drowned all the voices there. When she turned, the fox was watching her. All four feet were inside, and the room had shrunk. Her mouth opened and shut, but her words were dry. She felt her muscles contract and loosen of their own accord, to swallow the jolt of surprise.

  Get a grip, she told herself. They had known each other for weeks. Almost a month. Of course he’d want to see where she lived. It was the natural next step. Sometimes, taking control meant surprising yourself, disobeying the familiar instincts, thwarting the same old you’s perennial attraction to the same old you’s typical decisions. It was like living in confinement, inside this head. She felt a fierce retaliation against the way her world had narrowed. Well, tonight she would not surrender to her lonely Monday, Tuesday, every night lock-in. Tonight, she was throwing open the doors.

  She stepped aside with a flourish and said, “Come in.”

  He nodded.

  It was so easy. One simple decision, and life was a different place. She felt as good as if she had let some second self out of the cage.

&n
bsp; He lifted his muzzle and dropped it again. His nose dabbed the ground, trying to filter signals through the interference. An electric hum zigzagged—floor—claws—shins. Bounced about his knee joints. Messing with the messages. His paws shifted, padding for information. Ground a thin pierceable skin. He hesitated while he. His own scent was the only fox scent. That was good. He pulled up his tail and released some more. Better. Coming through strongly now. The earth hummed with the strange calls of what? His claws curled into the floor. The floor clung to his claw. To get rid of the stickiness, he lifted a leg until the floor let go.

  Mary felt a twinge of shame. If she ever got the money, the lino would be the first thing to go. Then, seeing him delay, she gestured into the house again. “Come on. After you.”

  He was in her world now. He was everywhere in this room. She could see his reflection in the sheen of the bin, the silvery steel of the oven, the glint of the toaster and kettle. Then one by one, all those mirrors emptied themselves of him and darkened. He was on the move. He seemed to know where to go. A small step led up to the hall, and his paws knocked warmly on the floorboards. He stopped to examine his toes. Each noise made a larger noise than it should.

  An echo was nesting under this wood.

  He moved slowly down the hall, his muzzle probing the boards, his feet proceeding only at its say-so. It dropped with every lift of a paw, as if his nose were the thing that clenched and pulled the strings that moved the feet. It bobbed over her handbag.

  Something inside smelt good.

  She scooped the bag out of his way. At the entrance to the lounge, he balked, and Mary pulled up too. The room was as dark as if autumn had come. Over the past few months she had scarcely bothered to open the shutters. What was the point, only to close them again later? But now, looking over Red’s shoulder, she saw the place through fresh eyes. The lounge was horribly uninviting. Besides the sofa, stained and tatty, there was only Granny Joan’s old chair and a decorative rug. To the right, in the so-called dining room, the table with no chairs. It was all too obvious why he—her first houseguest since Mark had left—chose to stand in the hall. At last he nudged the patchwork hen doorstop.

  He clamped his jaws around it. Gingham tail feathers poked perkily out of the side of his mouth, and he clicked forward. Mary followed, sensing the door bounce softly behind them. For a moment, Red stalled in the middle of the room, his head facing the opposite direction to his feet.

  Bury the chicken / not chicken.

  He stuck his haunches in the air and scratched with his forepaws at the rug. He appeared to want to conjure a hole right there in the mock-Moroccan diamonds. After a while, he looked up. His snout pointed side to side, and whichever way it faced, his tail swung the opposite. Left, ri— “Watch out!” Her grandmother’s ornamental brass hearth tools clattered to the tiles. Red leapt back from the commotion, the hen still locked between his teeth, and, as he jumped, his tail toppled the china lamp that stood at the far corner of the hearth. Its base opened cleanly in two, like an Easter egg. His head swayed while the pieces rocked on the floor.

  “Steady!” Mary cried. “I know it’s shabby, but don’t wreck the place!” She glanced at the door, which had come to rest at a point not fully shut. His being in here had happened so fast she had given no thought to how much freedom she was prepared to allow him. Was it best to contain him in one room, or would the sense of enclosure panic him as it was panicking her? She did not want to be in thrall again to the unpredictable instincts of another living being, and he seemed wilder in here than he did outside, a liability in a way he never appeared in the garden, where he knew when to come, when to leave, how to lie peacefully. Indoors he took up so much space, and his wishes were unguessable, as if they might advance in any direction, and he was continually reconsidering the options.

  His brush swished her knees where she hovered on the edge of the sofa, and again he headed to the hearth, his claws making tinny taps on the tiles as he dropped the hen into the grate. He bent an ear to the window. A car door shut outside, and he spun to face it. The quiet lounge revolved with his speed. Then stilled with his furtive crouch. Family voices drifted indoors. Eric back from nursery with George, maybe. Red strained at the sounds even when the sounds had stopped. At last he returned to the hen, giving it a firm thrust under the logs with the tip of his muzzle. Down and down his snout drove. His hind parts were raised, and he whisked his tail so violently that the paper light shade began to whirl in its airstream. Mary tucked her feet beneath her legs. Now they were both indoors, his tameness seemed selective.

  At last he was satisfied that the hen was buried, and she watched him look about, wondering, as he seemed to wonder, what he would do next. She had not specified that upstairs was out of bounds, and she glanced anxiously at the door. She was about to get up and close it when the neighboring sofa cushion dipped beneath his weight.

  He lifted and replaced his paws. The resting place was trying to swallow his feet. He kept pulling them out out out out and somehow out out they were dry.

  He didn’t like the sofa. She could see that. Despite her invitation, he had declined to sit and was staring at his feet with a look of pure suspicion. Maybe he thought it would eat him. Death by Dralon. She started to laugh, but a switch inside flipped, and a few tears came instead. She wiped them. She was not going to cry. Why was she crying? Everything was fine. She refused to worry about Mark. Work would be sorted. A fortnight of fully paid leave. More if she needed. Her mum could get off her case. Then more tears came because her mum was never on her case. She inhaled fiercely, and one last drop rolled onto her cheek.

  “Relax and the sofa will stop moving,” she sniffed, patting the cushion.

  She showed him her dark bit of ear, which meant yes, and he gave her a lick.

  Her mouth opened to speak, but a laugh escaped because he had turned his snout away and was pointing it toward the window, as if he knew he had overstepped the line and was pretending that the lick had nothing to do with him. Mary wiped her cheek with her wrist, studying the side of his poker face. He had licked her! It was a huge transgression, but when he turned back his head, his warm amber eyes addressed her so respectfully, she knew he had meant no harm. It occurred to her that she might have given him a sign. After all, she had no experience of this situation. As a child, her parents steadfastly refused all requests for a pet. The only animals she had been allowed to keep were imaginary.

  She looked at Red. At last he deemed it safe to sit and was lowering himself into the cushion, but his ears yearned upward, and she wished she understood why he had turned away. With time, she would learn to read him better. On a hunch she licked the back of her hand: it was typical of her lack of confidence in social situations that at first she thought human skin must taste bitter or contain some repellent only he sensed. But then she heard the feet on her path, and her eyes widened in horror. She laid a finger on her lips, trusting that he would behave. They waited, and then it came, the knock on the door. She shook her head because whoever it was could come back later.

  A second knock. “Mary?”

  He was off the sofa, stalking across the room, hips rolling.

  “No!” she whispered, overtaking him at the door, scraping his bristles with her thigh, his flank muscles rippling against her leg. As she opened the door, his muzzle probed her hip, trying to see past her into the hallway, where the letter box was folding inward.

  Eric’s voice sounded closer this time. “It’s me,” he said, more quietly. “Only Eric.”

  “Don’t move a muscle,” Mary hissed to Red. “Not. A. Muscle.” She backed down the hall, staring him into place, until she reached the front door, which she opened a fraction.

  “Ah, Michelle said you were in.” Eric squinted through the gap. “This came for you today. I’m not disturbing you, am I?”

  She widened the opening to take the parcel.

  “Looks intriguing,” Eric said, staying on the step, as if he meant to watch her open it. “Hold on
,” he said, as she began to close the door. “Have you got a sec?”

  “Er. I’m a bit busy,” she said, moving her body to block his view into the house.

  “Oh, I see! I’m interrupting, am I? Good for you!” He strained to see past her. “Look, I just wanted to say, about tomorrow. It’s going to be great! The gazebo’s up—pretty tricky to get it straight, but I did it. I’ve got a fridge full of cava—”

  “Oh, the barbecue!” she said. “Actually, I don’t think—”

  “Right. Yes, I see. Well. This may not be relevant, then. But, there was one other thing. There’s a small chance Mark will come. Very, very small. Almost infinitesimal.”

  “What! You invited him too?”

  “Not exactly … It wasn’t like that … We asked you. We wanted you to come … We want you to come. But I ran into Mark outside the station. He mentioned it, and I couldn’t not invite him. Please come. You can bring—your new friend.”

  She narrowed the door opening further and checked over her shoulder. “I have to go. He’s got to leave soon,” she said.

  “But will you come? I promised Michelle numbers,” Eric persisted.

  “Well, tell her I need to think about what you’ve just told me.”

  Mary took the parcel to the kitchen. The label had been stuck on messily with too much tape, and her address was written in thick, faded felt pen. They had misspelt her surname as Greene, as if the correct spelling were insufficient. She racked her brains. She knew no one in the United States. Tape was wrapped so tightly around the corners that it took her ages to work beneath it. She looked up as she picked away with fingernails that used to be longer, and saw him watching.

  “That was Eric,” she said confidentially. “Mark has got himself invited to the barbecue tomorrow! What d’you make of that?”