A Fox Inside

by David Stacton

  “What am I to do?” she asked suddenly. “What am I to do?”

  Lily grunted, but in the darkness her cigarette wobbled, so her hand must be shaking. “What do you mean, dead?” she asked. “I thought he was at Bolinas.”

  “He was.’

  “What were you doing up there?”

  “I drove up.”

  “Of course you drove up. I didn’t think you walked,” snapped Lily. She seemed to be thinking hard. When she spoke again her voice was weary. “What time is it?”

  “I think about three.”

  Lily lay back in the bed. Maggie could begin to see better now in the darkness, but she could not imagine what her mother’s expression was, not, at any rate, by the sound of her.

  “How long ago?” asked Lily after a while.

  “I don’t know. I came right here.”

  “I was asleep,” said Lily, as though taking part in some other private and necessary conversation. She turned on the light again and this time left it on. “Come over here,” she said, not looking directly at her daughter, but with a sly glance that Maggie had always feared far worse. “You’d better have a cigarette and sit down.” Leaning out of bed, she fumbled clumsily with her cigarette case, gave up, and threw it to her daughter. Her eyes looked not at Maggie, but at the familiar details of the room. She sighed deeply.

  “Did you kill him?” she asked. Her voice was bland.

  “No.” Maggie was startled not by what was said, but by her mother’s expression. “No. At least, I don’t know. I can’t remember.”

  “On yes you can.”

  “I can’t.”

  Lily dragged herself up in the bed and reached for her bed jacket. “He’s dead,” she said. “I believe he’s dead. And even if you didn’t kill him, you wanted to. What I want to know is, how bad a mess did you make of it?”

  “He fell against the coal scuttle.” She hesitated. “I went up to Bolinas to ask him for a divorce. He just laughed at me. Then he fell down. He was drunk.”

  Lily shrugged and dabbed at her eyes with an edge of her bed jacket. “They’ll think you killed him,” she said. She thought about it. “Why should I help you?”

  “No reason.” Maggie tried not to flinch. “I wanted to phone Luke. I didn’t dare. I thought they could trace the call or something. I couldn’t think of anybody else to come to. There isn’t anybody else I can trust.”

  “No,” said Lily. “I don’t suppose there is. But I won’t have Luke here. It wouldn’t look right.”

  “That isn’t why you won’t have him here, though.”

  “That may be true,” admitted Lily calmly.

  “If you won’t wire him, I will,” said Maggie. “And I don’t care what happens.”

  “You will, though.” Lily watched her avidly. It was not the sort of watching that was easy to bear. She seemed to forget about both Luke and her daughter. “I suppose you followed him there?”

  “I went to see him.”

  “And hid the car under a tree. What were you planning to kill him with?”

  “I didn’t kill him. I told him I would, but I didn’t.”

  “But you did tell him you would? And if you had, though of course you didn’t, how would you have done it?” It was not exactly sarcasm; it was something else.

  “I just said it. I didn’t mean it.”

  “But you thought about it,” said Lily. She threw back the covers of the bed, showing that she was wearing a nightgown of pale blue nylon that hugged her big body in uncomfortable places. Slowly she pulled herself up and gathered the bed jacket around her, as though it gave her assurance.

  Maggie watched her uncertainly. “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  Lily did not answer. She went into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. Maggie stood where she was looking futilely at the rumpled bed. When it seemed that her mother was not coming back the door unclicked and Lily came out again, apparently calm, but with her fingers twitching. She had changed into a robe; it must have been hanging on the bathroom door. The robe made her look larger than ever, but less clumsy. She was carrying a glass of water and two pills.

  “Very well. You’ll sleep here,” she said. She stamped her foot. “Maggie, wake up.” She took her daughter’s arm, though Maggie flinched away from the grasp, and led her out into the dark and now very cold hall. “You didn’t wake the maid?” she asked.

  Maggie shook her head and Lily looked relieved. “Ethel’s deaf as a post. I’ll say you came down late last night.”

  Maggie could not speak. She wondered uneasily which room she would be put in. It had been so long since she had stayed in this house, and all the rooms in it had an evil meaning for her. They went past her father’s door, that could never be closed too tightly, and Lily led her into a room, switching on the light.

  Maggie saw that it was her own old room. She did not like that. Lily looked around the room with some satisfaction and drew down the bedspread from the maple-posted bed.

  “But it’s made up,” said Maggie.

  “It always is.” Lily sat Maggie down on the edge of the bed and Maggie allowed herself to be undressed. When that was done, Lily went to the cupboard and took out a nightgown. “It’s old,” she said, half smiling, “but it should fit.” Abruptly irritable she threw the nightgown at her daughter. Maggie pulled it over her head, tugged it down, and slipped into the bed. The sheets were stiff with cold and the room had a damp, shut-up smell. Then she remembered and sat up in the bed.

  “What is it?”

  “I left something in the car. A paper bag.”

  “It can wait.” Lily gave her the glass and the two pills.

  “But it can’t….” Maggie did not want to tell her what was in the bag.

  “I’ll see to it,” said Lily. She went over to the window, but did not lift the blind to look out. “You’re right. In the circumstances there isn’t anyone else we can trust. Or that you can, which I guess amounts to the same thing. I’ll phone Luke.” She moved rapidly about the room, setting down the glass. Then she picked it up again and took it with her. By the light switch she paused to look back at Maggie.

  “I don’t want to help you,” she said. “But I won’t have it said Charles was murdered, either. Charles was too clever to be murdered. I won’t have that.” She flicked off the light and closed the door behind her.

  Maggie got up and without raising the blind slipped between it and the window, so that she looked out across the lawn.

  She saw Lily leave the house, holding up the skirts of her robe to protect them from the damp grass, and move swiftly to the car. A flashlight went on. Finally her mother straightened up, holding the bag, and poked into it with the beam of the flashlight. The flashlight went out, but before it did her mother glanced up and Maggie saw the expression on her face. It was not one of anger. It was one of loss.

  In the new darkness, and clutching the paper bag, Lily angrily slammed the door of the car and marched back across the lawn, holding the bag stiffly out in front of her, her face averted, as though it were something dead.

  Maggie stayed at the window for some time, until drowsiness made it hard for her to stand. It seemed to her that the room was growing warmer, and leaning down to the radiator she felt the hot air pouring into the room and realized what her mother was doing. Her mother was burning something in the furnace. Obscurely relieved, she stumbled over to the bed. She felt that if she could sleep until Luke came, she would be safe. And in this heavy house there was no other refuge than in sleep. There never had been.

  III

  LUKE WAS IN LOS ANGELES, AND San Francisco is not only four hundred miles from Los Angeles. It is also in another country. South of San Jose the palm trees and the madness both begin. Those of the north consider themselves to be cool and chic and properly restrained. Those of the south think themselves alive, alert, and fashionably legendary. About each other the two parts of the state have mental reservations that never amount to war, but there is a certain a
mount of sniping in the foothills. For a northerner, to go south is to go into exile. For Luke it was somewhat different. He had been beaten back there. The north would have none of him and he knew why. Nor was he likely to forget it.

  He worked there for a small law firm and was doing well, better than he would have done to the north, where age is important and personal connections even more so. But he seldom felt at ease. There were times when he wanted to go back and crack the north, just to show them that he could.

  He had a small, hot apartment, impersonally decorated with pretentions to bad style. This meant that the drapes and sofas were upholstered in flowered cloth and that the furniture was aggressively but cheaply modern. It was a place to sleep, but beyond that only a cage. Being unmarried, he seldom entertained except in hotels and restaurants. Usually the apartment suited him well enough; but on this night it did not suit him at all. The weather was sultry, he was lonely, and he had been thinking too much to be able to sleep. When the phone rang it woke him easily.

  He had tied the bedclothes into a knot and wriggled free of them while cursing the phone. He never knew whether it was worse to have a phone that did not ring, or to have no phone at all. The world did not know him well enough for him to be able to cut himself off from it.

  He picked up the receiver and vaguely recognized the voice. At first, even so, he could not believe that it could be Lily. She sounded irritable but determined, and he grinned at the irritation, wondering what it could be that would force her to speak to him.

  She sounded as though she were afraid of being overheard, and he wondered where she was as he looked at his watch. It was three-thirty-five.

  “Look,” she said, with that cavalier brusqueness that made her no friends, “you’ve got to get up here as soon as you can. It’s urgent. Professionally urgent.”

  “How do you mean, professionally?” Despite himself, he thought at once of Maggie. But it would not do for him to say so. He wondered what the devil the old woman wanted and his pride asserted itself. “I can’t just come like that,” he said. “Can’t you get Thompson, or Christie, or your own lawyers? I take it it’s a lawyer you want.”

  There was an undercurrent in Lily’s voice he had not heard often. It made him uneasy.

  “Is anything wrong with Maggie?” he asked, fully awake now.

  “Of course not. Why should there be? She’s sound asleep in the guest-room and has been for hours.” Whereby he knew that something was wrong with her, and that Lily would not say what. “It’s about the estate. I wouldn’t bother you if it wasn’t so important. You always handle these things so well.”

  “I’m glad to hear you think so,” said Luke, trying to angle behind her voice.

  She paid no attention. “Jump on a plane. You have to be here before the banks open to-morrow.”

  “To-morrow’s Sunday,” he said.

  There was a long, annoyed pause. “Get on the phone and catch the four-fifteen plane,” she said quietly. “You can shave here. Throw some clothes on and come as you are.”

  He glanced at his watch, knowing perfectly well he had never worked for her in his life and that she would never, of her own volition, have employed him. Perhaps that was what she wanted him to know.

  “Can’t you speak out?” he asked.

  “No. But perhaps Maggie could tell you something. She’s staying down here. I’ll meet you at the airport.”

  “Suppose I miss my plane?”

  “There are other planes,” she said. “But you won’t miss it.” She stopped to consider. “I think you would be sorry if you didn’t come.”

  He did not answer and she spoke up sharply. “Can you hear me?”

  “I’ll come,” he said. He heard her sigh and then she hung up. That was good strategy, he thought. They disliked each other intensely.

  He blinked at the phone, rang through to the airport, and made a scramble for the bathroom. He nicked himself shaving, and had no time to make repairs, shoved a styptic pencil in his pocket, and ran for a cab, daubing blindly at his chin. Out of defiance he had been careful to put on his most Los Angeles suit. It would do no harm to remind her why she did not like him.

  Three-quarters of an hour later he was in the plane. Once the safety sign went off he went to the washroom and tried to fix his face. In the washroom mirror he looked wide-eyed and scared. That gave him pause, and he carefully re-brushed his hair, as though that would help. He went back to his seat considerably sobered and no longer angry with Lily.

  For so short a journey the time seemed to pass interminably. It was not light enough to read, but it was too light for the overhead lamps. He fiddled with the cold air blast, screwing it round in his face to wake himself up. Below him the countryside lost its arid softness and began to become rich, inimical, and hard. The night air rose in steam off the land, and the mountains, from above, looked wrinkled and helpless.

  Dawn came slowly as they pulled north. The airport was south of the city, built on tidal lands shut off from the townships beyond by a long mountain. The bay was a stagnant pewter mirror that reflected nothing. Mt. Diablo flushed against the eastern sky, which was edged with pale green and pale rose. They banked and circled. He was eager to get it over with, for this was the country that had rejected him.

  The windsock hung limp at the tower. It was a dirty orange in colour. The control-room below it hung in space like a giant zircon, catching what rays of light there might be. He shivered. The suit he had worn was too thin for this air. If he could have done so, he would have held back the night. He did not want to get mixed up with these people again. Nor was he sure that he wanted to know why he had been called for, or to admit why he had come.

  But when they had landed and taxied along the concrete strip; when the landing stage had been pushed up to the door; and when he had ducked his head to clamber to the ground again; he did not show this. He was just another young man, too slim, with black hair that was too coarse for the heavy cut it had, anxiously but proudly professional, as men too young for their professions are apt to be. And his face was a brown blank entirely, unless one noticed his eyes. Since he talked with his eyes, his eyes said too much about him.

  He looked round him warily.

  It was desolate at the field, cold and between sleeping and waking. He did not think his arrival was noticed. Only later, if his coming had some importance, would somebody remember having seen him. In such circumstances somebody always did. He went through the wicket and into the dirty waiting-room, and so out into the parking area.

  Lily was there, all right, waiting in the big black Cadillac she used for state occasions. The car was part of her defensive equipment, so he knew she must be nervous. Reluctantly he went over to the Cadillac while she held the door open for him.

  Large, but not quite shapeless, with a heavily powdered face and a beauty spot that, no matter what her hurry, she never forgot to apply, unless of course she slept with it on, she gave him the impression he had always had of her: of sickening force hidden under a smile. And under her grey bangs her face was so carefully made up that he sensed she had kept herself calm that way. With the beauty spot went the too many diamond rings whose settings were never cleaned, because she could not bear to take them off, even in bed, and the shabby furs around her neck, to hide her wrinkles. That last echo of beauty was pathetic. He had learned years ago that it was also a weapon she knew how to make full use of.

  He got in and shut the door. She had had the car idling, and now careened out of the gateway on to the salt flats and the highway. Fast driving was her speciality, for she was not afraid of accidents. Accidents she could pay for.

  “It’s Charles,” she said, staring right ahead of her and putting her foot down on the accelerator. There were no preliminaries. She wasn’t pleased to see him, she despised him, and she did not pretend otherwise. Of course he had known, at the back of his mind, that it was Charles. And it was Charles he was really afraid of. Lily was rude, but predictable. Maggie was more or les
s predictable. But there was no telling what Charles might do. For two years now, from a discreet distance, he had watched Charles doing it, sometimes even with envy.

  “He’s dead,” said Lily. As though sensing that that meant more to him than it should, which displeased her, she looked away from him into the flat purple salt pans and did not speak again until they had swung up the by-road to Atherton, safely green on its slightly higher ground.

  The suburb was still asleep. She went through it as quickly as she could manage, as though afraid to be seen. The car was powerful and therefore almost silent.

  “Killed?” asked Luke.

  “It was an accident,” said Lily drily. Then she added: “Maggie was there,” glancing at him for the first time.

  “She was there?”

  “I don’t know what she did,” said Lily. “That’s what you’ve got to find out.”

  “When?” he asked, not being quite able to absorb it, searching in his mind for something that would give him a clue to it.

  “Early this morning, at Bolinas.” She braked the car, turned off the ignition, and got out, walking across the lawn with heavy determination. She had an air of being lost, and it seemed to him assumed. If she was at a loss, it was certain not to be in any of the usual ways. He followed her into the shuttered house, across the dew.

  The hall was not empty. Maggie was sitting half-way up the stairs, leaning against the banisters. She was pale and thinner than he had ever seen her. When she saw him she half got up and then, catching sight of her mother, settled down again uncertainly. Lily stripped off her gloves, and instead of leaving them on the hall table, put them in her purse. Though the hall was shadowy, she did not bother to turn on the lights.

  “We’d better go into the library before the servants get up,” she said. She always spoke of the servants that way, though she only had one.

  Together they trooped into the library, which was at the back of the house, overlooking an uncouth lawn. Lily bolted the doors behind them and went over to the mantelpiece. Above it, in a badly carved oak frame, was a portrait of her husband, but by a once fashionable painter so long forgotten that it had become meaningless. All the same, when there was anything of importance to be talked of, she stood under it, not for reassurance, but clearly to blot him out. Somehow she did blot him out, though she was not a tall woman. Long habit, probably, had taught her how. Luke wondered what it was that she had always been afraid of. Through the windows, beyond the shrubbery, he could see the eucalyptus trees swaying restlessly.