My Daughter, The Fox

By Jackie Kay

We had a night of it, my daughter and I, with the foxes screaming outside. I had to stroke her fur and hold her close all night. She snuggled up, her wet nose against my neck. Every time they howled, she’d startle and raise her ears. I could feel the pulse of her heart beat on my chest, strong and fast. Strange how eerie the foxes sounded to me; I didn’t compare my daughter’s noises to theirs. Moonlight came in through our bedroom window; the night outside seemed still and slow, except for the cries of the foxes. It must have been at least three in the morning before we both fell into a deep sleep, her paw resting gently on my shoulder. In my dream I dreamt of being a fox myself, of the two of us running through the forest, our red bushy tails flickering through the dark trees, our noses sniffing rain in the autumn air. In the morning I sat her in her wooden high chair and she watched me busy myself around the kitchen. I gave her a fresh bowl of water and a raw egg. She cracked the shell herself and slurped the yellow yoke in one gulp. I could tell she was still a little drowsy. She was breathing peacefully and slowly, her little red chest rising and falling. Her eyes literally followed me from counter to counter to cupboard, out into the hall to pick up the post from the raffia mat and back again. I poured her a bowl of muesli and put some fresh blueberries in it. She enjoys that. Nobody tells you how flattering it is, how loved you feel, your child following your every move like that. Her beady eyes watched me open my post as if it was the most interesting thing anybody could do. The post was dull as usual, a gas bill and junk. I sighed, went to the kitchen bin and threw everything in but the bill. When I turned back around, there she still was, smiling at me, her fur curling around her mouth. Her eyes lit up, fierce with love. When she looked at me from those deep dark eyes of hers, straight at me and through me, I felt more understood than I have ever felt from any look by anybody. Nobody says much and nothing prepares you. I’ve often wondered why women don’t warn each other properly about the horrors of childbirth. There is something medieval about the pain, the howling, the push-push-pushing. In the birthing room next door, the November night my daughter was born, I heard a woman scream, ‘Kill me! Just kill me!’ That was just after my waters had broken. An hour later I heard her growl in a deep animal voice, ‘Fucking shoot me!’ I tried to imagine the midwife’s black face. We were sharing her and she was running back and forth between stations. She held my head and said, ‘You’re in control of this!’ But I felt as if my body was exploding. I felt as if I should descend down into the bowels of the earth and scrape and claw. Nothing prepares you for the power of the contractions, how they rip through your body like a tornado or an earthquake. Then the beautiful, spacey peace between contractions where you float and dream away out at sea. Many of my friends were mothers. I’d asked some, ‘Will it hurt?’ and they’d all smiled and said, ‘A bit.’ A bit! Holy Mary Mother of God. I was as surprised as the Jamaican midwife when my daughter the fox came out. I should have known really. Her father was a foxy man, sly and devious and, I found out later, was already seeing two other women when he got me pregnant, that night under the full moon. On our way up north for that weekend, I saw a dead fox on the hard shoulder. It was lying, curled, and the red of the blood was much darker than the red of the fur. When we made love in the small double bed in Room 2 at the Bed and Breakfast place by Coniston Water, I could still see it, the dead fox at the side of the road. It haunted me all the way through my pregnancy. I knew the minute I was pregnant almost the second the seed had found its way up. I could smell everything differently. I smelt an orange so strongly I almost vomited. ......