I am woken by a persistent and irritating sound, a bit like an alarm. It can’t be my alarm, because my phone says it’s 5am. And the sound is coming from outside. I close my eyes, but the noise – a weird, honking klaxon – doesn’t stop. I get up and go to the open window, where I immediately spot the source: a crow bothering a fox.
The fox is walking along the top of a back garden wall. The crow follows closely, emitting its grating distress call. The fox is progressing as nonchalantly as possible – as if to make it clear that he and the crow aren’t together – but every few metres he turns and makes a desultory lunge at the bird, enough to send it briefly skyward. As soon as the fox turns back, the crow lands and starts up again.
From where I’m standing, it looks like two animals performing a fable and I want to see how it ends. Eventually, the fox gets fed up and jumps down off the wall and the crow flies away in the other direction. It’s unclear what lesson is to be drawn from this outcome, other than Crows Don’t Care What Time It Is.
My wife, who has slept through the whole business, wakes up as soon as I sit back down on the bed. “What are you doing?” she asks. “It’s 6am!”
“It’s five, actually,” I say. “I’ve just seen a…”
“Go to sleep,” she says.
A few hours later, I am sat in the garden, listening to my wife shout into her phone in the kitchen. “Such a lovely day!” she says. She’s right, I think – it is a nice day.
“That’s a good idea!” my wife says. “Why don’t you all come here?”
I think: uh-oh.
“It’s not too far!” she shouts. “It’s only Acton!”
I think: who is she talking to?
“Well, if you insist,” my wife says. “Thank you very much.”
I think: phew!
“Do I have to bring him?” my wife says. “I could just leave him here.”
I think: uh-oh.
The phone call is followed by another. Eventually, my wife comes to the back door. “We’ve been invited to lunch,” she says.
“I know,” I say.
“I said I wasn’t going to bring you, but they’ve insisted,” she says.
“I heard,” I reply. “Everyone in the whole street heard.”
“We’ll take a taxi,” she says. “Be ready in an hour.”
An hour later, the taxi has not arrived. My wife is standing in the street, sunglasses on, looking at her phone. “There was a problem,” she says. “But a new car has been ordered.” Still looking down at her phone, she starts off in an easterly direction.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“What?” she says.
“Are you planning to meet the cab halfway?” I say
“I can’t hear you from over there,” my wife says.
I catch up to her, but she keeps walking, three doors down, then four doors.
“It’s just that, if the pick-up address is our house, then we should probably be standing outside our…”
“I still can’t hear you,” she says, heading for the corner.
“One cab has gone missing already,” I say, catching up. “If we’re not where we’re supposed to be, then…”
“What are you on about?” she says, suddenly lunging at me and sending me briefly skyward. Up until this point, I’d been imagining myself as the fox in this situation.
In the taxi, I take out my phone. My wife, meanwhile, decides she’s in the mood for conversation. She lifts her sunglasses and contemplates the back of her hands.
“Christ, I’m old,” she says.
“Hmm,” I say.
“I’ve got lovely arms, though, haven’t I?” she says, holding them out for me.
I stare at them, thinking like a crow. “You’ve got one thin arm,” I say.
“What do you mean?” she says.
“The near one is much thinner,” I say, pointing.
“I can’t tell the difference,” she says.
“Are you kidding?” I say.
“I don’t believe you,” she says. “Take a picture of my arms!”
Later that night, I scroll through my now extensive collection of photos of my wife’s arms, marvelling at how similar they look.