Fox looking back in fine line

You will not believe what has been sitting on the back step all week. I came down before six to put the kettle on and there she was, perched on the flags with her tail curled round her feet as neat as a Sunday hat. Red as a pillar box, though greying at the muzzle the way Dad did after the war. I said good morning. She did not run. She turned her head over her shoulder and looked at me the way Mrs Pargeter looks at a parcel that has arrived without a stamp, and then she slipped under the gate as though I had been the one intruding.

Mr Hollis says it is a vixen with cubs up in the spinney behind the chapel, and that the Ministry men will want paying if she takes the hens. I told him the hens are locked up tight and she has never once been near them. He said that was what they all said before the bother started.

Here is what I have not told Mother. Since Tuesday I have been leaving the heel of the loaf out under the tea towel so the gulls cannot have it. Yesterday it was gone, and the towel was folded back very square. I keep thinking about the way she looked round, as if she were checking I was still there, and how that made me feel less like the only soul awake in Fenlow Cross and more like someone who had been let in on a joke.

Come up at Whitsun if the trains run. Bring the blue cardigan. I will show you where she goes.

Your loving sister, Edie