Walking Without Purpose

There’s no sadder sight to a dog walker than a fellow dog walker walking alone, walking without purpose. Before empathy, your ribs tighten as you’re reminded your time will come too. And you look at your companion, maybe you give him an extra pat as his tail whirlwinds around, and you tell yourself you’ve still got a few more years, a few more months, a few more walks.

I have become that lonely former dog walker. Heavy with grief, I pull myself out into the world to wander. My hand feels light without the lead, and my fist brushes unused bags, left like black ghosts to haunt my pocket.

I walk to the end of my driveway. A pressure throbs behind my eyes and my feet drag. Only a week ago, I let Wicket lead the way.

It seems like an hour before I reach the row of bushes at the end of the road, where Wicket always used to stop and sniff. For a time, I stand there, thinking nothing and doing nothing. When the fog clears, the sting in my eyes burns. I move on.

The morning is still young, sky pink as the womb, and there’s no one around to see me dissolve. Tears trace my cheeks, and I shudder as if in fever. I have to lean against the crumbly wall bordering the next street, but I don’t know when I’ll detach from it, if I ever do.

Claws click on the tarmac. My raw throat bobs as the sound replays a hundred memories. A ghost.

The clicking draws closer. Maybe Wicket has come to chide me for standing here, crying like a fool. I didn’t even cry this much when my mother died.

I turn, and see Wicket, just for a second. My heart lurches.

But it’s a fox, tilting its head to one side as it watches me, wondering why some blubbering stranger is intruding on its morning.

I pull out one of Wicket’s biscuits from my pocket. The fox’s eyes follow it. I can’t help laughing. Wicket had the same hunter’s focus on his treats.

The fox watches me pass the biscuit into my other hand and licks its lips. A part of me knows this is just a wild animal, nothing like the civilised beast I brought into my home and named Wicket. But then, what’s the real difference? I mistook the fox for Wicket after all. And, in another life, maybe Wicket did walk the wilderness instead of curling up by my chair for half the day.

I toss the treat down, expecting the fox to skitter away. Instead, it jumps up, jaws snapping on the biscuit. As the fox chews, it lowers its head as if to thank me. I laugh again.

Now, the fox will leave me.

Except, it doesn’t. It sits and watches.

I remind myself it’s a wild animal. I can’t afford to let misplaced grief end in me getting rabies from a fox.

Drawing my coat around me, I skirt around the fox. It doesn’t run from me. I leave it behind.

I’ll walk a bit further. Home is too quiet, and the emptiness is too heavy without Wicket.

Claws clack behind me like stilettos. The fox must be rummaging for more food in the bins before the collectors come. I cross the deserted road, expecting to lose my ersatz companion. After all, it’s nothing more than a wild scavenger.

The noise of claws on pavement fades. As I expected.

I go on a few more steps, and the clacking comes again. When I glance back, the fox has climbed up the kerb after me. In the glow of a nearby streetlight, the pup’s vermilion fur shines ablaze, and intelligent eyes find me. When it sees I’ve stopped, it stops.

I walk on, and the fox follows. Every time I look back, it meets my eyes, trotting along as merrily as Wicket in his younger years. How wild is it really?

It navigates the streets after me with practiced deftness. Even crossing the next road, it flattens its head to the ground, peering both ways before following. Its ears twitch at the yapping of dogs and the waking shrills of seagulls.

I walk the route I walked with Wicket. And, of course, I’m not the only walker on the path. My aloneness is noted, and a fellow walker approaches. His Labrador, Marlon, plods reluctantly over as if it can smell Wicket’s death on me. Marlon’s owner is a man I’ve spoken to many times when our walks have crossed, but I realise I only ever knew his dog’s name.

Marlon spots the fox and growls. The fox scuttles to the bushes, hiding in the pockets of night still left. Marlon’s owner mutters something. He then gives me the sorry look of a man who doesn’t know what he’ll do when the time comes for him to walk alone.

He talks in meaningless phrases of sympathy, and I pretend I’m carrying the sorrow with a measure of optimism. Wicket had a good life. I say so, and I believe so, but I’d give any sum of money for a few more walks.

Marlon’s owner understands. He tells me how he knows he’ll be broken by his own companion’s death. The talk dries away, and I trudge on with reassurances that I can talk to Marlon’s owner whenever I need to. As we part ways, Marlon barks in the direction of the fox, and a shadow scurries ahead of me.

Convinced the fox has been driven off, I follow the path around. Only minutes pass before I hear claws on concrete. The fox appears at my side. We continue together.

I fish another biscuit from my pocket, throwing it to the fox. It catches the treat with another snap of its teeth.

The grief isn’t gone. But, with the fox at my side, I can almost put it aside, pretending I have something to give my walk purpose. The fox’s head jolts upright at a distant ambulance’s sirens, the same as Wicket’s used to.

The familiar landmarks pass, each with a painful clarity I never noticed in the thirteen years I walked this way with Wicket. I see every scratch on the bus stop where old Colin always made a fuss of Wicket if he was sitting there when we passed. Every shade of chalk on the coloured wall of the school becomes painfully bright. There’s the hedge on Wally’s lawn hacked into the shape of a rearing bull that Wicket always buried his nose in. When I reach the roundabout, a crew of men in hi-vis coats almost blind me, and tears prickle again as I remember the times Wicket pulled me over to them, mesmerised by their jackets. One offers a wave of acknowledgement, but they spare me their sympathies.

I hurry to the other side of the roundabout and begin the walk back. The morning’s cold burrows into my skin, and I’m eager for the warmth of home. But knowing the silence that will greet me there slows my step. The fox looks up at me.

Grass rustles. We both watch a rabbit amble out from the bushes. The fox bolts towards it, and the rabbit freezes. My gut twists. I can’t bear to see another animal die, not now.

“Stop!”

The fox halts. The rabbit flees into the bush. I stand there, gasping, and the fox scuttles back to my side.

I know it didn’t obey me. My shout must’ve shocked it.

But it did let its prey escape. I’m not sure even Wicket would have listened if I’d ordered him to stop the chase.

The fox’s tail flickers. It waits for me to hobble over and resumes its place at my side, head perked up.

The rest of the trek stays uneventful. The fox trots by my feet as if Wicket reincarnated. A stupid idea, and one I can’t let fester amid the sorrow inside me, but the presence of my companion eases some of the grief.

I’ll never see this animal again. I’ll never see Wicket again either, except as a jar of dust, and I almost choke on the thought. Something brushes my leg.

Wiping away tears, I find the fox nuzzling my boot. Its eyes shine up at me, and I ponder keeping it as a pet. The notion fades within seconds. It would be cruel. The fox would never cope with a life confined to four brick walls and short walks.

I look up after a time of putting one foot before the other. The fox pauses a step ahead of me. We’ve come to the end of my road. The emptiness of home waits for me.

The fox rubs its face against my leg again, winding between my ankles like next door’s tabby. Again, I resist the madness of keeping the wild creature as a pet.

But I must be slightly mad. I reach down automatically, perhaps betrayed by my mourning brain, and scratch at the fox’s head. Soft fur puffs around my fingertips. I smile with the fox tilting its head up to me.

I know it’s a wild animal. I’m not stupid.

But I feel better for its company.

I stroke the fox’s neck, ignoring the advice my mother always gave us about avoiding wild beasts, and then withdraw. Bright eyes study me.

I walk towards the door I’ve come to loathe in the past few days. The fox’s claws scratch on the pavement behind me, and I turn to bid goodbye.

The fox sits at the end of the driveway, still watching me with inquisitive eyes. I pluck another treat from my coat and throw it to the fox. It snaps the biscuit up just as it did before.

I head inside, to the quiet and the cold. The fox resumes its place at the end of the drive, and I can’t bring myself to chase it off, even if the neighbours will anyway.

As soon as the door closes, I try to busy myself, hobbling about to prepare for the lonely day ahead. I set the kettle boiling, and linger, attention straying to the empty space under the stairs where Wicket would have been sleeping off the walk. My fists tighten on the kitchen top.

The kettles rumbles like an empty stomach. I let out a sigh, and limp over to the coat rack. I can’t face this emptiness. I need another purposeless walk.

When I pull the door open, the fox is still sitting there, waiting for me. Its tail wags. Maybe it sees me as a source of food, an easy mark. And maybe it is to Wicket what Wally’s bull-shaped hedge is to a real bull. But I choose to see some sense of kinship in those eyes. Something like Wicket.

I step out of my house again, smiling. At least I can walk with a purpose for now.