A Fox Inside (26 page)

There were other pictures in the drawer as well, even more faded, but she never looked at those. One of them was of a young girl of oh, say fifty years ago, with her hair tied in a bow, a pensive finger to her cheek, and with a sweet, confiding face. It had faded badly, but the smile remained.

It was merciful, she thought, that he did not know that each to their generation, they were all the same people, at different ages, in a different milieu; that they became each other; that in two generations his seed would be spilt for a Charles, a Lily and a Jerome,
endlessly
;
he could save only himself. But who was merciful to her? She was the older one, whose wisdom died. She had inherited only herself, and that was not enough. For her the wheel stopped spinning like a prayer wheel on a mountain, cracked with cold.

T
HE QUICKEST WAY TO TAKE THE
road for the south was to cross the bay once more and drive down the Bayshore Highway that paralleled it. It was a big six lane highway with overpasses, underpasses, clover-leafs, safety lights, and a high accident rate. The region was proud of it. But using it involved passing through Atherton, fortunately not the secluded part where Lily lived—it by-passed that—but the new, recently developed area of smaller, jerry-built homes. Maggie looked the other way.

The sun was bright. “Look in the glove
compartment
,” he said. The glove compartment was really a drawer, and he had put his sun-glasses in it that
morning
. Sun-glasses, when you put them on, help you to pretend that you’re really living in a private world. Sunglasses help to cut the glare.

“Thanks, honey,” he said, when she slid them over his nose. He squinted at the drawer. “There’s an extra pair if you want them. They help.”

She reached in the drawer and took them out and put them on. It made them look like any couple, driving anywhere. And maybe, just for once, that was what they were. All the same he knew he would feel better after
they had got far enough south to hit the first
indigenous
palm trees. People are better off where they belong.

*

Ischia
—
Roma
—
Atherton

15th July 1953

9th May 1954