The White Fox Read Online Free PDF

he replied, scowling. The memories of their last excursion still burned painfully. A very camp male shop assistant, thinking Jack was on his own, had tried to press-gang him into getting a flesh tunnel to “impress the ladies.” As soon as he had explained that Lucy was with him, he was taken aside and given a tutorial about how to buy jewelry for his girlfriend.
    “Fair enough.” Lucy laughed. “Should we head back, then?”
    They caught the 6:06 train to Birchford. Lucy eventually located the week’s
Grazia
in one of the many shopping bags and began leafing through it feverishly.
    Jack lay back in the seat and watched out the window. The scenery became steadily less industrial and more leafy as they made their way out into the countryside. Reddish-orange leaves and bare branches flashed by in some places and seemed to slow in others. At one point they crossed a viaduct. Both sides of the track gave way to rolling green fields and woods in the distance. A few horses, no bigger than matchsticks, grazed around and about, oblivious to the lanky shadows they were shedding. An old wooden stable rested in the corner of the field.
    The train ground to a halt at the junction. Jack didn’t mind; he took a moment to survey the landscape again. Then he did a double take. Something darted across the grass, its shadow a flickering, thin form on the blades of amber green. He tried to focus on it, but it was moving too quickly. It looked like a small cat or dog, with four limbs and a tail. Then it shifted direction slightly and caught the light, the diamond-white spark flashing brighter than the early stars. Jack straightened up in shock, craning his neck. He searched for it frantically, but by the time he caught sight of it, it was vanishing around the end of a hedgerow.
    “What?” Lucy asked, finally looking up from her article on the Beckhams’ new fragrance.
    “Nothing, nothing …”
    They arrived in town at quarter to seven. It was still quite light, and so the two of them made their way down past the orchard. They crossed the small humpbacked bridge and slid down into the valley, settling under an outlying oak tree at the bottom of the hill. Farther up, under cover of the first line of birches, orange tape fluttered lightly in the breeze, with a sign displaying the yellow letters
Excavation in Progress
in front of it. The small valley was a patchwork of light and shadow, the twilight-hued grass sending elaborate cross-hatching patterns across the hillside. The lampposts marking the edge of the road were lit.
    Lucy dumped her shopping bags and lay down on the dry grass, her hair spreading out like a halo around her head. Jack did the same, but one of the bags toppled over, and he had to recover it. Lying down next to her, he placed his hands on his stomach and tried to ease the aching in his feet. They lay silent for a few moments, taking in the soft owl cry and scuffling of small animals in the trees behind them.
    “What’s on your mind?”
    Jack pondered all possible interpretations of the question before he answered. “What do you mean?”
    “Anything. You seem distracted.”
    Jack thought for a moment. “Do you ever feel,” he began, trying to make sense of his thoughts, “we could just be done with all of this? Like we could just move on?”
    “Where? To university? Work?”
    “No, I mean … something big. Like there’s more than what’s here now. Like you’re meant for something more.”
    Lucy turned her head slightly, her gaze fixed just above him on the warm light that still highlighted the line of trees. “I think sometimes that we should be doing something
useful
… It sounds stupid, but you’re right—there’s got to be more than life right now. More than just a day-to-day routine that goes on forever … Why do you ask?”
    Jack smirked. “Don’t worry.” He was pleased with the response, though. “So what’s on
your
mind?”
    “Well, Amelia said that George …”

    Jack arrived back at