The Wolf Border

by Sarah Hall

  She nods but does not answer. The fence rolls on across the shallow gables of grassland, through stone pavements and cleared woods, to the near horizon. Seen at this angle, it looks as if it runs indefinitely, the illusion of holding, like the Viking stone walls up the steep mountains of Cumbria.

  Hey, her brother says, and stops walking. I just figured out why you do what you do, Rachel. All that sleeping outside. You were exposed.

  In the screened hide, she scans the pen, locates them, and hands Lawrence a pair of binoculars.

  Behind the big tree trunk. Just left of it.

  He takes the glasses and adjusts the focus, moves them away from his face, and then brings them back to the bridge of his nose. He is unaccustomed, she can tell.

  Can’t see anything except ferns and bushes, he says.

  It might help to scan quadrants, she suggests. Think of a grid.

  Right.

  He continues to search. She wonders if this is the first time he will have seen one. Even with all the zoos and parks of the modern age, most people do not come into contact. Setterah Keep had closed by the time Lawrence was old enough to be taken, the animals donated to other centres or destroyed. She suddenly hopes it is the case – she would like to be the one to show him. He adjusts the focus again. They are well camouflaged, but he’ll find one, if he’s patient. Or they’ll move and make it easier. She remembers again the mystic at the 500 Nations powwow, asking her for some kind of spiritual response to her first sighting, her blunt dismissal. After, Kyle had told her he’d gone through the weyekin ritual at the age of twelve – about the fasting and fireless nights, the alteration of mind, and the idea that attributes of the gained spirit would be lent to a person for life. It was unclear whether he subscribed or not. If Lawrence enjoys seeing them, if he is moved or simply appreciative, that will be enough for her.

  He peers through the glasses. He tells her he can see an ear, twitching in the thistles and fronds; he thinks it’s an ear. They are lying down, almost hidden in the tangle of undergrowth.

  Bingo.

  Rachel holds her own binoculars steady. They are in the shade, close to each other, keeping cool. A cloud of gnats hovers above them, and their ears flick now and then. After a few minutes, Ra stands and shakes off, expelling the dirt and flies, his ears flapping. He gazes at the hide.

  Wow! Incredible! He’s looking right at me. Am I talking too loud?

  No. You could say nothing, he’d still know where you are. They’re getting too used to us, which is a bit of a problem.

  Ra sniffs the air, his long nose tipped up, the black, leathered nostrils flaring. He yawns and drops back down to the warm dusty earth, in plain view, as if doing them a favour by exposing his great lean body. He has given up scouting for exits and digging. The hot weather is making him doggish, as are the fresh carcasses being dumped at various places in the enclosure each week. Now he slumps to the side, rolling in the grass and exposing his underbelly. They will have to start implementing some scare tactics, prevent the pair from becoming too used to hotel life and human stewards.

  They spend half an hour at the wolfery, watching. Lawrence is fascinated, asks when they might mate. The following winter, after release, she tells him. On the way out, they bump into Huib and Sylvia. It feels odd, introducing a member of her family to colleagues; she has never done so before. She stumbles and says half-brother, which is an unnecessary distinction, but no one seems to notice. They chat pleasantly for a moment on the wooded path, in dappled sunlight. It amazes her, the ease with which everyone can get along, as if it is the most natural thing in the world; perhaps it is. Sylvia mentions law school, and Lawrence wishes her luck.

  I’m not sure about it any more, she confesses. I’m enjoying working here with Rachel too much.

  Lawrence glances admiringly at his sister. The feeling of companionability is nice, she admits, though the compliment is unwarranted. Sylvia has been undertaking the menial work of any volunteer, albeit enthusiastically.

  We’re going to the pub for lunch, if you want to come along, she says to the others.

  It is the weekend. The project requires daily work, but there is room for play, and the staff members have yet to socialise together without Thomas Pennington being present, hosting like a king.

  Maybe we’ll join you for a drink later, Huib says.

  OK. Has Alexander been down today?

  First thing. He charted and then had to go. He said to say hi.

  They seem nice, Lawrence says as they walk on to the pub. That was the Earl’s daughter, was it?

  Yes.

  She seems normal. No pearls and frills.

  I wouldn’t quite go that far. But she is doing well.

  Outside the Horse and Farrier, they pass Michael Stott’s utility vehicle – the small world of Annerdale. The gamekeeper greets them through the open window of the truck.

  How do, Mrs Caine.

  He seems less sullen than usual, perhaps because Rachel is with a man, perhaps because she is pregnant – the news is known on the estate now – and he assumes she might leave the project. A sleek, brindled lurcher pants on the passenger seat next to him, its pink tongue spooning out, brown bandit patches over each eye. She has yet to discuss the deer population with him, and a possible cull, but she does not want the mood of the day spoilt with a terse exchange. She nods hello, and follows Lawrence into the bar. He turns to her with a smirk.

  Orange juice?

  She points at the Guinness pump.

  No, I’ll have a half.

  Of stout?

  Binny had stout every day when she was pregnant with you, she tells her brother. She said the doctor told her to – something about iron deficiency. It might just have been an excuse.

  Well, I turned out OK, he says.

  Anyway, I’ve been reading the studies. The latest evidence is alcohol in moderation is fine. Caffeine and alcohol, yes, smoking and class A drugs, no.

  Right-o, he says, grinning. This is a nice pub. I’m going to try something local.

  He orders a pint of Helvellyn Gold. They sit at a table by the window with menus and their drinks. Now she has stopped walking, Rachel can feel the baby moving – a sensation somewhere between tender thumping and flapping, a sudden burst under the skin. Nothing is as she anticipated. There are moments she feels genuinely joyful, irrationally so, and other times the decision to go ahead seems ludicrous, a madness. But the screening results came back good. The second scan was clear – no anomalies, the baby is developing well, heart chambers, brain, spine. She glances at her brother, who is looking out of the pub window at the kempt village green, sipping his pint. He is decent and kind, though under the surface he often seems conflicted, true parts of himself hidden away. But then, is she not also reticent, giving herself over only gradually, if at all? It would be good to have him as a friend.

  I have thought about it, she says. I have thought maybe I’ll be a hopeless mum. Like her.

  Lawrence turns back, barely missing a beat.

  No, he says, firmly. No, Rachel. You’ll be brilliant. I know you will.

  He looks her squarely in the eye.

  You’ll be a brilliant mum, he repeats.

  It is an irrefutable assertion. He does not know her, any more than she knows him. Life divided them early, made them strangers. How can he know anything so certain from the handful of times they have met? But it is not hysterical optimism or crazed fantasy. He means to believe and so he believes. Perhaps it is survivalism, she thinks, the method he used to get away from the intolerable reign of Binny, still a teenager, vulnerable, only half made. He could so easily have fucked it all up – school, a profession, his love life. But he didn’t. He left, and he prospered. If he were the elder, if she had been less autonomous, less isolationist, he probably would have tried to take her with him. Whatever demons he carries, he also succeeds, she thinks. For a moment she feels almost ashamed, and humbled by his generosity. It is she who should express admiration.

  T
hank you, Lawrence. That means a lot.

  He holds up his pint glass.

  Right-o, he says. Cheers. Here’s to the baby.

  *

  High summer. The district bakes in a rare spell of unbroken heat, week after week of open blue sky, elegantly cut through by swallows and martins. The upland grass parches, and in the valleys and the corners of fields, the smell of hay beginning, an elative smell – reassuring to the agricultural memory, perhaps. Heat shimmers on the roads as the horizons soften, and the tar melts. The wolves become nocturnal, moving about the enclosure at night, keeping to the shade in the day.

  The morning that she and Alexander perform the surgery is beautifully warm. He arrives with sterile equipment and sheeting on which to work. His sleeves are rolled. Rachel moves quietly round the enclosure until she can get a clear shot with the gas-projector. The first barbiturate dart hits Ra in the hindquarters. He whimpers, turns to bite at the spot, takes a few paces. His back end sinks, and he drops. Merle tucks her tail, step-crouches away from him, pauses, looks back. Rachel reloads quickly and darts her.

  Nice shot, Alexander comments. Remind me not to get on the wrong side of you.

  They enter the pen, dressed in plastic suits and gloves, carrying the implants. It is hot inside the suit – the internal zip only just closes over Rachel’s stomach. She blindfolds the wolves, to protect their eyes from the sun. They set up a makeshift outdoor theatre and move the two limp bodies onto the sheeting. She is careful of bending and lifting, her ligaments have started to soften and her back aches a little, but the work is not too difficult. Alexander does not ask if she would rather, in her condition, assist or sit the procedure out, and she is grateful for the assumption of capability.

  While unconscious, the pair are weighed, checked over, blood samples are taken. A section of their abdomens is shaved and cleaned. They are laid out on their backs, their hind legs splayed. Both are moulting, leaving hair on the sheeting and the suits. Their heartbeats are monitored on a Doppler. Alexander works calmly, opening a clean wound in Ra, parting the sides of flesh, inserting the transmitter. The devices will be kept away from vital organs and muscles, Merle’s uterus.

  Deep enough? he asks.

  Yes, great. Just so long as it doesn’t travel to the skin and irritate.

  He tucks the implant inside, secures it, stitching the inner lining tidily, then closing the outer with a subterranean line that will be harder to chew out. He repeats the operation on Merle. Though the technique is new, it is clear he is used to performing such procedures on site; he is efficient but unhurried, his gloves barely stained red. Sweat gathers on his brow, rolling down his temples. She feels beads slide down her back under the plastic material. The surgery is brief, twenty minutes in all.

  You must have taken Home Ec in school, she jokes. Embroidery?

  Oh, yes. And I can make a mean stuffed pepper, too.

  Stuffed with what? she asks.

  With pepper.

  He cuts the last thread. He gives each animal a shot of precautionary antibiotics. They turn them on their sides, pack away the equipment and remove the blindfolds, then leave the enclosure, disinfecting on the way out. Within a minute or so the wolves come round, stand woozily, shake, and move about. Ra sits and licks his belly. Merle sniffs his underside; he hers. Iodophor. Something has passed while they were asleep, but what? They investigate their small territory but find no intruders. They drink from the well stream, lope back to the bushes, and lie down. There seems to be no inhibition of movement or negative effect.

  Come and have a coffee and we can check the signals are right on the receiver, she suggests.

  I never say no to coffee or good signals, Alexander says.

  He might be flirting with her, she can’t tell. They make their way from the wolfery to the office. The pair are checked regularly over the next week for altered behaviour, infection, inflammation; they lick at the wounds for a day or two, but seem as normal. Their blood work comes back clean.

  Later in the week, Rachel swims in the river with Huib and Sylvia. The heat has become massive, almost solid, the fan in the office stirring turgid air, and there seems no better way to cool down. Her bump is properly declaring itself: taut, shiny, the belly button beginning to malform and nub outward, the linea nigra appearing. The pool is not cold, but cool, exquisite. The valley’s rocks over which the water has travelled have been warmed; patches of the river are warm, too. The slate bottom electrifies the water, renders it exotically blue, like something from a rainforest or a lagoon. Further up are waterfalls, in deep, shadowed gulleys, the miasma of their spray jewelled by sunlight. Everything smells of minerals: green and reedy. Sylvia and her brother Leo bathed here as children, she tells them. Huib, too, has discovered the spot, a short hike from the stone bridge near the wolfery, and has been using it regularly. Still, the place has a feeling of gorgeous secrecy.

  They have become a team lately, the three of them, now splashing about, laughing, floating on their backs like lidoists. Rachel watches the other two jumping from the buttress of a rock into a frothing ghyll, fearless of anything beneath the surface. Sylvia is slender, pale-limbed, nothing too womanly protrudes; her collarbones are like vestigial fins, her hair slicks down her back as she surfaces, aesthetic, Piscean. Huib, whatever his proclivities or restraints, seems not to be appreciative of such a body, at least not beyond having an enthusiastic swim mate. They have become unlikely friends.

  Huib, there used to be an eel, Sylvia says, sitting on a flat rock next to the pool. An ancient one, six hundred years old. I could always make it come out. It’s down here.

  She points into the water below. She slips back in, submerses, skims along the bottom of the pool, and takes hold of his ankle. Huib kicks away and she chases after. They lark about and Rachel enjoys their silliness. The camaraderie reminds her of Chief Joseph.

  She lies back against a rock, lets her feet float up. Her T-shirt sticks to her bump. The water feels terrifically supportive, soothing. The baby kicks softly, then seems to sleep. Is this how it feels to be floating in amniotic? she wonders. Her body relaxes; her mind drifts. Who would not be glad of coming here? She has not left Annerdale in weeks. Skimming over the river, less than a wingspan from the pool’s surface, are giant dragonflies, striped yellow and black, or vein-thin and green. One lands for a moment on the rock next to her, bonded, forewing and hind wing flickering, such delicate mesh it seems evolution can go no further.

  She suddenly wishes Alexander were with them, imagines him arriving and stripping off down to nothing, his pale bull flesh, cock draped between his legs, leaping in and a tremendous splash washing through the pool. The erotic invitations of summer. Or perhaps Lawrence, though he was never a great swimmer; he and Emily are in Spain for two weeks, unnecessarily – England is almost as hot. She is glad to have these new companions in her life. She gets out and dries off. The sun burns her shoulders. Her skin smells of the river, a fragrance that is intimate somehow, reminds her of sex.

  Back at the cottage she sits out in the garden with an enormous salad. She cannot stop eating avocados, radishes. House martins spurt into the mud nests under the eaves, folding their crescent wings only at the last moment. In the evening, forest bees bump against windowpanes, get into the house, and have to be put out under tumblers. She applies cream to her sore shoulders and thinks of Binny, almost fondly: summers in her damp cheesecloth blouses, and the big blue pot of Nivea cream that she and Lawrence were savagely coated with when sunburnt.

  The heat continues and builds. The protesters at the gate of Pennington Hall wilt, put up makeshift screens and parasols, bring handheld, battery-operated fans. Their numbers dwindle. It is not the season to campaign: the children are off school, holidays have been booked – who wants to indulge in antagonism? Honor Clark has water delivered to the remaining few, a kind of humanitarian intervention on the part of the regime, which they leave in the box, then open, and drink. Rachel and Huib watch the CCTV footage. There is nothin
g alarming. The wolf-headed man does not return. It is as she predicted: things are beginning to gutter out. Another garbled email arrives from Nigh. She wonders again who he is – a tame maniac, or someone who poses a more serious threat? The latter seems improbable. Perhaps it is a woman – though she doubts it. Occasionally the wolves howl at night; she hears faint, exploratory calls, which are and will remain unanswered. Good, she thinks, at least they haven’t forgotten everything.

  Alexander drops by to see the pair twice a week, more often than is strictly necessary now. Afterwards he accompanies the group to the pub. He stays late, drinks a pint or two more than the driving limit, to no ill effect. Sylvia remains polite and careful, though always marginally guarded, and occasionally must join her father for a regional dinner party, a wedding in London. Once or twice Rachel has seen her getting out of the helicopter with Thomas – her other life. There seems to be no boyfriend, or she is very discreet. They are all celibate, as far as Rachel can tell, like a band of secular monks. A strange group, too, almost the beginning of a joke: the vet, the Earl’s daughter, the Buddhist South African, and the pregnant wolf-keeper. As for Rachel, she is enjoying the second trimester, the energy, people telling her she is looking well – radiant, even. The extra blood and the weather act like aphrodisiacs. Her libido is high. At night, in the soft-boiled heat of the cottage bedroom, lying on top of the sheet, she imagines all manner of scenarios. The man in the pub in the village near Willowbrook, or Huib’s tent, conveniently located. Idle thoughts, nothing serious in them. It is Alexander who watches her across the table in the pub. It is he who, if she is honest with herself, she fantasises about most often. Her desirable type. Broad, swinging. His reading glasses unnatural on his large face when he signs the quarantine paperwork, a Mallen streak in his hair behind his right ear. He unearths memories of her first times – the unabashed northern lovers of her teenage years. What are the rules now? She is single, though clearly her status is not so simple.

  And what of him, his life? He is unsentimental. His wife has been dead three years, of ovarian cancer; he speaks of it intermittently: a two-year decline, the drives to get chemotherapy a county over. Awful, but endured; he is still here, and life rolls on. There is a daughter, who lives with him part-time, and also with a relative nearby – the maternal grandmother. He watches Rachel, sees the obvious, but sees the rest too. His work and war stories are directed at her.