by Sarah Hall
She fidgets under the sheets. They smell of Alexander: oniony, a man’s sweat and fluids. It was past eight when she called him – the phone went straight to voicemail and she left a brief, poorly explained message. She did not mention Emily. He has not called back. It is likely that he thinks her uninterested – God knows, she has perfected the impression over the years. After an hour or two’s restlessness, she gets up, dresses, lets herself out of the cottage quietly, and walks to the wolfery. The rain is easing off. Between the clouds is a giant, tallow lobe of moon. The woods are still, giving nothing up, not a whisper. She walks carefully, so as not to trip, though the path is easy to see in the whitish moonlight.
When she arrives at the quarantine pen, she goes into the hide and looks through one of the night-vision cameras. They are at the bottom, by the fence, nosing through the grass and chewing. They are likely searching for large insects, mice, a toad, any living thing to kill, such is the boredom of being fed. Or perhaps they have found early mushrooms. After a while, they move up towards the hide, into plain view, their coats strangely highlighted, eyes eerie bulbs of light. Darkness is liberty for them, but what comes in darkness to challenge their dominance is the worst thing they face. Another pack, ambushing. Humans. Juggernauts on the highway. Tonight they are playful. Ra trots alongside and then passes Merle, falls back, passes her again. He rises on his hind legs, circles his head, like a boxer. He tugs at her ruff. The day’s languid canine is gone. He is a night hunter, like the legend. Though he is big, he is agile, and will be good at taking rabbits, she thinks, if he can learn to chicane through the heather. Their feed is being carefully weighed and given just once a week, but they are still well bulked. There is fat under their skin, around their hearts, kidneys, and in the marrow of their leg bones. Once they are released and have to go to work, the stores will be reabsorbed. Ra rolls on his back, rubbing the top of his head backward and forward on the ground, his legs kicking, dopey, submissive. Merle stands over him. Rachel smiles. It is at night that they give up their secrets, that they seem most sacred to her: ghost-like, elegant, and frivolous.
She leans back against the hide wall and watches them until she begins to feels better, less anxious. They pad soundlessly, even when they are within thirty metres of her. They do not howl. The nightly border tests of the first few weeks have lapsed into occasional bouts, their heads tilted back, throats perfectly straight to a funnelled point. Kyle had a trick for setting them off, if they were close by on the Reservation – he would howl mournfully until they howled back. Acceptable human interference, he called it. She is thinking of him less now. Their communication has been polite, but infrequent. The moral question still hangs over her, but time and distance are making it easier.
She arrives home a little after 5 a.m. It is already light. The Audi is gone. Inside there is a note on the kitchen table. Thank you and sorry again. She screws the paper up and puts it in the bin. She is tired now, even though the day is brightening and the birds are singing. Upstairs, the spare bed is made, as if never slept in, the T-shirt left folded neatly on top. She thinks about calling Lawrence, but the hour is too early and the fight – whatever it was really about – is not her business. What would she say? Don’t upset your wife. No. She goes to her bedroom and lies down on her side, puts a pillow under her belly. An hour’s rest, and then she will get up and go to work.
*
The midwife is a woman in her mid-sixties, with ash-grey curls and a stiff hip, past retirement age but not, it seems, retiring anytime soon. Her name is Jan. She is from Workington and sounds fractionally Irish, like many of the older residents along the west coast. She sits at her desk, one leg held straight out in front of her to relieve the pinch in the joint. On the desk is a lumpen, hardwood sculpture, a souvenir from her time working in the Botswanan clinics. Her uniform is deeply unflattering: brown, waist-less, almost a military tunic. But her manner is that of a jovial, life-worn aunt, someone who has seen and countenanced much, and has managed, through sheer will or remarkable fortitude, not to become jaded. She laughs frequently, chides the baby for hiding behind the placenta when she is trying to listen to the heartbeat.
Come out, you little beggar.
She moves the device.
No, now that’s coming through the cord.
Finally she finds a clear sound and is pleased. Rachel’s growth is measured. More blood is taken. They discuss a birth plan – birth wish list, as Jan prefers to call it, since plans often have to be altered. She expresses mild concern about a home birth – Annerdale is a fair distance from the hospital, it is a first birth – but is not unconfident about Rachel’s choice, her health. She is used to rural deliveries. She is nurse-trained, able to catheterise and perform episiotomies. Twenty-eight weeks: the baby is viable.
You’ve got the main centre number and delivery suite number, Jan says, but I’m going to give you my mobile. I’ve got NHS enhanced reception, so you can get me anytime. Anything at all, you just pick up the phone to me, luvvie. Now, tell me how you’re getting on generally.
Rachel lists the discomforts, the pelvic pains, the heartburn, all standard. Walking to the enclosure takes an extra ten minutes, and often she feels winded. She can hear her own heart banging away when her right ear is on the pillow. Jan is sympathetic.
Let’s see about getting you a support belt. Not the swishest fashion item, I’m afraid, but they do help.
The session overruns; all Jan’s sessions overrun. Most interesting to Rachel during their time together is hearing about the strange phenomena of the job. The anecdotes, the decades of observed behaviour.
Don’t be surprised if you find yourself wanting to be in the smallest room in the house when you’re in labour. Box room. Downstairs lav. I’ve had women do the coal shed.
They have a conversation about the risks of the quarantine pen, but it seems belated. In any case, Jan is not the cotton wool and antibacterial type. Her area covers the west coast farmers. There is the issue of lambing; she has had one or two cases of Q fever, but if every pregnant lady in the county stopped associating with her husband’s livestock, farms would shut every week up and down the district, she says.
She flexes her sore leg in and out.
I might draw the line at coming in with those wolves, luvvie.
Her smile is all uppercase: a row of tiny, identical teeth sitting on her bottom lip. She will be a good person to have at the delivery, Rachel thinks. Her patients, bellowing and begging for pain relief, punching their partners in the face during the ring of fire, the associated fluids – what else is there to do but see the funny side? She reminds Rachel a little of Binny, a benign version of Binny. Or is it just that she has begun seeing her mother in strange and unexpected places, in women of a certain age, straight-talkers, grand dames. She has started seeing Binny in restless dreams, too, in a capacity not wholly unwelcome or unhelpful. Swimming in the river, gloriously naked, her missing breast restored. Showing Rachel how to squeeze and palpitate to make the milk come. Making jam! The madness of gestation, strange chemicals and hormones, the other side of the brain’s looking glass.
You’re a sensible lass, Jan is saying, so I know you won’t get all flearty when I say this. But I’m also going to show you how to programme in a set of emergency numbers, in case anyone else needs that information pronto. Better to be prepared.
Rachel nods and hands over her phone. Jan unlocks the screen and fiddles with the buttons – master of modern technology as well as midwifery.
Doesn’t mean people can get into your nudey photos and private stuff, she assures, but they can access names of loved ones, the hospital, me.
I didn’t even know phones did that.
Oh, yes. Air ambulance are always complaining when people don’t bother. No one thinks how hard it might be to trace families in an emergency.
She hands the phone back.
Pop your other numbers in now.
Not like Binny after all, Rachel thinks. Binny couldn’t even mas
ter ring-back or last number dialled on her landline. At the end of the meeting, Jan walks her to the surgery door, past a couple of other women in the waiting room at various stages of pregnancy. She points to a car in the staff row outside the health centre – a small, vulpine-looking vehicle, sporty, bright orange.
That’s me, she says. The Renault. She goes like the clappers when she has to.
Jan bids Rachel goodbye and good luck, as if she is about to undertake a race, and heads back inside. Will it help to like her when it comes to the birth? Rachel wonders. Or will she not care whether the devil himself is in the room, telling her to pant and push, holding her knees, getting the scissors out? It will help, she decides. It must.
*
By the second half of quarantine, the wolves have become much less nervous, smelling the meat being brought to them and anticipating the spot where it will be dumped. They come close in the wolfery, and do not strike back into the enclosure if a sudden move is made, or the gate clangs. Rachel and Huib rotate feed personnel and times when the carcasses are delivered. But the pair still slope towards them through the grass, heads slung low, cunning eyes. It is impossible to decoy, or approach in secret. They are too clever, hardwired; they know. Sometimes it is difficult not to believe they have additional senses, abilities not biomechanical – a kind of clairvoyance. Sometimes they are waiting in the right spot for the food the moment she has chosen its location and begun to approach. She has seen them turn to look and sniff before the wrapped deer in the Land Rover has even arrived, when it is en route, as if there is preternatural knowledge of the blood travelling to them, rather than the iron waft leaking from the wound, through hide and fur.
They discuss the matter with Thomas at the monthly review meeting in the Hall. The problem is presented and extra scare tactics proposed, so the carcasses can be placed more quickly, staff members won’t be as intrusive, and the wolves will reassociate their human keepers. Thomas listens attentively and seems regretful about the plan.
Yes, I suppose they’re not pets and shouldn’t act like it.
They’re not pets, Rachel says. It would be wrong to let them become any friendlier. They’re seeing too much of us. By which I mean, we’re seeing too much of them.
Shame, he says. It’s wonderful to observe them down there – they’re so magnificent.
She wants to remind him of the seriousness of the undertaking, the experiment he has committed to; he seems less focused. She wonders whether he has been visiting the wolfery out of hours, though he knows the schedule is restricted. Sylvia explains again the need for distance. Her tone is patient, and slightly confiscating – clearly she understands her father’s tendencies.
Daddy, the trouble is, if they get used to being around people, even if they aren’t completely tame, they might learn to scavenge, and we don’t want that. They have to remain as wild as possible, for their own good.
He smiles with tenderness and pride.
Yes, darling Soo-Bear. I do understand. How clever you are. No, you’re right, Rachel. Whatever you think best. These scare tactics – what do you suggest? Play Bach very loud?
Puccini, Sylvia says.
The Earl and his daughter laugh, a quiet conspiratorial laugh – a private joke about musical tastes, possibly. There are occasional tells between them during such meetings, but mostly Sylvia remains professional, and does not play princess. She works hard, reads up on the subject. But at times like this, Rachel is reminded that she is guesting on the project, that it is a year out rather than a year in for her.
There are a few reliable methods we can use, Rachel says. Including loud noises. My feeling is it won’t take much to restore a bit of caution.
Very good, Thomas nods. Is there anything else on the agenda?
Rachel considers updating him on the levels of protest, the regular occult letters from Nigh, and the more organised legal correspondence from The Ramblers, though his lawyers will surely be keeping him in the loop on the latter. She decides against it. He has been successfully distanced from the public face of the project, and she wishes to keep it that way.
No. We’re in good shape, overall.
Excellent.
He claps his hands together.
And have they fallen in love yet?
He raises an eyebrow, begins to hum a tune. Love is in the air. Rachel smiles tolerantly, but does not find him funny. The spontaneous foolery of her employer, his hop-skip-and-jump attitude, still leaves her feeling awkward. She wonders if this is his persona in the House of Lords, too, whether he gets away with flamboyance and buffoonery, whether he prospers because of it in a climate of old schoolboys, all of whom aspire to or claim eccentricity in some degree. She thinks back to their original meeting, his studied attempt to win her over to the project. Since then, it seems his knowledge on the subject has gone into serious decline. But now that he has Rachel running things, perhaps he can afford to be less invested. It is perhaps his habit, to surround himself with experts, then dislocate.
They’re bonding, she says. I’m hopeful they’ll mate in the winter.
In fact, all the signs in the run-up to the release are good. The health reports are reassuring. The implants have proved negligible. They have been vaccinated. They are acclimated to the terrain, its hard carapaces and grasslands, via the microcosm of their acre. All that remains is for their human aversion to prevail.
And how are you, Rachel? Thomas asks. Not long to go now. We’re all very excited about our other new addition to Annerdale.
She has no wish to discuss the details of the pregnancy with him, especially in front of the group. But the tenor of estate membership is such that almost familial interest is taken in the workers’ lives, like a factory town, or Ford’s empire. The baby is being regarded as part of the fabric, part of the community – she knows, an idea both securing and suffocating.
I’m fine, thanks. Everything’s fine.
Wonderful. Anything you need, please just ask. Right, I better go. I’ve a tedious meeting across the border.
The Scottish referendum is in a few weeks and the Earl is part of the monetary committee. Rachel has heard him on the radio a few times; his position on independence withheld, talking about the cost of setting up new nations. Everything has overheated, politically; most days the news features fresh accusations and tactics, business leaders switching sides, spokespeople from the military, the judiciary, European representatives speculating on continued EU membership. Thomas leans down to kiss his daughter.
See you in Edinburgh, darling.
In the days that follow, the heat of summer lifts, and the sun becomes less concentrated. September. Rachel walks in the cool early mornings. Sometimes there is a text from Alexander first thing – he seems oblivious to any withholding on her part. They have spent a few more nights together – the arrangement practical, but affectionate and enjoyable. The trees fluoresce, as if in a final bid to stay green. There is already a tint of autumn about the roads, leaves beginning to gather and flutter along the verges, field-stumps rotting in the drizzle after haying. In the sky, a more complicated portfolio of colours: lilacs, yellows, like a warning – bad weather brewing in the Atlantic. In the hedges hang early sloes, unripened black drupes pinned to the spiny trees. She remembers Binny making gin with them; her mother could turn any berry into lethal poteen. The parties in the post office cottage were torrid, involved villagers with only the strongest constitutions, the pub diehards, the dancers. Binny would have gone down well at the Reservation parties, she had entirely the right constitution.
In Seldom Seen’s garden, the quince fruit is also immature, grey-white; the birds check on it regularly, covetously. Rachel begins to feel more like staying home, holing up, nesting, though she is unwilling to admit that’s what it is. She can feel little jointed limbs flailing under the skin of her belly, elbows, feet, the odd somersault as the baby spins. It’s extraordinary – the feeling of a life force breeching, trying to break the surface.
A d
ifferent kind of weariness arrives, broken sleep, she has to sit up fully to turn over, and her pelvic bone aches, her hips go numb if she lies on either one too long. She manages two or three hours at most, a deathly unconsciousness when it finally arrives. Her dreams are incredibly vivid. Of Lawrence, lost on the moors: searchers looking for him on horseback, and she is one of them. She rides between the gorse bushes, calling his name. She has talked to Lawrence a few times since Emily’s visit, but the true nature of the incident is no clearer. The background static of anxiety remains; she is unused to worrying about her brother and does not know what to do. She dreams of her son, sometimes her daughter, in jeopardy, falling from branches, afloat on the lake like a burr of weed, or simply there, naked and kicking, in need of care. In one dream she gives the baby to a madman to mind while she goes to work, some cannibal from a ludicrous horror film. Then the madman becomes Nigh, who wears a wolf head and is in a wheelchair, IV tubing on a rack next to him. It will be OK, she tells herself, nothing terrible will befall the baby. She wakes breathless and furious with herself. The absurdity of it. But the good dreams of Binny persist, too, of a younger, helpful mother who never really existed. Is it forgiveness, or reconciliation of some kind? The dreams, so full of people. Perhaps the cottage is too lonely, she thinks. She has not made friends with any of the other expectant mothers in the district, has in fact only attended one antenatal class and missed the following two. She thinks about getting a dog, decides against it.
She likes it when Alexander stays. The sex is good, becomes gentler as she grows bigger; they find comfortable ways, her on all fours, or sitting at the edge of the bed. She is afraid to climax, the sensation is huge, her whole abdomen seizes. He is not offended by her, she realises, he has an autistic’s practicality about their relationship, or is intuitively straightforward. If she does not call and he wants to talk to her, he calls; if she cancels a date, he rearranges. He arrives after work and cooks for her, hot meals with chilli and garlic and ginger – a man’s understanding of flavour. He asks very little of her, and yet, by virtue of his presence, he is involved in her life, and the baby’s. Among the groceries he brings antacid, laxative, Marmite – she cannot seem to get enough salt. He tries to get her to take vitamins. She is occasionally moody, takes the discomfort out on him, but he is thick-skinned. She apologises one night, for accidentally kicking him in bed, hard, on the shin. Another lurid thrashing dream.
