by Sarah Hall
Rachel does not join the others, but stands to the side – old habits, the desire for privacy during moments of significance. The mood is reverent, contained. No one speaks. Thomas has a hamper of champagne on the back seat, of course. There are no extra guests, though there were many requests, from the Mammal Society, the British Wolf Society, even politicians like Vaughan Andrews. Rachel takes up binoculars, looks towards the open enclosure gate, and waits.
This time it is Merle who leads the pair out of confinement. She slips through the gate, lifts her nose high to scent the surroundings, lopes a few feet along the fence, and then she runs. Soon she is at full tilt, flooding across the moorland. Within moments there is a large white wolf alongside her. The pair veer away from the gorse-covered hillside, divide, and make for the nearest cover – a gathering of thorn woods on the hill, spindled and bent by the wind. Rachel watches them go. They cover the open moor in less than a minute. One dark, one light, stellar and obverse, their hind muscles working sumptuously under their coats. The months of docile quarantine are shaken off in seconds; power always lay just underneath. She watches the unmistakable motion of their running – the hard, short bowing of their heads, like swimmers ducking under the surface. They climb the gradient of the hill opposite without slowing, then disappear from sight in the broken terrain.
From nearby, there is laughter, applause, and cheering, voices small in the landscape. Hurray! Rachel sits down heavily on the grass, leans back, tired and exhilarated. They’ve made it. She has made it. She hears the pop of the cork and the wet crackle of the champagne being poured. A glass is passed down to her by Alexander. His big hand rests for a moment on the back of her neck, squeezes gently. They are all saying, Well done, Rachel, well done, here’s to Rachel. She takes a sip. Something very fine and very old from the Annerdale cellars that is lost on her.
She looks towards the hide. Under the netting, Gregor will still be filming, focusing the high-powered lens, perhaps following their progress between the thorn trees, along the ridge to the summit, where they will contemplate the broad expanses of Annerdale, and decide which route to take. Rachel looks over the estate. Russet ferns and the knitted furze. The signature fells beyond. Long silhouettes drool from bushes and trees; all the land’s contours are exposed, every curve, every corrie and glacier cut, everything looks shadow-cast, so beautifully sheer.
*
She leaves her bag in the room where she and the baby will spend the next two days. She signs more consent forms, goes to the bathroom again. A nurse preps her, gives her a gown, checks her identity bracelet for the dozenth time. She is not wearing rings – she owns no rings, no jewellery, in fact – and has no lacquer on her nails. She has fasted in case they need to perform a general anaesthetic, taken antacid. She is walked down to the anaesthetics room next to the theatre. Her blood pressure and the baby’s heartbeat are checked again. The anaesthetist and ODP are introduced and chat about baby names, to distract her from the sensation of the spinal block, the cold trickling sting. She leans forward on the gurney, tries to remain still, tries to relax, but it is impossible. The medics sense her tension. The ODP, Sam, is mannish, short, and has exceptionally blue eyes. She kneels in front of Rachel, grinning.
So you breed wolves then, Rachel. Are you having a wolf today?
I wouldn’t be surprised.
Good luck with that.
After they are done, she is helped to lie back down. Her legs begin to numb. They apply ice – she cannot feel the cold, just wetness. They attach heart-rate monitors to her chest, take her blood pressure again, insert the catheter.
All alright so far? the anaesthetist asks her.
Alright, she says.
Off we go then. We’ll be done in a flash.
The trolley is wheeled forward, through the theatre doors. It is going ahead, there is no choice. A different midwife is in the room – one she has never met – Jan must be on call. She is suddenly afraid. She is not as tough as she thought she was, or wants to be. When Alexander dropped her off at 6 a.m., her heart was barking madly; he had hugged her, told her it would be easy, said he would see her afterwards, and she had calmed a little. Lawrence, too, is driving up from Leeds and will visit her this evening, by which point she might be up and about. In the end, she does need them.
There are lights in the theatre, great bright discs. Staff in scrubs and hats – the consultant is smiling. She has met her before, cannot remember her name.
Hello, Rachel, she says. Doing OK?
Yes, OK.
Good. Everything’s looking very good. Ready to meet the little one?
I think so.
What else can she say amid the banal, undramatic language of the medical world? How will I be a mother? Will I feel love? Her identity is checked again. The sheets go up, partitioning her.
Don’t worry, the midwife says. Soon be done.
The painkillers seem to have a mild sedative effect too. People are talking to her. She does not know if they have started the operation. There is someone beside her head, trying to get her attention – the ODP, Sam. Sam, with her lively blue eyes and boy’s face. Talk of holidays and a recently read book. They are still positioning her, she thinks, there is the sensation of pressure, things moving, pulling, but no real feeling. Then she realises, because of what the consultant is saying, that they have opened her up. She puts her head back, and her breaths begin to come unevenly.
I’m sorry, she says, though she does not know to whom she is apologising. Kyle? Binny? The baby?
Alright? Sam asks.
No. I don’t know, she whispers.
You know, I remember seeing some wolves when I was a kid, Sam says. In a park. There were a load of other animals too. Do you know the one I mean?
Where was it?
Near Penrith, I think.
Setterah Keep, Rachel says.
Yeah, Setterah, that was the name. Did you ever go?
I lived near there when I was a kid. We must be about the same age.
What, twenty-one – good for us, hey.
No. I don’t know –
The ODP takes and squeezes her hand, the gesture unequivocal.
Sometimes helps to close your eyes, Rachel. Some people even go off to sleep for a bit.
Do they?
They do. May as well get a nap before the bawling at 4 a.m. starts.
Rachel closes her eyes. How many minutes have passed? She forces herself to breathe deeper, slower.
Good stuff, Sam says. I think I tried to feed them a hotdog once through the bars. I got a right bollocking.
Rachel breathes and tries to imagine a still place inside, the well of the self, where a person is unreachable. There was talk of it at Chief Joseph, in the sweat lodges, the mind was let go there.
You’re doing great, Mum.
Rachel breathes. There is darkness, perhaps a drug. And then she thinks, Where are you, Mum? She feels something hot slide from her eye. She feels Binny letting go of her hand. Be brave, my girl. And she is walking. Through a gate, into the woods, where there are green pathways between trunks and the quiet of the trees all around. The ground underfoot is soft, tides of needles spilled from the pines. She walks into the forest. It is there, where she knew it would be. It is standing on the path in front of her, head turned and lowered, yellow eyes. A creature long and grey. It is standing in the shadows of the branches, earth on its back and on the bridge of its nose, where it has been digging underneath the wire. Small, clever, yellow eyes. It blinks and turns its head and lopes into the trees.
There is the sound of crying, a pitch from a liminal realm, though she is sure she’s heard it before somewhere. She opens her eyes and lifts her head. There are surgeons at her waist, draped in blue, busy. The midwife is coming towards her holding a sheet in her arms; two tiny red fists are rising from the folds.
Here he is, the midwife says. He’s got a very good shout. He’s not sure about being in this world at all, are you?
She lowers the bun
dle towards Rachel, and Rachel lifts her hand and reaches out and touches the flailing arm. Blood warm. There is still blood on him, and the white vernix. His skin. His dark hair. His mouth is open – soft, asking tissue, like the gape of a bird. His eyes are tight shut as he wails, and there is a tremendous crease in his forehead.
You’ve got a little hero.
Rachel nods. She cannot stop looking, as if seeing him will confirm it.
Can I have him?
Just a few more bits to do, the midwife says, then I’ll bring him back to you for some skin to skin and we can really get going.
She moves away and Rachel rests her head back down. Don’t take him, she thinks. Give him to me, he’s mine. She watches as he is administered to. Is he alright? He must be alright. They are placing him on the scales, checking reflexes. She wants to get up and go over there, pick him up. The surgeons are at her waist, taking too long. She doesn’t care. There seems no need for anything else now. There is no wound. The only wound is life, recklessly creating it, knowing that it will never be safe, it will never last; it will only ever be real.
FOLLIES
December. She has become the servant of winter. The early darkness keeps her home, wrapped up warm by the fire, the lights blazing. She nurses the baby. There are colossal yellow clouds above Annerdale, loops of sleet, and serious snow on the fells. She does not go out. The last few months the world has come to her: deliveries of food and equipment, the midwife and healthcare worker, the men in her life, work. She nurses the baby; he takes an hour to feed, falling asleep halfway through, waking, continuing. She reads while he suckles. The cottage keens in the wind, the woods outside creak and rub. If it weren’t for the double-glazing, the wifi, and mobile signal, she might be in another century. Outside, too, there are wolves, no longer medieval – she can hear them calling occasionally from the enclosure, or imagines she can.
By 3.30 p.m., the sun has almost gone, its pale sump sinking on the horizon. Black wind at night, howling back, demonic almost. And rain, beginning to solidify. She worries about snow as she never worried before, worries about becoming trapped. She is unused to the long darkness – this first winter back in England is shocking, brutal, how could she have forgotten. Daylight feels incredibly valuable, if only she could access it. She leaves lamps on downstairs overnight. The baby sleeps in the Moses basket by her bed, within arm’s reach. At 4 a.m. she nurses him, while the darkness rolls past. It feels like the end of the world. Needles in her breasts and great pressure as the milk lets down. To have chosen love-enslavement to this little being means forfeiting everything.
He is Charles Caine, a family name, though no one knows it. To give a title to another human being is to acknowledge history, or to refute it – to say, we err, but forward we go, improving, hopeful. A full, dark head of hair. Long legs. One of his ears is folded over inside, like a shell, in some cultures lucky, in others, a bad omen. He is exceptional company; that is to say, he demands everything of her and is given it. She nurses him. She changes him. She nurses him again. He likes the firelight, turns his head towards the flames. He is beginning to differentiate colours now, beginning to smile, though many of his expressions remain less happy as he tries to absorb the world’s visceral information. He dreams, grimaces. She nurses him, at one hot breast, then the other. He is at his most immaculate afterwards: composed, bow-mouthed, his chest rising and falling, fists clenched as he sleeps. One in three hours given over to active care, she was told: a low estimate. She has buried the bellybutton stump next to the quince tree.
She can carry him for longer periods in the sling now, without the ache in her abdomen and back. He lies against her side like a warm, external organ. Below, the scar itches. A majestic scratch, still red, but unbelievably small given its yield; one buckled section where the suture alignment was off, or hurried, closed by a junior – it doesn’t matter. Now and then there are sharp electric jolts as something knits back together, or nerves resurrect. The memories of those first days are hazy. The limping, stooping walk, with a nurse on her arm, to the cot to change his nappy, down the ward corridor. Sitting on the toilet, terrified to shit. Cramps as she first tried to nurse him. Small bodily triumphs she could not have imagined to be so meaningful. In the kitchen drawer is the thin subcutaneous cord with its blue beads – a surgical trophy, removed by Jan, that she has not thrown out. Her flesh sags over the wound, but is retreating daily.
She nurses the baby by the fire and reads reports sent to her by Huib and Sylvia. Ra and Merle have found their range and are tracking the herds. They have denned; a good indicator for mating come February, the coordinates almost exactly central in the enclosure. She makes a note – the pups would then be due late April, perhaps early May at Britain’s latitude, a sixty-day gestation. The abandoned deer carcasses in the enclosure weigh less than a third of their original body weight; they are being stripped, efficiently. She reads but it is hard to concentrate. Charlie is mesmeric. He draws the eye, for no reason, like a newly unwrapped gift. Everything else retreats – there are no other stories. The story is the child. She puts her mouth on the soft fusing crown of his head. She wishes he would sleep so she could sleep. She wishes he would wake, prove that he is alive and animate, see how his eyes find and recognise her face.
Just enjoy it, Huib tells her when she phones. Our guys are doing fine.
Not that she doubted it. Annerdale is a utopia for Ra and Merle: plentiful biomass, no other packs to compete with or species of similar prowess. The temperature, though low and dropping weekly, is mild compared to the bitter Romanian winter. She checks the project website, reads the messages – there has been a flush of positive responses to the release, the scales seem to have tipped. Much of the criticism has evaporated – the wolves are a success for not being a catastrophe, like the Olympics, or a piece of public art. Only the faithfuls continue to complain. The security reports from Michael have been similarly good. There’s been no more trouble around the fence periphery, and it is too inclement to protest by the main gate. Thomas passes on personal congratulations from the Prime Minister. She takes this with a pinch of salt. After the Scottish vote, Sebastian Mellor is desperate for good press, progressive policies – especially in the regions where there is growing agitation for devolved powers – and the project qualifies.
Lawrence visits almost every weekend, a couple of times with Emily. There seems to be an accord between the two of them. They bring gifts, clothes, food. Her brother is wildly in love with the baby. Bup, he calls him, inexplicably – some private pet name.
Hello, Bup. How’s Bup? Come here, Bup.
He picks him up, holds him out, dangling and kicking in the fleece bag, examining him, then drawing him close into his chest. Emily is practical around the house – cooking, offering to clean, minding the baby while Rachel takes a bath. The sad truth is she’s a natural, a childless natural; Charlie sleeps contentedly on her shoulder, against the cashmere jumper, her silk scarves dampening with his drool and possetting. Rachel passes her a muslin cloth, but she doesn’t seem to care. If it is painful, holding in her arms something so longed for, she doesn’t show it. Rachel admires her for that, begins even to like her. She has passed the test of her son, which is now the main test. She thoughtfully brings Rachel a breast pump, in order to freeze and save milk.
Rachel watches her and Lawrence. They appear stable, if slightly too polite with each other, their eyes occasionally locked in silent communication. They do not squabble in front of her or give anything away. It seems fine, but Rachel is aware that the true state of their relationship cannot be known by an outsider. Still, they are together, and she finds she is relieved.
Alexander, too, has been a regular visitor. He comes in without knocking, bringing enormous shanks of meat wrapped in plastic layers, given to him by farmers by way of thanks for difficult surgeries or merciful euthanasia. In the freezer are vacuum bags of yellow-tinted breast milk alongside primitively home-cut steaks, lamb legs – a bizarre mammalian cache
.
You need 500 more calories a day, he tells her.
I never stop eating, she says. I feel like a prize pig.
Intermittently, she roasts pork and beef joints, becomes distracted, forgets to take them out of the oven, then eats them well-done, dry to desiccated. One evening, Alexander arrives with a guest. She hears the stomping of boots in the hallway, female chatter. She is nursing the baby, bra-less, her T-shirt pulled up.
Here in the kitchen, she calls.
He puts his head round the door.
I’ve got someone with me.
Right, she says. ’Fraid I can’t move.
There is not much she can do; the baby is midway, being slow as usual. She reaches for a tea-towel and drapes it modestly over her left side. Alexander walks in with his daughter, Chloe. The girl is clearly related – even pre-puberty, she is big, and tall, with her father’s forehead and mouth. She has on an unfashionable anorak, purple, unzipped, a jumper with crocheted dogs on it, wellies. Every inch the daughter of a country vet.
Hi, Rachel, Chloe says.
Hi, Chloe. Nice to meet you. Come in.
The girl takes a step inside.
Wait! Boots off, madam, her father instructs. Hope you don’t mind us dropping in.
Rachel shakes her head. Chloe heels her wellies off and stands them tidily by the door. She comes into the room and looks at the baby, what can be seen of him under the towel. He is slipping off the nipple and falling asleep. Rachel shifts him in her arms, moves her T-shirt back down, and tosses the tea-towel onto the counter. This is Charlie.
Can I hold him? Chloe asks.
