by Sarah Hall
They were arguing like dogs. About responsibility and death wishes, and Michael was challenging him to go ahead and do it. I don’t know what it was about.
I think I might know, she says, quietly.
She does not go into detail, and Huib does not ask. She could be wrong, but Sylvia’s account of Leo being present at the microlight crash in which his mother died, and Michael’s drunken words, seem too revealing. The plane was a three-seater. Perhaps Thomas was not flying it, and Leo, barely a teenager at the time and with no licence, was. The untouchable Penningtons. Their reckless playfulness, their invincibility. His father would have covered for him – not even the power and connectedness of the Earl could have protected his son from the charges, perhaps even manslaughter. Michael would surely have known. And Leo’s life since has been hell. Who would not loathe themselves for killing their own mother? She does not give Huib her theory; she does not know if it is simply speculation, a flight of fantasy on her part. Either way, Michael, loyal to the family, keeper of its land and perhaps its worst secrets, has watched the boy spiralling, trying to escape, self-destructing. There is no motive as great as the death of a loved one to make a person insist that others should live.
*
Lawrence gets a job at a solicitor’s office in Kendal. He finds a flat in a converted wool yard, overlooking the graphite roofs of the town, and signs the contract. The Lakeland sabbatical is over. In late August, he moves out.
You’ll be just down the road, she says, trying to be upbeat, though part of her regrets his decision and is conflicted about his departure.
Will he cope? Will she? No, she’s pleased. The move will be good for him: a forward gesture. He must re-enter the world, leave the monastic security of the District behind. Much of his excavated life has yet to be refilled. He is not dating. In the counselling sessions he has agreed to avoid sex for a year – part of the untangling of addictions. Such doctrines make Rachel wonder about herself – might she have fallen into such a category at one stage? Is she past it now or simply stymied by single parenthood? Sometimes her thoughts move past Alexander, to the possibility of others – a destructive feeling, old ways.
Lawrence cooks a lavish meal the night before he moves out. They eat in the garden, with clear skies overhead, the pipping of birds in the woods, and a warm breeze. A last summer evening. He has made lemon chicken, herb potatoes, salad.
Who would have thought? he says. You and me back in the same county.
It does seem unlikely, she agrees.
I didn’t think you’d ever come back.
That makes two of us.
He tilts his head, asks softly,
Do you think you’ll stay?
For now. It depends on work, I suppose. Things can only go so far here.
There have been enquiries, from Europe, the Scottish Wildlife Trust, Mexico, mostly consultancy work. She pauses.
I should take Charlie to America at some point.
Because of his dad?
They’ve skirted the subject in the past; Lawrence perhaps too respectful to ask, and she not feeling it right to unburden herself. But the soft, grassy evening feels loose and permissive. They are friends now. Her brother is well and she is less restricted.
Yes, because of his dad. I keep thinking it’s the right thing. I don’t know why. I’m not under any obligation. That’s not true – I feel I am in a way.
There are days she is sure Kyle knows: the tenor of his emails, the enquiries, nothing particular – perhaps she’s paranoid and imagining it. He would come and say it, if he knew. There are times she’s sat down and written, in emails and letters, a revelation, and an apology. You have a son, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. Reading back, it always seems too blundering, too belated. And her motives are foggy, she’s not sure why – why tell him now? Is it simply a confession, or a request for involvement? Her brother puts down his knife and fork, issues her with a moment of full concentration – something he has become disciplined at. The gesture often seems too intense and conspicuous, but is a tactic that works wonders with Charlie.
You know what I think, he says. They should give you an instruction manual when you’re born. How to navigate all this shit. It’s like running headlong downstairs in the dark otherwise.
She smiles and nods.
That’s true.
Can I ask you something?
Sure.
Is he called Charles because of your dad?
She was not aware Lawrence had known; Binny excised Rachel’s father from the family dialogue long before her second child was born. There is so much of their upbringing still to unearth.
He is. I didn’t know him, she says. But he’s on my birth certificate.
If it’s an unknown quantity you can choose your approach, Lawrence says. It’s a great name. Mitch keeps telling us to make the past positive. You can tell me to shut up, by the way. I know I sound like a fanatic.
I don’t mind. I like the name, too. What I worry about is the lack of everything else.
What do you mean?
Lack of a dad. Whether I did alright without mine. Whether Charlie will do alright.
You did fine, Rachel. What about Alexander? He seems keen.
Oh, I don’t know.
You’ll be fine, Lawrence says, again, definitively. So will Bup.
He picks up his cutlery. He is, once more, the brother of restored optimism, at least where she is concerned. But she cannot allow herself to imagine the full happy scenario, not yet. They continue with dinner. She wonders how her brother will fare, back in the real world, whether the new policies will hold. The first stars are seeding brightly above the horizon – Venus, Vega, the North Star. From upstairs in the cottage, Charlie’s long unsettled wail begins. She stands, but Lawrence tells her to sit back down.
I’ll go. We’re leaving the lights off and not picking him up, right?
Right. Thanks. Thank you, Lawrence. This is really delicious, by the way.
You’re going to miss me, he says.
After he is gone, Seldom Seen falls back into gentle disarray – toys scattered, crockery crusted in the sink, soggy bath mats and towels left in heaps. Charlie looks around for his uncle, confused by the sudden absence. He asks for him in the morning and at night before bed, Lor? Lor? Then, as if a magnificent feat might summon him back, he lets go of the coffee table he has been using as a ballast for the last month, and walks towards the sofa, several steps, before falling onto his bottom. He gets up and tries again. The biped age has really begun.
Rachel employs a part-time minder, in her fifties, very experienced, with excellent references, and not cheap, but the woman does not seem to bond and she cancels the arrangement. She brings Charlie to the office again, but he’s too big, too restive, in need of stimulus. Sylvia has gone south, to start her legal training. They have exchanged a few emails, but otherwise the relationship looks destined to fade. One of the volunteers offers to help with the baby, temporarily, giving her an hour or two each morning to catch up. It’s not enough. She’s missing the development of the wolves. She’s failing to respond to enquiries and phone calls. She has not found time to meet with Thomas, who suddenly wants to discuss aspects of the project – the neutering – after months of indifference. He seems averse now to the intervention, and she wonders if Sylvia went to work on him before leaving. The decision is irreversible and might be regretted, he writes. They agree on a Skype meeting while he is in London. In the video link he is tying his tie, preparing to go out. He glances at the image of himself in the corner of the screen and adjusts the knot.
Is it absolutely necessary? he asks.
She again explains to him, as she did to his daughter, what the issues are.
Alright, he says. All I ask is that nothing happens too soon. You never know what the future might hold.
The sudden interference is annoying – it’s a polite request but she senses the weight of the boss behind it. The future will hold exactly what I’ve outlined, s
he thinks. Unless he means expansion of the enclosure and the introduction of new males, separate packs, which will not be possible. He cannot encroach further into the national park – even he would be unable to acquire the land needed. She agrees to revisit the subject later in the year, but offers no further concession. A junior aid says something to the Earl and he nods and the call is finished.
There’s a belated bloom of summer. The first weekend Alexander stays after Lawrence’s departure, he walks around nude in the cottage and out into the garden, like a Scandinavian on holiday. The cottage windows are flung open, and giant white moths flicker round the climbing honeysuckle. Charlie is pleased to have another man in the house; he’s sociable, prattling, boyish already. Alexander hangs him by his chubby fists from the washing line, tips him upside down, makes him scream giddily, and vomit. He liquidises beef hearts for him, gives him a tiny, early taste of honey. She gets used to sharing the bed again. Alexander’s back is a giant slab of muscle, disproportionate to his waist, his cock flops between his legs as he strides about. He likes sex in the mornings, before she is even properly awake, before the baby is.
There’s been trouble with Chloe over the summer – hormones, early pubescence. He has not been sure how to handle it all, he confesses. She’s been moody, embarrassed by the irregular show of blood, the flowery folded packages she must now keep in her bag, and the starter bra, which she refuses to wear. She’s been fighting with her grandmother and staying at Alexander’s house more. The previous month the family of her friend Lucy took her on holiday to Portugal for three weeks – on her return, she was sullen, did not go into detail but said she hated it, hated swimming, the sun, and hated her friend.
I don’t know what went on, he says. I don’t suppose you might want to see her for a bit? I think she thinks you’re cool.
Me? Ha!
You are pretty cool.
She does not feel confident about her feminine communication skills, which are all but non-existent, but Alexander has been generous and supportive over the past year; she owes him the favour.
OK. Shall I take her to see the wolves again?
Yes! That would be great.
He kisses her.
I don’t know, he says. I thought I was New Age. I thought I was a bloody feminist. All she wants to do is hang out with her horse and tell me I don’t understand anything.
What should I say to her?
Nothing. Just talk shop. Just let her talk if she wants.
Rachel has not seen Chloe for several months, and the time has been transformative. When they go into the enclosure – only the two of them this time – the girl is less vivacious and uninhibited, though still sweet and clever. She has a layer of fat, proper, cupped breasts under her T-shirt; even her face is a different shape. Gone is the floral mac and crocheted animal jumper; she has on jeans, a white shirt, conservative high street items. She walks up the grassland slowly, as if aware of her body and its limitations.
It’s nice of you to do this, she says. I know Dad asked you.
He did. But I thought you might want to see how they’re getting on.
I do.
They take signal readings from the handheld device, locate Ra and Merle, and situate themselves on the hillside near the rendezvous point. Rachel sets up the portable telescope in the hope of getting a clear view. The juveniles are probably too big to interest a typical young girl, no longer puppyish and scruffy, getting on for two-thirds the size of their parents. They are now more guileful than playful. But Chloe is still interested, and not typical. The high definition of the telescope is enough to impress her – she can see their eyes, their whiskers. They do not remain in view for long, but run off, casting glances up at the hill.
I like how they move, she says. Sort of floppy but fast. Can they live without their parents yet?
It’s perhaps a loaded question. Should the subtext – I’m not getting on with my dad – be addressed? Fall back on what you know, Rachel thinks. On the hike back to the car, she talks about the notion of intelligence and problem-solving. She tells Chloe about a wolf in the rescue centre in Romania that learnt to open its cage door by watching its caretakers.
How?
She pulled on the mechanism. A rope.
That’s really clever.
Maybe. But how can we know it wasn’t a reflex action? I mean, wolves and dogs tug on things. I bet you’ve seen them do it with slippers and anything dangling.
Yes. Our old sheepdog used to.
Chloe pauses, thinks for a moment.
But just because they do that doesn’t mean it isn’t clever to do it right then, on the lock. It doesn’t really sound like an accident. She figured it out.
Rachel nods and smiles.
I think so too. It’s called application. Some people think intelligence is learning to do new things using acquired skills. Do you still want to be a geneticist? she asks.
Chloe shrugs.
Maybe. I don’t know. I’d quite like to be a singer.
Ah, right.
I’m not very poppy, though. I don’t really look like a pop star. No sex appeal.
I’ve heard you sing. You have a great voice.
Thanks.
Don’t, Rachel thinks. Don’t succumb. She gets the sense Chloe would talk to her, intimately – that the grandmother has been somewhat practical on the subjects troubling her granddaughter, but has fallen short: the generational gap. She feels for the girl, for her predicament. She is ahead of her school friends physically, the boys are commenting on her figure, there are embarrassing things going on she cannot control. It is a stormy, lonely place to be. She tries to remember what Binny did. Noticed the row of rinsed underwear on the washing line, bought a box of Tampax, and left Rachel to her own devices, probably. There were no heart-to-hearts. They walk in silence, and then Chloe asks, out of the blue,
Are you going to marry Dad?
Whoa! Well, I don’t know.
There is, of course, no other answer. Rachel panics internally, tries to formulate a better explanation, but Chloe doesn’t ask anything more on the subject and Rachel has no idea whether such a thing would be considered good or bad. They walk back to the car and drive to meet Alexander in The Horse and Farrier, where the girl orders salad for lunch and looks longingly at her father’s plate of chips.
After come cool days, and glazed white skies. The swifts, late-leaving, migrate to other continents. Enormous spiders come into the cottage – a couple of times she gets to Charlie only just before they are inserted into his mouth, their legs thrashing in his little fist. The wind gets up, hurricanes over the Atlantic that disperse before reaching the edge of Europe. Autumn crackles in the air in the mornings and evenings, and the canopy of the woods begins to smoulder, yellowish.
The Annerdale project is officially a year old, as is her son. She throws a birthday party for Charlie, attended mostly by adults – Lawrence, Alexander and Chloe, Huib, a few similarly aged children from the area whose mothers she is linked to but rarely sees. Rachel tells herself she must do better at finding playmates for Charlie: a local crèche, a baby swim group, something. She must do better at making friends herself, with mothers who are at a similar stage, wrestling similar problems. But the times when she has met them the conversations always seem awkward; once the subject of babies is finished, there is little in common. She doesn’t watch television, she has no husband, her work is bizarre. She watches Charlie smear chocolate cake across his mouth, his heels pounding against his high chair, mumbling some kind of happy eating song, eyes huge. They have each other – is that enough? It’s hard to remember a time when he wasn’t hers, the central part of her life. At other moments she looks at him and he seems like an alien, randomly dropped from the sky – unrecognisable and incredible.
The weather finally breaks. A week of proper rain and wind, thunder. The lull is over. With the blusters and the change of pressure comes a strange cycle of dreams. She dreams of the baby, worming on the blanket when he wa
s first born and she barely knew how to hold him, and a world after catastrophe; she is looking for his buried hand in the rubble. Then she dreams she is still pregnant, she feels him moving in her, the slippery jutting of his legs. The next night, a dream where she cannot stop the white, surprising milk, litres of it, soaking through her shirt, though she is old and grey-haired and her breasts are atrophied. She wakes, goes back to sleep, and has a nightmare: her abdomen is gaping open like a damp red purse – she cannot find the surgeon to stitch her, she limps around holding it closed. Alexander shakes her awake.
Hey, it’s alright, it’s alright.
What time is it?
Little after three.
Is he crying?
No.
Wind in the branches outside. She sleeps again and dreams of wolves. There are dozens, loping across the fields, not Merle and Ra and the Annerdale litter, but wolves of the past – Tungsten, Left Paw, Caligula, the Belarus scavengers. They are part of an impossible number, a super-pack, like a modern fable. The fields are full of black water. The body of a cow floats, its ribs lathed raw, like the beams of a boat. Then they are in a town, running through deserted buildings, scrambling over walls and fences and tables. The dream becomes tortured. There are snarling fights; they inflict terrible injuries.
