The Wolf Border (13 page)

Thank goodness you didn't bring any Kendal Mint Cake, she jokes.

No way. That stuff makes my teeth hurt, he says. You didn't
pine for it while you were away, then?

God, no.

You don't sound totally American. Mum always said you did.

Yeah, she really hated it if I said cookies or candy.

There are many things Binny disapproved of that she could mention – probably Lawrence has similar experiences – but Rachel stops short of criticism. It is enough to be in her brother's company, without spoiling the mood. Lawrence seems sensible and placid away from his wife. She watches him, sitting slightly below on the crag, re-wrapping a large chocolate bar, zipping it into an outer pocket of his rucksack, careful, tidy. His hair ruffles in the wind, parts at a white seam of scalp. There are tones of red in it. Binny never admitted who his father was, though Rachel remembers the man, who ran a stable and already had a family. Her brother has come into his looks. The cachexic, baleful boy has gone. His face is less startled and dismayed, though he is still haunted-looking.

How's work? she asks.

He turns towards her, leans back on an elbow.

Fine. We're busy. It's all construction law, there's so much in limbo at the moment. Everyone's run out of money and no one's getting paid. I won't bore you.

She shakes her head.

Not boring at all.

What about you? How's it all going? Is Pennington a total nutter?

Yeah, a bit. But he's the boss.

I suppose he can't be all bad if he's got you working for him. What exactly are you doing? It's not like a zoo, is it? Mum was a bit vague.

She tells him about the wolves, when they are coming, how they will be reintroduced.

You should come and see them, she says.

Can I? I'd love to.

He grins. He is disproportionately pleased at the offer. It is almost as if they are on a first date and she has just stated her intention to enter a relationship. He asks a few more questions about the project, taken by the exoticism of her job. The air rushes past them, a continually buffeting lyric. Now that she is not moving, the sweat on her neck and back begins to chill. She shivers.

Should we get going?

OK. Do you want a hat, Rachel? I've got a spare one.

Oh, no, thanks. Well, OK then.

He takes a fleece hat out of the rucksack and she puts it on. They continue upward, into the cold, fast-moving currents. The effort is double with the wind hoving against them. The latter part of the route is incredibly difficult, almost beyond her limit. Rachel's legs shake; the undersides of her toes burn. The dense sedge grass vibrates all around and blurs her vision. There are no birds, just the occasional ravaged-looking sheep, bleating uselessly in the wind. They push on, up and over a false brow. She can hear Lawrence breathing hard. Is he asthmatic? She can't remember. She looks back. He is leaning over, his hands on his knees. He spits.

Sorry!

Almost there, she calls. You alright? Want to stop?

I'm alright!

She waits for him to catch up.

I'm not properly designed for this, he says.

No, nor am I, she says. You know, a wolf's breathing mechanism
is superb. The way the structure of their nose has evolved. They have an incredible ability to oxygenate.

Lawrence frowns. His face is purplish and his eyes are streaming. The wind hammers. They adjust their feet and lean slightly together. He puts his hands on her shoulders. There was no hello kiss in the pub car park; they did not embrace. They have not touched each other for years, perhaps not since childhood. He shakes her gently.

Lucky bloody wolf, he shouts.

On the final stretch there are annals of peat, sinkholes and bogs, and the thin path to the summit. The uppermost expanse is broad, a shattered tabletop. They aim for the cairn, which is made of heavy, storm-resistant stones. Skiddaw hulks to the east, bronze-tinted, the heather not yet blooming. The Langdale Pikes needle up to the south; Scotland drags the lowlands north. They take shelter in a walled pen near the cairn and hunker down, but the wind still infiltrates. Lawrence has warm tea in a thermos, possibly the most welcome thing Rachel has ever drunk in her life. He is squatting and smiling as he pours the liquid into a cup, his jacket hood pulled tight, his face barely visible.

We made it, Rachel! I didn't think we would!

Suddenly she feels moved. All those moments together when they were young and she felt nothing, an emotional deficit. She even used to think, once she'd learnt enough biology, that her programming meant she wasn't supposed to care for him – they had different genes.
Roll the other egg out of the nest and watch it smash below
. Her throat constricts. She wants to correct the error. Stupid to feel such things now, she thinks. She is strangely not herself: the power of hormones.

They stay at the cairn until the exposure becomes uncomfortable. There's another hail shower, after which they begin down. Rachel's legs are weak on the descent, lactic, buckling every few paces. Walkers coming up in breathless agony look enviously at them, bid them hello, stand aside on the path to let them pass. The mood is victorious, at ease.

Do you remember that Christmas, she asks, when the pylons came down?

Is that the year Mum tried to cook a goose?

Did she? I don't remember that!

There was goose fat everywhere.

Then, endorphin-silly or simply salutatory, they belt out a carol.
O come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant
. The sheep, stuck on the outcrops, turn their heads away and bleat into the void.

Would they come up this high? Lawrence asks.

Sure.

Sure
, he says, mimicking her. That's ‘yes, definitely, my girl'.

She laughs at his impression of Binny, and is pleased he isn't sanctifying their mother.

Et tu, Brute.

They can travel much higher, she tells him, and they do. In the Ethiopian Highlands, Canada, Alaska. They can cross deserts and ice sheets; they live comfortably in any climate, gelid or desiccated, arboreal, tundra. While she talks, he looks at her with admiration, as if it is she who is capable of such feats. I'm not what you think, she wants to say, but she likes his interest in the work.

In the car park of The White Horse they decide against a drink, though the pub is a good one, the chimney is smoking and the waft of pastry baking, hops, and vinegar is inviting.

Long drive back to Leeds, Lawrence says. Emily wants to go out for dinner with friends tonight. Sorry.

A curfew of sorts, Rachel assumes. Penalty for the day's freedom.

But it was a really great walk, he says quickly. Thanks for asking.

Yeah, no. Thanks for coming.

They bid each other goodbye, semi-formal again.

See you soon.

Yeah. Bye, Lawrence.

For a moment he looks forlorn, as if everything – the day, its efforts and successes – will vanish the moment Rachel disappears from sight. As if he is standing at the front door of the post office cottage again and she is walking away. She wants to reassure him, but what is there to say? Already he is climbing into his car, reversing round and waving through the window. He is pulling onto the main road and accelerating. His car clears the brow of the hill and disappears.

On the way home, Rachel makes a detour. At Binny's graveside in the little cemetery near Willowbrook she stands for a few minutes. There are good reasons to have a termination. There are good reasons to carry on as she is, solo up the face, the way she has moved for years. But here, by the small white stone and recently seeded mound, where she had expected those reasons to overwhelm and finally make a decision, she feels no relief, no surety, only the awkwardness of hope.

The fence is twelve feet high, the limit of their ability to jump, sloping inward at the top, a forty-five-degree angle. There are no barbs and it is not electric. As she walks along the structure, Rachel can see that care has been taken not to build it too close to any existing elevations, trees, walls, or hummocks. They would certainly exploit it. She's seen them perform a running climb before, almost vertical, going after small prey, marsupials. In Yellowstone, one of the ranchers told a story about having seen one use the back of a bull elk as a springboard to take down another elk. There have been many such stories over the years. She thinks of Setterah Keep, the escape, which she does not remember. That fence was old, rusted, or perhaps it had not been sunk deep enough, perhaps one of them dug out. Underneath the Annerdale fence are reinforced foundations extending four feet into the earth. The construction is wolf-proof.

And incredibly impressive as it rises before her, reels of heavy-duty steel, green coated to lower the environmental impact. Six feet away, on the exterior, is a secondary barrier, to keep people back. Signs are fixed along it every third of a mile – like forts along a Roman wall – hazard triangles around a stylised and distinctive silhouette. It is not altogether a good message, but part of the project's inevitable red tape. She walks a section, through the barrows, up above the lake. She had expected something more
industrial-looking – penal, even. But the estate runs close to and then into the national park; such a thing would not be permissible. At each of the entry points around the enclosure – eight in all – there are digital coded locks. Access will be limited: those working on the project and special permissions. Pennington Hall, her cottage, and most of the other estate buildings lie outside the fence. No doubt Thomas would have preferred to be inside, among them.

She leaves the fence and walks down towards the river. It is warm. She strips off her jacket and jumper. Underneath, the waist of her jeans is feeling tight; she is beginning to round out, though not noticeably. The river runs at leisure over grey tumbled boulders. In a clearing on the bank, between thistles and wild rhubarb, the new assistant has pitched his tent. There's a dark, scorched patch where he has had a fire, with turf stacked next to it. Between two bushes a laundry wire is strung; a T-shirt, socks, and boxers jig in the breeze. A mountain bike is propped up on its stand. It is early in the morning, but the tent zip is open.

Hello, she calls. Huib? Anyone home?

Huib pops his head outside and puts his thumb up.

Rachel. I'm coming out.

He emerges. He has on a pair of shorts that seem entirely made of pockets, and a flannel shirt. The skin on his legs, arms, and face is burnt a deep, sub-Saharan brown. A high, balding forehead, jug ears, warm sorrel eyes.

You picked a lovely spot, she says.

I know. It's good of Thomas to let me pitch. He said I could go anywhere I liked until the apartment is ready.

Thomas
. Huib seems to have no problem with the informality, but it still sounds wrong to her, and she avoids using his first
name wherever possible. She has watched them chatting casually down at the hall, discussing politics and current affairs with no awkwardness. Post-colonial confidence meeting reconstituted aristocracy.

Do you need anything? she asks. It's quite spartan down here.

No, I'm fine. I'm going to swim later; there's a really great place just upstream, with a kind of diving rock.

He is smiling and pointing with a thumb. He is only thirty years old, but the African sun has already lined his skin. His remaining hair is closely shaved, the same nut-colour as his scalp. Huib was an easy choice, and if anything over-qualified. A stint in Mozambique on the leopard restoration programme – one of the most competitive and desirable in the world, a trump card. But it was his temperament that had appealed. Through the window of Abbot Museum she'd watched him cycle into the car park, swinging one leg over the frame and running a long, single-pedalled dismount, stunt-like, teenager-ish. There was an air of casual immunity about him, though he had on a helmet. Before he rolled his trouser leg down, she saw an oily tattoo of the bike chain on his calf. It is in such moments that decisions are made. Perhaps he had reminded her a little of Kyle.

I caught some signal crayfish last night, he says. They're delicious! You just have to lift up the rocks slowly, then pinch them out.

I used to spend hours doing that as a kid, Rachel says. They were mostly white-claws then – the native ones.

Ja, he says, nodding. Terrible decline. I'm going to apply for a trap from the environment agency, if Thomas doesn't mind.

He won't mind, she says.

I found a website. I'll show you.

Huib squats, reaches back into the tent, and brings out a laptop. He holds it on the splayed fingertips of one hand and opens the lid.

Here we are.

He tilts the computer round.

How are you connected?

I've got this gizmo. It's a bit slow. I've been trying to Skype my brother in Jo'berg but his face is all fuzzy; it's like talking to Mr Potato Man.

She looks at the web page. It's good to have another wonk with whom she can discuss such things.

I've been wondering if they'll fish, she says. The river's full of trout.

That's exciting to think about. Trout are super-fast, though.

True.

How are they doing over there?

Great, apparently. They're in the same pen, being chummy.

Not long now. Do you need me to come to the office today to work on the press release?

No, that's OK. Just enjoy your days. Enjoy this.

She gestures at the river. The water trickles by, beautifully sounding out the rocks and shingle bed. Huib deposits the computer back inside the tent. She looks around at his supplies. He's well equipped. On the ground is a folded fishing rod, cooler, gas lamp, and a water filter. There are bags of rice and cans of lentils in a raised storage box. He has collected a stack of sticks for kindling and there's a roll of tarpaulin. A typical, self-sufficient field researcher. She wonders if he looks at pornography on the laptop after dark. Or reads Dostoyevsky. He re-emerges.

When's your apartment ready? she asks.

Next week. There's some kind of bat infestation issue at the minute. I like to camp, though. I used to go to Drakensburg all the time with my brother.

Which probably means he pitched on the ledges of the highest escarpment. She is aware that he is not contracted to start work for another week, and that while he is the type to give up his spare time for the job, as she is too, she should not outstay her welcome.

Well, she says, glad you're OK down here. Enjoy the swim.

Ja. See you later, Rachel. Congratulations, by the way.

She stares at him quizzically for a moment. He returns her gaze.

When are you due? If you don't mind my asking.

She is startled, and for a moment thinks about lying.

Not for a while.

That's exciting, he says.

I haven't really told anyone yet.

OK, he says, no problem. See you later.

See you.

She walks up the slope towards the fence. She looks down at her midriff. The development is definitely not noticeable, not to anyone but her. Either she has given something away or Huib is unnaturally prescient. Soon, though, the powers of divination will not be necessary – she will be showing. And she will have to be ready with the news, know what to say to people, how to frame it. Halfway up the hill she looks back, but Huib is out of sight, either back inside the tent perusing crayfish traps, or perhaps upstream, standing on the diving rock, about to cast himself into the cold blue Lakeland water.

*

At the antenatal clinic she sips a bottle of water and waits for her name to be called. There are two other women also waiting, one young and bored-looking, with a spotty partner in tow, one alone with a toddler, slightly haggard. The child smashes a toy tractor against the wall, makes a rumbling sound, and drives it along the skirting board. A video screen plays on a loop, instructions on breastfeeding, latching, angles, and advertisements for pushchairs. The situation feels unreal – she does not belong among the expecting and the mothers of the world – yet here she is. She has been given a thick maternity pack from the midwife at the GP's surgery, and has leafed through. Forms, codes, labels. The whole thing seems very bureaucratic. Her bladder is full; she needs the toilet but is not allowed to relieve herself. Nothing about the situation is comfortable. After a few minutes she is called into the ultrasound room. The sonographer checks her name and date of birth and asks her to lie down on the paper-covered table.

First time?

Yes.

Anyone with you?

No.

OK, the woman says. No need to get undressed. If you want to just lower everything, that's fine.

Rachel undoes her jeans, pushes them down, lifts her shirt.

You're the first today so the gel will be a little cold – sorry.

The woman applies fluid to her lower abdomen. She swirls the transducer across the surface, spreading it out. Rachel looks at the ceiling, tries to relax, tries not to think about anything.

Sometimes it's a little slow to get a good look, the woman says. If I'm quiet, don't worry. We'll get our angle. If we don't, I might try an internal scan. OK?

Rachel nods. The woman talks as she works, her voice soft, without drama but not without enthusiasm. Her accent is French African. She alters the position of the device by fractions, expertly.

Here we go. Ovaries OK. And a baby.

There is a pause.

Everything in the right place. Good.

Rachel is not worried, but neither is she naïve. As Binny gleefully declared at the nursing home, she's almost forty. She knows the risks. There are things she wants to hear, about nuchal measurement and the nose bone. There will be a combined test – she is giving a blood sample down the hall after the scan and they will issue her with a percentage chance of abnormality. The device moves through the gel, conducts its revelatory business. She looks at the ceiling, at the walls, anywhere but the screen.

You're nice and calm, the sonographer says.

Am I?

Not a fretter.

No.

Rachel watches the woman while she works. Her face is calm. Day in, day out, these expositions. She jiggles the transducer, to get the baby to move position, a practical action, like shaking out laundry before hanging it. Her manner is of one so used to reading signals that she might be on a ship's bridge or analysing meteorological data. Has the mystery of human reproduction become mundane, Rachel wonders, or is it that technology moves past all miracles eventually? In Alexander's veterinary clinic too there is a small hand-held ultrasound device that he uses for diagnosis and guided surgery. Rachel thinks of her own mother, who, in the seventies, proudly did not avail herself of any such information and took her chances, like millions of other women before her. Her
bladder protests as the device moves lower, presses down harder.

Everything is good. Normal range. Baby is waving at us.

The sonographer changes angles subtly again, and takes measurements: crown of the head to the end of the spine. Limbs. Organs. The date of conception. She narrates the anatomical view – upper and lower jaw, hands, feet. Rachel is still not looking.

Do you want to see? the woman asks, reaching over and moving the screen slightly.

Rachel takes a deep breath, turns her head. At first it is like looking into deep space, or a snowstorm. There are indistinct contours, static cavities of darkness and light. The sonographer points everything out. Head, chest. Bones. The heart, flashing rapidly. And a face. A face.

She finds herself looking away again, feeling oddly shy, and amazed that she, at this moment, is creating something recognisably human. What would Binny say? She cannot imagine her mother here, now, though she remembers the vast expanse of stomach under her mother's coat before Lawrence was born and the long screaming ambulance ride. She can hear Binny's voice, haughty, patronising.
I knew what you both were; I didn't need to be told
. The sonographer lifts the device off Rachel's belly.

OK. I'm happy with that. I'll print pictures and leave them at reception. You can get tokens from the machine.

She rehouses the transducer and hands a wad of paper towels over. Rachel sits up, wipes the gel from her belly, and buttons her jeans.

Are you going for bloods?

Yes.

Down the hall, left and left again. Follow signs for Phlebotomy. The toilet is right outside.

She thanks the woman and goes into the bathroom next door. Then she navigates the hospital corridors to the blood station, takes a numbered ticket from a dispenser, and sits in another waiting area. Beside her are men and women of all ages, being tested, she assumes, for everything. Cancer. Anaemia. Diabetes. She looks down at the vein on the inside of her right arm, which is bluish-green and rises easily. She puts a hand on her stomach. A baby. With bones. And a face. The sonographer made it move, almost dance. She is called through, sits in a plump chair, and the vial is taken.

You look happy, the phlebotomist says.

Do I?

Yeah. Nice to have a smiler.

She makes her way back to the antenatal clinic with a pad of cotton wool taped in the crook of her elbow and collects her maternity notes.

There's minor confusion on the way out of the department. The receptionist comes towards her holding a small envelope containing a printed copy of the scan.

Miss Caine? You forgot this. There's a cash machine one level down if you don't have pound coins for the tokens. We can't take actual money.

I don't need a copy, Rachel says. Thanks anyway.

The woman scowls.

Are you sure? There's a cash machine downstairs.