The Wolf Border (3 page)

She gestures towards a door on the other side of the room.

Kyle. And he's just a friend. I'm wearing this.

Right. Well, do something with your hair. It's sticking up like a loo brush. Why did you cut it all off anyway? You look like a lesbian.

Rachel doesn't rise to it; she has made a pact with herself not to for the duration of her stay. In the small adjoining room, a narrow cot has been made up. Willowbrook allows guests to stay
for seven days, free of charge. She puts her bag on the bed. When she goes into the bathroom the smell of urine is overwhelming. There's a grey wig with improbable nylon curls in a wicker basket on top of the toilet cistern. The towels on the rail are stained with talcum. The walk-in shower has a seat and a safety handle; an alarm bell is nearby. There are boxes of incontinence napkins. Flags of Rachel's future, perhaps, if it's all laid in the genes. Come on, she thinks, you can do this – one week. Back in the little spare room, she unzips the side pocket of her bag and takes out a mottled feather, which has survived the trip uncrushed. Her mother is hunched awkwardly on the edge of the armchair, waiting. Rachel holds out the feather.

Here you go, present from the Reservation. I think it belonged to a hawk owl.

At dinner, the cogent residents make a fuss over Rachel, asking about her work and her life. It is apparent they think she is some kind of veterinarian, though her mother is perfectly capable of explaining. They ask whether she is married or has any children. No and no, she says. Oh well, she's still young, someone comments. Binny snorts.

Nearly forty!

Rachel carefully lays her knife down and reaches for the salt.

Isn't that how old you were when you had Lawrence? Elderly primagravida?

Laughter from the other ladies at the repartee, the mother–daughter spat. Does she have a boyfriend?, they ask. Rachel shrugs. No. She thinks of the centre workers' jokes about relationships: ‘Pissing in tandem', like the urinary markings of the breeding pairs. But she holds her tongue. Despite the residents' enjoyment
of that which is mildly risqué, such an observation would not be appropriate at the dinner table. Among these leached, desiccated beings, she is already feeling too burlesque, too live. The woman to her right – Dora – a tiny wobbling creature, takes hold of her wrist and informs her that Binny is a very popular member of the Willowbrook community, one of the fun personalities, a good card player, a huge flirt. Dora maintains a lucid flow of conversation, pats Rachel's arm, and name-drops as if she will recognise the people being spoken about, as if Binny keeps her in the loop. While the ladies cluck and gossip, her mother remains silent, scowling, pushing apart a piece of fish, trying to lift the grey skin away. There's the soft clicking of dentures and the scrape of cutlery. The meal progresses interminably. The food is boiled and blanched, easy to digest, but the exercise of eating still seems too rigorous for most. Almost every resident has a box of pills next to their place setting. Statins, anticoagulants, pain-killers, steroids. Her mother's medication is for high blood pressure and the ruined bladder. She hasn't taken Herceptin for fifteen years; is deemed no longer at risk. Her left breast is whole; the right was never reconstructed. The surgery heralded the end of an era for her mother; either she lost interest in men, or they in her. Rachel notices very few men at the home, but then longevity is not their strong suit. Opposite her is a woman in a gaping blouse, her chest furrowed and crêped, her face vacant. She is helped from time to time by an orderly. There are a couple of empty chairs at the tables and the health of whomever is missing is openly discussed. Such-and-such has fallen, broken a hip, been hospitalised, has a bowel obstruction, infection, isn't expected to return.

Rachel is past hunger and so tired that cruelty begins to creep in. The knotty hands and flaccid jowls, the drooping and slippage
of body parts, begins to look grotesque. The tablecloth is garish with sauce stains. They spill. They tremble. They are ghouls that have passed over the borders of worthwhile existence into demented limbo. Such life-support isn't natural, she thinks. They should be assisted. Last year she and Kyle performed an autopsy on Nab, the oldest male in the Chief Joseph pack, who was killed by a young adoptee, Tungsten. The collar was still signalling; they got to his body quickly, so he was fresh on the slab, slack, his hind legs gristle-edged, the penis retracted. On his forelegs were old battle scars. The bite marks in his neck were not survivable. But humanity's demise, she thinks, is dreadful. We eke it out, limp on, medicate, become expensively compromised. For humans there will be no final status fights, no usurping, no healthy death. Decay continues, on and on. Only merciful ends come quickly or during sleep.

After dinner, she and Binny get ready for bed and squabble about who will use the bathroom first. Though a shadow of herself, her mother will not relinquish authority.

You look like shit. Black circles under your eyes and everything. Just get to bed.

I'm fine. I have to spend days on end awake, when I'm in the field.

You're my guest and you'll go when I say, my girl.

My girl
. Rachel is too tired to fight – why stymie what little control Binny still has? She showers and cleans her teeth. She can hear her mother bickering with Milka, the Polish orderly, in the living room.

The folding cot is hard and narrow, bowed in the middle, but after a moment or two the room stops kiltering, the static in her ears quietens, and she is unconscious. All night, she barely moves,
waking only once in confusion, not knowing where she is. In the morning she is woken properly by light through the unclosed curtains, and Milka, getting her mother up.

Not much on the sheets today, Binny. That's better. Well done.

Get that leg out of the way, Milka. Must you poke me about?

Rachel lies on the cot, looking out the window at the flat grey sky. She checks her phone. There is no news from Kyle, which isn't a bad thing. The transmitters fail; sometimes they are pulled off; sometimes they give out. She imagines Left Paw climbing over boulders, bounding up off his powerful back legs, crossing the plains and forests, covering miles in search of a mate. Then she pictures him splayed in the undergrowth, muzzle open, eyes slit, blood around the entry wounds. Since the harvest quota was increased, the workers are never without worry, even on the Reservation where they are protected. The hunters still come for them in planes, or on foot, using electric calls and giving false coordinates when they turn in their tags.

The grey unobstructed sky seems unreal. England is unreal, a forgotten version, with only a few pieces of evidence to validate it – and Rachel's memories. Even her mother can't be identified. In an hour, the Earl will be taking t'ai chi, like a new-age prince, some kind of attempt to revolutionise a decrepit system. She can't help but feel she shouldn't have come back, even as a courtesy. She watches the sky and listens to her mother bossing the orderly.
Don't yank me, Milka! Do they do it this way in Krakow?
Rachel gets up, stumbles through to the living room. On the radio the news headlines are being broadcast – the search for a missing child in the Midlands, release of the much-anticipated Scottish national white paper, the wettest autumn on record. There is only instant coffee in the tiny kitchenette. She makes a strong
cup, adds sugar, waits for the bathroom. Her mind drifts back to Chief Joseph and the pack. By now they might have covered a hundred miles. Tungsten will be leading the others after the migrating deer, through the high snowdrifts, each using the same efficient track. The further north they go, the safer they will be.

*

Thomas Pennington drives himself, but only around Annerdale, he tells Rachel as they tour the estate, not on public roads. What with all the functions, he can never be sure he isn't over the limit. Doesn't want to shunt anyone. Or take out a horse. Or roll the Landy. The Land Rover bumps across fields, alongside hawthorn hedges, over hummocks and ditches, at a fair speed. Rachel holds the strap above the passenger door, rocks in her seat, and listens as he regales her. Besides, he can get a lot of work done on the train – wifi – and the Pendolino from Oxenholme now gets in to London in a matter of a few hours – extraordinary, when he was a boy it took six or seven.

You probably remember, he says, everything went through Crewe.

She nods. Many of his questions are rhetorical. It is hard to know whether a reply is necessary. He is a tall man, as elegant as she expected despite his informal attire, corduroy breeches, plaid shirt, and jacket – his knees jut upward as he drives. She gauges his age; late fifties, sixty, perhaps, with slightly greying hair, though a full, gusting crown of it, envied among men of his generation, no doubt. His face is temperate, devoid of obvious stress, like the south side of a mountain. Hazel eyes, dark brows, a long, straight nose with wide nasal vaults – somehow French
colouring, Rachel thinks. He is not unattractive, quite handsome in fact, but exhibits no trace of sexuality – the neutering of British private schooling, or he has been docked by high-level politics.

She clutches the hand-grip as they veer over the brow of a hill and tip forward on the descent towards the river. The lane they are driving along is narrow. Undergrowth thrashes against the wheels and doors. Ahead, fallow fields, young woods, and the broad rippling shallows of the ford. The Earl prefers a safari route rather than the tarred roads latticing his land. The vehicle is stripped down and lacks comforts, an ex-army model, Rachel guesses, something of a toy.

I read about you in
Geographic
a few years ago, he is saying. Thought, there's a good local lass; hasn't she gone far. But people from here do, don't they – they range out around the globe – into all sorts of bother sometimes. And success, equally. You're from Keld? Parents still there?

No. My mother moved out a few years ago.

Lovely little parish, Keld. Cromwell's Army holed up in the church, you know, on the way to sort out those troublesome Scots. Oh, dear. Seems like we're back to all that again, aren't we? Have you read the white paper?

No, I haven't. I thought it was only released today?

Don't bother. It contains quite a lot of fantasy and nothing of a business plan. Interesting thoughts on ecology, though I suspect Caleb Douglas hasn't the courage, nor will he have the cash, to follow through.

Rachel nods again and says nothing. British politics have been off her radar for a long time. But she is aware of the reform plans across the border – public acquisition of private land, recalibration of resources – a notion that must make the likes of Thomas
Pennington more than a little uncomfortable. The BBC is full of debate about independence and the forthcoming referendum; she's been surprised by how close the polls are, how
troublesome
the matter is proving for Westminster. Perhaps sensing her reticence, the Earl continues his historical rhapsody of her home village.

The font in Keld church is medieval – a splendid piece. And there's a Viking hogback in the graveyard in excellent condition. What a lovely place to be brought up; how lucky you were. So, give me the potted history of Rachel Caine. You went to the grammar school, no doubt, then read biology, at Cambridge?

Zoology. I studied at Aberystwyth.

She does not mention the postgraduate work at Oxford, or the honorary fellowship. Let him assume.

Ah, Cymru! Excellent! Well, our future king is one of your alumni.

Not by choice, I imagine.

Thomas Pennington laughs, though she intended no humour.

Quite! Did you enjoy it? Must be a jolly good course if it produced you.

The Land Rover chassis clangs against a boulder. The river is fast approaching.

It was fine. It's a good department. I've gone back and given lectures there. We've taken one or two volunteers at Chief Joseph – sort of an exchange programme.

Marvellous! Yes, we must make opportunities for the young.

For all her companion's levity and volubility, the conversation is not easy. His enthusiasm borders on tyrannical, is giddying. She feels artless, unpractised; there are social mores at which she has become deskilled, if ever she was adequate. She cannot forget
who he is. Still, her required input seems minimal. Thomas Pennington is blithely able to cant and hold forth, despite the lack of reciprocity. She glances over at him. He is smiling broadly and seems very pleased.

And then it was off to America? Now, Rachel, have you noticed there are quite a few presidents with Reiver surnames? What do we make of that?

She does not reply. The Land Rover tips gamely over the riverbank. Rachel braces. Thomas Pennington pushes the accelerator hard and the engine roars. He leans over the steering wheel. She notices he is not wearing a safety belt. The vehicle dashes across the shingle bed, pebbles gouging up and growling in the wheel arches. River-water splatters the windscreen and streams away.

Geronimo!

On the far bank he brakes and throws the Land Rover into climbing gear. They grind up the steep thistle-covered slope, crushing the stalks underneath, the fronds rustling and squeaking. Rachel looks to the hills, and the dark creases between. Just talk, she thinks. Tell him what he wants to hear.

I worked in a rescue centre in Romania first. Then Belarus. There were problems with industrialisation and the packs coming into town. They ended up scavenging, getting bad press. Then I volunteered in Yellowstone, and then the Nez Perce job opened up. I didn't think I'd get it.

Of course you got it! Aberystwyth's premier zoologist!

Thomas Pennington slaps the dashboard with a palm, a flamboyant, almost fey action. She glances at him again. Is he mocking her? Or is it a campaign of flattery? He is, she supposes, likeable, or at least enthusiastic, a positivist. Perhaps rich as he is and influential, he has a social duty to be so. In profile, there's a boyish
brilliance to him, a Pan-like yaw. He has probably played all his life, despite the expectations, the serious nature of privilege, and the obligations of sitting in the House.