Sarah Hall - The Wolf Border

Doctor Dunning prompts gently.

Are you in a position where you might want a child?

Rachel does not reply. She doesn’t want a baby. She has never wanted a baby. A baby would be ridiculous. But how can she describe the feeling? The strange interest in it all, now that the situation pertains to her specifically. The mercurial days: fatal mornings when she is sure she wants rid of it, nights when the certainty evaporates. It’s as if some rhythm — circadian, immune, hormonal, she does not know which exactly — waxes and wanes and, with it, her rational mind. How can this be explained to the doctor?

I just didn’t think it would happen, she blurts. I’m not young.

Frances Dunning shakes her head, smiles very subtly.

You seem very healthy. And the commonly used data on fertility rates is a little past its sell-by, I’m afraid.

It was one night, Rachel says. I don’t have relationships. Just sex. I’m usually more careful when I–I wasn’t expecting this—

Doctor Dunning leans forward slightly and tilts her head. The confession, this new information, is clearly worrisome.

How many partners have you had in the last year, would you say?

Five, maybe. Six.

Last sexual health check?

A couple of years ago.

OK. We can discuss the pregnancy options again when you’ve thought a little more, but shall we do a few tests now? Just to be on the safe side.

Yes, alright.

I’ll buzz for the nurse.

She presses an intercom and they wait.

I know none of this is ideal, Rachel says, almost apologetically.

She feels annoyed with herself, and like an undergraduate. The doctor turns to face her again.

Well, it’s true. Children are life-altering. You’re right to think it all through.

Her hands are held close together, turned slightly outward and upward, as if holding something — an imaginary baby, perhaps.

If the pregnancy continues, she says, we’d need to think about booking you in with the midwife, and a first scan around now. And possible screening. But I’m not going to push you. You’re on our system, which is good.

There’s a knock on the door and a uniformed nurse enters the room, carrying sterile swabs. They move into the curtained section. Rachel strips below the waist and lies down on the paper-covered table. The lamp is repositioned. The speculum inserted, swabs taken. It is a brief, inoffensive examination. The nurse hands her tissues and leaves. She re-dresses. Doctor Dunning is typing up notes on the computer. Rachel sits and waits for her to finish.

I’ll get those sent off, she says. The results will take about a week. But why don’t I call you in a few days, if that’s convenient? Where do you work — can I reach you there?

The Annerdale estate, and yes.

Lovely.

I’m managing the reintroduction project.

Oh, the wolves. I read something in the Gazette about that. It’s all going ahead then?

It is.

Will it be open to the public? My kids would love to go.

Possibly, once they’re settled. Though it’ll be more a programme than a park.

Rachel feels slightly redeemed; she is not a complete mess, not without professional skills, she would like that known by the woman sitting opposite. The doctor glances discreetly at the clock on her desk. She would probably like to continue the conversation, the subject is unusual, but she is running behind. Twelve minutes have passed.

OK, Rachel. Have a think. Here are some leaflets, with advice lines, just in case.

She hands Rachel a sheaf of pamphlets.

We’ll speak in a few days?

Yes. Thanks.

Rachel stands. If she had anticipated resolution, here and now, backed into a moral or medical corner, it has not occurred. If anything, the meeting has left her feeling more confused. Frances Dunning moves to the door and opens it courteously.

These decisions are not easy. Best of luck. By the way, where are the wolves coming from? The paper didn’t say.

Eastern Europe. They arrive next month.

Goodness me! That’s amazing. Probably no need to ask, but you are up to date with your rabies vaccinations?

Rachel smiles and nods.

Yes, the doctor says. Of course you are.

In the car she sits and tries to think it all through, logically, while rain drums on the roof of the Saab and patients limp in and out of the surgery, closing and opening the blades of umbrellas, clutching paper pharmacy bags. She cannot imagine a baby, certainly not in relation to herself as its mother. She has barely ever held one, let alone changed a nappy. But here she is, delaying, ruminating, caught between states. Shouldn’t she know what she wants: what to do and how to do it?

She starts the car, puts it in reverse, and pulls out of the bay. She thinks of Moll and Tungsten, all the past animals she has worked with. They know. Or some part of their system knows and there is no thought. Year after year, she’s witnessed the behaviour of the reproductive females, in their oestrus periods, the sequences and solicitation, prancing, rolling on their backs. Even the naïve ones understand how to act when the time comes. Instinct activates, makes them turn their tails to the side, help the males mount them. Parenting is intuited. The loss of belly hair. How to nibble away the thin membrane surrounding the newborn pups. They have no choice.

What use are higher faculties now, Rachel thinks, as she indicates and pulls out onto the road. Cognition and invention, the internal combustion engine, intermittent wipers, peace treaties and poetry, the Homo Sapiens’ thumb and tongue? Is optionality really evolutionary ascent when it leads to paralysis? She switches the wiper blades to full, and steers through the hard rain, back to the estate.

*

At first her brother will not even consider meeting without his wife present, like some kind of despotic moderator. Rachel holds the phone to her ear, listening to the silence. At any moment she expects him to hang up or for the despot herself to come on the line and ring-fence Lawrence. Her main offence of the last few months, it seems, has been to offend Emily.

Emily thinks you’re going to cause trouble, Lawrence finally says. She hasn’t forgiven you for the funeral. It was incredibly difficult, Rachel, doing it all without you.

Be calm, she thinks. Be calm, be reasonable, stay neutral. Don’t fail at the first move.

I wasn’t invited, she says, keeping her voice even. And it was made very clear to me during our last conversation that I shouldn’t come.

Lawrence becomes slightly petulant, his voice wavers.

It was a hard time for everyone. But you could have come anyway. She was our mother.

Yes, Lawrence, she was our mother.

Possession, inference, the terrible shared knowledge of Binny. There’s another long pause in what is already a deeply punctured conversation.

Emily knows all about the past, Lawrence says, I’ve told her. She always made an effort with Mum.

She does not know everything, Rachel thinks. Whatever power imbalance or folie à deux exists between her brother and his wife, she is certain Emily has little more than the basic facts about life with Binny at her disposal. Her brother’s naïvety is staggering. She wills herself not to point out the obvious: that it was an unpassable test to set, coming to the funeral against the wishes of her sister-in-law. That the death of their mother is, at the end of the day, none of Emily’s business. But the call is intended as placatory. The truth is, she does not like the idea of losing her brother, much as she has been telling herself that she could live with it. And for her brother’s sake, they should fix what needs fixing. He does not have the disposition for war; she can hear the upset in his voice. Better to subtly out-flank the wife.