Sarah Hall - The Wolf Border

The thought passes. The blue van makes steady progress. By Manchester she begins to relax. The roads are relatively clear. She turns the radio on, then off again. The tarmac hums under the wheels. Her phone rings — the number unlisted. She does not answer. Probably Thomas, who was hoping to be present for their arrival, but is sitting in the House. Traffic slows over the ship canal. The road rises and falls, then everything speeds up again. There are multiple lanes around Preston, a cavalcade of undertaking and overtaking. She grips the wheel tightly, flashing her lights and cursing as a car veers between her and the transport van, across three lanes, onto the slip road. The northern cross motorways draw much of the traffic off. After Lancaster the way is clear. They exit the motorway and take the dual carriageway along the county’s southern edge. Oyster-coloured skies above Cumbria. The estuary glimmers in the sunlight. Shallow waves traverse its surface, moving both directions at once — a Janus tide.

She concentrates. It will take another hour to get to Annerdale. She signals to the van, overtakes, and leads the convoy — it is unlikely they will get lost but she doesn’t want to take the chance. They continue on, into the mountains, sedately, like some kind of royal procession, the diplomatic arrival of a crowned couple. And it is historic, she thinks. It’s five hundred years since their extermination on the island. They are a distant memory, a mythical thing. Britain has altered radically, as has her iconography of wilderness, her totems.

Once in situ, she knows they will divide the country, just as they will quarter the imagination again. Always the same polar arguments. Last year, during documentary filming at Chief Joseph, two hunters had shouted in her face. They devour their victims alive, while their hearts are still beating! They revel in death! As if the animals were some kind of biblical plague — many do believe it. She had calmly explained on camera the hierarchy and tactics of the hunt, the fact that eighty per cent of hunts fail; the fact that herds, after the culling of the weak by predators, are always healthier. Facts versus fear, hatred, and irrationality. As for glee during a kill, such a thing cannot be ascertained, though females seem to express great excitement the first time they hunt after a new litter has been weaned.

Ahead, the mountains seem to smoke, white clouds pluming above as if they were not dead volcanoes, but live. The new bracken is electric green in the lower valleys. She leaves Alexander a message, so that he will know to set off. She slows for a humpback bridge and sounds the horn to warn oncoming traffic, checks her rear-view mirror. The van is close behind, carefully navigating the narrow structure, its wing mirrors only inches from the stone walls. The screen is tinted; she cannot see the drivers. Its hold might be carrying anything: gold bullion, masterpieces, the body of Jesus Christ. There has not been a public announcement about the arrival — she does not want to risk any controversy. The Annerdale wolves are being brought in, to all intents and purposes, secretly, under the radar, like contraband.

In the quarantine enclosure, Rachel and Huib stand next to the crates, boiler-suited and disinfected, their hands placed on the sliding-door mechanisms. Outside the fence, Sylvia is filming. Alexander is with her, observing — he will do so every day for the next week and then weekly. Michael is not in attendance. A new deer carcass lies at the far end of the pen, wet, aromatic, freshly cut. After six months they will be freed into the main enclosure with the herds, as close to a hard release as possible.

The crates are silent, but the sedation will be lifting. Huib looks over at Rachel. He holds up a thumb — ready. Rachel signals back. They open the doors and step quickly behind the crates. In no more than a second or two the pair has bolted, the male a fraction faster, startlingly pale, with Merle hard at his heels. Huib punches the air.

Boom!

The wolves divide round a stack of logs, make for the end of the pen, and are lost from sight behind a cluster of bushes.

Let’s leave them to it, Rachel says.

She and Huib wheel the crates backward towards the gate, where they are stowed. They step into the disinfectant zone and change shoes, strip out of the boiler suits. Rachel shuts and locks the inner gate, which is screened. Although they can no longer be seen, they are well within the auditory and olfactory field, and will always be detected when this close to the pair. They wash down, strip out of the suits, exit the outer gate, and join Alexander and Sylvia in the viewing area. The pair have gone to ground and remain hidden from sight. The group speak in low tones, almost whispering, congratulating each other. Sylvia keeps the camera still and trained through the hide’s panel. Alexander nods to Rachel.

Looking good, very alert.

Let’s see if they eat anything, she says.

They take up their field glasses and wait. After five minutes, pointed ears come up out of the grass, then heads emerge. The wolves step out from behind the bushes, cautiously, sniffing, a forepaw held aloft. There’s a cold austerity to the male’s bluefired gaze, a rarity. Merle is quietly confident in the new surroundings; she beings to lope towards the carcass, investigates it, but does not eat. She returns to the male and he licks her muzzle. They make short forays, close together, in the bottom half of the pen, criss-crossing scent trails to the fence and back, keeping their noses to the ground, lifting them and reading the air. The enclosure is big, several hectares, though as quarantine progresses it will seem limited, Rachel knows, and will induce lazy behaviour, habituation. She has prepared a series of preventative tactics. In the centre of the pen is a pile of dead wood where it is likely they will den. They move closer, towards the hide. For a long while the male stands looking in the direction of the screen where the humans are hidden. The strong April sunlight renders his fur brilliant, pale gold and silver-white, like the blaze of a matchhead. He could almost set fire to the trees. He’s going to vanish, Rachel thinks, against the snow and the limestone pavements on the moors, against the blonde sward of the grassland.

I think he knows we’re still here, Sylvia says.

Ja. I feel like he knows what I had for breakfast, Huib says.

Alexander laughs quietly.

Muesli, and he’s not impressed.

He is going through a health checklist, ticking boxes, the first of many formal documents. They are inquisitive, their tails are up; there is no lethargy. A good score. Sylvia keeps recording.

I wish Mummy could have seen this, she says after a time. She was the one who first suggested the idea to Daddy. She’d be so, so happy.

Rachel glances over. This is the first mention of the project’s conception she has heard, and was not aware of the memorial aspect. Sylvia is dressed as a standard volunteer: T-shirt and jeans, a fleece jacket, work boots. Her face is not made up; her hair is tied back, though there is still a quality of refinement to her, a strange Martian beauty. She has spent her first full day on the project, preparing the carcass with Huib, answering the phone. There has been no cause to doubt her commitment, and now Rachel understands why. She is doing it for her dead mother, the most banal and powerful of all motivations.

The pair lope softly to the bottom of the enclosure again and disappear. Sylvia lowers and switches off the camera.

I’ll upload this when I get back to the office, she says. I’ll send it to Border News and the BBC. Daddy left us some champagne, by the way, if anyone feels like it.

This day gets better and better, Alexander says. Merle is a great name, by the way, Rachel. I saw The Dark Angel when I was a kid. I think I would have sent my best friend off to his death for Kitty Vane.