Sarah Hall - The Wolf Border

It suits you, Rachel, he says. You look like a fertility goddess. Listen, go and have a wee.

Excuse me?

She pauses by the door. His legs are sprawled, giant rimed feet sticking up at the bottom of the bed, his arms resting along the headboard. The sheets are spun about, twisted and half draped on the floor.

Helen got a few urine infections when she was pregnant with Chloe. You’re more vulnerable. And after that –

He gestures expansively over the bed, palm open, as if to suggest an area where an extreme event or ruin had taken place. He is grinning, pleased with himself.

What? she says.

You thought I really was being a pervert. With the weeing thing. Doctor’s orders.

You’re not out of the woods yet, she says.

She pads down to the kitchen, the loam of semen slipping between her thighs. She opens the refrigerator door. No beer. Upstairs she can hear creaking as Alexander moves in the bed and stands up. The shunt of the window being opened wider. She drinks a glass of water at the kitchen sink. She fills another glass of water for him. Overhead, the footsteps of a hefty man walking to the bathroom, the drill of urine into the toilet bowl, and, midstream, a casual fart. He flushes. He returns to the bedroom, gets back into bed. This is new, she thinks. She can’t remember the last time she spent a full night with a man. She heads back up with the water.

Later, she lies with him behind her, his arm cantilevered over her hip. He breathes deeply, sound asleep. She lies awake, her leg aching from lying in the same position. The baby is still, has been still for the last few hours. Finally, she moves his arm and turns over. She places a pillow between her legs, and after a few moments drifts off. At some point in the night she has an anxiety dream, in which she is carrying the baby downstairs, knowing she will drop it, and then she does drop it. Panic as she rifles through the blankets and finds that the baby has shrunk, is tiny and red and vascular; she cannot tell what damage has been done by the fall. She wakes, turns over, rests her forehead against Alexander’s back, and sleeps again.

An hour later his phone alarm sounds — the Doctor Zhivago theme tune — confusing and slightly ridiculous. She is half awake, watching the greenish, alchemic dawn filter into the room. He rolls and groans softly as the alarm sounds again. Then he gets up in one swift determined move, as if from his own bed, searches for his boxers on the floor and puts them on, a man on automatic, used to forcing himself into action in the early hours. Rachel lies still, wondering how to tackle the situation. Is it better to feign sleep? He goes downstairs, not silently by any means, but considerately. She can hear him dressing, the clink of his belt, a tired cough. After a few moments of quiet she is sure he will leave, or has already left, but then she hears cupboard doors opening and shutting, the clink of crockery and the throaty purr of the kettle. He comes back upstairs. She lifts her head from the pillow.

Tea, he says. Keighley style. It’s the perfect temperature in case you’re wondering.

Thanks. What time is it?

Five-thirty.

She groans. He takes a sip of tea and deposits the cup on the table, sits on the bed. She puts her face back into the soft swale of bedding. She feels him reach a hand under the sheet and fondle her bottom. Then he pulls the sheet down to her midriff, sighs, and stands.

You make it difficult to leave.

I’m not doing anything. I’m just lying here.

Exactly. So, shall I take you to dinner then?

She looks up at him.

Tonight?

Tonight.

I’ve got a meeting this afternoon. Can I ring you when I’m done?

Great. See you later.

He has taken this as agreement: a date. She wonders if she should clarify. But it’s too early to think about what might be set in motion, and what might not. He bends down and kisses her on the cheek.

Bye. I had a very nice time, goddess.

Bye.

She tries to summon sleep but cannot. The racket of birds in the garden, the insistent light, her own restlessness. There are thumps against the walls of her stomach, a pedalling sensation low down — the little being inside her, causing her to have strange wild dreams and capable now, according to the literature, of dreaming itself. Though what dreams could it possibly have? she wonders. Textures and sounds, a man and a woman’s voices like weather outside, the surrounding meat contracting and turning golden. She sits up and drinks the tea, which has become tepid. Outside the sky is primary-coloured, the red bladder of the sun coming up between the trees. Another thump, stronger, so that her abdomen jumps visibly. A reflex action, but it feels like intent. At the midwife appointment next week she will have to mention the clash of events in the diary — her due date, and the pair being released from quarantine into the main enclosure. She puts her hand on her belly, over the jerking spot. Don’t you dare, she thinks, don’t you dare be the first one out.

That afternoon she meets with Michael Stott and a representative from the county’s deer management group, Neville Wilson, in a snug sitting room in the Hall — a rather old-fashioned venue, with leather chairs and a low table, a stag’s head mounted on the wall, pictures of athletic black dogs. Rachel senses a certain pastiche irony in the décor. The two men are old friends, it seems, and are bantering when she arrives. A do at the rugby club, someone too drunk to get home, bugger would not give up his key, so the Crusaders tipped his car onto its side . Michael has on a tie and blazer, is dressed with respect for the venue, as is the rep, a raw blond man in a green twill suit. Coffee has been left for them, as usual, on the sideboard, and a stack of elegant shortbreads. They each help themselves; no one is willing to play mother. The room is hot, though the windows are open; the men remove their jackets, white shirts pressed by their wives underneath.

‘Stotty’, the rep keeps calling Michael. He — Nev — outlines the situation for Rachel. Aerial and foot counts of the Annerdale herds have shown that numbers are too high. A cull will begin the following month. They do not want to wait until the wolves are released. They do not want to risk disease. One final shooting season on the estate is what you mean, she thinks, a last hurrah. But she does not argue; she is not in disagreement with the plan. Michael is keen to walk her through the logistics, and speaks as if to a novice. He places the leather wallet of rolling tobacco and a box of matches in front of him, and taps the table to emphasise certain points. His fingernails are thick and clubbed, encasing the tips of his fingers.

It’ll be the sickest first, those that won’t survive the winter. Then we’ll take a mix from the rest of the herd. Stags first, hinds and associated calves. We’ll be done by close of September on the stags. They tend to get skinny after the rut.

The rep chips in.

I do assure you, it’s humane, Mrs Caine. We use soft-lead expanders this side of the border. There’s no chance of them limping off half fettled.

The patronising tone is annoying and offensive — perhaps deliberately so. They are communicating as if with a tourist from the city, someone for whom the untimely death of any animal is an atrocity. No doubt they have discussed her before her arrival, formulated a strategy even.

Glad to hear it, Mr Wilson, she says. Where I’ve been living, there’s a trend for semi-automatics. Very messy. They like crossbows, too — no permits are needed. The amount of deer I’ve seen walking along with arrows sticking out of their backsides, you wouldn’t believe.

Neville Wilson laughs — the joke is on his level. Buried in the comment, were he clever enough to interpret it, is the accusation that he is the undergraduate, trumped by the bigger business of American sport. The polite rituals of British deer hunting, the stalk, the language, the weaponry, would seem laughable to the average Idahoan — something out of another age. Michael Stott remains silent, damned if he’ll be entertained by Rachel’s comments. She turns to him.