Sarah Hall - The Wolf Border

There’s no need.

No, there is. And I’m sorry for everything this last year.

In fact, the last thing Rachel wants is an apology — the hollow, unendurable victory of that. This declawed version of her sister-in-law still seems wrong. Shadows have begun to spool into the garden and the light is suddenly murky. To the portentous west, the sound of thunder, a long, deep tear, and there’s a distinctive smell: wet herbs, cordite, the precursor of rain. Something big is about to unleash. She cannot, in all good conscience, send Emily away.

We should go inside, she says. I’m going to make some pasta. It’s about all I want to eat these days. You can have some with me.

She stands. Emily nods and stands also.

You look really well, she says again.

In the kitchen Rachel pours Emily a glass of wine, and quickly throws together a meal. The two do not speak much but there is a tenuous accord — enough to get through the evening. The rain begins, not with torrid, dehumidifying power, but a slow, intermittent shower, dysuric. Then the battering downpour comes, drenching everything. Emily catches Rachel looking at the clock.

I’ve ruined your evening, she says.

No, you haven’t, Rachel assures her, but I do have to phone someone. And I think you should stay — you don’t want to drive back in this.

After a quiet, reflective dinner, with limited conversation, they retire to bed. Emily does not expand on Lawrence’s problems and Rachel does not push, nor are they keen to stray into the mined territory of the past. Emily borrows a T-shirt to sleep in, bids Rachel goodnight, and heads into the spare room. She seems less distraught, more resolved, though her frame of mind is hard to gauge. Although tired from the night before, Rachel cannot sleep. The house seems to ring with the presence of her brother’s wife, but when Rachel goes to the bathroom, the spare room is silent and no lamp light filters under the doorway into the hallway. It occurs to her that her brother might be far less together than she’d always assumed, his proclivities far darker. Sara. Can it be true he has a mistress? The word, the idea, seems ridiculous. And what is the worse scenario Emily alluded to? Her mind shifts though fantastic, disturbing images: sex workers in the backstreets of Leeds, STD clinics.

She fidgets under the sheets. They smell of Alexander: oniony, a man’s sweat and fluids. It was past eight when she called him — the phone went straight to voicemail and she left a brief, poorly explained message. She did not mention Emily. He has not called back. It is likely that he thinks her uninterested — God knows, she has perfected the impression over the years. After an hour or two’s restlessness, she gets up, dresses, lets herself out of the cottage quietly, and walks to the wolfery. The rain is easing off. Between the clouds is a giant, tallow lobe of moon. The woods are still, giving nothing up, not a whisper. She walks carefully, so as not to trip, though the path is easy to see in the whitish moonlight.

When she arrives at the quarantine pen, she goes into the hide and looks through one of the night-vision cameras. They are at the bottom, by the fence, nosing through the grass and chewing. They are likely searching for large insects, mice, a toad, any living thing to kill, such is the boredom of being fed. Or perhaps they have found early mushrooms. After a while, they move up towards the hide, into plain view, their coats strangely highlighted, eyes eerie bulbs of light. Darkness is liberty for them, but what comes in darkness to challenge their dominance is the worst thing they face. Another pack, ambushing. Humans. Juggernauts on the highway. Tonight they are playful. Ra trots alongside and then passes Merle, falls back, passes her again. He rises on his hind legs, circles his head, like a boxer. He tugs at her ruff. The day’s languid canine is gone. He is a night hunter, like the legend. Though he is big, he is agile, and will be good at taking rabbits, she thinks, if he can learn to chicane through the heather. Their feed is being carefully weighed and given just once a week, but they are still well bulked. There is fat under their skin, around their hearts, kidneys, and in the marrow of their leg bones. Once they are released and have to go to work, the stores will be reabsorbed. Ra rolls on his back, rubbing the top of his head backward and forward on the ground, his legs kicking, dopey, submissive. Merle stands over him. Rachel smiles. It is at night that they give up their secrets, that they seem most sacred to her: ghost-like, elegant, and frivolous.

She leans back against the hide wall and watches them until she begins to feels better, less anxious. They pad soundlessly, even when they are within thirty metres of her. They do not howl. The nightly border tests of the first few weeks have lapsed into occasional bouts, their heads tilted back, throats perfectly straight to a funnelled point. Kyle had a trick for setting them off, if they were close by on the Reservation — he would howl mournfully until they howled back. Acceptable human interference, he called it. She is thinking of him less now. Their communication has been polite, but infrequent. The moral question still hangs over her, but time and distance are making it easier.

She arrives home a little after 5 a.m. It is already light. The Audi is gone. Inside there is a note on the kitchen table. Thank you and sorry again . She screws the paper up and puts it in the bin. She is tired now, even though the day is brightening and the birds are singing. Upstairs, the spare bed is made, as if never slept in, the T-shirt left folded neatly on top. She thinks about calling Lawrence, but the hour is too early and the fight — whatever it was really about — is not her business. What would she say? Don’t upset your wife . No. She goes to her bedroom and lies down on her side, puts a pillow under her belly. An hour’s rest, and then she will get up and go to work.

*

The midwife is a woman in her mid-sixties, with ash-grey curls and a stiff hip, past retirement age but not, it seems, retiring anytime soon. Her name is Jan. She is from Workington and sounds fractionally Irish, like many of the older residents along the west coast. She sits at her desk, one leg held straight out in front of her to relieve the pinch in the joint. On the desk is a lumpen, hardwood sculpture, a souvenir from her time working in the Botswanan clinics. Her uniform is deeply unflattering: brown, waist-less, almost a military tunic. But her manner is that of a jovial, life-worn aunt, someone who has seen and countenanced much, and has managed, through sheer will or remarkable fortitude, not to become jaded. She laughs frequently, chides the baby for hiding behind the placenta when she is trying to listen to the heartbeat.

Come out, you little beggar.

She moves the device.

No, now that’s coming through the cord.

Finally she finds a clear sound and is pleased. Rachel’s growth is measured. More blood is taken. They discuss a birth plan — birth wish list, as Jan prefers to call it, since plans often have to be altered. She expresses mild concern about a home birth — Annerdale is a fair distance from the hospital, it is a first birth — but is not unconfident about Rachel’s choice, her health. She is used to rural deliveries. She is nurse-trained, able to catheterise and perform episiotomies. Twenty-eight weeks: the baby is viable.

You’ve got the main centre number and delivery suite number, Jan says, but I’m going to give you my mobile. I’ve got NHS enhanced reception, so you can get me anytime. Anything at all, you just pick up the phone to me, luvvie. Now, tell me how you’re getting on generally.

Rachel lists the discomforts, the pelvic pains, the heartburn, all standard. Walking to the enclosure takes an extra ten minutes, and often she feels winded. She can hear her own heart banging away when her right ear is on the pillow. Jan is sympathetic.