Sarah Hall - The Wolf Border

Feeling alright? she asks.

Yes. I think so. A bit –

Like a loaf of bread?

Yes, actually.

Rachel is helped to sit up slowly. The obstetrician writes in the maternity notes and then leaves. The medical student asks a few more questions, then leaves too. The cannula begins to itch in the back of her hand. She and the baby will be monitored for an hour or so then allowed to go home. After a while, Jan knocks and comes halfway into the room, leaning round the door.

Success?

Seems so, Rachel says.

Jan jabs her thumb up, like a teenage boy.

Good one. Now, just stay that way, little one. No cartwheels, please.

How about you? Rachel asks. Success?

Yes, I better get back in; she’s nearly on the go now. See you next week, luvvie. We’ll talk about our options then.

The door closes. The building radiates quiet, though is discreetly busy, departments bustling in other wings. Her mother’s final hours were spent here, in the AMU of the same hospital, while the medics did everything but resuscitate. Binny was not cogent, Rachel was told by the care home manager; she probably saw nothing beyond the thick walls of her unconsciousness. She wonders if Lawrence feels easier about their mother’s decision to end her life — they have not talked about it. She imagines Binny lying on a trolley, the tubes, the report of machines, the final call made. An old woman in her eighties, no one knowing anything about the life she has lived. Lawrence arrived an hour after she was declared dead; she struck out alone, which would not have scared her. Now, Rachel will probably give birth in the same hospital, and a little piece of Binny will continue on. The prosaic event of birth, being replicated millions of times the world over, every minute of the day, except that it is happening to her, and it feels extraordinary, rare, nearly impossible, now that it is so close.

*

A week of suffering gigantism and soreness. Her abdomen aches. Her lower vertebrae feel displaced, and there’s a grinding feeling against her ligaments. Her bladder goes into overdrive. The sensible portion of her brain kicks in and she stays home, does not go to the wolfery or the office, or even try to get into the car. She reads, lies on the bed surrounded by a mountain of stacked pillows, or wallows in the bath. The delivery van brings groceries. She cannot stop eating apples, four or five a day, until her stomach gripes. She cancels the breakfast appointment with Thomas — now is not the time to tackle him — the fence has been mended, and she wants to concentrate on the release, be as fit and rested as possible. It feels almost like training for a marathon: the endurance, the daily limits, the stairs almost defeating her. She tells Alexander — kindly, she hopes — not to come. She is terrible company, she says. He still comes, after work; he brings fish and chips from town, cool and vinegary in the wrapper, delicious. They sit by the fire for an hour, not speaking much, watching the flames flickering in the grate, greenish from copper deposits in the wood. He fetches more logs in for her, hulking a great quantity in one go. She can’t say she isn’t grateful.

I don’t know why human gestation evolved like this, she says. If I were out there in the wild I’d get picked off in a minute.

You’d just have stayed in the cave, he says. On a pile of furs.

Two days later, Sylvia arrives with a basket of exotic fruit and best wishes from everyone on the project. There are pineapples and mangoes, dragon fruit — no apples. The arrangement looks like something out of a still-life painting.

I’m not ill, Rachel says.

I know. But Huib says you’re probably living on baked beans and toast. I’ve got to make sure you eat something good. I’ve got to report back. No arguments.

Rachel stands aside, and Sylvia carries the enormous basket into the cottage kitchen. They sit drinking tea outside in the garden, Sylvia in her expensive Karrimor jacket with the Annerdale project logo stitched on, Rachel wrapped in a tartan blanket, though she is if anything too warm these days, overheated by the extra weight and blood. It is the first insistently cold day of autumn, a true October day. Already there’s talk of a bad winter coming.

I do love this little cottage, Sylvia says, looking around. I’m so glad you stayed on.

Rachel is, too. She feels settled. There’s a brilliance to the woods around the cottage, as they fire up, deep reds and golds; the treetops frisk in the breeze. In the upper quadrant of sky are long wobbling Vs of migrating geese. They drink the pot of tea and talk about the release. Sylvia has been working hard with the press and liaising with the BBC, which is making a documentary on the wolves; one of the most respected cameramen in the country will be arriving the following week — a coup for the project. Overall the affair will remain low-key. Sylvia has displayed an impressive sensitivity towards the animals and their privacy, turning down requests to attend the event while maintaining goodwill with all the charm, grace, and wiles of one schooled in the art of diplomacy. A benign version of her father. The subject of law school raises itself again.

Honestly, I’m not sure I want to go. I don’t want to disappoint Daddy, but this year has been wonderful. It’s felt, I don’t know, worthwhile. I’d like to stay on.

Rachel nods, feeling a little wrong-footed by the confession, though it is not unexpected: Sylvia has been hinting as much for months. What can she say? Do as you feel, do as you like. This is the Earl’s daughter — is she really at liberty to choose her life’s path? The girl doesn’t have the look of a lawyer to her; she would surely have to activate some grade of occupational distain and cynicism that would ruin her best qualities.

I can’t really advise you, Rachel says. This is what I do, and I love it — everything I say will be biased.

It’s your calling, I know I’m just not sure what mine is. I suppose one day it’ll be this.

This being the estate, Rachel assumes. Sylvia’s enormous dollish eyes become wistful. There are tiny suggestions of lines at their corners, though she is no doubt protecting her complexion from the outdoor work with top-of-the-range products. She’s easy to like, easy to be around — even for Rachel, who has eschewed close female friends for most of her life. At worst she is an innocent, a naïf, unaware of the vast gap between her and the rest of the country; at best a romantic, good in the marrow, one might forgive her the privileges. But then, what presents, even genuinely, may not be truly authentic, as Rachel knows. She remains uncommitted to the friendship.

Mummy would have said don’t let the idea of what you should do get in the way of what you want to do, Sylvia is saying. She didn’t like the idea of sacrificial duty.

How old were you when she died?

Twelve.

That’s tough.

Sylvia blinks, but there are no tears. Enough time, and perhaps counselling over the years, to have quashed — or at least checked — the grief. She tilts her head, rubs her ear on the shoulder of her jacket, keeps her hands wrapped around the warm mug of tea.

Leo had it much worse. He was a teenager. He was having a really bad time already — at school, and here. He saw the crash, poor thing.

Rachel is startled by the abrupt revelation.

You mean he saw the microlight go down?

Sylvia nods.

That must have been traumatic.

There is so little talk about Leo Pennington. He is the great unspoken subject of Annerdale — as if some pact has been made within the family. Only the staff gossip, speculating about whether he has been written out of the will. Rachel can’t say she isn’t curious. The tenor of the discussion now seems permissive — confidential, even. She risks a gentle line of enquiry.