Sarah Hall - The Wolf Border

Rachel is past hunger and so tired that cruelty begins to creep in. The knotty hands and flaccid jowls, the drooping and slippage of body parts, begins to look grotesque. The tablecloth is garish with sauce stains. They spill. They tremble. They are ghouls that have passed over the borders of worthwhile existence into demented limbo. Such life-support isn’t natural, she thinks. They should be assisted. Last year she and Kyle performed an autopsy on Nab, the oldest male in the Chief Joseph pack, who was killed by a young adoptee, Tungsten. The collar was still signalling; they got to his body quickly, so he was fresh on the slab, slack, his hind legs gristle-edged, the penis retracted. On his forelegs were old battle scars. The bite marks in his neck were not survivable. But humanity’s demise, she thinks, is dreadful. We eke it out, limp on, medicate, become expensively compromised. For humans there will be no final status fights, no usurping, no healthy death. Decay continues, on and on. Only merciful ends come quickly or during sleep.

After dinner, she and Binny get ready for bed and squabble about who will use the bathroom first. Though a shadow of herself, her mother will not relinquish authority.

You look like shit. Black circles under your eyes and everything. Just get to bed.

I’m fine. I have to spend days on end awake, when I’m in the field.

You’re my guest and you’ll go when I say, my girl.

My girl . Rachel is too tired to fight — why stymie what little control Binny still has? She showers and cleans her teeth. She can hear her mother bickering with Milka, the Polish orderly, in the living room.

The folding cot is hard and narrow, bowed in the middle, but after a moment or two the room stops kiltering, the static in her ears quietens, and she is unconscious. All night, she barely moves, waking only once in confusion, not knowing where she is. In the morning she is woken properly by light through the unclosed curtains, and Milka, getting her mother up.

Not much on the sheets today, Binny. That’s better. Well done.

Get that leg out of the way, Milka. Must you poke me about?

Rachel lies on the cot, looking out the window at the flat grey sky. She checks her phone. There is no news from Kyle, which isn’t a bad thing. The transmitters fail; sometimes they are pulled off; sometimes they give out. She imagines Left Paw climbing over boulders, bounding up off his powerful back legs, crossing the plains and forests, covering miles in search of a mate. Then she pictures him splayed in the undergrowth, muzzle open, eyes slit, blood around the entry wounds. Since the harvest quota was increased, the workers are never without worry, even on the Reservation where they are protected. The hunters still come for them in planes, or on foot, using electric calls and giving false coordinates when they turn in their tags.

The grey unobstructed sky seems unreal. England is unreal, a forgotten version, with only a few pieces of evidence to validate it — and Rachel’s memories. Even her mother can’t be identified. In an hour, the Earl will be taking t’ai chi, like a new-age prince, some kind of attempt to revolutionise a decrepit system. She can’t help but feel she shouldn’t have come back, even as a courtesy. She watches the sky and listens to her mother bossing the orderly. Don’t yank me, Milka! Do they do it this way in Krakow? Rachel gets up, stumbles through to the living room. On the radio the news headlines are being broadcast — the search for a missing child in the Midlands, release of the much-anticipated Scottish national white paper, the wettest autumn on record. There is only instant coffee in the tiny kitchenette. She makes a strong cup, adds sugar, waits for the bathroom. Her mind drifts back to Chief Joseph and the pack. By now they might have covered a hundred miles. Tungsten will be leading the others after the migrating deer, through the high snowdrifts, each using the same efficient track. The further north they go, the safer they will be.

*

Thomas Pennington drives himself, but only around Annerdale, he tells Rachel as they tour the estate, not on public roads. What with all the functions, he can never be sure he isn’t over the limit. Doesn’t want to shunt anyone. Or take out a horse. Or roll the Landy. The Land Rover bumps across fields, alongside hawthorn hedges, over hummocks and ditches, at a fair speed. Rachel holds the strap above the passenger door, rocks in her seat, and listens as he regales her. Besides, he can get a lot of work done on the train — wifi — and the Pendolino from Oxenholme now gets in to London in a matter of a few hours — extraordinary, when he was a boy it took six or seven.

You probably remember, he says, everything went through Crewe.

She nods. Many of his questions are rhetorical. It is hard to know whether a reply is necessary. He is a tall man, as elegant as she expected despite his informal attire, corduroy breeches, plaid shirt, and jacket — his knees jut upward as he drives. She gauges his age; late fifties, sixty, perhaps, with slightly greying hair, though a full, gusting crown of it, envied among men of his generation, no doubt. His face is temperate, devoid of obvious stress, like the south side of a mountain. Hazel eyes, dark brows, a long, straight nose with wide nasal vaults — somehow French colouring, Rachel thinks. He is not unattractive, quite handsome in fact, but exhibits no trace of sexuality — the neutering of British private schooling, or he has been docked by high-level politics.

She clutches the hand-grip as they veer over the brow of a hill and tip forward on the descent towards the river. The lane they are driving along is narrow. Undergrowth thrashes against the wheels and doors. Ahead, fallow fields, young woods, and the broad rippling shallows of the ford. The Earl prefers a safari route rather than the tarred roads latticing his land. The vehicle is stripped down and lacks comforts, an ex-army model, Rachel guesses, something of a toy.

I read about you in Geographic a few years ago, he is saying. Thought, there’s a good local lass; hasn’t she gone far. But people from here do, don’t they — they range out around the globe — into all sorts of bother sometimes. And success, equally. You’re from Keld? Parents still there?

No. My mother moved out a few years ago.

Lovely little parish, Keld. Cromwell’s Army holed up in the church, you know, on the way to sort out those troublesome Scots. Oh, dear. Seems like we’re back to all that again, aren’t we? Have you read the white paper?

No, I haven’t. I thought it was only released today?

Don’t bother. It contains quite a lot of fantasy and nothing of a business plan. Interesting thoughts on ecology, though I suspect Caleb Douglas hasn’t the courage, nor will he have the cash, to follow through.

Rachel nods again and says nothing. British politics have been off her radar for a long time. But she is aware of the reform plans across the border — public acquisition of private land, recalibration of resources — a notion that must make the likes of Thomas Pennington more than a little uncomfortable. The BBC is full of debate about independence and the forthcoming referendum; she’s been surprised by how close the polls are, how troublesome the matter is proving for Westminster. Perhaps sensing her reticence, the Earl continues his historical rhapsody of her home village.

The font in Keld church is medieval — a splendid piece. And there’s a Viking hogback in the graveyard in excellent condition. What a lovely place to be brought up; how lucky you were. So, give me the potted history of Rachel Caine. You went to the grammar school, no doubt, then read biology, at Cambridge?

Zoology. I studied at Aberystwyth.