Sarah Hall - The Wolf Border

So you breed wolves then, Rachel. Are you having a wolf today?

I wouldn’t be surprised.

Good luck with that.

After they are done, she is helped to lie back down. Her legs begin to numb. They apply ice — she cannot feel the cold, just wetness. They attach heart-rate monitors to her chest, take her blood pressure again, insert the catheter.

All alright so far? the anaesthetist asks her.

Alright, she says.

Off we go then. We’ll be done in a flash.

The trolley is wheeled forward, through the theatre doors. It is going ahead, there is no choice. A different midwife is in the room — one she has never met — Jan must be on call. She is suddenly afraid. She is not as tough as she thought she was, or wants to be. When Alexander dropped her off at 6 a.m., her heart was barking madly; he had hugged her, told her it would be easy, said he would see her afterwards, and she had calmed a little. Lawrence, too, is driving up from Leeds and will visit her this evening, by which point she might be up and about. In the end, she does need them.

There are lights in the theatre, great bright discs. Staff in scrubs and hats — the consultant is smiling. She has met her before, cannot remember her name.

Hello, Rachel, she says. Doing OK?

Yes, OK.

Good. Everything’s looking very good. Ready to meet the little one?

I think so.

What else can she say amid the banal, undramatic language of the medical world? How will I be a mother? Will I feel love? Her identity is checked again. The sheets go up, partitioning her.

Don’t worry, the midwife says. Soon be done.

The painkillers seem to have a mild sedative effect too. People are talking to her. She does not know if they have started the operation. There is someone beside her head, trying to get her attention — the ODP, Sam. Sam, with her lively blue eyes and boy’s face. Talk of holidays and a recently read book. They are still positioning her, she thinks, there is the sensation of pressure, things moving, pulling, but no real feeling. Then she realises, because of what the consultant is saying, that they have opened her up. She puts her head back, and her breaths begin to come unevenly.

I’m sorry, she says, though she does not know to whom she is apologising. Kyle? Binny? The baby?

Alright? Sam asks.

No. I don’t know, she whispers.

You know, I remember seeing some wolves when I was a kid, Sam says. In a park. There were a load of other animals too. Do you know the one I mean?

Where was it?

Near Penrith, I think.

Setterah Keep, Rachel says.

Yeah, Setterah, that was the name. Did you ever go?

I lived near there when I was a kid. We must be about the same age.

What, twenty-one — good for us, hey.

No. I don’t know –

The ODP takes and squeezes her hand, the gesture unequivocal.

Sometimes helps to close your eyes, Rachel. Some people even go off to sleep for a bit.

Do they?

They do. May as well get a nap before the bawling at 4 a.m. starts.

Rachel closes her eyes. How many minutes have passed? She forces herself to breathe deeper, slower.

Good stuff, Sam says. I think I tried to feed them a hotdog once through the bars. I got a right bollocking.

Rachel breathes and tries to imagine a still place inside, the well of the self, where a person is unreachable. There was talk of it at Chief Joseph, in the sweat lodges, the mind was let go there.

You’re doing great, Mum.

Rachel breathes. There is darkness, perhaps a drug. And then she thinks, Where are you, Mum? She feels something hot slide from her eye. She feels Binny letting go of her hand. Be brave, my girl . And she is walking. Through a gate, into the woods, where there are green pathways between trunks and the quiet of the trees all around. The ground underfoot is soft, tides of needles spilled from the pines. She walks into the forest. It is there, where she knew it would be. It is standing on the path in front of her, head turned and lowered, yellow eyes. A creature long and grey. It is standing in the shadows of the branches, earth on its back and on the bridge of its nose, where it has been digging underneath the wire. Small, clever, yellow eyes. It blinks and turns its head and lopes into the trees.

There is the sound of crying, a pitch from a liminal realm, though she is sure she’s heard it before somewhere. She opens her eyes and lifts her head. There are surgeons at her waist, draped in blue, busy. The midwife is coming towards her holding a sheet in her arms; two tiny red fists are rising from the folds.

Here he is, the midwife says. He’s got a very good shout. He’s not sure about being in this world at all, are you?

She lowers the bundle towards Rachel, and Rachel lifts her hand and reaches out and touches the flailing arm. Blood warm. There is still blood on him, and the white vernix. His skin. His dark hair. His mouth is open — soft, asking tissue, like the gape of a bird. His eyes are tight shut as he wails, and there is a tremendous crease in his forehead.

You’ve got a little hero.

Rachel nods. She cannot stop looking, as if seeing him will confirm it.

Can I have him?

Just a few more bits to do, the midwife says, then I’ll bring him back to you for some skin to skin and we can really get going.

She moves away and Rachel rests her head back down. Don’t take him, she thinks. Give him to me, he’s mine. She watches as he is administered to. Is he alright? He must be alright. They are placing him on the scales, checking reflexes. She wants to get up and go over there, pick him up. The surgeons are at her waist, taking too long. She doesn’t care. There seems no need for anything else now. There is no wound. The only wound is life, recklessly creating it, knowing that it will never be safe, it will never last; it will only ever be real.

December. She has become the servant of winter. The early darkness keeps her home, wrapped up warm by the fire, the lights blazing. She nurses the baby. There are colossal yellow clouds above Annerdale, loops of sleet, and serious snow on the fells. She does not go out. The last few months the world has come to her: deliveries of food and equipment, the midwife and healthcare worker, the men in her life, work. She nurses the baby; he takes an hour to feed, falling asleep halfway through, waking, continuing. She reads while he suckles. The cottage keens in the wind, the woods outside creak and rub. If it weren’t for the double-glazing, the wifi, and mobile signal, she might be in another century. Outside, too, there are wolves, no longer medieval — she can hear them calling occasionally from the enclosure, or imagines she can.

By 3.30 p.m., the sun has almost gone, its pale sump sinking on the horizon. Black wind at night, howling back, demonic almost. And rain, beginning to solidify. She worries about snow as she never worried before, worries about becoming trapped. She is unused to the long darkness — this first winter back in England is shocking, brutal, how could she have forgotten. Daylight feels incredibly valuable, if only she could access it. She leaves lamps on downstairs overnight. The baby sleeps in the Moses basket by her bed, within arm’s reach. At 4 a.m. she nurses him, while the darkness rolls past. It feels like the end of the world. Needles in her breasts and great pressure as the milk lets down. To have chosen love-enslavement to this little being means forfeiting everything.

He is Charles Caine, a family name, though no one knows it. To give a title to another human being is to acknowledge history, or to refute it — to say, we err, but forward we go, improving, hopeful. A full, dark head of hair. Long legs. One of his ears is folded over inside, like a shell, in some cultures lucky, in others, a bad omen. He is exceptional company; that is to say, he demands everything of her and is given it. She nurses him. She changes him. She nurses him again. He likes the firelight, turns his head towards the flames. He is beginning to differentiate colours now, beginning to smile, though many of his expressions remain less happy as he tries to absorb the world’s visceral information. He dreams, grimaces. She nurses him, at one hot breast, then the other. He is at his most immaculate afterwards: composed, bow-mouthed, his chest rising and falling, fists clenched as he sleeps. One in three hours given over to active care, she was told: a low estimate. She has buried the bellybutton stump next to the quince tree.