Sarah Hall - The Wolf Border

And then he does get sick. Every week it seems he has a new virus, a cold, or gastric upset, some germ picked up from nowhere, from spores arriving in his cot. An oozing eye infection, yellow crust around the lid. Diarrhoea, evil-coloured and noxious, which brushes through her too, leaving her green-feeling, her insides churning. Then a cough that sounds lethal, hack, hack, choke. S he has had the whooping cough vaccination, and Charlie has, too, but she panics. She goes to the doctor again, collects more medicine, antibiotics, which she knows will give him thrush. Frances Dunning administers to him expertly, and Rachel feels like a failure. The doctor is sage.

Try not to worry; it’s just the way it is. He has to create antibodies. Childhood is about illness, that’s what they don’t tell you.

Dr Dunning looks at her.

How are you, Rachel? Are you getting enough support?

She says she is. But she is exhausted and fuddled, and it shows. When she gets home, she calls Sylvia, asks her to babysit. She goes to bed and sleeps for a few hours, a fatal, unmoving sleep. When she wakes, the room is in focus. The house is beautifully quiet. There’s a note on the table downstairs saying Charlie has been taken out for a walk. She sits at the kitchen table, drinks coffee, thinks of nothing, not even the wolves.

The baby gets better. The pus dries up, the cough slackens. She begins to relax. She resumes work at the office, recreates the little corner crèche for Charlie, claws her way back through correspondence and administration. She even writes more of her book chapter. Green shoots appear on the trees outside; light expands the day’s length. Everything seems on the up, until Michael’s wife contracts influenza, the dangerous variant sweeping through the country, for which there is no trialled vaccine. When he comes into the office to report on the enclosure, Michael also seems unwell, is pale-looking, sweaty, and breathing hard. Like a condemning harbinger, he breathes over them, stands near the baby. Rachel wants to shove him forcibly out of the office. The following week Lena is hospitalised and Michael recuses himself. Rachel watches the baby, filled with dread. She takes his temperature daily, checks him again and again. She watches over him with the intensity of prayer. It is excruciating. To be so out of control emotionally, to have so much and so little control over another living thing. Had she known it, had she even suspected the debilitation, the decision at Binny’s graveside might have been different. But no. No. There is no retrospective history where children are concerned, no what-ifs. He is here, he is here, he is here. His arms open and reach out, wanting to be picked up. Mammmmum . He is close to saying it, some version of it, and confirming her new identity. She lifts him. He fits against her side. Rightfully made. Unquestionable.

*

In April, Lawrence and Emily separate. He calls Rachel to tell her — it is a terrible phone call out of the blue, halting and awkward. She sits at the table. Outside Seldom Seen, a ragged spring evening, with sunlight crashing through the windowpane, then, moments later, rain, soft-knuckling the glass.

I just thought you should know, he says, flatly. Keep in touch with her if you want — she wants you to stay in touch.

Lawrence, I’m really sorry.

Yeah. Thanks. But it was going to happen. She’s had enough. And I have, too.

There’s a hollow ring to his tone. He is past embarrassment, regret, and apology, is deep into the inevitability of it all — an emotional dead zone.

For now just use my mobile number. I’m not in the house any more.

Where are you staying?

With a friend.

He gives no more details, no address. She wonders if this friend is the woman with whom he had the affair, whether there has been a rekindling. But now is not the time for reproach.

Are you alright, Lawrence?

Yeah, fine, he says. Anyway, there it is.

She can hear nothing of his usual self in his voice. In the background there’s the sound of cars, many cars, moving fast, a motorway or main road. It’s unnerving to think of him extracted from his home environment, calling from some transient place. He sniffs on the other end of the line. He says nothing more, has no desire to talk it all over, it seems.

You sure you’re OK?

Yeah. Just thought I should tell you. OK then, I’ll go now.

Lawrence, wait a minute.

He mustn’t hang up. Everything seems precipitous; she’s sure that he is on the verge of some disastrous course, or has already embarked.

Why not come here? she suggests. Come and stay with me and Charlie for a while. Lawrence?

Silence from her brother. The lowing of traffic. A passing siren.

Lawrence?

I can’t, he says. It’s bad enough at work already. Can’t just disappear.

Take some personal leave. These things happen. Surely they can manage without you, under the circumstances?

No, I can’t, he says. There are things I need to do here anyway.

What things?

Christ! Just things. Why are you bullying me?

I’m not bullying you.

Yes, you are. You always do.

What?

Yes, Rachel.

It’s the first time he’s lost his temper and snapped at her since their reconciliation. She is shocked at the sudden strength of his feelings, the dismantlement of their pact. Cut him some slack, she thinks, he just lost his wife, he doesn’t mean it. But he sounds like a man to whom nothing matters — the way he is saying her name, without warmth, as if tolerating her.

Have you been drinking? she asks.

No, Rachel. And even if I had, so what? What’s the problem with that?

Rain tip-tapping the windowpane of the cottage like fragments of bone.

Nothing. You just sound strange. I don’t want you to –

I have to go now. I’m going to go.

She has heard him speak like this before — a long time ago. The petulance. The perfunctory despair. I’m going to smash John in the head with my stick. Then Mum can come with us to swim in the river . A lost boy, making all the wrong decisions, before he learnt how to make the right ones. Lawrence would never let his marriage dissolve; he would fight harder. Nor would he alienate his sister. Rachel scrambles to keep him on the line.

Wait, please, she says. Charlie would love to see you — he misses his uncle. Come and see him for a bit.

It’s a bald, cheap play, using the baby as leverage, but she doesn’t care; it’s vital that he isn’t swept along in any undertow.

Lawrence?

No. I’ve said I can’t.

OK. We’ll come down there then.

No, he says.

I’d be happy to.

No.

Her frustration begins to mount. It occurs to her that she should let him go, that her pride is simply being knocked — her authority and influence are not working. He is an adult; he can take care of himself. But deep down, she doesn’t believe that. Her instincts have branched; they have had to as a mother. Whether he wants it or not, Lawrence needs help — and some part of him must know it, he called her, after all. He tries to hang up again. He is late for something, he says, needs to meet a friend. She stops him, asks again — Will you come to stay? Charlie’s favourite uncle. . — begging almost, but she does not care. His tone softens a fraction.

I know you’re trying to be nice, Rachel, but don’t. I don’t deserve it. You don’t want me there. I’m a mess. It would be really bad for the baby.

She ignores the comment. She begins to talk at him. She talks steadily, fluidly — she can do this now, thanks to Charlie, who has broken the seal. He doesn’t want sympathy or absolution, that much is very clear, so she makes the case selfishly, appeals to his old sense of duty: the weak spot. I want you here. Come and help me. I’m really tired. You’re so good with him, and I don’t feel I’m coping . Twice more he tries to extricate himself. His desperation to get away is painful; she droops at the table, feels physically vulnerable. There’s a wound in her now it seems; all the people she cares for can hurt her. She keeps talking, asking her brother to come, for her sake, almost incanting it. He interrupts and his voice cracks.