Sarah Hall - The Wolf Border

A steward makes his way towards them and smiles as he passes by, shaking his head.

You were the one making all that noise, were you?

Charlie looks up at the man, all innocence and big dark eyes, and continues walking unsteadily towards the back of the plane.

We don’t care, do we? Rachel says. We’re doing our own thing.

If Binny taught her anything, it was exactly that. Don’t be cowed. Live singularly, and without regret. Not always the best creed, but maybe now Rachel can put it to good use. It’s going to be a very difficult, very strange visit. What will Kyle say when he sees her, and — more to the point — when he sees Charlie and learns who he is? Her phone call explained very little, just that she was coming with some friends to visit the Reservation and to say hi. He could be struck dumb. He may never forgive her. She would not blame him.

Well, he’s probably not going to stove your head in, Alexander had assured her at the airport when he dropped them off. He doesn’t sound the type.

I know. But still.

Hey, don’t worry. Men love children. The more the better, scattered all round the world.

Oh shut up, she’d said, pushing him gently.

He’d grinned and kissed her, then leant down and kissed Charlie.

Go on, then. You get to board on the plane first with this one, you know. See you in a week.

Don’t forget to do your visas online, she reminds him, and tell Chloe to bring some warm gear — it’ll get very cold. I’ll pick you up in Spokane. OK?

OK. Hey, Kyle might stove my head in. Men love that possessive stuff, too.

She’d laughed and wheeled her bag to the front of the security check, Charlie heavy on her hip.

Maybe.

She walks Charlie to the back of the plane, where he takes extreme interest in the handles of the cabin storage drawers, trying to open them one by one. She disengages him, wends him round the toilets, and down the other aisle. He stops to yank on the trailing wire of someone’s headphones, drawn to pull-able things with almost narcotic intensity.

Nope, she says, untangling his hands, and to the lady whose film has suddenly gone silent, says, Sorry about that, he’s a little monkey.

Oh, no, the woman says. He’s a little angel.

The great debate, Rachel thinks, I’ll go with monkey. Charlie steps forward. She is glad she’s travelling ahead of Alexander; she owes Kyle that much, the courtesy of private explanation and some time alone with his son. She will plan what to say on the flight. Or maybe she won’t. The subject is not going to be gentle on the palate: human beings are strong meat. Maybe she’ll arrive at the centre and present the baby as a given, a thing that simply is, a boon — which he is. Perhaps there won’t be too much shock. The world is used to reproduction, after all. Nothing seems to stop it — not war, not science, not humanity’s own incalculable stupidity.

Lawrence’s advice was just that — hold Charlie up, introduce him, and don’t worry about the rest. Her brother’s advice is usually simply put these days, often revolving around truth, exposing the root, squeezing out the poison. Fear of re-entering the labyrinth of self-deception, perhaps, and getting sick again. He did not want to come on the American trip, though she asked him several times, assured him there was no intrusion: he would be one of the gang.

No, no, you guys need to do this by yourselves, he’d said.

Meaning, perhaps, that he needs to do things by himself now, be confident of his borders again. He needs not to rely on her so much, not to call her drunk from the hillside above Kendal, crying, lamenting his past, his mistakes, all that has been lost: as far as she knows, his sole insobriety since he gave it all up. She did not mind the late-night call, was glad there was nothing worse happening; it was simply a boozy evening with work colleagues that had gone too far and knocked out a section of his carefully built scaffolding. At the end of the conversation, he’d told her that without her he would not have made it, would have given in.

Lawrence, she said, you’re forgetting who you are. What would we have done without you, you dope?

Poor choice of words, but he’d laughed. She has, she knows, come to rely on him more and more, for support, and for solidarity, which is not fraternal, not sororal, but the curiously unnamed relationship of brother and sister.

Go and enjoy each other, he’d said. Send me a postcard.

He did come to Scotland. He was there to see the wolves reach the moors of Rannoch. He sat in the little plane with her, as it pitched and bounced, breathing hard, his hands gripping the seat. She’d not known he was phobic until then. But he’d known how much the moment meant to her — a victory amid all the exhaustion and chaos of the last few weeks. The outcome had never been certain. The pack had struggled through the Scottish heartland, another of the juveniles lost a few days after her return, this time to the motorways north of Glasgow. A miracle the others made it; just be thankful, is what she’d told herself, what she had to tell herself. It was the smaller grey that had been hit, the runt, the one she’d kept a soft spot for, and rooted for, against her better judgement. Mercifully quick, its death. The body had been handed in at the local police station — the lorry driver was mortified, she was told, he had been following the story and wanted them to make it all the way to Nevis; he was for them, a Yes voter, he’d tried to swerve but it was under the wheels before he knew it. A burly man from Aberdeenshire, weeping over a wolf pup.

Then the pack seemed to be veering too far east, and she had met with the environment minister again, the Wildlife Trust, and chairman of Wildwoods, the radical new group sponsoring the re-homing enterprise, to discuss intervention — tranquillisation and transporting them to the chosen location. In the end they’d resisted, held out, and hoped instinct would prevail.

It had. The wolves had doubled back, after three weeks’ hard negotiations in the rich farmlands of the central belt, emergency cooperation projects with the farmers, and makeshift electric fences put up around flocks. Easy prey — there were days of excessive predation, slaughter, and outcry; the tide of opinion began to turn. It looked at one point as if they might have to be destroyed. But they’d finally gone west, towards the deer herds.

Lawrence got away from work as soon as he could, called upon once again in her hour of need. She had not liked leaving Charlie with the childminder at first, nor enjoyed the series of hotels, the hours spent apart, late evenings when her son would already be bathed and asleep in the travel cot when she came in, but it could have been worse. She’d felt like she was on the run, too — the cottage in the Lakes half packed up, promissory messages left for her boyfriend.

By the time her brother arrived, the situation was looking less bleak, she was feeling optimistic, and the pack was in the Highland corridor. She did not want to lumber Lawrence with childcare duties, though she knew that’s why he’d come. Instead, she’d urged him into the tiny four-seater with her, introduced him to Rob, the Hebridean pilot, with whom she had developed a silent rapport over the weeks, not noticing her brother’s pallor, until he confessed.

Fuck it, Rachel. I’m usually high when I get on a plane.

Oh, God! I’m sorry, Lawrence, she said. Do you want to go back to the hotel?

No, no way.

He got in. He clenched his knees and gripped the seat as they took off, and tried not to panic as the choppy air of the mountains rocked them, the plane dropped like a stone, then bucked upward. Rachel had put a steadying hand on his shoulder.

You’re doing great.