The Wolf Border (2 page)

Look, I can't offer you dinner, I'm afraid. Thomas has an event in Windermere tonight so he's dining out. We don't have guests this week – the chef's off.

I'm fine.

As I say, I doubt he'll be available before he has to go out.

OK. But I did have an appointment. I should probably wait.

The secretary nods and lowers her hands.

You said you didn't need a hotel so I haven't booked one.

No. I'm staying with family.

You're local? I don't hear an accent.

I've been away quite a while.

I see.

Honor Clark ushers her across the room, and Rachel sits on the chaise longue near the empty fire. Lambent Chinese silk, in near-perfect condition. Her trousers are badly creased. The sales tag inside the waistband is irritating her lower back but she has failed during the course of the flight or the drive to tear it out. She has not worn slacks for over a year, not since the Minnesota conference, at which she delivered the keynote speech, drank too much in the hotel bar with Kyle and Oran, argued with the chairman of the IWC, slept with Oran again, and left a day early.
Not disgraced exactly, but en route. In the bars and restaurants of Kamiah, which the centre workers frequent at weekends, the dress code for both men and women extends no further than boots and jeans. She hasn't showered since leaving the centre; any trace of deodorant has gone. She has never been received at this level of society before, in any country. Even beyond the warp of altered time zones and the déjà vu of coming home, the event feels deeply uncanny. Honor Clark moves to the sideboard.

OK. Well. I'll set you up and then leave you. Would you like a sherry?

Yes, alright.

Sweet or dry?

Dry?

The secretary lifts one of the cut-glass decanters, unstoppers it, and pours out a viscous topaz liquid. The rugs under her heels are intricately woven, plums and teals, each one no doubt worth thousands. Rachel's cabin in the centre complex has flat-pack cabinets and linoleum floors. There are fading plastic coffee cups with the Chief Joseph logo stamped on them. Her entire cabin would fit, if not into this capacious, silk-wallpapered room, then certainly into the wing. It feels as if a kind of Dickensian experiment is taking place, except there will be no charitable warding, no societal ascent. Her intended role has not yet been defined. A consultant? A named advocate? A class of specialist suddenly called upon in times of extravagant ecological hobbying? A delicate, bell-shaped glass of sherry is placed in her hand. Honor Clark heads for the door.

I'll come back before I go. Have to make a few phone calls and finish up. If he arrives I'll send him to you. But, as I say, it's unlikely. You'll be alright in the meantime?

Yes. Fine. Thanks.

And the woman is gone, back into the panelled opulence of the manor corridors, back into whichever chamber of the hall she inhabits while arranging the abortive comings and goings of the Earl. The sun shifts from behind a cloud and the drawing room is filled with moist Lakeland light. Rachel sips the sherry, which is crisp and surprisingly enjoyable. Not a trace of dust or mouldering cork. She finishes the drink quickly, then stands and crosses the room.

Beyond the tall windows, the estate extends for miles. It is now the largest private estate in England. Little of the acreage has been sold off. In fact, quite the opposite. Thomas Pennington owns most of the private woodland in the region, farmsteads, mostly empty, all but the common land. On the horizon, the fells roll bluely towards bald peaks. At the bottom of the sloping lawn, at the lake edge, is a wooden reiki structure – one of the Earl's alternative hobbies, perhaps, certainly safer than flying microlights, which famously almost killed him, and did kill his wife.

The lake's surface reflects complicated weather. On an island near the opposite shore is a red-stone folly, a faux architectural match for the hall, and towards this a tiny boat is rowing, leaving a soft V on the cloudy surface. The west coast is fifteen miles away, ugly and nuclear. Somewhere between, behind the autumn trees, is the enclosure.

Maps of the estate have been sent to her. Spatially, the argument is easily made; it is one of the few tracts of land where such a project is viable. The new game enclosure bill has given the Earl licence for such a project. No doubt he pulled strings to have it passed. Work is underway on the barrier. The money seems limitless. What he does not have, what he wants, is her – the native expert.

She takes her phone from her jacket pocket. Binny has rung but left no message. There are two texts from Kyle.
Left Paw radio transmitter kaput, possible dispersal. Trustafarian volunteer quit owe you 50
. Then, off duty:
How's merry old England had any warm beer?
He will be out trying to track Left Paw, whose disappearance is not unexpected. The young male has been making solo excursions, preparing to go and find a mate. Still, such events are not without worry. There's a text from one of the local rangers, married but persistent. A mistake over the summer. Another white night. She deletes it without reading.

The light outside the windows remains bright, but hanging over the lake are fine slings of rain. The boat has made it to the island and has moored. Rachel walks the circumference of the room, pauses at an adjoining door, then opens it. A library. Assuming no intrusion – is she not somehow entitled while she waits? – she goes inside. There's another fireplace, deeply recessed with seats inlaid, classical scenes painted on the tiles. On every wall shelves are fitted, floor to ceiling, in glossy hardwood. She browses the contents. Leather-bound antiques, hardbacks of contemporary novels. There are illustrated wildlife encyclopedias. An impressive row of first-edition poetry volumes: Auden, Eliot, Douglas. A large Audubon folio. It is a civil collection – with nothing particularly revealing. But what clues does she expect to find anyway? Tomes of the occult? Fairy tales? Has she imagined Thomas Pennington to be a Gothic fetishist? A Romanticist with a liking for exotic pets? Who is this man who has expensively summoned her across thousands of miles?

On the mantelpiece above the fire is a heavy bronze replica of the Capitoline wolf, the infants Romulus and Remus on their knees suckling beneath her. For all Rachel knows, it could be the
original. The truth is she suspected – as soon as she knew whose name was attached to the project – that this landed British entrepreneur, known for causing trouble in the House, for sponsoring sea eagles and opposing badger culls, is deadly serious about his latest environmental venture. That's why she is here. Not for Binny, who is simply benefiting from a stranger's generosity. She shuts the library door. She goes back into the drawing room, sits in the chaise longue, leans against the plush upholstery, and closes her eyes.

After forty-five minutes Honor Clark wakes her, with a polite hand on the shoulder. She is wearing a brown raincoat, belted at the waist, and carrying an oxblood lady's briefcase. A paisley headscarf is knotted under her chin. Rachel wants to ask, Do the shops in the county still sell such items, without irony? Are these fashions still depicted in the country magazines?

We're going to have to scratch, Honor Clark says. Can you come back tomorrow?

The tone is faintly triumphant. Clearly, she knows her boss's habits; clerical intuition and rescheduling are a normal part of her job description, and it is certainly not within her remit to apologise for the errant Earl. The airline ticket from Spokane was business class; Rachel's hire car is a BMW. Any additional expenses are being covered during her stay; all she has to do is keep and submit receipts. If the man himself is chaotic, or even a lunatic, his sovereignty seems not to suffer. Rachel stands.

Sure. Tomorrow. What time?

Let's try eleven. He has t'ai chi from nine until ten.

Of course he does, Rachel thinks. As she crosses the room, the tag inside her trousers scratches her lower back. She reaches in and snaps it from the plastic frond, crumples it, and puts it into
her back pocket. She has a week's leave from Chief Joseph, during which time her soliciting benefactor can put in an appearance or not, as he so chooses. It will make no difference either way; her obligation ends after their meeting. She knows she will not take the job, however appealing the proposal or curious she may be. Foolish and time-wasting though the courtship may result, it has at least given her a reason to come home.

*

Is that you, my girl?

You look smaller, Mum.

It's true. Since Rachel's last visit, Binny has shrunk considerably. She clutches the doorframe of her care-home apartment, a stoop-lump on her back under the quilted dressing gown. Her hair is almost gone, her scalp as cracked and dull as a shell. The hand holding the doorframe looks fossilised, like something extracted from a bog or petrified forest, out of proportion with her thin arm. On her face are brown flaky cancers. The descent since Rachel's last visit, when her mother was still able to lob a vase at the wall, has been steep.

You look like an American. You're not a bloody citizen, are you?

Not yet, no.

Good.

Binny releases the door and they embrace. She holds Rachel fiercely, a grip far exceeding her frail demeanour, a grip reminding her daughter just how long she has been gone. From under the quilted gown comes the reek of sweat and ammonia, and a masking perfume – not the Paestum Rose Binny once favoured,
gifted by suitors and worn high in the wen of her thighs, but something sweeter, cheaper, a scent that will cover the body's sins. The yolky eyes of her mother look her over.

Lost a bit of weight, too. You're not living on hamburgers and chips, then.

Most of the time I am.

I did teach you to cook.

There's a slur when Binny speaks, a glistening collection in one corner of her mouth. The stroke, three years ago. Somehow Rachel has managed not to register the impediment fully during their phone calls. Binny is trying to look her daughter in the eye, but her vision is shot, and she's lost her height.
You taught me to cook
, Rachel thinks,
because you never lifted a pan, and Lawrence was always hungry
.

I hate cooking. You know that.

I suppose you just drive through those places in your car.

Sometimes. And I'm an expert with a can opener.

Oh, Lord.

Her mother appears to be stalled, as if she wants to turn round and re-enter the room but her body won't cooperate. Or perhaps she is not quite sure whether to invite her guest in. Rachel looks down at her. This can't really be Binny – the toxic, striking Londoner who charmed and upset the northern villagers with her brassy left-wing talk and fashionable looks. Binny – the woman who broke up several marriages, casting aside the borrowed men as soon as they were hers, or keeping them as lodgers. The woman who ran the little post office as if it were a social club, giving out cups of tea and sexual advice, stacking the tiny entrance hall with controversial items – frosted cornflakes, condoms, the
Guardian
. Who raised a young daughter alone. Or, rather, let that daughter
raise herself. Communist in the Tory heartland. Self-declared red-blooded sensualist, whose second child, Rachel's half-brother Lawrence, left home at fourteen rather than argue with the men frequenting the house.

And now this – an impotent, leaking ruin. The reality is more shocking than anything Rachel had anticipated. And the feeling filling her is dire. Pity. Regret. The desire to return this sick-smelling woman to those years of virility and concomitant notoriety. Return her to the postal cottage, to the hoo-ha and scandal in the village, the old blue Jaguar always breaking down on the road to town, and the caravanner's wardrobe. Restore her, even though it would mean all the rest, too. The arguments. The name-calling in school. Other women banging on the door. Not bringing boyfriends home because they would stare, and stammer through Binny's flirtation, then be ardent upstairs in Rachel's bedroom and not understand why.

Finally her mother turns, without catastrophe, and shuffles inside.

Come in then. Hope you've eaten. Dinner will be an atrocity. They think we can't tell sirloin from slop. Most can't, mind you. You'll want to sit next to Dora – she's the only one with any noodle left.

The same wit. The same vim. The bad old personality locked in the mortal tomb, struggling to get out. But it sounds like a practised line.

Dora. Got it.

Rachel picks up her bag and follows her mother into a small sitting room, the temperature of which is subtropical. A green leather armchair – her mother's chair from the post office kitchen – is the only recognisable item from the past. Rachel has never
been to Willowbrook before. It's nice, as such things go, converted from an old hospital. Lawrence moved Binny in and cleared out the cottage. Lawrence takes care of things financially and does not ask Rachel for a contribution, much to his wife's chagrin. She has not arranged to see her brother. She has not emailed him for a while, in fact, though Binny has probably kept him in the loop about her visit. Now her mother is struggling to get out of the quilted gown, inching it down over her shoulders, her hands more an incapacity than a useful tool. Rachel steps in to help.

No. Get off. I can manage. You have a seat. You look knackered.

Binny shuffles into the bedroom and comes back a few minutes later wearing a blue winged jacket, an astoundingly conservative garment. She has on a matt smear of burgundy lipstick and a string of beads. Is this the usual effort for dinner, Rachel wonders, or is it being made for the prodigal's return and introduction? Binny moves slowly towards the chair, leans over it, positions herself, and sits. She sighs with the effort.

You better get changed. They'll be serving in a minute. Then you can tell me what Lord Muck wanted. And who you're on with these days. Not that wet one who works with you, I hope. He sounds like a prevaricator. The other's far better – Carl, is it? You can put your stuff in there.