The Wolf Border (24 page)

*

Thirty-seven weeks. The baby is breech. They have decided to try an external cephalic version. The obstetrician, a small Indian woman, walks Rachel through what will happen, the risks – abruption of placenta, reduction of blood in the umbilical cord – though these are low. Chances of success are about fifty-fifty. If the procedure is too uncomfortable or if the baby cannot be
turned, they may try again with an epidural, they tell her. She signs the consenting paperwork.

In the procedure room, she is cannulated and given terbutaline to relax her uterus. Jan pops in to see her as the preliminary ultrasound is underway.

You're probably going to feel like a piece of dough, getting kneaded, she says. But you'll be fine – Dr Nirmal is very good. She has magic hands.

Jan wiggles her fingers. Her hair has been dyed an unnatural shade, something between redwood and plum; her scalp glows with the colour, in need of a few shampoos to calm it down. One of her ladies is giving birth in the midwife unit, not in any particular haste, it seems.

I'll come back in a bit, she says.

Rachel tries to make herself comfortable. The placenta and levels of amniotic fluid are checked, and the obstetrician begins. The magic hands are small and strong. She puts on pressure-sensing gloves, feels for the baby's head and buttocks, pushes upward away from her pelvis. Rachel tries to breathe slowly and not tense. The discomfort is bearable. She breathes deeper, in through the nose, out through the mouth. A medical student is in the room, observing and making notes, a horribly young-looking man, not altogether interested, possibly just rotating through gynaecology. He asks her to score her pain, on a scale of one to ten.

Three. Four, maybe.

He ticks a box – some kind of survey or study project. Then he offers to sit next to her, like a substitute partner. She shakes her head. Alexander had offered to come that morning, too, but she'd declined.

Either he turns or he doesn't, she'd said.

He, is it? Reckon I could do it, and save you the trip.

She'd smiled at that, thinking he probably could. All the cows' cervixes he'd manipulated, reaching in to find the struggling hooves and ankles, then deeper, to the sloppy, upside-down head. The brute force of calving.

What at first feels like a deep massage becomes more like a rearrangement of abdominal wall and organs. Dr Nirmal pushes and rolls, pushes and rolls, inch by inch, concentrating, checking the position with the ultrasound. Rachel tries to relinquish control. She thinks of Binny, swearing as she tried to locate, by touch and stretch, the recoiled elastic in the waist of Rachel's school trousers.
Bloody thing! It's gone all the way. Here, madam, you try! You're the one who snapped it!
It is frustrating and bewildering, that at these times she can't stop thinking of her mother, who would have been a grandmother, and no doubt amazed by the prospect.

You're doing really well, the doctor says. Almost there.

Rachel breathes. In through the nose, out through the mouth. The baby's heart rate increases as the procedure continues, healthily, perhaps even indignantly. It is moved, to the transverse position. Then at an upright angle. Finally, after twenty-five minutes, the head is down. Dr Nirmal finishes and removes the expensive gloves.

Feeling alright? she asks.

Yes. I think so. A bit –

Like a loaf of bread?

Yes, actually.

Rachel is helped to sit up slowly. The obstetrician writes in the maternity notes and then leaves. The medical student asks a few more questions, then leaves too. The cannula begins to itch in the back of her hand. She and the baby will be monitored for an hour
or so then allowed to go home. After a while, Jan knocks and comes halfway into the room, leaning round the door.

Success?

Seems so, Rachel says.

Jan jabs her thumb up, like a teenage boy.

Good one. Now, just stay that way, little one. No cartwheels, please.

How about you? Rachel asks. Success?

Yes, I better get back in; she's nearly on the go now. See you next week, luvvie. We'll talk about our options then.

The door closes. The building radiates quiet, though is discreetly busy, departments bustling in other wings. Her mother's final hours were spent here, in the AMU of the same hospital, while the medics did everything but resuscitate. Binny was not cogent, Rachel was told by the care home manager; she probably saw nothing beyond the thick walls of her unconsciousness. She wonders if Lawrence feels easier about their mother's decision to end her life – they have not talked about it. She imagines Binny lying on a trolley, the tubes, the report of machines, the final call made. An old woman in her eighties, no one knowing anything about the life she has lived. Lawrence arrived an hour after she was declared dead; she struck out alone, which would not have scared her. Now, Rachel will probably give birth in the same hospital, and a little piece of Binny will continue on. The prosaic event of birth, being replicated millions of times the world over, every minute of the day, except that it is happening to her, and it feels extraordinary, rare, nearly impossible, now that it is so close.

*

A week of suffering gigantism and soreness. Her abdomen aches. Her lower vertebrae feel displaced, and there's a grinding feeling against her ligaments. Her bladder goes into overdrive. The sensible portion of her brain kicks in and she stays home, does not go to the wolfery or the office, or even try to get into the car. She reads, lies on the bed surrounded by a mountain of stacked pillows, or wallows in the bath. The delivery van brings groceries. She cannot stop eating apples, four or five a day, until her stomach gripes. She cancels the breakfast appointment with Thomas – now is not the time to tackle him – the fence has been mended, and she wants to concentrate on the release, be as fit and rested as possible. It feels almost like training for a marathon: the endurance, the daily limits, the stairs almost defeating her. She tells Alexander – kindly, she hopes – not to come. She is terrible company, she says. He still comes, after work; he brings fish and chips from town, cool and vinegary in the wrapper, delicious. They sit by the fire for an hour, not speaking much, watching the flames flickering in the grate, greenish from copper deposits in the wood. He fetches more logs in for her, hulking a great quantity in one go. She can't say she isn't grateful.

I don't know why human gestation evolved like this, she says. If I were out there in the wild I'd get picked off in a minute.

You'd just have stayed in the cave, he says. On a pile of furs.

Two days later, Sylvia arrives with a basket of exotic fruit and best wishes from everyone on the project. There are pineapples and mangoes, dragon fruit – no apples. The arrangement looks like something out of a still-life painting.

I'm not ill, Rachel says.

I know. But Huib says you're probably living on baked beans and toast. I've got to make sure you eat something good. I've got
to report back. No arguments.

Rachel stands aside, and Sylvia carries the enormous basket into the cottage kitchen. They sit drinking tea outside in the garden, Sylvia in her expensive Karrimor jacket with the Annerdale project logo stitched on, Rachel wrapped in a tartan blanket, though she is if anything too warm these days, overheated by the extra weight and blood. It is the first insistently cold day of autumn, a true October day. Already there's talk of a bad winter coming.

I do love this little cottage, Sylvia says, looking around. I'm so glad you stayed on.

Rachel is, too. She feels settled. There's a brilliance to the woods around the cottage, as they fire up, deep reds and golds; the treetops frisk in the breeze. In the upper quadrant of sky are long wobbling Vs of migrating geese. They drink the pot of tea and talk about the release. Sylvia has been working hard with the press and liaising with the BBC, which is making a documentary on the wolves; one of the most respected cameramen in the country will be arriving the following week – a coup for the project. Overall the affair will remain low-key. Sylvia has displayed an impressive sensitivity towards the animals and their privacy, turning down requests to attend the event while maintaining goodwill with all the charm, grace, and wiles of one schooled in the art of diplomacy. A benign version of her father. The subject of law school raises itself again.

Honestly, I'm not sure I want to go. I don't want to disappoint Daddy, but this year has been wonderful. It's felt, I don't know, worthwhile. I'd like to stay on.

Rachel nods, feeling a little wrong-footed by the confession, though it is not unexpected: Sylvia has been hinting as much for months. What can she say? Do as you feel, do as you like. This
is the Earl's daughter – is she really at liberty to choose her life's path? The girl doesn't have the look of a lawyer to her; she would surely have to activate some grade of occupational distain and cynicism that would ruin her best qualities.

I can't really advise you, Rachel says. This is what I do, and I love it – everything I say will be biased.

It's your calling, I know I'm just not sure what mine is. I suppose one day it'll be this.

This
being the estate, Rachel assumes. Sylvia's enormous dollish eyes become wistful. There are tiny suggestions of lines at their corners, though she is no doubt protecting her complexion from the outdoor work with top-of-the-range products. She's easy to like, easy to be around – even for Rachel, who has eschewed close female friends for most of her life. At worst she is an innocent, a naïf, unaware of the vast gap between her and the rest of the country; at best a romantic, good in the marrow, one might forgive her the privileges. But then, what presents, even genuinely, may not be truly authentic, as Rachel knows. She remains uncommitted to the friendship.

Mummy would have said don't let the idea of what you should do get in the way of what you want to do, Sylvia is saying. She didn't like the idea of sacrificial duty.

How old were you when she died?

Twelve.

That's tough.

Sylvia blinks, but there are no tears. Enough time, and perhaps counselling over the years, to have quashed – or at least checked – the grief. She tilts her head, rubs her ear on the shoulder of her jacket, keeps her hands wrapped around the warm mug of tea.

Leo had it much worse. He was a teenager. He was having a really bad time already – at school, and here. He saw the crash, poor thing.

Rachel is startled by the abrupt revelation.

You mean he saw the microlight go down?

Sylvia nods.

That must have been traumatic.

There is so little talk about Leo Pennington. He is the great unspoken subject of Annerdale – as if some pact has been made within the family. Only the staff gossip, speculating about whether he has been written out of the will. Rachel can't say she isn't curious. The tenor of the discussion now seems permissive – confidential, even. She risks a gentle line of enquiry.

He doesn't come home much, does he?

No, Sylvia says. Not right now. He and Daddy quarrel a lot. And Leo isn't very reasonable sometimes. He's rather volatile.

Isn't very reasonable. Rather volatile
. It all sounds euphemistic to Rachel. The Pennington family is enlightened; from the old order, they have evolved into a new breed of aristocracy – integrated, liberal, positive investors in a floundering nation, but aren't lunatic sons always stashed away? Personality disorders, gamblers, syphilitics, and cripples, stuck in expensive institutions, oubliettes? She wonders how aggrieved he is, whether he blames his father for the death.

So, where is he now? she asks.

South of France, I think. He moves about a lot. He crews a boat in the Mediterranean, so it's hard to know exactly.

Sylvia flinches then, almost imperceptibly, but Rachel catches it, the tiny electrical pulse travelling up her body. She has said too much, stepped outside the bounds of loyalty and discretion.

But you still hear from him – or maybe see him?

Not much, Sylvia says briskly. Which is a great shame, really. He is my silly brother, after all.

Rachel searches Sylvia's face for more information. It is a strange face – so beautiful that the beauty is almost moot, more concealing for its faultless surface. If she has been taught not to lie, then she has also been taught a set of different qualifiers to justify untruth. She has certainly been taught to remain level and polite, to protect her family from the damages of a problem son, or perhaps to protect her brother. The Pennington code. There are times when Rachel suspects the Earl's daughter is the perfect weapon.

Mummy used to come and work here, Sylvia says. It was sort of a bolt-hole. She liked being in the woods.

Yes, I think I knew that.

She was a very good painter. She has a landscape in the Royal Academy. Have you seen the ones at home?

Yes, Rachel says.

The paintings are small, furiously detailed landscape pieces, almost pre-Raphaelite in their hyper-focus, not Rachel's kind of thing. They are hung discreetly around the Hall, mostly in the personal living spaces. Apropos of nothing, Sylvia points to the gable of the cottage.

There used to be a tawny owl up there. A juvenile. He'd come out in the daytime. He was always looking about as if he'd forgotten what the night was.

It sounds like the last line in a play. Sylvia smiles, a little sadly, and stands.

I'm going to fetch you that piece of fruit or Huib will be cross.

Could you make it an apple? Rachel asks. They're in the fridge.

She watches Sylvia walk across the garden, sleek as a pike in her jeans. She has become used to her poetic, emotive language, her lack of inhibition, not unlike her father's. On the surface she seems open and giving. But any intimacy soon dead-ends. The change of subject away from her family was graceful and deft. Maybe she would be a good lawyer after all, Rachel thinks.

*