The Wolf Border (25 page)

The next ultrasound scan shows the baby back in the breech position, cross-legged, cramped, and Buddha-like. Rachel stares at the screen. There is no meaning to it, she knows; if there is meaning, it is anatomical, structural. Still, she cannot help wondering. An inherited stubbornness, perhaps: doing it
my way
. She discusses the situation with the doctor and Jan. A vaginal delivery is improbable; the hospital policy recommends a C-section. Jan, straight as ever, steers her in that direction.

Lord knows, she says, I like a good home video, but there's really no point in risking it. They're queuing up for a section these days.

Are they?

They are. Out through the sunroof. So long as you and baby are healthy, that's all I care about.

Rachel can't fathom it. Why anyone would want to have their abdomen voluntarily sliced open is beyond her. She had thought herself exempt, fitter, luckier. The date is scheduled for the surgery – three days after the release from the wolfery. Far too close for comfort. She will be given steroids, to bolster the baby's lungs. Jan sends her away with an information sheet and a DVD to help her prepare, which she watches at home that night with a glass of
wine. The video is short – thirty minutes, five of which it takes to get the baby out. In the theatre, the mood of the medical personnel and the mother is light. The woman talks to her partner; she is given a spinal block, screened at her lower half; she is calm, smiling, joking with the anaesthetist. The surgeon begins the procedure. The initial cut is vast, layers of yellows and pinks are latticed apart, an astonishing gulley made in the body. Less blood than one might have thought. The smeared gloves reach inside. An assisting surgeon pushes down on the top of the woman's abdomen.
Feels a bit odd
, the patient says. A helmeted red mass is pulled out of the hole, not without force. The trailing creature is taken to one side, respirated and cleaned very quickly, then it is brought to the mother, whose face is all tenderness and joy, and tucked nakedly against her breast. The crying father supports it. The woman is emptied of placenta, suctioned, folded up, and stitched. There's something macabre about the combination of the wound and the alertness of the patient. Something amazing, too. Afterwards, Rachel feels queasy and cannot drink the wine. She rings Alexander, but his phone goes through to messages. Come on, she thinks, get it together. Binny would never let you get away with such nerves.

The following day she rallies. Though she is not due in work, she gets up and goes down to the Hall, where the team is meeting with the BBC cameraman, Gregor Carr. They are all in the office, drinking tea when she arrives; she apologises for being late.

No bother, Gregor says to her. It's a busy job you've got on there.

He gestures to her now magnificent bump, stands, and the two shake hands.

We're delighted to have you here, she tells him.

Delighted to be here. I love this part of the Lakes.

He seems humble, though has every right not to be – the many awards he has won for his patient filming, and his remarkable location work. He is one of the most sought-after men in his profession. She is a fan. Even Huib, usually unruffled by fame and prestige, seems in awe. But the man in their midst emanates grace, is deferential, inclusive; he chats easily, asks questions about the wolves and the staff. Of late, he has been in the Himalayas, working with snow leopards – Rachel has seen the now famous clip of the fat-horned mountain goat being pursued along a near-vertical fissure, the big paws of the cat swatting its back legs from under it, the goat skittering downward in a hail of debris, being lunged upon, then dragged up and across the rockface to the leopard's cave. All at a staggeringly high altitude; three months' vigil, camping in a dizzying, sickness-inducing zone, a world above clouds. The Invisible Scot, as he is known among his associates. Animals behave as if he were not there, rutting, fighting, exhibiting moments of extreme gentleness. Gregor is smiling serenely at Rachel. He has not let go of her hand. He keeps glancing at her belly. Her condition seems to be giving her special status. There have been several men, over the course of the pregnancy, whom she has met and in whom she has noted a wildly enthusiastic streak for reproduction, a very attractive masculine feature it turns out – Gregor is clearly another. He is small and compact, in his mid-thirties, though his hair is completely white, as if exposure to the elements has taken its toll. His eyes are near to black, striking in contrast. He is both frail and hardy-looking, like the son of a vicar, or a free climber. The Annerdale wolves are a tame commission for him, almost a busman's holiday, but he has taken the assignment and over the course of the coming year he will make visits to the valley to film
the pair, and hopefully, in spring, their litter.

Rachel asks about the Himalayas. He answers politely, but would rather talk about her pregnancy. Is she feeling well? She must be due soon? Does she know what she is having? She tells him her due date; it's odd now knowing it. His wife had twins last year, he says – Bonnie and Clyde, traditional Scottish names – Rachel assumes he is joking – also by Caesarean; she was up and about and nursing the very same evening. He speaks of his wife reverently; also a very attractive feature. It'll be great, he says. It is the greatest thing, in fact, having children, certainly the best thing he has ever done. This surprises Rachel, given his CV, and she feels suddenly reassured, or endorsed, or as if – perhaps it is the white hair, curiously celestial – she has received a blessing of some kind.

Would you like to see the enclosure? she asks.

Perfect. But I'll make you a cup of tea first, then we can go and take a look.

Gregor Carr, three times recipient of the Calder Lee prize, moves to the office kettle, puts a teabag into a cup. He asks if she wants sugar, tells her sugar is a great energiser, she must have sugar, or better still, honey, and proceeds to carefully make the brew, while she sits, spoiled and embarrassed, at the table with her colleagues.

Later, when she looks at the film footage of herself from this time, she will barely recognise the woman she has become. A strange, lumbering version, whose belly is enormous and shelf-like, defies gravity. Her hair has grown around her ears and neck, almost down to her shoulders, her face is full, soft. She walks leaning backward, her arms swinging at her sides. She is almost mythical,
a creature hostage to maternity. She crosses the moorland grass in the main enclosure with Sylvia, towards the gate of the wolfery. Gregor has set up his rig fifty feet or so away from the gate, and has disappeared under a drape of camouflage netting and twigs.

Beautiful day for it, he'd said earlier that morning when they'd convened, somebody approves of our plan.

Sure enough, there is a high blueness to the sky, rich colours on the heath, and long, slanting light. A resurgence of warmth during the last few days has seen a late flurry of insects; they flit about the dying grasses. It is beatific weather, unhoped for.

Higher up on the moorland, behind a raft of yellow gorse, Thomas, Huib, and Alexander wait in the Land Rover with binoculars and the handheld receiver. The Earl is allowing his daughter the royal privilege of setting his wolves loose. She's earned it, as far as Rachel is concerned, and the project has come to mean a great deal to her. No doubt the honour would have been Carolyn's, had she lived. The paperwork is signed: quarantine is finished, and their formal immigration is complete. All that remains is to let them out.

In the wolfery, they remain hidden from view. The scare tactics of the last few weeks, the blaring horns and firework bangs, have worked well – they are far less willing to interact and be seen by humans. But they will be close by, sensing something, smelling the adrenalin, intuiting a change or event of some kind. Prescient experts of biological codes. Their movements will be monitored for the first few weeks – the explorations, the preferred routes, rendezvous points, and hunting strategy, how they begin to dominate the territory. Huib will conduct a focused follow, using the tracking system, while Rachel is in hospital; Gregor will spend a few more days filming; and Sylvia
will gather samples and data from the abandoned wolfery.

Sylvia types the code into the digital lock. Perthshire, 1680: the date of the last reported wolf killed in the old kingdom. It registers, beeps, and the gate slides open. She and Rachel move slowly away, back up the hill towards the others. Rachel breathes hard on the incline, stops several times and turns to look back – there's extraordinary pressure on her spine, her ribs, her heel bones. At any moment she feels she will rupture.

Are you alright? Sylvia asks.

Yes. Just about.

She struggles on, and they make their way to the Land Rover.

Below, the wolves are assessing the opportunity, she knows, looking beyond the wolfery at the new horizons, the heather still burning with flower, burrows, the citadels of rock, smelling the stag musk, rowan and mountain streams. It will not take them long to be restored, she thinks. Their unbelonging, reversed. Nothing of history will matter to them; land is land, articulate, informative; soon they will dominate Annerdale. Wherever they are released, the world over, their geomorphic evolution is remarkably swift.

Rachel does not join the others, but stands to the side – old habits, the desire for privacy during moments of significance. The mood is reverent, contained. No one speaks. Thomas has a hamper of champagne on the back seat, of course. There are no extra guests, though there were many requests, from the Mammal Society, the British Wolf Society, even politicians like Vaughan Andrews. Rachel takes up binoculars, looks towards the open enclosure gate, and waits.

This time it is Merle who leads the pair out of confinement. She slips through the gate, lifts her nose high to scent the surroundings,
lopes a few feet along the fence, and then she runs. Soon she is at full tilt, flooding across the moorland. Within moments there is a large white wolf alongside her. The pair veer away from the gorse-covered hillside, divide, and make for the nearest cover – a gathering of thorn woods on the hill, spindled and bent by the wind. Rachel watches them go. They cover the open moor in less than a minute. One dark, one light, stellar and obverse, their hind muscles working sumptuously under their coats. The months of docile quarantine are shaken off in seconds; power always lay just underneath. She watches the unmistakable motion of their running – the hard, short bowing of their heads, like swimmers ducking under the surface. They climb the gradient of the hill opposite without slowing, then disappear from sight in the broken terrain.

From nearby, there is laughter, applause, and cheering, voices small in the landscape.
Hurray!
Rachel sits down heavily on the grass, leans back, tired and exhilarated. They've made it. She has made it. She hears the pop of the cork and the wet crackle of the champagne being poured. A glass is passed down to her by Alexander. His big hand rests for a moment on the back of her neck, squeezes gently. They are all saying,
Well done, Rachel, well done, here's to Rachel
. She takes a sip. Something very fine and very old from the Annerdale cellars that is lost on her.

She looks towards the hide. Under the netting, Gregor will still be filming, focusing the high-powered lens, perhaps following their progress between the thorn trees, along the ridge to the summit, where they will contemplate the broad expanses of Annerdale, and decide which route to take. Rachel looks over the estate. Russet ferns and the knitted furze. The signature fells beyond. Long silhouettes drool from bushes and trees; all the land's contours are exposed, every curve, every corrie and glacier
cut, everything looks shadow-cast, so beautifully sheer.

*

She leaves her bag in the room where she and the baby will spend the next two days. She signs more consent forms, goes to the bathroom again. A nurse preps her, gives her a gown, checks her identity bracelet for the dozenth time. She is not wearing rings – she owns no rings, no jewellery, in fact – and has no lacquer on her nails. She has fasted in case they need to perform a general anaesthetic, taken antacid. She is walked down to the anaesthetics room next to the theatre. Her blood pressure and the baby's heartbeat are checked again. The anaesthetist and ODP are introduced and chat about baby names, to distract her from the sensation of the spinal block, the cold trickling sting. She leans forward on the gurney, tries to remain still, tries to relax, but it is impossible. The medics sense her tension. The ODP, Sam, is mannish, short, and has exceptionally blue eyes. She kneels in front of Rachel, grinning.

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?