The Wolf Border (34 page)

In a clearing, on a buttress of rock, the mock-Gothic tower rises – a theatrical ruin with cross-loops and arched windows, false cracks, and a half-built flanking wall. They walk through the doorway and a flock of large birds bursts raucously into the sky. Rachel looks up. There's no interior, just a shell. It is a joke building, constructed in an era of aristocratic whimsy. Perhaps there was once a bearded hermit employed to live nearby, to maintain a grotto and issue riddling Delphic wisdoms to any visitor arriving on the shore.

They continue round the circumference of the island and are upon Sylvia before they realise. She is sitting by a small, enclosed plot, next to a monument – a modern, stylised angel, cast in corrugated metal. She is looking into the woods as if expecting an approach from that angle. She stands and brushes her jeans down.

Hi. I thought there was someone else here. I heard the jackdaws in the tower going. I was just visiting Mummy. It's the anniversary of the day she died today.

She looks at the statue – Carolyn Pennington's memorial. The angel is corroding to burnished rust, the same colour as autumn bracken. Moss is growing in the ripples of the wings. It is a very tasteful piece, fitting in its environment, no doubt commissioned from a well-respected artist. A fresh posy of flowers has been laid at the base. There's a small bottle of spirits – vodka, perhaps – and two glasses in the grass.

Sorry to disturb you, Rachel says. I had no idea.

She feels awkward to have intruded upon the moment, and whatever ritual was taking place. But Sylvia is smiling and looking into the woods again, as if seeing something there they cannot see.

No, you aren't disturbing me at all. Everything's fine.

Suddenly, the Annerdale project is big news: both local and national television run pieces; Rachel is interviewed on Radio 4 and international shows. Letters pour in, expressing positive wishes, overtaking the naysayers. These are the first wolf pups born in the wild for centuries, the significance is not lost on the nation. They become almost like mascots, for what exactly no one is sure, a beleaguered England, an England no longer associated with Scotland's great natural resources. The project has pluck, and scope. Requests for interviews keep coming. Thomas hires
a publicity company and throws another party, a promotional event for the media and supporters of the scheme. Though it is another occasion she would prefer to skip, Rachel must attend. There's the usual hoopla – dignitaries, fancy food, and drinks, more in keeping with an award ceremony or junket. The hall buzzes with reporters. Vaughan Andrews puts in an appearance, keen to capitalise on the good news in his constituency. Yes, it is a Tory-backed initiative, Rachel hears him say. Sebastian Mellor himself is involved and has visited the site on numerous occasions.

Thomas assumes a florid style of mingling, and Rachel tries not to hold his recent disinterest against him. Let him puff and pander. She is singled out lavishly in the Earl's address, as the Cumbrian who reintroduced wolves to Cumbria, the usual rubbish; she grits her teeth, smiles. Immediately after the speech, she finds herself swarmed by journalists, portable microphones thrust her way. Is she proud? they ask. Does she feel protective of the pups? It is as if she is some lupine mother figure, expected to give an emotional account. Did the country always treat its women experts with such sexism and reductionism? she wonders. She looks at the sea of rumpled shirts and high-street tweeds, hipster accessories; the reporters range from charmingly stupid and urbane, to slick, eelish, and presumptuous. No one, it seems, has researched the subject with any care or read the press release. The great capital–countryside divide. How to explain to those unused to rural issues, to Londoners surprised by the fast trains north and the relative proximity of the Lake District to the Great Wen, surprised, it seems, that anything outside their own experience exists? There's a misunderstanding about the transmitters – she explains the purpose. She explains the size of the enclosure, the ratio of biomass. No, this is not Scotland, she explains, Scotland lies forty
miles to the north. Then, one reporter who has researched, into her at least, or has simply been listening to the idle chatter in the room, catches her by surprise.

You've given birth yourself this year, haven't you, Rachel? he asks. So are you considering this the lucky double?

She stares at him, and a small flare of panic fires internally. The shutters come down. She ignores the question, begins to lecture the listening crowd on the development of the pups.

Once they're weaned and are taking regurgitated meat, the next phase will be learning to hunt, she says. That's when they're taught all the skills they need to survive. It's called the hunting school.

The reporter steps in and moves the microphone disconcertingly close to her face; he is about to repeat the question, far more interested in that which is personal than in animal behaviour. She glances at his name and company lanyard – a glossy celebrity magazine. Why is he even here? She keeps talking, mentions predation rate and digestive systems, even scat, verging on scientific bore, until his eyes begin to flicker and he looks down at the recording device. Denying a son – she wonders if this is a crime that will be forgiven. Finally, he moves away, towards Sylvia, and Rachel is glad of the girl's photogenic qualities. The whole experience feels slightly unsavoury – the bald assessing of what is newsworthy, what is inflammatory, or titillating. Is the achievement not enough? Are such beautiful creatures not enough? After another fifteen minutes, she excuses herself, steps into a side room, and calls Lawrence to check on the baby.

The party begins to wind down. The last of the champagne is swilled, too fine and expensive to let it go to waste. A convoy of taxis arrives to take guests back to Kendal, where they have
hotels booked, or to catch the last train south. Thomas has disappeared, but Sylvia gives out gift bags to the departing, containing a project pamphlet, badges, and some of the estate's paraphernalia. The gathering takes on an air of
fin de siècle
, but not simply for its curtailment. Some kind of aftermath or anticlimax pervades. Rachel begins to feel depressed.

On the drive back to the cottage, a strange, heavy sensation overwhelms her, like fatigue. She parks for a few minutes on the verge, next to the main gate of the enclosure. Rain falls through the beam of the headlights with extraordinary grace. Despite the vulturish atmosphere of the evening, the tipping point of public opinion will be a good thing. There's much to celebrate, not least the fact of the litter. And yet. Rather than expanding, the project feels as if it is moving towards a conclusion, a dead end.

She stares out into the rain. The steel frame of the fence glows in the headlights. The estate is lost under darkness, its valleys and loaded mountains, its forest. Even the exuberantly blazing lights of the Hall are masked behind trees. Nature has ratified itself, as expected. The experiment has worked. There are pre-existing limits – space for one pack only inside the enclosure, one breeding pair. The pups will grow and form a society, but they will remain sexually inactive, unless one kills a parent, or a parent dies. The landscape will become healthier and more diverse, but outside the enclosure barren fells will remain, ditches dredged by machinery, booming and sickening deer populations, sheep, and evergreens. She knew all this when she took the job, and she took it anyway. Still, the project is a good thing, real under its falseness, intensive in its smallness, and unusual, in this country, for its vision.

For the first time in her life, work is not the primary concern; work is not in full possession of her soul, as it has been for more
than a decade. She cannot hide in it. All those years in which she was safe and exempt, focused on the management of another species. Now, a different sphere has ascended. The qualities of human reward and failure rest with her.
There's more to life
, Binny had said on the last day Rachel saw her alive, even as she was plotting to end her own existence. And Rachel had thought, But you've never seen a wolf, standing against the skyline in profile, you've never seen a wolf running alongside an elk, seeing through the flurry of back legs to the single, perfect moment of the strike. There is no greater beauty.

She wants to get back to the cottage. She wants to hold Charlie, feel his warm skin, or look at him in the cot. She wants to tell her brother she is proud – of his days, his weeks of sobriety, his determination. She might forgive the journalists for their callow versions and enquiries, because she too is looking away, at this other self, at her own kind. Ahead, the steel gate drips with rain. There is no going back. She starts the car and reverses off the verge, follows the lane through the woods to home.

Spring gives way early to summer, the foliage thickening, the light over the western mountains shedding its dullness. Six wolves are silhouetted against the Cumbrian fells. They are no longer aliens: they never were. She is nameless to them. They have everything they need. The herds swell with the arrival of the calves, so spindle-legged and spastic it seems they are defunct, tamping and flailing on the ground in an effort to stand, but capable of running within minutes, leaving their wet sacs strung behind them on the grass. And they do run – the deer no longer linger on the moorland or in the long valleys; they avoid areas where entrapment is possible, where many of their number have already fallen. They have been fully reprogrammed and obey the laws. Their sentries sniff the wind and scan the horizon. There is a form ghosting between the trees, skirting round the heather, perhaps nothing, or there is simply a scent drifting, with menacing association. They graze and quickly move on. When it happens, it happens like an explosion: a fuse lit at the corner of the herd, a burst of fear across their number. The closest kicks hard, for it has likely been chosen and senses it, setting the herd in motion, a terrestrial murmuration. They flush across the lowland, pursued without full exertion, but with a terrible evolved stamina, and are driven up a gradient. Degrees of weariness, the victim begins to struggle slightly and slow. The wolf closes, closes. Even after
the pursuit is over and the calf is brought down, rump-first, back legs skittled, the herd still runs. Only its mother pauses to look back, then runs on with the rest. Merle has made the kill, independently, as if on principle.

From the top of a hill, the pups watch. Two females and two males. It will not be long before they begin to chase after their parents, part of the hunting squadron. They grow in radical bursts, quarrying small prey in the grass around the den, mouse-pouncing, venturing further into the enclosure as their endurance grows. Despite the distinguishing features – one with a striped grey back like a marsupial, one with a tipping ear, one honey furred, and the smallest darker than the others – they remain unnamed. This is Rachel's idea, but the team has agreed. There's some kind of wish fulfilment to it, she suspects – that they should remain as far from domestication as possible, because they are so close to it.

She comes into the office twice a week, works remotely otherwise. In her absence, Huib is a reliable project manager, updating her on any developments: the court case with The Ramblers, another email from Nigh, observations from the fieldwork, and any new film footage. Sylvia leads a team of four new volunteers. In the autumn she will start law school.

In the cottage, they coexist surprisingly well: Rachel, her rehabilitating brother, and the little master of the household. She concentrates on the baby, aware that this time will be irrecoverable, gone in an instant. She tries to savour the moments but everything rolls forward at an alarming pace. Some amazing, nuclear energy blazes in the baby, not related to food or diurnality, but simply of its own source. One might worship it easily. He is a learning machine. He meets her gaze, dark-eyed, wants to know what she
knows, wants to converse. He is aggrieved that she will not fully, fluently learn his language, though her understanding of his inchoate English is adequate. The phenomenology of another human – there is so much shared, so much they will never share. Days of tossed bowls and food up the wall, and it is she who feels inarticulate, a foreign traveller in her son's realm.

What is it? What do you want? I don't know what you want.

He points: that, or more, or Roary, or Lawrence. His muscles get him into trouble, powerful as they are without the refined technology to walk or balance. Heaving himself up on the coffee table, on chairs. Pitching over. He moves impressively quickly across the floor on all fours, like some species fallen out of the canopy, disabled, but extremely dexterous on its secondary parts, and determined to escape. Lawrence hoists him up by the waistband of his little jeans, inches from the door. He squeals, flails. Outside is what he wants: the vibrant colours of the garden, the cacophony in the woods around the cottage, and the wind, the wind, which he adores, which he tries to qualify, hands held out to grasp and hold it, unable to, vexed. If only Rachel were as tolerable an element. He is frequently angry with her, for reasons unknown. His tantrums are galactic, often inexplicable; purple and glossy and howling, he throws himself against the chair back, or skulls her in the face, splits her lip open. She takes a deep breath, holds him away from her, licks the blood.

Don't take it personally, Lawrence says. He freaks out with me, too.

He doesn't. Not like this.

Well, you're the one he thinks of as the boss, when he wants to rebel.

Nice try, she says.

Here, give him to me. Go and take five.

They are a good team. Lawrence is patient, willing to give up an inordinate amount of time on childcare. She is aware that the baby is in part therapy, is giving him a reason to be sober. He goes to the meetings in Workington twice a week. Mitch, the group leader, is his personal sponsor; Lawrence speaks about him with enormous respect, though he is an ex-dealer, spent seven years in prison, beat up his wife. Her brother does not linger in the town after the sessions, where there might be temptation. He follows the steps. He has a checklist of danger signs, things to avoid.

And every day, he walks. Since his hike with Huib – she does not know what occurred or what was said on the trip – he has become obsessed. He walks before breakfast, even before dawn some days, if he cannot sleep. He arrives back at the cottage famished and eats an entire pan of porridge. Then he makes boiled eggs for Charlie. Some days he will be out until dusk, fasting for fifteen or twenty miles, like a pilgrim. He walks regardless of the weather conditions, lashing showers, brooding skies. The porch floor is mucky with smears and divots of dirt from his boots, pools of water from his dripping anorak. His fleece jacket and gloves wilt like pelts on the radiator.

Some days he borrows the Saab and drives into the heartland to tackle the proper peaks – Scafell, Helvellyn. He reports back, which route he took, how long to the summit. There are other lone walkers – retired crag-rats, men of persistent vitality, libidinous, perhaps unsatisfied by their arthritic wives, spending it instead on the mountain. Bearded, weathered, vowed to silence, or nodding at him and passing by on the scree, brisk and nervy as goats. The language of the uplands.

He walks after dinner, down to the lake, around the lake,
where trout rise and kiss the surface, then flicker away. This is also an addiction of sorts, Rachel thinks, but harmless – wholesome even. He is becoming fit; the worry spots on his arms are healing. She makes him sandwiches, flasks of tea – something she never willingly did when they were children. The gentle, demonic action is saving him; she hopes it is saving him. Still, she worries when he is gone too long, and on the days when he is dour, depressed, when he talks of Emily, and all that has been lost, and says the best part of his life is gone. Will he relapse? Not under her jurisdiction, she is determined.

You're going to find someone, she says. You can still have children. You're doing really well.

All of which is true, though probably not while he is sequestered at Seldom Seen, living with his sister and her child. Alexander comes to dinner once a week and stays the night. They are careful, quiet, considerate of the other adult in the household. It is companionable, this male grouping, and suits her sensibilities. Everyone gets on. Just occasionally she senses envy or frustration – something Alexander says or a look, subtly different to his response when she mentioned Kyle. A brother is greater and lesser than a sexual rival. A lover can be given up, but a sibling is a lifelong fixture, if the relationship is good. She knows he enjoyed having her to himself, being free to walk naked around the house, the lack of restraint, possibly even the potential role of father. The redefinition is not always easy to parse. It is true: she and Lawrence have found a kind of unity, a compatibility. They crawl across the floor, flanking the baby, like great doting pilots. They are perhaps reliving an era, or living an era that never existed, a childhood where they got along. She suddenly has a family, on her terms, and without antagonism.

She eats out with Alexander in L'Enclume on her birthday. It is just the two of them and they will stay the night, perhaps his way of marking territory, benignly. The restaurant is expensive and has flagrantly excessive courses. They indulge in particular intimacies in the luxurious bedroom. The sex is good, as good; he punishes her with pleasure. She thinks about but does not call home. The next morning the night's gluttony is forgotten, and they indulge in a colossal breakfast. Venison sausages. Passionfruit and rosewater salad.

How's Lawrence getting on? Alexander asks.

Really well, I think.

Yes. He seems back on his feet now.

Which means, perhaps, when will he be going back to Leeds? Of course, he does not say it, would not say it. Nor is his domestic set-up wholly conventional – the living arrangements with Chloe. She notes it, makes a point of inviting him over for the weekend while Lawrence is climbing Great Gable. He is happy enough, her boyfriend, the boyfriend of her brother's sister. Life is not straightforward: relationships bifurcate; there is nothing more complicated, more confounding, than love.

*

At the next project meeting, rather surprisingly, Thomas makes a late appearance. Before his arrival, they discuss whether or not to implant the pups with tracking devices, which will involve darting them – the same procedure as before. It's not strictly necessary, Rachel argues, given their range and the ease with which they might be located. But the data gathered would be interesting. There's also the question of sterilisation. This
would need to be done before the females reach two years of age. The phenomenon of extra breeding couples in packs is rare, she explains, and all the studies relate to larger territories than Annerdale, but a surfeit of food might foster multiple breeding, and deer on the estate are plentiful. It's a possibility. The volunteers dutifully make notes, as if in a lecture hall.

What would happen then? Sylvia asks.

We'd have to control numbers. It might lead to in-fighting. There just isn't enough room.

She can see the idea of invasive sterilisation this early in the scheme makes Sylvia uncomfortable, but it must be considered. A reminder that the enclosure is governed, that it still requires management. Sylvia nods and frowns.

Did Daddy know about this at the start?

I've talked to him about it, yes.

That's odd. He didn't say anything to me.

The faintest glimmer of annoyance in Sylvia's voice. Rachel wonders whether her father sold her the project unrealistically, a boil-in-the-bag Eden, with no human interface, though she has read enough over the last year to know conservation is not without difficult choices, and sacrifices. Huib makes a round of tea for them all and tries to reassure her.

It's a common procedure, Syl. It's used in the wild as well, like the elephants in Kruger. Kinder than letting things get out of control in a given population. And much better than destroying the animals.

She nods again.

I know. It just seems a shame, that's all. It's an awful thing to have done to you.

Rachel does not disagree with her, but this is the price of partial
freedom, and the girl knows better than to make emotional human connections with the animals. Sylvia seems out of sorts, unlike her usual self. She is pulling at a loose thread on her shirt.

We'll come back to it, Rachel says. We don't need to decide yet.

By which point, the Earl's daughter will no longer be at Annerdale. They move on to other topics. The BBC documentary Gregor is filming has been scheduled to air the following spring; Attenborough has agreed to narrate. The estate's legal team is working on an insurance-cost document relating to possible wolf-watching tours. The security report is good, though Michael is absent; Rachel has not seen him in weeks. His son, Barnaby, has been patrolling the fence and taking care of other duties around the estate.

Towards the end of the meeting, Thomas arrives. He is brusque as he greets them, lacks his usual bombastic charm.

Hello all. Sorry to parachute in. If you don't mind –

Instead of taking a chair, he stands at the head of the table, fingers locked together, chin tucked in – a politician's demeanour. A serious announcement is coming, Rachel thinks. Bad news. Thomas glances at Sylvia; she looks away, nurses her cup of tea, thumbing the rim. She already knows something, Rachel thinks. Or is she cross with her father?

I'm afraid to say, there's been a very sad development.

Thomas pauses, seems to stall before he has properly begun.

Oh, dear. This is really very tough. Very tough.

Surely it cannot be something to do with the project itself, Rachel thinks. The Earl may have been expressing dwindling interest, but he can't possibly have decided to abandon the scheme, not without speaking to her first. Thomas clears his throat, composes himself.

Last month, Lena Stott was diagnosed with cancer. The prognosis is not good, I'm sorry to say – it's particularly aggressive. We don't expect her to recover.

He pauses, swallows, then continues.

As you know, the Stotts have been at Annerdale for a very long time. It's a terrible blow. We'll be offering them all the support we can over the coming weeks. I'm sure you understand how difficult this is for Michael and Barnaby.

The room remains quiet. The volunteers shift awkwardly in their chairs, still new to the estate and not yet comfortable around its major players, not least the Earl, whom they have seen little of. Sylvia stares ahead, unblinking. Her father looks about at the group, waiting for a response perhaps.