The Wolf Border(113)
I’ve been thinking, she says. Maybe we can go on holiday.
On holiday?
Yes. I mean, all of us. Chloe and Charlie, too. Maybe even Lawrence. Can we?
It is a strange request out of the blue, and a strange time to be making it.
Are you alright? he asks.
Yeah.
She isn’t, of course. She is weary, though she slept surprisingly well in the plush bed and without Charlie to attend to; she did not lie awake grinding over everything in the small hours, as she feared she might. When she woke, there was a sense of powerlessness, of it all being over. The Annerdale pack. The cottage in the woods. She got up, brushed her teeth, and sat on the bed, watching the sun rise and the rain on the lake, feeling the light of day translate notions of what is right and wrong – or expand those notions.
By mid-afternoon, the weather clears – breaks appear in the clouds and hard, wet sunlight glints through. There is a moderate wind, not ideal but not prohibitive for flight. They prepare to leave. In the interim there have been two more sightings, both in the farmland between Aspatria and Wigton. A woman riding on a bridleway, whose horse bolted with her clinging on to it, and a child on a school bus, disbelieved by everyone at first, the boyish fantasy of seeing White Fang running alongside. It means they have left the Lake District national park and are nearing the metropolis, with its heavy traffic and intersections. If they keep to the salt marsh and estuary belt to the north of the city, they will be OK, she thinks.
They walk through Sharrow’s lakeside gardens to the Gazelle. The last thing she wants is to be flown anywhere by Thomas Pennington, but she gives herself over to his methods. What else can she do? Her duty is to the pack. It is galling, and she dislikes herself for the surrender. But what matters, matters by degrees. That they make it past the city of Carlisle. That they are not vilified for their instincts and appetites. That Scotland, if it is the beacon of progression that Thomas challenges it to be, does the right thing.
There is no careful plan to get them back; she knows that now. She has the case of darts in her hand, but it’s redundant. She will not get the chance to sedate them, she’s sure of that, even if they are found. From the position of a deity, she will simply bear witness to their true, illegal release. She follows the others out to the helicopter, favourite words of Binny’s trumpeting in her head: It’s easier to get forgiveness than permission, my girl. Her mother’s excuse for doing as she pleased, living as she pleased, selfishly, perhaps better than most.
There’s a provisional meeting scheduled later in Edinburgh, Thomas tells them, should it be necessary. She knows what the arguments will be, what Thomas is currently negotiating with his Scottish peers and what she, too, will be required to say, expertly, in a roomful of law-makers. That study, conservation, and protection in the natural habitat are of utmost benefit to the public. That wolves are not only economically beneficial, but environmentally curative. That in the far reaches there are tracts of suitable land and Scotland should embrace them, cherish them. The truth will not be hard to speak. If they are harmed, she thinks, in between, anywhere, she will find a way of making Thomas Pennington suffer for the heedless experiment. No one is invulnerable. Not even him. But such a thing is fantasy, she knows.
The flight is uncomfortably bumpy, the helicopter lurches and swings in the stiff wind. Her anger keeps her focused and unafraid. They sweep over northern Cumbria, leaving the swathed massifs of the Lake District behind them. Villages. Small towns. There are passable rural corridors. They can slip through; she has confidence. The Solway shines on the horizon, and then is under them, patched by mudflats and sand. They are in range of Carlisle airport. The Gazelle flies lower than it should – she can see wading birds and geese, rivulets as water floods into and out of the neck of the former United Kingdom. Huib holds up the handheld receiver, talks to Thomas on the headset. She, too, has a signal on her device.
They find them a few minutes later, passing over the intermediate lands, the debatable lands as they once were. They are running over open moorland, the surviving five, driven hard by the noise of the helicopter. Ra leads them. She watches them run. She is rusty at targeting on the move, but could almost certainly tranquillise the breeding pair, were Thomas to hold the aircraft steadier. Instead, she watches and says nothing. They run in formation, arrow-shaped, the three juveniles keeping pace beautifully, strong now, and sleek. The helicopter flies above and then alongside them, and the animals disperse, each lighting out on an averse route. Separated, they run on across the moor, eyes ahead, grey fire across the border. There’s no meridian to mark the international crossing, no checkpoint, for all the rhetoric of the past year, just a smattering of whin and rowan, barren slopes and cuttings. The unspectacular lowlands stretch ahead, taupe and tan, and just below the helicopter, painted on the gable of a lone croft dwelling, in welcome or defiance, is a blue and white Saltire. The helicopter banks east, towards the capital.
*
It ends, as conflicts and dreams do, in a government committee room. The Earl lands at Edinburgh airport, and they are driven through the tall, sooted city to Holyrood. The new parliament building glints at the bottom of the Royal Mile, pale and angular, wharfs of glass and stylised windows jutting: a modernist vision for a modern state. Rachel takes a phone call from the Dumfries and Galloway police chief before entering the building – the woman assures her the animals will be monitored and protected throughout the Borders, and that there is much public support. Rachel thanks her. The words are reassuring but there will be other challenges. For all the reforms, and the possible protection, there are still powerful, absentee estate owners to contend with, sheiks and millionaires residing abroad whose compliance with the law is loose at best, who do not care about fines or penalties.