The Wolf Border(34)

She shakes her head.

Not boring at all.

What about you? How’s it all going? Is Pennington a total nutter?

Yeah, a bit. But he’s the boss.

I suppose he can’t be all bad if he’s got you working for him. What exactly are you doing? It’s not like a zoo, is it? Mum was a bit vague.

She tells him about the wolves, when they are coming, how they will be reintroduced.

You should come and see them, she says.

Can I? I’d love to.

He grins. He is disproportionately pleased at the offer. It is almost as if they are on a first date and she has just stated her intention to enter a relationship. He asks a few more questions about the project, taken by the exoticism of her job. The air rushes past them, a continually buffeting lyric. Now that she is not moving, the sweat on her neck and back begins to chill. She shivers.

Should we get going?

OK. Do you want a hat, Rachel? I’ve got a spare one.

Oh, no, thanks. Well, OK then.

He takes a fleece hat out of the rucksack and she puts it on. They continue upward, into the cold, fast-moving currents. The effort is double with the wind hoving against them. The latter part of the route is incredibly difficult, almost beyond her limit. Rachel’s legs shake; the undersides of her toes burn. The dense sedge grass vibrates all around and blurs her vision. There are no birds, just the occasional ravaged-looking sheep, bleating uselessly in the wind. They push on, up and over a false brow. She can hear Lawrence breathing hard. Is he asthmatic? She can’t remember. She looks back. He is leaning over, his hands on his knees. He spits.

Sorry!

Almost there, she calls. You alright? Want to stop?

I’m alright!

She waits for him to catch up.

I’m not properly designed for this, he says.

No, nor am I, she says. You know, a wolf’s breathing mechanism is superb. The way the structure of their nose has evolved. They have an incredible ability to oxygenate.

Lawrence frowns. His face is purplish and his eyes are streaming. The wind hammers. They adjust their feet and lean slightly together. He puts his hands on her shoulders. There was no hello kiss in the pub car park; they did not embrace. They have not touched each other for years, perhaps not since childhood. He shakes her gently.

Lucky bloody wolf, he shouts.

On the final stretch there are annals of peat, sinkholes and bogs, and the thin path to the summit. The uppermost expanse is broad, a shattered tabletop. They aim for the cairn, which is made of heavy, storm-resistant stones. Skiddaw hulks to the east, bronze-tinted, the heather not yet blooming. The Langdale Pikes needle up to the south; Scotland drags the lowlands north. They take shelter in a walled pen near the cairn and hunker down, but the wind still infiltrates. Lawrence has warm tea in a thermos, possibly the most welcome thing Rachel has ever drunk in her life. He is squatting and smiling as he pours the liquid into a cup, his jacket hood pulled tight, his face barely visible.

We made it, Rachel! I didn’t think we would!

Suddenly she feels moved. All those moments together when they were young and she felt nothing, an emotional deficit. She even used to think, once she’d learnt enough biology, that her programming meant she wasn’t supposed to care for him – they had different genes. Roll the other egg out of the nest and watch it smash below. Her throat constricts. She wants to correct the error. Stupid to feel such things now, she thinks. She is strangely not herself: the power of hormones.

They stay at the cairn until the exposure becomes uncomfortable. There’s another hail shower, after which they begin down. Rachel’s legs are weak on the descent, lactic, buckling every few paces. Walkers coming up in breathless agony look enviously at them, bid them hello, stand aside on the path to let them pass. The mood is victorious, at ease.

Do you remember that Christmas, she asks, when the pylons came down?

Is that the year Mum tried to cook a goose?

Did she? I don’t remember that!

There was goose fat everywhere.

Then, endorphin-silly or simply salutatory, they belt out a carol. O come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant. The sheep, stuck on the outcrops, turn their heads away and bleat into the void.

Would they come up this high? Lawrence asks.

Sure.

Sure, he says, mimicking her. That’s ‘yes, definitely, my girl’.

She laughs at his impression of Binny, and is pleased he isn’t sanctifying their mother.

Et tu, Brute.

They can travel much higher, she tells him, and they do. In the Ethiopian Highlands, Canada, Alaska. They can cross deserts and ice sheets; they live comfortably in any climate, gelid or desiccated, arboreal, tundra. While she talks, he looks at her with admiration, as if it is she who is capable of such feats. I’m not what you think, she wants to say, but she likes his interest in the work.

In the car park of The White Horse they decide against a drink, though the pub is a good one, the chimney is smoking and the waft of pastry baking, hops, and vinegar is inviting.

Long drive back to Leeds, Lawrence says. Emily wants to go out for dinner with friends tonight. Sorry.

A curfew of sorts, Rachel assumes. Penalty for the day’s freedom.

But it was a really great walk, he says quickly. Thanks for asking.

Yeah, no. Thanks for coming.

They bid each other goodbye, semi-formal again.

See you soon.

Yeah. Bye, Lawrence.