The Wolf Border(35)
For a moment he looks forlorn, as if everything – the day, its efforts and successes – will vanish the moment Rachel disappears from sight. As if he is standing at the front door of the post office cottage again and she is walking away. She wants to reassure him, but what is there to say? Already he is climbing into his car, reversing round and waving through the window. He is pulling onto the main road and accelerating. His car clears the brow of the hill and disappears.
On the way home, Rachel makes a detour. At Binny’s graveside in the little cemetery near Willowbrook she stands for a few minutes. There are good reasons to have a termination. There are good reasons to carry on as she is, solo up the face, the way she has moved for years. But here, by the small white stone and recently seeded mound, where she had expected those reasons to overwhelm and finally make a decision, she feels no relief, no surety, only the awkwardness of hope.
THE WOLVES
The fence is twelve feet high, the limit of their ability to jump, sloping inward at the top, a forty-five-degree angle. There are no barbs and it is not electric. As she walks along the structure, Rachel can see that care has been taken not to build it too close to any existing elevations, trees, walls, or hummocks. They would certainly exploit it. She’s seen them perform a running climb before, almost vertical, going after small prey, marsupials. In Yellowstone, one of the ranchers told a story about having seen one use the back of a bull elk as a springboard to take down another elk. There have been many such stories over the years. She thinks of Setterah Keep, the escape, which she does not remember. That fence was old, rusted, or perhaps it had not been sunk deep enough, perhaps one of them dug out. Underneath the Annerdale fence are reinforced foundations extending four feet into the earth. The construction is wolf-proof.
And incredibly impressive as it rises before her, reels of heavy-duty steel, green coated to lower the environmental impact. Six feet away, on the exterior, is a secondary barrier, to keep people back. Signs are fixed along it every third of a mile – like forts along a Roman wall – hazard triangles around a stylised and distinctive silhouette. It is not altogether a good message, but part of the project’s inevitable red tape. She walks a section, through the barrows, up above the lake. She had expected something more industrial-looking – penal, even. But the estate runs close to and then into the national park; such a thing would not be permissible. At each of the entry points around the enclosure – eight in all – there are digital coded locks. Access will be limited: those working on the project and special permissions. Pennington Hall, her cottage, and most of the other estate buildings lie outside the fence. No doubt Thomas would have preferred to be inside, among them.
She leaves the fence and walks down towards the river. It is warm. She strips off her jacket and jumper. Underneath, the waist of her jeans is feeling tight; she is beginning to round out, though not noticeably. The river runs at leisure over grey tumbled boulders. In a clearing on the bank, between thistles and wild rhubarb, the new assistant has pitched his tent. There’s a dark, scorched patch where he has had a fire, with turf stacked next to it. Between two bushes a laundry wire is strung; a T-shirt, socks, and boxers jig in the breeze. A mountain bike is propped up on its stand. It is early in the morning, but the tent zip is open.
Hello, she calls. Huib? Anyone home?
Huib pops his head outside and puts his thumb up.
Rachel. I’m coming out.
He emerges. He has on a pair of shorts that seem entirely made of pockets, and a flannel shirt. The skin on his legs, arms, and face is burnt a deep, sub-Saharan brown. A high, balding forehead, jug ears, warm sorrel eyes.
You picked a lovely spot, she says.
I know. It’s good of Thomas to let me pitch. He said I could go anywhere I liked until the apartment is ready.
Thomas. Huib seems to have no problem with the informality, but it still sounds wrong to her, and she avoids using his first name wherever possible. She has watched them chatting casually down at the hall, discussing politics and current affairs with no awkwardness. Post-colonial confidence meeting reconstituted aristocracy.
Do you need anything? she asks. It’s quite spartan down here.
No, I’m fine. I’m going to swim later; there’s a really great place just upstream, with a kind of diving rock.
He is smiling and pointing with a thumb. He is only thirty years old, but the African sun has already lined his skin. His remaining hair is closely shaved, the same nut-colour as his scalp. Huib was an easy choice, and if anything over-qualified. A stint in Mozambique on the leopard restoration programme – one of the most competitive and desirable in the world, a trump card. But it was his temperament that had appealed. Through the window of Abbot Museum she’d watched him cycle into the car park, swinging one leg over the frame and running a long, single-pedalled dismount, stunt-like, teenager-ish. There was an air of casual immunity about him, though he had on a helmet. Before he rolled his trouser leg down, she saw an oily tattoo of the bike chain on his calf. It is in such moments that decisions are made. Perhaps he had reminded her a little of Kyle.
I caught some signal crayfish last night, he says. They’re delicious! You just have to lift up the rocks slowly, then pinch them out.
I used to spend hours doing that as a kid, Rachel says. They were mostly white-claws then – the native ones.
Ja, he says, nodding. Terrible decline. I’m going to apply for a trap from the environment agency, if Thomas doesn’t mind.