The Wolf Border(39)
The van brakes moderately, keeps its distance from the traffic in front. In some part of their brain, even drowsing, they will comprehend motion. Through the seals in the van doors they will detect traces of passing substances: clays, flints, grasslands, under diesel and bitumen, exhaust fumes. And humans nearby – perspiration, hormones. They are intelligent analysts. In those in captivity, she’s witnessed incredible responses to human conditions: aggression towards drunks, defence of pregnant staff if a threat is perceived. If they are starting to rouse, they will be communicating with each other, low-toned, almost whistling. But the sedation has been finely administered and should last.
Warning signs flash overhead. Roadworks around Birmingham – long delays. She follows the Vargis van onto the M6 toll road, which is glossy and empty. They pass through the Midlands. Black Country residue. Towns bleeding together along the river basin. It would have been easy to have taken them from visitor centres in Norfolk or Reading, but they must be unhabituated. They must understand range, be able to hunt, or the project will not work.
She sips water from a bottle, not much – she does not want to have to stop at a service station. Neither does the driver of the van pull over for a break – probably they have helpful devices to relieve themselves. The country rolls by. She indulges in a dark daydream, imagines the Vargis men stopping in a layby, stepping into the nearby bushes to urinate. When they return the vehicle is gone, opportunistically stolen. Miles away in a lock-up its doors are pried open. She imagines the shock of these particular spoils – the thieves recoiling. What the hell? Is that a . . . Then incremental bravado, goading the animals with a stick or a piece of pipe through the crate hatches – bragging and phone calls. Either they’d be kept by some thug on a chain in an outbuilding, or dumped in the fly-tipped hinterlands of England amid old washing machines and corrosives. Worse: they’d be pitted against some trained brute of a dog in a gore-smeared ring. A mastiff. A cross-hound. Such things do occur. She’s seen appalling Spanish footage of a wolf matched against a Presa Canario, the most hellish of breeds, 160 pounds of thick-packed muscle, its ears illegally cropped. The fight was brief. A torrent of snarling, spittle flying, eyes filling with red – both of them up on their hindlegs, heaving against each other like boxers, their heads shaking. Within seconds the dog’s brindle was muddied with blood, its jowls torn, and the wolf’s side rent open. The onlookers cheering and exchanging bets, chanting the name of the dog, Rafa, Rafa, Rafa, which would, given the extent of its injuries, still have had to be shot. People look at her with surprise when she says that hunting is at least an honest sport.
The thought passes. The blue van makes steady progress. By Manchester she begins to relax. The roads are relatively clear. She turns the radio on, then off again. The tarmac hums under the wheels. Her phone rings – the number unlisted. She does not answer. Probably Thomas, who was hoping to be present for their arrival, but is sitting in the House. Traffic slows over the ship canal. The road rises and falls, then everything speeds up again. There are multiple lanes around Preston, a cavalcade of undertaking and overtaking. She grips the wheel tightly, flashing her lights and cursing as a car veers between her and the transport van, across three lanes, onto the slip road. The northern cross motorways draw much of the traffic off. After Lancaster the way is clear. They exit the motorway and take the dual carriageway along the county’s southern edge. Oyster-coloured skies above Cumbria. The estuary glimmers in the sunlight. Shallow waves traverse its surface, moving both directions at once – a Janus tide.
She concentrates. It will take another hour to get to Annerdale. She signals to the van, overtakes, and leads the convoy – it is unlikely they will get lost but she doesn’t want to take the chance. They continue on, into the mountains, sedately, like some kind of royal procession, the diplomatic arrival of a crowned couple. And it is historic, she thinks. It’s five hundred years since their extermination on the island. They are a distant memory, a mythical thing. Britain has altered radically, as has her iconography of wilderness, her totems.
Once in situ, she knows they will divide the country, just as they will quarter the imagination again. Always the same polar arguments. Last year, during documentary filming at Chief Joseph, two hunters had shouted in her face. They devour their victims alive, while their hearts are still beating! They revel in death! As if the animals were some kind of biblical plague – many do believe it. She had calmly explained on camera the hierarchy and tactics of the hunt, the fact that eighty per cent of hunts fail; the fact that herds, after the culling of the weak by predators, are always healthier. Facts versus fear, hatred, and irrationality. As for glee during a kill, such a thing cannot be ascertained, though females seem to express great excitement the first time they hunt after a new litter has been weaned.
Ahead, the mountains seem to smoke, white clouds pluming above as if they were not dead volcanoes, but live. The new bracken is electric green in the lower valleys. She leaves Alexander a message, so that he will know to set off. She slows for a humpback bridge and sounds the horn to warn oncoming traffic, checks her rear-view mirror. The van is close behind, carefully navigating the narrow structure, its wing mirrors only inches from the stone walls. The screen is tinted; she cannot see the drivers. Its hold might be carrying anything: gold bullion, masterpieces, the body of Jesus Christ. There has not been a public announcement about the arrival – she does not want to risk any controversy. The Annerdale wolves are being brought in, to all intents and purposes, secretly, under the radar, like contraband.