The Wolf Border(4)

The lake’s surface reflects complicated weather. On an island near the opposite shore is a red-stone folly, a faux architectural match for the hall, and towards this a tiny boat is rowing, leaving a soft V on the cloudy surface. The west coast is fifteen miles away, ugly and nuclear. Somewhere between, behind the autumn trees, is the enclosure.

Maps of the estate have been sent to her. Spatially, the argument is easily made; it is one of the few tracts of land where such a project is viable. The new game enclosure bill has given the Earl licence for such a project. No doubt he pulled strings to have it passed. Work is underway on the barrier. The money seems limitless. What he does not have, what he wants, is her – the native expert.

She takes her phone from her jacket pocket. Binny has rung but left no message. There are two texts from Kyle. Left Paw radio transmitter kaput, possible dispersal. Trustafarian volunteer quit owe you 50. Then, off duty: How’s merry old England had any warm beer? He will be out trying to track Left Paw, whose disappearance is not unexpected. The young male has been making solo excursions, preparing to go and find a mate. Still, such events are not without worry. There’s a text from one of the local rangers, married but persistent. A mistake over the summer. Another white night. She deletes it without reading.

The light outside the windows remains bright, but hanging over the lake are fine slings of rain. The boat has made it to the island and has moored. Rachel walks the circumference of the room, pauses at an adjoining door, then opens it. A library. Assuming no intrusion – is she not somehow entitled while she waits? – she goes inside. There’s another fireplace, deeply recessed with seats inlaid, classical scenes painted on the tiles. On every wall shelves are fitted, floor to ceiling, in glossy hardwood. She browses the contents. Leather-bound antiques, hardbacks of contemporary novels. There are illustrated wildlife encyclopedias. An impressive row of first-edition poetry volumes: Auden, Eliot, Douglas. A large Audubon folio. It is a civil collection – with nothing particularly revealing. But what clues does she expect to find anyway? Tomes of the occult? Fairy tales? Has she imagined Thomas Pennington to be a Gothic fetishist? A Romanticist with a liking for exotic pets? Who is this man who has expensively summoned her across thousands of miles?

On the mantelpiece above the fire is a heavy bronze replica of the Capitoline wolf, the infants Romulus and Remus on their knees suckling beneath her. For all Rachel knows, it could be the original. The truth is she suspected – as soon as she knew whose name was attached to the project – that this landed British entrepreneur, known for causing trouble in the House, for sponsoring sea eagles and opposing badger culls, is deadly serious about his latest environmental venture. That’s why she is here. Not for Binny, who is simply benefiting from a stranger’s generosity. She shuts the library door. She goes back into the drawing room, sits in the chaise longue, leans against the plush upholstery, and closes her eyes.

After forty-five minutes Honor Clark wakes her, with a polite hand on the shoulder. She is wearing a brown raincoat, belted at the waist, and carrying an oxblood lady’s briefcase. A paisley headscarf is knotted under her chin. Rachel wants to ask, Do the shops in the county still sell such items, without irony? Are these fashions still depicted in the country magazines?

We’re going to have to scratch, Honor Clark says. Can you come back tomorrow?

The tone is faintly triumphant. Clearly, she knows her boss’s habits; clerical intuition and rescheduling are a normal part of her job description, and it is certainly not within her remit to apologise for the errant Earl. The airline ticket from Spokane was business class; Rachel’s hire car is a BMW. Any additional expenses are being covered during her stay; all she has to do is keep and submit receipts. If the man himself is chaotic, or even a lunatic, his sovereignty seems not to suffer. Rachel stands.

Sure. Tomorrow. What time?

Let’s try eleven. He has t’ai chi from nine until ten.

Of course he does, Rachel thinks. As she crosses the room, the tag inside her trousers scratches her lower back. She reaches in and snaps it from the plastic frond, crumples it, and puts it into her back pocket. She has a week’s leave from Chief Joseph, during which time her soliciting benefactor can put in an appearance or not, as he so chooses. It will make no difference either way; her obligation ends after their meeting. She knows she will not take the job, however appealing the proposal or curious she may be. Foolish and time-wasting though the courtship may result, it has at least given her a reason to come home.

*

Is that you, my girl?

You look smaller, Mum.

It’s true. Since Rachel’s last visit, Binny has shrunk considerably. She clutches the doorframe of her care-home apartment, a stoop-lump on her back under the quilted dressing gown. Her hair is almost gone, her scalp as cracked and dull as a shell. The hand holding the doorframe looks fossilised, like something extracted from a bog or petrified forest, out of proportion with her thin arm. On her face are brown flaky cancers. The descent since Rachel’s last visit, when her mother was still able to lob a vase at the wall, has been steep.

You look like an American. You’re not a bloody citizen, are you?

Not yet, no.

Good.

Binny releases the door and they embrace. She holds Rachel fiercely, a grip far exceeding her frail demeanour, a grip reminding her daughter just how long she has been gone. From under the quilted gown comes the reek of sweat and ammonia, and a masking perfume – not the Paestum Rose Binny once favoured, gifted by suitors and worn high in the wen of her thighs, but something sweeter, cheaper, a scent that will cover the body’s sins. The yolky eyes of her mother look her over.