The Wolf Border(54)

I said awful things about you, and your mother, Emily says, looking Rachel directly in the eye. I said he was brought up in a household where bad behaviour was normal. I told him he was too f*cked up to be a father and we should stop trying.

What did you mean, he has problems? Is he seeing someone?

Emily does not answer, but continues to look at Rachel, reading, assessing. Then, as if making a conscious decision, she recoils from the details of confession.

It’s nothing. Just that he goes through these bad times. He comes a bit unwound.

It’s a vague thing to say, but the tone is too factual to be simple deflection or a lie about her husband. What does coming unwound mean? Rachel cannot imagine her brother f*cking around or otherwise acting up. But then, she has seen little of him as a grown man. And all men are capable of straying. Most women, too. Lawrence was brought up a certain way; if not instructed in the school, then let to see the possibilities, the methods, as was Rachel. What is laid down in childhood is difficult to reverse; one might spend a lifetime trying. Suddenly Rachel does want to know more, never mind the awkwardness.

Who is Sara?

Just someone he works with. A friend in the office.

What did you mean, being with her isn’t the worst thing?

It was just a stupid argument. We’ve been very stressed.

Emily wipes her face again, composes herself. It’s too late. The guard is going back up.

Whatever it is your family’s got, she says, I don’t have it.

What do you mean?

You’re so autonomous. So defended.

Is that a good thing?

Emily shrugs. Criticism or not, Rachel is out of her depth. She feels incapable of psychologising a brother she knows so little, or consoling a woman with whom she has frequently warred. Whatever window of insight into their troubles his wife might have provided has closed. Emily holds her hands tightly together on her lap.

Wait here a second, Rachel says.

She walks to the back door of the cottage and goes inside. In the kitchen she stands for a moment and tries to gather her wits. It seems bizarre that Emily has come all this way – on a whim, and to a former foe – asking for help. It makes no sense. And yet Rachel does want to help, or at least to understand. The idea of a marital rift, of her brother cracking at the seams, is unsettling. There’s certainly more to it than Emily is letting on; that much is clear. Once, she might not have cared; now, she cannot turn a blind eye. She goes into the downstairs bathroom, gathers a wad of toilet roll, collects a glass of water from the kitchen, and goes back into the garden. She hands them to Emily. After blowing her nose and taking a sip, Emily rallies a little, sits straighter. She combs her hair behind her ears.

I apologise. This really isn’t on.

There’s no need.

No, there is. And I’m sorry for everything this last year.

In fact, the last thing Rachel wants is an apology – the hollow, unendurable victory of that. This declawed version of her sister-in-law still seems wrong. Shadows have begun to spool into the garden and the light is suddenly murky. To the portentous west, the sound of thunder, a long, deep tear, and there’s a distinctive smell: wet herbs, cordite, the precursor of rain. Something big is about to unleash. She cannot, in all good conscience, send Emily away.

We should go inside, she says. I’m going to make some pasta. It’s about all I want to eat these days. You can have some with me.

She stands. Emily nods and stands also.

You look really well, she says again.

In the kitchen Rachel pours Emily a glass of wine, and quickly throws together a meal. The two do not speak much but there is a tenuous accord – enough to get through the evening. The rain begins, not with torrid, dehumidifying power, but a slow, intermittent shower, dysuric. Then the battering downpour comes, drenching everything. Emily catches Rachel looking at the clock.

I’ve ruined your evening, she says.

No, you haven’t, Rachel assures her, but I do have to phone someone. And I think you should stay – you don’t want to drive back in this.

After a quiet, reflective dinner, with limited conversation, they retire to bed. Emily does not expand on Lawrence’s problems and Rachel does not push, nor are they keen to stray into the mined territory of the past. Emily borrows a T-shirt to sleep in, bids Rachel goodnight, and heads into the spare room. She seems less distraught, more resolved, though her frame of mind is hard to gauge. Although tired from the night before, Rachel cannot sleep. The house seems to ring with the presence of her brother’s wife, but when Rachel goes to the bathroom, the spare room is silent and no lamp light filters under the doorway into the hallway. It occurs to her that her brother might be far less together than she’d always assumed, his proclivities far darker. Sara. Can it be true he has a mistress? The word, the idea, seems ridiculous. And what is the worse scenario Emily alluded to? Her mind shifts though fantastic, disturbing images: sex workers in the backstreets of Leeds, STD clinics.

She fidgets under the sheets. They smell of Alexander: oniony, a man’s sweat and fluids. It was past eight when she called him – the phone went straight to voicemail and she left a brief, poorly explained message. She did not mention Emily. He has not called back. It is likely that he thinks her uninterested – God knows, she has perfected the impression over the years. After an hour or two’s restlessness, she gets up, dresses, lets herself out of the cottage quietly, and walks to the wolfery. The rain is easing off. Between the clouds is a giant, tallow lobe of moon. The woods are still, giving nothing up, not a whisper. She walks carefully, so as not to trip, though the path is easy to see in the whitish moonlight.