The Wolf Border(55)
When she arrives at the quarantine pen, she goes into the hide and looks through one of the night-vision cameras. They are at the bottom, by the fence, nosing through the grass and chewing. They are likely searching for large insects, mice, a toad, any living thing to kill, such is the boredom of being fed. Or perhaps they have found early mushrooms. After a while, they move up towards the hide, into plain view, their coats strangely highlighted, eyes eerie bulbs of light. Darkness is liberty for them, but what comes in darkness to challenge their dominance is the worst thing they face. Another pack, ambushing. Humans. Juggernauts on the highway. Tonight they are playful. Ra trots alongside and then passes Merle, falls back, passes her again. He rises on his hind legs, circles his head, like a boxer. He tugs at her ruff. The day’s languid canine is gone. He is a night hunter, like the legend. Though he is big, he is agile, and will be good at taking rabbits, she thinks, if he can learn to chicane through the heather. Their feed is being carefully weighed and given just once a week, but they are still well bulked. There is fat under their skin, around their hearts, kidneys, and in the marrow of their leg bones. Once they are released and have to go to work, the stores will be reabsorbed. Ra rolls on his back, rubbing the top of his head backward and forward on the ground, his legs kicking, dopey, submissive. Merle stands over him. Rachel smiles. It is at night that they give up their secrets, that they seem most sacred to her: ghost-like, elegant, and frivolous.
She leans back against the hide wall and watches them until she begins to feels better, less anxious. They pad soundlessly, even when they are within thirty metres of her. They do not howl. The nightly border tests of the first few weeks have lapsed into occasional bouts, their heads tilted back, throats perfectly straight to a funnelled point. Kyle had a trick for setting them off, if they were close by on the Reservation – he would howl mournfully until they howled back. Acceptable human interference, he called it. She is thinking of him less now. Their communication has been polite, but infrequent. The moral question still hangs over her, but time and distance are making it easier.
She arrives home a little after 5 a.m. It is already light. The Audi is gone. Inside there is a note on the kitchen table. Thank you and sorry again. She screws the paper up and puts it in the bin. She is tired now, even though the day is brightening and the birds are singing. Upstairs, the spare bed is made, as if never slept in, the T-shirt left folded neatly on top. She thinks about calling Lawrence, but the hour is too early and the fight – whatever it was really about – is not her business. What would she say? Don’t upset your wife. No. She goes to her bedroom and lies down on her side, puts a pillow under her belly. An hour’s rest, and then she will get up and go to work.
*
The midwife is a woman in her mid-sixties, with ash-grey curls and a stiff hip, past retirement age but not, it seems, retiring anytime soon. Her name is Jan. She is from Workington and sounds fractionally Irish, like many of the older residents along the west coast. She sits at her desk, one leg held straight out in front of her to relieve the pinch in the joint. On the desk is a lumpen, hardwood sculpture, a souvenir from her time working in the Botswanan clinics. Her uniform is deeply unflattering: brown, waist-less, almost a military tunic. But her manner is that of a jovial, life-worn aunt, someone who has seen and countenanced much, and has managed, through sheer will or remarkable fortitude, not to become jaded. She laughs frequently, chides the baby for hiding behind the placenta when she is trying to listen to the heartbeat.
Come out, you little beggar.
She moves the device.
No, now that’s coming through the cord.
Finally she finds a clear sound and is pleased. Rachel’s growth is measured. More blood is taken. They discuss a birth plan – birth wish list, as Jan prefers to call it, since plans often have to be altered. She expresses mild concern about a home birth – Annerdale is a fair distance from the hospital, it is a first birth – but is not unconfident about Rachel’s choice, her health. She is used to rural deliveries. She is nurse-trained, able to catheterise and perform episiotomies. Twenty-eight weeks: the baby is viable.
You’ve got the main centre number and delivery suite number, Jan says, but I’m going to give you my mobile. I’ve got NHS enhanced reception, so you can get me anytime. Anything at all, you just pick up the phone to me, luvvie. Now, tell me how you’re getting on generally.
Rachel lists the discomforts, the pelvic pains, the heartburn, all standard. Walking to the enclosure takes an extra ten minutes, and often she feels winded. She can hear her own heart banging away when her right ear is on the pillow. Jan is sympathetic.
Let’s see about getting you a support belt. Not the swishest fashion item, I’m afraid, but they do help.
The session overruns; all Jan’s sessions overrun. Most interesting to Rachel during their time together is hearing about the strange phenomena of the job. The anecdotes, the decades of observed behaviour.
Don’t be surprised if you find yourself wanting to be in the smallest room in the house when you’re in labour. Box room. Downstairs lav. I’ve had women do the coal shed.
They have a conversation about the risks of the quarantine pen, but it seems belated. In any case, Jan is not the cotton wool and antibacterial type. Her area covers the west coast farmers. There is the issue of lambing; she has had one or two cases of Q fever, but if every pregnant lady in the county stopped associating with her husband’s livestock, farms would shut every week up and down the district, she says.