The Wolf Border(60)

Don’t.

She casts around for better advice.

I know I sound like a wonk. Sorry, that’s just my language. I’m not very good at this. I just mean, we all make mistakes, but for a lot of the time we do OK.

When he faces her again, his eyes are bright with a sheen of tears, he is struggling to keep himself together.

I know. I just feel like shit. That’s all. I’ve been feeling like shit for weeks. I don’t feel well.

His voice is soft and rough. It is surprisingly moving to see him so upset. She feels her own eyes pricking. She puts a hand on his shoulder, squeezes. He tries to smile.

Thanks, Rachel.

The stories I could tell you about philandering, she says, lightly.

No, please don’t. I always worried about you.

His face becomes pained again – this is not the moment to assert their similarities, or tell war stories. He looks out over the fells, at the pluming cloud. She can’t be wholly satisfied with her efforts to help him, but at least she has tried. Inch by inch they are getting closer, undoing the past, or mitigating it. They are in the world as themselves, she knows; flawed, capable of better, and Binny cannot be blamed. They continue down the hill. Her back begins to ache and she stops to adjust and refasten the support belt. Lawrence waits patiently. Around them, the bracken is already turning reddish-brown, corroding. The wind is fresh. Autumn is her favourite time of year here – the county is at its most vibrant, flaring ruddy and golden, like a furnace. A year ago, she was saying no to this. A year ago, she could not have imagined such progression – but it does feel like progress, on the whole. As they walk slowly back to the car, she wonders about the baby. How much will she influence it, teach it, damage it? If she does damage it, will it end up hating her, blaming her? Will it go on to create a better self? No one is without choice, she thinks. No one is condemned to be changeless.

*

The next morning, while she’s running a bath and listening to the victory speech of Scotland’s First Minister on the radio, the landline rings. It is Honor Clark; Rachel knows before she even lifts the receiver. Honor is the only person who phones her at home and at this hour. Overnight there has been an attack on the enclosure – the main fence, not the wolfery. The police are on their way, and Michael, who discovered the the sabotage, is waiting down at the Hall.

I’ll be there as soon as I can.

Good. And of course, if you could treat the information as confidential, Thomas would appreciate it.

He knows already?

He does.

She turns the taps off. She is due at the hospital for an appointment at 11.30, which cannot be missed. She dresses, gets into the car, and drives down the lane. The morning sun is gilded, with mist above the lake and the river, white reefs over the fields. Frost tips the grass and the north-facing walls, and patches of yellow smoulder in the hardwoods, as if something is burning through from the other side. She takes a granola bar from the glovebox, one of the stash left over from her weeks of sickness, unwraps and eats it. Michael. She is annoyed that he is involved; any act against the project will please him. She’s seen little of him since the stalking season began – he is busy leading groups of shooters around the estate, friends of the Penningtons and other visitors who have paid extraordinary amounts of money to crawl through the heather and sedge of Annerdale.

She turns the car radio on. There is no deviation from the subject on this day of high drama and history. A slim margin of votes has cut the north of the island free. Live on the BBC, Caleb Douglas assures sceptics and unionists that he will work to include them all in the decisions and the future of a new Scotland. The morning programme host, also a Scot, conducts a typically aggressive interview, reveals nothing of his own leanings. From tabloid editors there’s idiotic talk of cars streaming south down the M74, queues outside estate agents, an exodus of second-home owners, English residents, and ‘realists’. The American president and the leaders of other nations have sent messages of congratulations, ranging from guarded to ecstatic. No one knows what the political protocol is – an expert is brought on to explain the possible stages. The excitement is terrible and contagious. Great Britain no longer exists.

Pennington Hall rises redly from a white sea of frost. Rachel drives faster than she usually would up the driveway, the tyres of the Saab spitting gravel. Michael is standing outside the main entrance, smoking. He eyes her as she pulls up. She gets out of the car, pushing herself off the doorframe as she must these days, tries and fails to button up her coat, and makes her way over. Michael has on matching jacket and trousers in dark green hunting plaid.

What happened? she asks.

He breathes the sweet cherry smoke into the air, shakes his head.

No idea. Just saw it as I was passing.

When?

This morning.

What’s the damage?

Well, they haven’t got through, but they’ve had a good go.

Who?

She is aware her tone sounds accusatory. He sniffs, pinches out the cigarette, and pockets the stub.

It’s probably kids larking about with a pair of clippers.

Clippers, she says. It would need to be something a little more industrial, don’t you think?

As I said, they’ve not got through.

He meets her eye. He does not look furtive or gloating. Still, she doesn’t trust him entirely. She wouldn’t put it past him to be involved, by proxy. But that would be stupid. He has already outed himself as a naysayer, marked his own card. And what would be the point of sabotaging the main enclosure before the wolves were in it? She would like to ask more questions, but Huib is making his way towards them from his quarters above the carriage house, still wearing cargo shorts, despite the early-morning chill.