The Wolf Border(68)

From nearby, there is laughter, applause, and cheering, voices small in the landscape. Hurray! Rachel sits down heavily on the grass, leans back, tired and exhilarated. They’ve made it. She has made it. She hears the pop of the cork and the wet crackle of the champagne being poured. A glass is passed down to her by Alexander. His big hand rests for a moment on the back of her neck, squeezes gently. They are all saying, Well done, Rachel, well done, here’s to Rachel. She takes a sip. Something very fine and very old from the Annerdale cellars that is lost on her.

She looks towards the hide. Under the netting, Gregor will still be filming, focusing the high-powered lens, perhaps following their progress between the thorn trees, along the ridge to the summit, where they will contemplate the broad expanses of Annerdale, and decide which route to take. Rachel looks over the estate. Russet ferns and the knitted furze. The signature fells beyond. Long silhouettes drool from bushes and trees; all the land’s contours are exposed, every curve, every corrie and glacier cut, everything looks shadow-cast, so beautifully sheer.

*

She leaves her bag in the room where she and the baby will spend the next two days. She signs more consent forms, goes to the bathroom again. A nurse preps her, gives her a gown, checks her identity bracelet for the dozenth time. She is not wearing rings – she owns no rings, no jewellery, in fact – and has no lacquer on her nails. She has fasted in case they need to perform a general anaesthetic, taken antacid. She is walked down to the anaesthetics room next to the theatre. Her blood pressure and the baby’s heartbeat are checked again. The anaesthetist and ODP are introduced and chat about baby names, to distract her from the sensation of the spinal block, the cold trickling sting. She leans forward on the gurney, tries to remain still, tries to relax, but it is impossible. The medics sense her tension. The ODP, Sam, is mannish, short, and has exceptionally blue eyes. She kneels in front of Rachel, grinning.

So you breed wolves then, Rachel. Are you having a wolf today?

I wouldn’t be surprised.

Good luck with that.

After they are done, she is helped to lie back down. Her legs begin to numb. They apply ice – she cannot feel the cold, just wetness. They attach heart-rate monitors to her chest, take her blood pressure again, insert the catheter.

All alright so far? the anaesthetist asks her.

Alright, she says.

Off we go then. We’ll be done in a flash.

The trolley is wheeled forward, through the theatre doors. It is going ahead, there is no choice. A different midwife is in the room – one she has never met – Jan must be on call. She is suddenly afraid. She is not as tough as she thought she was, or wants to be. When Alexander dropped her off at 6 a.m., her heart was barking madly; he had hugged her, told her it would be easy, said he would see her afterwards, and she had calmed a little. Lawrence, too, is driving up from Leeds and will visit her this evening, by which point she might be up and about. In the end, she does need them.

There are lights in the theatre, great bright discs. Staff in scrubs and hats – the consultant is smiling. She has met her before, cannot remember her name.

Hello, Rachel, she says. Doing OK?

Yes, OK.

Good. Everything’s looking very good. Ready to meet the little one?

I think so.

What else can she say amid the banal, undramatic language of the medical world? How will I be a mother? Will I feel love? Her identity is checked again. The sheets go up, partitioning her.

Don’t worry, the midwife says. Soon be done.

The painkillers seem to have a mild sedative effect too. People are talking to her. She does not know if they have started the operation. There is someone beside her head, trying to get her attention – the ODP, Sam. Sam, with her lively blue eyes and boy’s face. Talk of holidays and a recently read book. They are still positioning her, she thinks, there is the sensation of pressure, things moving, pulling, but no real feeling. Then she realises, because of what the consultant is saying, that they have opened her up. She puts her head back, and her breaths begin to come unevenly.

I’m sorry, she says, though she does not know to whom she is apologising. Kyle? Binny? The baby?

Alright? Sam asks.

No. I don’t know, she whispers.

You know, I remember seeing some wolves when I was a kid, Sam says. In a park. There were a load of other animals too. Do you know the one I mean?

Where was it?

Near Penrith, I think.

Setterah Keep, Rachel says.

Yeah, Setterah, that was the name. Did you ever go?

I lived near there when I was a kid. We must be about the same age.

What, twenty-one – good for us, hey.

No. I don’t know –

The ODP takes and squeezes her hand, the gesture unequivocal.

Sometimes helps to close your eyes, Rachel. Some people even go off to sleep for a bit.

Do they?

They do. May as well get a nap before the bawling at 4 a.m. starts.

Rachel closes her eyes. How many minutes have passed? She forces herself to breathe deeper, slower.

Good stuff, Sam says. I think I tried to feed them a hotdog once through the bars. I got a right bollocking.

Rachel breathes and tries to imagine a still place inside, the well of the self, where a person is unreachable. There was talk of it at Chief Joseph, in the sweat lodges, the mind was let go there.

You’re doing great, Mum.

Rachel breathes. There is darkness, perhaps a drug. And then she thinks, Where are you, Mum? She feels something hot slide from her eye. She feels Binny letting go of her hand. Be brave, my girl. And she is walking. Through a gate, into the woods, where there are green pathways between trunks and the quiet of the trees all around. The ground underfoot is soft, tides of needles spilled from the pines. She walks into the forest. It is there, where she knew it would be. It is standing on the path in front of her, head turned and lowered, yellow eyes. A creature long and grey. It is standing in the shadows of the branches, earth on its back and on the bridge of its nose, where it has been digging underneath the wire. Small, clever, yellow eyes. It blinks and turns its head and lopes into the trees.