The Wolf Border(80)
In Annerdale, it is too cold even for river fog; the rivers freeze over, the lake begins to solidify – even the Irish Sea crisps at the edges. Pipes in the converted outbuildings of the Hall burst, and the staff, including Huib, decamp to the main building, like evacuees brought into the big house during a war. But they are guests, and are made to feel like guests. Every morning they are served eggs in the giant kitchen, from copper pans. Poached haddock. Fresh bread. Chopped herbs. The larders of Pennington Hall are well stocked. Huib texts Rachel – On holiday, come and join us. But the tyre ruts in the road are now glaciers, the snow is too deep and hard to walk across. She cannot get out of the woods, even for Charlie’s next immunisation appointment.
She takes the baby outside to look at the world. They stand wrapped in coats and scarves. Cumbria is a whiteout, as far as the eye can see. The mountains are brightly coated and seem bigger, amplified. At night, the stars are exceptional, with the lustre of old cracked diamonds. Charlie will remember nothing of it, she knows. She wonders, though, if it is laying something down in him, forming some sensibility? Will he always seek colder places, the beauty of frozen massifs, blue locked into white, the immaculate?
She keeps the heating high – she is not paying the bills and she does not want to risk a plumbing catastrophe. 1847, the date stone of Seldom Seen reads. The place has been upgraded, and well insulated, but gelid air still makes its way around the windows and under the doors, radiates through the walls. Rachel sleeps with the baby in her bed, against the advice, but she does not want to leave him in the bassinet. She tries to get the Saab out again, but the undercarriage scrapes and grinds; the back end swings out. Finally, it beaches itself at an angle and the wheels spin uselessly. The engine protests. She abandons the car in the lane, takes the baby out of the travel seat, and carries him back to the house. That night, another snowfall: lesser, but substantial enough to cover the treacherous layer of ice. Michael arrives on a quad bike, clad in woollens, Gore-Tex, and agricultural boots. The lurcher is balanced on the seat behind him, tongue out, its breath steaming in the air. He knocks on the door, says nothing about her car blocking the lane, and asks if she needs anything. A lone woman and a baby cannot be abandoned in such conditions, never mind who they are.
Think I’m OK, she tells him. I stocked up.
Anything for the little one?
No. Thanks, though. Incredible weather.
Expect another good week of it, he says.
Small talk, about that most English of subjects: weather. It feels like a temporary ceasefire between them. He climbs back on the quad, and she watches him drive away – the dog riding pillion, adjusting its paws as the bike tips and wallows over the polar rifts, at one point springing off into the new snow, then mounting itself up front between Michael’s legs. She doesn’t need anything, not yet. Her cupboards are full. There is ample baby formula, nappies, medicine. There’s still meat in the freezer, unlabelled purple and red packages now mysterious with permafrost, bags of summer berries and green beans. If she was in danger of forgetting the practicalities of a rural Cumbrian childhood, the Pacific Northwest continued her education – and seriously. There is dry wood for the fire. She has cans and jars stacked deep. They will sit it out.
She keeps the radio on for updates, a lifeline. All over the country airports have closed, schools, hospitals are running skeleton crews; the economy is haemorrhaging. Every day there’s a debate about why England can’t cope with extreme weather conditions, while in Berlin and Kiev and Japan flights leave on time, the workforce remains productive. The government has ordered salt from abroad, which will arrive by tanker ship in May. Not so across the border. Calling in to the morning programme, the new transport minister says Scotland is equipped and faring well. The ploughs are out; the roads are gritted. Glasgow airport is open for business, flights to Heathrow are being redirected there.
Charlie burbles over the sound of the radio. He wants her attention. She learns to become verbose, to blether. He likes her voice, understands something about it, if not language. She reads to him, all kinds of books when repeating the same baby prose begins to send her crazy, a gory thriller – she stops when the serial killer begins to dismember a victim. His eyes are huge and preverbal. He makes long, purring, grating sounds, trying to talk back. She reads her own book chapter to him, edits it a little as she does so. She even sings, her voice flat, tuneless, but does she not owe him disinhibition, rhymes, the silliness of the nursery? One two, buckle my shoe, three four, open the door . . . If she stops, he protests. She is desperately in need of sensible conversation. She calls Lawrence, but there is no answer. She calls Alexander. Chloe answers.
Carrick 205, hello, Chloe Graham speaking.
As if she is answering the phone in the 1950s. The vintage chic of landlines.
Hi, Chloe; it’s Rachel.
Hi, Rachel.
Are you off school?
There is no school.
They speak in a friendly fashion for a minute and then Alexander takes the receiver.
Do you need rescuing?
No, I’m alright. How’s it there?
One catastrophe after another. Some idiot crashed through the bridge into the river, had the first responders out with the defibrillator paddles. The pub’s run out of ale. There’ll be a civil war any moment. How’s Charlie?
He’s fine. He’s driving me nuts. He wants me to talk all the time. I could read the phone book to him and he wouldn’t care.