The Wolf Border(91)
He points: that, or more, or Roary, or Lawrence. His muscles get him into trouble, powerful as they are without the refined technology to walk or balance. Heaving himself up on the coffee table, on chairs. Pitching over. He moves impressively quickly across the floor on all fours, like some species fallen out of the canopy, disabled, but extremely dexterous on its secondary parts, and determined to escape. Lawrence hoists him up by the waistband of his little jeans, inches from the door. He squeals, flails. Outside is what he wants: the vibrant colours of the garden, the cacophony in the woods around the cottage, and the wind, the wind, which he adores, which he tries to qualify, hands held out to grasp and hold it, unable to, vexed. If only Rachel were as tolerable an element. He is frequently angry with her, for reasons unknown. His tantrums are galactic, often inexplicable; purple and glossy and howling, he throws himself against the chair back, or skulls her in the face, splits her lip open. She takes a deep breath, holds him away from her, licks the blood.
Don’t take it personally, Lawrence says. He freaks out with me, too.
He doesn’t. Not like this.
Well, you’re the one he thinks of as the boss, when he wants to rebel.
Nice try, she says.
Here, give him to me. Go and take five.
They are a good team. Lawrence is patient, willing to give up an inordinate amount of time on childcare. She is aware that the baby is in part therapy, is giving him a reason to be sober. He goes to the meetings in Workington twice a week. Mitch, the group leader, is his personal sponsor; Lawrence speaks about him with enormous respect, though he is an ex-dealer, spent seven years in prison, beat up his wife. Her brother does not linger in the town after the sessions, where there might be temptation. He follows the steps. He has a checklist of danger signs, things to avoid.
And every day, he walks. Since his hike with Huib – she does not know what occurred or what was said on the trip – he has become obsessed. He walks before breakfast, even before dawn some days, if he cannot sleep. He arrives back at the cottage famished and eats an entire pan of porridge. Then he makes boiled eggs for Charlie. Some days he will be out until dusk, fasting for fifteen or twenty miles, like a pilgrim. He walks regardless of the weather conditions, lashing showers, brooding skies. The porch floor is mucky with smears and divots of dirt from his boots, pools of water from his dripping anorak. His fleece jacket and gloves wilt like pelts on the radiator.
Some days he borrows the Saab and drives into the heartland to tackle the proper peaks – Scafell, Helvellyn. He reports back, which route he took, how long to the summit. There are other lone walkers – retired crag-rats, men of persistent vitality, libidinous, perhaps unsatisfied by their arthritic wives, spending it instead on the mountain. Bearded, weathered, vowed to silence, or nodding at him and passing by on the scree, brisk and nervy as goats. The language of the uplands.
He walks after dinner, down to the lake, around the lake, where trout rise and kiss the surface, then flicker away. This is also an addiction of sorts, Rachel thinks, but harmless – wholesome even. He is becoming fit; the worry spots on his arms are healing. She makes him sandwiches, flasks of tea – something she never willingly did when they were children. The gentle, demonic action is saving him; she hopes it is saving him. Still, she worries when he is gone too long, and on the days when he is dour, depressed, when he talks of Emily, and all that has been lost, and says the best part of his life is gone. Will he relapse? Not under her jurisdiction, she is determined.
You’re going to find someone, she says. You can still have children. You’re doing really well.
All of which is true, though probably not while he is sequestered at Seldom Seen, living with his sister and her child. Alexander comes to dinner once a week and stays the night. They are careful, quiet, considerate of the other adult in the household. It is companionable, this male grouping, and suits her sensibilities. Everyone gets on. Just occasionally she senses envy or frustration – something Alexander says or a look, subtly different to his response when she mentioned Kyle. A brother is greater and lesser than a sexual rival. A lover can be given up, but a sibling is a lifelong fixture, if the relationship is good. She knows he enjoyed having her to himself, being free to walk naked around the house, the lack of restraint, possibly even the potential role of father. The redefinition is not always easy to parse. It is true: she and Lawrence have found a kind of unity, a compatibility. They crawl across the floor, flanking the baby, like great doting pilots. They are perhaps reliving an era, or living an era that never existed, a childhood where they got along. She suddenly has a family, on her terms, and without antagonism.
She eats out with Alexander in L’Enclume on her birthday. It is just the two of them and they will stay the night, perhaps his way of marking territory, benignly. The restaurant is expensive and has flagrantly excessive courses. They indulge in particular intimacies in the luxurious bedroom. The sex is good, as good; he punishes her with pleasure. She thinks about but does not call home. The next morning the night’s gluttony is forgotten, and they indulge in a colossal breakfast. Venison sausages. Passionfruit and rosewater salad.
How’s Lawrence getting on? Alexander asks.
Really well, I think.
Yes. He seems back on his feet now.
Which means, perhaps, when will he be going back to Leeds? Of course, he does not say it, would not say it. Nor is his domestic set-up wholly conventional – the living arrangements with Chloe. She notes it, makes a point of inviting him over for the weekend while Lawrence is climbing Great Gable. He is happy enough, her boyfriend, the boyfriend of her brother’s sister. Life is not straightforward: relationships bifurcate; there is nothing more complicated, more confounding, than love.