by Sarah Hall
Rachel switches off the television, goes to the phone, and dials the estate office, hoping to speak with Honor, hoping Honor might somehow be enlisted – as a blockade, if nothing else. The recorded message plays. She hangs up. She has Thomas’ mobile number, but is hesitant to use it. She will have to address the matter, though. He is too recognisable, too rich, and there are too many scandalous associations where he is concerned.
*
They begin from the roadside, passing over a stile in the wall, and walk through a field of green lacy ferns, up the steep east-facing skirt of the mountain. In the car park of The White Horse, a discussion about whether to tackle Sharp Edge has taken place, which, after a consultation with Lawrence’s weather app, they decide against. Rain will make the ridge more difficult. There are flocks of grey clouds along the horizon and the breeze is strong, even at ground level. Looking up, they can see snow still locked away in the dark crevasses.
She is feeling well, not too tired or sick, but soon there are twinges in her knees and ankles. Her breath thickens and her thighs ache. Even after hiking the rough cross-country terrain of the Pacific Northwest, the relentless gradient of Blencathra catches her out. She wonders if she will make it. The ferns give way to short, wiry tufts of grass and heather, a mile-long moorland slope that turns and steepens, turns and steepens. The body of the mountain falls steeply from the sky. She paces herself, fights for air. But Lawrence suffers more. He pauses with his hands on his hips, leans back, his face reddening and beading with sweat. He looks very unwell. His equipment is state of the art – breathable, waterproof shells, gloves, boots. She’d imagined not being able to keep up with her younger brother, but in the end it is she who leads. Perhaps he has a hangover, she thinks, or the life of a city solicitor has left him out of shape. They do not talk much – talking is impossible on the gradient. For a while they move in the shadow of a colossal leaden cloud, rain spitting against their foreheads, a smattering of hail, then there is brilliant sunlight. They remove their coats, squint up the path of the blazing Fell. Lawrence takes a pair of wraparound sunglasses out of his bag.
Four seasons in a day, he says.
Looks like it.
Their conversation is polite, careful. Rachel tactfully asks after Emily. She is well, says Lawrence, though she is having more IVF treatment, which is uncomfortable and stressful. Rachel nods – Binny had mentioned this during the visit, disparagingly, as if childlessness should be endured, as if it were a reprieve, even.
How many rounds will you try?
Her brother keeps his eyes on the path.
I don’t know. We’re having it done privately, so as many as we can afford, I suppose. The whole thing is quite fraught.
Sorry to hear that.
For a few moments they fall back into silence. Underfoot are fragments of broken stone, swollen moss, and the first fissures of black upland peat.
And you? All OK your end?
Yes, great, she says.
Rachel cannot now say she is pregnant, even if she had wanted to confide in her brother. It would be like one-upmanship. Day to day, she continues to ignore the fact of her condition, though the reminders are perverse: sudden nausea brought on by motion, types of food, even some words, Syllabub, Gannet, as if the sound, the very texture were too visceral. And deathly sleep. She sleeps as if drugged. What would Lawrence’s reaction be, anyway? Not delight, surely, nor sympathy for her confusion. Her situation implies a careless imbalance to the universe. He and Emily have been trying for years. And Rachel – one reckless, drunken night. No. She doesn’t know her brother well enough to confess.
She sets off up the track again. Behind her, she can hear Lawrence’s heavy boots making regular contact with the rock. After a time he stops moving.
Hey, he calls, look at that.
She turns, faces back the way they have come. The world has opened. Immense sky. Grey, heraldic clouds over the hills, and repeated horizons. Directly below, the A66 is a silver thread with toy cars. The mountain does not sit in isolation from its range, but is independent; its heavy arms plunge down and away. The lofty feeling is dizzying, breathtaking; she could almost jump and fly.
Wow. We really made some height. About halfway, do you think?
I think so. Shall we take a break and eat something. All I’ve had is a terrible pasty at Scotch Corner.
Sure.
They find a good spot to rest, a pulpit-like buttress of rock overlooking a tarn. Lawrence unpacks sandwiches. Brie, with some kind of rustic, gourmet pickle. Apples. Chocolate. They eat quickly.
Thank goodness you didn’t bring any Kendal Mint Cake, she jokes.
No way. That stuff makes my teeth hurt, he says. You didn’t pine for it while you were away, then?
God, no.
You don’t sound totally American. Mum always said you did.
Yeah, she really hated it if I said cookies or candy.
There are many things Binny disapproved of that she could mention – probably Lawrence has similar experiences – but Rachel stops short of criticism. It is enough to be in her brother’s company, without spoiling the mood. Lawrence seems sensible and placid away from his wife. She watches him, sitting slightly below on the crag, re-wrapping a large chocolate bar, zipping it into an outer pocket of his rucksack, careful, tidy. His hair ruffles in the wind, parts at a white seam of scalp. There are tones of red in it. Binny never admitted who his father was, though Rachel remembers the man, who ran a stable and already had a family. Her brother has come into his looks. The cachexic, baleful boy has gone. His face is less startled and dismayed, though he is still haunted-looking.
How’s work? she asks.
He turns towards her, leans back on an elbow.
Fine. We’re busy. It’s all construction law, there’s so much in limbo at the moment. Everyone’s run out of money and no one’s getting paid. I won’t bore you.
She shakes her head.
Not boring at all.
What about you? How’s it all going? Is Pennington a total nutter?
Yeah, a bit. But he’s the boss.
I suppose he can’t be all bad if he’s got you working for him. What exactly are you doing? It’s not like a zoo, is it? Mum was a bit vague.
She tells him about the wolves, when they are coming, how they will be reintroduced.
You should come and see them, she says.
Can I? I’d love to.
He grins. He is disproportionately pleased at the offer. It is almost as if they are on a first date and she has just stated her intention to enter a relationship. He asks a few more questions about the project, taken by the exoticism of her job. The air rushes past them, a continually buffeting lyric. Now that she is not moving, the sweat on her neck and back begins to chill. She shivers.
Should we get going?
OK. Do you want a hat, Rachel? I’ve got a spare one.
Oh, no, thanks. Well, OK then.
He takes a fleece hat out of the rucksack and she puts it on. They continue upward, into the cold, fast-moving currents. The effort is double with the wind hoving against them. The latter part of the route is incredibly difficult, almost beyond her limit. Rachel’s legs shake; the undersides of her toes burn. The dense sedge grass vibrates all around and blurs her vision. There are no birds, just the occasional ravaged-looking sheep, bleating uselessly in the wind. They push on, up and over a false brow. She can hear Lawrence breathing hard. Is he asthmatic? She can’t remember. She looks back. He is leaning over, his hands on his knees. He spits.
Sorry!
Almost there, she calls. You alright? Want to stop?
I’m alright!
She waits for him to catch up.
I’m not properly designed for this, he says.
No, nor am I, she says. You know, a wolf’s breathing mechanism is superb. The way the structure of their nose has evolved. They have an incredible ability to oxygenate.
Lawrence frowns. His face is purplish and his eyes are streaming. The wi
nd hammers. They adjust their feet and lean slightly together. He puts his hands on her shoulders. There was no hello kiss in the pub car park; they did not embrace. They have not touched each other for years, perhaps not since childhood. He shakes her gently.
Lucky bloody wolf, he shouts.
On the final stretch there are annals of peat, sinkholes and bogs, and the thin path to the summit. The uppermost expanse is broad, a shattered tabletop. They aim for the cairn, which is made of heavy, storm-resistant stones. Skiddaw hulks to the east, bronze-tinted, the heather not yet blooming. The Langdale Pikes needle up to the south; Scotland drags the lowlands north. They take shelter in a walled pen near the cairn and hunker down, but the wind still infiltrates. Lawrence has warm tea in a thermos, possibly the most welcome thing Rachel has ever drunk in her life. He is squatting and smiling as he pours the liquid into a cup, his jacket hood pulled tight, his face barely visible.
We made it, Rachel! I didn’t think we would!
Suddenly she feels moved. All those moments together when they were young and she felt nothing, an emotional deficit. She even used to think, once she’d learnt enough biology, that her programming meant she wasn’t supposed to care for him – they had different genes. Roll the other egg out of the nest and watch it smash below. Her throat constricts. She wants to correct the error. Stupid to feel such things now, she thinks. She is strangely not herself: the power of hormones.
They stay at the cairn until the exposure becomes uncomfortable. There’s another hail shower, after which they begin down. Rachel’s legs are weak on the descent, lactic, buckling every few paces. Walkers coming up in breathless agony look enviously at them, bid them hello, stand aside on the path to let them pass. The mood is victorious, at ease.
Do you remember that Christmas, she asks, when the pylons came down?
Is that the year Mum tried to cook a goose?
Did she? I don’t remember that!
There was goose fat everywhere.
Then, endorphin-silly or simply salutatory, they belt out a carol. O come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant. The sheep, stuck on the outcrops, turn their heads away and bleat into the void.
Would they come up this high? Lawrence asks.
Sure.
Sure, he says, mimicking her. That’s ‘yes, definitely, my girl’.
She laughs at his impression of Binny, and is pleased he isn’t sanctifying their mother.
Et tu, Brute.
They can travel much higher, she tells him, and they do. In the Ethiopian Highlands, Canada, Alaska. They can cross deserts and ice sheets; they live comfortably in any climate, gelid or desiccated, arboreal, tundra. While she talks, he looks at her with admiration, as if it is she who is capable of such feats. I’m not what you think, she wants to say, but she likes his interest in the work.
In the car park of The White Horse they decide against a drink, though the pub is a good one, the chimney is smoking and the waft of pastry baking, hops, and vinegar is inviting.
Long drive back to Leeds, Lawrence says. Emily wants to go out for dinner with friends tonight. Sorry.
A curfew of sorts, Rachel assumes. Penalty for the day’s freedom.
But it was a really great walk, he says quickly. Thanks for asking.
Yeah, no. Thanks for coming.
They bid each other goodbye, semi-formal again.
See you soon.
Yeah. Bye, Lawrence.
For a moment he looks forlorn, as if everything – the day, its efforts and successes – will vanish the moment Rachel disappears from sight. As if he is standing at the front door of the post office cottage again and she is walking away. She wants to reassure him, but what is there to say? Already he is climbing into his car, reversing round and waving through the window. He is pulling onto the main road and accelerating. His car clears the brow of the hill and disappears.
On the way home, Rachel makes a detour. At Binny’s graveside in the little cemetery near Willowbrook she stands for a few minutes. There are good reasons to have a termination. There are good reasons to carry on as she is, solo up the face, the way she has moved for years. But here, by the small white stone and recently seeded mound, where she had expected those reasons to overwhelm and finally make a decision, she feels no relief, no surety, only the awkwardness of hope.
THE WOLVES
The fence is twelve feet high, the limit of their ability to jump, sloping inward at the top, a forty-five-degree angle. There are no barbs and it is not electric. As she walks along the structure, Rachel can see that care has been taken not to build it too close to any existing elevations, trees, walls, or hummocks. They would certainly exploit it. She’s seen them perform a running climb before, almost vertical, going after small prey, marsupials. In Yellowstone, one of the ranchers told a story about having seen one use the back of a bull elk as a springboard to take down another elk. There have been many such stories over the years. She thinks of Setterah Keep, the escape, which she does not remember. That fence was old, rusted, or perhaps it had not been sunk deep enough, perhaps one of them dug out. Underneath the Annerdale fence are reinforced foundations extending four feet into the earth. The construction is wolf-proof.
And incredibly impressive as it rises before her, reels of heavy-duty steel, green coated to lower the environmental impact. Six feet away, on the exterior, is a secondary barrier, to keep people back. Signs are fixed along it every third of a mile – like forts along a Roman wall – hazard triangles around a stylised and distinctive silhouette. It is not altogether a good message, but part of the project’s inevitable red tape. She walks a section, through the barrows, up above the lake. She had expected something more industrial-looking – penal, even. But the estate runs close to and then into the national park; such a thing would not be permissible. At each of the entry points around the enclosure – eight in all – there are digital coded locks. Access will be limited: those working on the project and special permissions. Pennington Hall, her cottage, and most of the other estate buildings lie outside the fence. No doubt Thomas would have preferred to be inside, among them.
She leaves the fence and walks down towards the river. It is warm. She strips off her jacket and jumper. Underneath, the waist of her jeans is feeling tight; she is beginning to round out, though not noticeably. The river runs at leisure over grey tumbled boulders. In a clearing on the bank, between thistles and wild rhubarb, the new assistant has pitched his tent. There’s a dark, scorched patch where he has had a fire, with turf stacked next to it. Between two bushes a laundry wire is strung; a T-shirt, socks, and boxers jig in the breeze. A mountain bike is propped up on its stand. It is early in the morning, but the tent zip is open.
Hello, she calls. Huib? Anyone home?
Huib pops his head outside and puts his thumb up.
Rachel. I’m coming out.
He emerges. He has on a pair of shorts that seem entirely made of pockets, and a flannel shirt. The skin on his legs, arms, and face is burnt a deep, sub-Saharan brown. A high, balding forehead, jug ears, warm sorrel eyes.
You picked a lovely spot, she says.
I know. It’s good of Thomas to let me pitch. He said I could go anywhere I liked until the apartment is ready.
Thomas. Huib seems to have no problem with the informality, but it still sounds wrong to her, and she avoids using his first name wherever possible. She has watched them chatting casually down at the hall, discussing politics and current affairs with no awkwardness. Post-colonial confidence meeting reconstituted aristocracy.
Do you need anything? she asks. It’s quite spartan down here.
No, I’m fine. I’m going to swim later; there’s a really great place just upstream, with a kind of diving rock.
He is smiling and pointing with a thumb. He is only thirty years old, but the African sun has already lined his skin. His remaining hair is closely shaved, the same nut-colour as his scalp. Huib was an easy choice, and if anything over-qualified. A stint in Mozambique on the leopard r
estoration programme – one of the most competitive and desirable in the world, a trump card. But it was his temperament that had appealed. Through the window of Abbot Museum she’d watched him cycle into the car park, swinging one leg over the frame and running a long, single-pedalled dismount, stunt-like, teenager-ish. There was an air of casual immunity about him, though he had on a helmet. Before he rolled his trouser leg down, she saw an oily tattoo of the bike chain on his calf. It is in such moments that decisions are made. Perhaps he had reminded her a little of Kyle.