by Sarah Hall
I caught some signal crayfish last night, he says. They’re delicious! You just have to lift up the rocks slowly, then pinch them out.
I used to spend hours doing that as a kid, Rachel says. They were mostly white-claws then – the native ones.
Ja, he says, nodding. Terrible decline. I’m going to apply for a trap from the environment agency, if Thomas doesn’t mind.
He won’t mind, she says.
I found a website. I’ll show you.
Huib squats, reaches back into the tent, and brings out a laptop. He holds it on the splayed fingertips of one hand and opens the lid.
Here we are.
He tilts the computer round.
How are you connected?
I’ve got this gizmo. It’s a bit slow. I’ve been trying to Skype my brother in Jo’berg but his face is all fuzzy; it’s like talking to Mr Potato Man.
She looks at the web page. It’s good to have another wonk with whom she can discuss such things.
I’ve been wondering if they’ll fish, she says. The river’s full of trout.
That’s exciting to think about. Trout are super-fast, though.
True.
How are they doing over there?
Great, apparently. They’re in the same pen, being chummy.
Not long now. Do you need me to come to the office today to work on the press release?
No, that’s OK. Just enjoy your days. Enjoy this.
She gestures at the river. The water trickles by, beautifully sounding out the rocks and shingle bed. Huib deposits the computer back inside the tent. She looks around at his supplies. He’s well equipped. On the ground is a folded fishing rod, cooler, gas lamp, and a water filter. There are bags of rice and cans of lentils in a raised storage box. He has collected a stack of sticks for kindling and there’s a roll of tarpaulin. A typical, self-sufficient field researcher. She wonders if he looks at pornography on the laptop after dark. Or reads Dostoyevsky. He re-emerges.
When’s your apartment ready? she asks.
Next week. There’s some kind of bat infestation issue at the minute. I like to camp, though. I used to go to Drakensburg all the time with my brother.
Which probably means he pitched on the ledges of the highest escarpment. She is aware that he is not contracted to start work for another week, and that while he is the type to give up his spare time for the job, as she is too, she should not outstay her welcome.
Well, she says, glad you’re OK down here. Enjoy the swim.
Ja. See you later, Rachel. Congratulations, by the way.
She stares at him quizzically for a moment. He returns her gaze.
When are you due? If you don’t mind my asking.
She is startled, and for a moment thinks about lying.
Not for a while.
That’s exciting, he says.
I haven’t really told anyone yet.
OK, he says, no problem. See you later.
See you.
She walks up the slope towards the fence. She looks down at her midriff. The development is definitely not noticeable, not to anyone but her. Either she has given something away or Huib is unnaturally prescient. Soon, though, the powers of divination will not be necessary – she will be showing. And she will have to be ready with the news, know what to say to people, how to frame it. Halfway up the hill she looks back, but Huib is out of sight, either back inside the tent perusing crayfish traps, or perhaps upstream, standing on the diving rock, about to cast himself into the cold blue Lakeland water.
*
At the antenatal clinic she sips a bottle of water and waits for her name to be called. There are two other women also waiting, one young and bored-looking, with a spotty partner in tow, one alone with a toddler, slightly haggard. The child smashes a toy tractor against the wall, makes a rumbling sound, and drives it along the skirting board. A video screen plays on a loop, instructions on breastfeeding, latching, angles, and advertisements for pushchairs. The situation feels unreal – she does not belong among the expecting and the mothers of the world – yet here she is. She has been given a thick maternity pack from the midwife at the GP’s surgery, and has leafed through. Forms, codes, labels. The whole thing seems very bureaucratic. Her bladder is full; she needs the toilet but is not allowed to relieve herself. Nothing about the situation is comfortable. After a few minutes she is called into the ultrasound room. The sonographer checks her name and date of birth and asks her to lie down on the paper-covered table.
First time?
Yes.
Anyone with you?
No.
OK, the woman says. No need to get undressed. If you want to just lower everything, that’s fine.
Rachel undoes her jeans, pushes them down, lifts her shirt.
You’re the first today so the gel will be a little cold – sorry.
The woman applies fluid to her lower abdomen. She swirls the transducer across the surface, spreading it out. Rachel looks at the ceiling, tries to relax, tries not to think about anything.
Sometimes it’s a little slow to get a good look, the woman says. If I’m quiet, don’t worry. We’ll get our angle. If we don’t, I might try an internal scan. OK?
Rachel nods. The woman talks as she works, her voice soft, without drama but not without enthusiasm. Her accent is French African. She alters the position of the device by fractions, expertly.
Here we go. Ovaries OK. And a baby.
There is a pause.
Everything in the right place. Good.
Rachel is not worried, but neither is she naïve. As Binny gleefully declared at the nursing home, she’s almost forty. She knows the risks. There are things she wants to hear, about nuchal measurement and the nose bone. There will be a combined test – she is giving a blood sample down the hall after the scan and they will issue her with a percentage chance of abnormality. The device moves through the gel, conducts its revelatory business. She looks at the ceiling, at the walls, anywhere but the screen.
You’re nice and calm, the sonographer says.
Am I?
Not a fretter.
No.
Rachel watches the woman while she works. Her face is calm. Day in, day out, these expositions. She jiggles the transducer, to get the baby to move position, a practical action, like shaking out laundry before hanging it. Her manner is of one so used to reading signals that she might be on a ship’s bridge or analysing meteorological data. Has the mystery of human reproduction become mundane, Rachel wonders, or is it that technology moves past all miracles eventually? In Alexander’s veterinary clinic too there is a small hand-held ultrasound device that he uses for diagnosis and guided surgery. Rachel thinks of her own mother, who, in the seventies, proudly did not avail herself of any such information and took her chances, like millions of other women before her. Her bladder protests as the device moves lower, presses down harder.
Everything is good. Normal range. Baby is waving at us.
The sonographer changes angles subtly again, and takes measurements: crown of the head to the end of the spine. Limbs. Organs. The date of conception. She narrates the anatomical view – upper and lower jaw, hands, feet. Rachel is still not looking.
Do you want to see? the woman asks, reaching over and moving the screen slightly.
Rachel takes a deep breath, turns her head. At first it is like looking into deep space, or a snowstorm. There are indistinct contours, static cavities of darkness and light. The sonographer points everything out. Head, chest. Bones. The heart, flashing rapidly. And a face. A face.
She finds herself looking away again, feeling oddly shy, and amazed that she, at this moment, is creating something recognisably human. What would Binny say? She cannot imagine her mother here, now, though she remembers the vast expanse of stomach under her mother’s coat before Lawrence was born and the long screaming ambulance ride. She can hear Binny’s voice, haughty, patronising. I knew what you both were; I didn’t need to be told. The sonographer lifts the device off Rache
l’s belly.
OK. I’m happy with that. I’ll print pictures and leave them at reception. You can get tokens from the machine.
She rehouses the transducer and hands a wad of paper towels over. Rachel sits up, wipes the gel from her belly, and buttons her jeans.
Are you going for bloods?
Yes.
Down the hall, left and left again. Follow signs for Phlebotomy. The toilet is right outside.
She thanks the woman and goes into the bathroom next door. Then she navigates the hospital corridors to the blood station, takes a numbered ticket from a dispenser, and sits in another waiting area. Beside her are men and women of all ages, being tested, she assumes, for everything. Cancer. Anaemia. Diabetes. She looks down at the vein on the inside of her right arm, which is bluish-green and rises easily. She puts a hand on her stomach. A baby. With bones. And a face. The sonographer made it move, almost dance. She is called through, sits in a plump chair, and the vial is taken.
You look happy, the phlebotomist says.
Do I?
Yeah. Nice to have a smiler.
She makes her way back to the antenatal clinic with a pad of cotton wool taped in the crook of her elbow and collects her maternity notes.
There’s minor confusion on the way out of the department. The receptionist comes towards her holding a small envelope containing a printed copy of the scan.
Miss Caine? You forgot this. There’s a cash machine one level down if you don’t have pound coins for the tokens. We can’t take actual money.
I don’t need a copy, Rachel says. Thanks anyway.
The woman scowls.
Are you sure? There’s a cash machine downstairs.
Her tone borders on suspicious, as if Rachel is simply trying to get out of paying, or is somehow not understanding the system. Perhaps there is even some dereliction of motherhood going on. Not everything meaningful happens on camera, Rachel wants to say. Very little does.
That’s OK. Really. I don’t need a picture.
You’ll want one, the receptionist tells her.
No, thanks.
In the end, irritated and sure that it is simply a ploy, the woman capitulates, thrusting the envelope into Rachel’s hand, turning and stalking back towards her desk. Rachel looks at the picture, framed in a white paper mount. The skull is lit like a strange moon, eye sockets, nose, a chubby chest. She puts the picture in her bag.
Outside the hospital, the city of Lancaster glints in the rainy light. Slate roofs and windows refract, like a hundred lenses. There are dense, anvil-shaped clouds banking to the north. Another batch of rain is coming. She gets in the car, puts her bag on the passenger seat, and starts the engine, but she leaves it idling in neutral for a moment. She takes the envelope out of her bag and looks at the picture again – at the little being, mindless, its cells forming rapidly – which in some places would be used as evidence. She still does not know what she thinks about it all, though she feels herself smiling again.
*
By the end of the month they are fit to travel and everything is ready for their arrival. Rachel drives to the airport to meet the cargo flight. She breaks the journey overnight, stays in an industrial Travelodge. She cannot sleep. She checks the weather app on her phone. Sunny. 15 degrees. She is restless, not tired. A mania has arrived, a combined excitement. In her belly, when she lies flat, there is faint movement, or the boding of movement. Flutters. At 4 a.m. she turns the light on and tries to read but can’t concentrate on her book. She looks at the list of contacts in her phone, thinks about calling Kyle; he will still be up. Should she now tell him? Shouldn’t he know? For courtesy’s sake, if nothing else? She switches the phone off and turns out the light.
In the morning the sky is mackerel-dappled and serene. She checks the airport website – there are no delays. She receives a text message from the transport company – Vargis – the driver has been dispatched and is on his way to the airport. She showers, dresses. She leaves the top button of her jeans undone.
The coffee in the breakfast room gives her heartburn as usual. At the buffet she selects oily eggs from a metal tin, and larvic tomatoes, which scald the inside of her mouth. She eats as much toast and jam as she can. The wonders of a returning appetite. She checks out, puts her bag in the back of the Saab. In the boot is a kit with extra sedative darts, though only a delay or extreme stress will warrant using them, and the transport company is also equipped. At 7.30 she calls Stephan in Romania. He shouts into the hands-free.
Bună ziua? Bună ziua?
She can hear the engine of his truck, and the radio blaring; he is already driving back to the centre, through the alpine meadows.
I wonder if you can help me, she says, I’m looking for two missing wolves.
Rachel, he shouts. I have sent them to you with my greatest love!
Are they OK?
Yes, yes, he says. Being rocked in arms of Morpheus. Let me tell you – next time I’m flying wolf-class too. They’ve got it the best. Like celebrities. They’re going to be a great pair.
I know. I can’t wait to see them.
You have to come visit us soon, he says. You won’t recognise the place – we’re getting very high-tech now! It was a generous donation your employer made to us.
Good – he can afford to be generous. And you must come and see them here.
Of course!
They finish speaking and hang up. She texts Huib with an update, sets the GPS, and drives the rest of the way to the airport. Rush-hour traffic eases. She follows signs for British Airways World Cargo. She is early, but the flight is also scheduled to arrive early. On the link road an Airbus roars overhead, tilting and straightening, its wheels locked, its undercarriage close enough to see scratches in the paint. If everything goes to plan they will be back in Annerdale by the early afternoon. The sedation is strong enough that they will not have been disturbed by the flight and the transit north, but she does not want them under for too long.
It does not seem long ago she was arriving at the same airport: her inglorious return home. She parks at the side of the cargo terminal. There are various haulers and transport companies. The Vargis men are waiting in reception, dressed formally in company jackets, carrying cases in which are plastic suits and masks. She too is equipped with a quarantine suit. She greets them and they exchange a few words. They are polite, professional – ex-military, she suspects. She spends twenty minutes with the airport officials. The paperwork is all in order – waybill, licences, CITES, and veterinary documentation. Payment is made. The crates, IATA standard, have been inspected in Romania, but will be inspected again by UK staff, for correct ventilation, bedding; the wolves are not harnessed inside: if they woke under restraint, they would damage themselves trying to get free. While the flight’s cargo is being cleared, she waits in a small lounge. Other consignees are waiting too, for what freight, it is impossible to guess. Mammals, plants, alien matter. Or the prosaic family pet.
Soon she is called through. She changes into the suit and goes into the disinfected unloading zone. The crates are brought in, the two Vargis men wheeling them slowly, unfazed by the contents of the covered structures. In bold print the labels read: LIVE ANIMALS – DO NOT TIP. The blue transport van is being reversed into the secondary loading bay, the back doors opened. Rachel gently lifts the overlay on the first crate and opens the small viewing hatch. She shines a torch. The female. Darkness, portions of a hind leg, long, crescent-shaped claws. Her breath sounds are even. Thomas has suggested not naming them until they arrive, almost superstitiously, like a father with newborns. Let’s see what their personalities are. But Rachel has already christened her, after seeing the photographs sent by Stephan and noticing an uncanny resemblance to a particular starlet. The thin nose, tilted eyes, and lupine brows; a face from Hollywood past – Merle Oberon. Merle. She pulls the cover back down. She moves to the second crate and checks the male. He is big – bigger than she anticipated – pale fur, with long black guard hairs. He was l
ucky to make it out of the trap alive, lucky there was no infection in the bone. She listens, then briefly shines the torch inside. The glimmer of a slit eye, atypical blue. The Rayleigh effect. Somehow it is harder, even than with humans, to remember there is no real colour. He is not alert. There’s enough meat and water. She takes the docket out of the waterproof shield, scans and signs it.
They are brought out to the truck and loaded carefully. The Vargis men keep the crates level, moving swiftly but carefully. The transport company is top of the range. Bullet-proof glass, armoured siding. She would not be surprised if they were equipped to carry nuclear arms, presidents. The crates are secured to the bed of the van and the doors shut.
On the way out of the airport she follows at a safe distance. The van keeps to sixty-five miles per hour. She checks her mirrors with tense regularity, for idiotic drivers, problems, the police. The journey could not be more regulated, but it still feels like a bank robbery, a crime – like the van is filled with explosives. As they drive, her mind flashes through worst-case scenarios. She imagines a crash: the van tipping, its doors swinging open, and the crates smashing on the verge; the wolves limping into the road, horns blaring as they shake their heads, cut through the wreckage, and lope off. They could be halfway up the country in forty-eight hours, disappearing like ghosts.
The van brakes moderately, keeps its distance from the traffic in front. In some part of their brain, even drowsing, they will comprehend motion. Through the seals in the van doors they will detect traces of passing substances: clays, flints, grasslands, under diesel and bitumen, exhaust fumes. And humans nearby – perspiration, hormones. They are intelligent analysts. In those in captivity, she’s witnessed incredible responses to human conditions: aggression towards drunks, defence of pregnant staff if a threat is perceived. If they are starting to rouse, they will be communicating with each other, low-toned, almost whistling. But the sedation has been finely administered and should last.