by Sarah Hall
Let’s order pudding. Daddy won’t mind. He might be ages anyway. David Uttley is a bit of a gas-bag, I’ve heard.
The menus reappear. Rachel looks out of the dining-room windows. The lake is dark but shining under the evening sky, a looser version of what lies above. Night will offer some reprieve. She suspects they will continue to travel under the cover of darkness, like a raiding party, responding to the new level of human activity encountered since leaving the estate. They might even clear the northwest range and head for the border by morning. The outer district offers only a partially adequate environment; they will certainly not linger, or return to Annerdale. They will sense the greater uplands to the north, and will keep moving until they find the best territory.
When Thomas returns, he is visibly annoyed, muttering about the obduracy and lack of vision possessed by the environment minister, who has failed to give assurances on temporary protected status.
Well, that was a waste of time. He really is the most ludicrous appointment Mellor’s made. Whoever heard of an environment minister from Solihull! Bloody ignoramus. I’ll talk to Mell in the morning.
Sylvia attempts to mediate and calm her father, aware, perhaps, that he is sounding like a snob. Notes of petulance and belligerence in his voice – he is not used to being thwarted.
I checked on this, Daddy. They don’t fall under the Endangered Species Act. They’re simply not listed and will just fall between stools. It means they might not need or get authorisation because it wasn’t a deliberate re-wilding.
A wolf between stools, Thomas exclaims. Preposterous!
He takes a sip of wine, then unfolds his napkin, composes himself.
Hopefully it’ll be moot, anyway. Douglas will play ball. The Scots have a new environmental policy to uphold – they can’t be seen to be conservative on this. No, don’t worry, darling. The Highland estate owners are so worried about losing their subsidies, they’ll do as they’re told. There won’t be any more shootings, I promise.
That’s quite a difficult promise to make, Rachel says quietly.
Thomas helps himself to another large glass of red wine, adjusts the napkin across his lap, takes up his silverware, and tidily cuts the cold piece of meat.
Well, Rachel, you know better than I how the money works. You’ve already published a splendidly compelling paper on cull savings and tourist revenue for a potential reintroduction in Scotland, haven’t you?
He glances at her and smiles. Rachel sets down her glass.
That article’s ten years old.
Yes, but not much has really changed. Except that Westminster can’t prevent anything, and now our free Caledonian cousins may actually have to put the theory into practice.
She frowns, says nothing, annoyed to have her work used as part of his presumptuous political argument.
So, what’s your best guess, then? he asks her.
About what?
About our refugees seeking asylum in the newest European nation. Will they continue north, as planned, over the border?
She looks at him for a moment. As planned, she thinks. By who? He is forking up the veal, eating with relish. He is not concerned – in fact, he seems very sure of himself, speaking as if the damage control is effortless, assessing the odds. Real politic. She wants to take out her phone, put it on his plate, so he can see the picture of the carcass in the grass, the bullet hole. He glances up. She catches his eye.
Is that what you’re gambling on? she asks.
Is it a gamble?
They’ll go to Scotland, she says, stonily. Unless we catch them. Or they’re killed.
He nods, and continues to eat.
Excellent.
In that moment she hates him. His calculation. His certainty, which is almost childish. And in that moment she is also sure that it was he who opened the gate. Though he was elsewhere, though he may never have keyed in the code; he was the one. He has not once mentioned recapture, reinstallation of the pack, for all the expensive aerial pursuit. The worthy investment, the millions spent building a trophic Eden, it is simply another grand scheme that he can choose to dismantle again, if he so wishes. There is a bigger, more exciting game – testing beyond the cage, wolves in the real world. You godly fuck, she thinks, you absolute maniac, this is what you wanted all along. She cannot bear to look at him. She looks instead at her dessert – created by the best chef in the best restaurant in the North. It all feels like a mockery. Her appetite has gone. The others continue with their meal, oblivious. Are they really so blind? she wonders. Sylvia, protecting her father, complicit in his scheme by virtue of her institutionalisation. Huib is reconciled, co-opted, too white of heart to suspect anything nefarious. She begins to feels sick. There is a conspiracy around the table, and they don’t even realise they are taking part. Even she is implicated. Thomas knows she won’t walk away, not now, not while the wolves are out and in danger, which amounts to capitulation. She stands, undramatically, and lays her napkin over her food.
Excuse me. I have to ring my brother.
The next morning, rain. The surface of the lake is stippled; its reflections hover and break apart. They stand in the lounge after breakfast, drinking coffee, looking out at the grey sky. On the helipad, the bowed rotor blades of the helicopter drip. Huib liaises with the police, checks the weather app, sits cross-legged, and waits for the cue – less a stooge than a sophist. Sylvia reads on her iPad in a plush armchair by the fire. She tracks through the papers and the blogs – there is a huge public outcry over the dead wolf; the picture is being widely circulated. So like the English, Rachel thinks: object, ignore, and then, late in the day, after a tragedy, rally. She has a strong urge to leave the hotel, get a taxi to her car, and continue with the search alone. At least she would feel useful, authentic, perhaps less like she had been played.
Thomas makes a series of private phone calls, and afterwards seems pleased, more humble than the previous evening, though his humility is in all likelihood due to success, things going his way. The desire to take him aside and accuse him has faded overnight. She can prove nothing; will probably never be able to prove anything. She will not give him the satisfaction of sounding like a paranoid hysteric. She speaks with Lawrence, and then with Charlie, who recognises her voice and exclaims loudly, but doesn’t understand that she is not there in the room. He begins to cry, and she feels it like a barb in the chest. She speaks with Alexander, who is en route back from the conference, sitting in the airport waiting for a flight himself.
I’ve been thinking, she says. Maybe we can go on holiday.
On holiday?
Yes. I mean, all of us. Chloe and Charlie, too. Maybe even Lawrence. Can we?
It is a strange request out of the blue, and a strange time to be making it.
Are you alright? he asks.
Yeah.
She isn’t, of course. She is weary, though she slept surprisingly well in the plush bed and without Charlie to attend to; she did not lie awake grinding over everything in the small hours, as she feared she might. When she woke, there was a sense of powerlessness, of it all being over. The Annerdale pack. The cottage in the woods. She got up, brushed her teeth, and sat on the bed, watching the sun rise and the rain on the lake, feeling the light of day translate notions of what is right and wrong – or expand those notions.
By mid-afternoon, the weather clears – breaks appear in the clouds and hard, wet sunlight glints through. There is a moderate wind, not ideal but not prohibitive for flight. They prepare to leave. In the interim there have been two more sightings, both in the farmland between Aspatria and Wigton. A woman riding on a bridleway, whose horse bolted with her clinging on to it, and a child on a school bus, disbelieved by everyone at first, the boyish fantasy of seeing White Fang running alongside. It means they have left the Lake District national park and are nearing the metropolis, with its heavy traffic and intersections. If they keep to the salt marsh and estuary belt to the north of the city, they will be OK, she thinks.
&n
bsp; They walk through Sharrow’s lakeside gardens to the Gazelle. The last thing she wants is to be flown anywhere by Thomas Pennington, but she gives herself over to his methods. What else can she do? Her duty is to the pack. It is galling, and she dislikes herself for the surrender. But what matters, matters by degrees. That they make it past the city of Carlisle. That they are not vilified for their instincts and appetites. That Scotland, if it is the beacon of progression that Thomas challenges it to be, does the right thing.
There is no careful plan to get them back; she knows that now. She has the case of darts in her hand, but it’s redundant. She will not get the chance to sedate them, she’s sure of that, even if they are found. From the position of a deity, she will simply bear witness to their true, illegal release. She follows the others out to the helicopter, favourite words of Binny’s trumpeting in her head: It’s easier to get forgiveness than permission, my girl. Her mother’s excuse for doing as she pleased, living as she pleased, selfishly, perhaps better than most.
There’s a provisional meeting scheduled later in Edinburgh, Thomas tells them, should it be necessary. She knows what the arguments will be, what Thomas is currently negotiating with his Scottish peers and what she, too, will be required to say, expertly, in a roomful of law-makers. That study, conservation, and protection in the natural habitat are of utmost benefit to the public. That wolves are not only economically beneficial, but environmentally curative. That in the far reaches there are tracts of suitable land and Scotland should embrace them, cherish them. The truth will not be hard to speak. If they are harmed, she thinks, in between, anywhere, she will find a way of making Thomas Pennington suffer for the heedless experiment. No one is invulnerable. Not even him. But such a thing is fantasy, she knows.
The flight is uncomfortably bumpy, the helicopter lurches and swings in the stiff wind. Her anger keeps her focused and unafraid. They sweep over northern Cumbria, leaving the swathed massifs of the Lake District behind them. Villages. Small towns. There are passable rural corridors. They can slip through; she has confidence. The Solway shines on the horizon, and then is under them, patched by mudflats and sand. They are in range of Carlisle airport. The Gazelle flies lower than it should – she can see wading birds and geese, rivulets as water floods into and out of the neck of the former United Kingdom. Huib holds up the handheld receiver, talks to Thomas on the headset. She, too, has a signal on her device.
They find them a few minutes later, passing over the intermediate lands, the debatable lands as they once were. They are running over open moorland, the surviving five, driven hard by the noise of the helicopter. Ra leads them. She watches them run. She is rusty at targeting on the move, but could almost certainly tranquillise the breeding pair, were Thomas to hold the aircraft steadier. Instead, she watches and says nothing. They run in formation, arrow-shaped, the three juveniles keeping pace beautifully, strong now, and sleek. The helicopter flies above and then alongside them, and the animals disperse, each lighting out on an averse route. Separated, they run on across the moor, eyes ahead, grey fire across the border. There’s no meridian to mark the international crossing, no checkpoint, for all the rhetoric of the past year, just a smattering of whin and rowan, barren slopes and cuttings. The unspectacular lowlands stretch ahead, taupe and tan, and just below the helicopter, painted on the gable of a lone croft dwelling, in welcome or defiance, is a blue and white Saltire. The helicopter banks east, towards the capital.
*
It ends, as conflicts and dreams do, in a government committee room. The Earl lands at Edinburgh airport, and they are driven through the tall, sooted city to Holyrood. The new parliament building glints at the bottom of the Royal Mile, pale and angular, wharfs of glass and stylised windows jutting: a modernist vision for a modern state. Rachel takes a phone call from the Dumfries and Galloway police chief before entering the building – the woman assures her the animals will be monitored and protected throughout the Borders, and that there is much public support. Rachel thanks her. The words are reassuring but there will be other challenges. For all the reforms, and the possible protection, there are still powerful, absentee estate owners to contend with, sheiks and millionaires residing abroad whose compliance with the law is loose at best, who do not care about fines or penalties.
The others are waiting for her by the main public entrance. The views from inside Holyrood are spectacular – mountains, and the gothic pinnacles of the city. Huib and Sylvia take a seat on the benches nearby; Rachel and Thomas will have twenty minutes to address the situation, and find a solution. They are late and are ushered through to a light, pine-clad room. Around the table: representatives from the National and John Muir Trusts, the Forestry Commission, and the National Farmers’ Association. Sitting at the head, leafing through papers and ignoring everyone, the Scottish Prime Minister, Caleb Douglas, and next to him his new environment minister. Douglas glances up.
Evening, Thomas.
Hello, Caleb. I do appreciate you seeing us at short notice.
The Prime Minister looks down again at his sheaf of papers.
Needs must. This is a live issue, unfortunately.
Rachel and Thomas take their seats. Introductions are quickly made. Caleb Douglas barely looks at her when her name is given, though he reaches across the table and pours her a glass of water from a decanter. He is a round-faced, heavy-chinned man with thinning hair, has the look of a retired boxer, once solidly built, now running to fat. He is curt, wastes no words, and she recognises shades of the hard-line bully from newspaper reports, The Fife Fighter.
Right, then. We should get on, should we not?
She has borrowed Sylvia’s laptop, has accessed her own data and files, and has prepared her best case at very short notice. There is no time for PowerPoint; she does not want to waste time setting everything up. Instead, she simply speaks. There is a particular site that many ecologists believe suitable for a wolf population, she explains, an ‘abandoned area’ where farming has failed, European subsidies have been stopped, and re-wilding is possible. From Rannoch, north of Loch Lomond, west of Ben Nevis, to the sea. The wolves may find their own way there, if left alone, she suggests, or could be sedated and transferred. This and other areas in the Highlands could support three or four packs. She outlines the rest of the argument hastily. The Highland deer population is once again out of control. There’s sickness; the herds are damaging the environment, and are proving expensive to cull. She wishes she’d had another day to prepare. There’s an excellent Romanian model for eco-tourism she could have used, demonstrating high-revenue potential, but she does not have the figures to hand.
She speaks for barely three minutes. The only protest, from the Farmers’ Association representative, who says he cannot allow a new predator to ruin the old, cherished industries, is quashed by Douglas.
Stop your twittering, man, and let her finish. And you really should update your definition of ruin. The state of your hillsides after years of little yellow teeth bloody mowing them!
A bully indeed. After allowing Rachel another minute or so, and glancing at his watch, he himself interrupts.
This is clearly not an ideal situation, he remarks.
He glances around the table.
I take it the rest of you gentlemen have no objections to what Miss Caine is saying? Good. Simon, why don’t you give us a brief rundown of everything and tell us the plan.
He gestures towards the environment minister, a young man barely in his thirties, who stands.
No need for formalities, Simon, let’s get on.
The minister sits again and efficiently speeds through his agenda. Recent polls on the reintroduction of larger species have been favourable, in towns as well as in the countryside. There will be a public consultation, but for now a quick-acting environmental grip is being granted, and there will be a three-year authorised study, the same as for the escaped Tay beavers. Long-term protected status may follow. It is just as Thomas predicted. Rachel exhales quietly, feels he
r shoulders untense. The pack has been granted amnesty, which is not to say she wholly trusts Caleb Douglas. He clearly has strong opinions, suited to her needs or otherwise, and seems iron-fisted with his colleagues. The long, sometimes dirty fight for independence has certainly not made him popular. Now he must run his country, overseeing huge legal battles for fuel revenue, renegotiated European status, and a struggling economy. Wolves are not high on the agenda.Thomas is, of course, delighted.
This is really very sporting of you, Caleb. And very generous. A new era for Scottish ecology, I’d say. I hope we can follow your example one day.
The Prime Minister is in his own house; he is done with the Lords, the ethos of unelected exclusivity, and evidently has little time for fey earls – their simper or their gratitude. He stands up, gathers his documents together.
I think we’ll leave the sports to you, Thomas. I never did see the appeal of wiping fox blood all over the faces of gay little princes. More notice next time, if you please.
Thomas smiles, enjoying the spar, or seeming to, though there is a remarkable degree of rudeness to it. The subtext is clear – We’ll take your carelessly lost wolves and mop up your English mess. The Earl of Annerdale is being rendered club-less by a parvenu head of state, which is in some way satisfying, but Rachel doubts the old networks are truly gone. Thomas’ committee meetings over the border during the last year, his friends in the lodges and the banks; she would not be surprised if he had sounded out the venture, if not arranged with a select few for the extradition of his wild pets. What are a few high-ranking insults in the face of his scheme’s success? Of course he is smiling. She wants out from under him, as soon as possible.
The meeting is concluded. Caleb Douglas bids no one farewell as he leaves the room. Another meeting, perhaps several, before he can head home. The casualness of the outcome is surprising to her. There are no handshakes. No signature of transferred ownership has been required, though there will be paperwork, stamps, scheduled legislature, she knows, wilderness being as bureaucratic as anywhere else. The Trust representatives nod goodbye and file out. She closes the laptop and stands while Thomas waits, all smiles, but the environment minister stops her as she is leaving the room.