FROM: Jesse Robinson
TO: Dana Robinson
DATE: Sat, Dec 23, 2016 at 8:40 p.m.
SUBJECT: So far so good
Hey,
So I’m sitting in my room in the Harbour Hotel, Blakenham, overlooking a beautiful harbor. Spent an awesome day with David Rubin, who relocated to London in June. We had brunch near his apartment in Shoreditch, it’s a really nice neighborhood.
Still no reply from the Birth Father . . . What do I do?? Not sure how many days of sightseeing Blakenham town has to offer!
Wish me luck with the jet lag,
J xoxo
The truth was, this wasn’t at all how Jesse had envisaged his first day in Britain. Pressing send triggered an intense wave of “What the fuck?” What was he doing in a provincial hotel, eating terrible soup, when he should be doing shots at La Descarga or walking Dana’s dog Flynn on Santa Monica Pier—or back home in Iowa already, helping his mom cook. No, forget that, right now he should be welcomed, with open arms, at Weyfield Hall. Or, at the very least, brushed off with an e-mail. But he wasn’t going to say any of this to Dana, who’d been mad when he’d booked his flight before hearing back from Andrew. He considered resending his original e-mail, but would that look desperate? He was pretty sure his birth father had received his message. Before leaving L.A., Jesse had sent Andrew a message from a fake Gmail account, posing as a publicist in Brooklyn to see if this would elicit a response. Andrew’s one-line reply had been almost instant: “I don’t cover New York, as you’d know if you took the trouble to read my column.” Seeing an e-mail from Andrew, but not addressed to him, was unexpectedly painful.
Maybe now’s not a good time, he told himself—again. It was Christmas, after all. Maybe Andrew had replied, but for some reason his reply hadn’t delivered. Perhaps he was so overwhelmed, he didn’t know what to say. This whole thing was like the misery of dating, multiplied. He’d steeled himself for a guarded response. Calgary had helped him to accept that he and Andrew might have totally different energies, despite their genetic link. But he’d never expected to be cut dead. He was starting to wonder if it wouldn’t have made more sense to suggest meeting in London. He had no clue what he was going to do in Blakenham for a week, if this silence continued. He lay back on the static quilt, trying not to think about how many greasy heads had lain on it, and reached for the “Positivity Meditation” podcast in his iTunes.
• 3 •
Christmas Eve 2016
Quarantine: Day Two
Olivia
THE KITCHEN, WEYFIELD HALL, 7:50 A.M.
• • •
A vivid dream about Abu, the little boy who had died in her care, made sleeping in impossible. Olivia came down to find everyone already in the kitchen, talking over the white noise of Radio 4, the ticking toaster, and the coffee machine. Her mother jumped up, asking how she’d slept, and whether she’d like eggs, and would she prefer tea or coffee, and how about a croissant? Olivia had never liked chatting in the morning. She still felt foggy with sleep and shaken by the scenes she had revisited. Sean hadn’t replied to her e-mail. It was bothering her more than she’d expected. Don’t get too attached, she told herself. It might be different back home.
“Your temperature, you did remember?” asked Emma.
“Of course. It was normal. I’m fine, Mum,” she said, stepping over a bank of carrier bags, spilling with an obscene amount of food. For a second she feared Emma had broken quarantine to go shopping, before realizing it was Waitrose online. Her eyes must have adjusted to an alternative, Liberian reality, because everyday things kept striking her as near-futuristic. She found herself gazing at some bagged spinach on the worktop, the little leaves all cleaned and trimmed as if they’d never seen soil, until a quizzical look from Phoebe stopped her. Everything seemed so safe, so sanitized. She poured a bowl of muesli and tried to remember where the bowls and spoons were kept. The first drawer she opened was inexplicably full of gold pinecones and ribbons. She tried a cupboard, and a melamine picnic set nearly fell in her face. This house was ridiculous. Why was there so much stuff everywhere, piles and piles of it? She wished she’d spent quarantine alone in her tiny flat, which she’d never fully unpacked and now preferred that way.
“What kind of tea would you like?” asked her mother.
“Just normal, please,” she said. She wished her mother would let her make her own, sparing her the inevitable questions about how long to leave the bag in and how much milk she wanted.
“English Breakfast, then? Or Earl Grey?” asked Emma. “Or Lapsang?”
“Lapsang smells like frankfurters,” said Phoebe, without looking up from a magazine.
“Christ—you’re absolutely right!” said Andrew. “Couldn’t think why I’ve never liked it.”
“‘Ze Wurst Tea in Ze Wurld,’” said Phoebe in a German accent. “There’s your headline.”
“Ha!” said Andrew. “Maybe I’ll pitch an April Fool on a new sausage-derived tea.”
When Olivia sat down, he stood up, saying: “Well, I’ll leave you ladies to it,” and walked out with The Times crossword. Olivia pulled the main paper toward her, so that she wouldn’t have to talk. Phoebe was looking at her again, her doll-like head tilted.
“What?” said Olivia.
“Nothing. Just, that bowl’s, like, for pasta.”
“Does it make a difference?”
“Nope. Just looks a bit weird.”
Olivia went back to the paper. Being “weird” had always been Phoebe’s big fear. Even breaking bowl conventions was cause for concern. She turned the page and froze. For a second, she thought she might be sick. A photo of Sean in the bottom left-hand corner sat under the headline: “Irish Doctor Diagnosed with Haag Virus.” She skimmed the text, heart bounding. Then she read it all again, slowly, as if knowing everything might undo it.
IRISH DOCTOR DIAGNOSED WITH HAAG VIRUS
An Irish doctor who is the first person to be diagnosed with the Haag virus on British soil has been named as Sean Coughlan. Dr. Coughlan, a pediatrician, was among a team of 50 aid workers who volunteered with the charity HELP to treat Haag victims in Liberia, one of the hotspots of the current outbreak.
The doctor reported symptoms, and later collapsed, while waiting for a follow-on flight from Heathrow to Dublin yesterday. Dr. Coughlan was checked on arrival at Heathrow at 9 a.m., but was subsequently delayed for 10 hours due to fog. Following his collapse, he was transferred to the high-level isolation unit at Royal Free Hospital in north London, accompanied by a team of health workers in full protection suits. He tested positive for Haag last night.
Dr. Coughlan, 33, will be kept in a high-level isolation ward at the hospital while he is treated by Dr. Paul Sturgeon, one of the leading experts in the field. His condition is said to be critical.
The total number of cases of Haag worldwide is more than 15,420 and 9,120 deaths have been reported in four countries—Liberia, Guinea, Nigeria, and the United States.
There is no vaccine against Haag, and healthcare workers are particularly at risk as they come into direct contact with patients. Public Health England has confirmed that it will notify members of the public who may have had contact with the doctor while he was infected with the virus, though experts said the risk of transmission was low.
The health secretary chaired a meeting of the Whitehall Cobra contingencies committee and said that there would be a review of the procedures adopted by aid workers and other officials working in Liberia. The prime minister, who will be chairing another Cobra meeting on the situation later today, said that everything would be done to support the patient and protect public health, adding that “Our thoughts and prayers are with this courageous young man’s family.”
“He can’t!” said Olivia out loud. Her mother and sister both looked up from How to Spend It.
&n
bsp; “What?” said Phoebe.
“Sean. Sean has it. He has Haag. No. No, he can’t! Fuck!” she said. Her mind bloomed with catastrophe: Sean dying, his funeral, getting Haag herself, the two of them lynched by the Daily Mail as the feckless “Haag Couple.”
“Haag?” said her mother, springing up.
Olivia pushed the paper toward them, grabbing her iPad. She needed more facts. “He was working with me at the center. You met him yesterday, remember?”
“Oh, darling, how awful.”
“How come?” said Phoebe, eyes alarmed. “Weren’t you all wearing the special suits?”
“Nothing’s one hundred percent,” said Olivia, willing Weyfield’s painfully slow Wi-Fi to hurry.
Her search brought up hundreds of results, but it was just the same report over and over, same stats and phrasing, same photo of Sean doing thumbs-up in terra-cotta-colored scrubs. Behind him she could make out the center’s familiar concrete floor, tarpaulin roof, and the door into the Red Zone, plastered in hazard signs. She knew that early Haag symptoms presented gradually, sometimes over several days, before worsening abruptly in a matter of hours. It was one of the cruelties of the disease, often resulting in late diagnosis. But still, Sean had seemed his normal self, right up until they’d said good-bye. Hadn’t he? She remembered how he’d refused the plane meal at 3 a.m., and her chest seized. The idea that he might have been shielding her, putting on a brave face, was unbearable. She needed details, but all she had was Sean’s own e-mail and mobile number—no use while he was in isolation. She had no contact for his family, and besides, they had sworn not to tell anyone their secret until quarantine was over. She wanted to scream out loud. She’d known they were being stupid all along. Should she say something—let her family or Public Health England know? Almost simultaneously she decided not to. Not yet. She would just be extra vigilant. After all, they’d barely touched since their last morning in her room. Haag wasn’t highly contagious until the later symptoms began. She should be fine. Sean had been asymptomatic when they parted. As far as she knew.
“Oh, his poor parents,” said Emma.
“Did you know him well?” asked Phoebe.
“Reasonably. Not really.”
She looked relieved. “I’m sure he’ll be OK. Sounds like he’s in safe hands.”
“Yup,” said Olivia, taking her bowl to the sink and quickly leaving the kitchen, before sobs choked her.
Jesse
BLAKENHAM MARSHES, 9:15 A.M.
• • •
After an unsatisfying yoga practice wedged between bed and minibar, and breakfast downstairs (“freshly squeezed” meant something else here), Jesse went for a walk. It was a dazzling day, the sky an upturned bowl of blue, the ground sugarcoated with frost. He took a few mindful in-breaths, noting the ozone marshiness of the air, different from the beach back home. The total lack of hills in Norfolk was freaky. The place was like an infinity pool. A raised path across the marshes lay straight ahead, a spinal cord through the flatness, to the sea. On his left, an ocean of feathery reeds nodded and whispered in the wind. The entire panorama would make an incredible opening shot to his film. A middle-aged couple passed him, both wearing GoreTex jackets and stabbing the ground with totally unnecessary Nordic walking sticks. His “Hey there!” in reply to the woman’s “Mornin’” sounded brash in the stillness. He hadn’t felt this out of place in a long time. If he did get to meet his birth father, and the possibility seemed more remote with every moment, he needed to get his shit together. The steady thump, thump of approaching feet made Jesse turn. A guy around his age, maybe a couple of years younger, was jogging toward him. He was actually kind of hot. As he got closer, Jesse took in his icy Siamese cat eyes, and the tawny hair and skin Dana spent hundreds of dollars trying to fake. His arms and chest were built, but his flushed cheeks gave him a boyish air, too. He reminded Jesse of a football player from college named Brad Ackland. Or a British Leo DiCaprio. Jesse didn’t risk another “Hey there,” and just grinned, making a big dorky gesture of letting him pass. “Cheers, mate,” said the guy, on an out breath. His warm, soapy smell hung in the crisp air, as Jesse watched his back view pound down the path. So not all the cute guys were in Shoreditch, then.
Olivia
THE WILLOW ROOM, WEYFIELD HALL, 10:00 A.M.
• • •
FROM: Olivia Birch
TO: Sean Coughlan
DATE: Sat, Dec 24, 2016 at 10:00 a.m.
SUBJECT: No subject
Baby,
I know you won’t get this, or not today anyway, but I can’t not write.
She couldn’t think what to say next. It wasn’t fair to dump all her own terror on Sean, much as she wanted to. If she wrote at all, she should be reassuring, upbeat. But what was the point, either way, since there was no chance of Sean reading e-mails at the moment. Even if his condition stabilized, he wouldn’t be allowed any handheld devices until he was out of isolation. Which could be days. Because he would get better, wouldn’t he? He was in the Royal Free, not Monrovia, she reminded herself. He’d have twenty-four-hour care, from the same fat-cat consultants who should have come to help in Liberia. Immediately, any comfort in this was extinguished by shame. She thought of all the patients she’d admitted to the treatment center, where there were no beeping monitors or new drugs or assisted ventilators. There was no divine hand to medevac them to safety. Nobody to report their particular case in the papers.
What had she been thinking? How could she have lost control like this? She’d seen other aid workers do the same—living for the moment, like they were in a war zone. And she’d judged them. She even remembered discussing it with a fellow volunteer at the Calais camp, last year. They’d agreed that the way to meet emotional challenge was through focus on the work, practical care, applied learning. What a pompous twat. Now she’d gone and done exactly what she disapproved of. She’d put everyone at risk. Everyone and everything. Her own career, Sean’s career, HELP’s reputation in Liberia. Why hadn’t they held back, followed the protocol, instead of acting like teenagers? She dug her palms into her eye sockets.
There was a knock on her door. “I’m doing Mummy’s and Daddy’s stockings,” said Phoebe. Olivia paused. She wanted to tell Phoebe to go ahead, to do them without her. But she needed to carry on as normal. Her family suspecting her secret would only make things worse. “I’ll be down in a bit,” she said, brushing away tears even though Phoebe couldn’t see.
“OK, I’ll be in the Porch Room,” said Phoebe, footsteps fading along the passage.
• • •
The Porch Room was a child’s narrow bedroom, directly above the front door. Olivia wasn’t sure whose. Phoebe would know. For as long as Olivia could remember, it had been the present-wrapping room. The chest of drawers by the little cast-iron bed groaned with recycled Christmas paper, carefully saved gift boxes, and special pens that either didn’t work or suddenly glooped out gold blobs. As children, she and Phoebe used to hover outside on Christmas Eve, asking to come in, and delighting in a stern order to “Go away immediately.” How unfair, she thought, walking down the passage, that some children are born to such privilege, others to shantytowns. Weyfield was a different planet to Liberia. At least there was the whiff of reality in Camden, when you chatted to the Big Issue sellers.
She found Phoebe on the floor of the Porch Room, surrounded by carrier bags, chocolates, paperbacks, and beribboned soap.
“OK, here’s what I’ve got,” she said. “This is Mummy’s pile.” She pointed to the frothier and pinker of two heaps. “And this is Daddy’s. We’re short on non-edibles for him. It’s, like, practically all condiments. He’s so hard to buy for.” She sighed dramatically. “Annoying we can’t just go to Holt and buy extra stuff.”
Did Olivia detect a hint of reproach? She sat down beside Phoebe, inwardly calculating that e
ach pile probably cost over a hundred pounds.
“Wow! Good job, Phoebs,” she said. It felt outrageous to be fussing about an adult man’s stocking, when forty-eight hours ago she had been comforting an orphaned toddler. She thought of Sean, and felt like someone was slowly, slowly squeezing her insides.
Phoebe looked up, her eyes suspicious. “What did you get?”
“Just these,” said Olivia, unwrapping two wooden bottle stoppers, carved into a giraffe and zebra, that she’d bought on a rare weekend off with Sean in Fish Town. They looked incongruous among the luxury littering the floor. Their paper bag still smelled of the spices that had hung in the air that Sunday.
“That’s all?”
“Yes.”
“OK. What are they for—wine?”
“Yeah, just, for bottles, I guess. Any bottle.” She hadn’t really thought about what they were for. Sean had been buying them for his parents, so she’d followed his lead. How could he be interred in a Trexler tent now?
“Are they, like, safe?”
“What? Yes! They’d need to have been in a Haag patient’s bed to be a risk.”
“OK.” Phoebe took them in a pincer grip, added one to each pile, then swapped them, then swapped them back again.
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