“Yeah, I think that’s right. Zebra for Mummy,” she said to herself, frowning.
“Sorry I didn’t have a chance to shop,” said Olivia. “It was pretty full-on out there.” She needed Phoebe to register that she hadn’t just been on holiday. “You’re so good at this stuff, though. You’ve done really well,” she added, in the voice she’d perfected as a trainee at Great Ormond Street.
Phoebe said nothing and kept tinkering with the heaps.
“I did get these,” said Olivia after a long silence, bringing out the six DVDs she had ordered, almost at random, last week. It was all Sean’s idea. He’d insisted she use his Amazon Prime account to deliver to Weyfield, when she admitted she hadn’t bought any proper gifts. “I was going to put them under the tree, but have them for the stockings if you need them.”
“You can’t have more than one DVD in a stocking.”
“Why not?”
“Because. It’s not balanced, it’s too many. And they watch stuff on Netflix now. Anyway, what will you give them for their main presents?”
“I’m sure they’ll manage without. And they’ll still be getting them, just not under the tree.” This conversation needs to end, she thought. She suddenly felt very tired. Phoebe studied each DVD case, took two, and began silently stuffing the pair of long woolly socks on the bed without looking at her. At first, Olivia tried handing her gifts, but with each offering Phoebe said something like: “No, I’ve just put a soap in. We need something edible,” so she gave up and sat watching, until the stockings bulged like just-fed pythons. This, thought Olivia, was why she avoided Christmas at Weyfield.
Andrew
THE SMOKING ROOM, WEYFIELD HALL, 11:00 A.M.
• • •
Emma was evidently more anxious about Haag than Andrew had realized. She had barged into the smoking room earlier, jabbering about the unfortunate Irish doctor who had the virus. Trying to explain that this didn’t mean Olivia was next was a lost cause. Emma kept saying, “But Andrew, she knew him. I met him, at Heathrow, when I fetched her.”
“And did she know him in the Biblical sense? Did you lick his eyeballs? Did Olivia bid him a passionate farewell, with tongues?”
“Don’t be facetious. This is serious.”
“I’m deadly serious. Haag isn’t an airborne pathogen. You need to exchange bodily fluids to contract it. And the other person needs to be symptomatic—I presume he wasn’t foaming at the mouth? Weren’t they all checked on arrival?”
“Well, yes, but the whole airport stage seems terribly badly organized. I can’t think why he was hanging about waiting for a follow-on flight? Surely he should have flown directly to Ireland in the first place?”
“Well, I doubt he had a choice. I don’t imagine Aer Lingus lays on daily flights to Liberia.”
She didn’t look convinced. It still mystified Andrew how he—a rational, broadsheet journalist—had married a woman who leaped on any scare story the tabloids dreamed up. Besides, he had his own real crisis to deal with. Jesse Robinson had e-mailed again this morning. Worse, he was actually here—in Norfolk. In this second message, Jesse politely mooted the possibility that his first e-mail hadn’t arrived, reintroduced himself, and then explained that he was staying in Blakenham. At first Andrew read this as some kind of frightful, Shakespearean coincidence. But the next line revealed that Jesse knew Andrew “holidayed” near Blakenham and had taken the liberty of “booking a trip” there, adding an implausible excuse about a documentary he was researching. Why were all young men obsessed with documentary, wondered Andrew. Jesse even went on to suggest meeting at Weyfield or “taking a walk on the beach.” What had possessed the man to fly all the way here after receiving no reply? How did Jesse know about Weyfield? How much else did he know? Bugger the Internet. Had anything wrecked families, relationships, bloody normality more efficiently than the Internet? Andrew didn’t think so. He made a mental note to write a column on this one day. Then he remembered that, over the years, he had probably divulged all the information any estranged child could hope for in The World—freely available online. Had he mentioned Weyfield by name? Google revealed that, yes, he had, on numerous, rather boastful, occasions. Also online was that God-awful Country Living shoot that supplied the exact location of the house. He was sunk. He really ought to reply. The trouble was, the Haag excuse sounded terribly unlikely. Besides, what if Jesse decided to risk Haag and join them in quarantine? It was a distinct possibility. He seemed pathetically keen. If Andrew was to protect Emma and the girls from the whole business, the only sensible option was not to reply at all. He deleted both Jesse’s e-mails with a swift tap and stood up. He needed to get out, to escape the house that had caused this mess—and he was damned if he was going to pace the grounds like a prisoner. Surely a stroll along the coast road would be safe. They were miles from anywhere. He walked quickly to the hall, grabbed a coat, and left, just pulling the door to so that the others wouldn’t hear. Then he slipped back in and pulled on an orange balaclava, knitted by Emma in the eighties. He squinted into the mirror by the door—he looked mad, but unrecognizable. Should he be unlucky enough to encounter Jesse Robinson (he didn’t put it past fate these days), at least the man wouldn’t clock him.
Andrew strode along the road to the beach. He had always found the Norfolk landscape oppressive. The unbroken horizon and dome of sky imprisoned one in a bell jar of rural stillness—bar the occasional “Coo-coo-coo, coo-coooo” from a wood pigeon. Christ, even the pigeons sounded depressed here. Andrew had never been, would never be, a country person. But Emma was still in thrall of Norfolk. She wanted the girls to experience the same childhood summers and Christmases she had. For a while, Andrew had campaigned for their daughters to see more of the world. Emma had interpreted this, not inaccurately, as Andrew’s own yearning for travel on leaving The Times. When her father died, leaving her an orphaned only child, Emma had only grown more attached to Weyfield. There was no question of selling. As the years passed, the place had become ever more shrine-like. There was now a spooky sense of time warp in the frozen carriage clocks and taxidermy birds. Even the air tasted decades old. Andrew had stopped suggesting improvements long ago—it was easier to hibernate in the smoking room. Emma probably imagined he was still intimidated by the house, as he had been at first. He wasn’t anymore. If anything, the place was rather embarrassingly dilapidated—not that they could have afforded to restore it. A rust-colored bull in the field to his right threw him a bulgy-eyed stare, then let forth an accusing moo. Damn you, thought Andrew, noting the animal’s penis. I’m sure your calves don’t e-mail you out of the blue. You’re free to sow your studly oats with impunity. He took out his phone to note down this phrasing and, when he looked up, wished he hadn’t. George was jogging along the raised dyke that ran parallel to the road and had recognized him, despite his headgear. Bugger being six foot four. The boy was bound to tell Phoebe that he’d seen Andrew out walking, leading to all kinds of awkwardness. George leaped down from the dyke to the road and came to a stop, hands on his powerful thighs, panting and squinting up at Andrew. He was wearing a Lycra getup that left nothing to the imagination. “George!” said Andrew, yanking off the sweaty balaclava. “Keep your distance!” he added, with a crossed-fingers plague gesture. Too bad he couldn’t do so every time George offered his aggressively macho handshake.
“You well?” said Andrew, after a pause, since George was still panting in his odd squat.
“Yah, good, thanks,” said George, eventually. “Nice disguise! You AWOL? I thought Phoebs said you guys couldn’t leave the house?”
Andrew hated modern youth’s substitution for “very well” with “good.”
“Technically,” he said. “But, uh, a man needs to escape all that estrogen now and then. I’d appreciate it if you kept this between the two of us, old boy.” What was this man-to-man tone he had adopted?
“Got it. Hard work, then, quarantine?” sai
d George, straightening up. It gratified Andrew that he still towered over George, even if he couldn’t compete with his rugger-player’s physique.
“Well, not unlike every other Christmas here,” he replied. “And you? Preparing for the coming excesses?” He indicated George’s trainers, wondering how long they were expected to make chitchat.
“Huur, yah, no, training for Paris. The marathon.” Andrew had forgotten George’s tedious marathons. He made a point of ignoring the boy’s money-grabbing e-mails, detailing the latest “challenge” he was attempting—though he knew Emma donated fulsomely. The thought crossed Andrew’s mind, as so often since Phoebe’s engagement, that his grandchildren would be part Marsham-Smith. It wasn’t a comfortable idea. For a moment, they both stood looking out to sea. A cascade of church bells rang into the silence. Bloody churches on every corner in this county.
“Well, better make a move—Mum’s doing a roast,” said George, jigging up and down, like a boxer preparing to punch.
“Send my regards to the Marsham-Smiths,” said Andrew, stepping back to let him pass. Couldn’t you say “my mother,” not “Mum”? he thought.
“Will do, cheers,” said George, thudding off.
Andrew stood, pretending to admire the landscape, until George was a safe distance away. The air here, near the beach, was tangy—the way fish should taste, commented the part of his brain that was always writing his column. He knew George never read his reviews, and that this—rightly—annoyed Phoebe. Jesse probably read them religiously, Andrew thought. What if, in deleting those e-mails, he was throwing away his one chance of a father-son relationship—the kind he hadn’t had with his own father or Emma’s, and never would with George? He remembered his secret disappointment at Olivia’s birth, on hearing the baby was a girl. Andrew had wanted a boy. A son, he believed, might smooth the scar left by his own absent father. But Olivia was not a boy, and nor was Phoebe—although it hadn’t mattered with her. Thinking of Phoebe, of that Father’s Day card in the attic, his thoughts swung full circle. Deleting those e-mails was the right decision. To imagine that he and Jesse might strike up a paternal bond now was pure fantasy. And if Andrew said nothing, did nothing, Jesse would have to go back to the States, and that would be an end to it. The alternative was too messy.
• • •
Approaching the gateposts, Andrew caught Emma’s voice. She sounded slightly hysterical. Stopping, he heard her say, “But it would ruin Christmas,” and then, “I don’t owe it to them. Anyway, I will, soon.” He realized with surprise she must be talking on her mobile—he’d thought she only used it in crises. What would ruin Christmas? Probably some undelivered present she’d got her knickers in a twist about. He hid behind the gatepost, wondering what to do, as a DHL lorry stopped at the bottom of the drive. The noise startled Emma. She rushed toward the driver making wild “no” gestures and pointing to the note she had put up, which read: “Please leave all deliveries here, as we are unable to sign. Thank you.” Andrew watched the driver stare at her in confusion. “We can’t sign, we might have Haag!” shouted Emma. The man looked horrified, dropped a parcel on the drive, and jumped back into his lorry.
Emma
THE KITCHEN, WEYFIELD HALL, 3:18 P.M.
• • •
“Symptoms of Haag,” Emma typed. Even the word sounded like someone dying, she thought. She knew the symptoms, vaguely, but now that Olivia’s colleague was ill, she needed details. Google returned thousands of results. At the top was a row of grisly pictures of people, or perhaps corpses, on stretchers. She clicked quickly on the National Health Service website, a beacon of First World safety, to escape the images. It read:
Symptoms of Haag Virus
A person infected with the Haag virus will typically develop nausea, vomiting, fatigue, breathlessness, excessive saliva production, a headache, and sometimes, but not always, a raised temperature.
These early symptoms start gradually, between two and seven days after becoming infected. They may vary from mild to severe.
Dizziness or fainting; profuse sweating; a raised, bluish rash; and impaired organ function follow. These later symptoms develop abruptly, often within a few hours.
Haag virus disease is fatal in 70 to 80 percent of cases. The sooner a person is given care, the better the chances that they will survive.
Haag is infectious and is passed by contact with bodily fluids. A patient is most contagious once they develop later symptoms, so special care should be taken to isolate anybody who may have the virus, to avoid risk of infection.
It went on to state the importance of calling 999 should one have been to West Africa and believe one might be symptomatic. Emma closed the tab, anxiety flapping like a bird behind her breastbone. Then, knowing it would be upsetting, but unable to stop herself, she went back to her original search, and clicked on one of the stamp-sized images. It was a child—the head huge in proportion to its body, tiny limbs covered in blueish blisters. The look of surrender in its eyes was heartbreaking. She felt a new awe for Olivia, facing these things in the flesh. She would watch her daughter closely for early Haag symptoms, she decided, googling: “Donate to Haag crisis.” She felt rather peculiar herself and tipped the stollen she’d been nibbling into the bin.
The trouble was, the news about Olivia’s poor colleague was inescapable. Radio 4 seemed intent on working it into everything, and the sprawl of papers on the table was seething with Haag stories. Even P. G. Wodehouse didn’t help. She had tried to distract herself by arranging holly and ivy over all the paintings—attempting a little boogie to Elton John’s “Step into Christmas” while she did so. But Olivia had walked in and looked appalled, and Emma had worried that perhaps dancing was terribly insensitive. Finally, she had rung Nicola, which meant a shivery mobile call at the bottom of the drive—to avoid being overheard on the landline. This hadn’t helped, either. Nicola had been very alarmed about Olivia knowing the doctor with Haag, and begged her to tell Andrew everything in view of “the increased risk.” Emma had banked on Nicola promising her that Olivia would be fine and not to panic.
Having donated fifty pounds, and then, feeling that was mean, another two hundred, to Save the Children’s Haag appeal, Emma started the borscht she always made on Christmas Eve. As she chopped beetroots, fingers turning fuchsia, she kept thinking about the American she had chatted to at Heathrow. She remembered Nicola telling her this was called “projection.” Apparently fixating on some tangential worry, in times of high anxiety, was the brain’s way of protecting itself. This didn’t lessen Emma’s concern for the sweet man. What if his biological father never replied or didn’t want to meet him? Or what if the father had a new family who were unkind to him in some way? The whole endeavor sounded fraught with risk. How awful, to go looking for your father, and find yourself rejected—at Christmas, too.
Phoebe came into the kitchen, frowning. “God, Olivia’s so moody,” she said.
“Darling, she’s had an awfully difficult time,” said Emma, tipping purple peelings into the compost. “And now this poor friend of hers is in hospital—we must be sympathetic.”
“I am sympathetic. But does she have to be such a downer?”
“Come on, Phoebs, that’s not quite fair. She just needs a nice cozy time, after everything.”
“She did choose to go there,” said Phoebe.
Emma couldn’t think what to answer. The trouble was it had been so long since Olivia had been back for any length of time that Phoebe—who still lived at home—had come to assume undivided attention. She’d essentially been an only child for a decade. Emma looked at her, fiddling with the sapphire on her left hand. It looked frightfully expensive. If George had asked Andrew first, she had rather wanted to offer Great Granny’s ring, which was beautiful. But it probably wouldn’t have been George’s taste. She got the feeling he thought antiques were rather awful and crusty.
“Any more wedding thoughts?”
she asked.
“Not really. I’m Skyping George in a bit.”
“I had such a nice chat with a young man at the airport yesterday,” said Emma, hoping to distract her daughter before the mood put down roots. Phoebe had inherited Andrew’s formidable capacity for sulking. “We were both waiting. He was from Los Angeles. Terribly handsome.”
Phoebe looked up. “Cougar,” she said.
“I’m pretty sure he was gay, darling.”
Emma thought of the man’s searching brown eyes. He must have been in his thirties, but his boyishness had made her feel positively maternal. Maybe it was her latent yearning for a son. Big lanky arms to hug her from above. Madness. She’d had the change years ago.
Phoebe
THE GRAY ROOM, WEYFIELD HALL, 4:05 P.M.
• • •
Phoebe had arranged to Skype George at four. She still hadn’t told him, officially, that she wanted the wedding at Weyfield. She balanced her laptop on a pile of books, so that the camera wouldn’t give her a double chin, and mussed up her hair.
“Hey, Phoebles,” said George, appearing on screen. Why, she wondered, when she was so used to him, did she sometimes feel like they were meeting for the first time? Maybe it was the weirdness of speaking on camera. He was wearing an ironic Christmas jumper and hugging Boris, the Marsham-Smiths’ new Labrador. With his skiing tan and Fox’s Glacier Mint eyes, he reminded her of “Mr. December” in her old tween calendars. “You look pretty,” he said. “That color suits you.”
“It’s yours,” she said faux coquettishly, shrugging slightly so that the sweater she was wearing slipped down over one shoulder.
“What?” He leaned closer to the screen. It wasn’t a great angle for his nostrils. “Hey, that’s my Lyle and Scott! I’ve been looking for that. Don’t go giving it booby dents, will you?”
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