He thought about George saying: “What have you got to lose?” It had sounded trite, but maybe the guy had a point. Perhaps, aside from a brief physical thrill, the universe had sent George to Jesse for that exact reason—to prompt him to go see Andrew Birch. He looked up at his dumb duty-free gift and felt a new defiance stirring inside him. Perhaps he was still drunk. Whatever, why not just go to Weyfield? If not to knock on the door, at least to see the place, maybe get some fresh inspiration for his film. Besides, he needed to know the house was real, that this whole thing wasn’t in his head.
Finding Weyfield Hall was not as straightforward as he’d assumed. Since he had no cell signal, he was forced to use the tiny, photocopied map in his room information pack. The sidewalk seemed to fizzle out as he left Blakenham, and there were no signs anywhere. He asked the two couples he passed for directions. The first were French and couldn’t help. The second kept saying “Just bear left and head for the sea,” which was hardly more use. It was dark, and a few lone flakes of snow bobbed in front of him. His feet were rigid. Too bad he hadn’t inherited the British imperviousness to cold. Just as he was about to give up, half relieved, he saw four chimney stacks sticking out of a cluster of trees, across the field by the road. That had to be the house. By the map, it looked like it was in the right spot. His pulse began to pick up. Fuck the roads. He ducked under the barbed-wire fence and strode straight across the frosted stubble.
Beyond the field he found the entrance to a gravel drive. The gates looked like they were always open, one hanging off its hinges and overgrown with ivy. There was a note tucked into the gatepost, which read: “Please leave all deliveries here, as we are unable to sign. Thank you.” Bizarre. Maybe they weren’t here after all. The whole place was more run-down than he had expected. It was actually kind of ghostly in the twilight, skeletal trees like black lace against the sky. Or was that just his nerves? Before he could chicken out, he began walking briskly up the drive, past some outbuildings, reminding himself he could always turn and run if he saw anyone. He rounded a corner, and there, twenty yards away, was the house. For a moment, he just stood looking up at the huge rectangular facade, several windows glowing with life. His heart was pumping like he’d done an hour in the gym. It was definitely Weyfield, he recognized it from the Country Living shoot. It reminded him of the dollhouse Dana had as a kid, like you could just swing the whole front wall open. He walked closer, slowing down, trying to stop his feet crunching too loud in the silence. The house came into focus—redbrick, with long stately windows and a shallow stone porch, coated with lichen. He stood by the front door a while, holding his breath, straining to hear sounds from indoors over his own pulse. But all he could hear was the wind in the bare trees, and the whoosh of distant cars. My father is in this building, he said, in his head. My father is on the other side of this door. He decided against the mossy doorbell and lifted his hand to touch the knocker instead, just to feel it, not sure if he had the balls to knock. It was shaped like a lion, a sprig of mistletoe clamped between its bared teeth. A light snapped on in the window directly above the door, followed by the sound of steps inside. He froze. They were the urgent steps of someone hurrying, right up to the door, as if they knew he was outside. Who was coming? What the fuck should he say? He was on set with no script—totally unrehearsed and unready. He jumped back, as the letterbox spat out a piece of paper, and caught a glimpse of fingernails as it clicked shut. The note by his feet was scrawled in gold pen: “Hi. We can’t answer the door. Call landline.” Jesse suddenly felt utterly freaked out. What had he been thinking, coming here, unprepared? What was this place, where people wrote in liquid gold and refused to answer the door or accept the mail? He turned and hurried down the drive, certain he was being watched. When he came to the field, he broke into a run across the open ground. He found the spot where he’d ducked the wire fence before, and this time vaulted over it, accidentally grabbing a barb and swearing out loud—with frustration as much as pain. Already he was cursing himself for being such a pussy, for not shouting out to the person on the other side of the door. But what else could he have done? It was a relief to see headlights swinging down the coast road, and the cottages near his hotel, windows flashing with Christmas TV. It was even good to be back in his crappy little room, he thought, rinsing the graze on his palm under the weak tap. The British were seriously eccentric. At least he’d have a story for Dana.
• 5 •
Boxing Day 2016
Quarantine: Day Four
Olivia
THE PORCH ROOM, WEYFIELD HALL, 9:00 A.M.
• • •
Now that there were no more presents to wrap, the porch room could become Olivia’s sanctuary. She used to read here as a child, to escape the glacial swims and long boat trips demanded by a gung-ho little Phoebe. Boats always made Olivia throw up—painfully conscious that she was the gross one, spoiling everyone’s fun. Now she folded herself into the deep window seat and pulled the curtains shut, just as she had when she was nine. It wasn’t comfortable—she could feel every knobble in her spine against the paneling—but it was private.
She looked out at the bare garden, so different to Liberia’s tropical foliage. In just three months she’d grown used to its wild, accelerated fertility. She remembered how tendrils crept into the treatment center within days of being hacked back, how insects seethed over carrion. At the time, it seemed disturbing. Now, Norfolk’s slow safeness, its brittle twigs and absence of predators, felt as unnatural as Mars. She wished she could talk to Sean about it. She’d written him another e-mail yesterday, trying to sound positive, determined to write daily, even though he wouldn’t read her missives until he was out of isolation. But one-way correspondence was hard. She would e-mail later, she decided, when she had more to say. She tried to read an e-book, but her fingers kept googling his name. A critical stance toward him was growing in the press. One columnist had accused him of “a treacherous disregard for Great Britain.” Every newspaper seemed to have run an opinion piece, questioning why Sean and other Irish aid workers were permitted to wait at Heathrow, when their follow-on was delayed—as if this was Sean’s fault. Her Christmas blog was meant to be her last, but now she found herself logging back in.
Haag Blog 11: Why Does Our Press Delight in Taking Others Down?
I wasn’t planning to blog again, but I’m angry. Christmas jingles on (and on), but my colleague Sean Coughlan’s positive test has destroyed all hope of celebration. What angers me, though, is the British media’s response to his diagnosis. Our focus should be on Sean’s courage and recovery. Instead, many reports have chosen to cast blame—speculating that Sean must be at fault. The cruelty of Haag is that it is transmitted by compassion. Mothers catch it, because they can’t bear to leave a vomiting child alone. Nurses are infected by patients they have tended too well. Nobody knows how Sean contracted Haag. But I can assure you we were all subject to the strictest protocol. None of us, including Sean, would knowingly have put ourselves at risk. Bottom line: we were trying to contain a deadly virus with basic resources.
Unlike those commentators who have seen fit to question Sean’s professionalism, I worked alongside him. He was one of two pediatricians at the treatment center and a favorite among staff and patients. It wasn’t just his expertise that inspired us. It was his humanity. I saw him sit with grieving mothers long after his shift had finished. I saw him make sick children laugh as he inserted their IVs, all while dressed in monstrous PPE, and persuade bewildered toddlers to drink their rehydration salts (no mean feat, as any parent will tell you). And I saw how he returned to our furnace-like conditions day after day with a smile, when others were at breaking point. So I would challenge those journalists who accuse him, on no evidence, of “selfishness,” to do the harrowing, hot, messy job Sean did.
Jane Falcon, a columnist for The World magazine, describes us aid workers as: “naive idealists, risking British health to indulge their own post-colonial r
escue fantasy.” She goes on to advise that we “let Africa sort out its own political cesspits, breaking the cycle of handouts.” Both of these clichés have become convenient excuses for the West to sit on its hands. Yes, aid sent to Liberia will always be complicated by a colonial hangover and, more importantly, a deeply corrupt status quo. But is this any reason to turn a blind eye? And why does our press delight in taking down a hero? Is it so hard to believe that some people are motivated by a genuine desire to do good? Perhaps Falcon and her ilk cannot comprehend altruism, because they themselves are driven by nothing more than the screech of their own voices.
The world’s indifference toward Africa has long frustrated me. This time, though, the crisis is becoming harder and harder to ignore. I hope that, if any good can come out of this cruel disease, it might be that the West will wake up to fellow suffering. Or, at least, that journalists might think before they shout.
She pressed post. She knew she should leave it for an hour, check it over later, but fury made her impatient. Just sending out a small seed of truth into the scaremongering felt better. She hoped her father would read it. He was complicit, she felt, by dint of working for The World—even if he’d chosen to wield his journalistic power by ruining restaurants. But what did it matter, since he never would read it, or, if he did, would most likely respond with some argument for free speech?
Just another three days, she told Cocoa, who was lying on her lap. His drowsy eyes looked like he understood. And now George was here. Olivia had never liked George. She sensed the feeling was mutual. It was baffling what Phoebe saw in him, besides their history. He was loaded, and attractive if you liked that public schoolboy look (depressingly, her sister obviously did). But that was hardly enough in a life partner. He reminded her of the rugby players at Cambridge—only stupider. What was he doing turning up, like quarantine was a silly, optional formality? It riled her that Emma had ushered him in, too. That was why, when she’d seen a stranger approach the house last night, from her vantage point above the porch, she’d shoved a note through the letterbox warning them away. It could have been anyone (although who knocked on doors on Christmas Day?), but she feared the man was one of George’s relations, out searching for him. The last thing they needed was a George clone in the house for the next three days. He and her sister had been unbearable last night. Phoebe had made everyone watch Best Ever Christmas No. Is, which George kept saying was “banter,” instead of The Lord of the Rings, which Olivia loved. Then they’d gone off to the bungalow, like teenagers. But then, she’d never understood Phoebe’s choices. How her younger sister could be fulfilled working in TV, or fashion, or whatever it was she did now, confounded her. It wasn’t like Phoebe was driven by money; she earned so little that she still lived at home—though she seemed in no hurry to leave. Olivia had fled Gloucester Terrace on finishing Cambridge. She’d chosen an elective out of Wi-Fi contact in rural Uganda, then lived in halls at University College London, to her mother’s dismay. Phoebe couldn’t even drive. Judging by the awful mood board in the kitchen, her only goal was marriage. Work was something to fill the days until then. Olivia watched the rain slanting down outside. It was strange how such a big house could be so claustrophobic.
“Wiv, are you coming?” shouted her mother from the corridor. Emma had declared today an “attic clear-out.” Olivia felt drained at the prospect. The attics gave her the creeps. It was Phoebe who used to love playing up there, trying on talc-scented dresses, sometimes emerging in full period dress when their parents had guests, so that everyone could coo and get the camera out.
“In a sec!” she shouted back. She had ignored her mother’s summons twice now. She would have to haul herself up there soon.
The attics at Weyfield spanned the whole top floor, but the rooms were dingy and low ceilinged—at the eaves even Phoebe had to bend double. There was one main room, three other rooms, and various cell-like bedrooms, which her mother said had belonged to teenage maids. It made Olivia feel grubby, as if she was implicated in a caste system against her will. She found Emma and Phoebe in the main room, cross-legged on the splintery floor, beside a box of yellow papers. “Liv! It’s our reports,” said Phoebe. “This is me in year seven, chemistry, Dr. Spiro. ‘Phoebe is a dithtraction to otherth,’” she read out, with a pompous lisp. “‘Unlike her thithter, she lackth focuth. Phoebe would do well to remember that thcool is not a thocial occathion, but an opportunity to learn.’” She had Dr. Spiro’s voice spot-on. She’d always been a good mimic.
Her mother was wiping away tears of laughter as she read out, “Autumn term, 1991: Olivia’s performance as a turnip, in the lower school’s production of Harvest Hooray, was outstanding.”
“Oh my god, that play! I was a fairy!” shrieked Phoebe.
Olivia vaguely remembered it, too, but not in the razor-sharp focus that Phoebe seemed to have recorded every moment of childhood.
“Now, there’s a huge pile of your things over in that corner, Wiv,” said her mother. “What do you want to do with the compact discs? And your A-levels, do you still need all that?”
Olivia began looking through the boxes. Here were her lower sixth biology notes and first CDs—Blur, Coldplay, and The Verve. She recalled a bitter row with Phoebe in the back of the car about the musical merits of David Bowie against Britney Spears, when they must have been about fifteen and twelve. That had been the start of realizing that Phoebe was fundamentally misguided. She could hear her sister now, talking about whether she should get married here or in Gunston Hall, and how here was more “her,” but maybe Gunston would better achieve the Winter Wonderland theme she wanted. Her sense of entitlement was mind-boggling. Not just Phoebe’s—this entire country’s. Olivia shunted the box she had emptied to one side, and there, beneath it, was a loose floorboard she recognized. She and Phoebe used to hide things in the space beneath it, when they still played together. Prizing it up, she uncovered a nest of Kinder Egg wrappers and a Start-rite shoebox. It was labeled, in Olivia’s own childish script, “TIME CAPSULE 1992 DO NOT OPEN UNTIL 2092.” Without thinking, she shouted, “Phoebe, I’ve found our time capsule!”
Her sister darted over, shrieking, “No way, I remember doing that so well! Open it!”
Olivia peeled back the Sellotape, gooey with age, and took off the lid. Inside the box was a Sylvanian Families rabbit, a tube of rock-hard Opal Fruits, a photo of their first cat, a smelly eraser, a bath pearl, a Save the Rainforest pamphlet, a blank cassette, and Olivia’s treasured Filofax. In the middle was a jam jar, with an inch of gray water at the bottom.
“How old were we, eight and five?” said Phoebe.
“Guess so, if it was ’92.”
“It was your idea. I thought it was so cool.”
“What is that?” said Olivia, reaching for the jar.
“Our perfume, remember? Rose of the Valley.”
Olivia saw the tiny label reading “Rose of the Vally” in her best italics. They looked at each other, and Olivia saw Phoebe as her little disciple again, following her everywhere.
“Wow, that must smell rank,” she said.
“It was pretty foul at the time, wasn’t it? Dare me to?” said Phoebe, thrusting the open jar under Olivia’s nose before she could answer. Her half laugh, half shriek, as she batted Phoebe away, made their mother look up in surprise.
“Hey, here’s the letter,” said Phoebe, unfolding a piece of Disney notepaper. “‘To the person that opens this time capsule,’” she began reading. “‘Our names are Olivia and Phoebe Birch, we are eight and five. We go to St. Edwards School. When I grow up I’m going to be a doctor, and Phoebe wants to be a pop star. We like playing Operation, Fimo, Sylvanians, and Pass the Pigs. Our Mummy and Daddy are called Emma and Andrew, and we have a ginger cat called Freckles. The tape is a tape of our songs, from our band Sugar n Spice.’”
“Sugar n Spice!” they shouted in unison, both reaching for the tape. “Mummy, we’ve found
the tape from when we had our girlband,” said Phoebe. “Where’s that Walkman?”
But now that Olivia had started giggling, she couldn’t stop. She wanted to say, “Do you remember ‘Rainbow of Love’?” but she couldn’t speak. Her cheeks were hurting, and tears were starting to squeeze out of her eyes, at the memory of the two of them putting the camera on timer and trying to pose sexily.
“You’re crying!” said Phoebe, dissolving into giggles herself, and then warbling: “Raaaainbow of Lo-ve, you’re red like a ruby,” before standing up to do the dance routine. She put the tape in a dusty Sony Walkman and, miraculously, it began to whir. A sound like a cat came screeching out—Olivia, aged eight, warbling: “Laaaand ahoooooy! Laaaand ahoooooy!”
“It’s the boat song!” said Phoebe, but Olivia was shaking with silent laughter.
Finally she composed herself and lay on the floor, gasping. She felt lighter, like when she was holding Sean’s hand.
Andrew
THE SMOKING ROOM, WEYFIELD HALL, 10:00 A.M.
• • •
Andrew sat in the smoking room with a bowl of porridge, feeling banished. He had been eating in the kitchen until George came in and helped himself fulsomely to breakfast—even frying eggs. The boy had then sat down with a stack of toast (Andrew had resisted a comment on quarantine rations), and begun munching through it without speaking. Andrew had never known anyone to eat toast so loudly. It sounded like fireworks going off. When the noise became intolerable, he had claimed a work call and taken his porridge to the smoking room. Scraping the last mouthful, he did what he always did when he was frustrated—e-mailed his editor about the subs.
Seven Days of Us Page 13