“Go on . . . Escape with me?” he said.
“Guess if I said we were sleeping in the bungalow they wouldn’t find out,” she said.
“Genius! I’ll tell Chingers,” said George, standing up.
She let him. The thought of flouting Olivia’s inflicted rules was too tempting. Served her right for being such a bitch.
• • •
Phoebe peered into the mirror in the dank bungalow bathroom. She’d left a note on the kitchen table:
George and I are eating dinner in the bungey. Will stay there tonight, got bedding, etc.
P xxxx
She was 99 percent sure this would put anyone off coming to bother them, with its suggestion of “date night.” She’d blow-dried her hair (it was a useless Weyfield hair dryer but better than nothing), and in her dress felt like she was emerging from a loungewear chrysalis. She’d only met George’s friend Charlie Ingram, aka Chingers, a few times and had always found him a bit awful, but he’d been very drunk. All the other girls there would be like Camilla and Mouse—blond, boarding school, blah blah. She’d probably have met them before and forgotten.
She walked out of the bathroom to find George smoking a joint. He looked her up and down approvingly.
“Where’d you get that?” she said. She hadn’t seen him smoke since his insomniac phase, years ago.
“Present from Matt,” he squeaked, holding down a drag. He held it out for her.
She didn’t want it—weed always sent her to sleep. But to refuse would deflate the conspiratorial mood of the evening. She sat beside him, breathing in his “going out smell” of Chanel Égoïste and chewing gum. Her three pecky tokes went straight to her head. By the time they crept through a gap in the hedge onto the road (safer than walking down the drive), they were sniggering like teenagers. Bent double in the darkness, George nearly tripped over, setting them both off even more. Straightening up on the road, he shouted, “Liberaaaaaation! Yes!”
“You’ve only been here twenty-four hours, you dick!”
“Longest twenty-four hours of my life,” he said, bolting away from her singing George Michael’s “Freedom.”
“Hey, waaaaait! I’m in heels!” She tottered after him, enjoying the night air on her face, and the rush of taking a risk. But as she neared George, she felt a bicycle whizz up behind them and screech to a stop. Olivia got off the bike. She looked so angry that Phoebe burst out laughing again. “You followed us! Ha, I can’t believe you actually followed us.”
“Phoebe! What are you doing?”
“Oops . . .” said Phoebe, trying to stop smirking.
“Oh, it’s funny, is it?” said Olivia.
“Hey, chill,” said George. “We were just going for a walk. We weren’t going to infect anyone with your deadly pox.”
“Right. In high heels,” said Olivia, looking at Phoebe’s feet.
“We got dressed for din—” Phoebe started, but began giggling again at the idea of eating dinner in the bungalow in black tie. The laughter began to take over her body, aching in her chest and ribs and face, until she couldn’t remember why she was laughing anymore and was just trying not to pee.
“You’re drunk,” said Olivia, sounding disgusted.
“I’m not. I’m not. I’m—we,” began Phoebe, but thought better of telling Olivia what they’d been smoking. She’d managed to stop now, but her legs were still weak. Olivia looked furious.
“Fucking hell, Phoebe. When are you going to wake up to yourself? You don’t just go skipping out of quarantine ’cause you feel like it. It’s only a week, for God’s sake! Can’t you put someone else first, just for a week?”
“Put who first?”
“Everyone! Everyone other than you, and your boyfriend,” she said, looking at George for the first time. “This is a public health issue. We shouldn’t even be out here. You definitely shouldn’t be going wherever you’re going.”
“How come I saw your dad out on Christmas Eve?” said George.
“What?” said Phoebe and Olivia together.
“Andrew. He was walking to the beach, day before yesterday. We spoke.”
“Daddy! He kept that quiet,” said Phoebe.
“Oh my god,” said Olivia, clasping her forehead dramatically. “This whole family is so—so fucking self-absorbed. What’s wrong with you all?”
“We’re the self-absorbed ones?” Now that the hilarity had faded, Phoebe felt quite clearheaded—and angry. Who was Olivia to come and play chaperone?
“Yes! The fact that you can’t even see it says it all. Utterly, utterly self-absorbed, self-obsessed bunch of egotists.”
“Us? Just because you’re always doing your missionary work, doesn’t mean you’re Mother Teresa. You’re so busy freaking out about the Third World you don’t even notice what’s going on with your own family.”
“What do you mean, what’s going on?”
“Mummy has cancer! And if you were a good doctor, you’d have noticed.”
She knew she had gone too far. But shocking Olivia into silence had been irresistible.
“What? What kind of cancer? How long?”
“Ladies, I’m gonna leave you to it,” said George, turning and walking down the road.
“Wait! Where are you going?” said Phoebe.
“Yours. Weyfield. Can’t be ‘risking public health,’” he shouted without looking back.
Olivia glared after him.
“Mum has cancer?” she asked again.
“Yes. Non-Hodgkin’s lymp . . . lymphno . . .” She couldn’t remember how to say it.
“Lymphoma?” said Olivia.
“Yes. She found out just before Christmas. She has to have chemo in the New Year.”
“Shit. What stage is she?”
“What? I don’t know, she didn’t say anything about that. She just said she’s having more tests.”
“Why didn’t she tell us?”
“She didn’t want to ruin Christmas. For us all to be worrying. She said it’s treatable.” Her voice had gone shaky. “She has a really good private doctor.”
“It’s OK,” said Olivia, putting an arm round her, and trying to support her bike at the same time. It felt unnatural, her head level with Olivia’s neck. “NHLs have a good recovery rate. Which consultant is she with?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t ask.” She hoped Olivia wasn’t going to go off about the evils of private health.
“But didn’t this consultant advise her not to—I mean, it’s a risk, for her, being around me this week.” Olivia looked scared. Phoebe realized that she hadn’t heard her sound uncertain about anything for years.
“Is it?” said Phoebe. “She didn’t say that. I bet she didn’t tell him. She was so excited about you being home, all of us being together. You never come home for Christmas.”
Olivia said nothing. Phoebe hoped she’d made her feel guilty. She should feel guilty. Everyone came home for Christmas. That was just what you did.
They started walking home in silence. Olivia kept her bike torch on. Its beam, spotlighting the road ahead, made the woods on either side seem even thicker and darker.
“Liv?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t tell Mummy I told you, will you? She didn’t want me to say. She hasn’t told Daddy.”
“Really? How come she told you?”
“She just needed a shoulder to cry on, I guess. She’s only told me and Nicola.”
“Nicola?”
“Your godmother.”
“Oh, right. That Nicola.”
“Which other Nicola would it be?” She felt the anger bubble rise up again. “How can you just not know who your godmother is? Who Mummy’s friends are? It’s like you’re proud of being crap. It’s rude.”
“Phoebs, can you give me a break? It’s not OK to just
pick and choose when you do quarantine, but I’m not having a go at you, am I?”
“You are! That’s exactly what you’re doing. You followed us here! Because you don’t have anything better to do than spy on me and George.”
Phoebe remembered the party. She didn’t feel like it now anyway. Her shoes were already killing. But still.
“Believe me, I have better things to do than chase after you and your boyfriend.”
“Fiancé.”
“Christ. Sorry—how could I forget that you’re getting married?”
“Just because you don’t care about that stuff doesn’t mean I can’t. Most girls, people, want to get married, you know? It’s not, like, a weird thing.”
“Right. God forbid I suggest you’re weird.”
Phoebe couldn’t think of a comeback, so she said nothing. This used to be how childhood arguments always ended, Olivia taking the last word, while Phoebe stood opening and shutting her mouth like a furious fish, before shouting, “I hate you!”
They walked on for a while, saying nothing.
“Do you know when Mum is planning to talk about it?” said Olivia.
“Once your quarantine’s over.”
“It’s not just my quarantine.”
Phoebe was about to disagree, when her heel skidded sharply on the icy ground. She grabbed at Olivia’s sleeve to stop herself falling, but her ankle went over sideways under her. She felt something crunch inside.
“Ow, ow, ow. Shit. Ow,” she said, clinging to Olivia’s arm and holding her foot up limply. It was throbbing, the pain spreading over her ankle like heat. She felt slightly dizzy, with pain or the effects of the weed, or both, she couldn’t tell.
“Here, hold this,” said Olivia, turning her bike handlebars toward Phoebe and crouching to look at her foot with the torch. “Can you put any weight on it?”
Phoebe touched the road with her toe and winced as pain shot up her calf.
“Agh, no! It’s broken! I’ve broken it!”
“It’s probably just a sprain. They can be very sore. Take your shoes off,” said Olivia, putting her arm round her back to support her.
“I can’t. I can’t walk. It hurts too much.” She reached down to touch the top of her foot, the flesh already puffy and tender.
“OK, we’ll both go on the bike—you sit in front.”
They began riding slowly back to the house, Phoebe’s knees folded away from the wheels, and Olivia behind her, pedaling.
• • •
By the time they’d got into the bungalow and located some ice cubes in the prehistoric freezer, it felt wrong to carry on the argument.
“Sorry about before,” Phoebe said.
“It’s fine,” said Olivia, briskly. “You’ll sleep here, then? Might be better, with no stairs.”
“True. Did Mummy and Daddy know you went after us?”
“I didn’t tell them you’d left, no. They weren’t around.”
“Cool. If you see them now, just say you’ve been hanging out with me and George.”
Olivia looked unimpressed, but agreed.
“And tomorrow, we’ll just say I slipped in the garden, OK?”
“Fine. Keep it elevated.”
Typical Olivia not to say sorry back, thought Phoebe. So much for their sisterly bonding in the attic. She limped into the bedroom. George was already facedown in the pillows, snoring.
Jesse
ROOM 17, THE HARBOUR HOTEL, BLAKENHAM, 11:55 P.M.
• • •
It had been a bad birthday. Worse, even, than Christmas Day. Jesse had gone for a bleak run in the morning, half hoping to encounter George. In the afternoon he’d taken a cab to a celebrated town named Cromer, and wandered for an hour checking his e-mail every time he got signal. Still nothing from Andrew. He’d gone to an empty café on the pier and ordered a mug of black tea (what was with the milky tea here?) and a rigid scone, too hungry to forgo refined carbs. Afterward, he’d stood for ages on a shingle beach, watching gulls dive-bomb the charcoal sea. Then he’d sat through a terrible Christmas blockbuster, where he and a shady-looking man in a parka had been the only people in the movie theater. When he’d first arrived in Norfolk, the Regal Cinema would have tickled him, with its tiny screens and commercials for local fish and chip shops. But now, the way everything looked about thirty years old was depressing. He hadn’t taken his camera out of its bag. There didn’t seem to be any point.
Back in the Harbour Hotel, he began to pack. His train didn’t leave until mid-morning tomorrow, but he needed to do something practical. All day he’d toyed with going back to Weyfield. But what would he say if they deigned to open the door? “Oh, hi! I’m your uncouth American bastard, showing up uninvited!” Except—if he didn’t go—what then? Was he really going to quit, fly home, and pretend like the whole trip never happened? Chalk it up to experience: “The lousiest vacation of my life”? And to think he’d pictured himself making a breakout documentary about his journey. He’d barely filmed anything the entire time he’d been here, just a couple of shots of the beach. His camera had been a dead weight, following him around while exactly nothing happened. Nothing except George. And that made him feel kind of gross, looking back. The guy was engaged—the whole thing was sordid, not Jesse’s style. At least it hadn’t gone further than kissing. He e-mailed Dana: “No cell signal, Skype me ASAP.” That should appeal to her sense of drama. It was just midnight, meaning Andrew’s weekly restaurant review would be online. Jesse slumped on the bed, unsure if he even wanted to read it, and clicked on The World’s website. The headline for Andrew’s new column was up on its homepage.
THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR (HO HO)
Chefs, you can stuff your alternative turkey. Kinfolk come first at Christmas, says Andrew Birch, ahead of his week en famille in Norfolk.
Just as he was about to click Read More, Dana’s number and profile picture flashed up in the corner of the screen. He answered, and talked through his dilemma again.
“So now I have no clue what to do,” he finished. “I don’t want to just leave without trying once more, after everything. But when I went to the house yesterday . . . I don’t know, I just can’t go through with it again. Not after no reply. I need some, like, certainty. I need to draw a line under this whole thing.”
“Sure. I get that,” said Dana. He was grateful that she didn’t say “I told you so,” even though he knew she was thinking it.
“I can’t send another e-mail. And I can’t find the number for the house anywhere.”
“How ’bout a letter? You could deliver it by hand tomorrow. You know somebody’s home. So you mark it ‘Private’ and ‘Please forward to Andrew Birch’ or whatever. And that way you can be sure he’ll get it, plus—”
The screen darkened, and her speech blurred. “Dana, you’re breaking up,” he said, but Dana’s face was replaced with an error message. The Wi-Fi was down. Again. Fuck this place, he thought. Why did nothing work in Norfolk? Maybe Dana’s suggestion wasn’t so bad. A letter had a certain gravitas. He could deliver it tomorrow morning, before catching the train. Besides, the headline to Andrew’s latest column felt like a sign. He could still see it on The World’s homepage, though the text was now maddeningly out of reach, as the little Wi-Fi fan refused to fill up. He read the headline again. It sounded like Andrew was definitely here in Norfolk. And it didn’t sound like his usual cutting tone. “Kinfolk come first at Christmas.” That had to be a message from fate, right? He took a sheet of the Harbour Hotel’s notepaper and began to write.
• 6 •
December 27, 2016
Quarantine: Day Five
Olivia
THE WILLOW ROOM, WEYFIELD HALL, 7:00 A.M.
• • •
Olivia lay in the dark, knees drawn up to her chest. She’d barely slept. The row last night shuttled round her head like a trapp
ed wasp. Usually arguing with Phoebe left Olivia feeling vindicated, but yesterday had caught her off guard. She kept hearing her sister say: “If you were a good doctor, you’d have noticed.” Emma seemed no different to usual, though. Frenetic, but that was her default setting. Still, Olivia felt shaken. Her mother was never ill.
On top of everything else, her latest blog about Sean had garnered a stream of spiteful comments. Olivia had first seen them when she’d taken her temperature yesterday, on her way down from the attics. She felt bad now for taking her anger out on Phoebe’s bridal collage. Her sister was obviously just looking for distraction, unable to deal with anything more than a tiara dilemma. Which made it even stranger that Emma had confided in Phoebe—the last person Olivia would want in a crisis. She knew why Emma hadn’t told her, though. Phoebe was right, Emma was afraid it would put Olivia off doing her quarantine at Weyfield. That she’d skip another Christmas. It wasn’t a comfortable thought.
Hunger growled inside her. Or was it a hungover, sick feeling? Her stomach, which had definitely shrunk in Liberia, must be thrown by the onslaught of rich food and daytime drinking. It was probably stress, too. Stress always went to her stomach, Olivia reminded herself, recalling how she used to throw up, without fail, before exams. She took her temperature just to be safe, despite the normal reading an hour earlier. The thermometer seemed to take forever. She realized she was holding her breath. Eventually, it flashed a cheerful 98.6. See? she told herself. You’re fine. Feeling a bit off post-Christmas is hardly remarkable. Don’t be paranoid. You need to stay rational, for Sean. The pips on the radio signaled the news, and Olivia groped to turn it up. She had taken to keeping the World Service on all night, so that when nightmares jerked her awake she met the soothing burble of the shipping forecast. The newsreader’s voice shifted gear, indicating a positive story. “Sean Coughlan, the Irish doctor diagnosed with Haag, is said to be improving. Doctors say he is in a stable condition, sitting up, eating, and able to read.” Olivia yanked her iPad off its charger. All the headlines said the same, Sean was stable—still Haag positive, but likely to make a full recovery. She caught sight of herself in the mirror, lit by the white glow of the screen, beaming madly.
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