Seven Days of Us

by Francesca Hornak

  Jesse

  THE ROSE ROOM, WEYFIELD HALL, 9:21 A.M.

  • • •

  Jesse had never felt so homesick. Or so hungry. He’d barely eaten since breakfast yesterday. And he’d been awake nearly all night, replaying everything in his head. Whichever way he turned, the multiple sheets and blankets tangled round his shins, like a net. Didn’t the British have quilts? Now, staring out at the gray morning, he yearned to press rewind. He didn’t belong here, and he was dumb to think he could fit in. The whole idea of his “adoption story” documentary seemed laughable.

  He knew he had to leave the Rose Room. But the thought of encountering any of the Birches flooded him with fresh shame. Dinner, last night, had been quietly excruciating. He contemplated fleeing, like George, but if he left now he would effectively end any relationship with Andrew—period. Besides, it would infuriate Olivia, who was so big on finishing quarantine. He had to stay and salvage things, today. That was what his mom and dad, back home, would tell him to do. He would apologize to Phoebe, and again to Emma. And he would try to redeem himself in Olivia’s eyes by asking again about Liberia, the way none of the others seemed to. That was the plan.

  Now was a good time to grab something to eat, because he’d seen Phoebe limp down the drive five minutes ago. He felt so bad for her. He remembered how he’d felt when Cameron had left him. He’d stayed in bed for two days—Phoebe was doing well to get up at all. Knowing he was the likely catalyst for George’s decision made him feel even shittier. But the whole relationship was doomed, he reminded himself, engagement ring or not. If it hadn’t been Jesse, it would have been someone else.

  He checked his reflection in the fussy gilt mirror before leaving the room. His skin looked like oatmeal. He needed to get back to the sun. He took a long centering breath and opened the door.

  Olivia

  THE DRAWING ROOM, WEYFIELD HALL, 9:29 A.M.

  • • •

  The e-mail came from Dennis White, Olivia’s supervisor at HELP who had coordinated the volunteer program in Liberia. Seeing the subject “Sean Coughlan,” she assumed it was a group e-mail to all the volunteers on their final day of quarantine. She would open it in a second, she thought, shutting her eyes against the screen. The hum of nausea was back, more insistent now. Was that saliva pooling in her mouth? She curled up on the rug to ease the fatigue in her legs, and forced back the thought that sickness, drooling, and exhaustion were textbook early Haag symptoms. If she had caught it from Sean, she would know by now. In just a few hours, quarantine would officially be over. She opened Dennis’s e-mail to distract herself. It was addressed to her alone.

  FROM: Dennis White

  TO: Olivia Birch

  DATE: Thurs, Dec 29, 2016 at 9:15 a.m.

  SUBJECT: Sean Coughlan

  Olivia,

  I have been trying to call, but your mobile appears to be switched off. I have reason to believe that you and Sean may have been physically involved in Monrovia. Not wishing to approach Sean in his current state, I’m approaching you in the first instance.

  I need hardly explain what a serious breach of protocol this constitutes. Please could you call me, as a matter of urgency, to confirm whether or not you and Sean were in a relationship, and, if you were, how strictly you have observed quarantine over the past week. Once I hear from you, I will be obliged to discuss what action to take.

  Dennis

  Olivia sat straight up, her heart hammering. How could Dennis know? She thought of Sean’s offhand comment about his nurse’s crush on him. Could this nurse have snooped through his e-mails? Sean had always been less careful than Olivia. She remembered the time she’d WhatsApped him a photo of herself in a bikini, and he’d left it out in full view of their colleagues. She scrolled back through all their messages, wondering if she could claim they had become close, but hadn’t had any physical contact. It was obvious they were a couple. She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, willing the world to disappear, to leave her alone with nobody except Sean.

  The door opened and Jesse came in, holding a mug. The last thing she felt like was small talk. She stood up, and as she did so a warm, churning nausea flushed through her again—from her scalp down to her knees. Stars danced at the edge of her vision, and as she reached out for the sofa, the whole room blurred. She heard the blood swoosh in her ears, and Jesse’s voice, sounding a long, long way away, as if he were calling down a tunnel, saying, “Olivia? Olivia, are you OK?”

  Andrew

  THE HALL, WEYFIELD HALL, 9:35 A.M.

  • • •

  When Andrew heard the thud, he assumed a Hartley portrait had taken a kamikaze leap off a wall. He hurried down the passage to the drawing room, where he thought the sound had come from. From upstairs, Emma shouted, “What was that?” At least, then, it hadn’t been his wife hurling an oil painting in a fit of pique. He had a gruesome vision of Cocoa flattened by a Victorian bureau. But when he got to the drawing room, the cat was cowering outside. Then he heard Jesse saying, “Hey, hey, can you hear me?” and saw Olivia lying facedown on the floor by the Christmas tree. His mind grappled to catch up with the scene his eyes were relaying. Had she tripped over, been knocked out? Young women didn’t have strokes or heart attacks, did they?

  “Call 911!” Jesse barked at him. “Now!”

  “What, what happened?”

  “She passed out, she’s unconscious. Just call 911. We need help.”

  Andrew couldn’t seem to move. He stood, staring at Olivia’s upturned back. Her top had fallen forward, so that a strip of creamy skin showed above her pajama bottoms, and her limbs were splayed out like a discarded rag doll. How had the drawing room become an episode of Casualty?

  He heard Emma’s sharp breath behind him.

  “Emma, call an ambulance now,” said Jesse, looking past Andrew. “Tell them she passed out, breathing, weak pulse.” He was moving Olivia into the recovery position with professional efficiency. Andrew just stood watching as Emma yanked the phone toward her and said: “Ambulance, please . . . Weyfield Hall, NR25 7FB. My daughter’s fainted, I mean, she’s unconscious . . . Yes, she’s breathing. And she has a pulse but it’s—it’s weak.” Her voice constricted. “No, but she’s been in Liberia treating Haag . . . She’s been back seven days. Today’s the last day of her quarantine . . . No, no other symptoms, I think . . . OK. Please hurry.”

  “It’s coming,” she said, as she knelt near Olivia. “What happened?”

  “I came in and she just literally passed out right in front of me,” said Jesse. “I don’t know if she was, like, sick or what. I walked in, she collapsed.”

  Phoebe came in next and screamed, as Olivia began coughing and spluttering on the floor. “Oh shit, she’s throwing up,” said Jesse, levering Olivia up into a sitting position. It was horrible to watch. Her head lolled to one side, as clear fluid gushed down her chin and over Jesse’s hands, which were clasped round her waist. He didn’t move. “Hey, Olivia, you’re OK. You’re all right,” he kept saying. Her head tipped back against his chest, and there was a gargling noise as she seemed to vomit again and began gagging and choking. Jesse laid her down on her side, swiping round the inside of her mouth with his finger and repositioning her head. Her eyes batted open briefly, rolling back in their sockets so that only the whites showed. Andrew felt dizzy. Emergencies were always false alarms, weren’t they? Surely, surely he was not to be the father who outlived their child? He watched Jesse continue to help Olivia, moving her hair out of her face and saying over and over again: “You’re gonna be just fine. The ambulance is on its way. You’re gonna be OK now,” as he held her hand, while Phoebe stood over them, whimpering. “Andrew, go flag them down,” said Jesse, and Andrew jogged down the drive, grateful to be given a task. He was useless, he thought, looking left and right even though the ambulance could only come from the left. Manifestly useles
s. What would they have done without Jesse—helping Olivia without a thought for the deadly virus she appeared to have?

  Emma

  THE DRIVE, WEYFIELD HALL, 9:55 A.M.

  • • •

  Emma hadn’t seen inside an ambulance since Olivia’s birth. Her labor had started a week early, while Andrew had been on an assignment in Israel that she’d begged him to refuse. Now, thirty-two years on, she watched as her daughter was swallowed into another ambulance—its neon sides too garish against Weyfield’s muted palette. It seemed impossible that Olivia was lying on a stretcher with an oxygen mask over her face. Emma had spoken to her on the stairs, just an hour ago. Please let it not be Haag, please, she begged silently. She was too terrified to attempt her usual expect-the-worst bargain with fate. Why, oh why, had this had to happen here, when in Camden they were so near the Royal Free—the country’s designated Haag hospital? “Y’all right?” said one of the sweet paramedics. She nodded at him, dazed. She was still in her dressing gown and a pair of too-large wellies. She must look completely bonkers.

  Olivia had come round just as Andrew had gone outside, but appeared confused, fainting again when Jesse tried to get her to sit up. Moments later, the ambulance crew had entered the drawing room in ominous white suits and heavy-duty gloves. “Just a precaution,” one of them said, seeing Phoebe’s face. “Case we got any nicks or grazes on our hands.” That was when Emma had first seen Jesse look nervous, gently lowering Olivia’s hand to the floor. He’d been heroic, explaining everything to the paramedics, while Andrew stood back and Phoebe and Emma clung to each other. Then had come a second shock, when Phoebe said: “She was seeing Sean Coughlan, the Irish doctor. I mean, they were in a relationship—she might have caught it from him.” Emma couldn’t believe she hadn’t guessed. It was obvious, looking back. She was also rather stunned that Phoebe knew—she thought her daughters didn’t talk that way. What on earth had Olivia been thinking? she wondered. It wasn’t like her to be so reckless. Or was it? Emma had told the ambulance men that Olivia had shown no symptoms until today, prompting Phoebe to say that Olivia had been feeling sick for days. Now, watching the paramedics flit round her daughter, Emma thought how often Olivia had refused food and stayed up in her room. Had these been signs that she was sickening—signs Emma had missed? She had been concentrating on Phoebe as usual. Poor Olivia hadn’t wanted to worry them. The thought made Emma ache with guilt. She stared at her daughter’s chalky face, and tried to get a grip.

  “She’ll be fine, Emma,” said Jesse. “They’ll get her into ER. Everything will be OK.”

  “Gosh, Jesse,” she said. “Thank goodness you’re here. What would we have done?”

  “Just did what anyone would have.”

  “Well, none of us did! Where did you learn all that?”

  “Waiting tables. First aid is mandatory. I never had to use it, though,” he said, smiling.

  She looked at his hands and saw they were shaking. She could see the tiny cut on his palm now—the one he’d shown the paramedics, anxious that it might pose a risk of infection. He said he’d done it on a barbed-wire fence nearby, out in the dark on Christmas Day. She felt horribly responsible. What would Jesse’s American mother think? He’d come to Norfolk, cut his poor hand, and might now catch Haag—all because he was the only one with enough sense to help Olivia.

  Nearby, she heard the senior paramedic calling “the red phone” at Norwich Hospital for advice, and rattling off cold medical terms: “Vomit following faint, BP one forty-ninety, appears hypoglycemic, high-risk Haag positive.” He walked farther down the drive, almost out of earshot, but she caught the words “body fluids,” “isolation,” “open wound,” and “medevac,” and her heart started thrumming even faster. She wondered how Olivia numbed herself to this stuff every day at work.

  “Right,” said the paramedic, striding over. “We haven’t the facilities to test conclusively for Haag at Norwich, so we’re going to stabilize her there, then get straight to London. They’re preparing two RAF planes at Lakenheath,” he said, looking unduly excited. Norwich Hospital obviously hadn’t expected to put its Haag drill into practice.

  “Two planes?” said Emma, feeling faint herself. “Why two? One for the rest of us?”

  “No, you won’t be able to accompany her, I’m afraid.”

  “What? But I’m her mother! I can’t stay here if she’s going to London!”

  “Just until she’s had the all-clear. We’d ask you to stay in the house, but not to enter the room where she had the vomit. Presume she had her own bathroom?” he said, glancing up at Weyfield’s huge facade.

  Emma agreed, although she had no intention of hanging around here. They would drive straight back to Gloucester Terrace the minute the ambulance had gone.

  The paramedic turned to Jesse. “You’re higher risk, because of the contact with body fluids. Her vomit, I mean, with that cut on your hand. You need to come with us now. The second plane is for you.”

  Phoebe

  THE COAST ROAD, SHERINGHAM, 10:45 A.M.

  • • •

  Phoebe and Andrew managed to lock up Weyfield and bundle themselves into Andrew’s car in a record forty minutes, remembering Cocoa just in time. Emma had already hurtled on ahead in her Golf. She had decided that the three of them should stay at Gloucester Terrace until Olivia had tested for Haag.

  “Shouldn’t we do as the paramedics said?” Andrew had asked. But Emma had overruled him, and he’d let her. It wasn’t like him not to put up a token fight.

  “But what if she’s positive? Won’t we be in trouble for leaving?” Phoebe had asked. It was the first time she’d registered that they might all be in danger. She felt sick already.

  “Cross that bridge when we come to it,” her mother had said, slamming her car door and reversing down the drive. She sounded firm, but Phoebe could see she was freaking out.

  “So, Mademoiselle, now I know you don’t need a whole day to pack, can we make this a precedent?” said Andrew, as he revved round a corner. He always made jokes when bad things happened. It was his way of coping, and for now it suited Phoebe. She’d prefer to be here with her father, making bad jokes, than her mother, panicking. Or—worse—in the back of the ambulance with Olivia and Jesse. She felt bad for Jesse, though. She had to admit, he’d been amazing. The paramedic said his first aid had prevented Olivia choking on her vomit. She hoped Olivia would forgive her for telling them about Sean.

  Andrew switched on the radio. “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” was playing—one of the songs from her first-dance shortlist. She realized that she hadn’t thought of George since Olivia’s collapse. The crisis of the morning seemed to have blasted everything else sideways. And actually, she was glad George hadn’t been around. She’d never seen him in an emergency, apart from the time his friend had staggered off the rugby pitch with a gory nose, and George had gone white and done nothing. If he couldn’t deal with that, she doubted he’d have been much use earlier. Andrew began humming along to the male parts in the song. “Curious lyrics, aren’t they?” he said.

  “I’d been thinking of it as our first dance,” said Phoebe.

  “First dance?”

  “At the wedding. Me and George. The wedding that’s not happening.”

  “Oh! Right, right. Well, I’m not sure about that. Isn’t it a sort of rapist ditty?”

  She laughed.

  “Rather camp, too, I’d have thought,” he said, and then hurriedly added: “I mean, not that George was camp—is camp.”

  “It’s OK, Daddy. It’s not important now,” she said.