by Jane Shemilt
‘Congratulations, sweetheart, it all starts now.’
ACT TWO
* * *
16
London. Spring 2018
The day everything changes is their second wedding anniversary; it starts with silence and light. The ladders, dust sheets and buckets have finally gone. The absence of radios and cement mixers confers peace, like a blessing. The house is the same and different, like the shift in a friend from youth to middle age. The bones are the same, the eyes and the hands, but everything else has changed. There are no separate rooms in the basement now, their old bedroom has vanished. Instead a large kitchen opens into a sitting room that looks over the garden through sheets of glass and folding doors. The walls are rough brick, the table shining steel. The dresser has gone. Copper saucepans gleam from a low hanging rack; there is a boiling tap and a fridge the size of a small room that clatters ice into drinks at the touch of a button. Upstairs the newly painted walls shimmer like the inside of a shell. The view reaches to the trees on the Heath, blue-green in the distance over the rooftops. Sometimes Beth takes Harris for walks up Parliament Hill, where Albie goes for his run, but twice now joggers with dogs, thin women rushing past, have almost pushed her off the path. Children are everywhere, in prams, with kites, dragging on their parents’ hands or running down the slopes. She prefers the village and takes Harris along little side streets, dawdling to look at the gardens.
There are more plants in their garden; the daffodils are over, but roses and clematis cover the high trellis. Pleached limes grow against the wall. She has started a gardening journal, recording everything she’s planted; she writes it up while Albie designs trials in his notebook. The leather binding is a little cracked these days, some of the pages are loose. It’s almost full but he won’t hear of a replacement. She has taken it from the shelf and placed it next to her gardening journal on the side table in the hall; easier for him to pick up on the way to work, secretly she likes the way they look side by side, her flowery notebook, his leather one, touching each other.
The lab’s two-dose rat trial had gone to plan. Bruce gave Viromex the data six months ago and they ran their own trials, which went smoothly, according to Ed. Albie had been speechless with relief. When the payout arrived, Beth bought champagne. The countdown to the children’s trial has begun. She left her job; the money isn’t needed now and she’d far rather be in the garden. Occasionally she catches his glance up and down her body when he thinks she isn’t looking, in the bath, or as she reaches for her clothes in the morning. He doesn’t say anything, and she doesn’t either. The encounter with David Smith has receded into the past, undiscussed and buried deep.
Today is perfect for gardening. Brightness beats from a white sky. Gulls circle high up; their sharp descending calls filter through the air. She glances at her journal; the jobs for the week are neatly listed: fertilise beds, plant beans and herbs, earth up the first earlies. She trundles the wheelbarrow full of fish, bone and blood fertiliser to the flower beds and forks it in, Harris scrabbling alongside. Later she plants beans in neat holes, covers them with soil and attaches cotton to twigs pushed into the ground against the birds. She earths up the potatoes and fills an old terracotta pot by the back door with compost, pushing a cutting of rosemary into the soil. She is interrupted once for a delivery, a woman bringing the special cake she ordered. She asks her to leave it in its box in the kitchen and carries on, working to the rhythm of the garden, one hour slipping into another.
Later the front door bangs. She replaces her trowel and spade in the shed, catching the musky smell again, foxes about. Albie is sitting on the sofa, watching the news. She pulls off her boots and pours him a glass of whisky from the last of the hoarded Jura bottles. Prophecy is written in thin black letters on the gold label. Looked at through the glass, the room becomes refracted in amber and Albie gilded, a little out of focus. ‘Make it last, sweetheart,’ she tells him. ‘We’re down to the last bottle.’ He glances up, his eyes travel over her tangled hair, bare feet and muddy clothes. Nowadays she prefers to be without make-up, without heels and tights; more connected to the garden, though sometimes she wonders if he minds.
‘We’ll be there in a month. I can spin it out till then.’ He raises the glass to her.
Jura in four weeks. Engrossed in her planting, she’d forgotten; she bends to receive his kiss. ‘You taste of the garden,’ he says absently, taking a leaf from her hair. His eyes drift back to the screen. A medical case has gone to court, a woman accused of murdering her child when it was a cot death all along. Beth moves away but Albie is absorbed; he doesn’t ask her about her day and she’s glad – the satisfaction in digging and planting, the way the hours stream by unmeasured, none of it would fit easily into words. In the kitchen, she slides the cake out of the box on to a plate; two swans are entwined in pink icing next to ‘Happy Anniversary’ written in gold lettering on the smooth white surface. She collects plates and a knife.
He looks up from the television. ‘You should watch this, sweetheart, it’s fascinating. I could swear I saw that journalist friend of Ed’s outside the Old Bailey with a banner …’ He glances at the cake, then claps his hand to his forehead. ‘Oh God, I forgot.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ She cuts him a slice and hands him the plate. She doesn’t want to hear about the death of a child, even if Jake is among those campaigning for justice. Whatever took place, there was a small, lifeless body, a funeral and sorrow that will last a lifetime.
‘You look upset.’ He kisses her. ‘I’m so sorry, sweetheart; it totally slipped my mind. And you made a special cake.’
‘I didn’t. It was a catering company, one of those cards that come through the door. A woman delivered it today.’
‘I don’t suppose it was a woman with red hair, mid-twenties?’ he asks, looking amused.
She shakes her head. ‘Sixties, jollyish. Why?’
‘Skuld’s sister caters and delivers, a long shot.’ He takes a bite of the cake and gazes out at the garden. His eyes shine with content. ‘Right now it feels as though I’m planing.’
‘Planing?’ She tests the unfamiliar word; it means nothing to her.
‘A sailing term. It used to happen to Jamie and me in Father’s Wayfarer off Jura. The dinghy would catch the bow wave and we’d be accelerated forward through the water, as though we were flying. It feels like that now. My clinical work’s going well. The rat trials were successful, the house is a triumph. It’s all coming together.’ He finishes his slice of cake and holds out his hand. ‘I haven’t been in the garden for weeks. I want to see everything you’ve been planting.’
They step outside. Harris runs past them to the hut, barking and sniffing around the base.
‘Rats or foxes, I expect. I’ll get poison.’ Albie sounds resigned.
She leads him away to the vegetable patch. ‘Look, new potatoes, your favourite.’ But as she points to the heaped row of earth, just visible in the dusk, a message pings through on his phone.
‘Ted. He wants me to phone – odd timing. It’s probably about his private patients; I’ll need the computer.’
He runs across the grass and half stumbles into the house; she watches as he hurries to his desk and the computer screen lights up. The torch is on the second shelf in the shed. Albie has his back to the garden, the phone to his ear. The corners of the shed are suspended on square stones; as Beth lies down, she hears chirping noises like the sounds of baby birds. She angles the beam through the gap between the ground and the wooden base. The torch beam picks out small heads, the sharp tent of an ear; six red points of light are reflected from three pairs of eyes. Fox cubs. She replaces the torch, shuts the door and leans back against it. Albie needn’t know about this little family; foxes are shot as vermin in Jura.
The lights have come on across the garden from buried sockets in the grass. It was Albie’s idea to floodlight the lawn. She doesn’t like it; the light will confuse the birds and now the foxes. Nevertheless she feels conten
t; she has a garden that shelters foxes, a husband who is happy and successful. So this is planing: when the elements of your life fuse and you feel as though you are flying. As she walks towards the house, she sees Albie has left the desk and is staring into the garden. The earlier happiness has gone. His face is full of horror.
17
London. Late Spring 2018
He sees her walk towards the house, flickering in and out of the strips of light across the dark lawn, arms swinging. He wants to freeze this moment, so that she is always walking towards him, always happy, always approaching an evening of talk, wine, food and love. She lifts her head towards the window, and then she starts to run; another second and she is inside.
‘It took them two weeks to die, maybe less.’ He is conscious of her eyes moving over his face as she takes his hands. ‘The children,’ he tells her in a hoarse whisper. ‘The children.’
He struggles to encompass what he has brought about. There would have been behaviour changes at first: food refusal, tiredness, crying, nothing specific. The GP’s advice might have been Calpol and plenty to drink, but the fever would have steadily mounted.
‘Ted said the headaches were so bad they screamed like animals.’
There would have been vomiting, followed by fits. By then the child would have been in hospital, parents by the bedside, watching helplessly as the treatment escalated. Antivirals, steroid infusions, a bed on intensive care. The child would have become floppy, then paralysed, before slipping into a deep coma. Death would have followed swiftly.
‘There were nine children altogether; two have died. There are three more in intensive care.’
Beth frowns, shaking her head, as if unable to absorb the news. It is dark in his head, dark outside. He can’t see his way from one moment to the next. Beth pours him more whisky and he drains the glass.
‘Encephalitis.’ He puts his head in his hands. ‘How could this possibly be? Viromex’s tests were fine, completely fine. I was so sure—’
‘It could have been the cancer itself,’ Beth interrupts, ‘rather than an immune response, especially if the tumour was rapidly expanding.’
‘It wasn’t cancer.’ He walks to his desk to look at his computer screen. ‘Ted sent me the path report: “Dense lymphocytic infiltration of the brain, typical of acute inflammation mediated by an intense immune response. Appearances consistent with acute encephalitis.” Ted’s flying back. He’ll go to the lab, then he’s coming here, tomorrow or the next day.’
Sitting still is too difficult; he paces to the wall and puts his hand against the glass. This room was constructed for light; they didn’t think about the dark, about how it would feel to be surrounded by blackness pressing in.
‘New treatments are always risky, Albie—’
‘Risky? It was a death sentence.’
‘Their death sentence had been passed already. What you did brought treatment closer.’ She reaches to take his hand but he buries his fists deep in his pockets and continues to pace. Her logic is muddled. He didn’t bring treatment closer, he pushed it further away. The phone begins to shrill. When he picks it up, a male voice crackles aggressively in his ear.
‘Mike Stevens from the Mail on Sunday. I wonder if you have any comment on the recent deaths of children following a new treatment in the US? It’s our understanding that a Mr McAlister was part of the original research team responsible for its development here in London. We are reliably informed that the work took place at the Institute of Neurology, Queen Square.’
He covers the receiver and mouths, ‘The press.’
Beth steps forward and takes the phone from him. She rests her other hand on his shoulder.
‘Can you repeat your question, please? … Ah, you have been misinformed. The initial concept was my husband’s but he left well before any experiments were carried out … Yes, over a year ago now, to pursue his clinical career.’ She slides her hand from his shoulder and links her fingers with his; he can hear the persistent quacking down the phone.
‘Correct.’ She smiles. ‘No involvement whatsoever … Ah. That would be Professor Malcolm … Naturally, as director of the laboratory, Professor Malcolm has oversight of all the projects … Total responsibility; the Professor has always insisted on that.’
This will be death to Ted’s career. He looks up at her. She is transformed, her cheeks burn with colour, her eyes glitter. She is drawing on the skills she learnt as a child, making sure they both survive, but to anyone else she would appear to be exulting.
‘Not at all. You’re welcome.’ She replaces the receiver. ‘Courage, sweetheart.’ Her voice is warm in his ear. ‘It will be Ted’s name in the papers, and maybe Ed’s, but not yours.’
He puts his hand over his eyes; he wants to weep.
Two days later on Sunday morning, Albie is in the kitchen on his own. Beth has gone to the garden centre, aiming to be back before him, but he ran as though pursued by demons and reached home first. Physical effort blots his thoughts. Since he heard the news, only operating has given him that sort of respite. He does little else; he hasn’t made a single entry in his notebook or done any sketches; designing a trial would be beyond him. He is swallowing orange juice when the bell sounds, three impatient notes. When Albie opens the door, Ted pushes through without a greeting; his face is flushed. He glances behind him into the street, the Sunday papers under his arm.
‘Fucking journalists,’ he mutters.
On the pavement two girls trail a fat poodle, but beyond them, a man is sitting in the driver’s seat of a green Mini parked on double yellow lines. He lifts his phone in both hands, pointing in their direction. Albie closes the door quickly. Ted walks past him and down the stairs into the sitting room. His gaze sweeps the room and the garden outside, as if, despite the engulfing crisis, he is assessing the worth of what’s in front of him. Albie waits, his heart thudding in his mouth. Has Ted found out the truth somehow? Has he come to blame or even attack him? Ted turns to face him; framed by so much glass, he seems shorter than he used to be, older too, though his stare is defiant. A fighter past his best and knocked against the ropes, who thinks he can somehow still win.
‘We have a crisis on our hands, Albie,’ he says expressionlessly. ‘I hope you don’t mind me turning up; I couldn’t think of anyone else I’d prefer to be with.’
Ted doesn’t suspect him; in fact Ted has turned to him for comfort, rather than to Ed or even Jake. Albie feels a passing moment of gratification laced with guilt. ‘I’m glad you’re here, Ted.’ Midway between a lie and the truth. He stares at Ted, unfamiliar pity stirring.
‘Any coffee going?’ Ted turns back to the garden. ‘You’ve done well.’ His tone is accusing as he indicates the velvety lawn and ordered planting. He’s approaching the tragedy slowly like the Hindu mourners Sabat once described to him, ritually pacing round their dead in circles. For a few terrible seconds, Albie sees child corpses piled on the shining floorboards in the centre of the room, small hands curled, heads thrown back and blue lips open, as if death came while they were still gasping for air.
He walks into the kitchen area. ‘Beth did it all.’ He tips coffee beans into the machine. ‘She organises everything in the garden, the house too.’
Ted removes his jacket and loosens his tie with a vicious tug as he takes in the leather chairs, the rough woven rug, the sleek wood burner and the brick walls covered with large black and white photos of a Jura storm. Ted hasn’t been here since Beth moved in; it would be unrecognisable to him now.
‘Beth,’ Ted echoes wonderingly. ‘Who would have thought?’
‘You sound surprised.’ Albie looks up from the dark ribbon of coffee streaming into the cups from the spout of the machine.
‘I never realised she could do things like this.’ Ted glances back into the garden, his face turned from Albie; there is a complex edge to his voice, regret or shame, and something sharper, like anger.
‘And I never realised you knew her that well.’ As Albie hands Ted his
coffee, Ted’s eyelids lower; he sips the thin layer of golden froth from the surface.
‘She was my theatre nurse, once.’
‘She never told me. That’s strange; unlike her to forget something like that.’ The silence between them stretches; the faint alarm bell he heard before has started up again.
‘I don’t suppose I really knew her, though.’ Ted’s grimace is sudden, as if registering a spasm of pain. ‘You can’t know other people, you can’t even know yourself.’
This is nothing to do with Beth after all; this is about the daughter who never came back, the wife who retreated. ‘Sit here, Ted.’
Ted lowers himself into the chair; he moves cautiously and seems older. Albie takes the sofa opposite.
‘This situation must be rescued,’ Ted tells him.
Albie stares at him as he tries to imagine what rescue would be possible for the families of the dead children. Ted puts his coffee down and squeezes his hands together till the bones crack. His face is bleak. ‘Nothing will bring the children back, but we have to understand what has happened. Child deaths were what I most feared when you found that original report; it was precisely why we repeated your work. And yet, unimaginably, two have died. I am at a loss.’
‘I can’t understand what happened at Viromex,’ Albie says. ‘I thought—’
‘They are analysing every vial they’ve ever sent us. Including a batch of spares.’
The fear is instant; Albie can hardly speak. ‘Has Bruce kept the vials he used?’
‘I’m told those have been incinerated. Clinical waste.’
Albie stands and moves back towards the kitchen in case the relief shows on his face. ‘More coffee?’