The Waiting Rooms

by Eve Smith

  She scans my face, brows pinched together. ‘Of course.’ She sucks in her lips. ‘Can I get you anything? Cup of tea? Water?’ I shake my head. ‘Well, just ring if you want anything, won’t you? Anything at all.’ She gives my arm one final squeeze.

  I wait until the door has shut and open my hand. I lift the hair to my cheek. It’s still so soft. As soft as the day it was cut.

  I stole a pair of surgical scissors from the storage cupboard. I had to wait for hours: we were hardly ever alone. I think that was the policy for mothers like me, in case we changed our minds and made a run for it. I gripped those scissors, terrified to open the blades, in case she suddenly twisted her head. In the end I put her on my breast and let her suckle until her eyes rolled back in sleep. I stroked her hair, soft as silk, watching her eyelids flutter. Then I quickly snipped a twist of hair from the back.

  I told the social workers that I couldn’t cope with being a single mother; that I had a career to consider. I was depressed. All that was true. I’d sworn I’d be a better mother than my own. But the childhood I’d always dreamed of was out of reach for my daughter, too. Every time I thought about keeping her, I’d remember what I’d lost. To get beyond Piet, I had to let her go, too. Even then, I couldn’t escape him. The Crisis pushed us back together. Life’s funny like that. It has a way of punishing you for your bad decisions.

  I take out Kate’s letter and re-read the words of my child. I had never dared to let myself hope. But behind the hope lies fear. I shouldn’t rush into this, like some hapless lover. I must consider the risks, not just to me, but to her. She is safe and happy, she has a family of her own. I made a promise that I wouldn’t interfere. That I would let her live her own life, innocent of the past. I cut all ties, even though it was like losing her all over again. She says she knows about me, about my work. But she doesn’t know everything.

  I glance at my calendar. On today’s date the number nine is scrawled in black felt-tip pen. I stroke the golden strands of hair and ease them back into the envelope. I fold the flap and press it to my lips.

  Outside, the wind is stirring up the branches. I watch the sparrows dart back and forth amongst the leaves. And I wonder if hearts are like bones: they can mend if they break.

  But the mending gets harder, and the breaking much easier, with age.

  CHAPTER 30

  KATE

  I stare at the white marble slab. Black letters carved into stone. In the absence of speech my ears fill with other sounds. Aeroplanes. Traffic. The rustle of Sasha’s coat. This is the first time she’s come. Sasha doesn’t do memorials or ceremonies; doesn’t do anything, usually, that harks back to the Crisis. Perhaps her being here is some kind of olive branch. These days our rapprochements tend to stem from actions rather than words.

  She’s been monosyllabic the past couple of days, sequestering herself up in her room. She seemed surprisingly stoic when I told her about Mary, but maybe that was a front. It’s either that or her idiot boyfriend has been messing her around again.

  In memory of the doctors, nurses and medical staff who worked tirelessly for our country and gave their lives in service during the Crisis.

  ‘They loved not their lives even unto death.’

  I remember Pen taking me to the Remembrance Day service when I was much younger than Sasha. I didn’t really understand why people were putting paper flowers on a cross, but the posh dress, the clipped conversations all told me it was important. And the silence. Particularly the silence. Trying to stay quiet for one whole minute, while the birds sang and people coughed, desperately afraid that my body would let me down. They all stood the same, those veterans, even the really old ones: shoulders back, feet together, with that sad, distant gaze. Probably the same gaze I have now.

  ‘You OK?’ Mark slips his arm into mine.

  I feel a wave coming and I swallow it down. Absurd, really. If you can’t cry in a place like this, then God knows where. I nod and brush my hand over the stone. Its icy touch sucks the warmth from my fingers.

  ‘So many of them are foreign,’ whispers Sasha, squinting at the names. Her hair straggles across her shoulders like the tendrils of some exotic flower.

  I take a breath. ‘Before the Crisis, lots of doctors and nurses came from overseas to work here. We relied on them. It wasn’t like it is now.’

  I remember how desperate it got, near the end, even after they’d officially closed the borders. It wasn’t just medics. Care workers, undertakers. Coroners and priests. Those poor people had to undergo days of screening for the privilege of working in our death camps.

  A pale-lemon butterfly flits over a purple buddleia and settles on the monument, wings twitching. My gaze moves down the polished brass plaque.

  The Palace of Auburn Hills

  Palau Sant Jordi, Barcelona

  The Kombank Arena, Belgrade…

  It reads like a tour schedule from the old days. Denim-clad stars hunched over electric guitars, rocking out lyrics to thousands of adoring fans. My eye veers halfway down.

  The O2, London…

  I see Lucy’s face beaming at me, all flushed and sweaty.

  Katie, I owe you big time!

  This was the moment, the pivotal moment that separated the before and after. Like 9/11, like London and Manchester, like the stories Pen told me that her mother had told her about the two world wars. Nothing could ever be the same again.

  Mark squeezes my arm. ‘Do you want to lay the flowers now?’

  Flowers? I’d forgotten about the flowers. I’m gripping them so tight I must have throttled the poor things. I kneel on the hard marble; spots of pink pollen spatter the stone. I prop the lilies against the column and tuck the card underneath.

  Still missing you, Luce. K. xxx

  It was the band’s first UK date, fresh from their Asia tour. I scored two seats, right up in the gods: they even came with a vertigo warning. I remember those mad bellows of favourite songs, echoing around the arena like football chants; the breathless lulls in between. All twenty thousand of us, pressed in together. Sucking in the same recycled air.

  The first time anyone had an inkling was when the next month’s schedule was cancelled. They said ‘postponed’, although no new dates were forthcoming. The initial Twitter chat suggested the lead singer had succumbed to a niggling chest infection after a punishing few months on tour. He was ‘resting up’ they said, ‘doing fine’. He even posted a picture of himself from his sickbed. I remember thinking how happy he looked in that bright, sunny room.

  One week turned into two. The posts said the infection was lingering. Another round of antibiotics commenced. There were rumours of more sinister diagnoses, even other band members falling ill, but the marketing hand of the record label crushed them. No new dates materialised. When it got to four weeks, the tour was officially cancelled. It was around that time that Lucy got ill. Then the news broke. The singer was in an isolation chamber in a high-level infectious disease unit. He had a rare form of TB that wasn’t responding to drugs. Two days later, he was dead.

  The press went nuclear. Two other band members followed, one fan and then another, until it seemed like every day there was a new case. It would take many more weeks and many more deaths before the world woke up to what was really happening. Before we realised that this was just the start.

  A sharp breeze curls into the back of my neck. My eyes protest, sticky with tears, as I hold my own minute’s silence. I think of that photo of Bekker, being led up the steps. What is it they say? Evil wears the prettiest face. Three hundred and seventy-five million. That was the official TB count. Some said three times that many died. When the other resistant infections kicked in, the records couldn’t keep up. Whatever else my birth mother may have done, at least she helped bring that bastard to justice.

  Dear Mother…

  I picture her, reading my letter: her eyes widening, the sharp intake of breath. Her hands trembling as she seals it back in its envelope, the bitter residue of shock coating her
tongue.

  Nearby a blackbird sounds the alarm. I wait another second before pushing myself up. My knees are so stiff that I have to lean on Mark until the blood seeps back into my calves. As I stretch, I see Sasha wandering off across the grass.

  ‘Sasha?’

  My daughter either doesn’t hear or chooses not to. She scowls at her phone.

  ‘Sasha!’

  She peers round. She’s got that ‘wtf’ face on that makes my blood boil.

  Mark glances at me. He touches my arm. ‘Careful.’

  I sigh. ‘I’m sick of being careful.’

  Sasha ambles back towards us, mobile still clutched in one hand. I turn to Mark and the penny drops. ‘It was you,’ I say. ‘You made her come.’

  Mark opens his mouth and closes it.

  I fix Sasha with a stare. ‘Have you even looked at this plaque?’

  She stuffs her phone in her pocket. ‘Sorry.’ It sounds more like an insult than an apology. ‘Something just came up.’

  I should stop now. Walk away. But I can’t.

  ‘You know, Sasha, a lot of the fans were young, like you. Off to see their favourite bands. Or watch a match.’ My voice has an edge to it that could cut glass. ‘Most of the carriers didn’t even know they were infected. After the security report they started calling them vectors. I remember having to ask someone what it meant.’

  She doesn’t say anything. Just frowns, as if it’s me that should be apologising, not her.

  ‘We never used to be afraid of coughs. We barely noticed them. That was part of the problem.’ My words have distilled themselves into a cold, clinical staccato. ‘You see, when someone coughs, jets of air shoot out of their lungs at fifty miles an hour. Those jets can stretch for several feet. And each one contains thousands of microscopic particles.’

  Sasha regards me warily. She’s heard this voice before.

  ‘Of course, that’s nothing compared to sneezes.’ Sasha’s eyes dart to her dad and back again. ‘Forty thousand particles, if I recall. And those boys can blast out at two hundred miles an hour.’

  ‘Kate—’

  I shrug him off. ‘In TB carriers, each of those particles is packed with bacteria. All looking for a host. Out of sunlight, they can swirl around quite happily for hours.’ My fingers illustrate with delicate spirals.

  ‘Kate, please,’ Mark tries again. He’s too late: it’s already barrelling up inside.

  ‘Once they’re inhaled, the bacteria travel into the upper respiratory tract, and from there, to the lungs.’ I pause. ‘That’s where they make their home.’

  Sasha throws up her hands. ‘OK, Mum, OK! I get it!’

  ‘Do you? Do you really?’ My cheeks are on fire. ‘I appreciate that the world’s worst act of terrorism must be an unwelcome distraction from your social life. But was it too much to expect you to show just a smidgeon of respect?’

  Her lip curls back. ‘Jesus! I came, didn’t I?’

  I give a derisory snort. ‘Well, bully for you!’

  Sasha shakes her head and stomps off. My voice rises to catch her.

  ‘You know, we had to endure things, really terrible things, to get through this.’ I’m jabbing my finger at her now, shrieking, like the worst kind of mother. ‘We made sacrifices! Every day. To try and make the world safe again.’

  She wheels round with a bitter laugh. ‘And whose fault was it that things all went to shit in the first place?’ Her eyes bore into me. ‘Do you have any idea what it’s like, growing up in this “safe” world of yours? How fucking suffocating it is? Nothing left to chance, endless checks and scans?’ Her pale skin has mottled a deep crimson. ‘Remember those stories you told me, about how you and your mates used to jump on a plane and fly off somewhere for the weekend? Or go to some bar to meet guys? I’ve seen the films: people rolled into bed with complete strangers!’ She flaps her hand. ‘No body scans. No STD checks. No profile searches.’ She glares at me. ‘I can’t even hug a friend without asking! Wouldn’t you say those are sacrifices? How do you think that feels?’

  It’s as if all the air has been pressed out of me. I gaze into her eyes and I see it, I finally see it for what it is: her blasé attitude to all the perils around her, our constant battles over staying safe. She had no choice in any of this. Is it so surprising that she fights against it? It must seem like a golden age, the way things used to be.

  I take her wrists and gently uncurl her fingers. Press my skin to hers.

  How happy would I have been, growing up in this kind of world?

  Perhaps we aren’t so different after all.

  CHAPTER 31

  Fifteen years pre-Crisis

  ‘We stand at the edge of the millennium, facing the spectre of incurable TB.’

  WHO Report Estimates 8.4 Million New TB Cases, Exacerbated by HIV Epidemic and Rise of Multidrug-Resistant Strains

  The latest global TB report from the World Health Organisation shows a twenty percent increase in TB infections in those countries most affected by HIV, despite efforts to control the disease.

  India and China have the greatest number of cases, but Africa is projected to take over from Asia as the region with the highest incidence of TB, responsible for a third of all new cases over the next five years. ‘Time is running out,’ commented a spokesperson. ‘Our surveys show that new, multidrug-resistant strains are proliferating. The worst-affected countries simply don’t have the resources to detect or treat this disease effectively.’

  MARY

  A little girl with long fair hair lifts one shoe off the kerb, her hand gripped tightly in her mother’s. She skips along the crossing, chattering away, oblivious to her parent’s silent preoccupation with her phone. What is she: nine, ten? I study the eagerness in her face, the easy flow of limbs, and my stomach contracts.

  Could that be her?

  I always get like this around her birthday. One month, two weeks and four days until she turns ten. A whole decade: that’s how much of Kate’s life I’ve missed. Would just one gift hurt? One letter? A simple photo of her blowing out her candles or opening her presents? My hunger soars as the day approaches, craving answers to the same questions:

  Is she happy? Healthy?

  Did I make the right decision?

  A horn blasts behind. I pull forward, and my eyes flick up to the mirror. The girl trots along the pavement, her blonde tresses bouncing up and down.

  I wonder what they’ll get her. A pink Furby with big blue eyes? A Tamagotchi in a purple patterned egg? My chest tightens. Then she can pretend that she has a baby, too.

  I accelerate onto the dual carriageway but have to brake as I hit the queue. Oxford traffic: I certainly don’t miss that when I’m away. I sigh and turn up the radio.

  ‘…of deaths continues to rise as the Sydney flu epidemic claims more victims, pushing the health service to breaking point. Unofficial reports say the death toll has reached twenty thousand…’

  All in all, I’d say the new millennium hasn’t got off to the best start. Not only has the Aussie flu been rampaging across the globe, but WHO just flagged multidrug-resistant TB hot zones in all thirty-five countries it surveyed. They now estimate a third of the world’s population is infected. As if that wasn’t bad enough, in January, a fifty-six-tonne meteorite crashed into Earth, 257 passengers perished in two separate plane crashes and the last Pyrenean ibex was crushed by a tree.

  Just to be clear: none of these events had anything to do with the millennium bug. It still astonishes me how worked up everyone got about a computer glitch that was entirely fixable while the real superbugs were multiplying in our midst. Ten percent of Americans genuinely believed that a Y2K apocalypse was coming. As the clock struck midnight, did any of their dire predictions materialise? OK, so a couple of radiation-monitoring systems went down in Japan, and Russia launched some scud missiles, just for the hell of it, but that was about it. Which just goes to show what $300 billion and a bit of collective focus can achieve. Looks like those millennialist Christians g
ot themselves all tooled up for nothing. If it was tribulation and pestilence they wanted, they should have placed their bets elsewhere. I know my Revelations, my mother made sure of it, and if these microbes keep ploughing through our drug defences, we’ll suffer several apocalyptic plagues before they’re done.

  It takes forty minutes to get round the ring road but eventually I reach the Science Park. I navigate the complex warren of roundabouts and pull into Unit Nine. It’s not even eight, and the carpark’s already full. I double-park in front of a black BMW and stick a note under its wiper. As I hurry along the raked gravel path I glance at the borders: a striking combination of magenta geraniums and dark-blue salvia. I head left, towards the double doors. The silver towers are blinding in the sun, and I have to cover my eyes.

  ‘Morning, Dr Sommers.’ The security guard waves a listless arm towards the barriers.

  ‘Morning, Barry.’ I swipe my card. ‘Good result, last night?’ I haven’t a clue about football, but it pays to keep security on side.

  He makes a noise like he’s been winded.

  ‘Ah, sorry.’ I march past him to the lifts. ‘Pretend I never asked.’

  Just as the doors are closing, a tanned hand prises them apart. ‘Leaving without me again, Mary?’ A man steps in with black, curly hair and feline green eyes. He’s panting a little; he must have run. A small part of me is pleased.

  ‘Careful, Mike.’ I allow a smile. ‘Insurance won’t cover you if you lose those fingers.’ I brace myself for the inevitable question.

  ‘So, what happened to you last night?’

  I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. ‘Oh, I bailed … I had a ton of paperwork to get through.’

  ‘Really?’ He arches an eyebrow. ‘You could at least have said goodbye.’

  ‘Sorry, the bar was rammed … I tried to find you.’ We both know I’m lying. ‘Was it a good night?’

  He holds my gaze and snakes his finger along my throat. ‘Not as good as it could have been.’