The End of Men(31)
I had nowhere to go until tonight. My maddening, forgetful, beloved godmother, Genevieve, e-mailed me to say, “Still have house in Devon. Sale never completed when it was meant to a few weeks ago. Go stay there! Get out of London xx.” It made me want to weep with gratitude and throttle her. Now? I want to wail. You’re telling me this now? But it’s not too late. It’s not. Theodore hasn’t, by some miracle, shown any symptoms in the days since Anthony died.
The feeling of leaving the house in the early hours with my child in my arms makes me miss Anthony so much that tears spring painfully to my eyes. I’m never far from crying and the sight of streetlamps and Theodore sleeping with a seat belt, a suitcase in the trunk, makes me think of early morning departures to drive to Bordeaux to see Genevieve for a week of sunshine, drinking wine in a garden and time together. We were there having a holiday, as a family, only seven months ago in a different, happier lifetime.
No time to properly lose it though. I could cry all day, every day, and with Theodore in the car I’ll have free rein to weep but not to howl. Genevieve’s farmhouse is in the depths of Suffolk. Miles and miles away from this full city, heaving with sick men and infected women. I start to drive down the eerily quiet motorway, and every mile I put between us and London unwinds my shoulders even as tears stream down my face, soaking the surgical mask I’m wearing. We can ride out this storm in the safety of a deserted cottage in the middle of nowhere. Part of me is kicking myself for not asking Genevieve about it earlier but she had told me she was selling it in September, received an offer in October and, for all I knew, sold it in November with the buyers to arrange a move-in date. I could haunt myself with this missed oasis forever but that way madness lies. I did the best I could with what I knew at the time.
My mind wanders back to the days and weeks before Anthony died. No matter how hard I try, my brain is determined to question every choice I made. Anthony and I shouldn’t have touched as much as we did in the days before we had to say good-bye. I was selfish. A tiny, terrified part of me assumed he would die so, before we knew he was sick, I wanted every minute with him I could get. I didn’t know how to cope with this horror without him. I should have moved him into the shed at the bottom of the garden with a hundred books, a heater, a microwave and cans of soup. I should have left him alone. Maybe that would have saved him but instead I hugged him. I kissed him. I made love to him. I couldn’t let him go.
There are still twenty miles to go when I hear the yelp of Theodore waking up and realizing he is in the car. “Mummy, need the toilet.”
“Soon darling, we’re nearly there. Just hold it in for a bit longer.”
He starts crying and I join him, howling loudly. It’s too much, all of this is too much. I can’t bear it. I just want to curl up in Anthony’s arms and weep but he’s gone and we’re all alone. Our very existence is exhausting. Wearing a surgical mask, constantly sterilizing the house, leaving Theodore on his own as much as possible. I leave him locked in the house when I go to get food. What else can I do? The danger is outside. I’m trying to keep him safe. I need him to be safe.
“Mummy, please.” The cries have reached the level of a shriek but finally, the blessed view of the turn-off appears. We stayed here in Genevieve’s country cottage for a few days just after we had Theodore. It was awful; locked in a remote box with a newborn and fractious from lack of sleep, we bickered for forty-eight hours before driving back to London more depressed than when we left. I drive down the long driveway and see a light is on. Perhaps Genevieve is back, but she can’t be. She surely would have told me. When I last e-mailed her she was definitely still in France. Why would she travel here? Nobody in their right mind would come to the epicenter of the danger.
I park the car and peer through the glass owlishly, fear stopping my tears. Someone could be here. Someone else Genevieve knows who had the same idea or, more scarily, a stranger could have broken in. Theodore is wailing now and I scoop him out, allowing him, as I so rarely do now, to curl his limbs around me and put his head on my chest. I try to breathe shallowly, imagining the germs I might be exhaling, escaping the mask I’m wearing and making their way past his own too-big mask flapping around his face.
I’m trying to be brave but this is exactly the kind of moment when Anthony’s broad frame, warm by my side, would make the terrifying seem entirely faceable. I’m so aware of my vulnerability. A small woman, holding a child, in the middle of nowhere. Shushing Theodore, I use the key I’ve brought with me and open the door in a rush as though I’ll scare anyone who might be here.
“Hello?”
Silence. And then, a pitiful meow. Of course, Genevieve has motion-activated lights in the kitchen to deter burglars. A painfully thin tabby cat makes its way toward me in the hall and curls itself around my legs. It has a collar and a tag, clinking as it moves in the glow of the kitchen light. It feels like a good omen. There is no danger here. I lock the door behind me and do a quick look around the ground floor and find it blessedly empty. This place is untouched since before the Plague. I begin to cry again but this time with gratitude. Theodore has fallen back asleep on my shoulder and I allow myself, in this small, safe house in the middle of nowhere, which feels sturdy in the face of a disease that is everywhere, to hold him. Truly, properly squeeze him with a hug that I would have held him in every day before the Plague. It has been so long since I’ve held him like this. It is bliss.