Seven Days of Us(21)
“Oh, his poor parents,” said Emma.
“Did you know him well?” asked Phoebe.
“Reasonably. Not really.”
She looked relieved. “I’m sure he’ll be OK. Sounds like he’s in safe hands.”
“Yup,” said Olivia, taking her bowl to the sink and quickly leaving the kitchen, before sobs choked her.
Jesse
BLAKENHAM MARSHES, 9:15 A.M.
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After an unsatisfying yoga practice wedged between bed and minibar, and breakfast downstairs (“freshly squeezed” meant something else here), Jesse went for a walk. It was a dazzling day, the sky an upturned bowl of blue, the ground sugarcoated with frost. He took a few mindful in-breaths, noting the ozone marshiness of the air, different from the beach back home. The total lack of hills in Norfolk was freaky. The place was like an infinity pool. A raised path across the marshes lay straight ahead, a spinal cord through the flatness, to the sea. On his left, an ocean of feathery reeds nodded and whispered in the wind. The entire panorama would make an incredible opening shot to his film. A middle-aged couple passed him, both wearing GoreTex jackets and stabbing the ground with totally unnecessary Nordic walking sticks. His “Hey there!” in reply to the woman’s “Mornin’” sounded brash in the stillness. He hadn’t felt this out of place in a long time. If he did get to meet his birth father, and the possibility seemed more remote with every moment, he needed to get his shit together. The steady thump, thump of approaching feet made Jesse turn. A guy around his age, maybe a couple of years younger, was jogging toward him. He was actually kind of hot. As he got closer, Jesse took in his icy Siamese cat eyes, and the tawny hair and skin Dana spent hundreds of dollars trying to fake. His arms and chest were built, but his flushed cheeks gave him a boyish air, too. He reminded Jesse of a football player from college named Brad Ackland. Or a British Leo DiCaprio. Jesse didn’t risk another “Hey there,” and just grinned, making a big dorky gesture of letting him pass. “Cheers, mate,” said the guy, on an out breath. His warm, soapy smell hung in the crisp air, as Jesse watched his back view pound down the path. So not all the cute guys were in Shoreditch, then.
Olivia
THE WILLOW ROOM, WEYFIELD HALL, 10:00 A.M.
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FROM: Olivia Birch <[email protected]>
TO: Sean Coughlan <[email protected]>
DATE: Sat, Dec 24, 2016 at 10:00 a.m.
SUBJECT: No subject
Baby,
I know you won’t get this, or not today anyway, but I can’t not write.
She couldn’t think what to say next. It wasn’t fair to dump all her own terror on Sean, much as she wanted to. If she wrote at all, she should be reassuring, upbeat. But what was the point, either way, since there was no chance of Sean reading e-mails at the moment. Even if his condition stabilized, he wouldn’t be allowed any handheld devices until he was out of isolation. Which could be days. Because he would get better, wouldn’t he? He was in the Royal Free, not Monrovia, she reminded herself. He’d have twenty-four-hour care, from the same fat-cat consultants who should have come to help in Liberia. Immediately, any comfort in this was extinguished by shame. She thought of all the patients she’d admitted to the treatment center, where there were no beeping monitors or new drugs or assisted ventilators. There was no divine hand to medevac them to safety. Nobody to report their particular case in the papers.
What had she been thinking? How could she have lost control like this? She’d seen other aid workers do the same—living for the moment, like they were in a war zone. And she’d judged them. She even remembered discussing it with a fellow volunteer at the Calais camp, last year. They’d agreed that the way to meet emotional challenge was through focus on the work, practical care, applied learning. What a pompous twat. Now she’d gone and done exactly what she disapproved of. She’d put everyone at risk. Everyone and everything. Her own career, Sean’s career, HELP’s reputation in Liberia. Why hadn’t they held back, followed the protocol, instead of acting like teenagers? She dug her palms into her eye sockets.
There was a knock on her door. “I’m doing Mummy’s and Daddy’s stockings,” said Phoebe. Olivia paused. She wanted to tell Phoebe to go ahead, to do them without her. But she needed to carry on as normal. Her family suspecting her secret would only make things worse. “I’ll be down in a bit,” she said, brushing away tears even though Phoebe couldn’t see.
“OK, I’ll be in the Porch Room,” said Phoebe, footsteps fading along the passage.
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The Porch Room was a child’s narrow bedroom, directly above the front door. Olivia wasn’t sure whose. Phoebe would know. For as long as Olivia could remember, it had been the present-wrapping room. The chest of drawers by the little cast-iron bed groaned with recycled Christmas paper, carefully saved gift boxes, and special pens that either didn’t work or suddenly glooped out gold blobs. As children, she and Phoebe used to hover outside on Christmas Eve, asking to come in, and delighting in a stern order to “Go away immediately.” How unfair, she thought, walking down the passage, that some children are born to such privilege, others to shantytowns. Weyfield was a different planet to Liberia. At least there was the whiff of reality in Camden, when you chatted to the Big Issue sellers.