Seven Days of Us(39)

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   Boxing Day 2016


   Quarantine: Day Four





Olivia


THE PORCH ROOM, WEYFIELD HALL, 9:00 A.M.

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Now that there were no more presents to wrap, the porch room could become Olivia’s sanctuary. She used to read here as a child, to escape the glacial swims and long boat trips demanded by a gung-ho little Phoebe. Boats always made Olivia throw up—painfully conscious that she was the gross one, spoiling everyone’s fun. Now she folded herself into the deep window seat and pulled the curtains shut, just as she had when she was nine. It wasn’t comfortable—she could feel every knobble in her spine against the paneling—but it was private.

She looked out at the bare garden, so different to Liberia’s tropical foliage. In just three months she’d grown used to its wild, accelerated fertility. She remembered how tendrils crept into the treatment center within days of being hacked back, how insects seethed over carrion. At the time, it seemed disturbing. Now, Norfolk’s slow safeness, its brittle twigs and absence of predators, felt as unnatural as Mars. She wished she could talk to Sean about it. She’d written him another e-mail yesterday, trying to sound positive, determined to write daily, even though he wouldn’t read her missives until he was out of isolation. But one-way correspondence was hard. She would e-mail later, she decided, when she had more to say. She tried to read an e-book, but her fingers kept googling his name. A critical stance toward him was growing in the press. One columnist had accused him of “a treacherous disregard for Great Britain.” Every newspaper seemed to have run an opinion piece, questioning why Sean and other Irish aid workers were permitted to wait at Heathrow, when their follow-on was delayed—as if this was Sean’s fault. Her Christmas blog was meant to be her last, but now she found herself logging back in.





Haag Blog 11: Why Does Our Press Delight in Taking Others Down?


I wasn’t planning to blog again, but I’m angry. Christmas jingles on (and on), but my colleague Sean Coughlan’s positive test has destroyed all hope of celebration. What angers me, though, is the British media’s response to his diagnosis. Our focus should be on Sean’s courage and recovery. Instead, many reports have chosen to cast blame—speculating that Sean must be at fault. The cruelty of Haag is that it is transmitted by compassion. Mothers catch it, because they can’t bear to leave a vomiting child alone. Nurses are infected by patients they have tended too well. Nobody knows how Sean contracted Haag. But I can assure you we were all subject to the strictest protocol. None of us, including Sean, would knowingly have put ourselves at risk. Bottom line: we were trying to contain a deadly virus with basic resources.

Unlike those commentators who have seen fit to question Sean’s professionalism, I worked alongside him. He was one of two pediatricians at the treatment center and a favorite among staff and patients. It wasn’t just his expertise that inspired us. It was his humanity. I saw him sit with grieving mothers long after his shift had finished. I saw him make sick children laugh as he inserted their IVs, all while dressed in monstrous PPE, and persuade bewildered toddlers to drink their rehydration salts (no mean feat, as any parent will tell you). And I saw how he returned to our furnace-like conditions day after day with a smile, when others were at breaking point. So I would challenge those journalists who accuse him, on no evidence, of “selfishness,” to do the harrowing, hot, messy job Sean did.

Jane Falcon, a columnist for The World magazine, describes us aid workers as: “naive idealists, risking British health to indulge their own post-colonial rescue fantasy.” She goes on to advise that we “let Africa sort out its own political cesspits, breaking the cycle of handouts.” Both of these clichés have become convenient excuses for the West to sit on its hands. Yes, aid sent to Liberia will always be complicated by a colonial hangover and, more importantly, a deeply corrupt status quo. But is this any reason to turn a blind eye? And why does our press delight in taking down a hero? Is it so hard to believe that some people are motivated by a genuine desire to do good? Perhaps Falcon and her ilk cannot comprehend altruism, because they themselves are driven by nothing more than the screech of their own voices.

The world’s indifference toward Africa has long frustrated me. This time, though, the crisis is becoming harder and harder to ignore. I hope that, if any good can come out of this cruel disease, it might be that the West will wake up to fellow suffering. Or, at least, that journalists might think before they shout.

She pressed post. She knew she should leave it for an hour, check it over later, but fury made her impatient. Just sending out a small seed of truth into the scaremongering felt better. She hoped her father would read it. He was complicit, she felt, by dint of working for The World—even if he’d chosen to wield his journalistic power by ruining restaurants. But what did it matter, since he never would read it, or, if he did, would most likely respond with some argument for free speech?

Just another three days, she told Cocoa, who was lying on her lap. His drowsy eyes looked like he understood. And now George was here. Olivia had never liked George. She sensed the feeling was mutual. It was baffling what Phoebe saw in him, besides their history. He was loaded, and attractive if you liked that public schoolboy look (depressingly, her sister obviously did). But that was hardly enough in a life partner. He reminded her of the rugby players at Cambridge—only stupider. What was he doing turning up, like quarantine was a silly, optional formality? It riled her that Emma had ushered him in, too. That was why, when she’d seen a stranger approach the house last night, from her vantage point above the porch, she’d shoved a note through the letterbox warning them away. It could have been anyone (although who knocked on doors on Christmas Day?), but she feared the man was one of George’s relations, out searching for him. The last thing they needed was a George clone in the house for the next three days. He and her sister had been unbearable last night. Phoebe had made everyone watch Best Ever Christmas No. Is, which George kept saying was “banter,” instead of The Lord of the Rings, which Olivia loved. Then they’d gone off to the bungalow, like teenagers. But then, she’d never understood Phoebe’s choices. How her younger sister could be fulfilled working in TV, or fashion, or whatever it was she did now, confounded her. It wasn’t like Phoebe was driven by money; she earned so little that she still lived at home—though she seemed in no hurry to leave. Olivia had fled Gloucester Terrace on finishing Cambridge. She’d chosen an elective out of Wi-Fi contact in rural Uganda, then lived in halls at University College London, to her mother’s dismay. Phoebe couldn’t even drive. Judging by the awful mood board in the kitchen, her only goal was marriage. Work was something to fill the days until then. Olivia watched the rain slanting down outside. It was strange how such a big house could be so claustrophobic.