Chapter Twenty-Five
Inside another tent. This one was white and tasted of salt. I couldn’t be sure if that was from the sea air or the rehydration fluids. The man, Dr. Larsen, looked up from his clipboard to monitor the Cleaners, who leaned on the barrier, masks lifted to smoke. One by one, they dropped their fag ends on the road and returned to the helicopters down on the beach. When the doctor turned back to me, he still had one white eyebrow raised.
“Who are they?” I asked.
“They do not exist.” After a couple of seconds, he smiled, as though that were the only option left. His latex-covered thumb raised my hair to stroke what remained of the laceration from the car crash. He had already strapped up my arm, but it wasn’t broken. Now, he selected a pencil from his front pocket and puzzled over the clipboard for the correct place to write.
“The helicopters look real enough to me,” I said.
He lifted a pair of round steel glasses from his button nose, which was too small for his hearty baker’s face. His eye contact was like a pat on the shoulder. My body gasped in a sudden breath, and I used it to push down the tears that threatened to surge up and out. Dr. Larsen slid a drink across the table and busied himself with paperwork while I gulped at it. He checked the time on his watch and wrote down the exact hours and minutes.
“They’re covert,” he said, after I pushed the plastic cup away. “Black ops. While the UN is holding another meeting and agreeing on the exact words for a statement, someone—we don’t know who, we have ideas, but we can’t prove it—someone is paying these guys to eliminate the virus. Kill the host, kill the virus.”
“But if we had the virus, we’d be dead already.”
“It is possible for people to carry a virus without getting sick. Maybe that is also the case with the English Plague, but we don’t know for sure. It is like nothing we’ve seen before.”
“But you’re not wearing protection?”
“Earlier in the week, I did. But no one is coming in sick anymore. We think the virus is dead or dying, but it’s too soon to be certain. There is a theory that it was accelerated by carbon monoxide—no people, no cars, less carbon monoxide, so it died, see?—but everyone”—he waved his arms about to indicate that everyone was crazy—“very scared.”
“And the UN? NATO? Why aren’t there peacekeeping forces?”
“The world does not want your epidemic. That is the only matter on which they all agree. And NATO—the terrorists were homegrown, an attack by British nationals on British soil. So people are saying it is not NATO’s problem. NATO should use their resources to stop it spreading, so yes, they are patrolling borders, securing ports, this kind of thing, but—” He shrugged.
Inside my head, a flickering spool of images from the past ten days. Frightened eyes. Flames. Remote stars. Billy lying in my arms like a baby. A swell of anger murmured deep down. No one came to help! What had we done to deserve that? And then I looked at Dr. Larsen’s hands, a scar across one knuckle from some other disaster—one I had probably read about in the newspaper and immediately forgotten—and I wondered how many times he’d sat in a tent while a woman composed herself. Maybe a woman who’d lost more than I had—lost her children—and waited for the outside world to care. Maybe these women were there now, in Nepal or Syria or Somalia, listening to the coverage of the English Plague on the radio and thinking, “Now you know how it feels, now you know.” Maybe the African version of Marlene Greene was holding a charity auction, just as I had once. (Was it for Darfur? Or Haiti? Or maybe Aceh?) Maybe the Indian Marlene Greene was clearing unfashionable clothes from her wardrobe into black bin liners that she would deposit outside a secondhand shop in the rain. Maybe it would make them feel better, pretending they were doing something, just as it had done for me. Dr. Larsen wiped a cold swab across my arm and followed it with a needle.
“Tetanus,” he said.
“So why aren’t the mercenaries attacking us?”
He picked up his iPhone and showed me my face on the screen. “Say ‘cheese’—I’m recording. Live streaming, actually. If they come, we would have the evidence to expose them. And there would be questions about whoever is paying. In the meantime, we send eyewitness accounts to the UN. And they put them in a bottom drawer.”
“Surely it’s a crime against humanity?”
“Oh, there will be an inquiry. In about ten years. A tribunal.”
“What about the other survivors?”
“There are no survivors. Not officially.”
I waggled my fingers in the air and gave a sarcastic little “hello.”
He shrugged. “If the people in the camps around Folkestone and Calais continue to kill each other, it will be true soon enough.”
Don’t go south.
He turned my hand palm up, squeezed the end of one finger, and jabbed it with a needle. We both watched a pearl of blood surface.
“So who are you?” I said. “Red Cross? UN Refugee Agency?”
Dr. Larsen drew the blood into a tiny tube and stood it in a tray behind him.
“A blood test. If there’s nothing unusual, you can board the hospital ship. You’ll be the last. We’re full.”
“Médecins Sans Frontières?” I said.
“Just a concerned neighbor. I came out of retirement. It’s okay, I was bored.” He asked if my arm was hurting, did I want painkillers? I looked at my kids, ripping open packet after packet of medical supplies until fat white cotton wool balls plumped the floor around their feet. They were safe, so nothing hurt anymore.
“What happens to us now?” I said.
“We take you to Norway, and then the world is your oyster. Or Norway is your oyster.”
“So I’m a refugee?”
“Asylum seeker, actually. Until your application for refugee status is processed. But most countries in Europe are refusing applications, and France has the camps, so—”
“Fuckers.”
“Fear brings out the worst in people, especially groups of people. Anyway, you’ll be quite comfortable in Oslo.” He said it “Ahzz-lo.” Will I ever feel comfortable saying Ahzz-lo? I thought. Will the children? “Apart from the military police and the heat scanners and the curfew and the rumors. The hysteria. But it’s better in Norway than most of Europe. You might want to seek asylum further afield. Australia has agreed to take British refugees, but it is difficult to go because Singapore and Dubai have closed their borders. The U.S. and Canada are taking refugees also.”
“The U.S. is okay? We have family there. Her husband and mother.” I nodded my chin toward Joni, who was talking intently to another doctor, perhaps having the same conversation.
“It’s okay. The virus hit so fast here that the U.S. had time to quarantine aircraft from your airports. Some were turned back, some rerouted to remote isolation zones. There are rumors that one plane was shot down when the pilot tried to land because he was short of fuel, but who knows if that’s true. Human rights groups are complaining, but no one cares because the measures worked; they contained the virus. There’ve been some protests and unrest in a few cities, but nothing out of control. Her husband is likely fine.”
The children came over, followed by the young doctor who’d been talking to Joni. The doctor was improbably pretty and clean, an angel to supervise this sterile place. Her white teeth matched the tent, which felt like a decompression chamber outside heaven’s gate. She gave Dr. Larsen an update on the kids’ condition. All good, blood count normal, minor injuries—ready to board. She waved Joni into a chair and started her tests.
Dr. Larsen called the children over. “So who do we have here?” He turned to a fresh sheet on the clipboard and wrote the names of my children. Charles Luff-Greene. Margaret Luff-Greene. William Luff-Greene. Dr. Larsen reached the Lost Boy, who returned his gaze through huge, dark pupils. “And what is your name?” When the boy said nothing, Dr. Larsen turned to me.
“What will happen to all the other children?” I pointed to the Wild Things who were sitting in little clumps on the slipway.
“It is a matter for the authorities. Your children stay with you, of course, but these boys will go to care families. What do you call this?”
“Foster homes.”
“Yes.”
The Lost Boy stood next to Maggie, their contrasting fingers entwined.
“His name is Peter Luff-Greene,” I said.
“He is your child?” Dr. Larsen’s eyes flicked up to mine from the clipboard. “You are saying this boy is also your son?”
“Absolutely, his name is Peter Luff-Greene.” I put my hand on the back of the Lost Boy’s head. “Isn’t that right?”
He looked up at me and opened his mouth.
“Yes,” he said.
The doctor held my eye for a moment and then gave a single nod and wrote down the details.
“Good. Then the Greene family can please make your way to the boats. We sail in half an hour.” He checked his digital watch. “Oh. Ten minutes. Because of the tide.”
We walked out of the tent onto the concrete slip. A rubber dinghy with a solid-wooden floor was moored in just a few feet of water, its massive outboard motor raised to avoid the rocks. An identical orange boat came scudding over the sea toward us, and I realized that the dinghy would ferry us to a much bigger ship that was moored offshore. Despite Larsen’s reassurances, I glanced along the beach at the helicopters, but they were hidden behind the stanchions of a dilapidated wooden jetty. The concrete slipway nestled in its lee.
“We need two boats as you are so many.” Dr. Larsen surveyed all the boys. “Where did you get all these children?”
In an instant, the dreamy state induced by the white tent and its serene inhabitants lifted, and a familiar tension returned. We were still waiting for Jack and Kofi, and hopefully Woody and the other two boys. They could be at the abbey, waiting for us. Or on their way.
“There are more boys,” I told him. “We have to wait—”
“Larsen?” It was the angel, calling from the tent. She said something to him in Norwegian, her head tilted toward Joni.
“It’s your friend, one moment.” He carried his bulk nimbly up the slipway.
“Sister-in-law,” I said, pointlessly.
The dinghy pulled up to the slipway. The driver, who was probably a decade younger than I, had ragged stubble that deepened the creases of a face that had seen it all before. He came onto the concrete and hunkered down next to the first group of schoolboys, speaking quietly until they rose to their feet and followed him into the boat. He threw life jackets onto their laps; “It will get choppy,” he said. He turned and called me to get in.
“I have to wait to speak to Larsen,” I said. I put my good arm around my children. They weren’t going anywhere without me.
“We don’t have long,” he told me, but went over to the next group of boys and led them into the dinghy.
I counted the boys in the boat. The Wild Things were all there. And I had my four kids. Joni was in deep conversation with Dr. Larsen and the female doctor in the tent. So where is Lola? I looked up the slipway to the tent and beyond. Along the coastline, a smoking hillside marked our rendezvous point with Jack. Where the fuck is Lola?
I herded the children back up the slipway. Behind me, the sputter of an outboard engine as the dinghy full of schoolboys pushed off.
“Joni?” I called to her.
She turned, and her face was brimming with tears.
“What happened? Where’s Lola?” I grabbed Joni’s arm, but she was intent on the young doctor, thanking her over and over until the woman moved away, busying herself with packing up supplies.
“She goes first.” Dr. Larsen waved Joni ahead. And to his colleague, “Radio the ship. Clear a berth.”
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Joni glided past: a sleepwalker. Her body moved away from me, but her eyes locked on to mine, her head rotating weirdly, like a ventriloquist’s dummy.
Her mouth opened and she said, “I’m pregnant, Marlene. I’m pregnant.”
“That’s—” I said. “Congratulations.”
And she floated down the slipway toward the dinghy.
“And she could lose it if she doesn’t get treatment.” Dr. Larsen was throwing boxes of gear onto a trolley. “So we go now.”
“But what about Lola? And the other boys?” I followed Larsen, catching one of the boxes as it slipped. My kids bobbed along in my wake.
“The tide is going out.” He stopped and looked me in the eye. “We have only five minutes. You got yourself lucky we are still here.”
“We can’t go without Lola.”
Dr. Larsen released his breath in a quick sigh that seemed too delicate for a man of his scale. “Is she here?”
I scanned the empty tent, the desolate street beyond. Obviously, she wasn’t, but I jerked my head about, as though she might appear from nowhere. I asked Charlie. Maggie? They hadn’t seen her, either.
“I’m sorry, then we leave now.” Dr. Larsen called a command, a brusque seal bark, to the driver of the second dinghy, who pulled the ropes tighter to hold the rocking boat steady against the slipway. “The hospital ship is full. And the tide—”
“But there are more refugees. We have to go and find Lola and the boys.”
“My other patients need urgent attention—your sister-in-law included. The ship must leave now for Oslo. This is the last transfer.” With that, he pushed the trolley to the edge, and the driver hauled the plastic boxes on board, stacking them under the wooden seat where Joni sat, huddled inside her life jacket. Larsen stepped in next and turned to offer a hand to us. Maggie jumped on and scooted next to Joni. Then the boys. Larsen nodded at me and pulled life jackets out of a locker. I stepped onto the heaving boat.
Joni smiled and looked along the seat next to her—taking in the four young ones. She glanced behind her into the prow of the boat: empty. She turned and looked out to sea, toward the hospital ship, as though she might see Lola there. She turned back to me.
“Marlene? Did—”
“Lola’s not here, Joni. We don’t know where she is.”
Water slapped against the rubber hull.
Joni stood just as a wave rolled the boat. She staggered to keep her balance, ending up with her knees bent, one hand on the seat behind her and the other on her stomach. I had a sudden vision of her heavily pregnant. Dr. Larsen stepped in to take her by the elbow and make her sit.
“I have to find her.” Joni’s voice was shrill.
“Severe anemia can lead to premature birth or even miscarriage. Your baby is at risk—” Larsen tried, but Joni grabbed him by both arms and hauled him down toward her face. Pencils fell from his jacket pocket and tumbled across the floor.
“My daughter is at risk!” She shook him once by the arms, and then turned her face into his chest and started to cry.
A slow chill crept up my veins, blown in on the salt air, drenching me in cold sweat. I looked at my own children, safe and warm in blankets. At Joni carrying her unborn child, who should surely be given a chance. Somewhere else, somewhere cold and dangerous, were Lola, my niece; Jack and Kofi, good boys who’d helped us; and Woody, whom I had promised to protect. Two others, whose names would be forgotten.
Around us, the sea had grown dark, layers upon layers of gray dragged this way and that. Joni’s screams drifted away, like a gull’s cries. “Lola. I won’t leave her. I’ll go after her.” My mouth filled with a marine tang that was pure and lonely.
“No, Joni,” I said. I couldn’t bring myself to look at my children as I stepped off the boat. “I’ll go after her.”