“Have you been watching us? At the camp?”
“I saw quite enough at the shop when I was going about my own business. I saw a mother trying to scare a child into submission.”
Beyond rage—a cold, precise clarity. The black birds flitted from my mind, and my voice pealed through clear air. “All right, you know what I want?” I said. “I want to find Lola. I assume you’ve worked out who she is while you’ve been going about your own business. When I’ve found her, I want to find somewhere safe to live. I want food and shelter. Caveman stuff. I want to find out what the fuck is going on. And I want you to leave us alone.”
“Well, I can help you with one of those.”
“I don’t need your help—”
“More than one actually. I can tell you what’s going on. There’s chatter on the radio.”
I picked at the splinter. Drove it in deeper.
“And I can tell you where I saw the young lady,” he said.
“Tell me then.”
“Open the door. Drink your tea. And we can talk like adults.”
“Just tell me.”
“As you wish. They’re calling it the English Plague. Just when we thought civilization would be toppled by a virtual virus, they hit us with an old-fashioned bubonic. Mutated, of course, to be more virulent. Scientifically fascinating. Carried by carbon monoxide, they believe, hence the rapid spread in the cities—” he went on with some enthusiasm.
“I know this already. Terrorist attack, man-made virus. What I want to know is—are they sending help? Where can we go that’s safe?”
Silence. The floorboard bent under my feet as though he had shifted his weight. I could picture the flexing tendons of his gray feet.
“The stories are rather conflicting, depending on the source.” His voice was lower, less animated. Breaking bad news. “There’s rather a lot of conspiracy and speculation flying about. Hard to know which voice to trust—”
“Just tell me,” I said.
“There’s not much in the way of help. We’re under quarantine.”
“Who’s under quarantine?”
“Britain. The British Isles are under quarantine. We’ve been left to die.”
I picked up Billy’s toy gun from the floor, pointed it with a straightened arm at a single buzzard circling in the sky. With one eye closed, I got the bird in my sight. Click. As I lowered the gun, the bird soared ever higher.
“Why would they do that?” I asked. “Leave us to die?”
“Because as far as they’re concerned, we’re not survivors, only carriers. If we die, the virus dies too.” He sniffed. “I blame Brussels.”
All at once I heard the flapping of black wings. No help. No rescue. The world lurched and realigned, like a train jumping the points. It was a familiar, if unpleasant, sensation that came at moments when I realized I was alone: the tracks fell out from under my feet, until I found my footing again and forged ahead into the dark. With the clarity of a bell I saw a memory of the day my parents came into my bedroom in Kenya—both of them, is it my birthday?—and said I would go to England, alone, to boarding school. We’ll see you at Christmas and for the whole summer! Jump, shift, forge ahead into the dark. Then a decade later at university, dashing through rainy puddles with a soggy message from the chancellor’s office. Ashen faces, terrible accident—both parents! Alone again. Jump, shift, forge ahead. And now this. We’ve been quarantined. Jump. No one’s coming to help us. Shift. This was the point where I should get back on track. That’s what I do. But this time, I struggled to find my footing.
“Are you still there?” he asked.
“I’m here.”
I looked around the clearing with fresh eyes. Stately trees. Leaves on the turn. Decay setting in. The buzzard was gone. “Best to sit tight,” he was saying. “You don’t want to end up in the isolation camps. There’ve been eyewitness accounts—ghastly—”
A click of the padlock, and I flicked open the lock. The door swung back. He was sitting on the bottom bunk, knees together like a child.
“Tell me where to find Lola, and I’ll be on my way.”
He shrugged. “Hard to say. I saw her once with those young chaps near the Hoar Wood. Making quite a go of it, they are. I glance in on them when I’m doing my rounds. But I haven’t been out today, so—”
I crouched down to look under the bed: clear space. Not even a dust ball. The man was fastidious.
“You don’t believe me?” he asked. “You think she’s here somewhere?” A wave of his teacup indicated the lack of hiding places.
“What do you expect?” I said. “Whatever trumped-up excuse you’ve made for yourself, you took my son and kept him all night.”
He tried to speak over me—“If you would just let me explain”—but I raised my voice and barged on.
“I’m his mother, for fuck’s sake, his mother. I was beside myself. And there’s no one out there to help anymore. No one to call. Have you any idea how terrifying this is—” My rage flickered, but didn’t catch. He raised his eyebrows once, quickly, as though conceding the point. I felt empty somehow. Spent. Like you might after a good cry. My eyes slid off his and settled on a small table that was wedged between the end of the bunk and the outside wall. Half-hidden behind the door. Several framed pictures of the same child, a baby, an unfocused shot of a toddler on a rocking horse, a boy in a wheelchair. A toy car perched on one of the frames. A candle stub on a saucer. When I looked back, he was watching me. Defiant, as though waiting to see if I would dare mention it. But I turned away, onto the porch. Away from the shrine. Another dead boy. It was uncanny, as though he’d magicked it up. Just as I was talking about Billy. His son, I assumed.
I walked rapidly toward the Lonely Steps, reached down to touch the sandstone acorn, which was as warm as a newly laid egg. There was no mother in any of his photos. Footsteps came up behind me. I turned to face him.
“When you’re out doing your rounds, just stay away from our camp, okay?” I said.
He dismissed my hostility with a wave. “About Billy . . .” He made a show of considering his next words. “When he came running out of the store onto the road—I thought it might be a lesson for you. A short, sharp shock, you know. You were being so severe.”
He had that evangelical look in the eye, as though he were doing me a favor. Like the attachment mums at the school gate, beseeching me to reconsider my wicked working ways. Hearts bleeding for all the little children.