All anyone can talk about is the vaccine and I want to scream at them: you need information to create a vaccine. And even if we create a vaccine, and that’s a big if, we need to understand how this happened so we can stop it from ever happening again.
No one else seems as worried as I am about this. Story of my fucking life. It doesn’t matter though. I can do this on my own. I’m going to find out how Patient Zero developed the Plague. The Plague is happening once. It can’t happen again.
HELEN
Penrith, United Kingdom
Day 68
Mum!”
The shout from upstairs is so sharp, for a second I’m convinced it’s going to be followed by, “Dad’s collapsed!”
“Lola won’t give me back my hoodie, tell her it’s mine!”
The sound of a scuffle ensues and I breathe a sigh of relief. Fight all you want my lovely, living girls. Thank God I have daughters. Every single day, I’m filled with gratitude that I was spared sons. It’s hard enough, now that it’s spreading everywhere, worrying that Sean is going to catch it. All of my fear is for him, but I can’t even begin to imagine what it must be like for those poor women who only have boys.
Instead my questions are all for my husband. When is Sean going to catch it? Is he going to catch it? When am I going to be a widow? I should be saying if, if, if but it feels like when, not if. It’s like the grim reaper is standing over us, watching our every move, waiting. When I’m doing the washing-up or sitting on the sofa, I’ll drift for a few moments into an alternative world. What would it be like without Sean? How would I cope? Who would I be? We’re so entwined the answers quickly come into focus. It would be awful. I wouldn’t cope. I have no idea who I would be. We’ve been together since we were thirteen. We’re childhood sweethearts. I went straight from living with my parents to living with him when I was seventeen. I don’t know any other life. Sean and Helen. Helen and Sean.
I worry about him. I think he’s losing his mind. I keep saying to him, “You might be immune,” but he just shakes his head. He’s always been quiet, doesn’t like to talk about things straightaway but usually he’ll open up if I keep needling him. The Carlisle outbreak really took hold a month ago and it was like a fire. It’s ripped through that city, spreading outward to our town, where we had felt safe and secure, looking at a future with an empty nest and cruises and wine-and-cheese nights. The estate agency isn’t much of a comfort—there’s seven women and three men. I said to Sean that he should call the other guys and see how they are but he shouted at me to leave it. I wonder if he’d rather not know.
I suppose it doesn’t help that his entire job is completely redundant. The boss hasn’t told them they’re officially redundant but there’s no need—he left for his villa in Marbella back at the start of December and no one’s seen hide nor hair of him since. He took all the money out, flew away and that was that. Sean went to the office for a few days after that but there’s no point. Who’s going to buy a house when the apocalypse is coming? Oh sure, I’ll look at that three-bed semi-detached on Brent Road in between worrying about my son dying from the Plague and my husband’s company going bust. He feels useless and it’s no good for a man to feel useless.
I feel useless too, but he’s not asked me about that. No one’s getting their hair done now, are they? Not much use for a hairdresser right now. Somewhere in the back of my mind, concerns about mortgage payments and my job and money for the Tesco shop flit around like bats, but they seem like such faraway problems. The Plague is so much closer. It could be days away, or hours.
Each evening I tell Sean, at least the girls are going to be all right. It’s like a prayer. Think of the girls. At least we don’t have boys. Lola’s fourteen, Hannah’s seventeen and Abi’s eighteen. They’re trying so hard to stay strong, bless them, doing everything they can to stay upbeat. My lovely strong girls.