Is there any reason why Euan Fraser was the first person to catch the Plague? Amanda is not emphatic on this—she has discussed it at length with Sadie and Kenneth and they don’t think so, but they also can’t be sure. “We’ll never be able to say for certain why this particular combination of the pathogen carried by the live monkeys created the Plague carried by Euan. We know more than we did, but we’ll never know the complete story.”
Amanda spent weeks being ignored and accused of hysterically overestimating the impact of the Plague, and yet she has devoted months of her life to research for which she has not been paid and, repeatedly, insists on sharing credit for. Does she feel in any way vindicated? She frowns and I feel as though I’ve overstepped a line. “No. I’m devastated by the deaths of my husband and sons, and by the destruction of the world as we know it. I’m also very, very angry at the way I was ignored not because I need attention but because more could have been done to limit the damage. Vindication suggests I enjoy being proved right. I don’t. I just wish the people responsible had done their jobs better. I wish they had tried.”
I ask Amanda if she thinks she would have been treated differently if she were a man: seen as less hysterical, less anxious, more credible. She sighs. “I haven’t been asked that question before but probably, yes. It’s impossible to know but . . .” I comment that as a Latina woman in science journalism I’ve learned that it’s always worth asking that question. I always assume a white man would have an easier time of things.
She is however being recognized for her efforts; Health Protection Scotland has, as of ten days ago, hired Amanda as a “public health consultant.” “I’ll continue to work five days a week as an A and E doctor and I’ll devote one full day a week for Health Protection Scotland while using the on-the-ground information and experience I gain as a doctor to add to the discussion around public health in Scotland.” Amanda’s done enough interviews not to say anything she doesn’t want to, but I can’t help but push. Surely, it feels good to now have the very institution that ignored her begging for her help. “They didn’t beg but yes, I think I will help HPS and I’m glad to be working with them.” I note she says with not for. For that observation I receive a raised eyebrow. Suffice to say, the history between Amanda and HPS means no one is under any illusions; they need her far more than she needs them.
Our discussion has to come to an end because Amanda has a fourteen-hour shift at the hospital for which she’s running late. My final question is one I’ve been asking all of my interviewees. “How are you coping with grief?”
She laughs, briefly. “I’m not,” and the screen goes black.
CATHERINE
Devon, United Kingdom
Day 132
I’m still here in Devon. There’s no point in me staying here but I can’t bear to leave. I committed my first-ever crime: I buried my son. What a way to break the law after a lifetime of careful, civil obedience. I couldn’t stand for them to take him away and burn him. I don’t have anything or anywhere to remember Anthony by. They couldn’t take Theodore away too.
He went mercifully quickly. I keep wondering if he was showing symptoms in the days after Anthony’s death and I just didn’t see. I think I wasted some of the last precious days I could have had with my son arranging a funeral no one attended and driving to Devon. He should have been in my arms every hour of every day. My only baby, I left him alone in the house so much in London. When Anthony was dying I wouldn’t let him sleep in my bed even when he cried. I wanted to keep him safe. I thought I was protecting him.
It took him in the same way everyone has been talking about. The Plague is ruthless and predictable. His temperature climbed and climbed all night. Nothing I did helped. Eventually I had him outside, in my lap as I covered him in cold washcloths in the January chill. He didn’t even shiver. The next day he fell into unconsciousness and he never woke up again. He had a seizure and died twenty-four hours after I noticed his temperature.