“Why don’t you let him join you and the other boys?”
“Because of the Plague! We don’t know if they’re right about it. What if one of them has it and just hasn’t shown it yet? What if it’s hiding somewhere in my things or in the house or on the tents or, or, or . . .”
“How long have you had the boys with you?”
“Over five months.”
Catherine pauses. “The virus can only survive for thirty-eight hours on a surface and a man can only be asymptomatic for a maximum of three days, although it’s usually two. Jamie will be fine. None of the boys have the virus. It’s safe, Morven.”
Tears are coursing down my cheeks and I’m sobbing down the phone to this complete stranger.
“Morven, listen to me. Your son is safe. Go get him. Please, take it from me. Spend all the time with him you can.”
I drop the phone, not bothering to say good-bye. The hut is so close. I tear past the boys, ignoring shouts asking if I’m all right and what’s going on. He’s there. He’s going to be safe. Jamie. Jamie. I’m so sorry I kept you out there for so long, Jamie.
I’m sprinting and as I cross the final field to get to him I see him sitting outside the hut on a fold-up chair. His hair is shaggy, he’s got the beginnings of a beard. Oh, my boy.
“Jamie, it’s safe,” I’m screaming hoarsely.
“Mum?” I can hear his voice. I worried I’d never hear his voice again.
I reach him and crash into him, hugging him tightly. He’s taller than me and his arms are around me and I’m sobbing.
“Mum, Mum, are you okay? Mum, is it Dad? What’s happening?”
“It’s safe,” I sob. “None of them have the virus. You can come back now. It’s safe for you.”
AMANDA
Glasgow, the Independent Republic of Scotland
Day 230
Healthy people get so wrapped up in their grief for their husbands and families and friends that they forget that millions of people across the world were already sick before the Plague, and their illnesses didn’t magically cure themselves once the Plague started. Emergencies like sepsis, meningitis, appendicitis, pneumonia and kidney infections don’t stop just because the world is in crisis. I wish I could say to all the old women in Glasgow, “Would you stop fucking falling, the lot of you, I only have two orthopedic doctors left in this entire hospital.” Alas, I can’t. Even in the midst of a crisis, I have a better bedside manner than that.
This morning, we had three elderly women who had fallen and needed hip replacements or wrist surgery. All three will probably die as more urgent surgeries take precedence. In my new Health Protection Scotland role, I have the delightful job of creating an Urgency of Care Protocol, which essentially boils down to Young People Get Treated, Old People Don’t, If You’re a Man with a Working Penis We Want to Keep You Alive.
It’s a constant balancing act between the value of life and the value of resources in a hospital with ever-dwindling supplies of, well, everything. Even gauze is being rationed. We don’t have excess of anything and we receive tiny, random deliveries of supplies at unpredictable times.
This morning provided a few blessedly clear scenarios. Two women presented with urgent kidney infections: a UTI can quickly become serious without antibiotics. They both required an inpatient stay on IV antibiotics. One was twenty-two, the other forty-one with two kids. Treatment required and provided. One man came to the hospital with appendicitis; his appendix was about to burst, so with surgery he would almost certainly be fine. Again, an easy call. I called down the general surgeons and they wheeled him straight up. It reminded me of a horrible case a few weeks ago. A sixty-eight-year-old woman came in, she was in an awful state. Her appendix had already burst. I called down Pippa, our head of general surgery, and she told us to wheel her into a side room. “There’s no point,” she said. One of the other young doctors, a surgeon, was outraged. “We can’t just let her die!” She was hysterical. But I understood what Pippa was saying. We had to be pragmatic. The supplies it takes for a messy surgery, the antibiotics, the time needed for nurses. It wasn’t worth it. Pippa said we should be stingy with the morphine, which, again, I understood but couldn’t bear to follow. There’s a reason she’s a surgeon and I’m not. Sociopaths, the lot of them.