慦hat抯 furloughed??says Cathbad. The word has a baleful agricultural sound, a cross between furrow and plough.
慪ou keep your job, but on less pay,?says Maddie. 慖 suppose it抯 better than nothing. But it抣l leave me time to help with the home-schooling. We can start our own newspaper. The Cathbad Chronicle. The Norfolk News.?
慣he Weird Times,?says Cathbad.
慣hese are weird times, all right,?says Maddie.
Nelson holds his meeting, in defiance of the new regulations. He does wear a mask though and is surprised how claustrophobic it makes him feel. You can breathe, he tells himself, it抯 all in your mind. He remembers Ruth telling him about a panic attack she once had whilst swimming. 慡uddenly I just forgot how to breathe.?He realises now that he never asked what Ruth had been panicking about.
It抯 a shock to see the team wearing masks too. Tony抯， like Nelson抯， is standard NHS issue but Tanya抯 is a rather jaunty tartan affair. 慞etra made it for me,?she says. 慚asks are going to be in short supply.?Nelson has already had a memo about shortages of PPE. It makes him feel slightly guilty about planning to send masks to Ruth.
He tells the team that the investigation into the death of Avril Flowers is still a priority. 慗ust do as much on the phone as you can,?says Nelson. 慦e抣l keep looking into the other suicides too. We can抰 expect much back-up. Uniform might be required to help the emergency services.?He doesn抰 add that, according to Jo, one of the tasks that might fall to the police force is 慴urying the dead?
慦hat about civilian staff??asks Leah. 慖抳e heard of people being furloughed.?
慡ome will be furloughed,?says Nelson. 態ut you抮e a key worker in my eyes.?
慦ho else would work the printer for you??says Leah.
Everyone laughs a lot at this, glad at the release of tension, but Nelson sees something else in his PA抯 face, something that makes him feel a little worried. He identifies it later: relief.
Chapter 15
It抯 still dark when Ruth wakes up. The green numbers on her alarm clock say 6.05 a.m. Ruth resolutely closes her eyes but she knows there抯 something there, just on the edge of her consciousness, something waiting to pounce, zigzagging its way across her synapses. Ah, there it is. Pandemic. Lockdown. Virus. Death. Ruth sits bolt upright, reaching for the soothing tones of Radio 4. 慔ealth Secretary Matt Hancock announces that a temporary hospital called NHS Nightingale will open in London to cope with the rising tide of coronavirus cases . . .?Ruth switches off the radio. Her phone pings. 慓OV.UK CORONAVIRUS ALERT,?says the message, in stress-inducing capitals. 慛ew rules are now in force. You must stay at home . . .?
Ruth tries to breathe mindfully, the way Cathbad taught her. In for four, out for eight. Don抰 have a panic attack, she tells herself. You抮e quite safe as long as you never leave the house. But Ruth must go to the shops today to buy Flint抯 gourmet cat food. Strangely, the thought of doing something actually calms her. She gets up and puts on her dressing gown. She抣l go downstairs and have a cup of tea. Then she抣l start planning her day抯 teaching. She抯 getting to grips with the dreaded Zoom. At first, she treated it like a recorded lecture but now she抯 able to be more interactive and is even able to send the students into breakout rooms. Preferably for ever.
Ruth treads carefully across the landing. She doesn抰 want to wake Kate. She has a feeling that it抯 going to be very hard to occupy Kate all day, especially when Ruth has her own work to do. The worksheets the school has sent seem very dull and, besides, Kate will dash through them in minutes. Thank goodness for the Saltmarsh, miles of blessedly empty marshland full of educational possibilities. They can collect grasses and shells. They can search for Neolithic flint flakes. When the weather gets better, they can paddle or even swim. Surely this nightmare will be over by the summer? But, even as Ruth dreams of shell and grass collages, she imagines Kate refusing to go outside and rolling her eyes at the thought of Neolithic flakes. She must ask Cathbad for some advice. She抯 sure that he will have an imaginative curriculum worked out.
Flint is waiting for her in the kitchen, staring pointedly at his empty bowl. Ruth feeds him while she waits for the kettle to boil. Then she takes her tea into the sitting room. The sun is rising over the marshes, turning the distant sea to gold. The Saltmarsh is coming to life, like a photograph developing, the grasses turning from grey to brown to green, the birds ascending from the reedbeds to wheel across the rosy sky. Dawn. Ruth thinks of the picture she found in her parents?house, 慏awn 1963? Out on this very eastern edge of England, the sunrises are spectacular. Is that why Ruth抯 mother took that photo, all those years ago? The shoebox is still by the front door, where Ruth left it when she came back from London. So much has happened in the weeks since then. Ruth clears a space on her desk, which is overflowing with files and books from her office, and rifles through the school photos and adult baptisms until she finds the picture of the cottage. Flint jumps lightly onto the table and starts sniffing the box. Maybe he can just smell Eltham mice, but Ruth takes his interest to be a sign that this is a mystery worth pursuing.