An Ordinary Epidemic (7 page)

Oscar threw his last cards triumphantly on the pile. ‘Two sixes!' A third card peeked cheekily out from the two he had fanned out. She was holding three sixes in her hand. He'd thrown them into the discard pile just before she picked up, saying they were tens.

‘You win.'

‘Can I watch TV?'

‘Sure.'

The instant he was out of the room she knew she needed something to distract her from the subliminal craving to get back to the computer. Too early to start dinner, too late for another coffee. All the shopping packed away. She stared out the kitchen window at the office, and found herself walking across the yard.

The home page of the newspaper had changed again, two new Manba stories. Several schools shut awaiting test results and the government asking promoters of concerts and sporting events to consider postponing ‘until the situation was clearer'.

She searched for Manba again. The same list of results, even down to the ‘Aussie in Paradise' blog. She made it through to the third page before she found something new—the website of a maths student who had created a program to trawl tweets and blogs for instances of Manba related words.

Two months ago, cough and fever were all a flat line. Then seven weeks ago, ‘cough' and ‘fever' rose, slowly at first and, close on their heels, ‘diarrhoea'. Around three weeks ago, the curve rose sharply. The word ‘rash' followed the same curve, but smaller and lagging by about four days. ‘Manba' came from nothing two weeks ago, but quickly caught up. The student noted that the uptick in blogged symptoms predated the first medical report by about a month. Hannah clicked on the ‘separate by country' button. China was responsible for most of the early curve, but the word ‘Manba' itself barely registered.

She checked the weather in Canberra. Fourteen and overcast.

There was only one new email. The same departmental form letter the school had sent every day this week giving hygiene advice and the school's exclusion policy for kids who had travelled recently. She wondered if the school was excluding kids who had travelled across the bridge. If Zac were here, she'd close the door. She'd keep them home from school and work from home. If only Zac were here.

Hannah was part way through reading Oscar his bedtime story when the phone rang. She listened out for Sean to answer it.

‘You missed a bit.' Oscar looked at her darkly.

‘Oh, did I? What did I miss?'

‘You missed that bit there.' He pointed to a paragraph she had indeed missed.

‘I think you can read. If you can read, why am I reading this to you?' She was trying to catch the tone of Sean's voice even though she couldn't make out words, to get a sense of who he was talking to.

‘No, I can't,' Oscar smiled mischievously, ‘I can't read.'

‘Except when you see ice cream. I think you can read the words “ice cream”.'

Oscar pushed his hands over his mouth, trying to hide his smirk. She could hear Sean's steps in the hall. And Gwen probably could too, the way he was thumping.

Sean's head appeared around the door. ‘It's for you.'

‘Is it...' Hannah made a little Zorro ‘z' in the air with her finger.

‘It's Kate, I'll finish the book.'

It was never going to be Zac. He'd been gone less than two days, it wouldn't occur to him to ring. And neither it should.

‘Hi Kate.'

‘Hi stranger, we missed you at work on Monday.'

‘I had some errands and Zac had a thing.'

‘And I had to have lunch by myself. So you can make it up to me tomorrow and take me out. We'll call it a business meeting and you can charge it to the company.'

‘Tempting as that is, I think I'll work from home tomorrow.'

‘Seriously?' Kate sounded a little annoyed. ‘We've got stuff we have to go over. I've got a technical document covered in notes to give you.' Her voice changed again. ‘You had an appointment, didn't you? I forgot, a doctor's appointment. Is anything wrong?'

‘Fine, no problems, I'm fine. I'm just keeping Oscar home from school.' Better get it out of the way now. ‘It'll probably be a few days. Maybe you could post it. No don't post it,' fingers on paper, someone licking the envelope, ‘scan it. When you've got time, there's no hurry, I've got plenty to be getting on with.'

‘Have you taken him to the doctor?'

‘No, he's fine. Just, you know, a kid thing.'

‘You have to take him to the doctor. If he's sick, you absolutely have to take him to the doctor.'

‘He's not sick.'

‘Then why would you keep him home? Hell on wheels. Send him to school, come into work tomorrow. Whatever it is, he can tough it out.' Not even Kate got it. ‘Hannah, we've got work to do, we've got deadlines. If he's sick take him to a doctor, if he's not send him to school. Or bring him in if you must.'

‘Don't give me a hard time, it's what I have to do. There's nothing wrong with him, I just have to keep him home. The work will get done.'

‘You're insane.'

‘I'll meet the deadline, which is an age off, and I'll be in in a few days.'
Liar liar pants on fire
. ‘I get more done from here, anyway. I'm not distracted by long lunches.' As she hung up the phone, Hannah felt like the naughty girl caught skipping school.

The living room was dark but for the light from the television flitting across Sean's face. He had the sound turned down so as not to disrupt the delicate ritual of Oscar falling asleep. The silence made the images seem abstract, a random collection of pixels. Two boys, one bigger than the other, sitting on a hospital bed behind a set of glass doors. A nurse swathed in disposable paper clothing carrying a tray with sandwiches, sealed pots of juice. The boys from a different angle, sprawled out on the floor, surrounded by Lego pieces, for all the world like a pair of brothers playing. Quarantined from the fuss they were creating.

Hannah stood in the doorframe, still holding the phone handset. ‘Can you stay home?'

‘Tomorrow?'

‘For a while, a few days.'

‘Is there a reason?'

‘It's just time. Two cases in Sydney. Four, really.'

Sean didn't take his eyes from the screen for a second. ‘Literally less than one in a million. Suspected cases. Who are in hospital.'

‘And four million nine hundred thousand, nine hundred and ninety-six people who haven't been tested. The North Shore is only a bridge away. The teacher of those two kids might shop at our supermarket. The children of their doctors or nurses could go to Oscar's school.'

‘Two suspected cases that might turn out to be nothing.'

‘It's here. Manchester was out of control in less than a week.'

‘We're a much bigger city. Your chance of crossing paths with even one person who met somebody who met them is tiny.'

‘Someone has to be unlucky. I'm keeping Oscar home until this is over.'

‘Fine.' He pulled his eyes away from the television. ‘He can watch TV and kick a ball around the park, if that's what makes you happy.'

‘He's not going to the park. He's not leaving the house. They're shutting up kids in hospital.'

‘To stop it spreading, and it worked, it hasn't spread.'

‘That we know of.' She put the phone back on the cradle. ‘At least there haven't been any cases in Canberra.'

‘Well, why would your foreigners want to bring their smelly germs to Canberra when they can see the glorious sights of Sydney Harbour. Very discerning, your foreign germs.' Sean waited for a laugh or at least a smile but Hannah was distracted
by the TV and a photograph of a confident middle-aged man with a reassuring face, a neatly trimmed beard and glasses, posed as if for a pass card or an annual report.

‘Turn up the sound. Turn it up.'

He fumbled with the remote.

‘... was one of the team who treated the initial patient and was the first to recognise her symptoms. Until becoming ill, Dr Gilchrist was closely involved in her treatment and that of several patients at Newcastle Hospital suspected of having Manba. Hopes were high last night that he had turned the corner but his condition deteriorated suddenly this afternoon...'

Sean turned the sound down.

‘Hey, why? Turn it back up.'

‘He's one guy in one hospital that's two hours away.' The images changed again. Grainy cell phone footage. The backs of people running, somewhere in Asia, a knot of police in riot gear taken from a low angle, one of the police lifting his visor, a paper mask underneath. ‘I don't think it helps to watch this.'

Hannah shook her head. ‘You think pretending it's not happening gives you some sort of magical protection?'

‘I think it's happening whether I know about it or not. It's just not happening right here.' He looked at her with gentle puzzlement, as if he was unsure how to explain. ‘You have to live the bit that's right in front of you. When it's time for this,' he gestured at the TV screen, and the image of soldiers with machine guns patrolling a suburban street, maybe Manchester, ‘we will do what we have to.' She crossed her arms, didn't say anything. ‘They think they might have isolated the virus. That was on before. Someone in Melbourne.'

‘So they can look at the little bugger under an electron microscope.'

‘And work out ways to treat it. You said we have to hang out for a vaccine. So they make a vaccine and we'll be fine.'

‘What about the people in Thailand, England, Newcastle?
Those people on the North Shore? A vaccine won't help them.'

‘They're not us. You can't save everyone.'

She stared past him, at nothing. ‘Is Zac safe?'

‘He's safe.'

‘He should be here.'

‘And he will be, Friday. Come on, let's leave this, do something else.' He tried to pull out her crossed arms.

‘I'll,' she pulled away from him, ‘I'll check on Oscar.'

‘He's fine. He's sleeping in his own bed and he's fine.'

The early morning quiet of the sleeping house was broken only by the slowly building hiss of white noise from the kettle and the intermittent hum of the fridge. There was nothing Hannah had to do today, at least nothing with an appointed time. The day was hers to spend.

She pulled a loaf of bread out of the fridge and with the tips of her fingers, folded the bag on itself two, three, times to make a barrier between the slices and the outside of the plastic. She washed her hands before taking two slices and dropping them in the toaster, wondering if toasting would sterilise them, then decanted the rest into a zip lock bag.

Sean wandered in, looking bleary. ‘The alarm didn't go off.'

‘I didn't set one.'

‘Oscar will be late.'

‘He's not going, remember?'

‘Oh.' Sean got a mug from the cupboard and poured some coffee from the fresh pot. He stared at it. ‘Are you sure?'

‘Yes, I'm sure.' She took her coffee and toast and sat at the kitchen table looking into the temptingly clear, bright garden, one of those autumn days with no clouds to keep the warmth in. ‘I read that they're not letting any planes come from Thailand or the UK. One of the airlines made all their London passengers change planes at the stopover to make it look like that's where they came from. It got turned around in the air.'