‘Peace and joy,’ he says.
I’ve hardly the strength to move from the window, but I move anyway. The thought of dressing defeats me, so I pull the duvet off the bed and wrap myself in it. I shuffle across the landing to the bathroom. The sight of the shower is a stab of grief – the travertine tiles you chose and loved, designed to make modern luxury look like it’s stood for centuries softening in the Tuscan sun. I sit on the toilet, shivering under my quilt, my feet cold on the bleached boards, and stare at your paint job. Caroline, the plans you made. You were going to fill the house with colours – posh paints with names like String and Mouse’s Back and – this one – Rectory Red. You pulled me in here when you’d given it a second coat. ‘Look,’ you said, ‘I told you. It gives the porcelain such a lift.’ You were right too. You were always right. One look at the wall and I’ve lost it. It’s not that you did it well. There are places where the emulsion’s bled on to the skirting, and the whole thing needs a third coat. I’d have got someone in, but you couldn’t wait. You never could. You were an enthusiast. And now it’s the most beautiful paint job in the world. I weep until the wall’s a crimson blur.
I feel my bowels convulse. There’s fire inside me. Then everything loosens in a shuddering rush. The walls darken and close in. I’m inside myself, contained by my own intestines. When my vision clears and the walls recede, I’m drained and hollowed out. Dazed as though from physical labour, I take a minute to breathe. Then I fold a plump cushion of toilet paper from the roll and, shifting my weight sideways, wipe myself. And more paper, until I’m dry.
I twist round to reach the chrome lever and press it. I feel the spray from the cascade underneath me and hear the steadier hissing as the cistern refills. And only now I remember that it’s a long time since I flushed a toilet. No one’s had mains water for months. Some miracle has occurred, some intervention by the god of plumbing. Or history has been thrown into reverse. The cities are repopulating. The lights are flickering on across the country and around the world. The internet is waking from its strange dream of paralysis and silence.
The miracle, I realise, is only that up in the attic there’s still water in the tank. It could hold enough, maybe, for a few days of normal use, which means that Abigail and Maud haven’t turned on a tap since they’ve been in this house. And I find myself wondering again who they are and where they come from.
I make slow progress down the backstairs. My body is a dead weight lugged from step to step. There’s pain in my joints – hips, knees, ankles – left over from the fever. A door bangs below and there are quick footsteps. A figure comes into view. Light from the window catches the dark tangle of hair. It’s Simon. He looks up at me, a doubtful frowning look, head tilted, mouth opening and closing like a fish. He says, ‘There’s…’ Then he does that thing with his mouth again. He makes a noise in his throat, sniffs a couple of times and out pops the missing word – ‘people’. It’s a hard word for him.
‘I know, Si. How about that!’ And gripping the banister I sit down on the stairs.
Simon doesn’t always know whether to breathe in or out when he talks. ‘Funny… people.’
‘Bust-a-gut funny,’ I ask him,’ or pack’m-off-to-the-farm funny?’
He tilts his head and his frown deepens.
‘Ha ha or peculiar?’
He shrugs.
‘You mean they’re both?’
‘Zackly!’ It’s one of Penny’s words. For an insecure person she expressed a lot of certainty – exactly, obviously, don’t be ridiculous, that’s insane. And it slips effortlessly out of Simon’s mouth.
These people, Simon, did they seem nice?’
‘The one with the mmm-blowy thing did. He’s called… Jangle.’
‘Jangle! That’s a weird name.’
Simon gurgles with laughter. ‘I know.’
I can’t remember when I last saw him laugh.
‘Uncle Jason?’
‘Yes, Simon?’
‘Are you all… better?’
‘Well I got this far, didn’t I?’ I pull myself up again, take the last few steps to the turning where he stands. ‘Show me these people.’
The low door at the foot of stairs opens, the one that leads to the stables, and Maud comes in with a bucket. There’s fruit in it, pears and apples. She stops when she sees me and stands motionless for a moment. Simon signals a greeting, a little wave of the fingers – he’s learned already that the effort of speaking would be wasted on Maud. And she signals back and glances up at me again, eyes unblinking, before ducking her head and hurrying on into the kitchen.
Through the open door I hear Abigail’s voice, hushed and anxious. ‘What is it, Maud?’ Then raising her voice she says, ‘Is that you, Jason?’
I feel clumsy that I still depend on speech, and clumsy in my physical weakness as I shuffle into the kitchen, pulling the duvet around me.
‘You should have called if you needed something.’
I’m looking at the visitors. They’re getting to their feet now that I’ve appeared, and it’s not deference to the owner of the house. The woman speaks first. ‘Are you sick? You look sick. Doesn’t he look sick, Aleksy.’ She turns to Abigail. ‘Has he had the sweats?’ She’s a bit bashed about, but striking, even so. God knows what she’s been through.
‘And the rest,’ Abigail says. ‘Five days ago at least and he’s on the mend.’ She looks at me as though there’s something she wants me to understand. ‘This is Deirdre,’ she says. ‘Deirdre’s on her way to the coast.’
‘Five days? Nobody lasts five days.’ She’s twitchy, this Deirdre. With me in the room, she doesn’t want to settle. She takes a long pull on a cigarette. She’s a classy smoker, all cheek bones on the in-breath, head angled self-consciously to blow. Between puffs her hand is poised at shoulder height, cigarette aimed at the ceiling. She might be thirty – probably less, given the rate at which we’re all aging.
I ask her, ‘Why the coast?’
‘I thought maybe Ireland. They say Ireland’s better.’ I hear the accent now – subtle, like posh English softened at the edges.
‘How better? Like people don’t die in Ireland? Nowhere’s better.’
‘Five days? Are you sure?’ She’s talking to Abigail.
‘How are you planning to get to Ireland anyway? Do you think the ferry’s running?’
‘No one lasts five days. Aleksy, tell them.’ Aleksy is built like an ox, but short – less than five foot. The monkey sits on his shoulder foraging in his hair.
‘I’m here, aren’t I?’ I say. ‘Jesus Christ!’ I don’t know why I’m so angry. Don’t even know what I mean exactly – here in the room while she talks about me? Here alive? Here asserting ownership of my kitchen? All of these.
Aleksy has been working up to saying something, preparing his hands in a judicious gesture, controlling the involuntary movements of his face. ‘A new miracle every day. We live in a time of miracles. Five days and still alive? Who can say? A survivor? It’s possible.’ He settles on a chair, sitting on the edge so that his feet touch the floor.
‘You’re both well, then?’ I ask him.
‘Untouched, thank heaven. Who knows why? Polio I had as a child. You work with animals from Africa, they said. Of course you get sick. But they were peasants who said this and knew nothing. That was a long time ago. Fifty years. And then comes the virus – I watch them go down with it, this one and this one, gymnasts and jugglers. Clowns too. All young and full of health. Dead now, their beautiful bodies scattered across Europe, and me still here – no sense to it, no justice.’
The clarinet starts up in the hall, a wild howling like jazz and not like jazz.
Aleksy nods towards the door. ‘Django. He don’t talk so much. Music is his consolation.’