A small farm next to the Cairngorms National Park, the Independent Republic of Scotland
Day 224
It’s been 161 days since I saw my son. I know he’s alive from the crackly call I get from his walkie-talkie every morning, but that’s the only contact we have. When it’s dark and I’m washing the dishes in the kitchen, I can see the faint glow from his hut eight hundred meters away. It takes everything I have not to run the short distance and scoop him into my arms.
Cameron—my patient, frustrated husband—has been asking for months when we’re going to let Jamie come back. “When we know it’s safe,” I say. He’s becoming increasingly resentful of my fear. We’ve been together twenty-five years; I know him like the back of my hand and I know he’s going to snap soon. But he’s always been the more reckless of the two of us. None of the boys seem to be sick, this is true. Cameron hasn’t gotten sick.
But we don’t know anything about these boys or the virus. We don’t know how long you can be asymptomatic. What if one of them has it lurking in his system or there’s a bit of it in one of the tents? The stakes are so high, the regret would kill me if Jamie died all because we were impatient. Cameron says I’m a conspiracy theorist because I don’t believe the government when they say men are asymptomatic for two days. I don’t believe it. They’ve done everything wrong. They didn’t believe Amanda Maclean, they haven’t found a vaccine, they barely did anything to stop the spread of the virus. I just don’t believe them.
The other boys are playing football on the makeshift pitch. The whoops and hollers of seventy-eight teenage boys used to bring a smile to my face. I would revel in the sounds of joy when outside the safe confines of our space here, there is only danger and sadness. But that was almost six months ago. Now, the resentment is killing me.
If I was a different kind of woman, I would maybe acknowledge that this is traumatizing and that my brain feels frayed and close to collapse. As it is, I drink two bottles of our stashed wine once every few weeks and try to forget that any of this is happening. Without my son I’m struggling to function. I’m keeping other women’s sons safe and happy and well while my own son rots in loneliness a fifteen-minute walk away. The boys are wonderful. It’s not their fault that any of this is happening. They all look so young, especially when they first arrived. Fear takes the promise of adulthood out of a child’s face, I find. These big teenage lads, nearly six feet, away from their mums, scared senseless, unsure if they’d ever see their dads again, looked so young. Gangly and insubstantial.
Thank God we were given supplies with each bus. The boys each have a box—they read STERILIZED—SAFE on the sides—with a sleeping bag, a pillow, basic food supplies, water purification tablets, and a “leisure” item. I did a double take when I saw those. There were a few different ones—some had a football, others a Frisbee. There was even a cricket bat and ball. Part of me thought, A football?! They need food! But it was good foresight on the part of whoever did that.
Including a nonessential luxury item in each boy’s box has given them permission to play. To have fun. If your survival kit has come with a football, what do you do? You play. You say to the boys next to you, “Who wants a game?” and you make friends, and you run around and you get out of breath and you forget, for a moment, that you’re in a strange place with people you don’t know because the world is coming to an end.
There’s been no communication from anyone. We watch the TV but we don’t get the main channels anymore. The Scottish government, after they declared independence in February, changed it so that we only get a Scottish news channel. I don’t think they tell us the truth. We’ve heard nothing about a vaccine or a cure. They just say to stay calm and keep boys inside and remind us that the penalty for looting is twenty years in prison. I think some of the civil servants who put the Highland Evacuation Program together have died. I still read the opening letter most weeks as if it’s going to have magically changed and transformed into an answer.
Even now, the letter makes me shiver. The threat of prison if I do anything wrong. How did we come to this? I imagine Sue, the woman who signed it, as a hard-faced, flinty woman with square glasses and a pinched mouth. The kind of woman who, had she been a teacher, would have reveled in ripping up pieces of homework and bemoaned the lack of physical discipline in schools. I know that in reality she’s doing her job. She’s trying to save lives. I just wish her efforts hadn’t come at the cost of my family.
The phone rings. I jump on it, hoping it’ll be news of a vaccine too secret to be released on the news.
“Hello?”
“Hello, is that Morven Macnaughton?”
“Yes. Who are you?” God, you can tell I’ve been around teenage boys for too long. My manners have flown out the window.
“My name’s Catherine Lawrence. I’m an anthropologist. I’m so sorry, I know this is out of the blue, but could I please speak to you about the evacuation program?”
“How did you get this number?”
“A friend of mine works at the University of Edinburgh. She helped set up the program. She thought you might want someone to talk to. She said you’ve called the evacuation phone line a few times.”
My face flushes at the memory. I was told off like a naughty schoolgirl by a woman who sounded young enough to be my daughter.
“Are you a therapist?”
“No, no. Although I can try and find one and have her call you if that would be helpful. No, I’m an anthropologist. I work at University College London. I . . . I . . . I’m trying to collect stories of what is happening.”
“For the news?”
“No, for . . . well, for myself, I suppose, but one day they might become an academic paper. It’s a record. I want to record what’s happening. I want to write it all down.”
I’m suspicious of this strange English woman, but the voice of a woman is so welcome. I’ve mainly spoken to men for months. The desire to talk to her is overwhelming. I should put down the phone but I don’t. I don’t want to.
“What do you want to know?”
“Anything, everything. Tell me whatever you can.”
“My son is in a hut at the edge of our land.” The words spill out and I burst into tears. This is mortifying.
“Why is he there?”
“We put him in the hut right at the beginning to keep him safe, before the other boys arrived. We didn’t know if they would be infected so it seemed like the safest option.”
“And your husband?”
“I told him to stay with Jamie but he was worried about me being on my own taking care of all these boys we didn’t know. Jamie’s on his own. He’s been there for months.”
“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.”