by Sabina Green
“It’s a surprise,” I laughed. How different my mood was, compared to yesterday!
We hadn’t even got out of the car when the farmer stepped out onto the patio to welcome us, exclaiming: “So where’s the birthday boy?”
The whole evening’s atmosphere was very relaxed and celebratory, although I couldn’t help but notice that both our hosts were a bit under the weather; blowing their noses and clearing their throats. First we roasted some vegetables and the fish, and had dinner with Darlene and her husband Hugh. We had a wonderful fruit cake and decaf coffee, and then took a tour of the house. It was built for two generations, but since they didn’t have any children, they decided to share their home with others as a form of short accommodation, to have some company. It was clear they were very fond of people. They couldn’t get enough of our stories from Australia and Czechia, and we encouraged them to tell us about their life and farming in New Zealand.
It was such a pleasant evening, that my usual worries stayed away and I didn’t even want to go to sleep. But Ruby had already fallen asleep on my lap and Dad was starting to yawn, so we broke up the party at around eleven. Darlene and Hugh would have to get up early the next day, to take care of the animals, and we needed to rest before our next trip. Since I felt good, I took Ruby to my bedroom and let Dad spread out on the double bed in his room.
While brushing my teeth, I was thinking about the event Hugh had mentioned. It was a big farmers market just out of Rotorua, taking place on the day of the Perth protest. Could it be a coincidence? I doubted it. I was almost certain that Hugh had become infected there, and Darlene–who didn’t go with him–caught it from him a few days later.
Before going to bed, I quickly checked the built-in bookshelves in the living room and then, satisfied by what I’d found, climbed into bed.
I fell asleep before my head hit the pillow.
I woke up feeling as well as the day before. Actually, I felt so good, I almost started whistling. The general fatigue was moving away from my head and limbs and concentrating in my chest. Every time I took a breath, I felt a slight rustle, there must have been phlegm sitting on my bronchial tube that I couldn’t cough out, but it seemed inevitable to me at this stage of the illness. I didn’t worry about it too much, it was enough that I was rid of that terrible cough which had been tearing my lungs apart the other day.
I swallowed a dosage of medication that would put even a long-term user to shame, and got dressed. Dad and Ruby were waiting for me at the kitchen table, but there was no sign of Hugh or Darlene. They were probably busy tending to their farm, or maybe enjoying the Saturday morning and sleeping in.
“Good morning,” I said, my voice still cracked.
Ruby looked up. “Hey, mum!” And went straight back to the princess she was colouring in with crayons.
“Morning,” Dad said to me. I noted the wrinkle between his eyebrows.
“What’s wrong?” I asked as he pushed a cup of coffee towards me. I wrapped my cold fingers around it.
“Nothing good on the morning news.”
“Maybe you should stop watching them,” I mumbled, mainly to myself, but Dad heard.
“I can’t do that,” he shrugged and fixed his eyes on me. Was he wondering why I wasn’t my usual cautious self? “How else would I know about the new measures? They’re now asking everyone, not just sick people, to avoid public places, unless absolutely necessary. How are we going to get to the South Island? This won’t blow over in a week…”
“So let’s not go. Let’s stay here,” I said and the phlegm rumbled in my throat. “I know that the South Island looks amazing, it’d be a shame to miss it… but under these safety measures we don’t really have much choice but to stay put.” I tried not to look too relieved. At least I didn’t have to come up with any other reason why we can’t take the ferry to the other side of New Zealand as planned.
Dad seemed lost in thought for a few minutes. “What if this pandemic lasts several months? Borders are closed, there’s no air traffic besides army planes! How are we gonna get home?”
I wasn’t hungry, but since I needed to get some strength, I picked a banana from the fruit bowl. “I could think of worse places to be stuck in than New Zealand.”
“Connie!” Dad exclaimed, appalled. It had been a while since I’d heard this tone from him, at least in connection to my words or my behaviour. “This is serious!”
“Dad, I’m freaked out by what’s going on and that all these people are sick. I’m just trying to stay calm and not panic, because that won’t get us anywhere.”
He exhaled slowly. “You’re right. I guess I got carried away… It looks pretty full on.”
“So we shouldn’t be going to public places?” I returned to the safety measure. I was surprised it had taken the government that long to enforce it, given how often we’d hear things like prevention first and foremost.
Dad sighed. “So these last trips are probably not on the table anymore, right?”
I took a moment to think but struggled, as if my brain had slowed down to half of its normal speed since I’d gotten sick. I hoped it would get back to normal soon. I gathered our maps and lists of activities and trips.
“How about instead of going to the museum, we hike up here?” I pointed my finger to a place on the map which I’d been thinking about a lot even back in Perth, but never dared to tell Dad about. It had seemed pointless before, but now my thoughts were drawn to it as if there were invisible strings tying me to this place.
Dad peered at the map. “And what’s there?”
“I was reading about it recently, and it just got back to me,” I said slyly. “There’s a strange phenomenon.”
That piqued his curiosity. “What kind?”
I smiled. “A tree. It’s a lot more interesting than it sounds, I promise. But it’s probably better to just see it in real life.”
Frank
I had to agree. At first I was a bit unsure if the hike, several hours long, and by no means easy, would be worth it. But we got our prize in the end.
“Wh-what?” I stammered, laughing, and rubbed my eyes.
I put Ruby, who’d been clinging to my back for the last half an hour, down, and focused all my attention on the tree on the hill opposite us. I wanted to go all the way over to it, of course, but the view from here was probably better, you could see the whole thing.
The trunk, from the roots all the way to the branches, was painted bright blue, and stood out beautifully against the background. But there was something else… I laughed again. The tree was upside down. Its branches were stuck in the ground while its roots looked like they were supporting the sky. It was like looking at a house standing on its roof.
I wished I had a camera or my phone. It had been left abandoned on my bedside table for a few days now, I only used it in the evenings to reply to my concerned family’s messages. The virus was waging war in Europe just as much as here, but I’d been selfish enough to ignore any news about other parts of the world. My daughter’s illness was more pressing.
But now she was feeling better, and she took us here to look at this strange thing, a part of nature that had been completely transformed by man.
Why did Connie choose this place of all? I wasn’t complaining, I liked hiking in nature, and I liked the blue tree too, plus I knew that our choices of trips were very limited now. It just seemed a bit unusual. Connie’s trips had so far focused strictly on the natural, and this was clearly man-made.
When I asked her, she shrugged.
“It seemed interesting,” she said simply. “It was within walking distance of the farm, and away from other people.”
We had a snack and after hanging around the upside down tree for half an hour, we set off on our way home. It took us almost twice as long as the way there.
“Ruby, do you need to pee? Do you want a break? Are you hung
ry?”
This time it was Constance who was acting like a mother hen, anxiously watching and tending to her chicks. But she didn’t fool me. She wasn’t calling for breaks so much for Ruby’s sake, as for her own. She seemed relaxed; when she spoke, it sounded cheerful, but she was exhausted. At least the cough was on its way out.
Connie
The trip exhausted me more than I was expecting. Despite the great physical tiredness, I felt so relieved, because the tree was really there. I wouldn’t have been too pleased if it’d turned out we’d been hiking for nothing. It meant more for Dad and Ruby’s future than they knew, and I was glad that they could explore the way to it beforehand…
After getting back to the farm–just a few more steps, come on, you can do this–I decided against dinner or a shower and went straight to bed. I’d probably been a bit too hasty in my return to normal activities. What was I thinking, going on a hike before I’d recovered completely?
I fell asleep at once, and woke up a little later only because Ruby was cuddling up to me. And then my dream continued, uninterrupted.
At first I had no idea what had woken me up; some inner mechanism must have pushed me to open my eyes. When I did, I saw Dad standing in the door. I didn’t hear him knock, something he always did. Could I have slept through it? I was all bleary-eyed from sleep, but something in his eyes and stiff posture made me shake my head to get some of the sleep out.
A mistake! Damn, that was a terrible mistake, I moaned internally. Tiny wrecking balls were pounding away at the inside of my skull.
What’s happening? Why is Dad looking at me so sadly? He had exactly the same expression you put on, when you’re about to give someone some bad news…
“Dad?” I wheezed, and the single syllable pushing through my throat was enough to send me into a violent coughing fit. My throat was on fire, but the worst was happening in my lungs. The buffalo was back in its place on my chest, and it brought some friends. I had a curious, unpleasant sensation of my lungs being crushed into pieces, never to take a breath again, while also being stretched out and about to explode.
“I thought you were getting better,” he sighed and stepped closer. Was I mistaken, or were there tears in his eyes? “You were coughing like this all night. I put Ruby into my room, it was waking her up.”
Really? I wanted to ask, but couldn’t force the word out. How could I have gotten so much worse in just a few hours?
These two facts, the current state of my health and what Dad told me about coughing the night away, started to blend into one…
I’d heard it said that when sick, one had to get worse before getting better. Apparently, this particular form of pneumonic plague worked the other way around. It eased up, so I could start hoping again, thinking that maybe I could make it through and survive, stay with Dad and Ruby until the cancer ended my life… But then all the plague symptoms returned, more intense than before.
I cursed the two days of relief, because they allowed me to hope for a better tomorrow, and for more tomorrows than I’d been expecting. Right now I couldn’t even turn around, let alone get out of bed. I felt so dreadful, it made me wonder if I’d see any tomorrow at all.
Frank
As soon as I woke up this morning, I knew that our day trip was over. Connie was so sick she could barely move. I wanted to be there to look after her. Her fever and shallow breath terrified me. Not that I hadn’t seen her sick before, after all she has been through breast cancer, and chemo certainly didn’t leave her singing and dancing. But to see her so weak again, so pale, shaking from the cold while sweating with fever…
Plus, I didn’t feel like going out into town since, according to the morning news and newspapers, the flu situation has gotten significantly worse. The warm and kind attitude to strangers we’d been used to here was suddenly nowhere to be seen. I didn’t witness this firsthand, but the news was full of people panicking and fighting for food and other necessities. Darlene, the farm owner, had also confirmed it after going to the shop in the morning.
“The world’s gone mad,” she mumbled under her breath while slicing up fresh bread she’d managed to buy. Apparently almost the last one on the shelf which usually remained stocked until late afternoon. “I don’t want to be a pessimist, but starting tomorrow you’ll probably have to make do with fruit and eggs from our hens here, Frank.”
On top of that, it looked like she was starting to be too sick to go to the shop anymore. How was Hugh feeling, anyway? I hadn’t seen him at all since that first evening.
“That’s alright. We’ll make do.” Maybe except for Ruby. I didn’t mind skipping meals, but my granddaughter wouldn’t go hungry.
“Doesn’t Connie want breakfast?” Darlene looked over to the guest bedrooms, where my daughter was sweating into her duvets like a marathon runner.
I looked over as well and considered asking for a number for the local doctor. Or hospital. “She’s not feeling too good…”
“Neither is Hugh,” she replied sympathetically. “He took care of the animals in the morning and then went straight back to bed.”
Her hand holding the knife paused over the bread. Was she considering cutting some for her husband, or was she just lost in thought? If she was anything like me, it was about the flu which had mysteriously taken over the entire world.
In the end, Darlene put the knife away. “What’s on for today?”
Ruby looked up, eyes shining, ready for the next adventure.
“We’ve been pretty busy so far, I was thinking that we could have a lazy day today,” I said and watched the girl’s reaction. Looking at her face, you’d think somebody had died. “Have a look around. See the farm, count your chickens, that sort of stuff.”
Ruby’s face lit up again, counting the poultry clearly wasn’t all that boring.
“Be my guests,” Darlene laughed, and then covered her cough with her elbow. She looked at us apologetically and added: “At least I’ll finally find out how many we have. Hugh recently rescued a baby fallow-deer, it’ll let you scratch it, if Ruby here wants to make a new friend. Don’t get too close to our bull though, he’s got a temper, but everything else is available. Actually, I could give you a tour if you like?”
I didn’t even have time to take a breath before my granddaughter started roaring that yes, we definitely do, while wriggling wildly on her chair. Darlene and I laughed.
“Alright then,” I agreed. “Ruby, you finish your breakfast, and I’m going to see how your Mum is doing.”
I brought Connie some fresh tea and put a new bottle of water on her bedside table, along with some more Paracetamol and cough drops. She was fast asleep and didn’t notice me at all.
The guided tour of the farm was successful. Happy memories of my childhood in a tiny village were coming back to me in waves, I could occasionally even forget the epidemic raging around us. I spent most of the day just enjoying being so close to nature, walking in a nearby forest and the fields belonging to the farm, being around animals. Ruby was thrilled to discover a small playground, which had been left on the farm by its previous owners. Conveniently, it was visible from both of our bedrooms and the back patio where we were having a late lunch. Despite the fact that Darlene didn’t have any children, she talked and played with Ruby completely naturally. I was sure that Connie would have found a way to tactfully ask why Hugh and her hadn’t become parents. But I wasn’t the type to pry into other people’s privacy, and possibly into very painful subjects, so I let it go.
Throughout the day I went back to check on Constance a few times, while Darlene was keeping an eye on Ruby. I assured her that my granddaughter can play on her own for a while–she was just proving my point by digging a hole in a sandpit so she could bury her legs in it, her back to us–but Darlene waved me away, laughing: “Oh come on Frank. You won’t deny me the opportunity to watch a child play, will you?” She sat down next to
Ruby and started digging her own hole.
My daughter was out of it for most of the day, or at least when I came in to check on her. Her food laid there untouched, but at least the bottle of water was always empty. Only in the late afternoon I finally found her completely awake. Thank God.
“Where is Ruby?” she asked.
“Outside with Darlene. They’re having fun in the sandpit. I’m going to watch the news now,” I added, expecting Connie to lay back in bed. To my surprise, she asked me to help her put on her robe and walk to the sofa in the living room.
She was light as a feather. She’d been so thin even before she got sick, but now? She looked like a skeleton, not even three robes would have hidden it.
The evening news was more depressing than all the previous ones put together. The number of infected people had soared to astronomical heights. The World Health Organisation had mandated the use of face masks and protective gloves; companies, restaurants and gyms were closing, it was forbidden to socialize in groups larger than two people. There was talk of closed schools and borders, cancelling repatriation flights and God knows what else. The list of bans, warnings and recommendations was endless. Given how much attention was paid to the situation, I felt like they were very vague about any test results. Why?
I kept staring at the screen, feeling troubled, even after Darlene had turned it off. I didn’t even know she was standing in the shadows, watching the news herself.
“Ruby’s asked for some more time. I’m going to check on Hugh now and go to bed,” she said, clearly upset herself, and walked away.
So many ill people…? Connie. Hugh. Darlene. And basically everyone else around us.
“They’re closing the borders…” I choked out. “Shouldn’t we go back to Perth? Before it gets worse?” Would we manage to even get on a repatriation flight anymore?
“They won’t let me onto a plane like this, Dad…” Constance said. Her eyes were unfocused.
