‘I’ve just been to see your mum’s friend Hugh Baxter and he said that Avril had a friend at the group. A nurse, he thought.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ says Bethany. ‘Is Hugh all right? Mum was very fond of him.’
‘He seems fine,’ says Judy. ‘I’ll keep an eye on him.’ She wonders if Bethany knows about Tina but doesn’t feel up to delivering any more bad news.
They chat for a few more minutes and then say goodbye. The neighbour is still in her garden, poised with the secateurs. Judy is about to drive away when her phone pings. Cathbad.
‘Judy. I’m really sorry but I think I’ve got Covid.’
Chapter 27
Judy drives straight home. Maddie meets her at the door.
‘Dad’s in his bedroom. He thought he should isolate himself.’
Judy is halfway upstairs before she considers the significance of ‘Dad’.
She opens the door of their bedroom. ‘Cathbad?’
‘Don’t come in,’ says Cathbad. His voice sounds reassuringly the same but, just as Judy is starting to relax, he starts to cough, a horrible racking sound that seems to go on and on.
‘Shall I get you some water?’ says Judy. Cathbad doesn’t answer so she goes into the bathroom, pours a toothmug full of water and looks in the cabinet. Surely there’s some cough mixture here? Eventually she finds an old and sticky bottle. Best before Jan 2018. Can linctus go off? Judy is bad with illness. Cathbad, as the parent at home, is the one who has had to cope with coughs, colds, ear infections, Michael’s occasional bouts of asthma.
She slides the bottle onto the bedside table on her side, without coming closer to Cathbad who is hunched on the other side of the bed, breathing heavily.
‘Have you called the doctor?’ she says.
‘No,’ says Cathbad, ‘but I think it’s Covid. I’ve lost my sense of smell and I keep coughing.’
‘I’ll call them,’ says Judy.
Maddie, Michael and Miranda are all standing in the hall. Judy composes her face into reassuring lines.
‘I think he’s OK. Maybe it’s just a cold. I’m going to ring the doctor just to be on the safe side.’
The surgery has a separate number for ‘patients who think they have symptoms of Covid-19’. Judy speaks to a sympathetic-sounding nurse called Zoe.
‘It’s best to avoid hospital if you can,’ she says. ‘Tell him to take paracetamol and keep his fluids up. Ring again if you’re worried.’
Judy finds some paracetamol and takes them up to Cathbad with a large glass of orange juice.
‘Vitamin C,’ she says.
‘Thanks.’ Cathbad is lying down, which looks so strange in the middle of the day that Judy feels quite sick.
‘The nurse said to take paracetamol.’
‘I will.’
‘You’ll be OK.’ Judy stands awkwardly in the doorway. She wants Cathbad to tell her that everything will be all right, but he has his eyes shut and seems to be concentrating on breathing.
‘Knock on the floor if you need anything,’ she says.
‘You should keep away,’ says Cathbad. ‘Keep the children away.’
Cathbad always wants the children with him. It’s as if his body has been invaded which, in a way, Judy supposes, it has.
Nelson can’t quite believe it either. If anyone could sail through the Covid crisis, he would have put money on it being Cathbad. He has an irritatingly healthy lifestyle, for one thing. Plus, he’s probably protected by hordes of pagan gods and goddesses and all the saints of the Catholic church thrown in for good measure. Nelson thinks of his mother, who took a great fancy to Cathbad when they first met. Maureen is praying daily to St Carlo Borromeo, who was said to offer protection against the plague and so may well perform the same trick for Covid-19. He must ring his mother tonight.
