Chapter 2 #4
Cat’s parents were already in the coughing house of course, but they didn’t come to the window when Cat stood balancing wonkily on an upturned bucket in the rain, holding me in the crook of her arm, standing on tiptoe so she could reach the glass and bang on it and shout for them.
After a long while during which all Cat and I got was wet, one of the other children who was coughing a lot came to the other side and said they couldn’t come now, not ever in fact, because they’d gone.
And then my mum came to the door with a rucksack in one hand and a cloth wrapped round her mouth and made Cat stay away, upwind, while she held me for a minute, squeezing me tight as tight but with her head turned away in case a cough happened.
I was there but I remember nothing of this. I was only a baby. This is just what Cat told me.
Then my mum gave me to Cat and told her to take the rucksack and run, run before we started coughing too.
She pointed out into the rain and told Cat to get far away and not come back for a week.
And even then she was not to come close if she still heard coughing.
She said not to come close until a grown-up who wasn’t coughing came out and said it was OK.
She said if no one came, she definitely shouldn’t come inside.
At all. Ever. Because then the only thing in the house would be the cough, waiting to get us too.
She made Cat swear and she told her to take one male and two of the female goats and to milk them so I could feed, and let the others go before we left, because no one in the coughing house would be able to feed them.
Cat did what my mum said. She freed the other goats, took the rucksack, bundled me up and tried to outrun the coughing.
Cat’s small and wiry. And she’s always been a good runner.
She carried me and the pack as she ran, leading the goats through the thunderstorm the rain had turned into, and she only stopped when she got to the remains of the next village inland, where she’d been with her parents in the summer, on a picnic, scavenging for useful things.
She found us a house with a good roof and a chimney that worked and we slept in front of the fire, which she kept going all night, every night.
She was small but she knew fire not only kept you warm but made the bad things out in the dark stay away.
The rain stopped after two days. After five, one of the goats disappeared in the night. Or maybe something got it. After seven days she saw smoke in the sky from the direction of our home. She thought it was a signal that we should return.
The sick house was burned to the ground.
Nobody was coughing any more because nobody was alive.
There was another bag of stuff left in the middle of the farmyard.
There were clothes and tools and a couple of books – one that helped us for years and then really saved us and then nearly destroyed us, a heavy book with a bright yellow cover called First Aid and Safety for Dummies and one with no cover called Bushcraft 101.
There was a weighted throw-net that Cat’s mother used to catch both fish and rabbits and things, made small so she could use it with only the one hand, and so the right size for Cat to use.
And food, of course. And soap. There was always soap Cat said, even though it hadn’t kept anyone from getting infected this time.
There was also a note, and I know what it said because Cat kept it for me, tucked safely inside First Aid and Safety for Dummies.
It’s the only thing I have from my mother. It says:
Stay away now, Cat. You have to stay away even though you won’t want to, even though you’re scared and alone. Sickness might still be here. It’s dangerous. But you are still alive.
I’ve let the rest of the animals go.
Be strong. Find more books and read them. Reading will be your mum and your dad. It will teach you about the world and that will help keep you safe, and it will keep you company at night.
Teach him to read too, dear Cat.
You are strong. You are not alone. You have each other.
Don’t trust strangers like we did.
When you do feel lonely, look up at the moon. Think of us in the sky, looking back down on you with love. Always love.
Tell him too.
That he was loved.
Is loved.
You were both loved.
Cat says Mum must have burned everything else to try and kill the sickness in case we came back and it got us too.
When I was old enough to wonder what had happened to Mum after she burned the house with all the dead people in it, Cat said she expected she had just gone down to the bay and swum out.
Cat said she’d read a book that said that was the nicest way to go, in the water, rocked by the sea, like going to sleep.
Cat said it was the bravest thing she could think of, what my mother did for us.
I spent a long time being proud my mother was so brave. It was a good feeling. Not as good as being able to remember her.
But it was something.