A Breathing Space Part 1 of 2

A Breathing Space Part 1 of 2

By Janet Baldey

         “Hold my hand tightly Maisie, and don’t let go until we’ve crossed the road.”

Sue felt a small, warm hand creep into hers as they stood at the kerb waiting for a gap in the traffic.  As the long line of buses, cars and lorries lumbered by, their exhausts panted fumes into the air and she glanced down at the fragile face of her daughter.

         “Now don’t forget. If you feel you can’t breathe, your inhaler’s in your bag. Whatever you’re doing just take a few puffs and you’ll feel better. Mrs Price won’t mind, I’ve told her about your asthma.”

         Listening to her own voice she hoped it sounded reassuring, she found it so hard not to let her anxiety show.  The memory of that last medical emergency, when Maisie had been blue-lighted to hospital, would always be with her.  No parent could ever forget the harsh rattle in their child’s throat and the convulsive pumping of their chest as they struggled to breathe. And then the collapse, when Maisie had lain limp and unresponsive, her face white as any lily. She really thought she’d lost her then.

Ever since she’d been scared to let Maisie out of her sight but she had to go back to school.  And, of course, Mrs Price was kind and, of course, she would do her best but she had other children to look after. What if she didn’t notice that Maisie was in trouble? What if Maisie was too timid to ask for help?  She drew in a deep breath and tasted diesel.  If only they didn’t have to live in this overcrowded city with its narrow winding streets clogged with traffic from dawn till dusk.  If only she lived in the country, near the sea like her sister, Kate. Gifted, clever Kate, whose life was painted in gold - unlike hers which had been coloured shit brown so far. She made herself stop. She shouldn’t be jealous of Kate who’d always been kind to them.

         Every year they travelled to Cornwall to stay in her cottage close to the sea.  Maisie loved it. She adored her little attic bedroom with its skylight that brought stars into her room. She adored the view from the sitting room window showing wave upon wave of grassy moorland rolling towards the sea rippling in the distance.  She adored chasing around the garden with Chester, the gentle-eyed lurcher, petting Kate’s cat and feeding Kate’s chickens.  Her health improved as well. Pale and wan when she arrived, by the end of the two weeks she was morphing into the rosy-cheeked child Sue had always wanted.

But they always had to come back to London where Sue worked hard to pay rent on a first floor flat.  It would have been different if David had lived.  Together, they could have scraped together enough for a little house in the suburbs.  Her eyes began to sting as she watched the crossing lady plant herself in the middle of the road and beckon Maisie across. Immediately, Maisie pulled away and it was through a blur of tears that Sue watched her run by the line of waiting traffic towards the school gates.

There were no more serious asthma attacks that winter and it was just when Sue was beginning to hope for the best that the first hints of trouble began their slow infusion.  It was early January, she’d got soaked on the way home and to compensate, was treating herself to a glass of wine while curled up on the settee, half watching the flickering blur of the television.  The word ‘Wuhan’ was mentioned several times and her forehead creased.  Where was that?  She turned up the sound as grainy pictures of white-clad figures appeared on-screen.  Around 17 people had died during an outbreak of pneumonia in a remote Chinese city.  Another unfamiliar word was also mentioned,’ lockdown’, a word that previously she’d only related to prisons.  Wuhan was in lockdown. In order to prevent further infection, its citizens were not allowed to leave their homes.  She watched stupefied as Chinese police in full plague gear, used their batons mercilessly as they bundled resistant inhabitants into their homes, barring their doors behind them.

‘Have you got enough rice?’ one yelled through the letterbox. 

There were surreal images of a city with empty motorways, streets and shops. Of its one million inhabitants, there was no sign - it was as if they had become extinct. But it still didn’t worry her. China was a long way away and surely this was an over-reaction by the Chinese government?  Sad for the relatives of course, but in a country that counted its citizens in billions, it seemed a fuss over not much at all.  She switched off, drank the rest of her wine and went to bed.

But as January merged into February, it dawned on Sue that it was not a fuss over nothing but something much more serious. Every time she switched on the television the news was dominated by further updates.  There were pictures of long queues of masked people having their temperatures taken by tiny Oriental girls. Sue’s vision blurred at the speed at which the girls worked. Were they even looking at the results?

A new hospital was thrown up in a few days and all the schools were closed. The situation was clearly grave. Not pneumonia at all, but a virus of unknown origin that spread rapidly and nobody knew where it came from.  Dark suspicion focussed on the live animal markets where domestic and exotic species were crammed together, waiting to be consumed by the Chinese maw.  Wasn’t that where SARS came from?  Will people never learn?

Copyright Janet Baldey