Doomsday Book (Oxford Time Travel, #1) - Connie Willis Page 0,121

still raining, the trees black and dripping and the Christmas tree lights spotted with rain.

Everyone was still at table except for the bell ringers, who stood off to one side in their white gloves, their handbells on the table in front of them. Finch was demonstrating the wearing of the NHS regulation masks, pulling off the tapes at either side and pressing them to his cheeks.

“You don’t look well at all, Mr. Dunworthy,” Mrs. Gaddson said. “And no wonder. The conditions in this college are appalling. It is a wonder to me that there has not been an epidemic before this. Poor ventilation and an extremely uncooperative staff. Your Mr. Finch was quite rude to me when I spoke to him about moving into my son’s rooms. He told me I had chosen to be in Oxford during a quarantine, and that I had to take whatever accommodations I was given.”

Colin came skidding in. “There’s someone on the telephone for you,” he said.

Dunworthy started past her, but she placed herself solidly in his way. “I told Mr. Finch that he might be content to stay at home when his son was in danger, but that I was not.”

“I’m afraid I’m wanted on the telephone,” Dunworthy said.

“I told him no real mother could fail to go when her child was alone and ill in a faraway place.”

“Mr. Dunworthy,” Colin said. “Come along!”

“Of course you clearly have no idea what I’m talking about. Look at this child!” She grabbed Colin by the arm. “Running about in the pouring rain with no coat on!”

Dunworthy took advantage of her shift in position to get past her.

“You obviously care nothing about your boy’s catching the Indian flu,” she said. Colin wrenched free. “Letting him gorge himself on muffins and go about soaked to the skin.”

Dunworthy sprinted across the quad, Colin at his heels.

“I shall not be surprised if this virus turns out to have originated here in Balliol,” Mrs. Gaddson shouted after them. “Sheer negligence, that’s what it is. Sheer negligence!”

Dunworthy burst into the room and snatched up the phone. There was no picture. “Andrews,” he shouted. “Are you there? I can’t see you.”

“The telephone system’s overbooked,” Montoya said. “They’ve cut the visual. It’s Lupe Montoya. Is Mr. Basingame salmon or trout?”

“What?” Dunworthy said, frowning at the blank screen.

“I’ve been calling fishing guides in Scotland all morning. When I could get through. They say where he’s gone depends on whether he’s salmon or trout. What about friends? Is there someone in the University he goes fishing with who might know?”

“I don’t know,” Dunworthy said. “Ms. Montoya, I’m afraid I’m waiting for a most important—”

“I’ve tried everything else—hotels, inns, boat rentals, even his barber. I tracked his wife down in Torquay, and she said he didn’t tell her where he was going. I hope that doesn’t mean he’s off somewhere with a woman and not really in Scotland at all.”

“I hardly think Mr. Basingame—”

“Yes, well, then, why doesn’t anyone know where he is? And why hasn’t he called in now that the epidemic’s all over the papers and the vids?”

“Ms. Montoya, I—”

“I suppose I’ll have to call both the salmon and trout guides. I’ll let you know if I find him.”

She rang off finally, and Dunworthy put the receiver down and stared at it, certain Andrews had tried to ring while he was on the line with Montoya.

“Didn’t you say there were a lot of epidemics in the Middle Ages?” Colin asked. He was sitting in the window seat with the Middle Ages book on his knees, eating muffins.

“Yes.”

“Well, I can’t find them in this book. How do you spell it?”

“Try Black Death,” Dunworthy said.

Dunworthy waited an anxious quarter of an hour and then tried to ring Andrews again. The lines were still jammed.

“Did you know the Black Death was in Oxford?” Colin said. He had polished off the muffins and was back to the soap tablets. “At Christmas. Just like us!”

“Influenza scarcely compares with the plague,” he said, watching the telephone as if he could will it to ring. “The Black Death killed one third to one half of Europe.”

“I know,” Colin said. “And the plague was a lot more interesting. It was spread by rats, and you got these enormous bobos—”

“Buboes.”

“Buboes under your arms, and they turned black and swelled up till they were enormous and then you died! The flu doesn’t have anything like that,” he said, sounding disappointed.

“No.”

“And the flu’s only one disease. There were three sorts of plague. Bubonic, that’s the