Doomsday Book (Oxford Time Travel, #1) - Connie Willis Page 0,39

all my inoculations.”

He led the donkey off slowly. The bells on its bridle jingled tinnily.

TRANSCRIPT FROM THE DOMESDAY BOOK

(000740–000751)

Mr. Dunworthy, I think you’d better come and get me.

7

I knew it,” Mrs. Gaddson said, steaming down the corridor toward them. “He’s contracted some horrible disease, hasn’t he? It’s all that rowing.”

Mary stepped forward. “You can’t come in here,” she said. “This is an isolation area.”

Mrs. Gaddson kept coming. The transparent poncho she was wearing over her coat threw off large, spattering drops as she walked toward them, swinging the valise like a weapon. “You can’t put me off like that. I’m his mother. I demand to see him.”

Mary put up her hand like a policeman. “Stop,” she said in her best ward sister voice.

Amazingly, Mrs. Gaddson stopped. “A mother has a right to see her son,” she said. Her expression softened. “Is he very ill?”

“If you mean your son William, he’s not ill at all,” Mary said, “at least so far as I know.” She put her hand up again. “Please don’t come any closer. Why do you think William’s ill?”

“I knew it the minute I heard about the quarantine. A sharp pain went through me when the Stationmaster said ‘temp quarantine.’ ” She set down the valise so she could indicate the location of the sharp pain. “It’s because he didn’t take his vitamins. I asked the college to be sure to give them to him,” she said, shooting a glance at Dunworthy that was the rival of any of Gilchrist’s, “and they said he was able to take care of himself. Well, obviously, they were wrong.”

“William is not the reason the temp quarantine was called. One of the University techs has come down with a viral infection,” Mary said.

Dunworthy noticed gratefully that she didn’t say “Balliol’s tech.”

“The tech is the only case, and there is no indication that there will be any others,” Mary said. “The quarantine is a purely precautionary measure, I assure you.”

Mrs. Gaddson didn’t look convinced. “My Willy’s always been sickly, and he simply will not take care of himself. He studies far too hard in that drafty room of his,” she said with another dark look at Dunworthy. “I’m surprised he hasn’t come down with a viral infection before this.”

Mary took her hand down and put it in the pocket she carried her bleeper in. I do hope she’s calling for help, Dunworthy thought.

“By the end of one term at Balliol, Willy’s health was completely broken down, and then his tutor forced him to stay up over Christmas and read Petrarch,” Mrs. Gaddson said. “That’s why I came up. The thought of him all alone in this horrid place for Christmas, eating heaven knows what and doing all sorts of things to endanger his health, was something this mother’s heart could simply not bear.”

She pointed to the place where the pain had gone through her at the words “temp quarantine.” “And it is positively providential that I came when I did. Positively providential. I nearly missed the train, my valise was so cumbersome, and I almost thought, Ah, well, there’ll be another along, but I wanted to get to my Willy, so I shouted at them to hold the doors, and I hadn’t so much as stepped off at Cornmarket when the Stationmaster said, ‘Temp quarantine. Train service is temporarily suspended.’ Only just think, if I’d missed that train and taken the next one, I would have been stopped by the quarantine.”

Only just think. “I’m sure William will be surprised to see you,” Dunworthy said, hoping she would go find him.

“Yes,” she said grimly. “He’s probably sitting there without even his muffler on. He’ll get this viral infection, I know it. He gets everything. He used to break out in horrible rashes when he was little. He’s bound to come down with it. At least his mother is here to nurse him through it.”

The door was flung open and two people wearing masks, gowns, gloves, and some sort of paper covering over their shoes came racing through it. They slowed to a walk when they saw there was no one collapsed on the floor.

“I need this area cordoned off and an isolation ward sign posted,” Mary said. She turned to Mrs. Gaddson. “I’m afraid there’s a possibility you’ve been exposed to the virus. We do not have a positive mode of transmission yet, and we can’t rule out the possibility of its being airborne,” she said, and for one horrible moment Dunworthy thought she meant