Chapter 12: A Setback...

Kari

It was then that I understood Sarita had hardly moved. She looked pale and wan, the signs of the virus!

"OH SHIT!"

"Abba, wake up. Sarita..." I got frantic

Abba was even worse. He was not moving at all.

That night I hardly recall, yet it was the longest night of my life. Its memory is like a nightmare, expecting any moment to detect no sign of movement on the shallow breathing of either of my friends. I was scared stiff. Was I selfish to be afraid of being left alone when they died?

I wept that I was so self-centred to be thinking of myself rather than of them. I knew they were going to die and offered them sips though the night. It was the only treatment according to Sarita.

And what was worse; it came to me, I had given them the virus. It was my selfishness in stopping off, my stupidity for touching Sammy. Twice! It was my senselessness for not telling them Sam had died and I could be a carrier. Everything was all my fault.

I forced the water down through their mouths, I hugged them, I talked to them, encouraged them to get better.

I think it was halfway through the next morning that I realised I was shivering with cold and then had the sense to cook my own food. I was famished.

I gave them boiled warm water. I cuddled them, pleaded with them that they get better.

It was afternoon before Sarita looked a little improved. Nervously I asked myself whether it was my imagination or was she really showing the first signs of recovery? She stirred, for the first time an hour or so later and I gave her more water.

I fed again and drank more water and fed some more water to both of them. What was that what I had heard? 'Women recover, men don't.'

Absent-mindedly, I noticed one thing. I was pleased the vague sense of an uncomfortable presence within my body was no longer there, in my uterus. Had it fallen out?

That night Sarita started to feel better but it wasn't until the middle of the night she finally got out of her sleeping bag. She'd weed in it and I let her have mine.

The next day was agony.

More than half the water was gone. We had brought plenty, enough for five or more days with a maximum of four litres a person, more than enough. I know we had not taken as much, as the three litres we should have, each day. We only had ten litres left for each of us and no way was Sarita going to be able to travel soon and Abba? I dared not even think of him. He looked so bad, hardly moving at all and his skin was so clammy, his face thin and grey.

Sarita took charge now and still Abba hung on. What I was amazed to discover was that I had been ill for over two days before Sarita had felt bad. But how long had the other two been ill before I had awoken?

The only watch we had was mine and that had no date. How long had we been here? I daren't ask. I kept quiet as if by asking I was anticipating the end of our time here and the end of Abba's fight. No way was Sarita going to be fit to restart our progress and Abba? We took it in turns to cuddle against his body with only our sports knickers on. From sweating, he was now cold to the touch.

Sarita mumbled something about the fever having broken and she had no need to say anything more because it was evident that she was more concerned than ever about his progress.

The next day, after Sarita had come back to bed and jammed herself in Abba's sleeping bag, I really had to go out looking for more water. I took three empty water bottles in a small rucksack. This was my fault. I knew that, even now, I would find it difficult to pedal to the village. In fact, rather than go on my bike up to the road and back down again it was shorter to go across the fields by foot.

We could see a couple of roofs from outside the barn. The village was a mile or so away. If I got killed there, I deserved it.

On arriving, I discovered it consisted of no more than a dozen cottages strung out along a flattish bit of the steep road up the hill. I say flattish but that was only in relation to the other abrupt inclines around. Amongst the tiny farm labourers' cottages included one tiny stone building that had once been a post office, fifty years ago judging by the style of the fading sign.

I called out, not wanting to infect anyone. A young woman emerged from a cottage. "Don't come any nearer," I shouted, "I might have the plaguey thing."

"What do you want?"

I hardly remember the conversation but learnt that four women had come up here to the remote village to escape the sickness of their families. Here, more than half the village consisted of holiday cottages. All the men had died either before the others had left or after their arrival. They had brought bottled water but the inhabitants had insisted on their using the well-water which was well filtered by natural means, limestone.

(See, Sarita. I can write, putting this in a chronological context, just as well as you!)

The woman I was talking to was called Peggy; she and the young lad were the only ones who lived at Hillside regularly but his parents had died. Most of the other inhabitants were elderly and had been some of the first to succumb. There was another young woman who kept herself to herself because she was really devastated; her newly married husband had died on the way up here.

"Is there anything you want?" Peggy asked.

"We've been ill. There's three of us, we're short of water."

She saw the empty bottles I had, they were held in my hand. "Leave them there and we'll fill them up for you."

Some five minutes afterwards they came with a big glass demijohn*, the one-gallon type, not one of the more modern bigger 5-litre ones. She used it with a funnel to fill our bottles. It struck my mind that I had no idea where this water came from. It could be virus stuff. "Are you sure it's OK to drink?" My query was nervous, not wanting to offend them.

Peggy laughed and poured some in her mouth from on high and got mad as a splash spilled over her sweater. It wasn't the best thing to happen in the middle of winter but she laughed it off. I think she had said she lived up here permanently. In that case she must have been pretty hardy. It's not the type of place I'd like to live.

"We wet our sleeping bags." I knew when I said it, that if it had been a man he'd never have admitted that.

"No problem, we keep a load for when we have the family up in the summer. You're welcome. Three? I'll get the warmest we have. But I'm afraid they're not the best for the winter."

"Er, thanks. I don't think there's anything I can do for you but is there anything you need?"

She laughed wryly, "You haven't got some antibiotics have you? Janny's husband ran the car into her leg when he was ill and she's really bad. I went to the vet's but there were no drugs at all, no idea what had happened to them."

That must have been the fourth person who was not around. Or was there one other? I wasn't quite sure and didn't want to appear to be too inquisitive. If the one with the dead husband was that upset, it explained why she had stayed inside.

"I'll see what I can do." I hoped I could do better than antibiotics but Sarita was a very strong-minded woman. I never said anything about her being a doctor. She'd probably say it was too dangerous to come or she didn't have the right stuff. I still treated her a bit warily.

Purposefully, neither Peggy nor I approached too near to each other but they even put out six eggs and a plastic bottle full of fresh milk. I never said where we were staying and they never asked.

I tried my best not to break my eggs on the way back and learnt that I was still not very fit. Just that little trip took it out of me; I was puffed and aching by the time I got back to the barn and reported to Sarita. Even so, the little foray had been worthwhile. I had not appreciated how hard that 'fluey' thing hit people.

"Sarita, I think they need a doctor; it sounds a serious injury."

There wasn't a moment's hesitation but she did enquire as to how many people I had seen. "Do you think there were more hiding away?" Yep, she was wary too but the idea that some had stayed purposefully hidden, had never occurred to me.

"I think they were genuine and they did give us a little food. They had no need to."

She gave me a big hug. Grasping me so tightly I couldn't believe it, "Abba, he's coming round. He's feeling cold."

Cold? Freezing more like! Hey, I knew the feeling. The temperature had really dropped but then what do you expect half way up a hill in December? "You see to him," she wept and tears just streamed down my face as I hugged her and rushed to see how he was.

He was hardly awake and tired with an awful headache. Sarita had given him a powerful tablet for it and I was charged with seeing he drank and drank and if he wanted to pee, to use a water bottle. She had cut the top off a plastic one and I was to help him, being careful to see he didn't cut himself on the sharp plastic, his dick that is.

"I've got to hold his... ?"

She took that superior voice which I was starting to recognise. I thought originally she was really mixed up. One moment she was the Virgin of Jaipur, the next, an officious doctor. I had seen her as the weak needful patient and as a strong Boss Woman!

And with Abba, she was the weirdest. She cajoled him like his mother would and then the next moment she regarded him like an aged and revered uncle. I said as much to her.

"You stupid little bitch," she lectured, happily now. She wasn't nasty to me even though she called me a bitch. She was so pleased that Abba was on the mend, her eyes shone and she sort of glowed, "Look in the mirror some time."

"What?"

"The way you look at him as if he can do no wrong. Me! Saying, I revere him! Just look at yourself! And stop feeling so bloody guilty." she pronounced 'bloody' like, 'bluidy' and I later discovered she learned the expletive from an old physician who came from Scotland. Sarita did not often swear but, like each of us, the mental pressure on her us was almost unbearable a times.

Sorry I should keep to the point but it needed saying. Where was I?

Oh! Sarita! She was just going to sort out her medicines when she took the Mickey out of me; with that, "Why are you looking so guilty?"

I felt so stupid. I must have been acting like a lovesick schoolgirl around Abba. For a minute, I was embarrassed t acting like that. To hell with it! I did! I loved him like I loved my Jonty. Then, feeling guilty about Jonty, I recognised I loved Abba more than my favourite brother, who I'd known all my life.

And, thinking about Jonty, probably dead now, got me all morbid remembering Samantha.

I now told her all about finding Sam. I knew she was about to say, it did not matter, when Abba spoke up from within the tent for the first time. It frightened me. His voice was so weak and slow. He croaked, "I'd have done the same. It must have been terrible, the shock of seeing your friend dead, close up. Of course we'd all have done what you did, no different. Anyhow, it looks as if you did great; getting us ill with this strain of the virus. It probably means that we'll be immune from..."

He was so tired his voice just faded away and I looked into the tent to discover he was fast asleep again. We were both really upbeat now; our man had been awake and making sense.

I clambered inside through the zip and with my arms around him; Sarita and I caught each other's eye. This was OUR man whom we should look after.

Ever the professional, Sarita sorted him out into my sleeping bag now, bathing away his lower bits with warm water. That's where he had peed himself when we were all ill. And I'd not helped, had I? The others had looked after me when I was out of it and I hadn't thought about Sarita, so she was in a bit of a mess, a rash but she used some strong cream on her and Abba.

I learned then that they'd looked after me a whole two days before they had contracted the virus. My sleeping bag was dry because of that.

Sarita kept his damp sleeping bag. "The quality's too good to junk. I'm going to cut it up and throw away the worst affected bits and use it to replace mine." For the first time I saw what a mess hers was.

Fortunately the summer-weight ones did help. We really did need the warmth in this weather as it was getting colder.

I had to remind Sarita that she had been on her way to the village but Abba's being on the mend had put everything out of her mind.

"You can give Abba a tiny drop of the soup but I'll see if I can strain it first by pouring off the liquid into another cup for him. He's had this worse than us, I'm weak now. It'll be quite a few days for him to recover. Make him stay in bed whatever you do. He's recovering there. On no account do we want the virus to get another grip or for pneumonia to set in."

Sarita sorted out the sleeping bag, "You get in with him to keep him warm."

Stripping to my bra and knickers, I eased myself in a bit more self-consciously because, this time Abba opened his eyes. He knew I had almost no clothes on. I put my arms around him and he just closed his eyes and dropped to sleep. I had to waken him up to feed him sips of the soup when Sarita had heated it up.

The next time I looked around, she was off, searching through her medical things.

I only heard later that she'd got kitted up, facemask, rubber gloves and the lot. On her instructions, to keep from infecting the woman with the wounded leg, the inhabitants of the cottages gave her torn sheets to cover her clothes with too. The villagers had carried the patient, Janny, to another house and Sarita had confirmed the bone was not broken, as far as she could ascertain. The car had pushed her against a broken hinge and forced her along a rusted piece of metal.

From all accounts Sarita used a morphine derivative from the pharmacist's to stop the pain and waited until the effects were active as she had no local anaesthetic. Then she had really cleaned out the cut and cut away a now big flap of dead skin.

She admitted the wound was badly infected but was confident the antibiotics should clear it up.

Then she had dispensed the relevant antibiotic at the correct dosage and she sutured* up the nasty gash before telling them how to dress it and keep it immobile. She had promised to go back later.

When she got back to us in the barn, she almost fell into the tent and her bed with exhaustion. I felt bad then. She gave me such a glare, "You should have got your kit off. He needs all your body heat. What are you, a pansy?"

She glowered at me as I removed my bra and then she held out her hand for my knickers. I slept nude, next to him on one side and Sarita was fast asleep, naked, behind him. My arms held him close. I never knew I was so tired. I thought I'd be self-conscious when he woke up but I wasn't at all. In fact, I was proud to ease myself out of the bed not stopping my boobs from rubbing along his face. It caused a great big grin on his face. I felt good.

He started to move to get out of bed. "I need a pee."

That was as far as he got before Sarita reached over and passed the empty cut-off water bottle to me. I pulled the sleeping bag down and was passing the container to Abba to pee when Madame Bossy ups and stares at me, "Don't be silly," she snorted, "he's still too far out of it, to aim properly. What do you think you are doing? Hold it. We've only just got a dry bed, don't be a pansy. Hold his todger," she corrected me."

He was lying on his side facing me and she peered over his shoulder. I felt his cock get firmer as I held it and I daren't look up. I just knew she was chortling at me.

I cleaned him up and passed the bottle back to Sarita and caught Abba looking at me. "You really are beautiful," he said. "I dreamt of those boo... ," and promptly fell asleep.

The next few days were a blur. For the first two, Bossy always told me aloud to sleep starkers* next to our man. "Keep him warm." Oh, she slept one side of him and me the other. By now I was less shy than I'd ever been with a man. My feelings towards him went from gratitude to guilt to affection and I knew that if it were just he and I, then I'd be in love with him.

I would kiss him awake in the morning and when I got into bed.

It got so I was jumping into bed before Sarita had a chance to exert her bossiness. We knew as the sun went down at three o clock Abba got cold and it was my turn first. Eh, I liked Abba and at first he was self-conscious then he just enveloped me in his arms and we cuddled up. At night, he mostly slept on his left side so he faced me more than Sarita but she would get in my place when there was just one of us.

Secretly, I gauged how much better my man was by how much he reacted when I got into bed. I knew he was getting better because Day Three of recovery, my bottom woke up to a very strong protuberance sticking into it. I started to feel a bit randy for the first time; I'd never even thought of being sexy in these conditions.

Doctor Bossy saw what was happening straight away. As I was making breakfast Sarita eased up next to me, "Sorry, but NO humping him yet, I can see you want to."

She was jealous of me, going to keep him for herself. "I can hardly stop myself too. But he needs all his energy to get over this debilitating bout," a new word for me, that. I'd not heard it before; 'debilitating'.

Of course, the next day he wanted to get up and leave late the following night. I never knew a woman could be so adamant. "I've two patients here and if I leave now, either of them could be dead; you stay one more day, minimum, in bed. You can get up the next day and we'll see how you are. No way, are you going to leave here and you start careering around the countryside and have a relapse. Your antibodies are down; hypothermia, pneumonia, pleurisy, in your condition, they're all possibilities and any one could prove deadly. You've got to let the antibodies beat this viral thing we've all had.

It wasn't her bossiness that sent him back to the bed. It was the way she almost choked up with the tears in her eyes convinced him.

The next day I insisted on going to the village see if the patient was getting any better. When I told them that Sarita was still asleep and she'd over-tired herself the young lad, he was about eleven, and the bereaved bride, that was Brenda, insisted on making up a jug of fresh vegetable soup, very thin. There was bacon and potatoes and even a joint of meat to make a fresh stew.

We had bacon and eggs and little bits of potatoes fried in the bacon fat, it was delicious with a tin of tomatoes.

Abba woke up with the smell but he had to make do with thin soup before he fell back asleep and this time he was sleeping properly, his temperature not much above normal.

Later in the day, Abba had some mashed-up potatoes and the tomatoes but not the bacon. I think that was the very best meal of my life, not least because I helped Abba to eat bits. He was eating!

I don't think we noticed how dirty the barn was.

The next day, I showed Abba the bicycle satnav. He spent hours playing with it. He could do that in his sleeping bag and Sarita was happy. I noticed, every so often, he lay down, fast asleep.

Later, he needed the battery recharging. I had to go out on the bike and dynamo it back up to power. It did me good getting on the bike; the hill was steeper than I thought or my legs were weaker!

He liked it when it was working again. I'm glad I got it, men and their toys! Next, I showed him the small walkie-talkies. They weren't that good and by experimenting we discovered that they only worked over a maximum of less than half a mile and they were designed to be used with earphones, though you had to bend down low over handlebars to speak.

We soon sorted out that we could communicate easily by a coded system of clicks.

"Click, click ... click, click ... click, click," this meant we wanted to talk on the radio. It was based on the telephone rings in England that go, "ring, ring ... ring, ring ... ring, ring."

"Click, click, click, click, click;" five clicks meant we wanted look for a place to stop.

Any other clicks meant that there was danger and watch out!

Late that afternoon, Sarita let him up for an hour and he insisted on showing us his Robin Hood toys, as Sarita called them.

It got him annoyed because Robin Hood had a longbow and this, he taught us, was a recurve bow. He gave us each a crossbow that had a handle like a rifle. Both Sarita and I preferred it.

"Why are we playing with these toys?"

That got him going. "These aren't toys. These can be used for hunting. They will bring down a large stag or kill a man. I'm not having either of you two defenceless."

I knew I'd never fire it at a man. Sarita was even more adamant.

Abba glared at both of us. "I'll not move from here until you can both hit that cardboard target, four times out of five when it's set the same distance as that tree is."

A few minutes later Sarita whispered, "Humour him. We'll use any excuse to keep him here. He's itching to move on and no way is he fit enough. See, even coming to the door of the barn, he has to lean against the wall?"

I couldn't help but agree. Though I was feeling better, I was still under the weather and we both decided to be attentive to his lessons. I, first of all asked, "Why, if the crossbow is the most powerful, why do you use that other one?"

At times he spoke in a foreign language, talking about quarrels and bolts and nocking the arrow into the bowstring. He insisted we shoot with his recurve bow, and recognised which way to hold the arrow with the fletching of the of the cock feathers in the right position. Now if you understand all that... ? I think I got most of it but Sarita!

But it was the crossbow we both found easier to us. We learned the right way to cock. We found we could easily draw back the string by putting our foot in the stirrup on the ground and spanning it. That's a new word for me. Well lots of them were. He got very particular over using the right terminology. I suppose he was right but he was a bit short-tempered. Sarita laughed it off, "He typifies a recuperating male, impatient patient"

Yep, I worked it out.

Using the trigger, we found it much easier than drawing a bow using your arm-strength. We soon found that we had to allow for the windage and the further we fired, the more we had to be aware of the direction and force of the wind up here, on the high pastures. It was more difficult for Abba. His arrows were lighter than our bolts and floated off more, particularly if it was gusty.

We learned how to sight our own weapons and how to shoot it from the hip in an emergency. Then I took a load of thin plywood off-cuts that we found around one side of the barn and placed them forty paces out. They were about a foot long and I jammed them in the ground in front of small bank

We had to aim at the top of the plywood. If the quarrel went past we had a problem digging them out of the earth. Some of the quarrels hit the wood and went right through. If they did that, he insisted we check the flights and he showed us how to put in new feathers before we loaded them again.

"Later, I'll give you a demonstration how to make the flights," he promised but we saw no reason for this interest in fletching.

At the end of the third day, Sarita was fed up of digging her quarrels and his arrows out of the field. She decided to use the trunk of a tree as a target and shot at the tree trunk that was about fifty or sixty paces away.

Though she was pleased she'd hit it, he went berserk. I didn't know why, THEN!

"Now go and get it out," he ordered.

She came back without the quarrel, really upset. "I see what you mean," she apologised. It had sunk inches deep into the wood and there was no way of getting it out.

"That's why you're practising," he said severely. "You want it to go that deep in any one attacking you. You shoot to kill or you're dead, no friendly neighbourhood bobby* to come along and smack the naughty ones on the wrist."

It hit us then how he was looking after our interests.

The next morning, after breakfast, Sarita admitted that Abba was getting better much quicker than expected. He did some of his dancing, very slowly too. Neither of us had seen it before and we found it elegant, like a slow ballet.

By this time Sarita, we kidded her, had been practising her suturing. She had cannibalised one of the excellent sleeping bags and we completely sorted them out, making one large triple. This utilised the spare bits from Abba's.

That afternoon, he'd not a had a rest since breakfast and she insisted, "Abba, get your clothes off, doctor's orders. You need an afternoon nap."

Then she whispered to me. "You, my girl, have some making up to do. You get in that sleeping bag with him and give him the best cuddle you can." Then she poked her head around the tent as I was stripped to my undies.

I was just getting in when I was shocked out of my skin, "You dirty little girl; you dare sleep in my new sleeping bag with dirty clothes on. Get them off."

My first reaction was to be antagonistic towards her until my glare reached her grinning face.

I didn't know whether to be shy or bold, nervous or angry. Abba tried not to look at me but Sarita's head poked through the zip of the tent. "Abba Shaw," she commanded.

Was that his name?

"Abba Shaw, don't you dare embarrass your second girlfriend by not admiring her body. She's pretty enough for you to say she looks attractive, isn't she?"

"Does she have to get into... " he started

"You dare refuse your girlfriend's company? She's been dying to cuddle you. You never complained when you were poorly and had to be kept warm. Now, you treat her with respect."

I was mortified. It looked as if I'd asked to get in his sleeping bag.

The whole idea of meeting somebody intimately to talk to alone for the first time, without anything on and touching him was frightening. What was Sarita playing at?

I just went dumbstruck!

We still persuaded him that it was two full days before we could go on our way and we insisted he practise cycling slowly both days. I knew Doc wanted to wait until she could take the stitches out of Janny's leg. As they were not sewn with proper suturing thread she was concerned there might be problem. In the event, she took them out the next day and insisted that Janny did not stretch her leg at all for a few more days and even kept it bandaged just to ensure it was allowed to go on healing.

From the hamlet, Sarita came back with more food. She went with me for short cycle ride and took the opportunity to let me know, "I'm keeping out of the way, early evening. See Abba's been pedalling too hard. You give him that massage you missed out on and do a proper job of it this time."

We both know it wasn't just a massage on the menu. She knew I wanted to. I asked her, "Are you sure the thingamajig's still there?"

Laughingly she answered, "I told you so. You can't feel a thing, can you? Yes, you're OK."

I was all set for it. The moment she toddled off to the village, it happened. I had just got Abba lying on his belly and was gently rubbing his calf muscles when I flipping well knew what it was. "Back in a second," I breezed. I know I sounded more upbeat than I felt.

BLOODY HELL! Never! There was I, rushing around for my tampons. Course, I'd been too ill to take my tablets and Sarita said later the illness had played havoc with my cycle. If only it had been delayed one more day! I just went back to Abba and ended up in tears. I hadn't the heart to tell him what was upsetting me.

Sarita laughed and I knew she was going to take advantage of my misfortune but this was the last day. After breakfast I went off on a walk on my own. For the first time, I examined that crossbow bolt. No wonder it couldn't be extracted. It really was lost, buried right into the trunk of the tree. There was no way that it could be pulled out or even dug out.

Now we understood why he had got the toys. For a country where firearms are prohibited, these were dangerous weapons, to be used to defend ourselves.

Having seen the violence of some people, we realised Abba couldn't be there to defend us at all times. OK, they were not always the best thing to use but they were deadly. They were a bit cumbersome and in these damp conditions we had to be careful of the bowstrings even those made of Dacron.

Oh thank goodness Abba can take up the story. I was going on another red herring

Abba

I'd better take up the story again. I'd been out of it for some time. Sarita said that Kari was more relaxed and her version was good but Kari couldn't describe what happened after we arrived at the barn.

It must be a pain if anyone ever reads this and has to go back to the day we arrived at the barn but it needs saying.

No sooner had we erected the tent in the corner of the old barn when the wind started up. The first thing we did was take out one of Maddie's frozen dinners; it was a spaggy bol*.