The last time she’d made a field trip with a hospital team had been out to the London bombings, back in 2005. There had been carnage. Injured people lying in the streets. Blood. Screams. She shuddered just remembering it.
What would they find in Mosa? A whole village wiped out? One or two people ill? Everyone healthy?
She hoped for the latter. Steepling her hands, she closed her eyes and began to pray to whatever god might be listening.
* * *
The Serendipity had a truck. Quinn and Tasha sat up front and two of the ship’s nurses sat in the back, along with all the medical equipment and drugs they might need. It was a two-hour drive to the village from Ntembe, and if they got out there by mid-afternoon they could have everyone vaccinated by late evening—in time to drive home again. If people were sick they’d brought tents to stay in overnight.
Quinn was driving, his muscular forearms wrestling with the wheel as it reacted to the rough road surface.
‘So, tell me something good.’
Tasha looked across at him. Something good? Sure. She could do that. In fact she yearned to make him see that she was happy and successful. That what he’d done had not had any profound effect on her life. That it had not left her scrambling for any scraps of self-esteem she might have had left. Yes, he’d torn her down, but she had rebuilt herself and done so in spite of him.
‘Qualifying as a teacher was a good day.’
He smiled, nodding. ‘That’s great! Which uni did you go to?’
‘I did my PGCE at Kingston.’
‘Fantastic! You must have felt very proud when you passed.’
She had. But not as proud as she had been when she’d qualified as a doctor. That had been after many years of hard work—not just one. But he didn’t know that teaching had been her second choice. Her fall-back position.
‘It was a lot of hard work. Lots of essays.’
‘Universities do like those essays and dissertations.’ He smiled again. ‘Tell me what it felt like the first time you had to stand in front of a class of kids.’
She sighed, thinking back to her first placement. The one that had almost made her quit. The out-of-control kids, their jeering and taunts. It had reminded her of how she’d felt once before.
‘The first one was awful. They send you out on two-week placements during training. It was like putting a kitten in front of a pack of baying, rabid dogs. The students were awful. Teenage boys. Laughing and disrespectful. On my first day I ended up running from the room in tears.’
She didn’t add that she’d felt particularly raw to teasing from teenage boys. Surely he must understand that? That she’d been weakened by him from the get-go and had never stood a chance? How it had made her feel like she was Nit-Nat all over again.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It wasn’t your fault, was it?’
But maybe it was? Maybe he’d made her ripe for the picking? Those boys had sensed her nerves. Her weakness. One of her first lecturers had talked about showing no fear. Said that some kids were like packs of hyenas, looking to wear a newbie teacher down.
‘No, but...’
‘My second placement was much better. Great kids—attentive. Determined to do well. The contrast in the two places really surprised me, but it was a lesson for me to persevere. I could so easily have given up after that first experience, but I think, in a way, that you toughened me up. I was determined to carry on and succeed. Lippy teenage boys weren’t going to ruin my life.’
He nodded. Smiled. ‘Lippy teenage boys are mostly cowards. Perhaps the only way they knew to deal with someone better than them, was to try and tear them down.’
She smiled back. ‘Well, they failed.’
‘I’m very glad to hear it.’ He was solemn.
‘What was it like the first time you had to treat a patient?’
He laughed, clearly relieved that the conversation had taken a brighter turn. ‘Awful! I took the patient’s history okay, but then I had to take a blood sample. Something I’d done in practice many times, that I thought I was good at, but I couldn’t find a vein. The guy was like a voodoo doll by the time I’d finished with him.’
She smiled, imagining it. Remembering the first time she’d taken blood from a real, live patient. She’d actually done okay, even though her hands had been shaking with nerves. And her patient, a wonderful old lady, had been so kind to her. ‘Everyone has to learn, ducky,’ she’d said.
‘Ever lost someone?’
The question just came out, and the second it did—the second she realised what she’d said out loud—her cheeks flamed hot. Why had she said that? Why had she asked? Of course he was going to say yes. Every doctor had had someone die on them.
‘Too many,’ he answered politically. Non-specific. No details. Answering but not telling her anything. ‘It’s hard. You tell yourself you’re ready. Your lecturers and mentors try to prepare you. But...’
Tasha stared at the road ahead, terracotta sand and rocks, scrubby bushes and thorny trees. A chorus of insects could be heard faintly above the roar of the engine.
‘You can never be ready for loss.’
She looked at him. At the rigid set of his bristled jaw. His knuckles tight upon the steering wheel. He’d been the one who had first introduced her to loss. To pain and grief. She’d thought she’d known what that was, not having parents. But he’d provided her with insight into another kind with his hurtful words.
Perhaps he was right? Perhaps he had been a coward? Afraid to let his friend Dex see him as someone else.
‘No,’ she answered. ‘You can’t.’
* * *
The village of Mosa hoved into view just after four in the afternoon. It wasn’t big—twenty or thirty homes at the most. Large brown cattle grazed by the side of the dirt road and the villagers working in the fields stopped their work to stare at the truck as they drove past. They probably didn’t get a lot of visitors.
Quinn parked the truck and they all got out gladly, pleased to stretch their legs and work the kinks from their muscles. It hadn’t been a long drive, but it had been a hot one, with the air-conditioning in the truck temperamental.
Tasha smiled at one of the villagers. ‘Hello. My name is Tasha, and this is Dr Shapiro and his two nurses. We’re looking for Ada Balewa.’
The villager stared at her for a moment, and then silently pointed to a hut further down.
She beamed a smile. ‘Thank you.’
Together they walked down the track, towards the primitive hut that had been indicated.
‘Ada Balewa?’ she called out.
A small woman emerged from the depths of the hut, wrapped in a brown dress, frowning. ‘Yes? Ah! Miss Tasha!’
Tasha smiled and greeted Ada with a hug. ‘You’re looking well.’
The other woman frowned again. ‘Yes, I am, but I do not think that is why you are here.’
This was the part that Tasha had been dreading.
‘Abeje is poorly. She was bitten by a mosquito and now she’s sick with malaria. We have her in a hospital ship, but we thought maybe there might be some other people sick here. Can you tell us if anyone has a fever?’
Ada