of floppy hair which she had adored in Robbie Williams in her teenage years. She became aware that they were staring at each other, holding the gaze for longer than was strictly necessary.
Dr Wilson cleared his throat, and took a ballpoint pen out of the breast pocket of his lab coat. Kate was pleased to notice that he didn’t have a whole row of pens, like most of her fellow biochemists at Oxford had. She glanced down at his feet, and was even more relieved to see trendy Adidas trainers, rather than the green towelling socks and open-toed sandals which she was beginning to fear might be the actual uniform for the profession.
‘Now, if we could just go through this basic health questionnaire . . . Do sit down.’ He pointed towards the edge of the bed, as he turned the chair at the desk around to face her. ‘Have you ever had any of the following: Mumps? Measles? Influenza? Chicken pox? Pneumonia?’
‘No, no, yes, yes, no,’ said Kate obediently, looking at Dr Wilson’s slim hands as he ticked boxes. The list went on and on, until Kate found herself tuning out and answering automatically, whilst unable to take her eyes off him.
‘Any other illnesses so far not mentioned?’
Kate tuned back in. ‘Oh. Yes. When I was twelve, I had the Watoto Virus.’
Dr Wilson sat up. ‘Really? Good grief. That’s rare. I’ve never met anybody else who’s had that. You were lucky to survive.’
‘I know. Apparently it was touch and go for a while. We were living in Africa at the time. My parents both died from it. My sister was the only one who didn’t contract it.’
‘It’s an extremely nasty one, isn’t it?’
Kate managed not to allow her voice to betray the pain she felt whenever she talked about the virus. ‘Yes – the name comes from the Swahili word for children because the first victims were at a school near the River Nile in Kenya.
‘We were in Tanzania. There had been a few outbreaks close to the Nile over the last fifty years: Tanzania, Uganda, Egypt, and Rwanda, I think. My parents had taken me and my sister out of school for a year while they were working in a village for an international aid organisation. We just happened to be there when an epidemic broke out. It killed dozens of people in the village. It was really bad timing.’
Stephen had stopped writing notes. He jiggled his biro between his teeth and regarded her with sympathy and something akin to awe.
‘I’ve read about it. It’s like Ebola, only with airborne transmission?’
Kate shuddered, recalling the symptoms she’d watched her parents suffer, writhing on their camp beds in the hut, right up to the point of haemorrhage.
‘Flu-like to start with, fever, coughing, sneezing – then the bloody vomiting and diarrhoea. Luckily for me, the aid agency airlifted my sister and me across the border to a hospital in Nairobi. Miranda was quarantined and never contracted it, and I managed to survive after a good few weeks on a drip. It’s got an eighty per cent fatality rate, so we were both incredibly lucky.’
Stephen exhaled loudly. ‘You’re an optimist, aren’t you? I would say that you were incredibly unlucky to have got it in the first place.’
‘Wrong time, wrong place, I suppose. Lucky that I didn’t actually watch them die . . .’ Her voice cracked and tailed off, and she looked away, embarrassed.
‘I’m really sorry about your parents,’ he said.
‘Thanks, Doctor,’ she replied awkwardly.
‘Please, call me Stephen.’
‘Really?’ Kate was genuinely surprised. That seemed very informal. Perhaps . . . Oh no, don’t be silly, she told herself. He couldn’t possibly fancy her this immediately, could he? She didn’t believe in love at first sight . . . but he was definitely having a very strange effect on her.
Dr Wilson – Stephen, thought Kate, trying out his name in her head and liking the way it felt – cleared his throat. ‘Well – yes – Stephen’s fine . . . although perhaps not when there are other people around . . . One more question, by the way, I forgot to ask earlier: marital status?’
He met her eyes again, slowly, and Kate’s heart started hammering so hard that she was glad she was already sitting on the edge of the bed. She couldn’t help glancing behind her at its crisp white pillowcase and hospital waffle-weave blanket, and then blushed, in case he realised she was imagining them rolling around on it.
‘Single,’ she said firmly. ‘Definitely . . . single.’
They chatted a little more about Kate’s illness, and Stephen visibly relaxed, becoming more animated and lively. He was gorgeous, Kate thought. Did he talk to all the young, attractive-ish women like this, or was it just her?
Somehow she knew it was just her.
‘Right, let’s get your blood sample, so we can analyse it this afternoon.’
He tied a length of black rubber tubing above her left elbow, gently holding her forearm and peering at the veins that sprang up thick and red. At his touch Kate’s skin broke out in goosepimples.
‘Now, this’ll just be a little prick – uh, I mean, a small scratch.’ Kate swallowed hard and looked over his shoulder, in order to stop a smirk escaping. His hands were shaking very slightly, but nonetheless Kate barely felt a thing as he slid the needle into her vein. They both watched in silence as the syringe filled with viscous dark blood.
‘All done,’ he said, expertly removing the needle, sealing the tube and labelling it, then sticking a tiny round plaster on the soft skin inside Kate’s elbow. ‘Since you aren’t yet in quarantine, you can go to the dining room for your supper at six. I think most of the others here are already quarantined, so you might be on your own. If you could read the instructions in that folder, that’ll explain the rules about contact with the other patients, and what you are and aren’t allowed to do if and when we give you a cold.’
‘If ?’
‘Yes – we don’t give a cold to everyone who comes here; you might be part of a control group. Oh, your room-mate should be along this afternoon too. You’ve got a lady called . . .’ He consulted his clipboard, ‘. . . Mrs Harrington. Georgina Harrington. She’s in her fifties so don’t go having any wild parties and keeping her up all night, will you?’
Any disappointment that Kate might have felt about having a room-mate so much older than her was instantly diminished by the way he was smiling.
‘No wild parties?’ she queried, straight-faced. ‘But what on earth will I do to stop myself getting bored while I’m here?’ He slowly reached out and touched the back of her hand with his forefinger.
‘I can promise you won’t get bored. At least not on my shifts, anyway.’
After he’d gone, Kate lay back on her bed replaying the entire meeting in her mind, a huge smile spread over her face. She couldn’t believe what he’d said to her – nor what she’d said to him. It wasn’t at all like her to be so forward and flirty. There was just something about Stephen Wilson and his blond floppy hair and the way he looked at her with those big brown eyes . . .
She changed her mind about going for a walk, and retreated into the bathroom again, this time to pluck
