Graham Masterton: Plague

Dr. Petrie checked his watch. 'Ten minutes. But I like to go a little early. Margaret has a habit of making her wait outside the house.'

'I don't know why you stand for it,' said Adelaide tartly, crossing her long brown legs. Dr. Petrie shrugged.

'If I was you,' said Adelaide, 'I'd march right in there and beat the living shit out of Margaret. And that flea-bitten dog of hers.'

Dr. Petrie glanced across at Adelaide and smiled a resigned smile. 'If you'd paid out as much money as I have — just to get free from a wife you didn't want any more — then you'd be quite satisfied with paying your alimony, seeing your kid, and keeping your mouth shut,' he said gently.

Adelaide looked sulky. 'I still think you ought to break the door down and smash her into a pulp,' she said, with emphatic, youthful venom.

Dr. Petrie swung the Lincoln left into Collins Avenue. 'That's what I like about you,' he said. 'You're so shy and ladylike.'

He switched on the car radio. There was a burst of music, and then someone started talking about this year's unusual tides and weather conditions, and the strange flotsam and jetsam that was being washed up on the shores of the East Coast. A coastguard and a medical officer were discussing the appearance of unsavory bits and pieces around Barnes Sound and Old Rhodes Key.

'I'm not prepared right now to identify this washed-up material,' said the medical officer, 'but we have had complaints that it contains raw sewage, in the shape of sanitary napkins, faecal matter and diapers. We have no idea where the material is coming from, but we believe it to be a completely isolated incident.'

Adelaide promptly switched the car radio off. 'We're just about to have dinner,' she protested. 'The last thing I want to hear about is sewage.'

Dr. Petrie glanced in his mirror and pulled out to overtake a slow-moving truck. 'One of my patients complained this morning… She said she went down for a swim, and found her whole beach smothered in shit.'

'Oh, Jesus,' said Adelaide, wrinkling up her nose.

Dr. Petrie grinned. 'It's pretty revolting, isn't it? Maybe we're learning that what the Bible said was right. Throw your sewage on to the waters, and it shall come back to you.'

'I don't think that's funny,' said Adelaide. 'This is supposed to be the great American resort. I make my living out of people coming down here and playing tennis and swimming and having a good time. Who's going to come down here to paddle in diapers and sanitary napkins?'

Dr. Petrie shrugged. 'Well, it hasn't killed anyone yet.'

'How do you know? They might have swum out there and sunk without trace.'

'Listen,' said Dr. Petrie, 'more people die from bad food in restaurants than ever die of pollution in the sea. You get uneducated kitchen staff who don't wash their hands, and before you know where you are, you've got yourself a king-size dose of hepatitis.'

'Leonard, darling,' said Adelaide, acidly, 'I wish you wouldn't play doctors all the time. For once, I wish I was cooking my own supper.'

Margaret Petrie lived in what their divorce attorneys called the marital residence out on North Miami Beach. Dr. Petrie said nothing at all as he piloted the Lincoln down the familiar streets, and up to the white ranch-style house with its stunted palms and its small, neatly-trimmed lawn. It was here, in this quiet suburb, that he had first set up in medical practise eight years ago. It was here that he had worked and struggled to woo the wealthier and more socially elevated sick.

It was here, too, that Margaret and he had gradually discovered that they no longer had anything in common but a marriage license. Uneasy affection had degenerated into impatience, bickering and intolerance. It had been a messy, well-publicized, and very expensive divorce.

As Dr. Petrie pulled the Lincoln into the kerb, he remembered what Margaret had shrieked at him, at the top of her voice, as he drove away for the last time. 'If you want to spend the rest of your life sticking your fingers up rich old ladies, then go away and don't come back!'

That remark, he thought to himself, summed up everything that was wrong with their marriage. Margaret, from a well-heeled family of local Republicans, had never wanted for money or material possessions. His own deep and restless anxiety for wealth was something she couldn't understand at all. To her, the way that he pandered to rich old widows was a prostitution of his medical talents, and she had endlessly nagged him to give up Miami Beach and go north. 'Be famous,' she used to say, 'be respected.'

It only occurred to him much later that she really did hunger for fame. She had fantasies of being interviewed by McCall's and Redbook — the wonderful wife of the well-known doctor. What she really wanted him to do was discover penicillin or transplant hearts, and on the day that he had realized that, he had known for sure that their marriage could never work.

Priscilla, as usual, was waiting at the end of the drive, sitting on her suitcase. She was a small, serious girl of six. She had long, honey-coloured hair, and an oval, unpretty face.

Dr. Petrie got out of the car, glancing towards the house. He was sure that he saw a curtain twitch.

'Hallo, Prickles,' he said quietly.

She stood up, grave-faced, and he leaned over and kissed her. She smelled of her mother's perfume.

'I made a monster in school,' she said, blinking.

He picked up her case and stowed it away in the Lincoln's trunk. 'A monster? What kind of a monster?'

Priscilla bit her lip. 'A cookie monster. Like in Sesame Street. It was blue and it had two ping-pong balls for its eyes and a furry face.'

'Did you bring it with you?'

Priscilla shook her head. 'Mommy didn't like it. Mommy doesn't like Sesame Street.'

Dr. Petrie opened the car door and pushed his seat forward so that Priscilla could climb into the back. Adelaide said, 'Hi, Prickles. How are you, darling?' and Priscilla replied, 'Okay, thanks.'

Dr. Petrie shut his door, started up the engine, and turned the Lincoln around.

'Did you have to wait out there long?' he asked Priscilla.

'Not long,' the child answered promptly. He knew that she never liked to let her mother down.

'What happened to the cookie monster?' he asked. 'Did Mommy throw it away?'

'It was a mistake,' said Prickles, with a serious expression. 'Cookie fell into the garbage pail by mistake, and must've gotten thrown away.'

'A mistake, huh?' said Dr. Petrie, and blew his horn impatiently at an old man on a bicycle who was wavering around in front of him.

They had chicken and pineapple from the Polynesian restaurant, and then they sat around and watched television. It was late now, and the sky outside was dusky blue. Prickles had changed into her long pink nightdress, and she sat on the floor in front of the TV, brushing her doll's hair and tying it up with elastic bands.

Right in the middle of the last episode of the serial, the telephone bleeped. Dr. Petrie had his arm around Adelaide and his left leg hooked comfortably over the side of the settee, and he cursed under his breath.

'I should've been an ordinary public official,' he said, getting up. He set down his glass of chilled daiquiris, and padded in his socks across to the telephone table. 'At least ordinary public officials don't get old ladies calling them up in the middle of the evening, complaining about their surgical corsets. Hallo?'

It wasn't an old lady complaining about her surgical corset — it was Anton Selmer. He sounded oddly anxious and strained, as if he wasn't feeling well. As a rule, he liked to swap a few jokes when he called up, but tonight he was grave and quiet, and his voice was throaty with worry.

'Anton?' said Dr. Petrie. 'What's the matter? You sound upset.'

'I am upset. I just came back from the bacteriological lab.'