‘I don’t think I am either. But why I’m here, how I survived, I can’t tell you. And, like I said, Dr Chris didn’t know either. I got to know him quite well. We talked a lot. Well, he talked a lot. My throat hurt too much to mumble more than a few words at a time. The grown-ups had squeezed it, strangling me. They’d squeezed it and bitten it, and tried to rip my windpipe out.

‘Chris told us something of what was going on outside, how things were just getting worse and worse. I guess I wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for him. Everything he did for me. And at first it was taking it out of him. Each day he was paler and thinner and darker around the eyes. He’d managed to stockpile some food when it had all kicked off, but it was steadily running out. He was giving us most of it, not eating much himself. He started to get spots and sores. I didn’t know if it was the disease or if he was just getting run-down. He was always coughing.

‘And then one night he was acting all crazy and manic, like he was high, might have been drunk for all I knew, or raiding his drugs cabinet. After that he seemed to turn around, started getting a little stronger. He started shaving and washing, became quite, you know, optimistic. I told myself that he was going to pull through. I didn’t know then that there’s no cure. You don’t get better.

‘Me and Abby, though, it gave us hope that maybe not everyone was going to die from the sickness. That guys like the doctor would be OK. He’d tell us, when we played cards, he’d say, “Look at me. I’ve beaten it.”

‘He hadn’t beaten it. It was starting to eat away at him. You’d catch him looking at you funny. His eyes all swivelling around. And he’d say weird, random things. Made no sense. And you’d say, “What?” and he’d just laugh – “Nothing” – like it was nothing. But it wasn’t nothing. After a few days of washing and shaving, he stopped. Started getting careless, his clothes dirtier and dirtier, his hands not clean and his hair all greasy. His eyes, they got shiny. He was shaking. And one day he left Tommy’s room unlocked and I went in to see if he was all right.’

Malik stopped. His last few words had been shaky.

‘Was it bad?’ Ella asked, and at first Malik didn’t say anything. He just squeezed her hand.

And then he carried on …

Chapter 20

20