Page 123 of Duplicity

I glance at Marlowe. She’s in shorts and a thin tank top and no bra, none of which is remotely helpful. I avert my eyes and focus on Tabs. ‘I took your mum out last night, and I wanted to have a sleepover so I could see you this morning.’ There’s definitely no upside in mentioning any security issues to a kid her age. ‘What’s up with you? You not feeling too good?’

‘She’s got a fever,’ Marlowe says, sticking a little plastic cup on the end of a thermometer. ‘It doesn’t feel too bad, but let’s see…’

She sticks the device in Tabby’s ear and it beeps. ’Thirty-eight-point-two.’ She grimaces.

‘Is that bad, Mummy?’ Tabs asks with an adorable little hiccup-slash-sob.

‘It’s not too bad,’ Marlowe tells her with a kiss to her temple, ‘But it tells me your body is heating up so it can try to kill some germs.’ She chews the inside of her cheek. ‘I don’t know if the GP surgery is open on the weekend, though…’

I immediately spot a way to add value. ‘Sod that. I’ll organise a house visit.’

‘But…’ she begins, and I shake my head at her. Now is not the time for pride. ‘Consider it sorted.’

I pull up the number for the private on-call GP service I use. It’s part of the obscenely top-end health cover I have. They guarantee house calls within the hour—in theory, anyway.

‘I need an urgent visit for an eight-year-old,’ I tell them. ‘She’s running a fever and she had a pulmonary valve replacement operation around three weeks ago. How soon can you get someone here?’

I hand the phone over to Marlowe to provide more medical and location details and run my hand through my hair as I blow out a breath. How quickly these terrifying medical terms insert themselves into our vernacular. Marlowe sounds like a cardiothoracic surgeon right now.

In the hour that we’re waiting for the doctor to show up, I call the concierge in my building and ask him to bike over a few bits and pieces for me to wear so I don’t have to spend the day in last night’s clothes. I look like I’m about to do the walk of shame, which is very fucking ironic given I had precisely no action last night.

Tabs wanders out of her room as I’m putting the cushions back on the sofa. ‘Where did you sleep?’

‘On the floor. I was too big for the sofa.’ She smiles, and I consider it a win. I scoop her up into my arms. That’s better. She’s light as a feather.

‘How’s your tummy? Is that sick too? Do you think you could eat some pancakes?’

I have just enough time to make us all some pancakes, take a shower in Marlowe’s bathroom, which is spotlessly clean but has Third World levels of water pressure, and throw on the shorts and t-shirt my concierge team has delivered when the doctor shows up. She sits at the kitchen table with Marlowe and Tabby while I hover uselessly, sipping on my cup of tea. It was that or instant coffee.

‘How are you feeling, Tabby?’ she asks.

‘Yucky and shivery,’ Tabs says. ‘Everything hurts.’

The doctor hums sympathetically. ‘That’s no fun, is it? And you had a big operation a few weeks ago, didn’t you? How long ago, precisely?’

‘Twenty days ago,’ Marlowe supplies. She has Tabs on her lap. She gives the doctor a brief, calm rundown on the details of the operation.

‘Okay, Tabby, I’m going to listen to your heart now,’ the doctor says. She takes her stethoscope and listens for a few moments before frowning. ‘Can you show me your hands?’

The room is silent as she inspects Tabby’s fingernails—for what I don’t know.

‘I can’t be sure, but given Tabby has recently had a valve replacement, it could be endocarditis.’ She pauses. ‘Did the surgical team mention this as something to watch out for in the weeks following the operation?’

Marlowe and I glance at each other. I was with her and Tabs for the entire discharge process.

‘An infection?’ I recall.

‘Exactly.’ She pauses. ‘Her fever’s not too bad, but I’m detecting a slight murmur in her heart.’

Marlowe lets out a strangled sigh and holds Tabby tighter.

‘She’s also showing some tiny splinter haemorrhages under her fingernails,’ the doctor explains. ‘There can be other reasons for them to appear, but given Tabby’s recent operation and this little murmur, they would indicate endocarditis.’

‘Okay, so…’ Marlowe shifts Tabs on her knee and I step forward, bundling the little girl into my arms so Marlowe can talk to the doctor properly. ‘She has an infection. What now—antibiotics?’

‘I know this won’t be welcome news,’ the doctor says gently, ‘but if—and currently it’s anif—the new valve is infected, then it will need to be replaced. I’m so sorry.’

‘But we had it in the US,’ Marlowe stutters. ‘We can’t—I can’t?—’

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