Excerpt from The Memory of Animals by Claire Fuller, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Some paper."

"Pardon me?"

"Could you get me some paper, please? My laptop broke and I meant to bring a notebook but I ran out of time."

This morning, when Justin and I were arguing, I'd stepped with my full weight on to my laptop where I'd left it on the floor beside the bed. He was always telling me to put it away but I never listened. I'd been staying with him in his West London flat, paid for by his father, Clive, and taking whatever jobs I could find—bar work, waitressing—determined to pay my way, and then the virus swept through the city, swept through everywhere, and the pubs and the cafes closed. I sat in Justin's apartment, eating his food, using his electricity. He said, of course, that it didn't matter but my zero-hours contracts hadn't qualified me for any furlough scheme and I had debts to pay, or at least one big debt. Justin said he'd pay it off and I should come with him to Dorset, but I'd already signed up for the trial. That's what this morning's argument and ultimately every argument had been about. I'd heard the call for paid volunteers on the radio and had filled in an online form and passed all the tests before I even told him I'd agreed to be given a vaccine which was untested on humans, and then the virus which everyone was terrified of catching, and to sit in a room on my own for three weeks. "I'll be fine," I told him. "It's not that different from sitting in your flat. Only this time they're paying for me to do nothing." He didn't think it was funny.

This morning should have been a tender goodbye. Both of us were leaving—Justin in a hired van down to his father's house in Dorset, me to the unit in East London. He'd begged me again to go with him but I told him to stop trying to live my life for me and that I could make my own choices.

"A notebook?" Boo asks.

"Please. And a pen?"

"No problem." At the door she pauses. "I want to say thank you for volunteering. It's a very generous thing you're doing."

I wonder if the words are scripted, a phrase she's been told to say to every volunteer, but they sound genuine.

Alone in my room, I look at my phone. The last message is from Justin: I'm in Dorset. This is where I'll be waiting for you when you change your mind.

I put the phone back in my pocket and watch another nurse escort a woman to the room beyond mine. I didn't see the name on her door but I catch a glimpse of her fine blonde hair and freckled skin before the enormous rucksack she carries obscures her face. The layout of her room must be the mirror image of mine with our beds back to back because, once the nurse has left, through the wall I can hear the girl speaking on her phone. She sounds Irish and her tone is bright and she laughs a lot. Other volunteers arrive, including a man who is shown to the room opposite mine. "Yahiko" it says on his door. Later, I see the blue flicker of a screen through his corridor window.

In the evening, Mike delivers my dinner—sweet potato and aubergine curry with lemon rice—from a trolley he parks outside my room. He's fiftyish and balding.

"Make sure you order extra for tomorrow," he says as he hands me a menu card. "Everyone always complains they don't get enough. Management think that just because you're sitting around doing nothing you won't be hungry but in my experience it's the opposite. All you want to do is eat when you're bored." Mike is large, soft-bodied. "I'll collect the card when I've delivered the rest of the meals." I wonder about the other volunteers, who they are and why they signed up. Even if I asked, I know Mike wouldn't be allowed to tell me. The options are porridge or yogurt and granola for breakfast, sandwiches, crisps and fruit for lunch, and for me either vegetable lasagne or mushroom risotto for dinner. I tick two sorts of sandwiches and both vegetarian options.

I get another text from Mum while I'm eating.

Excerpted from The Memory of Animals by Claire Fuller. Copyright © 2023 by Claire Fuller. Excerpted by permission of Tin House Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.