by Chloe James
‘And the pink gloves?’
‘What? Oh,’ I snatch off the rubber glove. ‘Well, you can’t be too careful with germs.’
‘We’d seriously better hope this lockdown doesn’t last long – you’re totally losing it. I mean, for a start, since when did you care if the flat is tidy?’
I throw myself down in the chair, exhausted after my short burst of activity – it’s seriously true that the less you do, the less you are able to do. ‘I’m pretty bored.’
Sam laughs. ‘You must be.’
‘How’s Tina?’
‘Clearing up also. There must be something in the air; she’s been scrubbing the bath since first thing this morning. It’s not like anyone’s used it recently.’
‘I guess she’s getting ready for the baby,’ I suggest.
‘Yeah it’s called nesting or something. Apparently it means it’s not far off.’
‘Exciting times. You still going to risk the hospital?’
‘No choice with a first baby. Means I won’t even be allowed in the room with her though.’
‘That’s tough. I guess you’ll be cheering on from the sidelines then. Can you use Zoom or something?’
‘Hardly, it’s probably against health and safety or something. To be honest with you I don’t really mind; I just wanted to be there for Tina. I was going to stay up the top end anyway.’
‘Coward!’
‘Says you. You’d run a mile.’
‘To be fair, it’s scary stuff. But life-changing.’ I’m silent for a moment. ‘I envy you though. You’ve already got Tina and now you’re going to have a little one to keep you company.’
‘I bet you’re finding things quiet there still. No calls from the solicitor?’
‘No, and yeah it is a bit. For me to have to tidy up – it’s pretty desperate. I feel like I’m copping out somehow. Useless. I watch the news and people are all out there helping and I’m stuck in here hiding away.’
‘For good reason.’
‘I know, but it doesn’t help. It’s so boring. Dan’s got himself a job as a delivery driver as he was made redundant and Matt is still working to get stuff packaged. It feels like everyone’s busy except me.’
‘Why don’t you get out your guitar again? You must have it there with you.’
‘Haven’t played for ages.’
‘All the more reason to get it out now.’
‘I guess. Still me, myself and I though.’
‘It’s the way it’s gonna be for a while. But you’ve got us and we can Zoom when the little one’s born.’
‘Yeah that’ll be nice.’ There’s a silence. ‘I did speak to someone downstairs last night.’
‘I hope you didn’t get near. You’ve got to keep yourself safe – you know what the specialist said.’
‘I know.’ I love Sam, but he gets overstressed. ‘I didn’t even see her.’
‘Her?’ he asks.
‘I heard someone crying when I was out on the balcony last night, after the NHS clap, which was really cool by the way.’
‘I know, I thought hardly anyone would be doing it, but you could hear it all round our street. It was great.’
‘Afterwards there was this sobbing, so I called to the person down below and we got talking.’
‘Trust you, Jack.’ Sam raises his eyebrows and gives me one of his big-brotherly looks. Bizarrely I’ve missed them. ‘There’s no keeping you away from the chicks, is there?’
‘No, it wasn’t like that; it was simply nice to hear someone’s voice. To actually have a conversation, other than on the phone, with another human being.’
That was the point; it had somehow made me feel less alone, talking to someone here in the building, so nearby, even if we couldn’t see each other. I find myself wondering if she’ll be out there again later. Perhaps I’ll have my last packet of crisps on the balcony at the same time tonight, just in case.
Chapter 3
Sophia
‘I’m sorry about the change of plan, but chocolate crispy cakes are really yummy too,’ I say apologetically to the six pairs of hopeful eyes staring at me and my bag of goodies.
‘Chocolate crispy cakes yessss!!!’ shouts Milo. I smile affectionately at his cheeky face under the mop of fair hair; I can always rely on him to be enthusiastic.
‘What about the fairy cakes?’ Freya asks.
‘The thing is, I can’t get flour anywhere because the shops have run out,’ I explain. ‘So fairy cakes will have to wait for another day.’
‘But then we can’t put sprinkles on them.’ Freya looks miserable. ‘I wanted to surprise Mum with something pretty.’
‘Well,’ I say thinking on my feet, ‘I think you’ll find that, first of all, chocolate is full of magnesium and other good things that will help your mum be an even better nurse than she is already, and secondly, we have some other little goodies in here we can use to decorate them.’ I tip the bag up and out fall some decorative paste butterflies, silver balls and pink edible flowers.
Freya and her friend Lola shriek. ‘Please can I use the butterflies?’ asks Freya.
‘I like the flowers,’ calls Lola.
‘I’m just going to do mine plain with lots and lots of chocolate,’ says Milo decisively. ‘My mum needs extra chocolate ’cause she was really grumpy this morning.’
‘You can all do them as you like,’ I say with a smile. ‘What about you, Alfie?’ It’s always hard to get eleven-year-old Alfie to say much.
‘Am I allowed to do cakes?’ he asks. ‘I thought they’d just be for the younger kids.’
‘Of course not,’ I say. ‘They’re for everyone. In any case, I expect your parents are in just as much need of chocolate cakes as anyone else?’ My current class is made up of all ages as they are the children of key workers.
Alfie nods shyly.
‘What about you, Pritti?’
‘My mum loves cakes. She makes them all the time.’
No pressure then. ‘It will be nice for you to make her some in that case.’ I have a hideous flashback to the time I volunteered to make cakes with the reception class during teaching practice. The look of horror on the headteacher’s face when she happened to come into the room, which was mostly decorated with icing sugar and flour, as well as the children who were pretty much covered, will probably stay with me forever.
Pritti smiles. ‘I don’t think she’s made crispy cakes before.’
I notice Zane peeking at the bowls and ingredients with a worried look on his face. Zane is only four and a cute little lad, but always painfully shy. I hoped he would come out of his shell more with fewer students in the class, but if anything he’s become even more timid. Hopefully he’ll enjoy it more once we get the chocolate out. You can’t really go far wrong with these. Or at least I hope not, as I think of Pritti’s mother, who is a professional pastry chef. I start to put out the ingredients, making sure Zane has some pictures to follow to make it easier for him. It’s been a real struggle to get all the utensils because of course we have to have six bowls, six spoons – six of everything, basically, or we’ll never keep up social distancing.
‘So I’ve placed a bowl on each table and next to it all the things you will need to make your mixture. When I call your name each of you will come up and I’ll use the plug-in hob to melt your chocolate. Of course we will have to make sure we keep two metres apart – the length of a broom.’ I point at the chart on the wall.
It works more smoothly than I’d hoped and after an hour, each child miraculously has a plate of chocolate crispy cakes next to them.
‘Can we eat them now?’ asks Milo, a crispy cake poised halfway into his open mouth.
‘You can have one, once you’ve each gone and washed your hands again, but take the rest home for your parents. They’ve been working hard and deserve them.’
‘But, Miss Trent, Zane has eaten nearly all of his.’
Oh, good grief. While I’ve had my back turned, Zane has eaten four of his cakes. They
say it’s always the quiet ones you have to watch. I really hope he isn’t going to be sick.
‘Did he really eat all of them?’ Jess asks with a laugh, on FaceTime that evening. I am exhaustedly slumped on my sofa eating my own batch of chocolate crispy cakes.
‘Most of them.’ I chuckle. ‘I just hope he isn’t sick when he gets home or his mum will be after me. I gave him a load of spares I made so at least he got to take some for his family – if he didn’t eat them on the way home.’
‘I don’t know how you do it,’ says Jess, ‘spending all day surrounded by kids.’
‘I’m not exactly surrounded,’ I say amused. ‘There are only six of them in at the moment. Anyway, they’re brilliant; they say what they think, unlike most adults. And it’s a good excuse to do fun stuff.’
‘Wish you could send one of those cakes down the phone,’ Jess groans. ‘They look delicious.’
‘They are.’ I finish popping another cake in my mouth and put the others to one side. I feel mean eating them in front of Jess. It seems rude somehow. This lockdown has taken away any pleasure in eating with people, other than those you are with. It’s all very well saying we can FaceTime or Zoom, but there is something so basic about our need to be together, to eat and celebrate special events with each other, not in our own separate little universes. ‘How are the plans going?’
‘Good. I’ve finished paying for the dress, the suits are sorted and the hotel has kindly agreed to refund the reception.’
‘Decent of them.’
‘I guess they haven’t any choice.’
‘No, but I kind of feel sorry for hotels, restaurants and bars; how are they supposed to make a living?’ I wonder.
‘You feel sorry for everyone. That’s your trouble; you’re too soft.’
‘Not really, but I do imagine how other people might feel about things.’
‘Good job you didn’t keep working as a lawyer then.’
I stay silent for a moment. That was a little near the bone. I enjoyed working in law. I had worked so hard for my legal career. I earned my way with relentless graft and hours of burning the midnight oil. I can still visualise all the pages of legal clauses, the Latin names and ream upon ream of legal jargon and provisos. At times my room-mate would struggle to find me behind the mountainous piles of books I would be lost behind. But I guess Jess is right: in the end, I wasn’t ever really suited to it. Much as I blame the epilepsy.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you,’ she says as an afterthought.
‘It’s okay.’ Although it’s not really, but there’s no point in trying to explain it to Jess. I attempted it a couple of times, soon after my diagnosis, thinking she would understand, as she so often had with other things in the past, but she really didn’t get it. So I have learned to smooth it over. Make it all appear to go away. It’s so much easier for everyone else that way, especially since the meds have been keeping the seizures under control. ‘I love what I do,’ I continue, ‘and there’s no going back now. Kids are far less demanding than divorcing couples anyway.’
‘True.’ Jess giggles. ‘And at least you can put them on the sun on the reward chart, if they’re good, or on the naughty step if they’re bad.’
‘There is no naughty step any more,’ I retort, stifling a yawn.
‘How’re the new meds?’ she asks.
‘Better.’ Thank goodness they are, as well. ‘That hideous feeling of exhaustion has diminished a little. The last ones were awful. I felt drugged all day. As long as I take these the same time every evening I’m a tiny bit better. The mornings are still hard as I feel most tired then, but the exhaustion sometimes wears off during the day. Other times it doesn’t. It kind of feels as though you’ve been out on the razzle every night and you have to work through it all morning until by about lunchtime, things feel a little better. Other times I stumble or lean on the wall because I feel sort of off balance, but it only happens occasionally.’
‘It’s a hard price to pay to avoid having a seizure,’ Jess says.
‘It is, but there isn’t any choice is there? The thought of collapsing in front of the entire class is not a good one. They’d be terrified.’
‘Not a pretty sight, but the staff would manage. I mean it must happen.’
‘It just can’t happen. I’d have to leave my job. I’d feel as though I had traumatised the kids; they would be afraid for me to teach them.’
‘It really can’t be that bad. I know it’s a bit embarrassing but …’
‘One of my colleagues at Price Maberton told me I looked like I was doing the running man, the last time I had a seizure, let alone the fact he was totally freaked out because I had been eating a biscuit at the time and he was worried I would choke. It made me almost feel ashamed of even having to talk about it – as though I was an annoyance to everyone else. Also, I don’t want to be “Sophia with the epilepsy”. I want people to see beyond that.’
‘Fair enough. I think you’re best on the meds then.’
‘Yes and at least they work at the moment. Viv’s niece at school still has them occasionally in spite of the meds.’
‘What a nightmare that must be. I suppose you have to be grateful for small mercies.’ Jess sighs. Then she brightens a little. ‘Anyway, it’s all the more reason why you need someone nice to take care of you. How did you get on with Hinge?’
How annoying. I thought she’d forgotten about it. ‘I’ve been really busy,’ I mutter.
‘Not that busy,’ she says in a stern tone. ‘You just don’t want to do it.’ I’m silent for a moment, hoping she’s got the hint. ‘Okay, I’ll have to think of something else,’ she declares breezily.
We chat for a few more minutes before I get off the phone. I need to make sure everything’s washed ready for tomorrow, as my best shirt has a stain on it. I’m pondering the idea of cooking up some mince and making a cottage pie, which would at least do for two nights, then I could have a night off tomorrow.
As I pootle about, clearing things off counter tops and sorting clothes, I wonder about the guy from last night. I haven’t heard anything since I got in, but I guess that’s not surprising, given Erica was here earlier, crashing about with her stuff before rushing off to her shift, and then I’ve been on the phone. I open the door, wander out onto the balcony and stand there looking down into the courtyard. It’s all quiet. I consider going back inside and watching something on TV but it’s a warm evening and it seems a shame to spend it indoors. Then I hear a noise. Up above.
It sounds as though his balcony door is opening. ‘Hello?’ I call quietly.
Nothing.
‘Hello?’ I call a little louder this time.
‘Hello?’ comes the voice from above.
‘Oh, hi.’ I smile, ridiculously pleased that he’s there. ‘You’re back.’
‘I haven’t really gone anywhere,’ replies the voice.
‘No … I guess it’s quite difficult at the moment,’ I say.
‘How were the kids today?’ he asks.
‘Great, thanks.’ I feel inordinately pleased he remembers our previous conversation. ‘We all made chocolate crispy cakes.’
‘Sounds delicious.’
He sounds wistful, hungry even. ‘I wish I could send one up to you, but I’m not sure how.’
‘Don’t worry, I’m okay – I have my emergency packet of crisps left.’
‘Is that all?’
‘I do have an Old-Fashioned as well.’
‘I’ve never tried one of those,’ I admit.
‘Well it’s not a proper one – I haven’t all the ingredients – but it’s refreshing.’
‘Ooh I’m jealous,’ I say.
‘I’ve had an idea. Give me ten minutes and I’ll be back.’
I smile to myself, wondering what his idea could be; there aren’t really a lot of options currently. As I stand on the balcony an older guy, still fairly upright, with a silver moustache and wearing an old green jacket combined with smartish trousers, walks
across the courtyard and through the archway across the other side. I’ve seen him walk through here before but I don’t know where he lives. I know pretty much all the residents in this block so I don’t think he lives in the flats. He must come from one of the nearby houses. He seems to go out about the same time every night. It makes me feel sad for him somehow; he cuts a lonely figure, in spite of the purposeful nature of his walk. I wonder if he has a wife or if he lives by himself. It must be so hard for anyone coping with this lockdown living in total isolation. I would hate it.
The man upstairs has only been gone a minute or so – I have time to pop on the veg for the cottage pie while I wait. I go in and peel, rinse and chop the carrots, then soften them with the onion and a clove of garlic. The mince is just browning nicely and I’m about to add the tomatoes when I hear a noise from outside. I go back out onto the balcony.
To my amazement, a box has appeared, just below the parapet of the upstairs balcony. It looks like the end of a cardboard Budweiser box, hanging from what appears to be a bright yellow skipping rope.
‘Have you got it?’ calls the voice.
‘Just a mo, keep it steady,’ I say, trying not to laugh. I rush forward to grab the box, which is dangling precariously and at high risk of tipping out its contents, which on closer inspection turn out to be a glass of something with a slightly old-looking piece of lemon and a cherry on a cocktail stick. Miraculously it hasn’t spilt.
‘Oh wow!’ I exclaim and carefully remove the glass, placing it on the little table on the balcony. ‘This looks amazing.’
‘Hope you like it!’ There’s a warmth to his voice and I wonder if he’s smiling.
‘I’m sure I shall.’ The box starts to rise up again towards the balcony above. ‘Hold on a minute!’ I call. ‘Don’t pull it up yet, incoming!’ I rush into the lounge and grab a handful of chocolate crispy cakes and place them carefully in the box. ‘Okay,’ I say standing back, ‘pull away.’ The box disappears, wibbling up in the air. At one point it tips at a precarious angle and I’m worried the cakes will scatter over the courtyard below. He manages to balance it again, though, and the trusty Budweiser box disappears from view.
