The Guardian | 30.04.22 | SATURDAY | 79My friend is sure he
got the virus in a local
bakery. Two years of
caution undone by a
craving for sourdough
up a sleeve and, slightly feverish, paw
around in the cold water until I fi nd it.
Back downstairs I gaze at the
half-cut lawn. My wife comes in and
looks out of the window.
“Still plenty of light left,” she says.
“I know,” I say.
“Did you fi x the toilet?” she says.
“Oh yes,” I say. It takes me until
nightfall to fi nish the lawn, in stages.
The next day I feel slightly better.
A new cupboard for my wife’s offi ce
arrives, in fl atpack form, but the fi rst
I hear about it is when the middle one
comes to ask me where the drill is.
I tell him.
“Are you sure you need it?” I say. He
returns with a drill bit in one hand,
and the drill in the other.
“How do I make one of these go in
this?” he says.
Later on my wife I and eat lunch
together. An electric screwdriver is
humming somewhere upstairs.
“I noticed you asked him to put
your thing together,” I say.
“I thought you were busy, and ill,”
my wife says.
“I have Covid,” I say. “So is he your
go-to person for that stuff now, instead
of me?”
My wife does not answer.
“Is there a reason you’re not
answering?” I say. She doesn’t answer
that either.
Much later I come in from my offi ce
to fi nd the middle one making coff ee.
“How did it go with the cupboard?”
I say.
“Yeah, fi ne,” he says. “I put in one
piece upside down, so you can’t shut
the bottom drawer all the way. But I’d
have to take it all apart again to fi x it,
so I just left it.”
I think: good man.I’ve got
Covid, and
my wife is
intent on
ruining the
experience
D
uring the last two years
of the pandemic I felt
pretty immersed in the
collective experience:
I suff ered from anxiety,
isolation, boredom and
a lack of exercise. I was unable to visit
relatives, and saw whole chunks of my
calendar cancelled. I simultaneously
complained about and helped to create
shortages of common consumer
goods. And I grew anxious all over
again as restrictions were eased.
But I missed out on one bit of the
saga: getting Covid-19. For most of last
winter I never went out without
coming home and thinking: I bet I’ve
caught Covid from that. But I hadn’t.
Of course I knew others who had
never had the virus. But then, one at a
time, they all got it. My friend Pat was
furious with himself because he was
sure he’d caught it going to a Gail’s
Bakery – two years of scrupulous
precaution undone by a momentary,
entitled craving for sourdough.
Spring came and I started fi nding
that my mask wasn’t always in my coat
pocket when I went to the shops. I
spent time in crowded rooms where
people recklessly shook hands. And
still nothing. I began to think I was
incapable of getting Covid.
Then, feeling rough after our
holiday, my wife and I both tested
positive. From the moment I saw the
red line, I felt worse.
“Are you going to fi x the toilet tank
today?” my wife asks when I wake the
next morning.
“I’ve got Covid,” I say. My eyes itch,
and my muscles ache. I could go
straight back to sleep.
“And the lawn really needs
mowing,” she says.“I’ve got Covid,” I say.
“Yes, so have I,” she says. She seems
set on ruining this experience for me.
But I picked up Covid so late in the
game that there are no rules left: no
testing regime, no requirements for
self-isolation, no restrictions on my
behaviour to observe. Nowhere can I
fi nd any advice suggesting I shouldn’t
mow the lawn.
The grass has not been cut all
winter. The unruly lawn is damp, and
the push mower I use slides over the
top of it, or becomes clogged halfway
along a row. After an hour I have made
no discernible progress. My arms are
weak; my breath is running short. My
wife fi nds me sitting on the steps,
head in hands.
“You haven’t got very far,” she says.
“I’m going to fi x the toilet,” I say.
“It’s easier.”
I’ve avoided trying to repair the
toilet because it’s an old fashioned
model with the tank high up on the
wall near the ceiling. You need a
ladder to get to it, and there’s not a lot
of headroom to work in.
Once I’ve got the lid off , the problem
is obvious: the fulcrum of the lever
operated by the fl ush chain – a little
steel rod – has worked loose and is
sitting at the bottom of the tank. I rollTim Dowling
On modern life
Edith Pritchett On millennial life