Corona Diaries: breaking out

A new dawn awaits. On Saturday I will be out on the golf course for the first time in eight weeks. It will also be the first time I’ve driven my car since February. I normally play golf three days a week, and I shall start doing that again now that Boris says I can. Or doesn’t say I can’t.

My beloved expects me to be fibrillating with excitement at the prospect of my first real foray into the world outside our home beyond the regular walk around town. She’s a bit disappointed when I say I’m not, and that actually I haven’t really missed golf too much.

The reason I’m not jumping for joy is that I’m well on my way to becoming institutionalised. Lockdown with one other person in a largish house with a decent-sized garden under the sunny skies of the past couple of months has hardly been a penance. We’ve settled into a routine in which we give each other plenty of space. Plenty of us-time too.

There’s comfort in an ordered life that’s well-known to people who’ve been in hospitals, prison and boarding schools. I’ve experienced two out of three. The difference, of course, is that it’s our routine, not something imposed on us.

On typical day I’ll be up early browsing and writing, fortified by plenty of coffee, followed by breakfast mid-morning, daily chores, a book, a nap, a walk round town, more boring stuff, a cross-trainer session and dinner. Then a bit more browsing, a bit more writing, some telly, another book and sleep.

You may have noticed that we do without lunch. Two meals a day is our way of avoiding turning into pumpkins.

I make the odd phone call to friends and relatives. We say hello to our grandson every day. No tedious Zoom meetings because I have no reason to chat with 20 people all at once, thank God.

And that’s more or less that, unless we have a squirrel emergency or some other unscheduled event. It’s a bit like living in one of those well-appointed prisons where the Mafia used to hang out in Italy. Not very exciting, hardly worth writing about and certainly not worth complaining about.

Except that it’s only now that the routine is about to be broken that I realise how institutionalised I’ve become. The reason I have mixed feelings about breaking out is that I don’t feel anything has changed. Hundreds of people are still dying every day. The consequences of catching the virus are still potentially dire.

When the pandemic started, I resolved to write off this year. No foreign travel, largely housebound, largely isolated. I told myself that if that’s what it takes to have a decent chance of staying alive until there’s a vaccine or effective anti-viral drugs, then so be it.

I’m lucky. I don’t have an employer urging me back to work, asking me to risk infection in a bus, train or tube. I’m not worrying about running out of money, especially now when our only expenditure is on food and normal household bills. I feel almost guilty writing this when I know so many people are living through really stressful times – no money, no job, uncertain future.

Every day you read optimistic stuff about game changers. The latest is that an antibody test that appears to be 100% reliable has been approved for use in the UK. The Oxford vaccine seems to be doing well in trials. Great, so we’ll soon find out whether 5% or 50% of the population has been infected. And at some stage, many months ahead, maybe we’ll get the chance to have a jab that gives us immunity for a while.

All fine and dandy, except that in the meanwhile the virus is still out there, no less virulent and no less deadly than before. So if it hasn’t changed, why should I?

Then I say to myself: What the hell? You’re in your sixties. You could die at any time from a stoke or a heart attack. Maybe you have some cancer you don’t know about that will end up killing you. The older you get, the riskier life becomes. For God’s sake, you’ve been living with risk all your life. What’s different now?

And I reply yes, you may be right. Perhaps the difference is in the magnitude of the risk, or at least what appears to be the magnitude. Maybe if every day we were regaled with the horror of living after a stroke, hardly able to speak let alone lift a cup of coffee to our lips, or if we saw endless videos of people in the terminal stages of cancer, the stuff that we’re seeing and reading about the effects of the coronavirus would not seem so pitifully awful.

And then I see the sun coming up, the flowers blooming and some infernal machine doing its horticultural thing and deafening everyone within half a mile, Down the road our neighbours are strapping the brandy barrels on their St Bernards, and I say to myself this is not all about you. Remove your head from your backside and live your bloody life.

So I set about redesigning the government’s new slogans, and come up with:

It’s not over. Stay apart. Be sensible.

Or perhaps, on a more spiritual level:

Don’t be afraid. Love your neighbour. Love life

And with that, I toddle off to clean the golf clubs in readiness for my own little Great Escape.