Page 8 of Where Do We Go From Here?
Our health system had been struggling for years. Expensive new drugs, an ageing population and million-pound scanning devices could all be paid for from existing budgets, we were told, as could all the money being siphoned to the shareholders of private companies the government increasingly chose to contract out to. So even before Covid we had eighteen-week waiting lists because operating theatres and surgeons were fully booked. But when the pandemic happened, well… Unless you were there to witness it, you really can’t imagine how bad it was.
Within days, we’d run out of beds, respirators, anti-virals, face masks and gowns. We were working eighteen-hour shifts with disposable, non-reusable masks we’d laundered at home, held in place with gaffer tape because the elastic had broken.
I remember walking through our front door at 10 p.m. on 31 March and bursting into tears. We were less than ten days into the first lockdown, it was my birthday and my only gift was discovering that the pandemic had already broken me.
Harry held me and made me dinner that night, but within a few weeks no one at home even had the energy needed to empathise with me. They were all too busy fighting battles of their own.
Harry was in a blind panic from mid-April, a state in which he remained for almost two years. He’d been instructed to create a new online curriculum for both Physics (his subject) and Biology (which was not). Within a month he’d been told to run off-campus Chemistry teaching as well because the poor asthmatic Chemistry head was in the wheezy process of dying, very slowly, in my hospital. The pressure from Harry’s principal was apparently unbearable – and I mean that quite literally.None of his staff could bear it. Two had breakdowns and three left teaching forever.
Add to this Harry’s responsibility for homeschooling Fiona and Todd – becauseYours Trulywas simply never at home – and you can probably see why he was as close as one can get to a breakdown without ending up in a psych ward.
By then, it didn’t matter if I complained, cried or shouted about my lot – all Harry had to offer was a selection of platitudes combined with his newly developed wide-eyed stare. Occasionally he’d still get up and hug me, and that was probably the thing that worked best. But once my colleagues started getting ill with Covid no one wanted to hug me much either, in fact they avoided being in the same room.
And who could really blame them? I mean, it’s all very well isolating from other people, avoiding groups, sticking to your bubble, washing your shopping and all that malarky… But what to do about Mum when she’s breathing the same air as a hundred Covid patients every day?
THREE
WAITING FOR WISDOM
She wakes up feeling ill and her first thought is that she might have caught a cold. She did sleep right through (something that’s rare enough to merit celebration) so, microbes aside, she should be feeling tickety-boo. Perhaps she slept for too long? That can sometimes leave you feeling like a zombie, can’t it?
She pushes one foot out from under the covers and is relieved to discover the cabin is warm. She remembers loading the stove up last night and setting it to its lowest setting, and when she gets downstairs this morning she can see from the glow that it’s still burning.
She pulls on extra clothes and crosses to look out at the view, as spectacular this morning as yesterday. The sky is a deep blue again and a flock of birds is crossing the skyline, shifting in and out of formation, no doubt preparing to head to warmer climes. It crosses her mind, in a vague, sleepy way, that she too has migrated for winter.
She stretches and turns to face the room, and as she does so a heaped ashtray and a half-empty wine bottle catch her eye. There are two empties on the kitchen counter, too. Of course! She’d called Jill last night on WhatsApp, and they’d spent hoursgossiping and getting drunk. She can’t remember much of what was said, but it had been fun, that’s for sure – almost like being down the pub. She smiles at the memory. She’d needed that. She’d been feeling lonely.
A specific memory tightens her jaw. She suspects she invited Jill to come and visit. Not having that much life of her own, Jill is always on the lookout for any opportunity to tag along, and with her being so pushy, avoiding inviting her can be hard. Wendy can’t remember specific dates being discussed, so she’ll probably be OK. She looks around at the tiny space. No, she definitely can’t have Jill here. That wasn’t the point of this at all.
She makes coffee and spreads slices of already-stale baguette with a thick layer of butter and jam then takes it all outside to a little table placed strategically so she can sit in the sun while enjoying the view. It’s warmer this morning, almost hot. Maybe the icy temperatures of yesterday were a mere blip.
She sips her coffee and bites into her breakfast. Why does French apricot jam taste so much better?
She wonders what to do with her day. She thinks about all the wine she consumed last night and decides she’ll be healthy and go for a walk. That’s definitely what Harry would suggest.
If only he were here…Don’t let your mind go there, Wendy!
Is a walk enough of an activity for a whole day? It seems a little bit lazy. Maybe a big walk, then – something ambitious and sporty.
Alternatively she could drive down and explore the coast. She could go back to St-Vallier-de-whatever-it’s-called and have a drink in that bar on the green. But that’s not how she’d imagined her time here, was it? She’d imagined herself sitting cross-legged staring at a mountain until a bolt of enlightenment zapped her. Which she knows is more than silly. With the exception of those three yoga lessons she did with her sister-in-law Sue all those years ago (that time she put her knee out) she’snever even tried to sit cross-legged for any amount of time, let alone meditate.
Perhaps walkingisa kind of meditation, especially if you’re doing it on your own. She’ll give it a try, anyway. She used to have quite good ideas while walking Whitey, Fiona’s childhood dog.
If all else fails, she could buy a notebook and write things down. She doesn’t know what she’d write, but maybe if she tries the ideas will come? She briefly imagines herself writing a novel. The idea – at least the sitting around holding a pen while sipping tea bit – is appealing, but again rather daft. She hasn’t written anything longer than a shopping list since school.
What if I go home none the wiser?she wonders, and a sense of dismay pops up from nowhere. What if this all amounts to nothing?
Yes, what if she spends six months and a chunk of her inheritance only to go home without a clue as to how to fix her life? Wouldn’t that be a kick in the teeth?
She showers and pulls on shorts, a T-shirt and trainers, then drives down the track, through the tiny hamlet (there’s a single shop here – a bakery – but she’s not yet seen it open), and then on along the winding road to a place she spotted yesterday on her way back from the supermarket – a gravelly parking area at the roadside next to a vivid green meadow. Yesterday there had been four cars parked up and she’d seen a woman pulling on walking boots.
Today, she finds herself alone, but that’s OK because the track heading off from the car park leaves no doubt. She locks the car, pockets the keys, and starts off along the trail.
This is a bit mad, she thinks, as the trail starts to rise, winding its way past a series of waist-high grey boulders.Harry would be amused!
She’s always been the reluctant one when it comes to exercise, though if she’s honest, she’s not sure why. Perhaps it’s simply that you have to have these roles in every couple: a keen walker and a reluctant complainer. She’s always enjoyed a good walk but rarely admitted it. But yes, those were their roles – Harry the sporty keen one and Wendy the smoking whinger who Harry had to urge ever onwards. She’s not sure when she chose to be that person – adolescence perhaps – and she’s surprised, momentarily, that she has never questioned it until now.
The track winds back on itself behind a particularly large group of boulders, and as she turns the corner she discovers a bushy waist-high plant – some sort of weed by the looks of it. The tiny flowers are populated by thousands of frenetic butterflies.
