Depending on who is asking, Dominic has two standard answers. Either:
I work as a customer service advisor
(He works on the shop floor at B and Q and sometimes shows people where items are to be found)
Or, he says:
I am an artist; a writer.
To some extent the selected response depends on where he is and what he is wearing. For example, he is far more likely to be a writer if wearing his battered Lenin cap and drinking in an unfamiliar pub.
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Racing through the undergrowth my heart pounding, slipping and sliding on the uneven ground. My brain racing. Which way to run? Sounds crashing behind me. Who are they, why are they chasing me?
Gut wrenching fear. Where am I? Animals and birds screeching in the trees, sending out alarm calls. A swelling of sounds. Humid air filling my lungs like treacle. I know I can’t carry on for much longer, but terror is pushing me forward.
The canopy starts to open up and a river bank appears. Without thought I dive straight in and start swimming. Reaching the middle of the river I see a log drifting towards me. Floating towards me as it nears, I can see two evil eyes focused on me. As it gets nearer it opens its huge mouth, fangs glint in the sunshine. It almost seems to smile at me.
I’m screaming out loud, then a hand touches me. Gently my mother’s voice is coaxing me to wake up. Trembling I fall into her arms crying, ‘It’s going to eat me.’ Smiling, she said, ‘Told you not to have cheese before bed, it gives you nightmares!!!!’
The Mass was interminable and the priest couldn’t even remember his name. The burial was worse, raining non-stop. And in the pub afterwards, distant relatives sat gawping at her. They were part of Robert’s extended brood from the countryside. Uncouthness clung to them like agricultural muck on your shoes.
They were the first to leave, most of them with barely a word of commiseration. A middle-aged cousin stopped by her table, as unsure of himself as a ewe before a sheepdog.
‘So like, y’ know… he’ll be missed. Good fellow he was… yeah.’
Missed? By whom? she’d wanted to say. But the ‘whom’ would probably have confused him.
‘Time to go home, Mum.’
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Those were my brother’s last words to me as our phone call ended. I was quite taken aback. Was this outbreak really going to be that serious? Those words haunted me for days.
His letter from his GP had stated to stay in for twelve weeks, shielding they called it. We would still be able to phone each other, or even use Skype or Zoom, but would that really be enough.
I had not even considered him in the past, when I jetted off around the world for months on end, so why did this feel different. As the daily death tolls rose, so did my worries.
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You’ll think it’s killing you at first. You’ll want to stay in bed, picking apart everything you’ve said and done (and not said and done) in the last year. What if you’d listened more, moaned less, worn lipstick…?
The last thing you’ll want to do is clad yourself in Lycra and gasp for breath in the gym. You’ll think the place is full of self-obsessed freaks, like that airhead he left you for. But Helen will drag you along.
A routine will form. Those new trainers, the neon pink ones Helen said you should splash out on, will beckon to you every morning before dawn. You’ll sweat a little more and cry a little less. Five rounds of squats, eight reps each. Increase the weight by five kilograms. Go to work. Go to bed. Repeat.
There will be nights when the pain will wind itself around your neck and burrow into your heart. On your anniversary. When his favourite song comes on the radio. When you’ll be at a party and your friends will study the floor and shift their feet when you ask if they’ve seen him. If they’ve met her. Yes, they’ll say, then change the subject.
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This is the shortened version. You can read the full version here.
It is twenty-four years since Contact and I’m drinking coffee while sitting behind my desk in New Scotland Yard. I cleared some space by moving a paper mountain to one side and set my cup down.
“Boss”, declared Detective Sergeant Kieran Mulrooney, as he strode towards me with a memorandum in his fist. “Read this…”
“Let me see.” It was from Intelligence. They were monitoring some scholars in Camden. Hard-wired bugs you understand. We don’t use radio, not since Scrixn’s warning, anyway.
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Sue was ostensibly wiping the dining table but in reality discreetly “monitoring” Ravi’s progress in preparing breakfast independently. One last sweep with antiseptic wipes and it would be done.
Final assignment topic Maximising Independence. “Evidence a challenging scenario, choose your own title ” her practice teacher had instructed.
Caring in the time of Coronavirus. Challenging enough? was her unvoiced riposte. That’s the title she thought. Ravi was the obvious star. 59 years old and before she had become his key-worker 6 months previously, he had never used a kettle or microwave in 40 years living at SeaView Court Supported Living. Now, look at him.
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Ellie reported for work in the intensive care ward of her hospital, a job she loved. One name popped up in the daily briefing. Bile rose in her throat, her hands were shaking. It took all her self-control to calm down.
Bed number 6 was her step-father, a man she loathed, suffering from a breathing problem, at present on high levels of oxygen. Memories raced through her mind of her beautiful confident mother reduced to a mouse-like creature. Years of put downs, how she would never amount to anything as she was too stupid.
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It was an extraordinary few weeks to have lived through. The causes have never been fully revealed, although many have subsequently attempted to attribute blame, and no end of conspiracy theories continue to circulate – as though lessons still have not been learned. All I can do is offer an account of the way it seemed to me.
It was in the middle of the Era of Unpleasantness, a time of destruction, disease and self-interest, which had befallen humankind. There were some attempts to mitigate the worst cruelties to people and the natural world but these were often crushed and were never likely to change completely the way things were.
My first inkling was when my books seemed to have turned into blank paper. How very strange, and particularly so when my computer files seemed to be doing the same thing. When I tried to call friends, the phone merely gave out mechanical beeps. Neighbours waved but couldn’t talk. It seemed as though words had gone missing, as though a modern-day Pied Piper had lured them into a mountain-side and trapped them there.
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It started with a sniffle, and a couple of hours later he noticed he had an earache. By noon his throat was dry; tap-water wouldn’t ease it. The following day all his muscles ached, and he was sure he had a temperature. He went to sleep in the afternoon, feeling like a truck had knocked him down. Next morning, he couldn’t get up. He just lay in bed hot and sticky, feeling like he was buried. The days passed and got worse. He ought to ring 111, but he had no credit on his pay-as-you-go phone.
As he lay there, his small, bare flat seemed to be shrinking. He’d lived in it ten years, and hadn’t gone out in over twelve months. He knew his mind was bust, and now his body was too. Nothing to be done, he told himself. You’ve been ignored since you came to this country. Still are, man.
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“Oh no!” cried Sally as she stared at her television. The “Breaking News” bulletin from the Prime Minister was severe.
“STAY INDOORS.”
She had been following the progress of the invisible enemy, a previously unknown virus that was currently sweeping the country, but she had not expected to be in lockdown. She could feel the panic starting to rise in her chest.
“YOU MUST STAY INDOORS FOR AT LEAST THREE WEEKS, EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY, THIS WILL BE REVIEWED AT THE END OF THAT PERIOD.”
Sally went to check her food stocks. At least her freezer was full and she had quite a few canned goods. She would be able to survive.
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She never would have done it normally. It wasn’t in her makeup to do such a thing. So why? Why would a woman of her age do such a thing? She had always had standards, even though she was so lonely that sometimes she wanted to die.
Joan is a plain woman, she has never attracted a man and since the war was now over and the men were returning beaten and broken, she wanted to help. So volunteering at the local hospital seemed a charitable act.
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I woke in a strange bed, which itself was in a large, unfamiliar room. Around me were a collection of machines and tubes, one of which was clamped to my face by elasticated straps. Chromium mannequins dressed in medical scrubs roved the tiled floor between the foot of my bed and the adjacent wall, clicking and whirring as they made their way from one task to another. I recognised them as robotic nurses from some TV show.
“Good evening, Mister Craws,” said a voice. I turned my head to see a robot hovering to one side of my bed, a fresh set of tubes wrapped in sealed bags clutched in her three-fingered hands. “I’m Nurse 4. I’m here to change your breathing tube.”
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I think the whole world is in crisis at the moment. Humanity is fumbling from one catastrophe to the next. Natural disasters abound from earthquakes and volcanoes erupting to, some say, human set fires that have wiped out most of the indigenous animals of Australia.
Now, we have the coronavirus which is sweeping the world. It astounds me that, the government are setting guidelines to keep people safe. However, we are hearing about people partying and holding barbecues, flouting the safety rules, and all because the weather is unseasonably quite warm.
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It had been a tough one, but the ‘Support Our People’ party (SOP) had just squeezed through. The gamble of promising what the people wanted was a brave manifesto, and now they had to come up with the goods.
It was a week later that they actually got down to any business, it had taken that long for the effects of the copious amount of champagne to wear off. The speaker and Chairman of the SOP party, Lord Charles Alexander Grovner gave his opening speech. The floor was then open to his underling Lords to come up with ideas that would support their manifesto.
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I had a very romantic viewpoint about Sark. It was a place I had always wanted to visit. Being a very poor sleeper the idea of going to an island bereft of traffic and street lighting sounded like the perfect escape.
I got off the ferry about 4pm, it was a bright and sunny day and the horse drawn carriage was charming, taking the six new visitors to their chosen accommodation.
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Helen sat on the restaurant terrace overlooking the bay, waves lapping the pebbles. Raising her glass, she saluted the photograph upright on the table.
Memories flooded her mind, her first meeting with Paul in the bar across the road. Their honeymoon nearby. Bringing their children always to this beautiful oasis of peace, Keflos.
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Sam wondered where Rosie, his home help was, she wasn’t usually late. He hoped she hadn’t had an accident. Slowly swinging his legs over to the side of the bed and with the aid of his crutches, he managed to get to the stair lift. He made some breakfast and wrote a list of food items that he needed, that Rosie could get later.
Through the window, he could see the palm tree waving in the strong wind. Quite a storm we had last night he thought, he was glad the tree had survived. It had always been a bit of a joke between his wife Maureen, and himself, a reminder of good times together in sunnier climes. It was only then he noticed that the garden bench wasn’t in it’s usual spot. It was bobbing up and down in water near the hedge. He looked towards the road hoping to see Rosie, but only saw a swift flowing muddy river that seemed to be surrounding his home.
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I glance at the headline of the newspaper folded in my lap, and smile. The plane takes off and the island shrinks into a chocolate-box toytown, surrounded by a champagne sea.
Only a week ago, I hauled my bag up the path that spirals around that cliff. The hotel loomed above me, built into the rocks and incandescent in the sunshine.
She was by the lift, talking into her phone when I walked through reception. I recognised her voice immediately: that same grating, high-pitched lilt. She looked up. A flash of recognition and – was that panic? Then she plastered on a smile.
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Father Scanlon wanted to be at his meal, a good stew washed down with a glass of red wine. Involuntarily he licked his lips. Saturday evening confessions were always difficult: the trivial sins of his flock comingling with his sharp pangs of appetite.
His attention returned to the penitent behind the grill. The fellow was rambling, unable or unwilling to name his sin. It was the mortal sins that mattered, and the priest couldn’t judge the sins’ gravity.
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