In a World Gone Mad: Wednesday 13 May 2020

And, to show that I’m not an out and out monster, today I sat with Arthur for two hours looking at the photos from his world travels. Snowdon was Everest and South China was Chinatown, Canada was India and Australia was Africa—he has no idea. I used to love listening to his tales, but now he has no stories to tell, they’ve all gone.

I love the orangutan story. I’ve heard this story many times.

‘One day, I was sitting under a tree in the rainforest. I opened my pack-up and took out a sandwich, and from the branch above me a hand came out of nowhere and an orangutan stole my lunch.’

This story is true, I have no doubt that it’s based in fact and I think this happened in Borneo and this is the original account.

But even three years ago, when he had some grasp of his memories, every time he told the tale the animal changed, it has been a variety of primates, from a spider monkey to a gorilla, it has been a tiger, panther lion and jaguar, a panda, a bear, a snake and a lizard, a wolf, fox, kangaroo and bat, an ostrich and a duck…love it.

Today we were sitting in the garden, chilly but doable. We got our entertainment watching Arthur fighting with the breeze for his newspaper. He got his daily exercise chasing pages down the path to retrieve them.

‘Arthur, wouldn’t you be able to see better if you put your glasses on, love?’

‘No, I can see better without them. I don’t need glasses; I’ve only got one eye so what good are two bits of glass to me?’

‘Why don’t you try them anyway?’

After rummaging through pockets, he found his glasses and put them on.

‘That’s better I can see what I’m reading now.’

We have a seagull problem, per capita there are about ten seagulls in this town to every person. Teagan was lying beside us watching Grandad chasing papers around and whining because we wouldn’t let her join in, when there was an almighty splat. A bloody great seagull took aim and hit Teagan right between the eyes. Have you seen how much a seagull can shit? She was covered.

When we came in, Max noticed that half a page had been torn out of the newspaper.

‘Dad, why have you torn a page out of the paper?’

“Well, I’m sending away for something, aren’t I boy? The paper says I’ve got to do it because it’s good for my heart. Almonds that’s what it is, free almonds.’

‘Dad, there’s nothing wrong with your heart, believe me that’s not the problem here. Let’s have a look.’

He did the searching through pockets for ten minutes until he found a six times folded up piece of newspaper.

‘Turmeric Dad, it’s for a turmeric supplement. They are like vitamin tablets. You won’t even take the tablets you have to have without a fight, never mind trying to get this rubbish down you.’

‘It says I have to have it for my heart.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with your heart.’

‘Well they’re free, it says so. So, I might as well have them in case I get something wrong with my heart.’

‘Dad, they are not free. It’s a subscription—a con dad. You pay one pound fifty postage for the first month’s supply and after that, if you don’t cancel it, they charge you sixteen pounds a month for a load of rubbish.

Max went to the spice rack and took out a bottler of turmeric.  He plonked it on the table in front of Arthur.

‘What’s that, Dad?’

‘Pepper.’

‘Read the label’

‘Tunderidge.’

‘Turmeric, the same stuff as in the paper we already have it. I put it in your food with other good things that are good for you like garlic and chili.’

He went to the fridge and took out the leftover curry’s from the night before.

‘See that, it’s yellow, like the stuff in the bottle. That’s what it is.’

‘Well all that in that big dish didn’t come out of that little bottle.’

I’m sure I saw a tick making Max’s left eye twitch.

I never slept last night. By that I don’t mean I didn’t get much sleep—I didn’t sleep at all. I had a couple of phaseouts for a few minutes but I can tell you everything that was going on  in Max’s bloody alien programs It wasn’t Arthur, although he was up and down all night as usual. Andy got up and made a full meal for himself at half midnight and then went down for a cigarette an hour later when Arthur woke him. But it was Max that kept me awake all night. I tried to settle at ten, he had the telly on until after midnight. Then he went down for a cigarette.  He went out and I was wide awake. He came back after fifteen minutes and I was wide awake. I wasn’t sleeping—just dozing in and out of a haze. Max tried to sleep. He couldn’t and got out of bed twenty minutes later at one o’clock. He woke me up leaving the bedroom. And I knew he’d be back and would wake me coming in, so I put the telly on. I watched one episode of Emmerdale, one episode of Corrie and four episodes of EastEnders. I worried about Max and what he was doing. And I worried about Max because he isn’t himself. He came to bed at four in the morning, but I was too annoyed and worried to sleep I got up at five.

I had a video call on Skype booked at Ten o’clock with my best mate. We’re working together on his new book doing a line-by edit. It went okay. It took an hour to do all the techie stuff and get started and then in another two hours we’d edited and put to bed two chapters. With all the arguing we do, I’m happy with a chapter an hour—two down only forty-two to go.

He’s been my best mate for over twenty years, but we haven’t seen each other for five years as he moved back to Ireland. We were in hysterics. My only excuse is that I’m tired and my eyes went squiffy. I was reading aloud from a shared screen and—after arguing every dammed comma— he was making the changes he agreed with as we went.

The sentence written was, ‘He looked at his druid.’

‘I read, ’He looked at his turd.’

‘The next sentence, ’He washed his body.’

‘He wanked his body.’

After that, he changed the font from eleven to fourteen. We were crying—it did me good.

All change: we are not going to see Pam until tomorrow.

Belle has been organising. We are supposed to be in lockdown, but she’s announced that Max’s ex-wife Annie, Krystal, Belle and Ocean are coming through today to see Andy—Great. Do I get a say in this? Apparently not. Belle says that if we sit in the garden, it’ll be fine—what if it’s not?  I’ll be a good little wifey and not voice my opinions. Who am I to want to keep everybody alive and safe.

Oh well.