In a World Gone Mad: Sunday 24 May 2020...2

I was allowed to cook on Thursday night. I used to enjoy cooking, I fed two boys who grew to six foot six, I can’t be that bad at it. I am a basic home cook; I don’t do anything fancy but can put a family meal for twenty-six together. I’m not good at portion control.

 The night before Max cooked fish and chips.

This was no normal fish and chips. He bought cod—whole cod.  I hate, loath and detest seafood. He chopped their heads off and did whatever you do to fish to make it edible, it involved surgery with tweezers and took a long time. He battered it and fried it and it was the lightest beer batter you’ve ever tasted. Despite my doubts, nobody found a single bone in their fish. He did battered brie for me because I refused to ‘just try it.’ Not in this bloody lifetime. He made homemade breaded muscles and onion rings and it goes without saying, homemade chips. He’d soaked peas overnight and made mushy peas and homemade Tartare sauce. It was served with fresh lemon wedges. He even made his own mayonnaise for the tartare sauce, so literally from scratch. What a bloody palaver when there’s a chippy in the next street—but it was delicious.

Very rarely Max will want a night off cooking. It doesn’t happen often, and the sleep deprivation is getting to him too.  Guess what I was allowed to cook on Wednesday night?

Jarred—not tinned, what do you take me for—hotdogs.

I did hotdogs in brioche buns with fried onions, frozen fries, tinned sweetcorn—never diss the giant— and a big dollop of mayo out of a jar to dip your fries in. fifteen minutes, slam, bang away you go.

Last night we had homemade mince and onion pie, with mustard mash, swede and green beans and rich gravy. It took all afternoon to make and was to bloody die for, needless to say, I didn’t cook.

But we did have my trifle in bed, right before going to sleep at one in the morning—and Max was up all night with belly ache. When Max has belly ache, the whole house has belly ache, nobody slept.

We were out running the dog yesterday afternoon. We’ve had big arguments about it this week. If I don’t stop what I’m doing and go with him, Teagan doesn’t get her run. He pulled the, ‘I’ll road walk her later,’ trick again the other night and she never got taken out. I’d had a gut full of Arthur yesterday and insisted on an hour by ourselves. We left him at home sulking.

Two weeks ago, Arthur bent and narrowly missed bouncing his head off the unit. He fell in the garden the next day. It occurred to me that we don’t have a First Aid kit. We’ve never needed one and for anything more serious than a quick patch up we’ve got A&E five minutes down the road. We’ve never needed to use it.

The hospital is not taking walk-in wounded. And we’ve been told that if there’s anything wrong with Arthur he will not be seen.  I presume that if his leg was hanging off, or Teagan turned on him and bit his face off when he keeps hitting her, then they’d change their mind—but—we don’t have anything to path him up with. I said that we’re at the point where he is a huge fall and accident risk and we cobbled together a kit from the local chemist.

We’d been out for less than ten minutes when Andy rang.

‘You’d better come home; Grandads had an accident.’

`Lion was on his windowsill in the garden, minding his own business and looking at the world as he does every day when it’s nice enough for him to go out. Arthur decided that he had no right being on his windowsill.

There is a way to handle an adult male iguana—and Arthur hasn’t got it.  Andy was in the house and Arthur decided to knock Trevalion off his windowsill for no other reason than he’s a cantankerous old bastard—the cap fits both of them but that particular insult goes to Arthur not `Lion on this occasion.

Arthur tried to pick him up and as he was airborne `Lion reached out to grab for safety.  He lacerated Arthur’s arm.

 He had his ear sewn back on when he cut it off on a road sign last year and had a tetanus then.  I told Andy to wash his arm in Dettol, tea towel it and apply as much pressure as he could until we got there. I left him with a burning question.

‘How’s my lizard?’ I felt that he might need a tetanus after coming in contact with Arthur.

We were home in five minutes.

His arm was a mess with deep purple bruising and some tears and punctures where the talons had held fast.  I cleaned it again, gave him half a dozen Steri-strip butterfly stitches and dressed it. It could have done with being treated properly, he’s eighty-seven with paper thin skin and, given that Trevalion is a reptile, the risk of infection is great. We rang the doctor to seek advice and he was happy with what we’d done and said to keep an eye on him. They really are trying to keep people away from hospital at all costs.

We’ve told him a hundred times to leave the animals alone.

He’s re-written history again.

‘When that wild animal attacked me…’

‘He didn’t attack you, Arthur,’

‘Well he bit me.’

‘He didn’t bite you.’

‘Well no, he tried me and didn’t like the taste of me, so he let go.’

‘He did not bite you, you picked him up and he scratched you.’

‘Oh, that’s right yes, he was in a tree and ran down to attack me.’

My youngest son had bought a tiger. I am so jealous; I’ve wanted a tiger for the last ten years. 1050, Triumph Tiger the best bike on the road at the moment. His is blue, it’s a sexy piece of kit.

We are a port town; our industry is submarine building. We have a fleet of three ships in port with pretty bird’s names, but there’s nothing pretty about the purpose of this fleet. They are used for transporting our plutonium to Russia for storage at the cost to the country of many millions of pounds.

Last night, at five to eight the ships blasted their horns. It’s a hauntingly beautiful sound that can be heard in our living room two miles away.

 Max asked, ‘Is it Thursday?’

‘No, Saturday.’

‘What they clapping for, this time?’

‘I don’t know, it was the NHS on Thursday, Key workers last night—Major Tom maybe, postal workers, binmen, Old Billy who drives the thing that cleans the street? They’ll have found some good cause to jump on.’

‘Maybe it’s the cloud coming.’

‘Could be.’

We are in The Triangle. In the centre of the Red Zone of three Nuclear powerplants, we have Hesham Power Station, Sellarfield and BAE on our doorstep. If there is an invasion the bombs are going to be falling on us.

When the air raid sirens go off, the town will dutifully grab their pots and pans and trudge in their socially conditioned stupor to clap for an unknown cause as the cloud descends.  

Arthur will not stoop spitting phlegm everywhere. It was bad this morning, he was doing it in his room. He has the nicest room in the house, Another, thing that I deeply resent, His stuff will be dripping from the windowsill, or pooling by his bed—or he’ll have filled my coffee mug with his disgusting sputum. I hate it.

Marty and the kids called yesterday with a belated present for Max. We let them in the gate, and we sat in the garden. Arthur had to be right in the thick of it and of course I couldn’t have ten minutes alone with my grandchildren. We kept telling him about social distancing, but he had to be touching them. He wanted to cuddle the youngest—who was having none of it. Then he tried to grab him and make him horsey ride on his foot. Then he got up and started tickling the middle one. They are scared of him and don’t want him touching them.

The girls were playing a game and he lurched himself up, ‘Are you laughing at me? Are you laughing at me?’ His teeth were clacking out of his mouth as he shouted, and he was flinging spit everywhere. They were terrified.

There was a lovely conversation with the youngest.

‘Why did you hit your sister?’

‘I hit her back.’

‘But she didn’t hit you.’

‘No, but she was going to—so I hit her back.’ The logic of a three-year-old.

Kila, Max’s eldest and her husband, Scott, are visiting today.  Kila is at work, mixing with dozens of people every day. Max used his superpower to explain that it’s all right. We’ve all had it, so it’s safe.  Kila’s a sensible girl and will want to keep their distance as much as I do—but then there’s Arthur who will be shaking hands and hugging and kissing and touching all over the place.

I’m happy in my bubble. I’d rather not see my grandchildren for however long it takes and know that they are safe.  My office and I have a deep affinity, I am content to lock myself away in here and shut off from the outside world for the next three years if that’s what it takes.  I suppose it highlights my abnormality again, that I don’t need people. I love my family and in normal times it’s lovely spending time with them—but these are not normal times. I find it easier than most people to obey the rules because I can talk to the people I love on the phone; I don’t need that person to person contact to know that they are well.