‘I thought you’d leave me if I told you,’ he said through his fingers. ‘I always thought that. That you’d leave me if you ever found out.’
‘Oh, Rob!’ I said. ‘Christ, no! No, I don’t think I could ever leave you now.’
‘Because you feel sorry for me.’
‘No! Because Iloveyou,’ I said. ‘I love you so much, Rob. You’re the most honest, kind, loving person I’ve ever met. And I’m sorry for everything that’s happened between us, but I think – if you’ll have me, that is – I think you’re going to have to put up with me until the end.’
‘Christ,’ Rob said. ‘Thank God.’
* * *
That first lockdown lasted until May, eased almost to the point of non-existence in September, toughened again in November, and went full-on prison-break all over again from January through to March.
Rob’s business ended up reduced to a skeleton crew of six people working three branches while the other two were closed – closures that were intended to be temporary, but which a Brexit-plus-Covid-plus-War-in-Ukraine-inspired economic downturn would prevent from ever opening again.
Because over two hundred thousand people died in the UK, because it wrecked the economy, routed the public finances, exhausted the poor nursing staff and deprived people of seeing aged, often dying relatives, what I’m going to say next will sound awful, but I’m trying to be honest here, so please don’t hate me for it: for our family, the lockdowns were a godsend.
For Rob and I, it wasn’t just that we hadn’t spent time together recently, it was – as thanks to lockdown we finally came to realise – that we’dneverspent much time together.
When I’d met him he’d been working flat out trying to pay for our first house and after that I’d had a screaming newborn to take care of, closely followed by a second. In the gaps when I might have had some free time, Rob had been setting up a business then organising its expansion, and by the time that had calmed down we had the move followed by Lucy’s madness, Mum’s illness and Rob’s affair… The list of events that had happened to us, plus events we’d ourselves created to avoid spending time together, just went on and on. But suddenly, here we were, locked up together and bored, and it happened at one of the most crucial moments of our lives.
At the beginning, out of habit, we found things to do. Rob cleared out the garage and built shelves to organise everything properly, and I planted a vegetable patch, which despite hundreds of hours of back-breaking work would produce almost nothing at all. I did not, it turned out, have green fingers. While my plants failed to thrive, I redecorated our bedroom, and while Rob installed air conditioning in the sunroom I took up online yoga classes. When Rob finished his last DIY project he started running again – you get the picture.
But these lockdowns went on formonths. They went on for so very long that ultimately we had no choice but to spend time together, and I mean not just in the same house buttogether.
The process of talking to each other was already under way, but as the months went by we found ourselves talking like never before.
I dared to ask Rob how he felt about his parents and he did his best to convey the mixture of hatred and shame that he felt about them.
I’d always assumed that he must secretly feel a smidgen of love too – that, for a parent, seemed to me to be something that was unavoidable, even if it was perhaps impossible for him to admit. But then in January 2021 Rob’s father died of Covid, followed just a few days later by his mother, and Rob genuinely didn’t seem affected.
About a week after their online funeral – a funeral that Rob declined to ‘attend’ – I asked him if he had any regrets, any sadness – in fact, any feelings at all.
‘You know – and this is gonna sound a bit monster-ey,’ he said. ‘But I really don’t. Does that make me a bad person, do you think?’
I told him that, no, it didn’t make him a bad person, at least not in my eyes.
‘I wasn’t sure if I would or not,’ he said. ‘I honestly thought I might suddenly get this rush of sorrow or grief or whatever. But it hasn’t come yet, that’s for sure. The only thing I feel is relief. Relief that I never have to see them or hear from them or hopefully even think about them again.’
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Well, good.’
‘It’s the gift that just keeps on giving,’ he said.
‘What is?’ I asked.
‘Covid.’
‘That does sound abitmonster-ey,’ I told him. ‘Maybe don’t share that joke with anyone other than me.’
By the time we came out of the final lockdown, Lucy was pregnant, Wayne and Belinda had named a date, Lou had settled down with his girlfriend, Mum had moved out of her place and in with Quentin, and Rob and I were more in love than we had ever been in the entire history of our marriage. None of us spoke of lockdown as being a negative, though that wasn’t a reality that was shareable with anyone outside the family.
Shelley (who’d split up with Gavin in the middle of lockdown) wouldn’t have wanted to hear it, and nor would Trudy (who had long Covid) or Ryan (both of whose grandparents had been horribly ill, but survived) or indeed any of Rob’s laid-off staff.
So we kept our little explosion of joy within the walls of the family unit. We had raucous meals and wore posh clothes for the first time in years to Wayne’s wedding and had a baby shower for Alek and Lucy.
In March Lucy gave birth to a beautiful baby boy – seven pounds and eight ounces or 3.4 kilos if, like Lucy, you prefer your babies metric.
Arriving at the hospital, I crossed paths with Mum, who had already visited and was on her way out.
