‘I think that may be your answer, Sue,’ I said, lifting the flap in the counter to enter.
Alone in my office, I ploughed through the weekend’s emails, sorting them into various folders and forwarding them to the people concerned.
And then one from our Maidstone branch popped up with a ping. It was written by the branch secretary. Cheryl. She was resigning, she said simply. It was time to ‘move on to fresh pastures’. Her only question was if she needed to send me an actual letter, and whether I was going to require that she work her notice period.
I stared at that email for almost twenty minutes as I tried to work out what I was feeling.
But other than a sensation of sickness, ofphysicalstomach-churning sickness, I honestly couldn’t come up with a single reasonable thought.
At the end of the day, as I was packing up to leave, Ryan came in to see me. He suggested we order face masks for everyone. The delivery guys were requesting them, he said, and it seemed irresponsible not to supply masks for everyone.
‘Meditech still have some,’ he told me. ‘But their sales guy says they’re running out fast. They’re made in China apparently, and all the factories are shutting down because of Covid.’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Fine. Order some. Order them for every branch.’
‘Like, how many would you say, though?’ Ryan asked. ‘One per person per day for a month?’
‘I guess,’ I said, though at that stage a month actually struck me as excessive. ‘If they need to be binned daily.Do they?’
Ryan shrugged. ‘No one seems to know,’ he said. ‘Some say you can wash them, but hospitals say they have to be binned.’
I drove home that evening listening to the radio again thinking alternately about Dawn and Cheryl and the pandemic.
The newsreader was describing new lockdowns throughout Europe and the inevitability of one happening here. Some of our own hospitals were already declaring ‘critical events’ – whatever those were – and soon, he predicted, we’d be opening hospitals in tents ourselves.
When I got home, Dawn was making dinner. She too had the radio on.
‘Have you been listening to all this?’ she asked.
I nodded. ‘It’s like being in some awful apocalyptic film.’
Dawn looked up from the pan she was stirring. ‘That’s exactly what it’s like.’
‘We’re ordering masks at work,’ I said. ‘We’re putting an order in for hundreds of them.’
‘Bring some home if you can,’ Dawn said. ‘Apparently all the chemists are out of stock.’ Then, ‘Lucy phoned. She wants to come home this weekend. I wasn’t sure what to say.’
‘Why?’ I asked. I couldn’t remember anyone in our family ever saying anything other than “yes”’.
‘Well, we’re supposed to be reducing our social mixing and what-have-you, aren’t we?’
‘Ah,’ I said. ‘Yes, I suppose. Then tell her “no” if you’re worried.’
‘But what do you think?’
‘I think it’s unlikely that Lucy Boop will give us Covid.’
‘They were out at a party on Friday with about thirty other people…’ Dawn said. ‘She got home at six a.m.’
‘Then, like I said, if you’re worried, tell her it’s not convenient. Tell her we’ve got something on if that’s easier.’
‘But she’s worried we’ll get locked indoors,’ Dawn said. ‘And if that happens then we might not see her again for ages.’
‘Then say “yes”.’
Dawn stopped stirring and turned to face me. She put her hands on her hips.
‘Rob,’ she said. ‘I need you to make this call. Don’t ask me why, but I need you to choose. It’s just too much… I don’t know… responsibility.’
