‘OK,’ I said. ‘Then no.’
‘No?’
I laughed. ‘You asked me to choose.’
‘But I thought you’d say “yes”.’
‘Then yes!’ I said, trying to keep the exasperation from my voice.
‘But you said “no”. So you actually think it’s dangerous.’
‘I did say “no”, but if I’m honest, it’s got nothing to do with how dangerous it is. I just think we maybe need some time to ourselves.’
‘Right,’ Dawn said. ‘You’re right. We do.’ Then, ‘But I think I’m going to tell her to come.’
I laughed again at that. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Whatever.’
‘Is that OK?’
‘Yes, sweetheart, that’s totally fine.’
By the time the weekend had come round we’d added Wayne (who wanted to see Lucy) and Tracey (who wanted to see Wayne) to our festivities. Having Tracey over also implied Quin’s presence as he now rarely left her side.
It probably wasn’t what our glorious prime minister had intended when he’d said to ‘reduce social mixing to a minimum’ but, as Lucy apparently pointed out, ‘we might all be dead by summer’. Of course, it would later transpire that 10Downing Street was party-a-go-go during the lockdown, so perhaps that’sexactlywhat the PM meant.
Anyway, we were happy to catch up with them all and happy for the distraction too. Our week alone had not been an easy one. The tiptoeing on eggshells had continued all week, so Tracey-and-Wayne’s hilarious mother-and-son sniping was most welcome.
Other than some excitement about Wayne getting back together with Belinda – now two years and four girlfriends previous – and raised glasses at the good news of Alek’s new job as a bar manager (the reason he couldn’t be present), virtually all the talk was of Covid. How bad would it be? Were the government over- or underreacting? How long would a vaccine take to be developed?
I remember hoping it wouldn’t all go on for too long because otherwise the conversation about it alone would become exhausting. But when I imagined whattoo longmeant, I was thinking in terms of weeks, or at worst a few months. We still had no idea…
Once we’d waved everyone off on Sunday afternoon, Dawn and I found ourselves at a complete loss for subjects of conversation, so we rehashed the conversations of the weekend and ran through the obvious choices of how well Lucy looked and how happy Tracey seemed with Quin and when even those subjects ran out we sat and ate in silence.
‘Lucy picked up on it, you know,’ Dawn said eventually, waving a spaghetti-laden fork in the space between us.
‘On what?’
‘This,’ she said through an ugly mouthful of spaghetti. ‘Us. She said we had aquoteweird vibe going onunquote.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Well, I suppose she’s right. We do.’
We ate in silence for a moment longer and then I asked, ‘Do we need to see someone, do you think?’
‘See…?’ Dawn started, then, ‘Oh! You mean like a shrink?’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘A guy at work’s been going to couples’ counselling with his wife. It made me think, that’s all…’ This was an out-and-out lie, but I felt that I needed an excuse to bring the subject up.
‘Brave,’ Dawn commented.
‘Seeing a counsellor?’
‘No, talking about it,’ she said. ‘I didn’t think you straight boys discussed that kind of stuff. I thought it was all cars and hi-fi and porn.’
‘Well,’ I said. ‘We don’t much, you’re right. I’m not even sure how it came up, now.’
Dawn filled her mouth with pasta but once she’d swallowed, instead of replying as I’d expected, she actually fed herself another forkful.
‘Should I take that as a “no” then?’ I asked.
