‘I spoke to some of the other students in the halls. There are only a few of them. One of them, a nice Chinese girl, offered to keep an eye on Eileen. As well as she can from two metres away.’
‘I’ll check in with her regularly too,’ says Ruth. ‘I wish she could go home but she says she doesn’t get on with her mother. I don’t think the government have thought about students like Eileen. They think everyone has a nice safe home to go back to.’
‘Home isn’t always safe,’ says Nelson. ‘I’d better get back to the station now. Text me Joe McMahon’s address. He’s not necessarily a danger to you but I’d like to have a word with him.’
Not necessarily.It’s not the most reassuring phrase, thinks Ruth. But Nelson’s next remark is better.
‘See you later,’ he says.
After lunch, Ruth and Kate go for a windy walk across the Saltmarsh. Kate finds some crab claws and is ghoulishly pleased at the thought that a bird must have dropped them after feasting on the creature’s insides. Back at home, she goes to give them pride of place on her nature table. Ruth takes the opportunity to ring Shona.
‘Hi. How are you?’ She’s guiltily aware that she hasn’t contacted her friend since the start of lockdown.
‘OK. I’m going mad trying to keep Louis and Phil entertained. When you think we should have been halfway across Thailand by now.’
Shona and her partner Phil– Ruth’s ex-boss– had been planning to take a year off and go around the world with their ten-year-old son, Louis. Phil had taken early retirement after a heart attack two years ago and Shona had managed to secure a sabbatical. Strictly speaking, they weren’t planning to leave until July, but Ruth forgives Shona the slight exaggeration.
‘It’s awful the way everything’s on hold now,’ she says.
‘It’s the not knowing,’ says Shona. ‘Will everything be back to normal by the summer? Phil says not but he’s being very gloomy.’
Shona sounds thoroughly fed up and Ruth doesn’t blame her. Being locked down with Phil must constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Louis is not exactly easy company either.
‘Maybe Louis and Kate could do something on Zoom one day,’ she says, although she knows that the two do not always see eye to eye.
‘That would be lovely,’ says Shona. ‘And the English department are having an online quiz tomorrow. Perhaps you could join in with that?’
‘Perhaps,’ says Ruth. She needs to think of an excuse, but she can hardly say that she’s out that evening. She’s not keen on quizzes at the best of times and doesn’t fancy the idea of listening to the English department one-upping each other on Shakespeare quotations. Still, it reminds her of the purpose of her call.
‘Richard Lovelace,’ says Shona. ‘He was one of those Cavalier poets.’
For a moment Ruth thinks Shona means ‘cavalier’ in the sense of being offhand, but then she realises that Lovelace must have been writing at the time of the English Civil War between the Parliamentarians (Roundheads) and Royalists (Cavaliers). Ruth is a bit vague on the detail but she knows that King’s Lynn was besieged first by the Royalists and then by the Parliamentarians, led by the Earl of Manchester who always sounds made-up. Who was it that called the Parliamentarians ‘right but repulsive’? She questions Shona, who laughs.
‘That’s from1066 and All That. The Royalists were “wrong but romantic”. That’s pretty much how I see the two sides. Lovelace was a Royalist, imprisoned by the Parliamentarians. Why are you interested in him? He’s a minor poet, really.’
Ruth knows that Shona has her own literary hierarchy, headed by Sylvia Plath and Shakespeare. Other dead white men are near the bottom.
‘One of my students quoted something by him,’ says Ruth, which is more or less true. ‘“Stone walls do not a prison make. Nor iron bars a cage.”’
‘That’s probably Lovelace’s most famous poem,’ says Shona. ‘“To Althea, from Prison”. I’ll email you a copy if you like.’
‘It’s not that obscure then?’
‘God no. You can probably get it on a mug or embroidered on a cushion.’
‘Did he die in prison?’ asks Ruth. ‘Was he executed?’
‘Oh no,’ says Shona. ‘He lived to fight another day.’
Ruth feels oddly comforted by this. They chat for a few more minutes before Ruth rings off, promising to think about the quiz.
Kate has gone back to her Lego so Ruth goes into the kitchen to ring Janet Meadows. She opens the back door and looks out into the garden. Once again, the small patch of green is extremely soothing. She can hear Zoe talking to Derek in her garden. A blackbird sings loudly from the apple tree.
Janet, too, seems pleased to hear from her.
‘I’m already fed up with lockdown. There’s only so much yoga and baking you can do.’
Ruth remembers that she included yeast and bread flour in her mammoth shop on Tuesday. Had she really been intending to bake bread? Things aren’t that desperate yet. But then it’s only been a week.
