April 30

You’re still writing in about what symbolises Lockdown for you and I’m struck by the fact that no-one has yet listed anything bad. All the things you’ve mentioned so far, will be a pleasure to look back on.

Poppy writes:

1) Shifting all my work into Zoom. Those dratted headphones that are brilliant but hurt my ears after 8 hours. 
2) My new puppy. An impulse purchase at the beginning of lock down that has been a godsend distraction for all of us.
3) Wild garlic. Foraging and making things from scratch. A return to my childhood where my father would produce a whole meal from a hedgerow.
4) My 3 children. We haven’t spent so much time together in 10 years and it has been amazing to have a stable rhythm with them 

As we began our 6th week of total isolation, the first person to enter our apartment in all this time, is due today. There is both excitement and trepidation in the air. I have written about Mark, our terrace designer and gardener, before, and now we are so utterly dependent on our terrace for fresh air and beauty, we can’t risk anything on it coming to grief, or we will follow.. The arrangements for Mark to enter our Soho fortress are complex: He is to phone when on his way, phone on arrival downstairs and phone again when he reaches our floor of the block. I will put the front door on the latch in advance, open the terrace door so he doesn’t have to touch it, then close myself in my study. I admit to having misgivings about making Mark feel like a Pariah but, the way he enthusiastically joins in the planning of the mad rituals, reassures me.

Safety ensconced in my study, I shout to him to push open the front door and come in. Through my study door and the heavy steel front door, there is little prospect of his hearing me – and he doesn’t. I rush out of my study, shout the instruction once again from behind the front door, rush back into my study and close the door again, at which moment, Mark enters. It is the oddest feeling to have someone else in the apartment after so long on our own. I have to admit, we’ve both enjoyed not having to entertain the numbers of people who used to troop through and, mysteriously, always head for our lavatory before undertaking any actual work.. But that’s only because, so far, and only by chance, we haven’t needed the services of a plumber, washing machine engineer or electrician. Our solution to a recently bleeping smoke alarm was to rip it out of the ceiling.

“The writer” is so nonplussed, he has retired to his eerie under the roof and and will not emerge ’til the invasion is over. I enjoy a shouted conversation through the terrace door with Mark, as he plants tomatoes and looks approvingly at the gooseberries I’m looking after so assiduously. Until we had them, I never realised gooseberry bushes had such sharp spikes and I wonder whether that’s why they were “chosen” for babies to be found under, to deter the older children from looking for their impending brother or sister? Having concocted this sentimental explanation I discover, on looking it up, that “Gooseberry bush” was 19th-century slang for pubic hair- so much for sentiment.

Mark finishes his tasks, walks gingerly back through the apartment to the front door and leaves us a considerate list of what he’s touched: the hose, outdoor broom and hose tap. I rush out to sanitise them with disinfectant wipes.

“The writer” refuses to re-appear and join me for a celebratory cup of tea until the air has had time to clear.