Covid-19 Celebrations

“Cake for breakfast?” Izzy frowned, still in her nightie, looking at the kitchen table. It was laid with a cake; a rich triple layered cream covered affair, three plates, fake champagne and coffee.

“Good morning sweetie pie.” Mum said.

Izzy cocked her head to one side, and puffed out a bored sigh.

Dad lifted his arms “Sixteenth birthday!” followed by “Sweet sixteen today!” from mum who lit the candles on the cake and clapped in rapid bursts.

“I’m not eating that now! Are you crazy?” Izzy grabbed a glass by the sink and filled it with water.

Dad chuckled, “Lockdown rules! The world’s gone mad, and so have we!”

She flopped over to the table, and gulped down the water, “Any post?”

“Don’t think so. Sit down love and let’s have cake.” Mum said, tapping the chair.

Izzy snuffed out the candles with her fingers, yanked them out one by one, threw them in the bin and then shoved her hands under the tap, “Lurgy precautions, no spitting on the candles.”

“We have to sing,” Dad said, “Happy Birthday to you-”

“For god’s sake.” Izzy turned her back and stomped off down the hallway.

A small white envelope was stuck half way through the letterbox. She glanced over her shoulder, pulled it out and then hid it under her nightie.

“Anything?” Mum called,

“No.”

Izzy shot across the hall into the main bathroom and locked the door. Falling to her knees she vomited in the loo. Her head, resting on her arm on the toilet seat, was thumping, heavy with the weight of the terrifying, almost certain conclusion.

She crawled to the bathroom door and leaned against it and opened the envelope. It contained a small box with Clearblue written on it. As if an invisible force had punched her in the chest, she opened her mouth and drew in air, her lungs forcing her to take a breath. She’d been forgetting to breathe lately. She took a couple of deep breaths, was it possible to fool the body and override its default position?

“Izzy?”

She flinched and smacked her head on the door knob, and shoved the box in her pants.

“What?” She looked up at the ceiling, opened her mouth and screamed silently. Her head was thumping again. She turned the shower on to drown out interruptions.

“You having a shower? Izzy?” Mum knocked on the door. “Well, don’t be too long.”

She opened the box, pulled out the contents, and read the instructions a few times. She took a deep breath, sat on the loo and peed on the plastic rod. She had three minutes.

She placed it on the side of the basin, got into the bath and turned the shower on forgetting to take off her nightie. She sat, knees to her chest, curled up under the warm water. Her eyes were fixated on the rod which was half on, half off the edge of the basin, swaying a little, finding its balance. She rocked back and forth, mimicking its sway. It stilled at a tilt. Would that give her an inaccurate result? She tucked her head between her knees, praying the warm shower would wash everything away. Four months without a period, shit. They had only just gone into lock-down. What was she going to do? She couldn’t. Was she too late? Were clinics even open?

“Izzy, put a wiggle in it! Party time!” It was Dad.

She lifted her face towards the water which tasted salty as it streamed down her face. She edged forward to the side of the bath and picked up the rod. She closed her eyes, this would be a good time to fool her body. She held her breath hoping to break its survival instinct. It didn’t work. Opening her eyes, one at a time, she looked.

Two blue lines.

Neil Sedaka’s ‘Happy Birthday, Sweet Sixteen’ blasted out from the kitchen.

#

Fran jumped out of bed at eleven in the morning, having only just got in, reluctantly, at seven. Her thoughts had been whirling with possibilities and uncertainty was charming her.

She stood in front of the living room mirror, a pencil case, adorned with butterflies, for a microphone and sang along to a funked-up version of ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’ by some YouTuber. With utter delight she noticed a twinkle in her eyes she had never, not ever, seen.

She twirled into the kitchen, retrieved her notebook, and looked at the page with her goals on it. Resting her elbows on the counter, she admired her handiwork.

Her hidden ambitions and dreams were bared in felt-tip pen. Some were highlighted and some had doodled stars next to them or exclamation marks. Hearts blended in crayon spotted the page, like a stamp sealing her desires.

She closed it carefully and placed it on the top of the self-empowering books she’d used as a guide. It was a masterpiece. It was all there.

Locked in; out of the ordinary, the expected, had been a blessing for her. She put her hands together in prayer and closed her eyes; an enforced pause, the solo retreat crowned by a glory of new insights had been dramatic, yet there hadn’t been visitations from angels or wise words from the Divine but there had been a moment’s clarity, an ethereal illumination of truth.

She couldn’t rationalise it, but she could sense it with such potency her intuition had crawled to her outsides and stuck on the walls of her confinement cell. Lock-down had unstitched the seams of her straitjacket and freed her worn conditioning.

She spied the bottle of Rosé on the counter top which she’d been saving especially. She was no longer an unwitting, floundering excuse of a person; she was empowered.

It was a little early but she uncorked the wine, took a glass, picked up a box of cherries and walked into her sunny garden.

‘Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen’ was booming out from a house nearby, fighting for air space with ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow.’ She paused at ‘skies are blue’ and sang along to Sweet Sixteen, delighted she didn’t have to re-live those years. The music stopped abruptly and she could hear raised voices and something kicking off.

She stretched out in the lounger and sighed, her mood sagging. She had one last thing to do.

She picked up her phone, filled her glass and typed, “Call you in an hour,” and pressed send.

She didn’t mention anything about it being their wedding day, now cancelled, consequences of the Covid curse. She couldn’t call it a curse though, could she? Not for her.

She took the cherries out of the cardboard box and put them in a bowl but suddenly realised, even though she’d washed them earlier, that she’d put them back in the original box from the shop. She whizzed back inside and washed her hands. Damn virus, it was never-ending. The box was probably fine; she’d bought them yesterday.

She slid further into the lounger and took a gulp of wine. Resting her head back, she inclined her face to the sun, peace playing with her thoughts and quietening her soul. She raised her glass and took another sip, to thine own self be true.

A light breeze nudged her. She wasn’t afraid to call him but she didn’t want to hurt him. Loose leaves whirled in chaos and descended like lost confetti as a more powerful wind swirled in from the east and unsettled the status quo. Empty plant pots tipped over and before she could catch hold of it, the cardboard cherry box was up and over the fence at the bottom of the garden. Damn.

She downed her glass, re-filled it and called him.

#

“Move aside Molly!” Henry said.

“Dad, you said you were going to bury your face in the fruit and veg at the supermarket, touch anyone you could get your hands on and lick a wall if you had to. I’m coming with you.”

“For goodness sake,” Henry pulled his jacket off the hanger which hung on the doorknob of the cloakroom cupboard.

“I just want some quiet time, on my own.”

“Dad, this virus is serious, fatal even-”

“Exactly and I’m done.”

“There you go again, a bloody death wish. I’m coming with you.”

Henry struggled to get his arms into the jacket and stood there, stuck, sweating, looking at Molly, one arm in and one arm out, “God strewth, you were always so headstrong.”

Molly stepped forward to help him, but Henry flashed her a look that she knew well.

“I want to visit her too, Dad. It is her anniversary.”

“Bleeding Nora, d’you think I’m too senile to know that?”

“Dad…”

Henry grappled with the other sleeve and inched his arm down towards the cuff until he could see his hand pop out.

“You look nice Dad.”

“This was her favourite jacket.”

“I remember.”

“She loved corduroy,” he said, brushing the sleeves down, ‘But I’m not wearing a mask. I can’t breathe with that darn thing on.’

“I’ll sit on the bench by the church and you can pay your respects first. How about that?”

“I say bollocks to that.”

It wasn’t far and Henry took his time, slow and gentle, arm in arm with Molly. He paused at the roundabout, just before the church and leaned heavily upon an iron railing.

There was a couple of teenagers on a grass verge, right next to them, with their masks at their chins, talking urgently. He wished he could be urgent again with his wife. He missed the theatrics and it looked like it was heating up.

The girl stood up, her face swollen with the drama; restless, unsure, intense. Henry was riveted, watching, as the boy grabbed her arm as she tried to leave,

“Izzy, we’ll sort it, I’ll come with you,” he cried after her as she took off all arms and legs. Henry looked away, the passion between them was undeniable.

Molly tugged on his arm and he let her lead him to the church grounds and through the gate. Struggling on the uneven cobble stones, he shuffled away from her, taking the cushion she gave him for his knees and stepped onto the grass.

“Afternoon my love, it’s been a while,” he said and knelt at his wife’s grave, and slouched forward, wiping the back of his hand over his wet eyes. He bit his knuckles, shook his head and sniffed. “Be there in a jiffy.”

Hobbling to his feet he kissed the tip off his fingers and then touched his wife’s headstone.

A cardboard punnet at the side of her headstone blew back and forth, as if unsure which way to go. Henry watched it, thinking of the to and fro of the teenagers. The wind circled it and slung it this way and that and then, with an extra puff, snatched it up and swept it up towards Henry whose frail arms caught it. He turned his back to the church, and to Molly on the bench, and sniffed the box. Strawberries? No, more like cherries. Fairly fresh too. He placed it over his face, like a mask and inhaled. He moved his head from side to side until he had smothered himself with its cardboard waste, and just for luck, he licked it.