Sunday, 29 March, 2020

Articles in the newspapers and magazines warned us weird dreams were all-too common at the moment, all of us processing catastrophe as best as our beleaguered brains could.

My subconscious had picked up on what was going on around me, setting the dream I'd had early Sunday morning in a hospital. People in masks rushed past, pushing me out of the way. The unfamiliar setting didn't change the essence of the dream—a variation on a theme.

Mum and I shrieking at each other—me convinced my arguments were reasonable, and she was over-reacting, her promising me her reaction was justified, mild in fact compared to how much she wanted to scream at me, and then Tom appearing, dressed in his Post Office uniform and him turning to me, face twisted in disgust.

A full bladder tipped me from semi-consciousness to wakefulness and relief. I stumbled into the ensuite and a hot shower, water pounding against my head.

As I brushed my teeth, I tipped my head to one side to study the reflection in the mirror. Hideous dreams aside, I was what... blissfully, amazingly, head over heels happy? Screw Botox and fillers. The last few days had ironed out the wrinkles on my face and who needed whitening eyedrops when joy made my eyes sparkle of their own accord.

"Sophie?" Tom yelled, downstairs already. "Breakfast's up!"

The smell of bacon and toast floated upwards. Good grief. I'd already seen all those jokes circulating about working from home. What meeting will I go to first as soon as I get out of lockdown—Weight Watchers or AA? Or I'm self-isolating and busy fattening the curve.

Tomorrow, I would get out of bed at 4am when Tom got up and go for an hour-long run. On the other hand, all those self-imposed rules about food seemed so absurd I'd ditched them all. Two weeks of eating mind-blowingly delicious food did that to a girl.

What else did I love about my new life? Those sleepy morning goodbyes. Me jumping up the minute I heard Tom return early afternoon, and almost falling down the stairs as I raced down them to watch that strip tease. The two of us chatting and laughing in the kitchen as he cooked. Playing Minecraft and getting better at it. Cuddling up on the sofa to watch TV.

Our own little world. Safe and sound. No need to spoil it with pesky secrets, right?

Tom had switched on the coffee machine, which percolated in the kitchen. Heroic will power on his part, seeing as he still had two weeks to go until the dictates of the Catholic church permitted him to drink coffee once more. He turned to me and grinned, holding his arms out wide for a hug.

"No make-up," he said. "You look gorgeous!"

Men, eh? The no make-up look takes far longer than slapping the stuff on. Green corrector serum, BB cream and translucent powder, dark brown mascara and a light pink lip gloss. I accepted the hug. "What's for breakfast?"

"The works—bacon, eggs, sausages, fried bread, fried potatoes, baked beans and black pudding."

Two and a half thousand calories? More? I smiled. "Lovely. Did you sleep okay? Did you attend virtual mass?"

He poked the bacon and sausages in the pan, fat oozing out of them. I revised my calorie total upwards. "Yeah. I logged into the early mass first ting. Plenty of us in attendance. Even a few of the oldies. Father Michael was over the moon."

I hadn't heard a thing. Breakfast dished up, me shaking my head to the two of everything Tom suggested and making do with one, I asked him what he wanted to do for the day. Almost everything in the country had slapped closed signs on doors, windows and gates.

"How about some fresh air? A walk around Queen's Park? I used to go there a lot with my mum."

"That'll be grand." He stretched his hand across the table and gripped mine. "Nice for you to go to the place your mammy loved."

'Mammy' didn't suit my mother at all, but the word sound comforting. If we walked the hill path, the same route my mother and I used to follow around the park, perhaps she wouldn't hiss and spit, face curled up in disgust, when she turned up in my dreams from now on.

"Have you spoken to yours?" I asked. After that conversation I'd overheard on Friday, he told me his mother had wanted to know if he was okay and how his work would protect from the virus if he had to keep working. No mention of a subsequent chat with whoever Liam was.

He nodded, ducking his head so his eyes weren't visible. The realisation cheered me. Tom, the marvellous—principled, socialist, committed Christian and all-round good guy—had lied and I'd just figured out what it was. When he'd spoken to Liam, he'd meant he hadn't told his mother, and not me, something.

"Tom... you haven't mentioned me to her, have you?" I asked, cutting off a generous chunk of sausage—superb—and dipping it into the small pool of tomato ketchup on the plate. I waved the fork at him. "When you spoke to her, where did you say you where? A friend's house?"

He shook his head, his expression sheepish. "I, ah, committed the sin of omission where I didn't tell her anything at all. If you keep the laptop on your lap when you Skype call someone, not that much of the background is visible."

Another rueful grin. "A trick I might have used when I spoke to her on a Sunday morning, having spent the Saturday night in me last girlfriend's house."

I burst out laughing. "Tom, are you scared of your mammy?"

"Too right. Any god-fearing Irish Catholic boy is terrified of the woman who gave birth to him. She's got mighty strong opinions, me mammy."

"But you're not ashamed of me, are you?" I bit off another inch of sausage—a food banned in my previous life for being too fatty. Too heavenly, more like.

Brow wrinkling and eyes meeting mine once more, Tom reached for my hand. "God, no. But she has this old-fashioned ting where only a god-fearing Catholic Irishwoman will do for her son.

"And moving in with someone—I could tell her until I was blue in the face we're not sleeping together, and she wouldn't believe me. She doesn't do the whole sex before marriage ting at all."

People like that still existed? Okay, then. I nodded. "Sorry to—"

He held my hand up and kissed my knuckles. "No need to say sorry. My bad, as they say. Might be time for me to stick up for meself seein' as I'm the grand ol' age of 27, eh?"

He shot me a wry grin.

"And far too young for me," I pointed out. "If the fact her son's dating a non-Irish atheist doesn't kill her, the bit where you tell her my age will, right?" I said.

Tom didn't answer, eyes sliding away from mine. Mammy Docherty would dislike me for plenty of reasons, not least my age.

I glanced down at my breakfast—the food half-eaten. A fry-up is one of those meals that doesn't age well. Let it sit for any time and the fat congeals. Tom had managed most of his, the ability to wolf food, he'd told me thanks to him having grown up in a family of eight. "He who eats slowly eats the least!"

"Let's go out," I said, "before the Government issues orders forbidding us to leave our houses for the foreseeable future."

He stood up. Relieved that we'd moved on from an uncomfortable subject? "Don't you want to do the washing up first? You're itching to do it, aren't you?!"

I smiled. "Too right."

He threw an arm around me. "That's something me mammy would definitely approve of. Show me how to use that fancy dishwasher of yours and I'll help."

******

Tom surprised me by turning left into Mrs Whittaker's driveway when we left the house.

"What are you doing?" I asked. He mouthed back, "Wait and see!" as he knocked on her door and stood well back.

The door took an age to open, my neighbour peering out suspiciously, the lower part of her face covered by a Hermes scarf.

"Yes?"

Mrs Whittaker was old-school, her tone patrician and her voice pure Queen's English. Tom's lilting Eire accent was the opposite. I wondered if he felt the need to perform a small bow.

"Mrs Whittaker, isn't it? Do you want us to walk your dog for you? We're off to Queen's Park. Lovely space for a doggie to run around."

Thanks to the scarf, her expression wasn't clear, but I thought I saw the outline of a grateful smile. Saint Tom. In all the years, Mrs Whittaker and I had lived next door to each other, I'd never offered to walk her dog.

Her Corgi, a snappy little beast, appeared at the door too, yapping its head off. Did he recognise the word 'walk'?

"Roger loves the park," she said. "The Government informs me it is not a good idea to venture beyond these four walls because I had throat cancer a few years ago."

She cast her eyes upwards. Maybe that porch now resembled the entry to a castle—the portcullis about to drop any second and imprison those within it.

Tom nodded. "Who's getting your shopping for you?"

Good point. Mrs Whittaker and I knew each other's names but little else. Her husband, a bluff, red-faced man who always wore Tweed, had died a few years ago. If she had any children, I 'd never seen them visit.

"My daily usually does it," she said. The old-fashioned name for a servant who came in every day as opposed to living in. "But, ah, she contacted me the other day to say she is not supposed to work anymore so I'm—"

"That's settled, then. We'll do it for you," Tom announced. "If you give us a list? Is once a week enough? And I can take your dog for a walk every afternoon if that helps?"

The old woman shook her head. "But you can order food from the shops, can't you?"

"That's tricky at the moment," I piped up. Most of the time, I opted for home delivery. When I'd tried to book on earlier in the week, I'd been forced to wait an hour until the system booted me out. All those people like Mrs Whittaker who had been advised not to leave the houses were all trying to do the same thing.

Mrs Whittaker might own a computer or a tablet and be a whizz on it. Doubtful, though. She probably imagined phoning a shop and instructing a young lad to pack food into a box, put the box in the basket of a bicycle and deliver it that way.

Her gaze flickered between Roger and us.

"Tom drinks whisky," I threw in. "Wasn't your husband fond of a dram?"

The old woman nodded, turning back into her house, followed by the still yapping Roger.

"I don't need a bottle of whisky," Tom said.

"I know. But I think she's too proud to accept help otherwise."

Sure enough, when she returned a few minutes later clasping a bottle of single malt I recognised as one of those experts advised people to invest in, she seemed far happier about accepting Tom's offer.

Bottle deposed of on the step along with one of those extendable leads and a roll of black plastic bags, she bellowed for Roger, who bolted out of the house and ran towards us, tail wagging.

"You," I whispered to Tom, "will be the one picking up the poo."

He dug an elbow into my side, promising Mrs Whittaker he would disinfect the lead after he'd used it, and bent down to attach it to Roger's collar.

My neighbour turned to face me. "Miss Dalziel? What a splendid chap this young man is. I suggest you hang onto him."

I nodded. "Excellent advice, Mrs Whittaker."

She nodded back. Tom, Roger trotting by his side, had turned that delightful pinky-red again.

"Who calls a dog Roger?" he asked once we were back on the street, Roger straining the full length of the extendable leash as he wandered off to sniff lampposts, shrubs and walls.

"Posh old ladies, obviously. Who like dishing out unasked for advice. Do you want to stick with me?"

Faux casual, the lightness of the question disguised the thumping of my heart. Funny how the last seven days of soothing domesticity had convinced me this was the way I should live for the rest of my life.

"You'll do," he said, that same casualness. "Time will tell, I s'pose."

Ambiguous. But why drag the mood down with angst-ridden chat about where we saw the relationship going? World events made everything too uncertain.

"I might change my mind," I said, skipping ahead of him. "What if by the time you decide we can have sex with each other, I discover you've no idea where to find the clitoris on a woman's body?"

"Ohhhh!"

I ran off, him following at my heels, Roger yapping once more.

"What an appalling ting to suggest about me reputation!" Tom grabbed hold of me just as we reached the car. "Me last girlfriend had no complaints."

And with that, he tipped me back over the car's bonnet, pressed between my legs and kissed me so thoroughly I only noticed the numbness in my legs when I stood up and they gave way.

"Are you okay?" Tom asked, trying and failing to hide a smug smile. He stuck a hand out for me to grab.

"Fine! And seeing as you're so determined to play out Mr Macho, you're driving us to the park. C'mon then. Hurry up!"