Lately, my refrigerator always contains an ice-cold bottle of vodka and at least two bottles of rosé. It is still summer, after all. Summer in semi-lockdown; that stage where the doors are open and we’re ostensibly free to leave, but outdoors is strange, so it’s easier to have a large glass of something nice on the sofa. There are no QR codes to scan, and no queuing for the bar in the same stiff manner with which one might line up to collect a hire car. Who knew that one day I’d crave the scrum and jostle of getting in a round in a heaving pub? Or miss the quaint Britishness of ferrying half-spilt drinks through a Friday night bunfight with the martyred groan of “It’s hell at that bar”?
Instead, millions of us are staying safely at home. We’re mixing our own cocktails and protecting our lungs, but I’m not so sure we’re as concerned about our livers. I began lockdown in March behaving like Sarah Connor in Terminator 2: doing squats, lifting weights, drinking gallons of water, determined to live out the apocalypse. But soon the new world needed numbing and a lovely bottle of botanical gin – so fancy! – appeared in my grocery basket. Now, months later, I ask myself: am I the only one drinking more than ever?
Obviously, and let me say this very clearly: I am not drinking nearly as much as my friends. Did you hear that at the back? It’s important. I’m drinking much, much less than all the others. There have been no bulk-buying booze grabs to Aldi for me, or secret shameful recycling trips, or wine hidden in mugs during Zoom meetings, or falling asleep obliterated after the living room pub quiz. Oh no, I have standards.
Still, smug comparison is the cornerstone to each of us slipping an extra bottle in the trolley in order to cope with the A-levels fiasco. Or the next round of redundancy rumours. Or the shock twist that people seeking mortgages are being rejected for accepting the government’s self-employed income support. Or maybe, like me, your mother’s CT scan has been delayed for three months for no apparent reason and gaining any answers feels like being trapped in an MC Escher sketch.
All of these events pair well with a nice cold chablis or a delicate beaujolais and a lie-down on the sofa with your ankles raised. You’ll note I did not say, “a can of super-strength lager and a sit in the park”, because these are the tenets of “having an alcohol problem”, which none of us genteel readers have gained, not remotely. Drinking is never a problem when the booze arrives with charming labels via small-batch, low-intervention vineyards, along with an order of exemplary sourdough and Clarence Court Burford Brown eggs.
Or so I thought in July, when I was seduced in Marks and Spencer’s food hall by a gorgeously designed eco-friendly two-litre bag of rosé with an ergonomic wine nozzle which fitted on to the top shelf of my fridge. With one raised hand I could have a neat snifter: perfect for watching the No 10 briefings, or hearing my father’s latest Covid-19 test result. Less Shane MacGowan, more Margo from The Good Life. Where was the problem with that? Somewhere through the second bag, I remembered the old deadpan joke we used to make about my late aunt Julia, who claimed to “only ever have one drink a night”, except that drink was a two-litre box of Santa Maria Vin de Table before the inevitable fall down the stairs.
But as I say, this is only for summer. By autumn, the government seems to believe, we’ll all be soberly back at our desks, work stations or spots on the factory floor. Or will we? Forgive me for being a negative Nelly, but I can’t see it. Every time I hear of the great return to normal, I envisage Rishi Sunak pirouetting through Great Britain clutching an extra-large butterfly net, scooping pointlessly at fresh air. He’d have a better chance of rounding us all up.
Anyone who has called a corporate customer services line recently will be familiar with a country quite at home, working flexitime in its pyjamas. Last week I attempted to locate a missing insurance claim, finally admitting defeat after the third time I was transferred to someone patently snug as a bug in a rug, who was emitting the correct sympathetic phrases, but in a manner that suggested no notes were being taken. Being child-free, I have no idea how parents are supposed to plan a September work diary while the arguments about schools reopening rage on. My main point of reference for this is the BBC sitcom The Brittas Empire, in which Carol, the leisure centre receptionist, kept her three children in drawers under the desk, leaving her partially available to check in guests.
In the great autumn return to work, has Rishi factored in all the pissed people? Life is still incredibly difficult out there, and the boon about working from home is that the sun is always over the yardarm. So here’s to a chipper autumn, full of workplace chaos, cancelled bonfire and Halloween parties, and a scuppered, socially-distanced Christmas. I think I’ll be drinking to that, too.
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