My dad died more than 15 years ago, so the details of that week are a little sketchy, but it went like this. I had only recently passed my driving test and I didn’t yet have any idea how long driving took – I basically thought I was in a Harrier jump jet. I made myself so late for some unmemorable obligation that I was trying to do my mascara while driving, missed a give-way line until seconds before, braked suddenly and got rammed from behind by a driver whose fault it categorically was not (whatever the rules say).
I got towed to a garage, was super-late for whatever it was I had been rushing to, left whatever I had bought in the boot of my totalled vehicle and never saw it again, got given a replacement car and ran out of petrol in the fast lane of a lesser-spotted five-lane segment of motorway and, narrowly escaping with not only my own life but also those of most of my siblings, had to get towed again. What were the chances, I railed to the skies, that in what was already the worst week of my life I would also end up on the back of a flatbed truck on two occasions?
Here is some crucial wisdom, from one middle-aged adult to any adults who are slightly younger or have had a less mishap-strewn life: the chances were really high. When something like this happens, it is neither karma nor coincidence: it is you. You are having the problems because you are the problem. It is like “You are not stuck in traffic, you are traffic”, only worse, because at least then there are other people suffering with you. It is nature’s way of telling you that you are tired and you should stop doing things, only, because nature is an incredibly quiet and subtle messenger, you will already have mucked a bunch of stuff up before you hear her.
So I have had a mini-disaster week, which started when I woke up to find I had spilled beer on my computer. “That’s weird,” said my 12-year-old. “Normally your hit rate of getting beer in your mouth is something like 100%.” I replied: “I wasn’t drinking it – it was sitting by my bed and I knocked it over.” He said: “Why were you drinking beer in bed?” to which the answer, obviously, was: “To get away from your smart mouth.”
I took it to my reputable local computer-mender, where they were signalling their one-person-at-a-time coronavirus policy by keeping their security shutters half-drawn, so you had to crouch down to get in, like the lift in Being John Malkovich. I managed that perfectly, even gracefully, on the way in and we had a nice catchup – I know them pretty well from all the times I have smashed my phone – and talked a bit about water damage, until one of them said: “Why does it smell like beer?”
It turns out the number of people who think it is decadent to drink beer in bed is surprisingly high. Trotting out gaily, with about 30% of my reputation intact, I smashed my eyebrow against the security shutter. It was incredibly painful and unbelievably loud, as if a bomb had gone off. People in nearby shops came out to see if I was hurt, while I staggered about like a concussed bull, going: “Nothing damaged except my pride,” with the guys in A2Z Computer Solutions chorusing: “Seriously? Pride, beer-in-bed lady?”
I noticed, on my return, that the ceiling in the living room was wet and chalked this up to yet more beer, soaking through the floorboards. This was a complete overestimation of how much damage the last dregs of a single beer bottle can do, not to mention a radical misunderstanding of the layout of the house, in which the bedroom is not above the living room.
It transpired a day later that there was a leak, which had by now done all the damage in the world. The ceiling was sagging like a hammock and there was the ominous smell of plaster that really wanted to succumb to gravity. “Definitely don’t sit underneath it,” said the plumber who arrived the next day. I thought: “Huh, what kind of idiot does he take me for?” But when it came to the bit where he disappeared for parts, and I tried and failed to find my phone so I could pay him, it turned out – this bit of deductive reasoning took a really long time – that I had stored my phone, carefully, at the bottom of the outdoors recycling bin.
I saw, or thought I saw, a lot of thoughts running across his face: who does that? Is this some elaborate grift, where she borrows my phone to find her own, then somehow escapes with my van and all my tools that I don’t leave in there overnight? Or is this simply a person in a high state of tension because parts of her house are falling down?
It is just enough, is what it is. This isn’t nature’s way of telling me to sleep more. This is nature’s way of telling me to stop saying: “Fine, actually – I don’t mind it,” whenever anyone asks me how lockdown is going. Because the true answer is something different from that, something that does not sound like words, just a string of consonants, not even looking for a vowel.
