A rat at No 11
A terrible drama is unfolding and to intensify the pathos we get a change of scenery. Spring is banging the drum in all the trees and hedges. Birds are pairing up and having clumsy sex on the shed roof. There’s blossom everywhere and, look, I don’t want to be a wet market but, to be honest, this year? Blossom feels tonally wrong, like party poppers at a funeral.
On our street, there’s been a death at No 2 and a birth at No 5. And a rat’s been spotted at No 11. Harry Next Door brings out his collection of traps. They range from grotesque Tom & Jerry murder machines to a little plastic snuff box, like a mini-mouse Dignitas. “Two metres!” I shout to Frank From 15. “Gas and electricity!” he shouts back.
Also – result! I’m on one supermarket’s at-risk list now and, honestly, I may be a Shielded And Extremely Vulnerable Pensioner but I just bagged a next-day Iceland delivery and it feels like I’ve hunter-gathered a fucking BISON.
Pandemic Michael
We Skype the K-Fam in Seoul, where life is slowly unclenching. The word there is that humanity’s about to enter a new grim era of pandemics. Our son Dan reckons they’ll be so common we’ll start giving them names, the way we do with storms. Pandemic Alicia, all the way through to Pandemic Zeke. Remember all those experts who in 2016 told the government to prepare for catastrophe and were ignored because we’d “had enough of experts”? I vote we call the current shitstorm “Pandemic Michael” after that smug, plastinated berk. Or Govid-19.
Remember ‘the pub’?
Like a lot of people who type for a living, I’m looking at a pretty clear diary for 2020. Normally, writers only live in their heads 85% of the time. But normal is in the deep past. It’s in clumsily colourised sepia now, like the Cheers title sequence: people frozen in time, getting congenially pewtered, remember that? The “pub”? Way back before we blundered into this previously unpublished JG Ballard story.
Look at us, chipping away at our laptops. Trying to quarantine the horror running riot in our imaginations. Remembering to take the comedy out twice a day for a shit. “Still self-isolating, mate?” No, that was last week. I’m self-curating now, love.
RIP Gobby
Ach, stop reading the NEWS. You try to limit your exposure but every now and then there’s the compulsion, isn’t there? Load the Guardian home page, take in the top story – oh fuuuuuuuuh – then scroll down quickly, past the wall of deadly navy-blue coronavirus coverage, trying not to look but always snagging on the sharp bits, the bits that cut through. “…trapped with violent partner”, “…no masks, no PPE”, “…five years old”. Our minds are blasted heaths.
In other news: RIP “Gobby”. BBC journalist Paul Lambert was the inspiration for an aggressive reporter type in both The Thick of It and Veep. He’d shout at politicians and get them to look round for the photographers. During this period of enforced deference, how we could do with someone like him. “Hi-De-Hi Mr Raab! Win the knobbly bum contest?” “Oi! Nouveau Rishi! You still owe me 10 grand from poker night!” “Mrs Patel! Are you laughing at DEATH?”
What’s that sound?
We hear the unusual street noise and scramble outside already clapping, pretending we remembered that it’s 8pm Thursday. Week one’s message was uncomplicated: “Thank you.” By week two, heroic, exhausted health and care workers had made it clear they didn’t want applause, they wanted proper equipment and decent conditions – so we were enthusiastic but guilty.
This week – on our step at least – it feels more like an angry vow to make it up to all those people who are the best of us, dying on their feet for us. And also an affirmation of neighbourliness. The street’s a team now, probably called something like NHS Avengers. I’m not much use. Maybe I could be a mascot. I’D have to be a slow-moving one though – a giant parasitic worm with Jacob Rees-Mogg’s face? No. That’s not a mascot, it’s an effigy.
The flowers she won’t see
A heartbreakingly beautiful day. I can glimpse a corner of the garden at No 2 that was lovingly tended by that kind, clever woman who’s gone. All the flowers she planted, all the immaculate landscaping she won’t see this year. But. BUT. Maybe spring isn’t just a change of scenery. Maybe it’s a plot twist. Maybe it’s a reveal. If you’re reading this, we’re both still here. We still have bit-parts in the Improbable Triumph of Life over Death. Bosh.
• Ian Martin is a comedy writer whose credits include The Thick of It and Veep.
