Life before coronavirus

The paper wrapper of a sleeping daffodil

I met the man who lives on the second floor. He buys a Sun a day, judging from the red tops shouting bigotry from within the clear recycling bag. But he wasn’t at all the sort of Sun reader I expected. Instead, he was kindly-looking and small, with sensible slippers and a woolly jumper and a neat, warm grey beard like my dad’s. He smiled at me and said good morning, and I did the same, feeling ashamed at my judgemental preconceptions.

In February I tidied the spare room and made it into a proper office, with a space for a computer monitor and a vase of daffodils (related: Daffodils!). One weekend I went to Khan’s DIY store to buy a second desk lamp to join the existing one, so that we could read in the rocking chair and then work at the desk without a disruptive room reshuffle. The lamps were on the top shelf, and I found a stepladder lurking at the back of the shop. I had chosen my lamp, a happy red one, and was on my way down the stepladder when Mr Khan rushed up, alarmed. “Be careful, please!” he cried, holding my hand as I descended. “I’m fine, don’t worry”, I assured him, “I didn’t want to disturb you because you were busy”. But all the same, he handed me all the way down and gently to the front of the shop, where he carefully packaged my goods and, I suspected, didn’t charge me for the lightbulb.

On the morning of Pancake Thursday I looked out onto a rain storm, of Ciara’s making, or Dennis’ or Jorge’s, or of some other gusty culprit. The top half of the Shard had been blown away, and the precipitation was horizontal, like that of autumn on Ireland's south coast. The idea of leaving the house seemed so alien that I struggled to remember whether or not, as a functioning adult, one had to go to work in weather like this. I thought of the long, hot London summers, and how they arrive upon us, and one day we open the balcony door and don’t shut it again for four months. There was something primeval in the pit of my stomach that morning trying to convince me that my contract stated that lie-ins could be extended in the event of heavy Thursday rain.

I contemplated taking an umbrella and the tube, but, after procrastinating by eating four large pancakes, pulled on my waterproofs and wheeled out my bicycle Claude, who was no more enthusiastic than I. Snow fell wetly as I crossed Waterloo Bridge. And then something peculiar happened: I seemed to have more space, and the traffic was slower, less angry; I felt a sense of patience, or kindness, or even respect, emanating from the drivers and pedestrians. I caught the eye of several warmly-bundled passersby who smiled at me wryly, as if to say, “Lovely weather, isn’t it”, in a hearty sort of way.

In Covent Garden I was noisily overtaken by a classic old Mini, its diesel engine growling pleasantly. The car roof didn’t quite reach my chest, seated as I was on my bike. Later, a chain of sausage dogs wiggled past, each wrapped in a Fair Isle jumper, their little legs only just reaching the ground. I thought of all these things I would have missed if I’ve taken the tube, and by the time I parked at work, dripping, my frozen extremities seemed at odds with a large, warm feeling inside.

I changed my route home a while ago. I used to cycle through St George’s Circus, and take a mildly illegal turn which I judged to be far less dangerous than the proper route suggested by the road signs. which swung me inextricably down a hectic four-laner towards Elephant & Castle. The turn never felt wholly safe, however, and one evening as I rolled down Waterloo Road with good road positioning, a bus driver leaned far out of his window as we were both stopped at a red light, and shouted at me and all the other cyclists waiting, "You’re going to die!” Whilst not untrue, I felt his statement was rather premature, but it spooked me enough to review my route and find a much safer way home, so that I never had to cycle round the Circus again.

I remembered later that the bus driver had shouted at me on the same spot as someone else had shouted at me, early on in my cycling career. That time I had been happily gliding up Waterloo Road festooned in my fluorescent yellows, when a pedestrian shouted, inexplicably, “You look fucking stupid!” I couldn’t make head or tail of this one - he could clearly see me, which is, after all, the point of fluorescent cycling gear. It seemed to be a very angry section of south London, which I found surprising, because it always smells happily of grilled sausages and onions.

Then in mid-March, gradually followed by suddenly, the coronavirus arrived.

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