Róisín Ingle: We are living in a science fiction movie and nobody knows how it will end

Our unit, because that’s what we are now, is taking a walk along the Royal Canal. We need some fresh air but we are following orders. We are making sure we maintain the correct social distance from other units although it seems many other units, even the ones in masks, have not received the memo.

“It’s hard for us Dubliners to get used to staying approximately two metres apart,” I say to Brendan Behan, who sits on the bench near Binn’s Bridge. He does not reply. The bowsie.

In our bag we have a lemon polenta cake made by the smallest people in our unit. We are bringing it to my mother. Their Nanny Ann is 80 years old and high risk, and she is self-isolating within her own unit. It’s impossible not to think about Red Riding Hood as we walk along the towpath to Granny’s carrying our bag of goodies.

We keep a beady eye out for the wolf while out for our canal bank walk. The wolf is other people now. Covid-19 has made wolves of us all.

‘What are my good mothering traits?’ I nervously ask their father

---

Share your story: How have you been affected by the Covid-19 crisis?

---

Nexhmije Hoxha obituary: ‘Lady Macbeth’ of Albania

---

‘What’s a vagina?’ the cat asked quietly

---

Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale began with a virus. My friend reminded me of that on the phone the other night. You can find a feminist angle to anything, usually. I’m on the phone with people a lot more now. Back in the time BC (Before Corona) it had become almost rude to ring people without any notice. We didn’t want to intrude. We’d text first. Is this a good time to call? Is now a good time?

Long, meandering conversations

Now is a bad time. And so we have long, meandering conversations on the phone. We have three-way phone chats and drink too much wine or gin and call it a party. We accept Zoom invites. We video conference. This is how we socialise.

Here we are now. We no longer worry about intruding. We’ve created more WhatsApp groups even though we used to despise WhatsApp groups. We’re checking in. We just want to see how you are doing. We are not worried about ourselves, we remind each other, we are worried about the vulnerable. We are the strong protecting the weak.

We text older neighbours. Do you need anything? How are you feeling? We reconnect with old friends. Are you sleeping? How’s the anxiety? Do you have enough tablets?

We share the good stuff. Did you see all the gorgeous Italians singing from balconies? And all the money raised to #feedtheheroes in the Irish hospitals and health service?

We can’t stop talking. Is your attic full of toilet roll? How many staff do you have to lay off? How are the kids? Can you believe we thought play-dates would be okay? Would they ever close the bloody pubs? How will you pay your mortgage? Will you keep your job? Make your rent?

On a scale of one to 10, how intense is your coronanxiety? Never mind change, maybe we need the Government, the leaders we know? Can’t believe you’re saying that. Neither can I. Maybe it’s for the best? Maybe.

Worrying news

Here we are now. It’s contagious. While eating apple crumble after Sunday dinner, my phone tells me that a colleague has contracted the virus, and I get such a shock I share the worrying news with my unit.

“Are you going to die, Mum?” one of them asks before bedtime. None of the words I reach for banish her fears.

When we get to Phibsborough, we drop the bag and the cake outside the house where my mother’s unit lives. Then we walk across the road. The sister opens the door, retrieves the bag, a toddler clinging to her legs. The other slightly bigger ones in the unit scamper outside. “Come back,” the sister says. “Come back inside.”

The grandmother of the unit comes to the door. We wave across at her. Hello, Mum. Hello. Mind yourself. Take care. Bye. Bye. See you soon. She goes inside and we go back to the canal.

I’m jumpy now. I want to be indoors away from my fellow wolves. I get ratty when I see my unit failing to keep an adequate social distance from the joggers, the walkers, the older people. I shout at my unit. I roar.

“Maybe we’ll do a bit of social distancing from you,” one of them says.

On the family WhatsApp, one of the brothers says he was feeling stressed but brought his small boys down to the allotment where he was glad to see the rhubarb poking out once again, the abundance of the lettuce beds. He feels calmer now. The cherry blossoms are coming, and nothing can stop them.

These are the strangest of days. We are living in a science fiction movie and nobody knows how it will end. We have so many questions and hardly any answers. How long will it last? How many will it take? Will we prevail?

We will, won’t we? Together. Apart.