Virus

“‘Cause every time we meet/we play hide and seek”

“We didn’t just make love. We also made each other laugh.”

Vivian gulped. The lump in her throat felt like a boulder. Her friend Patricia took her hand in hers, unafraid of touching her.

“You really shouldn’t. There’s no vaccine yet”.

“Don’t worry, Viv. I know you haven’t got it anymore. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have invited me to come.”

Vivian placed her cup of tea back on the coffee table, where it balanced perilously on the edge. Swiftly, Patricia pushed the cup further back.

“There were two Winstons. The one I married. And the other one, the loud Winston. I miss both even if the second Winston made me cringe every now and then. His jokes may have gone down very well with some of our closest friends but I could have done without them. And yet, I always ended up cracking up.”

The late afternoon early autumn sun streaked in through the blinds of the west-facing window, casting a pale, golden light on Vivian’s Afro. A sharp-angled mirror in the lounge returned the image of the women, slightly bent towards each other, as if in confession.

Patricia’s wide-backed chair creaked as she shifted on it. She hadn’t noticed that she’d sat on a weeks-old newspaper, the front page of which showed a mask-free, grinning chancellor Rishi Sunak holding two plates at a central London branch of the restaurant chain Wagamama. It was all part of his campaign to promote “Eat Out to Help Out”.

Patricia knew she hadn’t come to Vivian’s to talk but to listen. The two women’s friendship reached all the way back to their secondary school years and the blues parties that they frequently went to.

“You know, Pat. I know it doesn’t help, but I should have put my foot down. I should have told Winston there was no way we were going on that bloody holiday. It’s too late, now, I know. But I can’t stop blaming myself. I should have been stronger, more vocal.”

“I know, I know. But, look. What happened, happened. Also, you don’t know if he caught it at that hotel in Yorkshire, or at work. I mean, you know the government allowed thousands of untested patients to go back to care homes, don’t you?”

“Yes, but you know the irony of it? As soon as Winston found out he was ill, he told me ‘Girl, I hope I didn’t catch it from any of the residents.’ That’s how much he loved his work and the people there.”

“So, gang, here we are. I know, I know. Don’t you all go, ‘But Winston, dad, it looks so dark! What’s the word? Gothic. That’s it! Gothic! Oh, it looks Gothic! Tell you what. I bet Dracula rents one of the beach huts we saw on our way here. Hahaha! But, on a serious note now, though, this place is actually a boutique and the town has an interesting history”

Vivian felt relieved that the children had agreed to join them. The lockdown had been a horrible experience for the whole family. Rebecca, the eldest, had been stranded in Manchester, at university. Paul, although in London, had been unable to visit his parents. It had been only a few weeks since the four of them had finally come together.

“Dad, since when have you been interested in this country’s history? It was you who taught me that our history, our black history, had been erased, no, wait, had never been part of this country’s narrative.” Rebecca asked sternly.

“Yes… Becks, but I’ve changed. I haven’t changed those views, by the way. I still think that we’ve been written out of this country’s history. However, that doesn’t mean that I’m going to limit myself. Anyway, I got talking to this new resident we have in the home now. Mrs Bellingham. A widow. Her husband came from here, from Yorkshire. Not from Whitby, though. She was the one who told me that there was more to Britain than kings and queens. The way she talked about the walks she and her husband went on in the moors was so inspiring. Well, I guess, that explains the new pair of walking boots in the car. You know, Becks, and you, too, Paul. Oh, and you, too, Viv. I’m still that north London kid born in “The Farm”. But I don’t want to be defined just by that. The stuff I’ve seen at work for the last four months… I mean… I’ve never seen stuff like that in my twenty-two years working at that care home. I want more from life.”

Rebecca came up to her dad and hugged him tight. Paul did the same from behind. Vivian couldn’t make up her mind whether to be happy or sad. In the end, she joined in the embrace.

Rebecca and Paul decided to take a walk around Whitby before dinner, whilst Winston and Vivian stayed behind and unpacked. Vivian, producing an Afro comb from her suitcase, mimicked holding a mike. Winston knew what was coming.

“Are we having a Janet Kay moment here, Girl?”

She loved being called “Girl” by Winston. That had been the first word he’d uttered when they’d met at a friend’s reggae party. “Girl, may I have the honour of the next dance? Or would you say no to a gentleman like me? Look, I’d get down on my knees if I had to. Only that the doctor told me I’ve got early sciatica.” She laughed so much, that they missed the song.

But they did dance the next one. And the next one. And the one after that.

“Do you want me to put the song on for you?” Winston volunteered, whilst pulling his mobile out of his pocket.

“No, baby. You know that I know it by heart”.

Vivian hummed the intro, whilst Winston swayed. Although she had never been a professional singer, her voice was perfectly capable of carrying the mellow tones of Kay’s original melody. At least at the beginning. The trick, as they both knew was not only to hit the high note at the end of the song (which most people, chiefly women, failed to achieve), but also to sustain it for as long as Janet Kay did. This time as soon as Vivian’s falsetto rose to the last “Silly gaaaaaaames!” Winston came from behind and held her close to him. Her hands reached back to caress his face. She turned around and kissed him. In thirty years of marriage their kissing had never lost the passion of that first time, at Vivian’s friend’s party.

Together they made their way to the bed. Which they unmade.

“We stayed in Whitby for three nights and four days. We wanted to take advantage of the government’s “Eat Out to Help Out” scheme. Because we chose a Sunday to Wednesday holiday, most food and drinks were discounted. Winston touched everything, spoke to everyone. I’m not sure if he sanitised his hands regularly or not. I relaxed after the first day. You knew him, Pat. Unlike me, he was an extrovert. Funny that to some people he looked intimidating. It was his height, you see. Yet, at work, he was known as the “gentle giant”.”

Outside, Broadwater Farm’s early autumn soundtrack was a mix of lawn-mowers belching out grass and flowers and a police helicopter hovering overhead.

“He got ill less than a week after we came back. Rebecca had already gone back to uni and Paul was back at his girlfriend’s. We all had to have tests and, unsurprisingly, they were all positive. My symptoms started a couple of days after his. They were not as severe as Winston’s, though. The day after he tested positive he began to feel delirious. Early that morning, however, he said he was feeling fine. He got up, went to the kitchen and collapsed on his way there. I had to call an ambulance. I couldn’t go with him.

I remember very little of my conversation with the doctor at the hospital. At some point I must have switched back on because I’ll never be able to forget his words: ‘I need you to understand how serious his condition is’. It was at that moment that I realised I could lose my husband.”

Patricia’s right hand landed softly on her friend’s left shoulder, squeezing it softly. The scene, caught in the twilight of the fast-descending sun, was reminiscent of Kwame Brathwaite’s 1960s photos. That is, if Kwame had been a photographer in Tottenham in 2020 and not 1960s Harlem. That is, if Kwame had been able to capture pain as well as he captured pride.

“Before Winston was put on a ventilator, we spoke on the phone. He said he was sorry for having taken us to Yorkshire. I… I… told him that there was no one to blame. He said that he loved our children, that he loved me. That he’d never stop loving me. I’d never heard Winston so frightened.

Winston never made it off the ventilator. Rebecca came back from Manchester straight away, and along with Paul and me visited as often as we could. Pat, I can’t describe how it feels to go into a ward and see the person you love behind a screen, on the other side. And you can’t even kiss them because you’ve got a mask on. One thing I’ll say about his doctors: they were bloody great. They never hid the truth. They were honest about the whole thing. Multiple organ failure. Slim chance of pulling through. For that I thank them. It gave me time to prepare, even if we’re never fully ready.

The funeral was on Zoom. Winston would have made a joke about it. I feel sorry for some of his work colleagues who couldn’t make it. I know that if we’d had a normal funeral, they’d have come, but on Zoom? What’s that about?

Vivian stopped. The sound of one of Bach’s partitas for unaccompanied violin could be heard in the distance. It suddenly occurred to her that it sounded like a falsetto. A falsetto she knew only too well.