Original subtitles

Now people can only leave their homes for very limited reasons.

The UK wakes up to the toughest restrictions on daily life

in living memory to tackle coronavirus.

This has been the sort of scene imagined by

science fiction writers after an apocalyptic disaster.

This programme contains strong language from the start.

MUSIC: Breakfast In America by Supertramp

# Take a look at my girlfriend

# She's the only one I got

# Never seem to get a lot

# Take a jumbo across the water

# Like to see America

# See the girls in California

# I'm hoping it's going to come true

# But there's not a lot I can do... #

Don't you carry anything, wee man, OK?

SIREN WAILS

Here, carry this.

Not in the living room!

I mean...

..the only thing keeping us together is our child.

Arthur. Little Artie.

His name's Arthur.

If it wasn't for little Artie, we would have split up years ago.

The truth is, we just...

Don't like each other. ..can't stand each other.

So this lockdown - being in the same house, together, me and him, it's...

The only thing that makes living with her even remotely bearable

is knowing that I get to leave this house every day.

I feel exactly the same. My God, saying goodbye to you,

it is, without doubt, it's the best part of my day.

Just being in the same room as him...

And coming back and seeing her again - I mean, fuuuuck.

It's like a sadness and a soul-stink both mixed together.

I hate your face. My face?

I hate your face. Oh, you hate my face?

It's just your face, I hate it.

What, you're saying I'm unattractive then, or...

Naw, naw, you're attractive, she's very...

It's just your face - I totally hate it.

I actually think of him as a cancer.

I hate looking at it. it's maybe your eyes or something.

Not skin or testicle, but one of the really bad ones,

you know, like liver or pancreatic.

as when I think about my dead dad's cancer.

Exactly the same.

It's your lips. It's her lips.

I've got great lips. No, you do,

you've got great lips, they're fantastic. I just totally hate them.

But at the time, you think, "Oh, opposites attract!"

You know, you're caught up in all the...

You know what else attracts?

..hormones and pheromones and... Serial killers to victims.

..intoxication of the heart-racing sex. Oh, Jesus. Oh, God.

Just the thought of - urgh! - actually having sex with you!

I know, I know!

And politically as well - we're totally different.

Aye, I believe in hard work.

Everyone believes in hard work.

Whereas she, right,

is a good old-fashioned unreconstructed socialist.

That's my mother you're describing.

You're actually talking about my mother.

You've never understood my politics.

I'm actually quite moderate - I just happen believe

in not exploiting the workers of this country.

The workers?! Listen to this.

What do you know about the workers?

I'm actually from the workers, right?

I was brought up by the workers, and the workers aren't what you think -

it's not all fish suppers and roll-ups

and singsongs round the old Joanna!

The workers are fucking horrible.

Huh, you just hate people. I just hate lazy.

Meanwhile, those of us who were brought up

in the chattering classes... Oh, my God! Listen to this!

..the literati elite. My dad was a dentist!

You pulled yourself up by the bootstraps, right?

That's what I did - got myself on top, worked hard and I got out.

Jesus Christ, dial it back, yeah?

You're from fucking Kilmarnock, not Compton.

"He's a Tory!" I am not a Tory.

You've voted Conservative in every election since we met.

We're worried about my mum.

We should've just brought her here.

Well, there's no point in rehashing it, is there? We made a decision.

I'm not rehashing. All right? It's not what I'm doing.

I know we made a decision, I know that, it's just...

She's on her own. Right?

And...little Artie... Arthur.

..he's only got one grandparent and I'd love him to be able to keep her.

Besides, it's not like there's that many people that, you know, get him.

She's got carers that come in.

They're awful. They are not awful, they're overworked.

They come in, right, for 45 minutes three times a day -

they chuck on some microwave pasta, change her colostomy bag,

then they're straight onto their phones.

That was one, that was one girl - and some of them are amazing.

And they're paid shit, by the way, they work from seven in the morning

until ten at night, they travel from client to client and if there's

waiting in between clients, they don't get paid for that, you know.

It works out at less than minimum wage.

Look, I'm not having a go at them, all right?

I know some of them are amazing - some of them are not amazing -

and they're not even family.

And here, that is another thing - they're travelling.

Is that, is that OK? I don't know.

I mean, are they wearing masks when they're on the bus or whatever?

I've seen people out there - people out there are wearing masks.

Yeah, they're advising against wearing masks.

I mean, what happens? When they are on public transport,

do they become a vehicle or a vector? And other countries

are wearing masks. Should we be wearing...? I don't know!

That's what I'm saying! Nobody seems to know anything!

Anything at all.

Fuck sake.

We've been trying to get her into a home - me and my sister.

It's a beautiful place. Beautiful. It's got all the gear.

We're not trying to get rid of her.

Line-dancing in the morning, kidney dialysis in the evening.

And she knows you're not trying to get rid of her, by the way.

Well, when we went there last, she said, "You bitches

"are trying to get rid of me." She's a colourful character.

We just want her looked after. Yeah.

And both my parents are dead, so, you know...

Thank God.

Look, I'm, I'm really sorry.

OK? We need to get on, I totally know that.

And God knows how long this thing's going to last.

It's just, this whole thing, it is so confusing.

It's just nobody seems to know what is going on.

The ship is steering itself

and all the grown-ups have been fucking beamed up.

And the people out there? I mean, unbelievable.

Unbelievable. What about the people out there?

Well, go on...

Don't worry about it, you'll get all...

you know... What? Well, talk. Us?

Yeah, I think so, don't you?

Well, look, this was yesterday, right?

Just before they announced the lockdown.

And I'm down at the Tesco Local, you know the one on the corner?

Yeah, the one on the corner. The Tesco, the one on the corner,

and I'm in there, right, and it has been picked clean.

I mean, locusts, right?

And I'm in there cos I want to get aubergines,

I'm going to do this kat... Katsu curry aubergine.

Going to do my katsu curry aubergine.

It's the only fucking thing Artie will eat.

And so there's not a sign of an aubergine, right?

Not a... Not a courgette. Not a tomato. Not a carrot.

And so I see this woman that works there. I recognise her.

I've seen her before. She's in, like, fifties and quite short.

And... But... I don't mean this to be rude or anything like that,

but she's quite recognisable because she's got quite a big nose.

Yes, I know her. You know the one? Yeah. She's lovely.

Well she comes out from behind one of those plastic flappy curtains

that they've got. And when she does, I can see in there.

And I can see a whole crate, a whole stack of aubergines, right?

"have you got any aubergines?"

She's like, "No." I'm like, "What?" She's like, "No.

"We're out." Just like that. Not even particularly polite.

Which is unusual for her, because she is lovely.

So I go back up and I'm like, "Excuse me, excuse me,

She's like, "Oh, fuck. Oh, no."

Like, flustered cos suddenly she thinks there's going to be

a situation or something like that, right?

She goes, "I can't give you those aubergines."

I'm like, ah, right, now I get it, I get it.

I say, "Listen, here's the thing. My little boy,

"he's a lovely little boy but he's a bit weird about things.

"And right now aubergines are the only thing he'll eat.

"So I'm not ask you to go in there and put all the aubergines out.

"I'm just asking you to go in there and get me three

"so that I can do katsu curry tonight."

And she goes, her voice all wobbling, and she's like,

"Sir, I can't give you those aubergines because we now believe

"that one of our drivers has fallen prey to the coronavirus

"and we're trying to figure out if he's the one

"that touched that produce."

And she think that's the end of it, right?

But I'm like, "I'll give you a tenner." She goes, "No."

"I'll give you 20 quid." She's like, "Sir, I can't."

I'm like, "50 quid for three aubergines."

She's like, "Please, sir, don't." "£200, right here, right now."

She's like, "Really, sir, I can't." "A grand."

"What?"

"I'll give you a grand. £1,000, right here, right now.

"I'm good for it. I've got my own business

"and I've done really well for myself.

"I'll head to the cashpoint, use three credit cards,

"I'll come back here, I'll put a grand in your hand

"if you go in there and you get me three aubergines."

She's thinking, right? Cos she needs this. What's she on?

Minimum wage, a little bit above? She needs this.

She's living hand to mouth.

So she's thinking, right? She goes...

..like this...

..all around her to see if anybody's listening. And she goes,

"Sir..." Voice all wobbling, God love her.

"I would love £1,000, I really would,

"it would make such a difference to me and my family,

"but I can't in all good conscience give you those aubergines

"because if you or your son or anybody else died,

"then what kind of person would I be?"

And I look at her standing there and I say,

"You big-nosed prick.

"You fucking loser.

"Do you not understand, you fucking big-nosed prick loser?

"This is the reason why you're stuck in this shitty job

"and I've got an E-Class Benz waiting for me outside."

Oh, God. What?

Oh... Oh, God! It's the only fucking thing

he'll eat right now. You are awful. I wanted to do... You are...

You are the worst human alive. You said talk.

It's the only thing he'll eat right now!

I feel awful now. Thank you very much. You feel awful now?!

Aye, I do! Do you know what blows my mind? What?

Do you know what actually wakes me up in the middle of the night

in a cold sweat is the fact that I used to love him.

I did. I really did. How is that even possible?

Believe me, our former feelings for each other

are as inexplicable to me as they are to you.

But she's right. We were in love. Thought she was incredible.

I thought he was charming. Now I think you're repugnant.

Now I think you've got the same level of charm

It's going to be really, really hard.

Really hard.

DOG BARKING

CHATTER

FROM TV: Breaking news coming in to us within the past few seconds.

The Prime Minister has been admitted into intensive care

with those persistent symptoms of coronavirus.

Now, as cities in lockdown fall almost silent,

the largest, brightest super moon of 2020

has risen in the night sky.

The spread of this virus is not accelerating

and that is good news.

Don't give me any more.

You're a rotter.

Mushrooms. What?

Oh, Christ, yes.

Tell them about the mushrooms.

Go on. Basically mushrooms are to blame for everything.

She tells it better than I do. Everything is the fault

That gentle descent into snarkiness and bickering.

And now we're well into year three.

A terrifying plunge into the icy Arctic tundra.

Am I actually telling it, or...? At this point we hate each other.

We don't want to admit it, but we both know.

And we're both independently making plans to get the hell out of Dodge.

I vividly remember being at dinner with him and watching him eat

and just thinking, this is the worst thing I've ever experienced.

What? I'm not... I'm not a bad eater.

No, it's not, it's not that you're bad eater.

It's just, like, the fact of you eating.

Like, watching you eat

makes all the various different processes involved more apparent.

You know, like mastication and rending of flesh,

grinding of matter, just mixing with saliva

and sucking it down into your big old meat bowl of acid

to break it down until it's no more than a brown sausage of turd

to be squeezed out by your anus.

Wow. You get all that from eating?

Oh, no, just you eating. So safe to say we're not going to...

We're not going to carry on.

We had this massive blow-up just before my birthday. Like, massive.

Final straw. Yeah, but I'd stupidly booked

this surprise birthday weekend.

Mushroom-picking, of all things, in the New Forest.

The New fucking Forest.

at some god-awful time of the morning

and they force you to pick mushrooms.

They show you which ones are good, how they should be picked,

how they should be cooked. It was really interesting, actually.

It was so boring. Come on. Had we been in a living relationship

we could have actually made some friends. The people were awful.

SHE PANTS

Oh, yeah. He should have been executed.

So, so they teach you how to pick mushrooms.

And they also teach you which mushrooms not to pick.

And there's this one particular mushroom, and the guy is like,

"If you eat that, it's not going to kill you,

"but it will be really bad.

"If you eat that mushroom there will be stomach cramps,

"there will projectile vomiting,

"there will be extraordinary diarrhoea

"and you'll piss yourself."

And we were both thinking the same thing.

I would love to shove that into the other's one's fricassee

and watch them squirm. Wild, eh?

I would love to pick that mushroom and watch that stupid bastard

lying on the floor, shitting his pants,

thinking he's going to die.

I mean, not really. You know,

you don't really want that to happen.

You're just enjoying the fact that it could happen.

Yeah. And then?

It did happen.

Yeah. I got poisoned! He did. He did get poisoned.

Oh, my God. One of us picked the wrong mushrooms.

They looked stupidly like the good ones.

And they ended up in this fricassee which I alone ate...

Yeah, because you went on ahead.

Because you were too busy dawdling buying New fucking Forest fudge.

Yeah, for your weird friend Nathan

who specifically asked you to buy it.

And yet you get angry at me for trying to

and then you just sulk on ahead

and cook them up yourself to make a point. Aye. Look...

Thought I was going to die, OK? Yeah, he did.

He really thought that. The pain was extraordinary.

He did think he was going to die. The feeling that there's something

in your body that wants you dead. He was fine, though.

The guy specifically said they're not fatal.

It took that ambulance one hour and 30 minutes to get there.

No. It did. It did take that long.

That was a bit scary. Mm-hm.

I held his hand the whole time. Yeah, you did.

She held my hand.

See, thing is that when you go through something like that

and you feel this terrifying panic,

this absolute certainty that you are going to die...

Just to reiterate... ..and that the person you're with

is the last person you're ever going to see, it bonds you.

Yeah, when you go through something like that

it does bond you.

So we decided to try again.

Which was the biggest fucking mistake in the history of mistakes.

Because in that brief respite, right,

on the sunny uplands of stupidity,

we decided that what we really needed was a child. Huh?

Never make decisions after a near-death experience.

Or even a death-adjacent experience.

That foetus, right?

It was no bigger than a fucking bullet to the head

before we remembered that we could not stand the sight of each other,

and the rest, as they say, is "shit-story".

It's not been that bad, though, lockdown. No.

We're two weeks done and we're getting through it.

Yeah, we are. Don't get me wrong. It's not been pleasant, though.

Oh, God, no. We still have to see each other.

Pass each other on the stairs.

And just with everyone being so happy-clappy fucking cheerful.

Which is inappropriate, by the way.

Have you seen WhatsApp? It's intolerable.

Twitter. Instagram. You can't even...

You know, "We're all in this together, guys."

"We'll get through it." Oh, my God.

"I'm learning how to play the banjo."

"Look at me. I made a macrame scarf out of fucking pasta twirls."

Just pack it in.

So there's been a lot going on and it's helped us not to have to...

..you know, focus on or talk to

or even notice each other. Yeah, then we can just pretend

that the other one was in a coma... Didn't exist.

Look, my business, for one thing, has taken a lot of sorting out.

Tell them what you do. Don't start.

No, no. Go on. Don't start with that.

Cos... No-one understands what he does. Yes, they do.

I don't understand what you do. That is absolutely not true.

People do understand what I do. Go on, tell them. OK.

I've got a boutique consultancy.

We specialise in data analytics

and finding technological multimedia solutions...

I mean, what? ..for linear online broadcast marketing providers.

We specialise in cost efficiency savings.

What's so complicated about that? Mm-hm. When people...

When we were first going out together

and people would ask him what he did and he'd say all that,

I would just lean forward and go, "He means computers."

But look, there's been a lot of wrapping up,

so thank God for Rishi. Comrade Rishi.

Eh? I'm just saying, the state stepped in... Oh, it's a pandemic.

..to invest in jobs. It's a pandemic.

I mean... I mean, isn't this exactly the manifesto that Jeremy Corbyn

fought the last election on? Yes, it is. Yes.

You were fighting the last election in order to introduce measures which

would have been absolutely perfect for shutting the economy down.

It wasn't a pandemic in 2008 when the banks... Don't. Don't.

I never agreed with 2008. Fuck 2008.

There is no such thing as too big to fail.

That would be socialism.

Nah. Let the weak perish. Yeah. Don't mind the hand-out now,

though, do you? They're loans. They're loans, woman.

They're loans. Look, my company's not weak, OK? Never been weak.

Yeah. No. It's just incomprehensible.

Anyway. There was so much to sort out. There was all the loans.

There was the refund on statutory sick pay. The VAT deferral.

Then the furlough. That was actually really important to me

because I've got 12 employees. Yeah. Who you sacked.

Who I did not sack. You already sent out the emails.

Which I immediately rescinded when the furlough came in.

Yeah, when the Government was paying their wages.

They're really good people. I took them all back.

Yeah, at 80% of their salary.

Which is what the furlough is. You can top it up, though.

We're like the Taliban version of Medicins Sans Frontieres.

Oh, aye. Saving the world, this one.

I work with refugees. It's good work she does, actually.

I am actually proud of that. I'm a bit proud of that.

I'm just a coordinator, so it's... Aye, for Europe.

For the whole of Europe.

Working her fingers to the bone, so she is.

I mean, I don't agree with most refugees on principle

but some of the ones she helps? The ones I help are no...

Some of the stories of these ones. Un...

These ones are no different. Your heart goes out to them.

It's heart-rending, the stories of these ones. Which ones?

Which ones? Which ones are these ones?

These ones are no different.

Do you know, I'm not even going to get into it.

There's been a lot going on.

And with home-schooling... Which, in fairness,

he has taken the lion's share of, and he's good at it.

Aye, aye. The Portuguese colonisation of Macao

and the melting point of lead

were just two little memory nuggets I was particularly proud of...

He has been good at it. I'll give him that.

And it actually suits little Artie better as well.

I mean, he's not very good with other kids. Yeah, but he's lovely.

I know he's lovely.

Yes, he is. He's a lovely wee boy.

He is indeed. He's a lovely, lovely wee fella.

Fair's fair. You give me a great son. I didn't give him to you,

you fuck. Then there's Mum. Obviously I was worried.

Well, we both were.

Whatever's gone on between her and I, I like the old girl.

Hah! She hates you. She loves me.

She hates your politics. She loves my politics.

It gives her something to argue against.

My mum is a flat-out, dyed-in-the-wool communist.

Proper old school. CCCP-loving commie.

Never got over the fall of the Berlin Wall.

See back in the '70s, right, she had links to The Angry Brigade.

She didn't have links. Remember the people that were trying to

blow up the Telecom Tower? That was... She's the reason

the revolving restaurant no longer revolves.

She may have hid two people

who may or may not have been involved

for a number of hours, yeah.

I once caught her, right, trying to read Das Kapital

to little Artie in his crib.

I mean, I love her. She is fiercely independent.

Took us ages to get her to accept the carers coming in.

They get scared when their legs start to go.

Mind you, it's all started to go now. I'm forcing her to Zoom

every day. Her kidneys, and her eyes...

Her neck went this one time, right? And I don't mean, like, her throat.

I mean her neck muscles holding up her head.

She went like that. I'm like, "Are you all right, darling?"

She's like that. She's like that.

I'm like, "Fuck me, man." It's terrifying.

Like this! Anyway, so the afternoon, the carer comes in.

This was with Miriam, right? Maryama. Somali girl.

I call her Miriam. She loves it. Ah, she really doesn't.

Anyway, she's the good one. She is one of the good ones.

Anyway, you're on the Zoom and you see her... Yes, I see her.

She's... She's fucking Miriam, the good one.

No. Nothing. They're having to make their own gowns out of bin bags.

I mean, what the fuck is going on?

Yeah. So Maryama is not happy about this at all.

You know, cos she's scared. She's scared for herself,

she's scared for her family, she's scared for her clients.

Tell them how many buses she has to get. Three.

And how many clients that day? Eight. Fucking what?

Yeah. So I go into a tailspin, I'm calling, like, the council,

the doctor, you know, I'm calling helplines but can't get any answer,

cos of everything that's fucking going on. So I'm ready,

I'm just going to go and get her and bring her here,

but then am I exposing her? Yes. Does one of us go and stay?

But then who's looking after him?

Yeah. So, I mean, we're just, like, beside ourselves.

There's this killer virus out there and you're sitting pretty, like,

while your mother, like, your mum...

And I'm thinking, is this it, you know? Is my mum going to die?

Is my mother is going to die?

We're fucking terrified.

Cos she's not normally... Normally she's a bit... Selfish?

Not selfish. Trying to be a comedian.

It's not a comedian. It's more performative than that.

Try telling a fucking joke every now and again.

That might raise a laugh. But fair's fair to her. She saved the day.

Yeah. She got her to go to that home. That care home. You remember?

Yes, she persuaded her to go to that care home.

Lovely place. Absolutely amazing. God know how she managed it,

but somehow... Yeah. She persuaded her to go to the lovely, lovely home

and they took her in. What a relief. Yeah. It was amazing. I know.

Overnight. No messing. Right in. Overnight.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, she'll be safe there, right? In there? Aye.

Aye. She'll be safe in there.

Anna...!

Anna, can you come in?

SIREN WAILS

This evening...

..I harvested asparagus.

HE CHUCKLES

I've...never done that before.

Actually, I shouldn't have done it now, because I only planted them

a few months ago and with asparagus, right,

you're supposed to leave them for three years to let the crown bed in,

otherwise it dies.

Apparently. That's what Google says.

But I just could not resist it. You know?

I'd grown it with my own hands and soil...

And I'm not saying I'm some green-fingered vegetable person,

that is not what this is, you know?

It's just this year, with everything's that's going on.

I ordered them... ..back in early February?

Don't know why.

I just did, you know?

This was just when we were getting the first sniff of this thing

happening off in far-flung China.

This little place that nobody'd ever heard of.

And these health things,

they do happen every now and again, don't they?

I mean, like, bird flu, Ebola, SARS...

And don't get me wrong,

I am not saying that I knew this was all going to happen...

HE CHUCKLES I'm not saying I was thinking

I had to be some... ..Grizzly Adams,

nuclear fallout shelter kind of guy,

I'm just talking about planting a few veggies, you know?

And I actually think about doing it every year,

just never get round to it.

I s'pose it's like learning the names of trees

or...reading Charles Dickens.

You know it's going to make you a better person,

just nobody fucking does it.

But this year...

..I actually found myself doing it.

And I'm planting vegetables, you know?

I've got everything in there. I've got...

I'm not quite sure what it is.

And asparagus, right?

So...tonight...

..we get a call, just probably after they've announced

the official end of the lockdown, from Jonathan, right?

Jonathan's the ICU nurse over there at the hospital.

Amazing guy, Jonathan, like...

..he's lovely. I cannot speak highly enough about Jonathan.

He's the main nurse over there in intensive care,

looking after the old girl, because Covid, you know, it just...

..swept through that place,

it just rampaged right through the care home.

Loads dead, loads in hospital, like the old girl, you know,

taken in, intubated, on a ventilator, stuck in a coma.

And Jonathan...

..he's on the phone to us every day, telling us everything -

everything!

her breathing going. And when he's got a minute, right?

Which isn't very often, I'll tell you that.

..He talks to her.

Or he'll stick the phone up to her ear so that we can.

Just an amazing guy, Jonathan.

Lovely, you know?

Just...cannot fault him, cannot fault Jonathan. Anyway...

..when we get the call from him tonight, it's the one...

..that we've been dreading, right?

"One of you..."

"..can come in for 15 minutes to say goodbye."

She's the one that takes the call, which is about 6.30,

and I'm watching her and she's on the phone and she's nodding away.

Jonathan's on the other end being smashing.

And...

..she hangs up and she tells me, just real matter-of-fact,

"It's happening.

"Jonathan says one of you can come in for 15 minutes to say goodbye..."

"..and that we're lucky because...

"..most other places aren't even letting you do that."

HE INHALES SLOWLY

She's got to be there at 8.45.

She just says it like that, you know? Just cold as ice, but...

..inside, I can see, her heart's just like...

..gone...

You know, like that.

Like that.

At 8.45, right, I'm thinking, "That's a bit of time.

"I'm going to harvest that asparagus."

So then I clipped it and steamed it, bit of salt and pepper,

made fresh hollandaise - it's not easy to do, that,

but it's really tasty when you do - and we sat down...

..together...

..and we ate the asparagus.

And she said it was lovely.

I think it helped...

..take her mind off...

Anyway, here's the thing, right?

The thing that's been going over and over and over in my mind

as I'm sitting here waiting.

If there was enough of an inkling

back in early February...

..for me to get myself online and order asparagus crowns.

And I mean, who the fuck am I?

But if there was enough of a sniff of this thing happening back then...

..then how come the people that run this country...

Like, how come the people who actually...run this country...

How is it possible that the people who actually run this country...?

KEYS JANGLE, LOCK CLICKS

DOOR CREAKS, CLOSES

Why?

I mean, is that...?

Does that matter any more?

Er, no, s'pose not.

What are you doing? Don't, don't... Well, I thought like a... No.

Like, a hug? Or...? No, no, cos I have to self-isolate.

What, in here? Yeah.

Yeah, don't you think? Uh...

Hang on...

So how was it?

Uh...

Well, she was unconscious.

And the hospital was weird, it was...

..just really empty in the places that are normally busy and...

..um...

Jonathan was amazing. Aye, Jonathan is amazing.

Yeah.

He just told me everything that was going to happen and...

..he said the consultant had been in

and she reckoned it was going to happen in the early hours and...

But he... He said don't worry, because he was doing an all-nighter

and, you know, he'd make sure he was there, when the time came.

He said that's what the nurses try and do, they, they...

..just try and make sure that people don't die alone.

Yeah.

Um...

SHE CLICKS HER TONGUE Yeah, and then he just showed me

how to put on all the protective gear and, um...

..I've got to still be comfortable, you know,

and then, he took... Took me in.

And I had 15 minutes.

Just, the roads were so clear.

Yeah, and then, uh...

..after ten minutes, he leaned in and he said, you know,

"Tell her you love her," and...

And I did, I did. I just, er...

All this stuff just...just poured out of me, all this stuff.

What stuff?

And that I was proud of her and...

..and I was really grateful for the person that she was,

and everything she'd done for me, and I was...

..I was just so, so sorry that I'd never said any of that

when she could hear me, you know, and...

..and that I loved her so much that...

..my life was already hurting without her in it

and I was worried that that hurt would never go away.

BREATHES SHAKILY

No, no...no. Do you not think...? No.

Right.

And then I told her that Jonathan had told me not to worry.

I told her that I'd spoken to him,

and he promised me that when the time came, he'd...he'd be there.

I told her that, um... he promised me he'd hold her hand...

I feel like I do want like I do want to put her temperature in this...

Go for it. Yeah.

But there, um, there isn't really a point, is there?

No.

Look, there was never a point, so if it makes you feel better.

There's no point, it's just...

You said amazing things to her.

Did I? Aye.

Because I don't think I did. Oh, you totally did.

Because then, um, I was driving home and Jonathan called,

and he said it was happening now.

No... Wait, no. Yeah. No!

But I thought it was the early hours.

Yeah, but she'd...she'd taken a turn for the worse,

so it was happening right then. Jesus. I know.

And she was alone.

Yeah. Well, no, she had Jonathan, right? She didn't.

I thought he was going to... She didn't have Jonathan.

Because he had another patient who was dying at the same time

and that person had no-one, so...

..he said at least my mum had me to FaceTime with her.

Oh, my God.

And I really begged him not... really begged him not to leave.

I said, you know, please don't let my mum die on her own.

And he said, sorry.

And I said...

VOICE QUIVERS

..I said, please, and he said he was sorry that he had to choose.

And he did, he did have to choose.

He did.

So he just... He put his phone on the arm of the bed.

And I sat in the lay-by on the ring road...FaceTiming in.

I just sat there and I watched my mum die...

..just telling a man he didn't even know

that he was there and he wasn't going to leave him.

SOBS

So, yeah, Mum died on her own.

FOOTSTEPS

FOOTSTEPS CLIMB THE STAIRS

THUNDER RUMBLES

CHILD'S VOICE: # In the deep midwinter

# Frosty wind made moan

# Earth stood hard as iron

# Water like a stone

CHOIR JOINS # Snow had fallen, snow on snow

# Snow on snow

# In the bleak midwinter

# Long, long ago

CHOIR CONTINUES: # Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him

# Nor Earth sustain... #

TV MUTED

Yeah, I mean, it's as big a surprise to us as it is to you. Totally.

I mean, we did not see that coming. Not at all. Not in a million.

No, I never thought I'd go there again.

Jesus, the last man on Earth, give me celibacy now! Yeah, but...

We have. Yeah, we have been having sex and...

Yeah, it's been er...quite... Yeah, it has been.

How's it been? Uh...it's been... ..good. Yeah, it has been good!

It's been really good, in fact, and totally unexpected.

Yeah, but, I mean, it was always good, like, historically speaking.

Historically, yep. I mean, not that we were ever all... No, no, no!

Not some like super special... LAUGHS WITH EMBARRASSMENT

No! We're not that kind of super special showy,

like, Olympic types. No, who's got time for that?

No, but...I mean, we had our quirks...

Yes, yes. I'm not saying that we were... ..back in the day.

Yeah, there was fun, there was ooh-la-la.

I mean, we were both of us just fairly compatible, you know.

I mean, we're both...very...

We were... I suppose we were both very solid. Quick.

Yeah, quick. Aye. Yeah, yeah, both parties pretty quick at sex.

we don't want to hang about.

Yeah, we don't... We're not into the whole, like, bump and grind...

None of that fucking tantric, fucking Paul Weller, fucking...

Do you know what I mean? Yeah.

At the same time, it's not all wham-bam. No! No, no, no.

No, no, premature, that's not the...

Is it? No, no. No, no.

We just both of us happen to be able to get where we're going

with alacrity. Time to spare. Yeah.

Look, needless to say, all right,

it's totally sideswiped the pair of us.

I mean, a bolt from the blue.

Yeah, I mean, we think we've figured out why it's happening,

but it still doesn't make sense, does it? No. Not really.

But, you know, if we tell you,

you're not going to understand it either, but here goes.

So it all started right back at the end of the first lockdown.

Well, it was the night of Mum's funeral.

Well, it was a weird day, to be fair, wasn't it?

I mean, funerals, right, I buried both my parents,

and there's this whole bunch of stuff that you have to organise,

you know, the strangers coming to your door to pay their respects,

flowers, hymns, catering.

Picking a coffin, picking coffin ornaments,

and look, all this stuff, it can seem really irritating,

but actually it's kind of amazing because what it's doing is

it's distracting you from what you've lost.

And... Oh, God, I remember at my dad's funeral...

HE CHUCKLES

..there was this big six-foot tobacco-y lead smelter, right.

He comes up to me and he goes...he goes...

He grabs my hand in his big fists, and he goes,

"He was the last of the great characters, that man." Right?

"When he left, the fun went out of that place. I loved that man."

And I guess it's stuff like that,

it just, it teaches you things that you never knew

about the person you thought you knew everything about,

Just five people at our Covid funeral, five.

Yeah, you don't organise catering for five people.

You've got to choose your coffin online,

so you're like, oh, that one, those handles...

Yeah, no strangers coming to your door at a Covid funeral.

Nobody sending flowers.

I mean, what are you going to do, wash them before they come in?!

There's no singing at Covid funerals, there's no hymns.

No strangers grabbing you by the fist,

looking you in the eye, telling you your father's actually...

Oh, hold on, hold on, hold on.

Can I say something? Aye.

Just... You're not going to look at me all...

HE BURSTS OUT LAUGHING I don't know what... I mean...

I don't know what you're going to say, do I? Well...

I loved that funeral.

And I know I shouldn't say that because...

..other people, you know, Jesus, it's so painful for them.

So agonising not to be able to have the funeral you need.

But like, I mean, for me, like, for me, it was...

..just the best.

Like, there's no... There's no catering to worry about.

There's no flowers.

You know, no-one's knocking at your door, poking their nose in.

You're not obsessing about what the coffin

is saying about your love for the person you're burying.

There's no fucking hymns.

It's just you and the person you're putting in the ground, and...

..you know, there's nothing to distract you

from the pain of what you're losing, and I loved that.

I fucking loved that funeral.

I fucking loved that funeral, too.

Well, because you were like, you were like, aw...

Yeah, but I...I was loving it.

I mean, not loving it, you know, my mum is dead. Yeah, obviously.

Look, let me tell you, that big six-foot chain-smoking lead smelter

that came up to me and told me all that shite about my dad,

that ruined my year. I mean, I do not need to find out

that the guy that's been an arsehole to me for decades

is actually Michael bloody McIntyre, you know.

Well, I couldn't say anything because, well, you know...

No, you can't, can you?

You're not supposed to be happy about a Covid funeral, are you? No.

I suppose, like, when we got home,

we just got caught up talking about Artie.

Yeah, because he loves his gran.

And he wanted to touch it. So what?

I wanted to touch it, that's normal.

He wanted to taste it. Not like a...

Don't say it like he's a cannibal! He didn't want to saute it!

He wanted to see if a dead body... tastes like a live body.

Which is normal, right?! Absolutely normal!

Fucking curious, curious child.

Anyway, we... So, we had the funeral, we came home,

we talked about Arthur, we made some tea,

we had a bit of cheese,

and then, the next thing you know we had, er...

..sexual contact.

Should we tell them what it was?

No, we don't need to. No, no, all right, all right.

Look, suffice it to say, OK, one of us had an orgasm.

We don't need to... Why? What? I just thought they needed to...

Why do you find the need to say that?

That was it, a one-off.

You know, we put it down to the day, to the situation.

We're not doing that again.

Oh, God, no, done, bang, over, what's on telly?

Yeah, and then, post-lockdown life settled in,

and we just completely forget about it.

They encouraged you to go to restaurants, bizarrely.

Yeah, and through all of that, we did not have sex, even once. No.

No. And little Artie, right, he's back at school.

And then he was out of school again because some kid got Covid.

And then he was in. And then he was out. And then he was in again.

He was like a bloody yo-yo, to be honest with you.

But the point is there was space to ourselves to do it in,

had we so desired. And we didn't at all, did we?

No, I mean, I was working, I was busy.

Aye. And summer comes, then autumn.

by shoestring and Sellotape,

but have to look after shits like us... Uh! Careful, comrade!

Ah, fuck up, the world is still dog eat dog, I'm not saying that.

Have an idea, for Christ's sake,

don't just eat chicken fucking nuggets. Oh, there he is!

The point is, at no point during any of this

do we even consider having sex.

Not even just there, when the lockdown to save Christmas starts.

We're still not doing it, are we? No, God, no, not in a million years.

No. And then, right, they announce a vaccine's been discovered.

And we just, oh!

Plough in like teenagers!

Honestly, no idea why, like... SCOFFS

Did the announcement trigger it?

You know, is it a lockdown phenomenon?

Are other people experiencing this?

Maybe, because the vaccine's going to make things better.

Yeah, for you, maybe. How do you mean?

Well, they're not going to be

vaccinating people in refugee camps any time soon.

Here we go, let the virtue signalling begin.

No! Rich countries will be snapping it up.

Hey! Look everybody, a good person is here! Fuck off!

Life and death shouldn't be about profit.

How do you think they made the vaccine? They used money.

Ah! But all I know is that you are going to be getting the vaccine

long before any front-line worker in Sierra Leone,

and what the fuck do you do?

I'd run out there tomorrow and get it if I could. I know.

You'd run out there with your big fat fucking purse, like...

100%, I'd get it like a shot.

I'd get it twice, three times, and once for the weekend.

Why am I having sex with you? I don't know. That's the point.

We did it in the kitchen this morning.

Over the dishwasher - I mean, that is unfathomable.

Why are you...? Why would you go into...? What are you talking about?

We're over-sharing.

Oh, shit. Er, we are, I'm really sorry about that.

SHE GIGGLES

Oh, come on! How old are you?

How old are you?

It doesn't mean we're all suddenly, you know...

No! No. ..suddenly all lovey... No! Absolutely not.

..dovey, and all that. Fuck, no. No, no, no.

It's like... It's physical, isn't it?

Physical. Just purely contractual, eh? Yeah. Aye.

Like, through the tulips. Don't. Fucking holding hands,

bathing each other's bits and... He still makes me sick, or something.

Yeah, and the sight of her,

she still makes me want to stab my own feet.

I mean, I definitely do not... Do I?

I think maybe the truth is, is that...

..I'm still struggling with my mum's death, you know.

And...and maybe the vaccine, like, triggered something, you know.

I mean, just the thought that if she'd had it, you know, she...

And just the unfairness of that, like, the nonsense of it.

And so this physical thing that's, that's been happening between us,

I think maybe it's just helped. Yeah.

Yeah, for me, too. You too? Yeah, I think so.

I think the sex has helped.

Well, yeah, the sex, but...

You know, it's not just the sex, it's like the contact.

Yeah, no, it is. It is, it's the contact. It's the contact.

And it's the sex as well, if I'm being honest,

you know, for me, personally.

And it's not just the vaccine that's been messing with my head. I...

..I find this really hard to admit but

I've got complicated feelings towards my sister now.

I think it's chilled me out somewhat.

And she feels, she feels terrible, you know, just awful, terrible.

And I should be feeling sympathetic towards her

but I just feel really angry, like, I just have so much anger.

I think it's relaxed me a bit.

And I hate myself for feeling like this.

But if I'm really honest... Just emptying my bags.

No, I was just...joking. For God's sake!

What, emptying your bags? I was joking. Don't joke!

I'm really sorry. Jesus, I mean, what is wrong with you?

I said I'm sorry. Honest to God... You always do this.

You always do this. I'm not always doing anything.

Just when I begin to think... Just when you begin to think what?

I just...

Don't walk away. Don't walk away!

FOOTSTEPS RUN UPSTAIRS

She's been hit by it.

DOOR SLAMS

..grief.

DOG BARKS IN THE DISTANCE, BIRDSONG

WASHING MACHINE HUMS

BABY CRIES

CHEERY RADIO PROGRAMME

I can't escape the feeling that my mother didn't die,

she was killed.

The problem is that people don't understand the word "exponential".

They think it means a lot or quite vastly. You see it on TV.

You know, or in bad sci-fi movies.

"Good God! This alien mass is growing exponentially,"

and you think, oh, that's a lot.

But it's worth taking the time to understand the mathematics

of exponential growth.

You're doubling it every three days.

So by the end of a week, you've got four.

One has become four.

In...in a week.

And by the end of the second week, you have 16,

by the end of the third week, you have 128,

and as the month draws to a close, you have 512.

That's after just four weeks.

OK. So that's a lot more than one. But, you know...

..not so much.

But if you carry on...

..the fifth week gives you 2,048.

The sixth gives you 8,192.

The seventh...

..the seventh gives you 65,536.

The eighth gives you 262,144.

And if you go one week more,

pretty much near as dammit to the...

to the...to the two calendar months from when this whole thing started,

you get 1,048,576.

So the difference between the start of the first week and the end of the

first week is four.

And the difference between the start of the ninth week

and the end of the ninth week...

..is 786,432.

So the same amount of days...

hugely different numbers.

This isn't an illustration of coronavirus, by the way.

This isn't what actually happened.

You know, we didn't quite go to nine weeks before the first lockdown,

there wasn't just one person who brought it into the country.

There was probably as many as 1,300 patient zeros

and this doesn't take into account, you know, pre-lockdown efforts

to battle the virus, track and trace, people changing behaviour.

What actually happened is,

it's far more complex than what I've just done.

What I've just done is illustrate the word exponential.

And it doesn't mean quite vastly.

What it means is...

..what it means is that timing matters.

It's said that if we'd locked down one week earlier,

just one week,

that we could have saved 20,000 lives.

So it seems to me that the word exponential was not understood

one minute, 34 seconds and...and...

..you get it.

Right? It's not that hard, is it?

In January 2020,

the Care Provider Alliance

contacted the Department of Health and Social Care and said,

"What should we be doing about this new coronavirus?"

And they were told, "Nothing, don't do anything different."

And they contacted them a week later and they said,

"What should we did be doing now?"

I mean, should we be, you know, should we be self isolating,

should we be restricting visits from family and friends?

Should we be, like, should we wear masks? And this time they weren't

told, "Nothing." This time they were told...

Well, this time, they weren't told anything.

This time they weren't told anything at all.

This is the end of February now.

And the guidance was that they, you do not need to wear masks,

and it remains very unlikely that people receiving care in care homes

will become infected.

And I'm going to repeat that, I'm going to repeat the advice

from the Department of Health and Social Care -

it remains very unlikely that people receiving care

in care homes will become infected.

You can...you can... you can look that up.

There'll still be links for it.

"Oh, fuck. Really?

"Oh, shit!"

WHISPERS: "Fuck!"

And then, then the panic kicks in.

The NHS is going to be overwhelmed,

we're going to be like Italy.

Oh, please, God, don't let us be like Italy!

And ministers order 15,000 hospital beds to be vacated.

And the guidance given to hospitals is that it shouldn't take more

than three hours, so patients are taken out of hospitals and they

are dumped into care homes and...and...and they're not being

tested because, and again, I am going to quote here, that,

"Covid sufferers can be safely cared for in care homes."

So, while the...while the NHS,

the fact that there was no...not enough PPE gear to go around,

while all that was being discussed,

the care homes were given next to nothing.

I mean, they were given dribs and drabs while the prices shot up,

and some local authorities threatened to withhold money

from care homes if they didn't take in confirmed coronavirus patients.

They were, like, they were blankets laced in smallpox.

In the first lockdown, it's said that 40% of the people who

died from coronavirus were from care homes - 40%.

So you see, I can't escape the feeling that my mother was killed

and not by a car or a gun or a knife or a cricket bat or even,

or even by the virus. She was killed by stupidity.

She was killed by dumbfuckery.

She was killed by someone looking at something coming at them at the

speed of a freight train and just being like, oh, let's just carry on.

Shall we? Let's just...

You know, it's a bit...it's a bit fucking Dunkirk spirit, you know?

A bit, a bit stiff upper lip - let's just carry on, old man.

And my mother...

..my mum...

WHISPERS: Hey...

I think, erm...

..I think that's it.

Have you...you've got that off...

And they came out and they said, you know,

"Don't go to clubs or bars or restaurants," you know,

unless you bloody well want to! Or something.

That was when, like, Spain and France and Lithuania and Malaysia,

they were all locking down.

Yeah.

Is that...?

Is THAT it?

Is that it?

I don't mean is that all you can muster?

I mean, genuinely, if you've got more,

you've got the right to say.

Ah, yeah. Sorry. No.

No. Yeah, that's it.

You all right?

No, I don't think so, really.

Well...

I just feel like something is changing in me, you know?

I just feel like I'm going into a dark, just a bit of a dark place.

All right. Fuck.

Erm...

Why don't we think of something positive?

What positive thing? I don't know. Erm, Arthur, what about Arthur?

OK. What about Arthur?

Well, actually, he said this really interesting thing the other day.

He's really clever, he really is.

It's this whole evolutionary theory - humans as prey.

Which I know sounds a bit, whatever, but bear with me, OK?

It's this whole evolutionary theory that states that, far from this

picture we've got of early hominids being, like, the great hunter,

it's actually the fact that we were prey

that helped prepare our development.

And Arthur was saying that it still happens today. Uh-huh.

like, a leopard that stands up out of the tall grass, like that.

And then when the villagers come to chase it away,

That's really grim. I know. I was thinking that as I was saying it,

it's a bit grim. Maybe...

something else, then. Yeah.

Can you think of anything? Me? Aye.

Oh. Uh...

Oh, Brexit. That...that happened. So...

Let's just shhh to the side of that, shall we? Oh. I just...

Erm....

Your company! Your... My company collapsed. Yeah, well.

I mean, you're happy about it. Don't say that in front...

I had to fire people.

Oh, no, I don't mean, I didn't mean... I'm not happy about it.

I've had to fire people, and I've lost my job and I've got no money

coming in. I'm not happy about it. I'm being...sanguine.

I'm sanguine about it. Yeah, I meant sanguine. I meant sanguine.

I meant sanguine.

Maybe this is a bollocks idea. No, it's not a bollocks idea.

It might be. No, it's good. I like it. You do? Yeah.

Erm... Yeah.

Er...

Oh, Maryama.

Maryama - Mum's carer.

She's...she's still hanging in there.

How is that positive? Well, she hasn't...

The coronavirus hasn't killed her yet.

I don't think we even told them that she got coronavirus.

Oh, shit!

Oh, yeah, she got it really bad.

Really bad, actually.

And yet, she hasn't died of it YET, so that's the positive?

What the fuck? I'm trying. Going to need to try a lot harder than that.

It was your idea. Why don't you think of...

Why don't we get married then?

What?

You know, all this fucking...

..fucking...

..let's fucking...

..get married then.

Are you proposing to me?

Yep.

Yep. Actually, I am! Right.

And your proposal is, "Let's fucking get...

"..fucking, fucking, let's fucking get married, then."

It's not Keats, I'll give you that.

Are you asking me that to say something positive? Is that...?

No.

No!

Oh! No!

HE CHUCKLES

Absolutely not.

No!

Maybe a wee bit.

I don't really know. Look, here's the thing.

We've been through all this stuff, right?

And we are, you and I...

..still here.

Wow.

That is, I mean,

that's the most romantic thing anyone's ever said to ME!

Come on to fuck. Did you hear that in a song or something?

Look, I've been thinking about it a lot. A LOT.

And I think that, I don't know how, right?

But somehow...

And I know that doesn't make much sense because...

..I kind of hate you, as well.

Or I've spent a lot of time hating you,

but I don't think I do any more.

I think there's this chance that we've somehow ended up in this place

that is the love that exists beyond hate.

And the love that exists beyond hate,

not a lot of people get to go there.

It's a...fucking peculiar place.

It's unique.

It's utterly rarefied.

And it's extremely beautiful.

So, yeah, I think we should probably...

..fucking marry.

I'm just thinking that, well,

I'm just thinking my mental state right now, you know, just

because I've got a lot of anger, just a lot of hate and...

No, because it's the timing... Absolutely.

No, absolutely. I totally understand.

But if we were to... Don't worry about it.

..if we were to forget that...

..if we were to do it...

..we would have to do it under the banners of the auspices

OK.

Right.

It was me.

The mushrooms.

I picked those mushrooms and I think I know I picked them.

And...

..I knew what I was doing and I did it to hurt you.

And then I stayed with you because you were poisoned.

And then Arthur came along and you know,

Together.

I know.

What?

I know.

You were being...such a dick

and I saw the mushrooms and I thought, oh,

I wonder what that would be like to stick that in her fricasse

and watch her fucking...?

You know the rest, you've said it before.

No, but you ate them.

Yeah. I forgot that I picked them.

OK.

You were going to poison me? Yeah.

What's the difference? The difference is the fucking poisoning!

It was me that got poisoned.

So you wanted to hurt me?

You wanted to hurt me badly?

Yeah.

Why?

Why do you think?

You walk around giving it, "I'm such a good person."

"Look what a good person I am.

I fucking hate you sometimes but I never despise you.

That's not fair.

What's fair?

You said honesty, you said that.

You look down your nose at me.

You always have.

You are not a good person.

You just need to read as a good person.

You see, the reason that you thought that you had poisoned me

for all those years

is because you are actually capable of doing that to me

that can't smell their own fucking stink!

HE GROWLS IN EXASPERATION

Look, right...

I think I went a bit far there, but the thing to hold on to is

that - that was actually a proposal of marriage, right?

HE SIGHS

BIRDSONG

WIND CHIME TINKLES

DOG BARKS

New Forest fudge weirdo Nathan?

Well, Nathan is really good at getting other people

to do things for him, hence the fudge.

And what he's doing now is he's getting people vaccinated, right,

when it's not yet their turn.

What he'll do is, he'll take you down there just before close

and he'll ask that, when they've got a couple of vaccines left,

instead of throwing them in the bin,

would they give them to you instead, please?

He's invariably told no, right, in very strong terms.

And, by the way, he is not the only guy down there doing this, right?

There's a whole bunch of those guys down there usually trying to

get vaccinated before their go.

But Nathan, right, Nathan's got a secret weapon.

See, he knows that, like, a minute before close

and they've got a couple of vaccines left,

But when they see, like, I don't know, ten of you sitting there,

waiting for two vaccines, they're probably going to ask something

along the lines of, "Do any of you work with the vulnerable?"

HE EXHALES SHARPLY

A second will go by and nobody will say anything, right,

because none of these arseholes actually do, do they?

Then a third second goes by and the smarter,

and admittedly more venally shitty, amongst the group start to realise

that they're only one dastardly lie away from getting vaccinated.

And see, by the time the fourth second comes and goes,

there's all these hands jumping up in the air going, "I'm Shiteicus!"

"No, I'm Shiteicus!" "No, I'm Shiteicus!"

Anyway, that's what Nathan does, right?

He tells you this.

He says, "The second they ask that question,

"you shoot your hand in the air, you tell your dastardly lie,

"you walk in the building and you get what you came for."

It is not illegal but it's murky as fuck.

And, see, when I find out that she...

..is talking to Nathan...

HE SCOFFS

Urgh!

Things between us have been not good since the mushroom admission.

I mean, this whole month she's...

AUBERGINE SIZZLES

So her job, right? Her job...

She's always given it the extra hours

and I'm always saying to her, "Oh, you, you need to get paid for that.

"It's not a charity," which is funny cos it is a charity.

And she's usually in there till like seven, eight,

nine o'clock at night, whenever.

You see now, five o'clock comes, boom, she'll end the Zoom.

I mean, it could be the middle of a meeting, boom, ends the Zoom.

Middle of a sentence, boom, ends the Zoom, right?

She won't return her sister's calls.

You see when I asked her why, she goes,

"I have got no intention of wasting any more of my life

"on other people."

She won't even fight with me.

She just fucking walks out the room.

when she's playing with him and I know she's thinking...

all those years, you know?

It's doing... Are you going upstairs, pal?

FOOTSTEPS FADE

..doing funny things to me all this, you know?

That and the collapse of my company.

You fall down, you get back up again, you know?

But I can't seem to...

..get up. You know what I mean?

I'm biting my fingernails.

I can't stop ordering fruit online.

I cried in the bath yesterday.

The bath!

I mean, I never cry but the bath?!

It's fucking pathetic.

So, it's safe to say that I am...

..a bit of a mess over here right now, you know?

She's off getting the old you-know-what with Nathan and, um...

So, I'll take my mind off it, I'll keep myself busy.

So I'm doing the katsu curry aubergine tonight.

Got all the ingredients, got them down the same Tesco Local as before.

You know, I don't think I've been in there

since before the first lockdown.

It's so different in there now, though.

You know, with the hand sanitiser, face masks.

The last time I was in there, it was picked clean.

It was like...it was like a 7-Eleven in a disaster movie.

But now it's just, it's brimming with produce

and just like everything's just,

everything's just dandy and the punters are walking about

like they don't give a shit.

And there was this one guy, right? My God, this...

..fucking guy.

Late 20s, right?

Jogging gear, earphones in,

shopping in a basket - no mask.

Like, at all, and I'm looking around and nobody's stopping him.

I'm like, and this guy, he just, he does not give a fuck. Right?

So anyway, he's in baked goods, right,

and he's standing with all the bread in front of him

and there's a woman below him and she's got the uniform on,

she's stacking pitta bread and he's over her like this, right?

Like...like that.

And I'm standing looking at him, I'm going,

"You are too close to her, pal. What the fuck is wrong with you?

"Do you not get this?!"

Because she's not got any choice but to be there, does she?

And this guy, he goes...

Like, he decides, "I am going to have a walnut loaf bloomer."

I mean, he needs to get it, doesn't it?

He's probably going to fucking die if he doesn't get it, right?

So he does this, he leans in.

Like he leans in, like...

PAN CLATTERS

..like that. Like...

Fuck's sake. Like that.

Like close to her and she's like here, right, going,

"Oh, my God, what is this? What is this?"

She can feel it.

Because this is close for normal times, right?

Fuck me. So this guy, right, he goes, "Hmm." He goes...

Reaches in, right close, face, like, there, right?

Pulls out his walnut loaf bloomer.

Gives it a squeeze, actually.

"Mm, no, not that one." Puts it back.

Goes in for another. She's there, breathing.

Brings it out.

"Oh, yes, lovely."

Then he jogs on and I am fucking, like...

I'm fucking fuming, right?

I mean, I'm raging, boiling.

I'm so full of this stuff that I find myself in front of this woman,

right, cos I've got to say something,

The woman I shouted at.

It's the woman I humiliated.

She's got her mask on but I can tell it's her and she knows it me, right?

And she just goes, "Can I help you, sir?"

Until finally...

"I'm sorry.

"I'm so sorry."

She goes, "What're you sorry for, sir?"

And I can't say cos it...

Cos I just fucking can't, can I?

So instead I go, "Thank you...

"..for this.

"For everything. For all you do, for keeping us all going.

"For the risks you take and for what you are."

She goes, "What am I, sir?"

And I go...

"You're a hero.

"You are a hero,"

and she goes, "I'm just somebody that needs a job, sir."

And by this point, I'm kind of crying, right?

I mean, not actually, but inside.

And I want to give this woman something, so I say...

"It's going to be different."

She goes, "What will be different?"

And I say, "The world.

"People like you, you're going to be valued.

"We won't go back to the way it was, valuing the wrong things,

"like CEOs or magazines or brand influencers.

"People whose jobs aren't important."

She goes, "People like you, you mean?"

"Yeah. Yeah, people like me.

"It's going to change.

"We'll remember."

She goes, "No, you won't.

"You'll forget. The world isn't going to change."

And I don't say anything because...

..I think she might be right.

I know she's right.

She goes, "Can I help you with anything else, sir?"

And I want to say something that matters.

I want to say the one thing in my life that matters

and I want to say it to her, right now.

But the only thing in my life that matters is gone.

So I just shake my head, you know what I mean?

And she goes back to stocking pitta bread

and quietly saving all our lives for just above minimum wage.

DOOR CREAKS OPEN And...

I'm not a shitty person.

I know.

I was just reacting when I said that. All the time.

I'm not a shitty person all the time.

But I am sometimes.

And you aren't... You're not a good person.

Well, most of the time...

..very much, really, at all.

But you are sometimes.

Thank you. I suppose.

I-I-I need to make, um...

I've been thinking about this a lot and I need to make a...

People are...are... Like, when we get back to normal,

when it all gets back to normal, it'll soon be normal -

I don't want to go back to normal.

I really don't. I mean, what is so great about the way things were?

Just at each other's throats, we were just...

Everyone's just at each other's throats over the slightest thing,

all the time and...

I need to make...

..a really drastic change.

Do you understand?

Yeah.

HE CHUCKLES WRYLY

Yeah, I think I do.

I just want a new life.

Whoa. No, no, look, it's fine, it's absolutely fine,

I completely understand, 100%.

Are you crying? I'm not crying. Why are you crying?

I'm not fucking crying, OK?

That's crying. Why are you...?

DOOR SLAMS

Why do you think?!

Right, I'm broken up.

Of course I'm going to fucking cry.

This, what we're doing, doesn't mean nothing to me.

OK? And I get it, I really do, I get it. Maybe...

..maybe this is the smartest thing we've ever done

and we should've done it years ago, but I'm not some

frozen-hearted ice queen with a heart of rock and granite, am I?

I mean... Why have you got Arthur's jacket on? Fuck's sake!

OK, let's do it, but it really hurts me.

And I'm going to fucking cry.

And you're going to fucking watch.

HE SOBS

We're not splitting up.

What?

We're not splitting up. Why do you think we're splitting up?

You just said that we were. I did not say we're splitting up!

You did, you... Well, what did you say, then?

I said, let's not get married, I...

No. That's all I said.

I did say, let's not get married. I didn't... No, you didn't.

You never said the word marriage.

The word marriage never came out of your mouth.

Didn't I?

Well, that's what I meant. That's what you meant?!

I meant let's not get...

I meant let's not get married, let's not...

I didn't mean not, let's not be together.

I meant let's not get married.

I mean, what the fuck were you thinking anyway?

What's going through your head? Are you watching...

..watching fucking Bridgerton or something?! I just...

I'm saying... I'm saying, let's be together.

OK? But just in a nice way!

If we possibly can.

Everyone's really angry at each other all the time

but we're all the same.

We're all wearing the same clothes, we're eating the same food.

We're listening to the same music, we're drinking the same

stupid drinks, we're watching the same programmes.

Just the entire human race...

..is like running towards each other at the speed of light,

shouting, "Get the fuck away from me!" And I...

I just...I can't do that any more.

I'm not. Not...not after all this. You OK, pal?

How you doing? You all right?

Are you going to go play? You go play.

What? What? I don't like aubergine.

Argh!

Fuck's sake.

BIN CLATTERS

Goodbye, aubergine. Hello, fish and chips!

There's a dead parakeet in the garden.

There's a dead parakeet? Yep.

What, in our garden? Yep.

Are you sure it's... Are you sure it's a parakeet?

I don't think you get parakeets around here.

Can I bring it in? No, no, no, pal.

Maybe just best to leave it outside, eh?

I'll just watch it decompose. Yes.

Or you can chuck it in the bushes, let the foxes eat it.

Are you two all right?

Yes. Yeah.

Yeah, we're great. We're really great.

Hey.

Here, why don't you go and play outside, pal? I'll be two secs, OK?

FOOTSTEPS FADE

That's a terrible thing to say.

I didn't get the vaccine.

Wait, what? No.

Wh... How...? OK.

OK. And it was because of your stupid moping face.

You've been moping for a week since you found out. I mean...

Who the fuck are you to judge me?

You!

SIREN WAILS IN DISTANCE

I was there with Nathan and I was ready and...

..a bloke comes out and says, "Is anyone here a carer

"for the vulnerable?" And...

..your stupid mopey face just came into my head and I walked away.

I walked away because I was worrying about what you would think of me.

Because of me?

What I feel for you, it's...

..it's so weird and it's...

..infuriating and irritating.

And it's really depressing sometimes but it is a sort of love.

Are you trying to say you love me?

No, I'm trying to say I sort of love you.

And I'm just asking you - is that enough?

Do you want to go and see a dead parakeet with me?

Yeah, I think I do, actually.

# There once was a ship that put to sea

# The name of the ship was the Billy of Tea

# The winds blew up Her bow dipped down

# Oh blow, my bully boys, blow Huh

# Soon may the Wellerman come

# To bring us sugar and tea and rum

# One day, when the tonguing is done

# We'll take our leave and go

# Soon may the Wellerman come

# To bring us sugar and tea and rum

# One day, when the tonguing is done

# We'll take our leave and go

# She'd not been two weeks from shore

# When down on her a right whale bore

# The captain called all hands and swore

# He'd take that whale in tow Huh

# Soon may the Wellerman come

# To bring us sugar and tea and rum

# One day, when the tonguing is done

# We'll take our leave and go

# Soon may the Wellerman come

# To bring us sugar and tea and rum

# One day, when the tonguing is done

# We'll take our leave and go

# Soon may the Wellerman come

# To bring us sugar and tea and rum

# One day, when the tonguing is done

# We'll take our leave and go

# She'd not been two weeks from shore

# When down on her a right whale bore

# The captain called all hands and swore

# He'd take that whale in tow Huh

# Soon may the Wellerman come

# To bring us sugar and tea and rum

# One day, when the tonguing is done

# We'll take our leave and go

# Before the boat had hit the water

# The whale's tail came up and caught her

# All hands to the side Harpooned and fought her

# When she dived down low Huh

# Soon may the Wellerman come

# To bring us sugar and tea and rum

# One day, when the tonguing is done

# We'll take our leave and go

# Soon may the Wellerman come

# To bring us sugar and tea and rum

# One day, when the tonguing is done

# We'll take our leave and go. #