Original subtitles

Britain enters lockdown.

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.

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

Here, carry this.

- Ugh. - Not in the living room!

I mean, my God.

The only thing keeping us together is our child.

- Arthur. - Little Artie.

His name is Arthur.

Yeah, and if it wasn't for little Artie,

we would have split up years ago.

The truth is, we just can't stand each other.

Don't like each other.

So, this lockdown,

being in the same house together, me and him...

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.

Oh, my God, saying goodbye to you,

it is without doubt the best part of my day.

Just being in the same room as him...

Coming back and having to see her again, I mean, fuck...

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.

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

No, no, you're attrac... I mean, she's very attractive.

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.

And... not skin or testicle,

but one of the really bad ones,

you know, like liver, pancreatic.

Is it your cheeks? I mean, I can't even

- put my finger on it. - It's colorectal...

When I think about you, I get exactly the same feeling

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.

Aye, no, you do, you've got great lips.

They're fantastic. I just totally hate them.

We should never have got together

- in the first place. - Madness.

I mean, we're just so different, poles apart.

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

You're caught up in all the...

Do you know what else attracts?

Hormones and pheromones and...

Serial killers to victims.

Intoxication and the heart-racing sex.

Oh, Jesus. Oh, God,

just the thought of...

actually having sex with you is...

I know. I know.

And politically as well, we're totally different.

Aye. I believe in hard work.

Everyone believes in hard work!

Aye, 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 to 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 sing songs round the old Joanna.

The workers are fucking horrible.

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 pull 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.

We were poor!

I got on top, I got out.

At the time I thought, you know,

"Oh, that's cute, he's a Tory."

I am not a Tory.

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

I voted for Tony Blair.

Oh, fuck, can we just not talk about politics, please?

We're worried about my mum.

We should've just brought her here.

Well, there's no point in rehashing it, is there?

I mean, 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. And 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

and then they're straight on to their phones.

That was one, that... that was one girl.

And some of them are amazing, you know.

And they... they're paid shit, by the way.

They work from 7:00 in the morning

until 10:00 at night.

And 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 less than minimum wage.

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

I know some of them are amazing.

But some of them are not amazing,

and they're not even family.

And that is another thing, they're traveling.

Is that... Is that okay?

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. Yeah.

Well, they're advising against wearing masks.

What happens when they're on public transport,

do they become a vehicle or a vector?

And other countries are wearing masks.

Should we be wearing masks?

- I don't know! - That's what I'm saying!

Nobody seems to know anything!

Anything at all.

Fuck's sake.

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

It's a beautiful place. Beautiful.

I mean, it's got all the gear.

We're not trying to get rid of her.

You know, 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 colorful 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.

Okay, we need to get on, I totally know that.

And God knows how long this thing is gonna 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, unbelievable. Unbelievable.

What about the people out there?

Well, go on.

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

- No, come on. Look... - No, it's all right.

If we're gonna get through this, then we're gonna

- have to, you know... - What?

- Well, talk. - Us?

Yeah. I think so. Don't you?

You want me to talk?

Well, I suppose so. I mean, don't we have to?

- All right. - Like, a bit?

Yeah, all right, all right.

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...

Yeah, I'm at the Tesco local, the one in the corner,

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

I mean, locusts, right?

And I'm in there 'cause I wanna get aubergines,

- I'm gonna do this katsu... - Katsu curry aubergine. Yeah.

I'm gonna do my katsu curry aubergine.

I mean, it's the only fucking thing Artie will eat.

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

not a courgette, not a tomato, not a carrot.

And so I see this woman that works there,

I recognized her, I've seen her before.

She's, erm, like 50s and quite short, and...

and like I don't mean this to be rude or anything like that,

but she's quite recognizable

'cause she's got quite a big nose.

- Yeah, I know her. - You know the one?

Yeah, she's lovely.

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,

whole stack of aubergines, right, masses of them.

So I'm like, "Brilliant." I go up to her and I'm like,

"Excuse me. Excuse me, have you got any aubergines?"

And she's like, "No." And 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.

Anyway. So I go back up and I'm like,

"Erm, excuse me. Excuse me."

"I happened to glance behind the plastic flappy curtains"

"and I noticed a whole crate of aubergines."

And she's like, "Oh, fuck, oh, no," like, flustered

because suddenly she thinks there's gonna be

a "situation" or something like that, right.

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

And I'm like, "Why not?"

And she goes, "'Cause my manager says"

"we're not to put those aubergines out yet."

And I'm like, "Ah, right",

"no, I get it, I get it," you know.

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 asking 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...

like, voice all wobbling, 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 thinks that's the end of it, right.

But I'm like, "I'll give you a tenner."

And she goes, "No."

So I goes, "I'll give you 20 quid."

And 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."

And she's thinking, right,

'cause, I mean, she needs this.

What is 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.

Then 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!"

And I just dropped my shopping

all over the floor and I walked out.

- Oh, my God. - Mm.

- Oh, God. - What?

Oh, God. Oh, God!

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

You are awful.

I wanted to do the katsu curry...

You are the worst human alive!

You said talk.

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

- What kind of awful person... - You said talk!

Yeah, I didn't know what was gonna come out

- of your fucking mouth! - Thank you.

I feel awful now. Thank you very much!

- You feel awful now? - Aye, I do.

Do you know what blows my mind?

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.

I mean, 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.

I 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

as diarrhea in a pint glass.

Right.

Lockdown is gonna be hard then.

It's gonna be really, really hard.

Really hard.

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.

Oh, you've given me some.

You're a rotter.

- Mushrooms? - Huh? Oh!

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 of the mushrooms!

If it wasn't for the mushrooms, right,

we wouldn't still be together.

You tell it so much better than I do. Go on, tell them.

So, this is year three.

We've had the warm, cuddly first year.

Bliss, love, harmony.

And made it through the slightly spiky second year.

That gentle descent into snarkiness and bickering.

And now we're well into year three.

The terrifying plunge into the icy, Arctic tundra.

Am I actually telling it?

And by this point, right, we hate each other.

And we don't wanna 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

it's the worst thing I've ever experienced.

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

No, it's not that you're a 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 via your anus.

Wow, you get all that from eating?

Er, no, just you eating.

So, safe to say we're not... we're not gonna carry on.

And we had this massive blow-up

just before my birthday.

Like, massive. Final straw.

But I'd stupidly booked a surprise birthday weekend.

Mushroom picking, of all things,

in the New Forest.

The New fucking Forest.

And it was a non-refundable deposit, so, you know...

So they take you out to the New fucking Forest

at some godawful 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've actually made some friends.

The people were awful.

I thought one or two of them were okay.

What about your man who was like...

Oh, yeah. He should've been executed.

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's like,

"If you eat that, it's not gonna kill you,

"but it will be really bad.

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

"there will be projectile vomiting,"

"there will be extraordinary diarrhea"

"and you'll piss yourself."

And we were both thinking the same thing,

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

- "and watch them squirm." - Wild, right?

Like, I would love to pick that mushroom

and watch that stupid bastard lying on the floor,

shitting his pants, thinking he's gonna 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.

I mean, they look stupidly like the good ones.

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, like, sulk on ahead

and cook them up yourself to make a point.

Aye. Look...

I thought I was gonna die, okay?

Yeah. He did. He really thought that.

The pain was extraordinary.

He did think he was gonna die.

That feeling that something in your body

that wants you dead...

He was fine, though.

I was at death's door!

You were... Yeah, you were at the door.

You weren't on the premises.

The guy specifically said they're not fatal.

It took the ambulance 1 hour and 30 minutes to get there.

No, it did. It did take that long.

- That was a bit scary. - Mm-hmm.

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,

you feel this terrifying panic, right,

this absolute certainty that you're going to die today.

Just to reiterate...

And that the person you're with

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

Yeah, I mean, 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 fetus, right, 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.

And that's the mushroom story.

Artie, here.

It's not been that bad, though, lockdown.

No!

We're two weeks done

and, you know, we're getting through it.

Yeah, we are.

Don't get me wrong. It's not been pleasant though.

God, no.

We still have to see each other,

pass each other on the stairs, ugh...

Just with everyone being so happy-clappy fucking cheerful.

Oh, 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, I mean, we could pretend that the other one...

- Didn't exist. - Was in a coma or...

Look, my business for one thing, right,

it's taking a lot of sorting out.

- Tell them what you do. - Don't start.

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

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. - Okay.

I've got a boutique consultancy.

We specialize in data analytics

and finding technological multimedia solutions...

I mean, what?

For linear online broadcast marketing providers,

who specialize in cost-efficiency savings.

What's complicated about that?

Mm-hmm. 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."

Which was really funny, a million years ago.

But 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. - Borrowing 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 have been absolutely perfect

for shutting the economy down.

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

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 handout now, though, do you?

They're loans! They're loans, woman! They're loans!

Look, my company's not weak, okay? Never been weak.

Yeah, no, just incomprehensible.

Anyway, there was so much to sort out.

There was all the loans,

there was the refund in statutory sick pay,

the VAT deferral, then furlough.

I mean, 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 firing them.

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. - If you're a mug!

Look, meanwhile... she's still getting to work.

Yeah. I work for a charity called PFN.

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

Oh, aye,

- saving the world, this one. - Mm.

I work with refugees.

It's good what she does, actually.

I am actually proud of that.

- I'm a bit proud of that. - I'm just a coordinator, so...

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... Phew.

The ones I help are no different.

Some of the stories of these ones...

These ones are no different.

I mean, 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!

You know, I'm not even gonna get into it.

There's been a lot going on.

And, you know, with homeschooling,

which, in fairness, he has taken the lion's share of

and he's good at it.

Aye, the Portuguese colonization of Macau

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.

It actually suits little Artie better, as well.

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

Yeah, but he's lovely.

- Is he there? - Aye, no, he's lovely.

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

He's a lovely, lovely wee fella.

Now, fair's fair, you gave me a great son.

I didn't give him to you, you fuck!

And then there's Mum. Obviously I was worried.

We both were.

You know, whatever's going on between her and I,

- I like the old girl. - Ha!

She hates you.

- She loves me. - She hates your politics.

She loves my politics.

It gives her something to argue against.

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

Yeah, 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 who tried to blow up the Telecom Tower?

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.

See, 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. - Mm.

It took us ages to get her to accept the carers coming in.

She's just scared, ain't she?

Her legs, they're not what they once were.

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.

I don't mean, like, her throat.

I mean, like, her neck muscles holding up her head.

She was like that.

I'm like, "You all right, darling?"

She went...

Giving her her lunch, she's like...

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

Anyway, so the afternoon, the carer comes in.

- This is with Miriam, right? - Maryama.

Somali girl. I call her Miriam. She loves it.

- Uh, she really doesn't! - Anyway, she's the good one.

She's one of the good ones.

Anyway, you're on Zoom and you see her.

Yeah, I see her. And she's wearing this home-made visor,

made out of plastic, like, see-through...

You know, like a plastic pocket kind of thing

held on with rubber bands.

I mean, she's fucking Miriam, the good one.

Yeah, and I ask her about PPE and she's like,

they haven't given her any extra at all.

No, nothing.

They're making their own gowns out of bin bags.

I mean, what the fuck is going on?

Yeah, so Maryama's not happy about this at all.

You know, 'cause 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.

- How many clients that day? - Eight.

What the 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

'cause of everything that's fucking going on.

So I'm just gonna go and get her and bring her here.

But then am I exposing her?

Yeah, I mean, does one of us go and stay?

- But who's looking after him? - Yeah.

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

And, you know, there's this killer virus out there

and you're sitting pretty while your mother, your mum...

And I'm thinking, "Is this it?" you know.

"Is my mum gonna die?"

"Is my mother gonna die now?" We're fucking terrified.

But then her sister just swoops in,

sorts it all out, out of the blue.

- She was amazing. - Out of the blue.

Yeah, which is... you know, 'cause she's not normally...

I mean, normally she's a bit...

- Selfish? - Not selfish.

- Trying to be a comedian. - Yeah. It's not a comedian.

It's more performative than that.

Try telling a fucking joke. That might raise a laugh.

Look, fair's fair, she saved the day.

Yeah. She got her to go to that home.

That care home, you remember?

Yeah. She persuaded her to go to that care home.

Lovely place. I mean, absolutely amazing.

God knows 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. I mean, she'll be safe there, right?

In there? Aye, aye. She'll be safe in there.

This evening, I harvested asparagus.

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, er, I just could not resist it.

You know, I've grown it with my own hands and soil.

Look, 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 that's going on.

I ordered them...

back in early February.

Dunno why.

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 had 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 gonna happen.

I'm not saying that 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.

I actually think about doing it every year,

just never get round to it.

I suppose it's like learning the names of trees,

or reading Charles Dickens.

You know it's gonna make you a better person.

Just nobody fucking does it.

But this year, with everything that's happening...

I actually find myself doing it.

And I'm planting vegetables, you know.

I've got everything in there.

I've got carrots, courgettes, tomatoes, cucumbers.

I've got radishes,

got this wee thing that I got from Venezuela,

I'm not quite sure what it is.

And, er, asparagus, right.

So, tonight...

we get a call

just probably after they've announced

the official end of 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.

And he's the main nurse, over there in intensive care

looking after the old girl,

because Covid, you know, it just...

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...

he's on the phone to us every day,

telling us everything. Everything.

Temperature, heart rate,

fucking which consultant is seeing her,

when they're flipping her on to her front

so that she can get her breathing going.

And, when he's got a minute, right,

which isn't very often, I can tell you that,

he talks to her,

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

He's fucking just an amazing guy, Jonathan.

Lovely, you know.

I 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.

This is about 6:30.

And I'm watching her and she's on the phone,

"Mm, mm," 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.

She's gotta 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.

So, at 8:45, right, I'm thinking,

phew, "That's a bit of time..."

"I'm gonna harvest that asparagus."

So I did. 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 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

at 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...

What you doing?

I'm just... I'm just putting

her temperature in the spreadsheet.

Why? I mean, is that...

Does that matter anymore?

Er, no, I suppose not.

What are you doing? Don't. Don't.

Well, I thought, like, a hug, or...

No, no, 'cause I have to self-isolate.

- What, in here? - Yeah.

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

I don't know.

So how was it?

Er...

Well, she was unconscious.

And the hospital was weird. It was just really empty

in the places that are normally busy and...

But, you know, you could tell,

behind the scenes, everyone's just...

um...

- Jonathan was amazing. - Yeah, Jonathan is amazing.

Yeah.

He just told me everything that was gonna happen.

And he said the consultant had been in

and she reckoned it was gonna happen in the early hours.

But 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.

Erm...

And then he showed me

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

And for it to still be comfortable, you know.

And, er, then he took me in.

And I had 15 minutes.

I spent the first 10

just talking about the traffic.

Why?

Because the roads were so clear.

Yeah. And then, er,

after 10 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, er...

just poured out of me, all this stuff.

What stuff?

Just that I loved her, you know,

and that I was proud of her and...

that I was really grateful

for the person 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 that I loved her so much that...

my life was already hurting without her in it

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

No, no, no.

Do you not think, like...

Right.

And then I told her

that, er, 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 be there.

I told her that, erm,

he promised me he'd hold her hand...

when she went. That's what I told her.

I feel like I do wanna put her temperature in this...

Go for it. Yeah.

Just...

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

No.

Look, there was never a point,

so if it makes you feel better...

Well, if there's no point, it's just...

You said amazing things to her.

- Did I? - Aye.

- Because I don't think I did. - You totally did.

Okay.

Good.

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 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 gonna...

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, "Please don't let my mum die on her own."

And he said, "Sorry."

And I said...

I said, "Please."

And he said he's 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 a lay-by on the ring road.

FaceTiming in.

I just sat there and I watched my mum die,

listening to Jonathan on the other side of the curtain

telling a man he didn't even know

that he was there and he wasn't gonna leave him.

So, yeah, Mum died on her own.

♪ In the bleak midwinter

♪ Frosty wind made moan

♪ Earth stood hard as iron

♪ Water like a stone

♪ Snow had fallen

♪ Snow on snow

♪ Snow on snow

♪ In the bleak midwinter

♪ Long ago

♪ Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him

♪ Nor Earth sustain

Okay. So...

we have been having sex.

- Yeah, we have. - Which is...

Yeah. I mean, it's as big a surprise

to us as it is to you, to be honest.

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, last man on Earth? Give me celibacy now.

- Yeah, but... - We have...

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

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

- What's it been? - Uh...

It's been good.

Yeah, it has been good.

Been really good, in fact, if totally unexpected.

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

- Historically, yeah. - Not that we were ever all...

No, no, no, not some, like, super special fucking...

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.

Yes, 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're very... I suppose

- we're both very solid. - Quick.

- Yeah, quick. Yeah, yeah. - Aye?

Both parties pretty quick at sex.

- Not bad quick. - No, I wasn't say... No.

No, no, no, just, like, we know where we're going,

we don't hang about.

Yeah, we're not into the whole bump and grind.

Aye, none of that fucking tantric,

Paul Weller, fucking...

- Do you know what I mean? - Yeah.

But at the same time, it's not all "wham bam."

No. No, no, no.

No. Premature, that's not the...

- Is it? - No. No, no, no.

Both of us happen to be able

to get where we're going with...

- Time to spare. - Alacrity. Yeah.

Needless to say, right, it's totally side-swiped

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, we tell you,

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

All right, so, it all started right back

at the end of the first lockdown.

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

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

I mean, funerals, right,

I've buried both my parents,

and there's this whole bunch of stuff

that you have to organize, 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 it's actually kind of amazing

because what's it doing is it's distracting you

from what you've lost.

And, oh, God, I remember at my dad's funeral,

there was this big, six foot, tobaccoey lead smelter, right.

And he comes up to me and 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 you never knew about the person

you thought you knew everything about,

and it distracts you.

Anyway, you don't get any of that at a Covid funeral.

It's five people at our Covid funeral. Five.

Don't organize catering for five people.

You gotta 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 you gonna do,

you gonna wash them before they come in?

There's no singing at a Covid funeral, no hymns...

No strangers grabbing you by the fist,

looking you in the eye and telling you

that your father's actually...

Hold on, hold on, listen...

- Can I say something? - Aye.

Just... And you're not gonna look at me all weird or...

I don't know.

I mean, I don't know what you're gonna say, do I?

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 agonizing 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...

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...

I fucking loved that funeral, too.

- You did? - I did.

Well, then why were you all...

Well, 'cause you were like...

Yeah, but...

I was loving it.

I mean, not loving it.

You know, my mum is dead, but...

Yeah. Obviously. I mean...

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, 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, it's...

- No, you can't, can you? - No.

You're not supposed to be happy

about a Covid funeral, are you?

No. And I suppose when we got home,

we just got caught up talking about Artie, and...

Fuck, Artie was... He was...

Oh, he was upset.

Yeah, 'cause he wanted to see the body.

Yeah, 'cause he loved 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... Don't say it like he's a cannibal or...

He didn't wanna saute it.

He wanted to see if a dead body...

- What? - 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 a...

sexual contact.

Should we tell them what it was?

- No, we don't need to... - No, no, no. All right.

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

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

Why do you need to say that?

I thought it's important for them to know the details.

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 settles in

and we just completely forget about it.

Things start to change,

you know, you can see people, you can go to restaurants...

They encouraged you to go to restaurants, bizarrely.

Yeah. Through all of that, we did not have sex.

- No. No. - Even once.

And little Artie, right, he's back at school.

Then he was out of school again

'cause some kid got Covid.

And then he was in, then he was out,

and then he was in again,

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

But, point is, that 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.

Yeah, and summer comes, then autumn.

And then it was like people seemed to forget that

we were living in a country that was being held together

by shoestring and Sellotape,

and people that don't have the option to work from home,

people that have got shit jobs and shit pay,

but have to look after shits like us...

Ah. Careful, comrade!

Fuck off. 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. I mean, not in a million years.

No. And then, right,

they announce a vaccine's been discovered.

And we just start fucking ploughing like teenagers.

Honestly, no idea why. Like...

Did the announcement trigger it? You know.

Is it a lockdown phenomenon?

Are other people experiencing this?

Maybe because the vaccine's gonna make things better?

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

Well, I mean, they're not gonna be

vaccinating people in refugee camps any time soon.

Here we go, let the virtue signaling 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.

Everything is about profit.

And don't say "profit" like it's a bad thing, okay.

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

Oh. Well, all I know

is that you are gonna be getting the vaccine

long before any front-line worker in Sierra Leone,

and what the fuck do you do?

I would run out there tomorrow and get it if I could.

Yeah. No, I know you would.

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, 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 would you go into... - What are you talking about?

We're over-sharing.

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

You don't need to go into all the info.

No. Yeah, all the ins and outs.

- Oh, come on. - Sorry.

How old are you?

- How old are you? - Fucking...

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, no.

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

Physical. Just purely contractual, eh?

- Yeah. Isn't it? Yeah. - Aye. Yes! Yes!

It's not like we're not suddenly in...

- Fuck, no! Jesus. - Love or...

- like through the tulips... - Don't.

Fucking holding hands,

braiding each other's bits, and fucking...

Still makes me sick.

Yeah, and the sight of her

still makes me wanna stab my own feet.

I mean, I definitely do not...

Do I?

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

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

and... and... and maybe the vaccine,

like, triggered something, you know.

I mean, just the thought

that if she'd had it, you know, she'd...

And just the unfairness of that,

like the nonsense of it, and...

This physical thing that's been happening between us,

I think maybe it's 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 the contact...

Yeah, no, 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...

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.

- What? - What?

- What did you just say? - No, I was just...

- For God's sake! - Joking.

- I was joking. - "Emptying your bags"?

Don't joke!

- I'm really sorry. - Jesus... I mean,

- what is wrong with you? - I said I'm sorry.

- You always do this! - Honest to God,

- I'm really sorry. - No. Just when I begin

- to think, you always... - I don't always do anything.

Just when I begin to think...

Just when you begin to think what?

Just...

Don't walk away.

Don't walk away!

She's been hit by it.

I know she doesn't look it, but...

inside, you know...

grief.

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 fastly."

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, erm,

it's worth taking the time to understand the...

the mathematics of exponential growth.

Right, so you, er...

So you start with one and you double it,

say, every three days.

So you're doubling it every three days.

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

One has become four 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.

Okay. 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... 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, 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.

It's 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 behavior.

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 fastly."

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.

But I've just explained it to you in...

I've just explained it to you in...

1 minute, 34 seconds. 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 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..."

"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.

And it wasn't until a month later

that they were given guidance.

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 gonna repeat that.

I'm gonna 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 look that up. It's...

There will still be links for it.

And this is one week

before our Prime Minister is walking around

just boasting about shaking hands

with coronavirus patients.

And then the Imperial College

points out that if left unchecked,

the virus could kill half a million people,

and the government are like,

"Oh... Oh, fuck, really?"

"Oh, shit. Fuck."

And then... then the panic kicks in.

The NHS is gonna be overwhelmed,

we're gonna be like Italy...

"Oh, please, God, don't let us be 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're dumped into care homes,

and they're not being tested because...

And again, I'm gonna quote here,

"that Covid sufferers can be"

"safely cared for in care homes."

So, while the...

While the NHS...

the burden on the NHS was being so hotly debated

and... and while, you know, 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.

So they were sent in to these places

like biological warfare.

They were like... like 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 by the virus.

She was... She was killed by stupidity.

She was killed by dumbfuckery. She was killed by...

by someone looking at something coming at them

at the speed of a freight train

and just being like, "Oh, let's just..."

"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 stiff upper lip. Let's just carry on, old man."

And my mother...

My mum...

I think, erm...

I think that's it.

Do you... Do you...

Isn't it? Have you got that off...

Do you remember the... the...

when we were supposed to lockdown?

We were supposed to lockdown and... and then we didn't.

And they came out and they said,

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

"or... or restaurants, you know,"

"unless you just 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 it genuinely.

If you've got more, you've got the right to say.

Oh, yeah. Sorry, no.

No, that... Yeah, that's it.

Are you all right?

No, I don't think so, really.

Well...

I... I just feel like something's changing in me,

you know, I just feel like I'm going into a dark...

Just a bit of a dark place.

Oh, right. Fuck. Erm...

Why don't we think of something positive?

- Positive? - Yeah, like, why don't we

try and leave the room on a positive thing?

- What positive thing? - I don't know. Erm...

- Arthur. What about Arthur? - Okay. What about Arthur?

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, okay?

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 fact that we were prey

that helped propel our development.

And Arthur was saying that it still happens today.

He was saying that 50 people a year in Tanzania

get eaten by lions.

And that, in this one village, there's, like,

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

and then when the villagers come to chase it away,

it'll circle round the back

and it'll eat a couple of the babies

that have been left behind.

That's really grim.

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 happened, so...

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

Oh, I just...

Erm...

- Your company. Yeah. - My company collapsed.

Well, I mean, you were happy about it.

Don't say that in front of... 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. - Yeah.

I'm being sanguine. I'm sanguine about it.

Yeah, I meant... 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.

Uh...

Oh, Maryama.

Maryama, Mum's carer, she's still hanging in there.

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

The coronavirus hasn't killed her yet.

Don't think we even told them that she'd 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 to...

We're gonna need to try a lot harder than that.

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

Why don't we get married, then?

- What? - You know, let's fucking...

fucking...

Let's fucking...

get married, then.

Are you proposing to me?

Yep.

- Yeah, actually I am. - Right.

And your proposal is,

"Let's fucking get... 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.

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.

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,

- I probably love you. - You probably love me?

I love you. I fucking love you.

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

I kind of hate you as well...

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

but I don't think I do anymore.

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 about my mental state

right now, you know,

because I've got a lot of anger,

just a lot of hate and...

No, because it's a timing...

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 of...

of rigorous honesty.

Absolutely.

What does that mean?

Okay.

Right.

It was me.

The mushrooms.

I picked those mushrooms and I think...

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, then we were just stuck...

together.

I know.

What?

I know.

You know I picked the mushrooms?

No.

I know you think you picked the mushrooms,

but you didn't pick the mushrooms

because I picked the mushrooms.

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 fricassee"

"and watch her fucking..."

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

But you ate them.

Yeah, I forgot that I picked them.

Okay.

- You were gonna poison me? - Yeah.

You were gonna poison me.

No, I was just fantasizing about poisoning you.

What's the difference?

The difference is the fucking poisoning!

It was me that got poisoned.

And let's stop calling it poisoning, okay?

I mean, it doesn't kill you,

it just hurts you badly, a bit.

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,"

"look what I do for my fellow human being."

But you are horrible to me every day.

You are exactly the same to me.

But I never despise you.

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.

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 and more.

At least I know when I'm being a piece of shit, but you,

you're just a fucking shitty person

that can't smell their own fucking stink!

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?

Do you remember Nathan?

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" 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...

I mean, what healthcare professional

wants to bin those.

They're gonna come out and they're gonna give them away,

but when they see, like, I don't know,

10 of you sitting there waiting for two vaccines,

they're probably gonna ask something

along the lines of,

"Do any of you work with the vulnerable?"

A second will go by

and nobody will say anything

because none of these arseholes

actually do, do they?

I mean, the real carers are all getting it elsewhere.

And another second goes by, and 10 minds start to race.

Then a third second goes by,

and the smarter and, admittedly,

more venally shitty amongst the group

start to realize that they're only one dastardly lie away

from getting vaccinated.

See, by the time the fourth second comes and goes,

there's all these hands jumping up in the air going,

"I'm shite-icus," "No, I'm shite-icus."

"No, I'm shite-icus."

Anyway, that's what Nathan does, right.

He tells you this.

He says, "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...

Things between us have been

not good since the mushroom admission.

Fuck me, this whole month she's...

So her job, right, her job...

She's always giving it the extra hours.

And I'm always saying to her,

"Oh, you need to get paid for that, it's not a charity."

Which is funny, because it is a charity.

And she's usually in there till like

seven, eight, nine o'clock at night, whenever.

But see now, five o'clock comes,

boom, she'll end the Zoom.

It could be 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.

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.

I mean, the only person

she's got any time for is little Artie.

And even then,

I sometimes catch her looking at him

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

"All those years..." you know.

You going up the stairs, pal?

Doing funny things to me, all this, you know.

That and the collapse of my company.

I used to think, you know, you lose your job,

you bounce back.

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...

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

She's off getting the old, you know what, with Nathan

and I thought,

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

So I'm doing the katsu curry aubergine tonight.

I 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, all the hand sanitizer, face masks.

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

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

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

Just like everything is just dandy.

And the punters are walking about

like they don't give a shit.

And there's 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... 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,

she's got the uniform on

and she's stacking pita bread,

and he's over her like this, right, like, like that.

And I'm 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 gonna have a walnut loaf bloomer."

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

He's probably gonna fucking die if he doesn't get it.

So he does this. He leans in. Like, he leans in, like...

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,

I mean, like, borderline inappropriate,

but these days, with no mask, I mean...

Fuck me. So this guy, right,

he goes, "Hmm." He goes...

Reaches in... Face, like, there, right.

Pulls out his walnut loaf bloomer,

gives it a squeeze, actually. "No, not that one."

He puts it back, reaches in for another.

She's there, breathing. Brings it out...

"Oh, yes, lovely."

And 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...

'Cause I've gotta say something to this woman.

And it's her.

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's me, right.

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

And I've got nothing...

until finally...

"I'm sorry."

"I'm so sorry."

She goes, "What are you sorry for, sir?"

And I can't say 'cause...

'cause 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 wanna give this woman something, so I say...

"It's gonna be different."

She goes, "What will be different?"

And I say, "The world."

"People like you, you're gonna 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 gonna change."

"We'll remember."

She goes, "No, you won't. You'll forget."

"And the world isn't gonna 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 wanna say the one thing in my life that matters

and I wanna say it to her, right now,

but the only thing in my life that matters has gone.

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

And she goes back to stocking pita bread

and quietly saving all our lives

for just above minimum wage.

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 are not a good person.

Well, most of the time,

very much, really, at all.

But you are sometimes.

Thank you, I suppose.

I... I need to make, erm...

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 wanna 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 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.

Yeah, I think I do.

I just want a new life.

You know, I can't go back to the old one, I really can't.

And to do that, I need to make a drastic...

No, no, no. Look, it's fine. It's absolutely fine.

I completely understand. 100%.

- Are you crying? - I'm not crying.

I'm not fucking crying, okay!

- That's crying. Why are you... - No, I'm not...

Why do you think? Right, I'm broken up!

'Course I'm gonna fucking cry.

This, what we're doing,

doesn't mean nothing to me, okay?

And I get it, I really do. I get it.

Maybe this is the smartest thing we've ever done

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

frozen-hearted ice queen

with a heart of rotten granite, am I?

Why have you got Arthur's jacket on?

Fuck's sake!

Look, let's...

Let's split up. Okay, let's do it,

but it really hurts me.

And I'm gonna fucking cry

and you're gonna fucking watch.

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.

What did you say, then?

I said, "Let's not get married." I...

- No, you didn't. - That's all I said.

I did say, "Let's not get married."

- I... - No, you didn't.

You never said the word "marriage."

The word "marriage" never came out of your mouth.

Didn't I?

- 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? Were you watching...

watching fucking Bridgerton or something? I just...

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

Okay? 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 programs.

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 can't do that anymore.

I'm not, not after all this.

Hey, pal. How you doing? You all right?

Good wee boy. You gonna go play? You go play.

I'll get dinner ready. Ten minutes, all right?

Katsu curry aubergine, just the way you like it.

I actually found a wee marinade online.

I don't like aubergine.

- What? - What?

I don't like aubergine.

Fantastic. Fantastic.

I will just chuck that in the bin.

Aah!

Fuck's sake.

Goodbye, aubergine.

Hello, fish and chips.

There's a dead parakeet in the garden.

- There's a dead parakeet? - Yeah.

- In our garden? - Yeah.

Are you sure it's a parakeet?

I don't think you get parakeets round 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.

- That's good, too. - Mm.

- Are you two all right? - Yes.

Yeah. Yeah, we're great.

- Yeah. - We're really great.

Hey.

Here, why don't you go and play outside, pal?

Only be two secs, okay?

I don't despise you.

That's a terrible thing to say.

I didn't get the vaccine.

- Wait, what? - No.

Well, how... Okay. Okay.

And it was because of your stupid, moping face.

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

Who the fuck are you to judge me?

You!

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 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 wanna go and see a dead parakeet with me?

Yeah.

Yeah, I think I do, actually.