Conversations 18

There's a film called Love in the Time of Cholera. This isn't it. This is my CoronaVirus effort. Sometimes, when you're in pain, your mouth runs away with you. And there are few clear answers.

It was the day the music died.

"Okay, baby. I'm going to have to go. That morning shift is killing me -- and I have to be up at half five."

I looked mournfully at the screen, trying to fix her face in my mind once more.

"Five more minutes?" I begged, like an eight year old trying to squeeze a few more minutes out of a waking day. "Please? I miss you so much!"

My wife smiled tiredly at me. I hated this so badly. She was a doctor, spending day after day in the ICU, tending to what often turned out to be the last day on earth for many people with Covid-19. Early on, she'd sat me down and given it to me straight. There was a chance she could catch the virus. The hospital was all but breaking the bank to make sure the nurses, aides, cleaners, porters, and doctors got the Personal Protection Equipment they needed to make it safely through the day. Two of them; a Rumanian physiotherapist who got sick patients to breathe as deeply as they could, and a South African nurse who had seen almost every type of lethal injury in her career, hadn't made it. They'd died within ten days of each other -- nursed by the very people they had worked and lunched with a few days before.

I had asked Shana to stay at home with me when things first started to look bad; the news filled with rumours of lockdown, shortages and mounting numbers of deaths. I'd asked, but it wasn't with any real hope. She was a doctor, and that was that. She wouldn't be hiding away in solitude with me while her colleagues put their lives on the line. It wasn't going to happen. But I had to ask.

Shana had been pissed off at me for asking, but she could see how much I loved her, which softened the attitude. That was one thing. The second and vastly worse thing was when she told me we couldn't stay together during this virus lockdown.

"I love you more than life itself," she'd said one night, as we lay naked in each other's arms after a long, sweetly drawn-out session of love making, which had my heart still beating twice as fast as normal. That problem was fixed when she continued. "So I'm going to go and stay with Jill for the duration of this epidemic."

My heart stopped, or that's how it felt.

"No!" I'd said. "Not going to happen."

She'd kissed me sweetly, her brown eyes locked on mine, and I could see the love so clearly in those dark depths. "Mike, if I brought the disease home and gave it to you, I wouldn't be able to live with myself. If you died, so would I."

Her tone was deadly serious. "I can't give up what I'm doing, you know that. They need every doctor and nurse they can get. I didn't become a doctor to hide when they need me most, you know that, as well. That being said, there's the risk I could become a carrier, and I can't risk passing it on to you."

"I'll take that risk," I had said staunchly. I'd heard the stories from her, and frankly, they were nightmares. People drowning in their own bodily fluids; being racked with phantom pains until their heart simply gave up; going into a coma until a stroke ended things in an instant. Even so, I needed her by my side. "I can handle it!"

I meant it. She was everything to me. Everything. I had no family left -- an orphaned only child. She was the only person I loved in the whole world.

"You're strong. I'm not," she had continued. "If anything happened to you because of me, the guilt would kill me. You're my man; my soul mate; my heart mate; my shining star. If that star dimmed and died because of something I did, I could never get through it."

"I see it every day," she'd whispered. "People allowed to visit dying loved ones for their last hour; sitting there, holding their hands and trying desperately not to shatter into tiny pieces as the person they loved struggled and then finally gave up. And every one of them wonders whether it was them who had infected the dying wife, mother, father, son. They'll carry the possibility of their guilt for the rest of their lives. I can't do that."

She'd simply talked over me as I tried to protest.

"Jill and I have resolved to share her house near the hospital until this is over. Half the time we share the same shift, so we can travel together. No matter how much it hurts, we have to do it this way, baby. You know it makes sense. Please accept this. I can't take the risk of making you ill."

"So you want me to stay here all on my own -- completely isolated, while you go and share your life with your best friend." I'd sounded sulky. I'd felt sulky. This was the last thing I wanted in a three-year-old marriage. It wasn't brand new and still sparkling with fairy dust, but it wasn't the rock-solid relationship of a golden anniversary couple, either.

"You're making it sound much worse than it is," she'd said. "Come on; please don't lay more guilt on me over this. You know I don't want to be away from you at all -- not for a moment -- but you have to be safe. You do understand. Please tell me you do, I need your reassurance."

I'd been completely torn. I was inordinately proud of her: her devotion to her duty as a doctor and to the needs of her patients. At the same time, I wanted her here with me, by my side, as we'd promised when we married. But then, she was needed so badly by the hospital and the health service, both of which seemingly had half their staff off sick -- forced into isolation with their families after showing symptoms. Then again, those staff members were at least symptomatic with their loved ones, so why not me as well?

When I'd pointed that out, she countered it. "They might have symptoms but not a serious illness from it, or it may just be flu. Hell it could be hay fever for all anyone knows. Once they're isolated, none of them can get to a doctor to have it checked properly. But honey, I'm the person that's dealing with these patients face-to-face. And I mean face-to-face. When they are convulsing, burning up or having a heart attack, I'm there, just inches away. Sure, I have PPE, but the chances of me catching it are greater than for most. Jill's in the same position."

"I know that," I said moodily. "But I'm not married to Jill. I feel like you're asking me to be a military wife while you go off to war, and you can't even come home on leave. This could take up to a year by all accounts! Is that what you're asking me to do? Sit here by myself and worry myself sick about you for all that time?"

"You'd have all the time in the world to play that silly game you love," she teased. "Without me bothering you."

Silly game? Cheek! It was a game of strategy, risk, chance and high reward.

"But that's the best part of the game," I whined. "I love it when you interrupt me so we can have happy time. Now I just have to take a lonely sabbatical from you for the foreseeable future? It could be forever, as far as we know.

"Besides, you staying with Jill means that you're all the more likely to infect each other if one of you gets it. Then the hospital gets two sick or... sicker doctors for the price of one. A twofer. That doesn't make sense, either."

"That's the deal we all chose when we became doctors," she said. "We knew the risks. Nobody really expected an epidemic like this, but we all knew it was possible."

"Like everyone knowing that oil will never run out, even though we actually know in reality that it inevitably will happen at some stage?" I'd muttered. I'd been doing a lot of muttering by that point.

She'd nodded. "Pretty much. You always think it's going to happen on someone else's watch. But this is my watch, and I have to step up. You know me."

I'd nodded, frowning. Yes, I knew her all too well. Ever since we'd met at a yoga class and become friends, then lovers and finally a married couple, I'd known she had a rock-solid sense of duty.

I had sighed, possibly as sad as the day my parents had died. Yes, I wanted to cry.

"When are you going?" I asked, miserably.

"Sunday night." She took my face between her hands and kissed me long and hard. "I managed to wangle the weekend off, and I'm going to need lots of us time: you-and-me time."

She'd pulled back and gazed into my eyes. "This is not what I want, Mike. You know that. It's just what I have to do. It's this new world. Everything is changing."

"Including us," I mourned softly.

"No!" She almost shouted that. "Not us! We don't change. We roll with it, but we're the same as we ever were."

"It doesn't feel like it," I replied. "It feels like I've been condemned for something I didn't do. Shit, I feel like I could take a leading role in Les Misérables at the moment."

I couldn't stop myself. I knew I sounded like the most whiny, juvenile, selfish person, but I couldn't stop myself.

"We'll make it work, baby," she assured me. "We're strong, we love each other and we believe in each other. We can make it work."

That was then -- a weekend where Shana made our honeymoon seem like a first date between two twelve year olds. By Sunday night, I'd been too worn out to raise more than a token final protest.

"Please don't go," I'd said as she gathered her bags, refusing to let me out of the apartment even to load them into the car for her. She'd kissed me again, and leaving just a tiny zephyr of her scent, she was gone.

Now, two months later, I was begging for five more minutes. It was a game we'd started to play soon after she settled in at Jill's house. After every shift, we would chat on Skype, Whatsapp, Snapchat; whatever worked best at the time on the overloaded network.

"C'mon honey, five more minutes."

"Can't baby, I'm shattered. I'll call you tomorrow. Love you."

And then she was gone. Except she wasn't. She leaned forward, pressed a key and the background noise from her end shut off. But the camera was still live. She'd turned off her screen instead of the feed.

I watched and cried, on-and-off, for an hour.

At first, she'd been keyed up to save her patients, but after a couple of weeks she seemed to get more and more tired. I'd started to really worry, and made her take a virus test in front of me. It was clear. I nagged her about taking a little time off for herself, and not work herself into the ground.

Now, I realised that she probably hadn't been getting enough sleep. She was too busy.

I tapped out a brief message, took a couple of her sample sleeping pills and went to bed.

Eventually, I had to wake up again, my bladder forcing the issue, despite my brain's demands that I stay safely asleep, where nothing could hurt me.

The sun wasn't up yet and I stared out the window at the empty streets. When we'd moved in, traffic would be flowing quickly at this time of day; now, it was just the odd jogger, someone hurrying past alone with a couple of bags of shopping, or a taxi picking up someone to visit a surgery. It was a world of little meaning any more. I knew that without Shana's daily get together online, the days would start to meld into each other, with no clear distinction. Time would become irrelevant.

I got a cup of coffee and booted up the PC. Overnight, while I was asleep, I'd come up with a plan. It wasn't much of a plan, but it was better than nothing.

With all the time in the world and no wife to worry about anymore, I was going to master my game. My fingers flew as I keyed in information to get me a live feed into the game and hook me up with a... a guild of sorts, I suppose. I was determined to use this to stop myself going crazy. Although, perhaps I would get a cat. Maybe two, so they would each have a buddy.

I started downloading the advanced form of my game, checked that the acknowledgement and acceptance of my application to the guild had come through, and then removed all traces of Shana from the bedroom. Soon, the narrow bed in the box room that we kept for those rare visitors who stayed over, was overflowing with clothes, toiletries, scrubs, shoes and a few bits of PPE she'd left behind. When I was done, I closed the door -- a symbolic closing of that chapter of my life. I was restarting at level one -- a blank slate, a noob.

It was strange. In a world where being alone was now normal, I needed to be even more alone than ever before. The best way to do that was to simply keep my mind so busy that it didn't have time for stray thoughts -- those little grey tendrils of pain -- that would crawl through my brain to inflict more wounds on my soul.

I cut off all access to the rest of the world -- both through my phone and the PC -- bar the game itself. I studied tactics and timing. This was a PVP game, where every player was a solitary warrior against everyone else in the game. Shana had said it was a silly game, and how I'd played it before was indeed silly -- just noodling around, really. But now was the time for things to get real!

There was just one last thing to do before I started trying to make my mark on this new world. I phoned a television station and asked them if they had footage of a recent event that had probably taken place near them. They were happy to point me to a clip they loaded on their website. Of course they were happy to do so. It was an event they were happy and proud to capture.

I looked it over and gritted my teeth.

Then I got into the game and went raiding -- little in and out manoeuvres that got my finances on the go. I would need those for when I went up against the bigger players. Planning and timing was everything.

On the fourth day, when I wandered through to the lounge, naked and unshaven, Shana was sitting on the settee. I scratched my butt and went to the kitchen to get the coffee on the go, nodding to her as I went past. She seemed to huddle into herself, looking pale.

I'd raided the local supermarket for its few remaining stocks of real coffee, deciding that the time to scrimp and save for the future had slipped away. 'Live now, for tomorrow I die', had become my new motto.

While I waited for it to brew, I tried to still the nerves that jittered and danced. I understood it. I did. It was part of the grieving process to try and make a deal, or deny it had happened when something you loved died. Having the corpse sitting nearby, probably wanting to discuss the death, was enough to spook anyone. I gathered myself. I was not going to be spooked!

I returned to the lounge and sat on the sofa, my back to the arm at one end and my legs stretched out along its length, one ankle crossed comfortably over the other.

She said nothing. Neither did I, quietly enjoying the coffee and feeling the caffeine start to prop up my system. I'd been hammering at the game for most hours in a day, and even now, the urge to simply get up and flick the PC screen on to continue playing was fairly strong.

"I got your message," she said finally.

"And yet you're here," I replied equably. "Did you not understand it?"

"Of course I did. But this is my home."

"Nope. This is my home. Your home is..." I waved a hand. "Somewhere out there. You share it with your two best buddies, your BFFs."

"You're my best friend," she protested.

"I unfriended you. I was sure my message would have got that across."

"That's not you talking," she said. "I'm not sure what you heard, but it's the anger from that that's talking, not your love."

I switched on the TV. Missing her as frantically as I did, I would record our online calls, watching them a couple of times again the next day. It made me feel just a little less lonely.

I hit the play button. Shana's head and shoulders - in full 4G high definition on the 52 inch television screen were facing the camera.

Her pretty mouth said, "I'll call you tomorrow. Love you."

Then she leaned forward and the sound went off as she pressed a couple of keys, looking depressed.

Two hands settled on her shoulder. She looked up and gave a wan smile. The owner of the hands crouched down and settled his chin on her shoulder as the hands swept down and cupped her breasts, squeezing and stroking them through her scrubs.

I pressed pause and looked at her.

"I didn't hear anything," I said. Her face had gone even paler, as she stared wide-eyed at the still on the screen. "I did, however, see a whole lot of stuff. Hence the message. So, who's the guy that can simply walk up behind you and grab your tits, while I can't even get close enough to see you in person? Until today, of course. Is that the price I have to pay to get to see you? Or have you decided to give me the virus and hope to get me out of your life for good?"

I must admit, the slap took me by surprise. When she tried to do it again, I grabbed her wrist and pushed her back into the armchair. She burst into tears.

"Don't do that again," I commanded.

"How could you even think that?" she wailed. "I made a mistake, but that doesn't mean I want you dead. That's the most horrible thing you've ever said to me."

"And that..." I pointed at the frozen scene. "Is the worst, the lowest, the meanest, and the most spiteful thing that you... that anyone has ever done to me!"

"I never did it to spite you, or be mean. I love you."

I let the scene run to where they were kissing, her tits still in his hands.

"Oh yes, you're right. Now that I look properly, I can see that you love me so clearly."

I ran it back to the point where his hands first appeared.

"Shana, there are his hands, coming in from your left. I can see the love for me right there, as you fight him off. Oh, no, that's right. You don't fight him off at all; you lean back into his loving arms.

"Christ! You were talking to me while he was sitting on your bed, waiting to fuck you. You were telling me how much you loved me while he was probably playing with his cock, waiting for you to cheat on me -- once again. This is not a mistake. This is not something that happened once. He's there. He's comfortable and relaxed, knowing he's going to screw you yet again. He doesn't have to fight for your pussy -- he has a season ticket for it. Every part of what I see here says this is not the first time. It's not a mistake."

She shook her head vehemently, her eyes flickering everywhere but at me.

"Who is he?"

"It's Reg," she said brokenly. "Reg Varney. He's one of the doctors at the hospital.

It didn't ring any bells for me. I'd never heard the name before. I pulled up another video -- the one I'd got from the local television station. It was a short clip of the exterior of her hospital. Many of the doctors, nurses and other staff members were assembled in loose groups outside the main entrance, applauding as some commentator waffled on about the regular Thursday evening applause by the nation for its health workers.

I hit pause, and fiddled with the remote until the image zoomed into one part of the crowd.

"That's you, and I think that's Jill in the mask alongside you. So, the guy behind you, that's Dr. Varney? The one with his arms around the two of you?"

She looked at the screen and then at me. Finally, she nodded.

"He's obviously feeling very comfortable with his hands so close to your tits. He's almost shouting it out to the world that you both belong to him. Is he fucking you both?"

"Mike... please," she started.

"Shana... please," I mocked. "Jill's not married. So, how about everyone's favourite Casanova? Is he free to fuck who he likes? Is he single and able to target women with a free conscience, especially women who are married but who use an epidemic as a free pass in order to have some extra excitement in their cunts? Women who lie and cheat to get some cock? Are threesomes the order of the day, or is it just you that's cheating on me.

My mouth was starting to unsettle me. I didn't like the person she'd caused me to become. I always saw myself as a nice guy. Maybe I'd finish last, like most nice guys, but at least I was at peace with myself. Or I was until this unloaded on me. Now I could feel anger, rage, spite and the desire to hurt trying to surge up through my throat to unleash themselves upon my small confined world.