Love and lockdown, p.1
Love and Lockdown, page 1
Love and Lockdown
Alyce Caswell
Copyright © Alyce Caswell 2021
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
ISBN: 978 0 6485444 6 3 (EPUB)
ISBN: 978 0 6485444 7 0 (Paperback)
Cover artwork © KPPWC/Shutterstock.com
For Ben and Dot
together again
Contents
1. Chapter One
2. Chapter Two
3. Chapter Three
4. Chapter Four
5. Chapter Five
6. Chapter Six
7. Chapter Seven
8. Chapter Eight
9. Chapter Nine
10. Chapter Ten
11. Chapter Eleven
12. Chapter Twelve
13. Chapter Thirteen
14. Chapter Fourteen
15. Chapter Fifteen
16. Chapter Sixteen
17. Chapter Seventeen
18. Chapter Eighteen
19. Chapter Nineteen
20. Chapter Twenty
21. Chapter Twenty-One
22. Chapter Twenty-Two
23. Chapter Twenty-Three
24. Chapter Twenty-Four
25. Chapter Twenty-Five
26. Chapter Twenty-Six
27. Chapter Twenty-Seven
28. Chapter Twenty-Eight
29. Chapter Twenty-Nine
30. Chapter Thirty
31. Chapter Thirty-One
32. Chapter Thirty-Two
33. Chapter Thirty-Three
34. Chapter Thirty-Four
35. Chapter Thirty-Five
About the Author
Also by Alyce Caswell
1
‘It’s not like you’re asking him to marry you. Baby steps, Ange. It might be the twenty-first century, but men still think we have to wait around for them to deign us worthy enough to get on bended knee. So we have to be subtle. Play the long game. Pretend it was their idea all along. Anyway, what choice do you have? Really? Look, this isn’t why I called. I need to tell you about all the weird stuff my roommate has been doing lately…’
Angela Tweedie stopped dead on the front stoop, her phone tucked under her chin and her spare elbow braced against the heavy glass door as she debated whether or not she should hold it open.
On the one hand, her neighbour was approaching with his hands full of groceries and his mouth full of wallet. On the other hand, technically she wasn’t allowed within two metres of him. Her body might be tensing to do the polite thing—‘the done thing’ as her mother would say—but they were in the middle of a global pandemic.
Not that she needed the Prime Minister to tell her to keep clear of Colin Cooper.
Even if he wasn’t infectious, there was his annoying habit of checking his assigned letterbox after midnight, when she intended on doing the same thing so as to avoid any carriers of the contagion (there must be thousands of them nearby, given the shortage of masks at the shops). Then there was the fact that, aside from the aforementioned mail run, Colin only left his two-bedder (directly on top of her studio, unfortunately) to go to the supermarket—and that was before grocery shopping became one of the few legal reasons to be out and about.
Worse still, he often made strange, erratic thumping noises that reverberated through the poorly soundproofed floor.
Everything about him annoyed her, from his sun-kissed complexion (good genes, obviously, since he rarely went anywhere) to the messy brown hair that somehow defied gravity—and how could she forget those deep green eyes that watched her calmly and unflinchingly, no matter how grumpy she was when they encountered each other.
Colin always seemed so unaffected by her presence. It made her want to strangle him and she wasn’t even sure why.
‘Ange?’ her best friend, Emily, prompted from half a world away.
Angela stepped away from the door. It made a satisfying clunk when it hit the frame.
Colin slowed too late, clearly expecting her to hold it open for him, and he ended up so close to her she could smell his cedar-scented aftershave. God knows what else she was inhaling off him right now, thanks to his complete and utter lack of social distancing. Sure, she was wearing a mask that she’d made last night (aka a sock that had seen a pair of scissors), but it wasn’t surgical grade and he wasn’t wearing anything across his face at all. Wallets stuffed into mouths definitely didn’t count.
There was a reason they were supposed to keep two metres away from each other. It was even enforceable by law.
Angela kicked up an eyebrow at him and he dutifully shuffled back a pace.
Head held high, she sidestepped onto the shorn grass (twenty square metres of greenery, along with a matching paint job on the exterior, had apparently been enough for the block of flats to earn the name ‘Grace Park’) and left a yawning gap between them that would have fit three people obeying social distancing rules. And maybe a dog.
Colin paused on the stoop and turned towards her. The wallet bobbed in his mouth, as if he was about to say something. Uh oh. He wasn’t going to let this go, like he usually did.
Panic flushed through Angela, hot and cold like one of her mother’s ‘tropical moments’ (menopause had arrived late for Janet Tweedie and she liked to broadcast how much of a bother it was). It was waaay easier to be silently passive aggressive than to defend one’s non-neighbourly behaviour. Let him think it was because she’d decided he was plague-ridden.
So what if it wasn’t ‘the done thing’. He’d live. Maybe. That was no longer a given.
‘The long game, right,’ Angela said hurriedly and raced towards the footpath on the side of the road. Not a backwards glance at Colin Cooper, not at all. She focused on enunciating her words so that they wouldn’t be mangled by her DIY mask. ‘Em, has that long game ever worked out for you?’
Emily sighed, clearly exasperated. ‘You weren’t even listening to me, were you? Like always. Fine, yeah. I get your point. I’ve given up on the whole dating thing.’
‘Too dangerous in the current climate,’ Angela agreed as she stamped her way down the hill. She was exercising. Definitely not on her way to visit her boyfriend so she could ask him something that would put them on the path to a lifetime of commitment.
Yes, exercising. Of course she was. It was still allowed, just like shopping for essentials was, even if she was using that reason as a cover for a social visit (which was a big no-no). An uncomfortable grey area, but she wouldn’t be in it for long if all went according to plan.
‘Nooo, not that,’ Emily said. She was definitely rolling her eyes, Angela was sure. ‘Dating in another country is so much effort. You meet these guys online, you go see them at a hipster café because no one does pubs anymore, they show you around because the tourist thing is an icebreaker, and then they get bored of you when you stop being new and exciting. All that wasted time and for what? Zip. I should start using Tinder. Much less hassle. It’s better if they look pretty and don’t say a word.’
Angela yanked the phone away from her ear and stared at it, appalled. ‘Social distancing, Em!’
Emily’s tone became distinctly disgruntled. ‘I’m not doing it now, okay? I am seriously climbing the walls here, Ange! And I’m running out of time. God, I’ll have to freeze my eggs or something.’
‘You’re only thirty-one,’ Angela assured her.
‘And you’ll be only thirty-one next month, Ange! Practically out to pasture. At least you have a boyfriend. You’re a step ahead, you lucky bitch.’
Angela worried her lips together. ‘You don’t think twelve months is too soon to be asking this?’
‘Oh no you don’t!’ Emily exclaimed, horror etched into every word. ‘You can’t back out now. Get this boy nailed down ASAP or you’ll start eyeing up your daggy surfer roommate. Like I’ve been doing lately. Anyone starts to look good at my ripe old age.’
Angela thought of Colin Cooper and shuddered.
‘I’m not that desperate,’ she muttered. ‘And neither of us is over the hill, Em. Plenty of older women get dates. Just ask my mum.’
‘Yes, but she’s a classic beauty, isn’t she? And her child-bearing days are over. She has forever. We need to act now.’
Angela swallowed. Her stomach began twisting itself into knots.
So what if her hourglass figure was a little fuller than average? So what if Emily was about two-thirds her size and had rail-thin shoulders that even coat hangers were envious of? Angela had a hot boyfriend and soon she was going to be able to see his chiselled jaw every single day. Maybe even for the rest of her life.
‘Baby steps,’ Angela muttered under her breath.
‘What was that, Ange? I missed it.’
Angela cleared her throat. ‘Wish me luck.’
‘Oh, you’re going to need a lot more than luck. I’ve gotta go. Laters.’
The call disconnected. Angela left out a sigh of relief that battered her mask and forced condensation up acros s the lenses of her glasses.
Sometimes she forgot why she’d been happy to wave her best friend off at Heathrow.
***
‘Ho ho ho, special delivery,’ Colin Cooper announced, dumping several bags full of groceries on the floor for the third week in a row.
Hands finally free again, he grabbed the wallet that he’d just spat out of his mouth. Right, he’d need to sanitise that before he went out again. The teeth marks were a little obvious. He really ought to have shoved it into his jeans before grabbing the bags, but he’d often used his mouth to hold things when he was busy. It had the added bonus of warding off anyone who might try to say hello to him.
But this weird old habit might actually get him killed if his hands transferred the virus from shelf to wallet to mouth…
‘Wonderful!’ Loraine White said once the door had opened, revealing spotless beige carpet that clashed with the tired, greying version filling the corridor. ‘We are so blessed, Bernard! The Lord has been kind to us this year.’
‘Sounds like the Lord has indeed blessed us with bog roll in our time of need,’ her husband said flatly, the door now open wide enough to show him ensconced on his favourite armchair in front of a dark television set. Bernard White had declared last week that there was no point tuning into the morning news if there were no longer any cricket test scores to catch up on.
Sport, having gone the same way as casual physical contact, was something Colin missed—but not because he’d ever participated in it himself. Bernard had spent many an afternoon directing colourful language at the Australian batsmen, so loud that he could be heard in Colin’s flat, which was two whole flights of stairs away. Loraine would usually follow up Bernard’s cursing with pleas for the Lord to forgive her husband, growing more frantic in her prayers while Bernard continued to rile her up in that bored-sounding monotone of his.
Listening to them bicker had been the highlight of Colin’s day before he’d actually come down and introduced himself to the couple living in Number Three. Now he knew their names, the names of their children, the names of their grandchildren, and the names of all four dogs they’d once owned.
He really wished he had knocked on their door a lot sooner.
In their eighties and inhabiting a ground-level studio with a gated patio, they were like the grandparents he’d always wanted—as opposed to the stingy ones he had left (Colin had adored his mother’s father, but Grandad had been a wonderful exception so of course he’d been the first of them to pass away). If Colin had met Loraine and Bernard before all this started, he’d feel like less of a pillock. The guilt sometimes made him feel physically ill.
At least they didn’t know the real reason he’d made their acquaintance.
‘I’ll leave your groceries out here,’ Colin said, already backing away from the reusable cloth bags that he’d run through a washer/dryer the previous night. ‘Wait until I’m down the hall before you come all the way out.’
Loraine sighed. ‘It’s not right, this. It’s not natural.’
‘It’s necessary,’ Colin reminded her. One more step. Two.
‘But for how long?’ She wasn’t arguing. She just looked sad. Households were forbidden from having visitors, which meant that she was now unable to see any of her five daughters (one of the many reasons he mentally referred to them as ‘The Bennets’ in his head instead of ‘The Whites’, awkward political correctness notwithstanding).
‘Until it’s safe,’ Colin said with a small, apologetic smile. The measures that had been taken to slow the spread of the pandemic could be quite isolating.
‘Got to do our bit for the cause,’ Bernard added. ‘Sitting on my arse is the easiest way I’ve ever served my country.’
‘Bernard!’ Loraine gasped.
It was difficult to tell what part of his comment had offended her the most.
Colin hastily forced the laugh back down his throat. ‘Drop your next shopping list into my mailbox, okay? Number Twenty-Two. Best do it before Thursday, since the Easter long weekend is coming up. Not sure anyone’s dense enough to open up on Good Friday.’
‘There are plenty who are dense enough to open their doors to the masses in order to turn a profit, even if these times,’ Bernard said. ‘And there are plenty more dense enough to shop. No one’s got anything better to do. They can’t even visit their families. At least at the supermarket they can see a friendly face at the register.’
Some of Colin’s annoyance with the crowd at the shops faded away. Bernard was right.
Colin nodded and turned to go. After he’d gone about four metres, he looked back over his shoulder and saw Loraine struggling to pick up the bags. He winced, wishing he could do more than leave them in the hallway. No doubt he wouldn’t get into trouble for walking inside and setting the groceries on the counter, with social distancing rules still in effect, but he’d agonise over it for longer than was healthy. Like most people in Newfield, he didn’t own a mask (not for lack of trying, mind—you’d only find them in fairy tales now).
What if he brought the virus into The Bennets’ cramped studio and killed them? He couldn’t be responsible for that. Definitely time to stop eating his wallet.
‘Oh cripes!’ Loraine exclaimed as she dropped a two-pack of paper towels.
Colin hesitated, considering his options, but Bernard was already asking, ‘Did you just take the Lord’s name in vain, Loraine dear?’
‘I said “cripes”, you heard me!’ Loraine snapped at her husband.
‘Didn’t sound like it. What will the Lord think of you now?’
‘Make yourself useful and bring the groceries in! You have the better set of hips.’
‘Yes, but yours make a nicer view from the sofa,’ Bernard said idly.
Her response was sharp, but anyone who knew her could hear the undercurrent of loving exasperation. ‘Bernard! Get these bags inside now!’
Smiling to himself, Colin climbed the stairs up to his second-floor flat. He stopped briefly on the first floor and darted a look down the corridor, half expecting to see Angela Tweedie from Number Twelve glowering at him from behind a crack in her door.
He only knew her name because the postman kept putting her letters into his box by mistake. He hadn’t expected anything so grand for hand-delivering them pre-pandemic (‘pre- and post-pandemic’ was how he viewed the world and he wondered if The Bennets had thought something similar while growing up during World War Two). A simple ‘thank you’ would have been enough, but Angela had always recoiled from him as if he was some sort of deadly snake.
And then there were the snide comments she liked to pepper him with, such as ‘I’m only awake because some people can’t stop making weird noises at all hours’ or ‘I thought I’d get some peace and quiet out here, not unwanted company, but oh well’.
Too bad she was such a grump—he might have asked her out otherwise. She was on the short side, but she seemed to have a wardrobe full of clothes that were designed to mask her height. The pleated black skirt was his favourite; it flattered her figure and complemented her dark brown eyes and darker chin-length bob. The look suited her.
The attitude didn’t. It also didn’t suit him.
Oh well. Not everyone could tick the attractive and pleasant boxes.
2
The sun had finished slinking behind a cloud by the time Angela descended the hill to the nearest café. A huddle of twenty-somethings were already queuing up outside, all of them perfectly spaced apart, all of their shoulders conspicuously vacant of straps belonging to satchels and laptop bags. The Bean and Gone was popular with Newfield’s Millennials because tourists never made it up the hill from the Dover foreshore and the WiFi was impressively fast compared to the stingy connection to be found at the nearby McDonald’s.
The barista on duty today was a bit of an artist—if you desired a Charizard or Harry Potter’s glasses paired with a lightning bolt on the top of your froth, then he could deliver it with a smile and your name caressed by a Scottish accent. But opening your eyes would put an end to the fantasy almost instantly.
He definitely wasn’t a Jamie. Or a Gerard, or even a Ewan. He looked more like an awkward gangly teenager who’d just had his cheeks cleaned by a mother wielding a spit-sodden hanky.
