Page 49 of 56 Days
To just sit in a bar and have a drink and enjoy a conversation was a lightness he hasn’t felt in a long, long time. It was like someone had built him a bridge across the dark, turbulent water so, for once, he could take a break from trying to claw himself up from its tangled, muddy depths.
And he liked it.
He liked just being able tobe.
Before he can think too much about it, he picks up his phone and calls her.
He’s surprised by how much he welcomes the sound of her voice, how much better he feels knowing that they are still on for tonight.
But after he hangs up, he feels a prickling sensation at the base of his skull—almost always a sign that he’s doing something he shouldn’t be, that he’s working against whatever primordial survival instinct has carried him this far.
He’ll be careful, he tells himself.
Heisbeing careful. He’s already decided this will be the last time. After tonight, he won’t see her again—and he probably won’t beableto see her, so he won’t even have to make the decision.
It’s just that he liked the feeling of being with her, of beingOliverwith her.
And he wants to feel it one more time.
33 Days Ago
Early on Sunday morning, they drive to the largest Tesco they could find on Google Maps, which is a long eight kilometers outside thetwo-kilometerradius they’re supposed to remain within. Oliver has rented a GoCar for the occasion and is sitting tensed in its driver’s seat, two hands wrapped tightly around the wheel, eyes never leaving the road ahead. She has told him repeatedly that thetwo-kilometerthing is just for exercise, that you can travel farther to shop for essential items, but he’s unconvinced.
“God, youreallydon’t like breaking rules, do you?” she asks him ten minutes into the journey. “Look, if we get stopped, we get stopped. It’s not a big deal. No one’s going to arrest us. They won’t even make us turn around because this is within the rules. And even if theydo, so what? We’ll just turn around and go back.”
There’s one last point on her tongue—and anyway, we’re only doing this because of you—but she bites it back.
They are on the hunt not just for a week’s groceries, but for a printer as well. Oliver has realized he’s going to need one,twenty-fourhours after every retail location that would typically sell such a thing has been ordered to close. Ordering it online might mean waiting a week or more for it to be delivered, so they are taking a risk and driving outside their inclusion zone to a supermarket megastore in the hope that among the porridge oats and toilet rolls, they will find electrical equipment too.
A couple of weeks back, when he first started working from home, Oliver went and bought one of thoseeye-wateringlyexpensive coffee machines that will only make coffee from just aseye-wateringlyexpensive coffee capsules. Ciara can’t help but thinkthatwould’ve been the time to get whatever he needed to do his job, but she’s keeping quiet on that front as well.
“It’s not that,” he says. “I’m just not used to driving.” He flicks on an indicator at aT-junctioneven though they’re the only car on the road. “But I don’t like breaking rules, you’re right.” He throws her a quick smile. “It’s mostly the driving thing, though. I never drove when I was in London.”
“Should I be worried?”
“Not when the roads are like this.”
Traffic is so sparse that almost every time they come to a red light, they are the only vehicle to stop at it. Their route is taking them through empty suburbs; cars sit parked in driveways with the gates closed behind them and curtains remain drawn.
It’s as if, Ciara thinks, Dublin has decided that since there’s nowhere to go and nothing to do, the only thing for it is to have a citywidelie-in.
But she’s wrong. As they approach the entrance to the Tesco Extra near Liffey Valley, it becomes clear that in actual fact the entire city has had the exact same idea as them.
A long tailback of cars waits just to gain entry to the parking lot. It takes nearly twenty minutes to make it to the entrance where abored-lookingteenager in a reflective vest directs them to follow the car in front, as if they couldn’t have figured that out without his waving arm. It takes another ten minutes to find an empty space and their reward for that is to join the line of what must be fifty or sixty people, all spaced two meters apart, that snakes out of the store’s main entrance and down the full length of its facade before twisting back around on itself. Nearly another hour passes before they get to the front of the line, where astone-facedsecurity guard tells them it’s strictlyone-customer-per-cart today.
Ciara thinks he’s telling them that they’ll each need to collect a shopping cart before they go inside—why on earth wouldthatbe a rule?—until Oliver turns to her and says, “It’s okay. I’ll go do it,” and she puts it together: The rule is that they have to shopalone. They can’t both go inside.
Oliver is already moving away from her, toward the doors.
She starts to say, “But...” then stops because she doesn’t know what the rest of the sentence is.
Somewhere behind them, a woman sighs theatrically.
Someone else mutters something sweary under their breath.
“Email me the list, will you?” Oliver calls over his shoulder.
And then he is gone, disappeared into the store, and Ciara is left standing outside by herself, wondering what the hell she’s supposed to do now.
