DAY 21

Tom, only two days into isolation after the whole of his eldest daughter’s year group were sent home following a positive COVID test in the ranks, sits with his dehydrated face pressed into his folded arms at the dinner table. Debris surrounds him; toast crusts, apple cores, puddles of milk and lonely beans, a scene not dissimilar to the aftermath of a coastal village battered by a hurricane. His eldest daughter hauls her younger sister along the carpet, wrapped in a sofa throw, shrieking, cackling, working on his defences. The cat hangs from the curtains. Tom has nothing left so he reaches for the dregs of his whisky bottle. He’ll tell them it’s a special apple juice, for grown-ups. Upstairs, his wife shouts at their youngest daughter, who has managed to bring down not just the shower curtain, but the entire rail during bath time.

***

Minnie hears a news piece on the radio, discussing George Clooney’s decision to thank fourteen friends who helped him along the way by giving them $1million each. He says he wanted them to enjoy it while they can, rather than sticking with his initial plan to write it into his will. Minnie is a long way from any tangible, lucrative success, so she wonders who might reward her this way and why. She comes up with little as she watches Shane Ritchie get bollocked for sleeping in, to get out of chores on I’m a Celebrity. When it is finished, she gets in the car, drives to the local shop and buys fourteen £1 scratch cards, to send to her kindest friends. The top prize is £100,000. She thinks each of these friends would acknowledge her with at least £10,000, which would sort her right out.

Sylvester doesn’t entertain social media. At 72, why should he? His books are plenty to keep him entertained without distraction. The dog cocks his head when Sylvester mumbles something about divisive decisions from his wing-backed chair, in front of the fire. That he is not part of the digital cock-fighting, does not mean he is unaware of it going on. Every government decision sends millions of people into a frenzy of bickering, bickering you rarely see in the real world, squabbling over whether travelling to see family over Christmas is morally right for the war effort. In reality, people prefer to spend their rage from wound down car windows, or at the person with different skin colour who jumped the queue in the Post Office. It's a shame, he thinks, what the younger generations have become, before finding his place on the page. The dog huffs and settles back down. Some wood in the fire pops and spits.