DAY 24

Aileen doesn’t have an outlet. She would love to read more, write a short story or embrace the great outdoors; but what little enthusiasm she works up tends to mauled by her barely manageable anxiety. During the last year, it has mutated into something monstrous and hostile. The Andy Burnham ‘king of the north’ memes grant her heavy face a lethargic smile, but even he looks pale and when the government announce that her home town, like Manchester, will remain under tier 3 restrictions, London staying in tier 2, despite R rates flying in the face of the decision, the monster sprouts another head with tiny, orange, malevolent eyes and a fetid mouth full of spiny teeth. She has friends who have utilised their rage over the alleged political strokes to help them battle on, but it merely incapacitates her and millions of others with a similar mental makeup. For some, this is a dick-swinging death sentence handed down by egomaniac schoolboys who nobody ever checked.

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Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks, bollocks, bollocks, bollocks, bollocks. I never knew this park was here... Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks, bollocks, bollocks, bollocks. This TV series is meant to be decent. Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks, bollocks, bollocks, bollocks. Drink heavily and eat too many takeaways.

Ty looks back on some parts of his life with rose-tinted glasses on. He yearns to relive them, see, smell, hear, taste and touch the truffle texture of nostalgic bliss. When he looks back at 2020, in years to come, he knows it’ll be through a pair of balls in a faded, prickly, smelly, guilty ball-sack.

(Day 18 continued) Errol does tai-chi in the woods he saw and liked the look of from the train, between two small towns. He’s done tai-chi since his early 50s. It keeps him younger than his years. After tea, which consists a Marks and Spencer’s pasta dish from his carrier bag of supplies, he sees out the rest of the daylight skinning a stick with his Swiss army knife, making a bow and arrow. He brought string from the care home kitchen without an explicit purpose. Just like in childhood, the arrows don’t fly very far, but he enjoys it nonetheless. Nobody comes here and he falls asleep easily enough, soothed by the sound of the stream. He wakes up cold once more at midnight and sets off for the next town.

He is tired. Without Ayanna and Bruce, this is more difficult and boring than he anticipated. No drama, exciting sub-characters or twists play out in this story. While he takes a modicum of satisfaction from putting his two sons through the emotional mixer in return for their pathetic twice-annual visit to the care home, for even unloading him in the damn place to begin with, he now feels a little guilty for the distress this must be causing them. Trouble is, he does not know where he is and has no form of communication. After two hours trudging through wet grass and along snatches of motorway, he finds himself back on a quiet street in the nearest town, murky water seeping through his socks and grows angry with himself for not just staying put and doing a Captain Tom. That old bastard has a bottle of gin out now. Errol feels he deserves no more than a range of colostomy bags with his face on them. Standing there, feeling empty, worthless, expired, a small, yappy dog runs over and shouts at him. Something about his owner’s smile snaps him out of his malaise.