It’s a strange thing but I’ve lived here a couple of years and I don’t remember many people ever actually talking to each other, and then often only on WhatsApp. They were all too busy I guess, too wrapped up in their own lives to even pass the time of day. All like battery hens crammed into our tiny pens, living day in and day out in our own neat, compartmentalised bubbles of work and play, physically within a few metres of each other but mentally miles away. Ironically it’s taken a world pandemic and the isolation of lockdown to make us reach out to each other. To look around us and notice we aren’t desert islands marooned in the middle of an ocean, separated by miles of sea; we’re an archipelago of people, joined together by crisis, all working together to help those who can’t get out or who live alone to cope with this unprecedented situation.
Bertie is down below talking to Mavis, who is perched on the edge of the raised flower border a couple of metres away. He looks up and I call to him. ‘Hey, Bertie?’
‘Hello, young lady, how’s it going? Bet everything’s a bit of a let-down after that performance of Jack’s the other night?’
‘Maybe,’ I agree. ‘But I always look forward to seeing everyone at the clap.’
‘Become a right little social hasn’t it?’ he replies.
Jack has obviously just come out on the balcony. ‘Hi, Bertie, how’s tricks?’ I hear him ask.
‘Better for being out and about. Wish I could have walked that crazy dog of Derek’s though. Does you good to have a fellow creature around you.’
‘I know, it’s a shame; would be nice for you to have a bit of company.’
‘You could ask Derek?’ I suggest.
‘No, love, he’s far too boisterous for me – not Derek, I mean, but Benson.’ He laughs uproariously at his joke. ‘Not with my dodgy back. Never cope with a big dog. Much as I love them. Can’t walk as far as I used to.’
I am about to reply when someone starts clapping. There’s always one I’ve noticed who likes to be the first to start it. Lately it’s almost become a competition, with a couple of contenders at the top of the league table, consisting of Marge of course – she always has to be first into everything – closely followed by her equally nosy friend Vic, who is just as keen to be both seen and heard preferably at the same time. My bet is on Marge though. I look across the courtyard and yes, sure enough, there she is in the corner, a self-satisfied kind of smile sprawled across her face.
I nudge Erica who is clapping beside me and she follows my gaze and laughs. ‘Marge wins first prize this week again,’ she comments in a loud whisper.
Inside we’ve left the television on and the room flashes blue and white as paramedics, police and emergency service workers in the car park of the local hospital put on their emergency lights to pay their respect to workers. I glance in briefly and have to swallow back tears; it really is an incredible sight. Everyone everywhere is working together to try to keep spirits up and thank those who are so selflessly risking all to help others.
Erica notices and smiles. ‘You big softy, you off again?’
‘I can’t help it.’ I can’t. It’s a fact I cry at loads of things, at happy films, sad films and even those in between. It’s one of those things I just have to put up with.
As the clap draws to a close, the majority of people drift away and back into their own separate lives until eight o’clock next Thursday when we’ll do the same thing all over again. There are some elements of this lockdown that really remind me of that movie Groundhog Day. I never liked it to be honest.
Bertie remains below chatting to Mavis who is obviously just as happy to have a long catch-up, putting the world to rights.
Mavis looks up and notices me peering over the balcony. ‘Hi, Sophia, thanks so much for helping me with my iPad the other day.’
‘That’s okay. Let me know if you have any other problems.’
‘Well I could do with some help getting more people to make scrubs with me.’ Every afternoon Mavis has been sewing scrubs for medical staff, whipping them up with an ease that would frighten even the most accomplished needleworkers on The Great British Sewing Bee.