The Old Woman and the Mystical Whale did me precious little good in Saguenay. It was there I came down with Covid. I tried to brush it off, I’ve had worse – a small, dry cough and an over-moist nose: irritating but that’s all. Yes, okay, tired too. But the brains of the outfit insisted something was wrong when she noticed I had lost my appetite, too. I bent to her instincts and more to prove her wrong than anything else, contacted the medical centre.
Within moments I was diagnosed and the ship went into security over-drive (with one obvious weak link.) Our cabin door was sprayed from the outside, mercifully no cross daubed with dripping red paint. The Prisoner in Cabin X. If there had been an iron mask somewhere, I'd have been in it.
There was a thin silver lining: free wi-fi and a vague promise that I might be allowed out for a spot of fresh air if masked and properly supervised. Little did I know what that entailed.
The day following, I had something worse than Covid: cabin fever. I was drowning in prison movie cliches, pacing my cell to maintain optimal fitness, doing press-ups, shaving my head, investing in tattoos, practising hard stares and the occasional dead-pan snarl. Gradually a more chilling vision dominated. This is what a care home would be like, an elderly Keyton responding with Pavlovian eagerness to room service bringing in food. My worst fears came true when I found myself watching a Spice Girls documentary on TV without knowing why.
I tried the stiff upper lip thing— “Worse things happen at sea, as my dad used to say.” —only for my wife to point out that we were at sea. I’m still trying to think of a rejoinder.
A day later, my wife who up until then had been allowed her freedom (the weak link mentioned earlier) also came down with Covid.
More forceful than me, she demanded access to fresh air. Hours later there was a furtive knock at the door. Two masked men stood outside, one with a disinfectant spray and a large cloth. We were ushered out into the corridor, one leading the way the other conducting a bizarre balletic dance behind us with spray and cloth. It put me in mind of ‘Curling’ — the back to front version.
They led us to an empty luxury cabin with its own balcony where we were allowed to breath in buckets of North Atlantic air, as we headed for Belfast and ultimately home two or three pounds heavier.
2 comments:
That was so sad. At least it was on your way home.
re: Spice Girls
I think I'd be cutting myself by then. LOL!
Comparing your experience to nursing home care was chilling indeed. I'd never thought of it like that. Since we have no children, we better hope we die before we get that feeble and be resigned to institutions.
I think everyone wishes that, Maria. But failing that it behove us to use our time wisely and to the full. My day is less active than yours, divided beween Irish mandolin, writing, walking, and reading. (other than household chores.) Writing and reading is sedentary, no getting round that, but since the success of my hernia operation, I've been walking longer distances, trying to regain my stamina. Whenever I'm tempted to scroll social media or watch tv I now get a bad attack of the guilts: one day I might be restricted to just that and nothing else. I look out of the window at a ridgeway walk and blue or grey skies and the guilt is reinforced. You're right to fear a nursing home but hopefully you will have good memories, a degree of wisdom and be in there in the knowledge that the best is yet to come
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