56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard
50 Days Ago
Midmorning, word spreads around the office: Taoiseach Leo Varadkar is about to make a statement, live from Washington, DC.
The only screen that plays TV channels is the one in the conference room. They pile in there, bringing coffees and sticky pastries so that watching this terrible, unprecedented news can double as their elevenses.
Oliver is the last one in. Jonas, a Swede who started on the same day as him, is standing just inside the door.
They exchange nods.
“Here we go,” Jonas whispers, his eyes flashing with excitement.
Over the course of the last month or so, Jonas has spent at least twice as much time scouring the internet for coronavirus stories than he has doing any actual work, as far as Oliver can tell. In the last fortnight, the guy has become completely obsessed with northern Italy. Oliver knows this because the other thing Jonas spends an indecent amount of time doing is telling Oliver, in ever-increasing detail, about the stuff he finds online.
Earlier, he’d been reading something on the New York Times website, intermittently shaking his head and muttering things like, “Oh my God,” and “What the fuck?” Oliver had refused to take the bait but it was pointless, because Jonas eventually leaned into the space between their computer screens and told him all about it anyway. Italy is two days into a draconian national lockdown, he said, shutting everything except pharmacies and grocery stores which, of course, has caused huge lines to form. With not enough ventilators to go around, doctors are having to decide who lives and who dies, literally, and who dies is invariably the elderly.
“And Ireland is just two weeks behind,” Jonas said gravely. “Two weeks.”
Oliver didn’t think the New York Times was publishing fake news, but still, these facts felt like they had that kind of quality. They were so outlandish, insane.
Things couldn’t be that bad a couple of countries away, surely?
He hadn’t been too worried about it, up until now. He’d just assumed that whatever was going on over there would be stopped long before it arrived here. This would just be like all the other news stories: it would go from so much coverage you’d wonder what the hell they filled the column inches and airtime with before they had this to talk about, to realizing, one day, that you hadn’t heard anything about it in a while.
Just like Oliver’s own story, once upon a time.
But now here they are, gathered on a weekday morning to listen to the country’s leader say something about the virus’s arrival in Ireland that is so serious, he can’t wait until he gets back to Ireland to say it.
A hush falls on the room as the TV screen changes from an anchorman sitting behind a desk in a TV studio to a live shot of the Taoiseach walking to a podium set up outside some grand building. It’s still dark over there. His expression is one of utter seriousness. Over his shoulder, an Irish flag billows in the breeze.
“Lockdown,” Jonas whispers. “Has to be.”
But it’s not.
Varadkar begins to speak, slowly and deliberately, presumably reading from some unseen teleprompter but looking as if he’s talking directly to the lens, as if he’s addressing each person individually and the nation collectively at the same time.
The virus is all over the world. It will continue to spread but it can be slowed.
We said we would take the right actions at the right time. We have to move now to have the greatest impact.
You should continue to go to work if you can but where possible work from home. In order to reduce unnecessary face-to-face interaction in the workplace, break times and working times should be staggered and meetings done remotely or by phone.
The air in the room is suddenly charged with tension.
Bodies shift, pairings separate. A few guys exchange nervous smiles, tittering laughter. Oliver counts thirteen of them, standing shoulder to shoulder in this poorly ventilated room, and takes a step backward, out of it.
He really doesn’t want to end up catching this thing.
He can’t afford to. Going to a GP, getting tested, being admitted to a hospital—anything like that, anything official, anything that involves IDs and paperwork and history . . .
The virus is especially dangerous for him, but not for any medical reason. He’s worried about a different kind of exposure.
As Oliver starts back across the office, he hears the TV fall mute behind him and Kenneth, the managing director, say, “Okay, okay, okay,” in a tone that suggests he wants everyone’s attention. “Go to your desks for now. Alistair is on his way back from a site visit and he and I will sit down this afternoon, work this out. But I think it’s safe to assume we’ll all be working from home for the next couple of weeks, so you can start to plan accordingly . . .”
Oliver reaches his desk, sits down, and tunes out.
His phone is lying by the keyboard; he taps the screen to wake it up.
No new text.
He thought she might have sent a Still on for tonight? message; maybe she hasn’t seen the news yet.
He has to admit, though, that, ever since Monday night, he keeps catching himself thinking about her—or maybe what he’s doing is thinking about Monday night.
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 to be.
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.
He is being careful. He’s already decided this will be the last time. After tonight, he won’t see her again—and he probably won’t be able to 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 being Oliver with her.
And he wants to feel it one more time.