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Having written four full-length books of nonfiction on crash schedules, Adam thought he knew what it was to be confined to his desk.

But he’d still been able to record his pods, go into the newsroom and Westminster, have lunches and coffees with colleagues and sources, and swim (only rarely) at the pool.

Locked down for weeks on end, his show on Times Radio not starting till June, he withered from lack of connection, spending endless hours on Twitter reading #longreads from American science communicators about how even mild cases of Covid led to chronic brain damage.

Because the events had taken place in a different universe, no one cared about his December 2019 election book, scheduled for release at Easter.

He wasn’t happy about that, and he was nervous about the radio show—whether he’d be good enough, whether anyone would listen.

But he didn’t express his anxiety in a way that Coralie could deal with, empathize over, and try to soothe.

It came out instead as tsk-ing irritation, minor explosions, or he’d zone out for half a conversation, then come to with a scathing “What?”

He tried to impose order in a world where there was none by controlling what he could: namely, the twice- or three-times-daily stacking of the dishwasher in a precise way and to a precise schedule known only to himself.

Often Coralie would be at the chopping board, preparing yet another elaborate vegetarian meal (meals being the main way of marking the passage of time), only to find Adam hovering behind her, waiting to slot her knife into the cutlery basket.

···

One Sunday night, Coralie, Adam, and Zora watched the Queen’s national address from the sofa.

“Republic now,” Coralie murmured. “And not just Australia—here.” But that old lady had really lived through a lot, including (unlike most people fulminating about the Blitz spirit) actual World War II.

For a moment, her mere existence seemed to say that everything would one day be okay.

“Okay, republic soon.” Coralie backed down.

“Oh, Anne’s on FaceTime. Anne? Did you watch the Queen? Quite moving, I thought.”

“Silly,” Anne said.

“What exercises should I do in the house, Granny?”

“Zora? Do Yoga with Adriene.”

“What did you ring for?” Adam was scrolling his phone. “Shit! Boris Johnson’s been taken to hospital!”

Well, anyone could have foreseen that! He was clearly so fat and unfit!

Anne was still on FaceTime, so Coralie rushed to get her laptop and search Twitter.

But as she watched the news spreading through the Westminster hacks, through Boris’s supporters and his many enemies, she found herself unable to feel gleeful, or even to blame the victim. Her heart was racing. She was scared.

“Yes, it must be day eight, or thereabouts,” Anne was saying. “That’s when it takes a turn for the worse. Well, as long as it’s not pneumonia.”

“What would happen then?” Zora’s face was pale. Was it wrong to let her hear all this? Were they like those parents who let their kids watch 9/11 on the news?

Lots of doctors were on Adam’s Liverpool WhatsApp. One of them said it was well known in “medic circles” that Boris was already “prone and vented.”

Prone and vented! Fucking hell.

She thought about the prime minister’s body and joined what she knew of it with the images she’d seen from Italy of old men lying on their fronts, their vulnerable white folds of back skin exposed—weren’t they cold?

Would Boris’s back have bristles, like the hair sometimes left on roast pork, which she no longer cooked because Zora’s revulsion had infected her?

Would he have rough skin with inflamed follicles, or soft baby skin, untouched by the sun after years of justifiable embarrassment about taking his shirt off?

All this was rushing through Coralie’s mind as she contemplated the prime minister’s death.

As a plot development it was dramatic, a season one finale–level shock.

Who would be in charge if he was in a coma?

If he died now, and she was given the option (was godlike in some way, or a showrunner), would she go back in time and make him die before Brexit?

Yes, if he had to die, and she was given the choice, she would opt for 2015.

But if he could stay alive? Maybe weakened—perhaps even bald? She found that she would prefer it.

A few days later, somewhat anticlimactically, Rishi Sunak reported that the prime minister was “sitting up in bed and engaging positively with the clinical team,” raising the intriguing prospect that he’d previously been lying down and engaging in a way that was negative.

Little bitch, getting Coralie all worried—the ultimate selfish act from the ultimate selfish man!

···

Ever since she was a child, she’d made sense of her life by looking forward.

As soon as she’d known Maxi’s due date, she’d created a spreadsheet in her Dropbox labeled Life Plan , with columns for her, Adam, Zora, Flo, and Maxi.

In September 2020, Florence was due to start preschool at the primary school next to the park.

Maxi would start Montessori in September 2021, just as Zora was starting Year 9.

When Coralie was forty-one, in 2024, both her children would be in primary school.

Would any of that happen? What was life if you couldn’t rely on LifePlan.xls?

As lockdown spring unfolded, sunnier and more beautiful than any London spring she could remember, Coralie realized that her old full-time job at the agency had allowed her to dream of more time with Florence with no prospect of it coming true.

Then, the nine-to-three-thirty Montessori schedule had left so many remaining hours of the day for parenting that she’d briefly (for the six shining months Florence had attended in-person classes) felt like a capital- G , capital- M Good Mother.

Now, having no Montessori, or any childcare at all, and a baby boy who was beginning to assert himself, she was in the unusual (for her) position of wanting less time with the children—much less.

It was bad enough to be a personal chef, food source, bum-wiper, teacher, and entertainer for fifteen hours a day plus night feeds; it also felt bad to feel bad about hating it.

It was perhaps unwise to have spent so much time reading about gentle parenting and attachment, about childhood trauma and “breaking the cycle.” If she knew anything, it was the impact a parent had upon a child.

Overwhelmed, stymied, full to the brim with resentment, she targeted Adam with all the anger it was otherwise unsafe to express, snapping at him to get off the sofa, to leave the house, to get over his dishwasher fixation, and to man up (where did that come from?) about starting his new job.

She snarled at him to get off her side of the bed (“an invisible line, running down the mattress—don’t cross it”), stop polluting her air with his flatulence, stop laughing loudly on the phone, stop moaning about his book, stop talking to her, stop looking at her, and give her some fucking space!

She was like a sandcastle, and Adam and the kids were like the sea, eroding her and flattening her with their proximity and demands.

If she went for a walk, or listened to a podcast, she could begin rebuilding her ramparts, only to get knocked down again by wave after wave of needs .

But all this time, NHS staff and key workers were out there risking their lives daily.

In Minneapolis, a Black man was murdered by police, a crime and a profound injustice that was not new, but suddenly became the worldwide pressing and public concern of white people.

Coralie herself posted a black square on Instagram, only to remove it a day later when activists said it messed up results for the Black Lives Matter hashtag.

(Alice said Nicky’s white accountant had asked how he was “holding up.” “Financially?” Nicky was confused.

“You tell me.” White people who didn’t know he was famous winced apologetically at his Blackness in the street.

White people who did know he was famous gave him solemn and respectful fist bumps.) Some elderly people were so lonely they could die of isolation; some houses and flats were so packed with multiple generations of the same family, it was impossible to shield the vulnerable.

When single people said they were going mad with boredom, parents bitterly suggested they try looking after some kids.

Parents of kids with special needs were too overwhelmed to compete about whose lockdown was the worst.

During the pandemic, Zadie Smith wrote that while privilege can be conceptualized and “atoned for through transformative action,” all suffering was uniquely personalized, “absolute,” and equally awful for the sufferer.

She was such a good writer she could make anything sound true.

With a small garden, the occasional Ocado slot, and a grumpy but alive husband, Coralie didn’t feel able to complain.

···

In September 2020, after a summer they could almost pretend was normal, Florence started school.

On the first day, they lined up at the gate, standing on yellow footsteps sprayed two meters apart.

As Florence skipped in, they slimed her little hands with sanitizer.

She made it to Halloween before multiple positive tests shut down the class.

Homeschooling a four-year-old was a maddening waste of time.

On the days Adam had his radio show, he took the kids from eight thirty till ten and, however bitter the cold and rain, Coralie went out to Victoria Park, or Haggerston, or Hackney Downs, anywhere that wasn’t home.

These were called “Mummy’s walks,” and she steeled herself to insist on them.

“You don’t see me getting time for self-care ,” Adam said.