Lockdown in Paris : Day Three Million
Monday 20th April
9h25 : I have been terribly inconstant this last week, shamefully inconsistent, and I have naught to plead but insanity, which I think is a pretty strong opener as far as excuses go. We’ve just entered our sixth week of confinement and the cracks are starting to show. They’re more crevasses actually, into which I fall headlong for the length of a day or more. The hours slide by and by, and that’s really all there is to say for them, so I would venture that not posting on these shapeless, thoughtless days is really for your own good. Nobody wants to read a blog that just says, “I read for five hours and then drank a bottle of Prosecco.”
10h : This argument for sparing you the dullest of the dulls still holds, as I contemplate another cloudless, aeroplane-less blue sky and try to think of what updates I have to share from the last two blogless days. This will not take long. We won the Friday quiz, which had nothing whatsoever to do with me. I have little to no recollection of Saturday at all, except that on Saturday night there was an impromptu family quiz which I did win, allllll byyyyy my-sellllf (don’t wanna be... all by myyySELF, anyMORRREEEEEE), but one of the rounds included the question “What is 8+6” and so I don’t think we need celebrate that particular achievement. At some point during the weekend Cromwell met his fate, despite me constantly suggesting to him with the power of my mind that he retire promptly to the country. Alas, he did not heed my advice and thus history remains unchanged. I’ll be back to John Irving today, and those Rules of the Cider House. Yesterday it was Scottish-Sar’s lockdown birthday, which involved an enormous Zoom call and that bottle of Prosecco I mentioned, which disappeared with alarming speed. I made a chicken curry in my crockpot. It’s edible, which is the highest praise it deserves. I’m running out of milk. I learned that Manchester is further north than Liverpool, which surprised me – and really shouldn’t have, given that I lived there for years. And that’s it – I think that really is it – so you can plainly see what you weren’t missing. That being said I can’t promise today will be any more thrilling, but here I am. Here we are.
12h30 : One more chapter of Cider House Rules to go. I have some work to do today which is neither difficult nor particularly time consuming, so I have to wonder why it looms over me like academic essays of old. The ones I wouldn’t start writing until it because very possible that I no longer had the time in which to write them. This is my favourite time frame for deadlines: Barely Do-Able.
12h23 : I really am quite determined to do some work, but this does not mean I will actually do any. I often find that the thought of achieving something is quite enough for me. I daydream about having done the thing I need to do and am so pleased with myself for having achieved it in the imaginary realm that there’s very little impetus left to actually do it. Thinking about that now, this may explain a lot, generally, in my life.
13h15 : Managed to do a bit of work but it felt like my brain was a truculent child, lagging behind, dragging its feet, shoulders hunched. I did my level best to ignore my own insufferable whining, but it was like pulling teeth. Having done so little for five weeks my entire being balks at the very suggestion of Activity. I find myself flinching from tasks more involved than boiling water, reading words set clearly on a page, or watching actors cross from one side of a screen to the other. Anything else is asking too much, apparently.
14h24 : Got a missed call from a number I don’t have in my phone, so naturally I stared quizzically at my screen for the duration of its ringing. When it stopped I heard my brain say, “Well, I wonder what all that was about?” When the number rings back two minutes later, I look personally affronted and yell “What?!” at it, until it stops ringing. Why do we do this.
15h04 : Help Adam-in-the-South-of-France rate some questions for a quiz he’s writing for his family. I tell him this definitely counts in my goal of “being productive” for the day. Neither of us really believe this counts but we play along anyway. I like being a litmus test for his quiz questions. If I’m not able to get a single point it is probably too hard and if I can get them all it’s definitely too easy. My average for the test rounds today was 4/6 which is right where you want to be in the laws of good quizzage. I am however left enraged by the fact that I do not know Jason Bourne’s real name.
17h18 : Going out to the shop for the simple reason that I’m terrified by how much I can’t be bothered going to the shop. Despite the fact that I have no milk, no butter, and hardly anything to eat, the urge to just sit down and ignore this desperate state of affairs is enough to scare me into putting on my shoes (so weird) and leaving the flat. Once on the street I feel a kind of overwhelming bafflement as to how to proceed. The safety of the supermarket appeals to me, but the “fresh veg” is, well, not, so it’s best to go along Faubourg Saint-Denis, which now seems an awfully long way (it’s a 2-minute walk). I push on, (how daring I am!), to seek out Vegetables. Once in the primeur I don’t have a clue what to buy. I pick up a lemon. A sweet potato. Some ginger. A red pepper. Here, my brain fails me. I have no idea what I would make even with the random selection I’ve chosen. I get confused. I pay for the things and leave, and retreat to the safety of Franprix, where I can get muddled much more efficiently.
But while walking to Franprix, That Number calls me again. Inspired by my recent acts of impossible daring - I am out! I am buying vegetables! - I decide to pick up the phone. Nothing can stop me! I say hello, he says hello, he says he has a parcel for me from Fnac - I am confused. I tell him, I haven’t ordered anything from Fnac (I don’t think Fnac sell shampoo, which is the only thing I have ordered - and no, I still don’t know where it is). Fnac sells computers and phones and anything you can plug in or read. They do not sell shampoo -unless in these trying times they are branching out to the delivery of mislaid parcels. The man sounds sympathetically confused. He confirms my name and address and clearly he has my phone number. He says he’ll be at my gate in 5 minutes so I say ok, I’ll be there, and I am.
17h30 : A black van pulls up at the gate. It crosses my mind that this is all an elaborate ruse to sell me into the sex-slave trade. This is my mum’s fault, by way of Liam Neeson, who has terrified parents the world over that their daughters are at any given moment about to be abducted and drugged and sold on a yacht to the highest bidder, never to be seen again. In fact, she brought it up this very morning. She told me that, as I had not answered two of her Whatsapp calls, I had obviously been slung into the back of a van. From this particular black van in front of me however a man leaned out and said “Stephanie?” And I said, “Yes?” And he gave me a parcel and said, “It must be a gift!” and then smiled and drove off. I looked at it, and it was indeed from Fnac. I have indeed not ordered anything from Fnac. I pulled it open and inside was a book. A French book. A French book of French poetry. It introduces itself as L’autre moitié du songe m’appartient, (The Other Half of the Dream Belongs to Me), by Alicia Gallienne. Which I must admit, is very poetic. At this point I have ground to a halt on the pavement and I have a lot of questions. Most of them start with who, why and what. There is nothing else in the box. No former conversations spring to mind. I do not know poetry in any language, let alone French. I do not know the author, the era, the title, the anything. I check the label and find only the obvious - my name, my address, my phone number. I am completely at a loss.
17h45 : I go to Franprix with my mysterious book of poetry and do some more totally haphazard shopping. Miraculously I remember butter and milk, and of course I buy wine, but then things start getting unhelpfully random. Some ketchup; a pack of cookies too decadent to eat by the fistful (new strategy); a quiche; two onions. None of this could sustain a human for more than a day or even constitute a sensible meal, but I can’t be bothered trying to think in recipes. I don’t have the patience for that kind of joined-up thinking, never have.
18h10 : Once at home, I text Estelle-who’s-French, with my mystery. She says “Oh good a mystery! I am looking into it.” She comes back promptly. “So the good news is that the poet’s cousin is Guillaume Gallienne, a French comedian who we love. Bad news : the poet died at 20 from a rare disease.” Super. Ever so slightly more sinister than I would like. I reject the hypothesis that whoever sent the book has Coronavirus and has licked it from cover to cover and sent it on in some effort at biological warfare. I remember it is directly from Fnac. Good to know that today I will neither be sold into the sex trade or die of Anthrax poisoning. Things are looking up.
19h30 : Honestly who has sent me a book of poetry. How am I supposed to finish The Cider House Rules while in receipt of a mysterious book of poetry? How am I supposed to do anything other than look at this book, totally non-plussed?
20h35 : I give up. I’m off to drink a glass of wine and eat an ‘edible’ chicken curry.
