Inevitably, I get Covid. My middle son had it. A few days later, the oldest one acquired it independently, and decided to quarantine under our roof.
“You can tell Dad has it,” my wife says to the middle one, now recovered. “Because he acts out all his illnesses.”
“There’s also the matter of this positive test,” I say, holding it up.
“The coughing, the moaning,” my wife says.
Inevitably, my wife gets Covid. Unlike me, she is bedridden, and barely able to lift her head from the pillow.
“Why didn’t you feel this bad?” she says.
“I did feel that bad,” I say. “But I underplayed it.”
“Are you taking the dog out?” she says. She means the new dog – a five-month-old puppy, which has to be thoroughly exhausted twice a day, or our indoor lives aren’t worth living.
“Yes, of course I am,” I say.
When I go to check in on her later, my wife questions me about the dog walk, to make sure I did it right.
“Did you let her play in the sand?” she says. “She likes the sand.”
“We didn’t go to that park,” I say. “We go to a different park now, where our friends hang out.”
“What friends?” my wife says.
“All our friends,” I say. “Pepper, Violet, Summer, Max …”
“Are those the dogs or the owners?” she says.
“The dogs,” I say. “I don’t know any of the owners’ names.”
“And are these real friends, or imaginary friends?” she says.
“They’re very real,” I say. “Everyone loves us and thinks we’re fun, and we get plenty of exercise, and then we come home covered in slobber and sleep all afternoon.”
The next morning my wife still has Covid, and still refuses to follow my example by underplaying her symptoms. In fact, she seems worse.
I get up, get dressed and put the lead on the dog. We make our way through the bleak November streets to our favourite park. But when we get there our new friends are nowhere to be seen.
“Where is everybody?” I say. The dog looks at me, and then out across the sloped expanse. Instead of the usual knot of dogs and owners, there is an exercise class being led by a personal trainer. Worse still, one of the participants has a dog sitting patiently by her mat. I bend over my own dog.
“If I let you off this lead,” I say, “will you run straight over there and cause that class to end in chaos and recrimination?” The dog gives me a look that says: one hundred percent.
“So we got no exercise at all, really,” I tell my wife later. “I had to take her back outside on a street walk after lunch.”
“How did that go?” she says.
“A delivery man got down on his hands and knees and let her lick his entire bald head,” I say.
“Sweet,” my wife says.
“Sweet to hear about,” I say. “Disturbing to witness.”
What I mean is: when a delivery man is on all fours on the pavement, it’s weird to be holding the lead of the dog that’s licking his head. When he finally stood up he had tears of joy in his eyes.
“Thank you!” he said. “You’ve made my day!”
“Yeah, no worries,” I said. When we were halfway to the corner he called out again.
“You forgot to tell me her name!” he shouted.
“Um, it’s Jean,” I said.
“Jean!” he shrieked, throwing his hands up. Whereupon the dog turned, slipped the lead, ran back and leapt into his arms.
“Then it started all over again,” I tell my wife. “Honestly, the whole encounter lasted about half an hour.”
“I’m sorry your new friends weren’t there,” she says.
“Yeah, that was odd,” I say. “They would have been gutted to miss us.”
The next morning my wife still has Covid, which I think is taking things a bit far, but I don’t say so. I just get up, get dressed, and put the dog’s lead on.
The open area in the north half of the park is empty, devoid even of personal trainers. I begin to wonder if we are as popular with our new friends as I thought. Perhaps, after two days of crazed puppy action, they all decided we’d delighted them long enough. Maybe they’ve made plans to meet in a different park from now on, communicating through a WhatsApp group I don’t belong to. I let the dog off the lead; it sits in front of me, looking left, looking right.
“But they loved us,” I say. “They loved our insane energy.”
A moment later I see a familiar pink nose heading in our direction from the top gate.
“Look!” I say. “It’s Pepper! Hey Pepper!”
