Lockdown Blues: A Jack Hansard Story

Lockdown Blues

'Lot of people in masks about, gwas.'

'I've noticed, Ang.'

'D'ye really think we should be doin' this?'

'We're just providing a service.'

'News t'me. I din't know sellin' false cures was a service, gwas.'

Ang leered at me from her spot inside the car boot. She'd chosen, to my displeasure, a case of antique ritual bowls (all right, old-ish, with genuine cracks painted on) as her seat, next to the proud display I was setting up for this occasion.

'We're not selling cures, Ang.' I straightened the last row of shining objects. They gleamed. 'We're selling confidence.'

'Dunno if that's actually a good thing right now, gwas.'

'Hmm?'

'Should we really be encouragin' people t'think they can go outside wi'out fear, right now?'

I was sufficiently surprised enough to tear my attention away. 'It's not our job to police how people think, Ang.'

'Aye. But mebbe we shouldn't be contributin' to any all-round stupidity, is what I'm sayin'.'

I stared at my coblyn companion. She may be only two and half feet tall, but I swear sometimes her conscience is a mile high. And always at the most inconvenient of times. 'In actual fact, I would argue that we are helping to create a healthier gene pool. Only an idiot would fall for this in the first place.'

'An' how many d'ye think live here, gwas?'

'Plenty,' I snapped.

I'm sick of this town. We tried driving out of it in the first week of the Lockdown, as people seem to be calling it. Nearly had a heart attack when the police pulled us over. How was I to know we weren't allowed to travel any more?

We were let off with a warning, so I politely nodded to the nice officer, hoped to god she hadn't taken my licence plate, and trundled back into bloody Mansfield. I bought a newspaper on the spot, and quickly caught up on world news.

I'd stared. And rubbed my eyes. And blinked hard. When did he become Prime Minister? And how? I vaguely remembered some business with a big red bus... It had seemed unimportant at the time.

But that was besides the main point, which was this damned global virus. The world had gone mad. The country had gone mad. A lot of people were dying.

I wondered, distantly, if some bugger had found Pandora's Box and been foolish enough to open it. That Edric Mercer, probably. He'd do anything for the glory.

But it seemed like the world had done the sensible thing and shut down. Stay outside, Hell Demons, you can't come in. We are Socially Distancing ourselves from you.

So Ang and I also stayed put. In bloody, sodding, boring Mansfield. I wouldn't hate it so much if only I were allowed to leave.

Living out of the car instantly took on a whole new level of challenge. Travelling with Ang is hard enough on a good day: with her constant trail of pastry crumbs; her monthly toe nail clippings bouncing off the dashboard; the nightly snoring, with a sound like a tortured chainsaw fighting its way out of a bag of bricks. Up til now, we've tolerated each other for so long because there has always been the distraction of my inimitable profession to add a thrill into our day. There's nothing quite like running away from a previously-satisfied customer who now wants to kill you.