Covid, Sue and hand gel too
Last week we had to get the children tested for Covid. My youngest returned from school one day looking a bit pale. An hour later he had a low grade fever. We gave him Calpol and I clicked through the questions, booking the soonest and closest. We bundled them into the car, the whole event feeling more exhilarating than it ought to. At least we were going somewhere.
We drive through unfamiliar streets, all of us quiet, looking out of our windows at this brand new terrain, 4 miles from our house. Twilight battles with the white-greyness of winter, silently prising its cool grip from railings, brick, pavement. This shade of February is everywhere; suspended in the air, invisible yet somehow discernible. We see boarded up shops and ghostly pubs, people dotted about, heads down mostly. A final corner is turned and there it is. A yellow sign with black letters: ‘Covid19 Testing’.
The site could be a film set. It’s too apt, the mise en scene too perfect: yellow and black signs repeating the same message in block capitals; a temporary building in the appropriate white and grey of the season; a masked person standing far away, directing from a distance. It’s sparse, clinical, grim; a tangible air of dereliction and foreboding.
We bundle them out of the car, my youngest clinging to me like a hot koala. He has about him that air particular to an ill child: solemn, fawn-like, silently imploring.
Inside, one of the actors is taking her part very seriously. The others stand casually back, allowing us to get on with the process explained to us on arrival, but not her. No, she’s nailed her objectives and is playing them to the full. She follows us around saying ‘please use the hand sanitiser’ - even as we’re doing just that. Her rebuking, officious tone prompts my daughter to whisper ‘Why is she saying that when we’ve just done it?’ She peers around the door of the cubicle, a watchful eye, an unnecessary comment about screwing the lid back on the test tube. I ask a question about how they’ll know which test is which - the packets are identical. She doesn’t like this; I’ve jumped ahead in the script. I’m swiftly silenced: “I’ll explain all that in a moment”, she says with the faux patience usually reserved for a tantruming 3 year old. My card’s been marked.
I’ve met this woman before - not her exactly, but her ilk. If she wasn’t here, she’d likely be volunteering at a National Trust house or marshalling a half-marathon, a hi-vis vest officialising her officialness. I look at her. She wears indigo jeans in no-cut-at-all, boots for hiking, hair tied back - all topped off with an expression of general disapproval. She says something else but I wasn’t quite listening, I was talking to my daughter. My husband’s dealing with our son, so I ask her, please, to repeat it. She makes a vague attempt at hiding her irritation, but fails. It’s quite fun, being admonished by Sue (that’s what I’ve dubbed her), a curious comfort in being the subject of a stranger’s ire. Like two circling animals, we’ve sussed each other out. The only way I’d ever volunteer to spend hours working in the freezing cold is if you paid me - an inherent problem. I don’t get why someone would enjoy this so much, why they’d be so involved, so scrutinous. Sue, on the other hand, can’t get enough.
The others are just standing around in case someone needs help, bodies leaning one way or another, some of them are even laughing and joking (kryptonite for Sue, I’m sure). Sue doesn’t lean. Both of her functional footwear-clad feet are firmly planted. She is fully engaged, alert, the self-proclaimed overlord of this here Covid testing site. I want more, so I ask again about the packets: how exactly will they tell them apart? We lock eyes. We’ve entered into a relationship now, we both see that: her the reproving magistrate, me, the recalcitrant nuisance. She’ll go home and slag me off tonight: you’ll never believe this woman I came across today. I’ll go home and write a blog post about it. In lieu of glasses, she peers at me over the top of her mask. She speaks slowly, nodding for emphasis: ‘If you can just wait, I will explain everything in a moment’. All it’s missing is a tut and a ‘silly girl’. Nailed it, Sue. ‘If you just sanitise your hands again, I’ll walk you through the next bit’. ‘Why do I have to sanitise my hands again?!’ I scream, ‘What happens in the next bit - are you going to suck my fingers?’
That’s what I think anyway, as I press down on the pump for yet another squirt of gelatinous alcohol. I double check with my husband that I’m holding our daughter’s test and he’s holding our son’s. Sue waits for me to finish flapping, she needs our full attention for the big reveal. We all look at her. This is her moment.
‘Now’, she begins in the tone of Boris addressing the nation, ‘do you have the emails you were sent when you booked the test?’ She’s building up, the suspense is killing me. I do, I do have the emails, Sue. ‘If you open them, you’ll find a unique QR code for each person being tested.’ And in a nicely timed bit of business, she pulls a scanner out of her pocket with a flourish. In fairness, I didn’t see that coming. Good job, Sue! It’s done by QR codes! On our phones! She scans the codes and the respective packets - all at a safe distance (obvs, this is Sue we’re talking about). We pick up the packets - untouched by Sue - and walk two metres around the corner towards their final destination. ‘Please use the hand gel’, she says firmly, before we get there. Jesus wept, Sue! What could have possibly happened to my hands in the 4 seconds it’s taken me to walk around this corner? We oblige, my husband and I assiduously avoiding each other’s gaze.
Under Sue’s unblinking eye the tests are dropped in the designated place, our task is complete, our time with Sue at an end - or so I think. Despite what’s gone before, it doesn’t occur to me that she might have something else to say. Surely not. ‘If you could just use the hand sanitiser on your way out’. My hands are still cool and damp from their last encounter with the gel, so I pretend to press the plunger. I rub the imaginary gel into my hands and say ‘thanks’. She nods. Goodbyes are hard after all. We leave through the open door. I half expect her to run after us with a giant bottle of hand gel, but she stays there, inside, awaiting others.
We drive back the way we came, the gloaming almost gone. There are fewer people now, and in the near darkness the shops might not be boarded up, just sleeping. Soon we’ll be back home. We’ll eat dinner, probably pasta - it’s too late for anything else. There’s an avocado in the fruit bowl I should have used yesterday; perhaps it’s too ripe now. I wonder where Sue lives, how far she travelled to stand there and scan test packets, when she’ll leave. I wonder if she’ll go home to people or person. Or nobody. I have a sudden - not affection - but something for this woman. In her own way, maybe she was just trying to talk. Maybe we had a nice time. She definitely made the whole thing more memorable, more of an experience. After all, without Sue, I wouldn’t be writing this. What will she eat when she gets home? I’d love to know what she’s having for dinner. If I were to guess I’d say sausages and mash with gravy and brown sauce, not ketchup. But I’ll never know. What I do know is that her hands will be squeaky clean.
