The spy in the cupboard under the stairs

Lockdown makes us all do interesting things, for some it’s binge eating while watching everything on Netflix, others, like Trudy’s ex-husband, decide they’re James Bond and join MI5. By Christine Manby

(Illustration by Tom Ford)

The chief thing to remember in lockdown is that everybody is doing their best and that what seems like deliberately frustrating behaviour on the part of somebody else may be the only way they have of coping. My boss Bella is coping with post-St Barts quarantine by insisting on Zoom calls four times a day. My neighbour Brenda is coping with the ongoing uncertainty by trying to police everyone else on the street. Yesterday, she came into my front garden with her litter-picker and picked up a ready-meal container that a fox had liberated from my bin overnight. I was going to get round to it, I assured her as she started sweeping my front step. I must be kind about it. I am, after all, coping by indulging in hour long Blob Opera sessions and Sainsbury’s Belgian chocolate choux buns.

This morning, I got a text from Gideon – Gids – my ex-husband. We’ve been divorced for 10 years now and he’s remarried, but we’re still friends. I’ve met his second wife on a number of occasions. Every time I see her I want to kiss her because I no longer have to worry whether that mole on the back of his calf is new or if that unusual stool indicates some fatal bowel irregularity. That job went with the house.

So I was very worried indeed when I received a message saying, “Need to talk. Please call.”