‘2022 can only be better, right?’

Thanks to a positive test, Trudy finds all is quiet on New Year’s Eve. By Christine Manby

(Illustration by Tom Ford)

After much speculation, we were allowed our Happy Christmas. I spent the day with my neighbour Brenda and her sister Gwenda, setting the world – and the Sex and the City reboot – to rights over a family-sized bottle of Baileys. On Boxing Day I had a hangover the likes of which I had not experienced for a long time but the day was considerably brightened by an invitation to spend New Year’s Eve in Devon with Glenn. Given the ongoing Omicron situation, it seemed like a good idea to get out of Dodge while I still could. I was packing my bag on the morning of the 28th when Brenda sent me a WhatsApp.

“Sister tested positive last night. Me this morning. You’d better take a lateral flow...”

Fortunately I had some, despite the national shortages. Brenda had given me half a dozen as a Christmas present.

“You really shouldn’t have,” I said at the time.

Do you remember when lateral flow tests first came into our consciousness and what a big deal it seemed to have to take one? Now taking an LFT is as routine as making a cup of tea. Indeed, I made a cup of tea while I waited for my nasal swab to steep in the extraction fluid (now there’s a sentence I would never have imagined writing until this year). With one hand I added four drops of the fluid to the little test cartridge, while with the other, I whipped the tea bag from my mug.

Having been jabbed, boosted and made it through 2020 and almost all of 2021 without catching the dreaded Covid, I didn’t for one moment think that I would have it now. I didn’t feel unwell. Not at all. In fact I felt pretty damn good. But before my tea was cool enough to take a sip, the test was complete and my new year plans had fallen between two red lines.

I carried the test over to the kitchen window so that I might look at it more closely. The weak winter light only confirmed the bad news. Two very definite red lines. I took two more tests to be sure. Best of three. Then two more. Best of five. The result was the same every time.

I photographed one of the tests and sent the picture to Brenda and to Glenn. And to my sister-in-law, who had been mooting the possibility of a Twixtmas gathering to make up for the fact that we did Christmas too early to mitigate BoJo’s wibbling. I was categorically excused from that at least. Every cloud… But once again, it seemed I would be spending New Year’s Eve alone.

“You lucky thing,” texted my best friend Liz, who was spending her day changing beds between rounds of relatives.

My goddaughter, Tory Caroline, sent her condolences and a draft of her plans for the future of the NHS. “Since you’ll have plenty of time to read.” The draft arrived in my email in-box three minutes later. It was 150 pages long.

“I’m only quarantining for a week,” I reminded her.

My former boss Bella was, like Caroline, quick to spot the opportunity. “Bad luck. But perhaps this means you’ll have time to help George with the Dry January campaign for #Yne. He’s struggling to think of a fresh new way to promote alcohol-free root-based beverages.”

In a separate WhatsApp conversation, George confirmed this was the case. “You have literally handed over the poisoned chalice,” he said. “Filled with semi-fermented jus de carotte.”

Brenda was contrite. “Me and my sister gave you that Covid,” she said through the letterbox. “So I’m leaving an emergency care package on your doorstep as an apology.”

Though it was a bit late for social distancing, Brenda stepped a Covid-safe two metres back from my door while I retrieved said package. The package contained a medley of Christmas snack food, a box of mince pies (possibly the ones I had taken to Brenda’s on Christmas Day) and two toilet rolls from her Lockdown One collection.

“You won’t be able to see Glenn,” Brenda observed. She seemed almost as disappointed as I was that I would not be going to stay with our friend and former postie.

“Devon will still be there in a fortnight,” I said, which is what Glenn had written in his text to me. Whether we would be allowed to move around the country by that point, I had no idea. But on New Year’s Eve, when the man from NHS Test and Trace called, I assured him that I would be staying in and celebrating with a negroni and Netflix.

At around 9pm, Liz called on Facetime. At her place in the country, they were seeing in the new year outdoors by the fire pit with their neighbour, The Foxy Farmer.

“Who’s single again,” Liz informed me in a side text.

Ten minutes later, Foxy Farmer sent me a side text of his own, asking if I fancied “Private FaceTime Drinks” at about one in the morning. I declined. “I think my symptoms might be getting worse. Don’t think I’ll make it to midnight.”

But I would. At around half eleven, I realised I wasn’t entirely alone in my living room. I held my breath as Minky the hamster, who came into my life at Christmas 2020 when my boss pressed me into pet-sitting while she got some winter sun, clawed her way up the side of the sofa. Minky positioned herself on the sofa arm and regarded me with her shiny black eyes.

“You and me again,” I told her.

She squeaked in reply. It sounded friendly.

I had been working my way through a packet of assorted nuts. I tipped out the remaining nuts into my palm and slowly, ever so slowly, proffered them in Minky’s direction. She glanced away, as if to invite a better offer. I placed half an unsalted peanut on the sofa arm close to her nose. In a nanosecond, it was gone, stuffed into one of her cheek pouches. I offered her another. She tucked it into her other cheek.

I let my hand rest in my lap. After a moment’s hesitation, Minky clambered down and set about taking the remaining nuts straight out of my palm, stuffing them into her cheeks as though her life depended on it (which I suppose, to her mind, it did). And that’s how I greeted midnight, sitting still as a statue so as not to disturb the hamster on my knee.

“Happy New Year,” I said to my little furry friend, as the clock struck twelve. I was saying “goodbye” to 2021 almost exactly the same fashion as I’d started it. Just me and Minky. It was pathetic and strange yet somehow magical, just as the previous twelve months had been.

In the spirit of counting blessings, I thought back over the year: the new experiences I’d had and the new friends I’d made, and all mostly within walking distance of home. As my phone buzzed with new year greetings from all the people I love (and Brenda), I felt very lucky indeed. And 2022 can only be better, right?