Day 55

Thursday April 15

Oh dear. I do my best to get out of the bar for the next two days, but with so many people having not returned yet, not to mention the fact that I can only be covered by another supervisor or management level person, I’m told with apologies that I can’t be accommodated. So, short of simply refusing to go in and damning the consequences for everybody, I just have to do this. Maja is not happy at all, but understands and my job now is to make sure she has enough food and drink in the room for the time I’m away because she simply cannot go downstairs to the kitchen. But at least I just happen to be off today. I think if I wasn’t with it just being the day after the hospital, I might just have done that rebellion thing and refused to go in and damn the consequences. At the very least, I’m grateful that it didn’t come to that. 

Day 56

Friday April 16

Mark:

I’m in from 1pm till 8:30. Maja can’t begin to think about stairs, and our bedroom is on the mid level, with the front door upstairs and the kitchen downstairs. The toilet, like we established a few days ago, is directly opposite the bedroom so that’s an easy reach. But the kitchen is a no no. So before I leave, I have to make sure Maja has enough food and drink to get her through the amount of time I’ll be out. It’s a very unhappy Maja that I say goodbye to shortly before 1pm as I leave for the bar for the day.

During the day, I tell Moni how things are and ask if she could at least get me out sometime early tomorrow.

Day 57

Saturday April 17

Mark:

Moni comes through for me and goes above what I asked for. Thankyou very much Moni. 

I’m due in from 10am till 5pm today. But at 8:30am she texts me to say that not only are this Sunday and my Tuesday now covered. Brilliant. I was already scheduled to be off tomorrow, so now after this short bit today, I’m off all the way to and including Thursday. Which means that after today, I only have two days left to work in the bar before I’m all done, and that will be Friday and Saturday.

When I get in today, it gets even better as Moni tells me I can finish at two today instead of Five. Result. She then adds that she has 15 applicants for my job, so if she gets to interviews this week, maybe even Friday and Saturday will go. 

During the day I tell one of our regulars I’m quitting the bar job. He naturally asks for the why and I tell him some of our story. As I get deeper and deeper into it, he collapses more and more in laughter at the continuing absurdity, not least the fact that right now this very moment, my girlfriend, who I met online and who came from Sweden to stay in lockdown London seeking temporary respite when her world fell apart, is lying in our bed, right above the room I used to share with my former girlfriend, who is still living there by the way, and is there as we speak. It takes him a while to grasp the fact that we are all actually living in the same house. And that I’m about to move to Ireland with this girl who I met less than two months ago and with whom I’ve already moved house twice, the second one back to where we started as we fled the crazy naked communal, musical living situation we’d walked into which just happened to come with an offer of a free apartment which never fully materialised. That’s all before you consider the fact that me and Maja became an item on the way from the airport to my house during what was supposed to be a friendly visit, and were talking about having kids together less than a week later, shortly after, deciding to get married and tour the world playing songs we haven’t written yet with Maja having never played a single live show in her life. We were planning on leaving for Ireland next week to get started, but of course a few days ago she broke her ankle walking back from the bar.

This guy is a head cameraman who works on top Hollywood productions. As I’m talking, he stops me and says, ‘You do realise this thing is just too implausible for a movie?’ I nod. I know. ‘But you’re telling me all this actually happened?’ Yep. He shakes his head in disbelief and acceptance. ‘If it’s a true story, that’s totally different,’ he says. ‘What I’m really reminded of is Catch Me If You Can, a story you could never get away with apart from the fact that it’s all true.’ This is a Steven Spielberg movie starring Matt Damon. Then my friend says, ‘You also realise that there’s too much here for a movie? It would have to be a TV series.’ Took the words right out of my mouth. That’s exactly where we think this is ultimately all going. We very much agree with him on the implausibility factor as well.

Maja:

I remember when we walked down the streets of Camden, joyfully giggling and shouting at times: ‘We need to fire our script writer, this is all too crazy!’ Just too many things that have been happening lately that it stopped making sense ages ago. One enormous development after the next, and I, for the life of me, would never have been able to foresee what would happen next. When Mark comes home and tells me about his conversation today, I feel oddly validated. Yes, it’s not only me. This really is a bit over the top.

Mark:

Just as we start to think we’re going to be OK with this, Maja says her foot is numb. Not good, so we call 111 who say we need to go to A&E immediately. Damn. Fine. We get a taxi and when we arrive, I’m told I can’t go in because of the Covid thing. OK but not OK. It is pretty cold and I’m not dressed for a long wait outside. I get it, but Maja is not independent at all right now and no-one had a problem with me being in with her the last time we were here. That’s not cutting any ice. At all. So I wait outside for the hour and a half it takes for this to be sorted. There really isn’t much to do so I content myself with sending silly messages to Maja.