The Locked Room (Ruth Galloway #14)(30)
At the supermarket she is momentarily distracted by the people standing, spaced at odd intervals, around the periphery of the car park. Then she realises that they are queuing. The shop is only allowing a few shoppers in at a time, so the rest are waiting patiently, resting their legs like weary horses, for their turn amongst the consumer durables. Ruth joins the line. She is wearing a scarf tied around her nose and mouth and feels rather ridiculous. Most people are not wearing masks although some have plastic gloves, which immediately makes Ruth think that the handle of her trolley is crawling with coronavirus germs. She must make sure that she doesn’t touch her face before she has a chance to wash her hands whilst singing a suitably revolutionary song. Right on cue her nose starts to itch.
Once inside the shop Ruth catches the panic-buying bug and starts loading her trolley with cat food, toilet roll, wine and other things that suddenly seem essential. Calm down, she tells herself. Most items are in stock, although the pasta and rice aisle is almost empty. She can shop once a week and order things online. She can’t stop herself adding two paperbacks and a jigsaw puzzle of Norwich Cathedral. It takes a long time to get through the checkout but Ruth finds herself feeling almost tearfully grateful to the smiling woman who scans her groceries. She’s not wearing a mask which strikes Ruth as very remiss on the part of the supermarket.
‘Thank you,’ she says, as she pays an eye-watering sum of money on her debit card. ‘It’s so good of you to keep working.’
‘I haven’t got much choice,’ says the woman. ‘But thank you. It’s nice to have some appreciation. People have been shouting at me all morning.’
Ruth drives home feeling grateful that she doesn’t have to go out to work and despairing at the state of the world. Kate, deep in The Prisoner of Azkaban, hardly notices her return. Ruth goes to wash her hands (they already feel chapped and sore) and then starts to put away the shopping. It takes some time because there’s so much of it but, eventually, most things are stowed away. Ruth gives Flint some of his new Kitty Treats, which he ignores, and makes herself coffee.
The film has ended so Ruth prints out a maths worksheet and gives it to Kate.
‘I don’t want to do maths,’ says Kate. ‘I want to read my book.’
‘Oh, all right,’ says Ruth. It’s only eleven o’clock and already she’s failing at home-schooling but she needs to get ready for her eleven thirty lecture.
She feels a rush of satisfaction when she manages to sign into Zoom and another when she sees the faces of her first years appearing. They pop onto the screen, some in kitchens and studies, some clearly still in bed. One youth looks like he’s on a tropical island. ‘You can get special backgrounds,’ he explains in the comment box. Ruth has taken the trouble to angle her laptop so there’s a studious backdrop of bookcases. Unfortunately, it makes her face look huge. She’ll just have to try not to meet her own eyes. Two squares remain black. Does this mean those students haven’t switched their videos on? It’s curiously disconcerting.
At least Ruth knows now to tell the students to mute when they’re not speaking. Her first Zoom session was a nightmare of competing voices, students appearing in startling close-up if they so much as coughed. They are getting better at listening too, though some are clearly on their phones at the same time.
Today’s subject is Artefacts and Materials. Ruth projects pictures of pottery, ceramics and stone tools onto the shared screen and sends the students into breakout rooms to discuss them. Whoosh. It’s like a particularly satisfying magic trick. In real life, even post-graduates make a huge fuss when asked to divide into groups. ‘Can I be with Annie? I need the loo. Have I got time for a coffee?’ Now, one click and they disappear. In the ten minutes’ peace before she summons them back, Ruth checks the attendance list. Everyone is here. Who are the students who won’t show their faces? Ruth checks the list again.
Eileen Gribbon and Joe McMahon.
Chapter 16
Judy sits at her desk, feeling self-conscious in her mask. Should she take it off? Tony is sitting at least two metres away but he is still wearing his. Suddenly, Judy misses Clough who would have brought some normality to this abnormal situation simply by being himself, eating junk food and pretending to be an American gangster. On impulse she sends him a text, ‘Strange times eh?’ Two minutes later, Clough replies: ‘Im bulk buying frankfurters. Its a wurst case scenario.’ Judy sends back an eye-roll emoji but she does feel very slightly better.
Nelson said to carry on with the Avril Flowers investigation but that’s going to be hard when everything is locked down. Judy looks at her notes. She has spoken to the people closest to Avril and is no nearer to understanding what happened that night in February. The vicar has said that Avril had been worried but seemed unable, or unwilling, to be more specific. Judy thinks of Mother Wendy saying, ‘That’s what the church is here for. For worried people. That’s why we’ll always be here.’ What is Mother Wendy doing now? Judy wonders. The churches are all closed. She was surprised how shocked she’d been to hear this news. Judy might be a lapsed Catholic, but she’d always assumed that, all her life, mass would be carrying on somewhere. Thinking of the silent churches, the unconsumed communion wafers, the empty chalices, makes her feel strangely panicky. What about her grandma, who goes to mass every day? But Judy’s grandmother, an eighty-year-old diabetic, has been told to ‘shield’ and stay in her house. Judy doesn’t know when she will see her again.