THE C WORD PANDEMIC DIARIES WITH NORMAN LEBRECHT AND CLAIRE CALMAN

In the first of a weekly column, writer Claire Calman shares her experiences of the lockdown

THE TROUBLE with being a perennial pessimist is that, sooner or later, the world is bound to catch up with you…. In the past, or Before as I now think of it (as Jews, now might be the time to employ ‘BC’ – Before Corona), when I was fretting excessively about something, eventually I would stop and tell myself I was being ridiculous (or husband or son would do it for me; they like to be helpful.) Now, with my anxiety levels constantly at boiling point, no-one could accuse me of being a worrywart.

I must have been born with a sense of foreboding about the future. At the age of seven or eight, I used to save my pocket-money by secreting it in hiding places in my bedroom so I could forget then rediscover it later. At that point, money was quite tight, and I always worried about being poor. My mum endlessly related tales of her own mother’s childhood: about not having enough money to buy ink for her homework so making a botched DIY attempt using soot from the chimney mixed with water, about her being slapped for daring to ask for a penny to buy an orange. To my mother, a natural storyteller, they were extraordinary stories; to me, they felt like warnings.

Now those worries feel like I was merely dabbling in the shallows of fear. What we’re facing now is an existential threat – one with, as far as we know, no end in sight. It feels as if we are teetering on the lip of a bottomless abyss. I want to hide under the duvet until Corona gets bored of waiting for me and goes away. I want to go back and relish all those beautiful, tiny blessings of daily life I so foolishly took for granted: hugging my best friend when she pops over for coffee, nipping into Waitrose quickly to get whatever I forgot yesterday, having Friday night dinner over at my brother-in-law’s (That gorgeous gravy! My lovely nieces!... I didn’t mean to put the gravy before the nieces, but it really is very good).

But I’m fairly sure I’m supposed to be a proper grown-up by now. I’m not allowed to hide under the duvet. Our son Leo, 16, has just had his GCSEs cancelled and his active social life – parties, hanging out with friends, seeing his girlfriend - reduced to House Party and FaceTime. He’s had to deal with his parents’ sudden volteface, switching from, ‘Please knuckle down – these exams are so important’ to ‘Don’t worry, darling. They don’t really matter a bit.’

I am the most awful coward. Several years ago, I had to have a major operation to remove one of my kidneys (a large tumour had decided to squat there and couldn’t be evicted any other way). As I waited for them to take me down to theatre, I came so close to running away in my backless gown. I had to keep reminding myself that, if I ran away, the tumour would come too. Now, I am worrying about an unqualified medical student shoving a ventilator tube down my airway while I’m still conscious. The more rational part of me says that’s silly, there won’t be any beds or ventilators left – I’ll just die at home, waiting for a nonexistent ambulance. But I have to stay strong. I am trying to be positive and constructive without saying to our son, ‘Everything will be ok’. More than anything, I want to promise him that I will make it all ok – but I know I can’t deliver on that promise. So I tell him only what I know I can deliver: I will do everything I can to get us through this. I have genuine confidence in the scientists. I have faith in human ingenuity, innovation, and perseverance. Really, I want to haul him onto my lap and tell him Mummy will make it all better with a kiss.

I tell him we will take it one week at a time. I write a huge master list of activities, divided into sections: Work/Learning, Creativity, Domestic, Exercise, Well-being, Leisure etc with a heading saying we all should aim to do at least one thing from each category every day. I point out the section on Hoovering to my son in case he is bored and looking for an activity that isn’t spending fifteen hours a day on the phone with his friends.

Before the lockdown, I popped in on elderly neighbours to see if I could get them anything. One, a Holocaust survivor, now in her late 80s, is her usual feisty self – she has loads of food and is absolutely fine. She holds her head high and looks completely undaunted by it all; she survived Auschwitz - what could possibly scare her? Later, my son and I out for our walk spot her driving at top speed down the next street like a boy racer, full of life, determined to live.

I want to tell him Mummy will make it all better’