Pandemic pals

I’ve recently been watching ‘Maid ‘on Netflix and it’s made me think about a friendship I struck up during the Covid 19 pandemic. It also made me think about how a series of unfortunate events can turn someone’s life upside down when I all they wanted to do was be free.

It was April 2020 when I was first introduced to A. The world was in turmoil and the UK had just entered a lockdown situation due to the outbreak of Covid 19. A virus we now know would have devastating affect on the economy and people’s lives.

I’d been a casualty of the virus and became unemployed, as a result I had time on my hands. It was then I decided to write a book detailing the lives of others.. This was book featuring a series of stories of people affected by the pandemic.

I was given A details and back story from a contact R ,a rather boisterous almost histrionic character from New Jersey. Without the introduction our paths would never had crossed.

A was a tall slender woman of 53 years old, a mother of three, ex lawyer and former multi millionaire from Pennsylvania US. We couldn’t be more different I was a short dark haired 45yr old mother from a Yorkshire mining village in the UK who had humble beginnings and average education and never really had much money.

In my first meeting with A what struck me was how exhausted she looked. Her once blonde styled hair was matted and messy, her face thin and translucent, you could visibly see her collar bone protruding from the top of her chest. Her teeth were yellowing and the skin around her eyes was dark a mottled. To me she looked like a corpse., a shell of a woman who had the life sucked out of her. Her speech was slow and slurred and it took effort for her to talk.

She was a stark contrast to the pushy, bolshy woman who had forced our introduction.

However, R had only been the facilitator of such a meeting and I haven’t had cause to speak to her since. I was grateful for the introduction to A.

When I talk about meeting A,I have never actually met her. We communicate through medium of messenger video and occasional social media post.

A, lives in the basement of the former mansion she once owned and is often in bed when we meet. We meet at least 3 times a week and have for the past 18 months. I like to get to know people and get under the skin of the people I am writing about and the regular contact helps.

She gave me a guided tour of her basement home.

She is surrounded by cobwebs, dirty dishes the toys, clothes and artifacts from when her children were small.

‘I don’t have the heart to trash them’, she said as she turns the camera to show me boxes piled up. The tired dolls house with chipped paint, the bike with handle bars missing, the cinema screen, the basement had been a tv and play room after all.

By her bed side were boxes of Zanex a drug that is banned in the UK but used widely to treat PTSD in the US.

She reminds me of a modern day Miss Haversham stuck in time, caught in a cycle of yesteryear and living amongst the ruins of a former life, a time when things were good.

Al’s story intrigued me, to the outside world it was bizarre and unrealistic but not to me, I knew her story all too well and wanted to tell it in a way that would help support others.

She was the victim of emotional abuse, she’d lost her job, her home and her children in the 10 year battle to fight a narcissist she’d once been married to.

Although extreme, the situation wasn’t uncommon but we’d both suffered a lot. The day I said, ‘I believe you, let’s tell this story’, was the day we struck up a deep bond.