Bridget Jones' Coronavirus Diary - Elle

Thursday March 26

Number of times per hour I googled “coronavirus”: 247. Number of times I harassed the elderly neighbor on the phone to see if she needed anything: 7. Number of notifications from the Online Volunteers platform m 'inviting me to mobilize: 0. Minutes spent opening hilarious viral videos and forwarding them to all my contacts: 2457. Number of times I breathed in hyacinths to check that I hadn't lost my sense of smell and was not contaminated : 282. Minutes of storing and reading classics: 0. Minutes of staring paralyzed at the wall, mouth open: 4765. Calories: 8765. Units of alcohol: 12. Work done: 0; exercise: 0. T.mal.

7:00 a.m. Just awake. Time to go to work and have coffee and a croissant.

7:01 a.m. Oh dear. OH DEAR !!! Life as we knew it is over and we are in the middle of an apocalypse.

7:03 . Rhâââ! Face-Time call. Maybe Boris telling me to get under the bed and stay there.

8:00 a.m. It was Miranda. “Hair removal,” she whispered softly.

Looked at the screen. In fact, she was growing wild eyebrows and a handlebar mustache. “Don't tell anyone this might have crossed my mind, but do you realize we're going back to the raw? No hairdresser, no nail salon, no hair removal…”

I clung to the table feeling that the wheels of my bus of certainties were packing up.

“F*** I have to go,” she said. I have a close-up Zoom meeting, the horror! Why must audio calls have chosen the time when Neanderthals were turned to become obsolete and undesirable?

- I have to go too. Got a Zoom with Sit Up Britain at 9am. We remember. »

8:30 a.m. Oh dear. Good. Do not panic, we avoid letting ourselves be overwhelmed by anxiety. Will be on the job for the videoconferencing. : online yoga, boiled egg, go put on some real clothes, wash my 'hair' - ie weird stuff on my head - and try to figure out how to mute the video.

8:45. How can everything change dramatically in such a short time? Wasn't it just last week that we were going to the pub and having interaction with real people?

I leaf through the newspaper for the week…

CONTAINMENT WATCH

Sunday March 22

4:00 p.m. Just got back from a walk in Primrose Hill with the buddies. Scary. Everyone looks the same dumbfounded. Too many people, but it feels like rudeness to deviate from others. Ooh, nice, a Face-Time!

"I'm just popping into the village, honey, to get a fruit cobbler!" " - My mother. “That paste you brought me is concrete! »

Grrr. If only she were less manic about the races that I deliver to her as a devoted girl.

“Mom, you're over seventy – you're not allowed to go out.

- I am not more than seventy years old, darling! Well, I don't look seventy at all, and my physical age is 43.

"Mom…" I took on a threatening tone.

“And anyway, Una and I have walking sticks.

- Exactly. You are old people.

- Nope. Two-meter canes, to be able to hit anyone who got too close. »

4:50 pm Ten minutes before Boris' speech. As if he spoke to us every day. The question is not to be perfect or to act perfectly. But it gives the impression that we are all in the same boat.

6:00 p.m. He is right. It's time to be responsible. Will start right away.

11:00 p.m. We got sssuperF-F-Face-Time tonight with Tom, Shaz and Miranda to analyze the cc-crisis. God decided to p-punish us with fire, d-floods and pestilence.

- Yes, Shaz stammered. Because we destroyed our beautiful planet!

- He saw that we abused with our trips in all directions at the slightest bridge, and he PUNISHED us!

- Chastised, Bridge?

- Yes ! He sent a plague of locusts, and I got ants in my cereal.

- It's because you suck at cleaning.

- It's like Noah's flood. We have to make some sort of ark and take couples of the same species on board with us.

- Nooo! that's exactly how this thing started: a crocodile on the back of a baby wolf on the back of a peacock on the back of a pangolin.

- I need to feel USEFUL. I want to help. I could deliver meals. I could cook!

- Noo, Tom yelled. Everything except your kitchen! Go to bed ! »

Monday March 23

Went back for a walk up the hill. Everyone walks well apart so that the Director does not close the parks and force us to stay at home.

5:00 p.m. Oh no! Boris is not on TV. I bet he takes whiskey in his bath while preparing Winston Churchill speeches.

7:00 p.m. Boris addresses the nation at 8:30 p.m. My stomach is in knots, like when you're dating someone and you get a text saying, 'We need to talk.'

9:00 p.m. We are confined. Do you believe that? What were we thinking before? All that time of worrying over nothing, those Brexit years where everyone was nitpicking over details that no one initially understood, and now life-changing decisions are being made within the hour and we lose everything. But what were we thinking?

Tuesday, March 24

It's the silence that's the weirdest. It seems unreal that the sun is shining and the daffodils are out. It must have felt the same in the counties of Greater London during the First World War, when wounded soldiers and the bodies of the dead began to be repatriated. I believe that the tearful caregivers on the net are the first manifestations of the catastrophe that awaits us.

SMS: GOV. RU CORONAVIRUS ALERT. New regulations in force. Stay home.

Surrealist. I hear a siren and a helicopter. If I go out, will I be shot?

Stop. I must not be defeatist but keep a positive and energetic wartime spirit (~ ie start drinking before Boris intervenes).

Always wanted to watch TV in my pajamas and eat ice cream. But it's still weird to think that by doing nothing, you're doing your duty.

Feels an unmentionable sense of relief that for once this isn't one of my usual self-inflicted dramas.

Maybe I should reserve certain areas of my apartment and only use them on special occasions. The shower, for example?

Fridge shelf just fell off and milk bottle broke. Was going to throw away the rest of the milk when I thought, “Noo. We're going to run out of milk! »

Just plugged in a replay of Eastenders, and when I saw them go down to the pub and kiss each other, I freaked out. Wanted to scream, “No! Stay home ! Protect our caregivers. »

Want to stop looking at WhatsApp messages so I can mourn all that the world has lost and what I have lost. Oh dear, have you seen the video of the hot mom bitching that if coronavirus doesn't kill us, social distancing will? Excellent !

It's funny how quickly we accept the new reality, like frogs in boiling water.

Wednesday March 25

6:00 p.m. “Oh shit,” Miranda said. We were trying to sign up as volunteers to help the caregivers. “I entered an old Tinder ID code instead of the registration code. volunteers. Ah, well that! I'm on the Red Cross website. »

Suddenly, I noticed that Shaz was on the screen and she was holding a sign saying 'Help!' It looked like a Melania Trump video. She showed a second on which was written “No sound! »

Grrr! Technology ! I can't register on the Ministry of Health website. Why would he think I'm a robot? How am I going to be able to be effective as a care volunteer if I can't even tell in how many squares I see a fire hydrant?

2:00 a.m. Yeah! I got there!

Thursday, March 26, bis

8:45 am Have to stop reading newspaper and get ready for video on Zoom. Oh, great, Face-Time: Tom, Shaz and Miranda.

“Say, we need to have the validation of fashion pundits, and even a press conference on beauty routines as a bonus. It's about self-esteem.

- Yes, I added, enthusiastic. The wild look should be rebranded as health system support.

- The Nation Needs your Wild Eyebrows! Tom said. Princess Kate should lead by example.

- Stay home. Keep your roots. Support the caregivers! did I say. If it is, Boris will have black roots!

- Hey there! No waxing means no bikini waxing, Tom pointed out. Are giant tufts going to come back into fashion by any chance?

- And those who had them removed by laser? Miranda panicked.

- Arrgh! An old-fashioned lawn! exclaimed Tom.

- We are in a biblical apocalypse of absolute gravity and you, you are there to exchange trivialities! yelled Shaz who, with his coronacorrect moralism, sealed off the communication.

Hmmm. If we don't laugh, we will cry. We all know that a dreadful time awaits us. You have to look at the bright sides of dark things, and they do exist. The proof :

* All the bullshit we've let ourselves be overwhelmed by – global warming, waste, obscene consumerism, the cult of perfection – is marking time, as if intelligent dolphins had intervened to rid us of it.

* Nations and big corporations are realizing that they can skip the red tape and internal bickering and get things done quickly.

* 400,000 people volunteered in 24 hours to help others.

* People understand that the important thing is solidarity and benevolence.

* In the canals of Venice, the water is crystal clear and there are turtles… Rhâââ! The Sit up Britain Zoom is starting and I'm still in my nightgown with messy hair.

Too bad ! I'm going to turn off the camera and wash my hair quickly while Richard Finch unpacks his intro.

Richard's voice thundered, "Bridget, damn it, we all see you in your shower." As nice as that is, it's completely inappropriate behavior during an apocalypse. »

Everything is going for the best in the best of all possible worlds.

Friday March 27

11:15 a.m. Whoa! Boris caught the coronavirus. BoJo, nooo! We need you !

END

Copyright: Helen Fielding.

Translated from English by Françoise du Sorbier.

Text originally published in the “Sunday Times” of March 29, 2020.

Many thanks to Albin Michel who publishes Helen Fielding's novels in France.