Putting things off can be foolhardy at the best of times – but, as journalist TESS FINCH-LEES discovered in Gort, it was the cause of a whole different kind of meltdown in a pandemic.
“Never put off till tomorrow what can be done today”. That was one of my mother’s many mantras. One day into lockdown, I realised the wisdom of those words.
When my son looks back on the photos, he’ll never forgive me for missing his barber’s appointment. He already looks like a cross between Terry Wogan and Che Guevara – and he’s only twelve.
Bad hair is one thing, but running out of medication is another. The prescription that could have been renewed anytime in the last six months, was about to expire.
Given that I’d rather poke my eye out with a sausage than cross the threshold of a pharmacy in the midst of a global pandemic, the oversight unhinged me.
We parked in front of the chemist, which was opposite the bank. As I alighted the car, donning dark glasses, a snood pulled over my face and a hat bearing unfortunate similarities to a balaclava, I shouted at my husband: “Keep the engine running. It’ll need to be a quick get away!” (We had a click and collect slot booked in Eurospar afterwards).
There I was, in the middle of Gort, looking for all the world like a drug-addled bank robber on the verge of a panic attack, wondering why people were staring at me.
I had emailed the prescription in advance and explained that I didn’t want to go inside, so the pharmacist kindly arranged to meet me at the door when she opened after lunch, at precisely 2pm.
For the deal to be done as precipitously as possible, I just had to keep a cool head and have the exact money ready.
Grappling with coins in gloved hands is a bit like Carlow’s quest for the Liam McCarthy; if you stick at it long enough it might happen, but the odds aren’t great.
Research indicated that Covid-19 can last on surfaces for several days, touching the coins was not an option.
At 1.55pm, I upturned my purse on the pavement and got down on my hands and knees to count out €7.30. Onlookers weren’t sure whether to call the guards (the balaclava) or the men in white coats (all of the above).
By 1.57pm, I was upright again and, although I thought I had clawed back a semblance of composure, people were still staring and I’m pretty sure I caught my child exchange a conspiratorial eye roll with a passer-by, as if to say: “Who’s yer wan?”.
I wasn’t always embarrassing. There was a time, pre Covid-19 (and motherhood), that I was borderline cool.
I once blagged a meeting with the British media’s equivalent of the Dali-Lama, by telling his PA that I was a Colombian drugs mule. Like all white lies, there was an element of truth to the story.
I did live in Colombia, where I had ridden a mule and, on my return, I was stopped by security at Gatwick for acting suspiciously.
I was wearing dodgy dark glasses and surreptitiously sniffing suspected narcotics in the baggage area. Fortunately, Vick’s Nasal Spray is not deemed a Class A drug in Britain (though that could change after Brexit), so I was released without charge.
At 2pm sharp, the pharmacist gingerly made her way to the door and the deal was done.
Inexplicably unable to move, I stood there, unravelling like my granny’s woollen shawl, when a middle-aged woman smiled from afar and said: “You’ll be grand, love”.
That was another of my mother’s mantras and I realised that, in the panic of lockdown, I had forgotten the anniversary of her death.
That gnawing, barbed wire feeling in my belly was unadulterated grief, which, buried under and exacerbated by Coronavirus, was debilitating.
I can bribe my family for hugs, so I’ll be grand – but what about friends, neighbours, homeless and those in direct provision, who are alone?
The world is in lockdown but isolation, though crucial, amplifies loneliness, which presents the humanitarian challenge of finding new ways to reach out to the vulnerable in our communities.
Be it a smile, a phone call, a kind word or deed.
“There”, as my mother would say, “but for the grace of god, go I.”
Footnote: Huge thanks to Orna in Gilmartin’s Pharmacy, Gort, for going above and beyond the call of duty and to all our essential workers who do that everyday. You’re heroes one and all!
■ Tess Finch-Lees is an international human rights journalist, who writes for the Guardian, UK Independent and many other outlets. She is also a lecturer, specialising in ethics and discrimination. She recently returned home to Ireland and is living in Gort, her mother’s native place.
