A strange time

Carefully scrutinising her camera image on the screen, Kate checked that her hair was tidy, straightened her jacket, and took a quick glance around her to check there was nothing inappropriate visible in her living room. Opening up her calendar, she clicked on the meeting link. A moment’s pause, and the now-familiar screen opened. Three colleagues were already there, deep in conversation. ‘…just irresponsible, that’s what it is. Eleven of them there were – eleven! – and as for social distancing, forget that! Practically hanging on each other’s shoulders, they were’, came Greta’s voice in stentorian tones. ‘So selfish’, interjected Padma, ‘It’s only making the lockdown last longer. All these people who break the rules, they’re just letting the side down’. ‘I completely agree’, Dan chimed in. ‘There’s me, I haven’t been out of the house for weeks, not so much as a turn round the block, and do you see me complaining? No, I think of the hospitals, the doctors and nurses…’. 

Kate gritted her teeth. Once Dan got off into a rant like this, he could go on for a long time. She unmuted her microphone. ‘Good morning!’, she called out pointedly, hoping to distract him. ‘What? Oh, good morning Kate. Where was I…? Yes, the carers…’. The others also greeted her, and they attempted to carry on a conversation while Dan continued his tirade in the background, blissfully ignorant of the fact that no one was listening. Adding to the confusion were the regular pop-ups, ‘Lynn wants to join the meeting’, ‘Mike wants to join the meeting’. Each time, a new image was added to the line-up, until the screen resembled a prop in the evil villain’s lair in some third-rate Bond knock-off. Backdrops of bookcases filled with implausibly high-brow literature, sunlit rooms with musical instruments propped up in the corner, dimly shadowed bedroom walls, over-exposed windows. Interspersed with jungles, beaches and galaxies where people wanted to give their morale a boost by pretending they were somewhere more exotic – or simply couldn’t be bothered to tidy up at home. The faces were just as varied: immaculately made-up and coiffured, just out-of-bed hair with sleepy eyes, views up the nostrils and even one forehead that filled the screen, wobbling around nauseatingly as its owner wandered round the house carrying his smartphone. Plus one photo of a cat lying on a sofa – in more than a year of lockdown, Lynn had never once turned on her camera.

Now Chen, the project manager, joined and after a few heroic attempts succeeded in breaking through the babble to get everyone’s attention. ‘To start with’, he said, ‘as we haven’t seen each other for a while, I just thought we’d do a round and see how everyone’s doing’. The responses were tediously predictable. Technical difficulties, childcare issues, boredom stuck indoors, but all finally converging on the standard mantra that they were managing fine, keeping their chin up, and doing their best to get through. Kate counted ‘all need to do our bit’ three times, ‘team spirit’ twice and ‘it’s a strange time’ fully five times. Strange time, thought Kate, what an understatement. If she had known back in March what the months ahead were going to bring…

‘Thank you everyone’, Chen concluded after the final person had made their report. ‘I’m proud of you all for doing your best to stick together as a team and get the job done. I understand the difficulties, it is after all a very strange time’. Six, thought Kate. ‘Before we carry on’, Chen continued, ‘there’s just one more thing I’d like to take a moment for. As you all know – of course you do – we are still missing a very important member of our team. In fact, it’s now a year to the day since we were last joined by our valued colleague, John Hall.’ ‘Is there any news?’, asked Padma. ‘No, sadly not’, replied Chen. ‘We can only hope that he is out there somewhere, and that one day he will turn up safe and sound’. He chuckled awkwardly, ‘With a very good excuse for missing so many meetings!’. The joke fell flat, and Chen quickly turned serious again. ‘I thought we could just take a moment – a minute’s silence – to just – well – uhm – think of him’, he trailed off lamely.

How long a minute can last, mused Kate. Though it was impossible to tell via the remote meeting, she had the feeling that everyone was looking at her, and went to a great effort to maintain an expression of sad composure, concealing the tangle of emotions within her. She and John had kept their relationship secret, mainly out of Kate’s concern that the rest of the team would find it unprofessional. Yet in the time that they had spent together in the office, their obvious rapport had already prompted speculation. In the period following John’s disappearance – once it became clear that he really had disappeared and wasn’t just suffering from prolonged connectivity issues – an odd dance had ensued, as her colleagues weren’t sure whether to treat her as simply another concerned colleague, or a distraught partner.

She was relieved when the interminable minute was finally over, and Chen moved on to the business of the day, planning an online conference. ‘We had hoped so much to be able to hold a physical event, but the current developments sadly don’t allow for that. I’m sure people will understand that it won’t quite be as normal, but in these strange times’ – Seven, thought Kate – ‘we have to put our heads together and come up with a creative solution’. Kate sighed. Creative solutions, creative solutions. No complaining about the restrictions allowed, no suggestion that the company could perhaps follow the lead others had taken in being a tad more flexible about how the rules were interpreted. But at the same time, no excuses for delivering anything less than top-notch work. ‘Creative solutions’ was the magic spell by which they were expected to fill the gap. Every time someone said it, she felt as if she were faced by a naïve, over-enthusiastic kindergarten teacher exhorting her pupils to clear up the aftermath of a natural disaster with coloured card, sticky-backed plastic ‘and LOTS of elbow grease!’. Inwardly shaking her head, she was attempting to concentrate on listening to Chen’s suggestions and working out what they would require in practical terms when suddenly –

‘John Hall wants to join the meeting’

The pop-up was gone almost too quickly for her eyes to register it. Her breath caught in her throat, as she almost expected it to be followed by John’s image appearing, him waving good morning in front of his favourite background, a view of the Golden Gate bridge. Ridiculous, of course. Her eyes must have been playing tricks on her, or else it was a software glitch. All the same, the way her heart had jumped reminded her of the early days of the lockdown, when they had sent each other messages almost constantly, and spent hours chatting in the evening. But it hadn’t been enough, and on the evening when she answered her doorbell to find him there, bags in hand, she had been overjoyed. Of course, his presence was completely against the rules, so no one else could know, even if their relationship had been public knowledge. It was the start of a strange – but wonderful – time. During the day, they conducted work as normal, and often during meetings she had to hide a smile, seeing John sitting in front of his Golden Gate bridge background and knowing that it concealed her own kitchen wall. She always made sure to fetch her coffee in between meetings, to prevent her suddenly bursting into view like some ghostly visitation. When the final meeting of the day was finished and everyone had left the meeting, she always left her camera on, waiting in anticipation to see the kitchen door behind her open and John walk slowly towards her. He would pause behind her for a moment, then press his hands on her shoulders and bend his head to kiss her neck. Turning around, she would pull him down for a passionate embrace. Sometimes they made it to the bedroom, sometimes not. Evenings were no longer a rushed, solitary meal followed by a long, lonely evening, but lively conversation as they lingered over the dishes they had cooked together, then cuddled up on the sofa to watch their favourite films. They slept the whole night in a close embrace, and ate their breakfast together in the morning before retreating to their separate rooms and their façade of normality.

‘…and I think you can handle that, can’t you Kate?’. The question jerked her back to the present, and she realized in shame that she had followed nothing of the discussions. Thank goodness for remote meetings. ‘I – wa – cu – say’, she quickly said. ‘Kate? Kate? We’re having a little trouble hearing you’. She frowned, then fiddled with her headset for show. ‘Can you hear me now?’ ‘Yes, clear as a bell now. But you were gone for a moment’. ‘Yes, something wrong with the headset I think. I didn’t hear your question properly either, could you repeat it?’.

Embarrassed, she forced herself to concentrate. It was essential to appear competent and professional. But after a while the talk turned to a workshop within the conference that she wasn’t directly involved in. Despite her best efforts, she grew bored, and entertained herself making up new names for people from the last syllable of their first name and the first syllable of their last.  MaChand, LynnColl, IelRad. Then she started to flip through the various views available in the meeting software. Now just the current speaker, now the whole gallery, now everyone apparently sitting behind desks in a classroom. Speaker-gallery-classroom. Speaker-gallery-classroom. As she flicked past the classroom view once more, she blinked her eyes in disbelief. There, at the back of the room, behind the end desk – was John, looking directly at her. Her heart thumping, she flicked back to the classroom view again – to see an empty desk. Cycling through all the views, she only saw the other participants. Chills ran down her spine, and she found herself sweating, on the verge of panic.

Things had started to go wrong a few weeks after John moved in. Yes, she loved him– but he was there all the time. Morning, noon and night. At breakfast time, when she was still waking up and wanted some peace, he would hold forth on some article he had read on the news while she was showering. In the evening, when she wanted to forget work and relax, he would rehash some point from the day’s discussions. She couldn’t call her family or friends often in the evenings as he resented having to ‘hide away’ in another room. At night, his embrace felt constricting, and, instead of anticipation, she started to feel dread at the opening of the kitchen door. The predictability of the ritual killed her desire, and the weight of his hands on her shoulders made her feel trapped, torn between going through the motions or facing his bewildered hurt if she refused his advances. The weekends were worse, when there was nothing else to do but be together, nowhere to go, no escape.

Finally, it got too much. One evening, she sat him down and quietly explained the situation. She thought it would be best if he went back to his own flat, at least for a little while. He was deeply hurt. Didn’t she love him anymore? What had gone wrong? The argument raged back and forth, as she on the one side tried desperately to explain her need for space, and he on the other side couldn’t conceive of any reason to be apart if they loved each other – if she truly loved him. Did she love him? – he demanded over and over again. His hurt turned to fury, and then to aggression. For a moment, she thought he would hit her. Then, taking a deep breath, he controlled himself. His eyes glinting with malice, he looked at her and said, ‘Fine, I’ll move out. As you don’t want me anymore. But I’ll tell everyone just where it is I’ve been all this time, how saintly Kate has been breaking all the rules. Just think what they’ll say! ‘How irresponsible, how selfish! I really thought better of her! Of course, there always was something a bit off about her. A bit unprofessional’’. He parodied the voices of the other team members perfectly, and Kate’s stomach constricted at the prospect. Caught between his spiteful obstinacy and the self-righteous judgement of the team, there was only one thing left to do. She would have to find a creative solution.

It had been remarkably easy. She had rehearsed all sorts of alibis in her head for when the police interviewed her. But they had no interest in talking to co-workers, John’s manager was enough. They had very little to go on in the way of leads. No signs of disturbance in his flat, the neighbours had seen nothing, and with his laptop and phone gone, there was nothing they could discover from those either. With their hands full with a pandemic, one healthy adult male gone missing did not have their priority.

‘Let’s move on to the whiteboard session. Everybody, microphones open so we can discuss things freely.’ Once again, Chen’s voice brought her back. Hurriedly, she clicked on the link to open the whiteboard. After Chen had explained the topics, they were given five minutes to write down their ideas and ‘stick’ them on the board. Silence fell as everyone was busy typing. That was when Kate heard the voice, oddly echoing. ‘Kate?’. ‘Yes, what is it?’, she replied. ‘Kate’, repeated the voice. ‘Yes, I can hear you. Who is that?’, she asked. It fell quiet, then Chen said, ‘Uhm, Kate, I didn’t hear anything’. ‘No, nor me’, chipped in someone else. The voice came in again, this time hissing intimately in her ear – ‘Kate, it’s me’. Icy terror flooded her as this time she recognized the voice – John. Reflexively, she yanked off her headset, then slammed the laptop shut. Covering her face with her hands, she took deep, shuddering breaths. This was crazy. It was just lockdown getting to her, cracking her up. Seeing things, hearing things… Or – a sudden thought struck her. What if someone suspected something, was trying to provoke her? Sounds and images could be faked. In that case, she must be very careful how she behaved. She must rejoin the meeting immediately, or the others would think she was unprofessional, crazy, or worse…

When the meeting reopened, she could hear the others discussing their ideas. But all she could see, full-screen, was her own camera view. Behind her, the handle of the kitchen door turned downwards. The door slowly opened, and there he was. Face cold and dead, eyes burning into hers. She willed herself to turn around, to see that there was nothing really behind her, that this was just a fake image overlaid on her video, like the plug-ins that turned people into cats. But terror filled her in a freezing flood, and she couldn’t make her head move. She could only watch as the figure behind her approached, at a slow, deliberate pace. Then the shock of revulsion at the touch on her shoulders, the same familiar heavy grip, now turned icy. Horror welled up inside her. She finally lost all concern about appearing professional. ‘Help!’, she screamed. ‘Help me! Please-’. ‘Are you talking, Kate?’, came Chen’s voice. ‘Your microphone’s on mute’. Then frozen hands clamped around her throat in an iron grip. She tried to wrench them away – but her fingers met nothing more than her own skin. As she struggled in vain to breathe, she heard the voices of the others, first just concerned, then in an increasingly panicked babble. ‘Are you ok Kate?’…’She’s clutching her throat. Kate, are you alright?’… ‘It looks like she’s choking!’… ‘Call an ambulance!’ …‘What’s the address? Does anyone know where she lives?!’. But the last thing she saw, as darkness crowded in at the edges of her vision, was the triumphant deathshead grimace filling the screen.    

The meeting that had ended in such a dramatic fashion was finally continued the following week. Everyone was in shock from what they had seen. No one could understand it. No one expected a woman in her mid-forties to suddenly suffer a heart attack, and Kate had always seemed fit and healthy. The consensus was that it must have been brought on by stress. Which, they all agreed, was understandable. After all, it was a very strange time.