Granda, what did you do during the Great Plague of 2020?
I lost weight, and there was Granny.
Were you out bringing sick people to hospital or taking dead bodies to the graveyard?
Granny: "Hah!" and laughs.
Why is Granny laughing?
Son, she has been laughing since the day we got married. The happiest woman in Ireland.
Did you lose weight because you were bringing so many dead bodies to the graveyard at night?
No. The local was closed. And there was Granny.
What's a local, Granda?
A place where men sit and hear each other groan.
Sure could you not do that at home?
No, not with Granny.
So why did you lose weight?
You see that sitting room over there. I painted every single inch of it. See that ceiling. You have no idea what painting a ceiling does to the weight. And the garage. She had me clean out 25 years of rubbish. And the garden. See that plot in the bottom half. I dug every yard of it and planted lettuce, beetroot and onions.
And what did Granny do?
She bought toilet tolls and baked for the parish.
And you couldn't go out?
No escape. It would have been easier to get out of, or into, Mountjoy where the prisoners relaxed all day and watched Netflix.
So how did ye get stuff from the shops?
Your mother and father did that for us and left it at the front door. Then they'd ring us to say it was there. We'd go out to collect it.
You mean you were not allowed go out.
No. Ní raibh cead agam dul amach.
Wow. So what did you do all day?
I did what Granny told me.
And what did she do?
She made sure I did the jobs and read all those books about women being persecuted by men down the ages. You know the sort of thing. You might have heard your mother talk about them too. The Handmaid's Tale and fiction like that.
Yeah. Mam was watching that concert on the tele. That women's concert on RTÉ. She watched it over and over.
A Women's Heart, hah! Now there's a challenge
Why are you laughing Granda?
Better ask your Granny. Hmm, maybe not!
Cocooned: to envelope in a protective or comforting way. From Latin coccum for 'berry'.
