Two

‘I’ve been waiting for you to leave the house,’ he said.

‘Sorry, what?’ She must have misheard him.

‘I’ve been waiting for you to leave the house,’ he said again.

Oh shit, she thought. He’s some kind of pervert. A stalker.

This had happened to her before, when she was still doing TV and the occasional magazine shoot. Not for years, though. Since she’d married Ziggy and given it all up the sickos had lost interest in her.

Not this guy, clearly.

‘Listen, I’m sorry, but I’m just out for a walk, okay? I’d really appreciate it if you left me alone.’

She turned to walk away, one hand reaching into her handbag for her mobile phone.

‘Ava,’ he said, almost sing-song.

She stopped, her chest suddenly tight. She hadn't heard that name in years. She turned.

He was smiling: a smile like a blade, sharp and thin.

'Who are you?’

His smile widened like a spreading rip.

'I'm your father.’

***

He couldn't bring himself to turn the key in the ignition. Once he did there was no turning back. He just sat there, staring out the windscreen.

There was a widely-spaced queue of people outside the Post Office at the end of the street. It reminded him of Cuba - endless waiting for basic services. The people in the queue were a spectrum of escalating paranoia - from unprotected to those wearing face masks ending with one woman who was wearing an improvised hazmat suit and ski goggles.

A passerby recognised someone in the queue and stopped to chat. They hugged. He felt his guts clench at the violation, then laughed at himself.

How quickly our social norms can change, he thought. Sociologists will have a field day once the pandemic ends. If it ever does.

Was this 'new normal' here to stay? Would coronavirus become endemic, a fact of life? Did vaccination and antibiotics not represent an end to plagues so much as a brief hiatus?

Shut the fuck up, he told his brain, and started the engine.

Five minutes later and he was on the motorway.

‘STAY HOME. PROTECT THE NHS. SAVE LIVES.’ commanded the road.

He ignored it, sped up. The needle climbed smoothly to 100. He was on an illegal journey; all bets were off. The law no longer applied.

With a jolt he spotted the flashing lights of a police car. He slammed on the brakes. As it approached he realised it was an ambulance. It flashed past, siren blaring, bearing death like a brightly coloured hearse.

'Get a grip,’ he told himself.

He drove on, trying not to think about what he was driving towards.

Help me write what happens next.

Who is driving the car and where is he driving? It will have something to do with Ava at some stage but not yet.

What's the deal with Ava's father? Why doesn't she recognise him? Why is he being so weird and sinister?

What happens next?