by Twenty years ago today I was recovering from a nosedive brought on by recurrent panic attacks. In late June I was basically fine, but by mid-July I was plummeting at a thousand feet per second. But by now the drugs had started kicking in, and in an attempt to clamber out of the pit I’d fallen into, I was working nights at a sorting office. Dad picked me up every morning at four; I’m eternally grateful for what he did. In a few weeks I’d be starting my final year of university. (It looked for a while that I’d have to delay it. I just couldn’t function.) We couldn’t get Kylie’s latest hit out of our heads. So at half-two on a Tuesday afternoon I was at home with Dad, who was working in the studio. Then the phone rang. I picked it up. It was my grandmother, telling me to switch on the TV. I did, and told Dad he needed to watch it. For a few minutes we thought it might have been an accident. And then we saw the second plane hit. It seems that almost every American old enough to remember can remember where they were.
Staggering but true: neither of the two women’s US Open finalists was even born when 9/11 happened. They’ve both come utterly out of nowhere, in particular 150th-ranked Emma Răducanu who qualified and has therefore won nine straight matches to reach the final, without dropping a set. Răducanu (born 13/11/02) has a Chinese mother and a Romanian father (hence her name), was born in Canada but moved to London when she was two, and now plays for Britain. And there I was thinking I was a mongrel. Her opponent Leylah Fernandez (born 6/9/02), part-Ecuadorian, part-Filipino, and playing for Canada (!), is ranked only 73rd in the world and has gone to three sets in each of her last four matches. Far fewer surprises among the men, where Novak Djoković is one win, 18 mere games, from walk-on-water status. Nobody has won the calendar grand slam since 1969 because it’s damn near impossible to do. For one, Djoković had to overcome the undisputed King of Clay in Paris. Now he’s on the verge of being the undisputed King of Tennis.
Mum and Dad have been busy moving, shifting, lifting. They’re almost there, ready to move into their new house, which is actually reasonably old by NZ standards. If it was up to Dad they wouldn’t be moving at all, but I’m with Mum on this. Their current place seems unmanageably big, with a two-acre garden. If it isn’t too much yet, it soon will be, and right now they still have plenty of emotional energy (how?) for the move and everything that will come after.
If I’m really lucky I might one day see my parents in their new abode. They’ve managed to contain the latest outbreak in NZ, for now at least, and the South Island has remained Covid-free. No such luck in Romania, where they’ve practically given up. Cases are doubling every seven to ten days, and everyone’s going about their normal business in the NZ equivalent of level one-and-a-bit. The NZ opening-up plan is to vet travellers to the country based on rates of disease and vaccination in their home country and any other territories they’ve visited in the previous fortnight. Romania will surely be blacklisted. My idea, assuming the UK is on the green list by then, is to fly to the UK for two weeks before then flying to New Zealand. I’ll need an internet connection in the UK though. It’s hard not to feel some anger at Romanians. A warm, friendly, welcoming bunch of people, but somehow they’re willing to fuck up people’s health and their economy and their kids’ education and the country’s reputation and everything and everybody just because of their flat-earth beliefs.
On Thursday I called my aunt. I was shocked to get through; she hardly ever picks up the phone these days. I was almost as shocked that we had a normal conversation. She mentioned getting an MRI scan for her painful back, and the extreme difficulty of getting medical attention at all in the UK. The collateral non-Covid-related damage caused by the disease is immense.
Last Saturday I went to the film festival in the Summer Garden just across the road. I saw Nowhere Special, a drama based in Belfast and partly produced in Romania, and I didn’t have to pay a penny (or, as they say here, a ban). I won’t give any spoilers here, but it gets a big thumbs up from me. The Belfast accent isn’t the easiest to get right but James Norton certainly pulled it off.
It’s another glorious day here. I’ll be playing tennis a bit later.
