It’s almost two weeks ago and we’re sitting on the terrace having breakfast in Siem Reap when one of us gets a text message from work.
“It says if I have been travelling overseas, when I return I can’t go into the office and have to work from home.”
We all fall about laughing. But you’re not sick! We say. You don’t have the virus. That’s crazy!
People be freaking out, I think. We scroll on our phones over breakfast watching people in Australia brawl over loo paper.
“Someone got tasered! There are armed security guarding toilet paper!”
We laugh and shake our heads.
Then my cleaner messages me. I have Airbnb guests at my place in the country this weekend but there’s no toilet paper anywhere in town. She sends me a photo of empty shelves.
Suddenly I’m not laughing so much. The virus has barely touched the sides in Australia, and already people are panicking. I’m panicking. Do I have serviettes they can use? Paper towels? Back issues of the New Yorker?
After Cambodia I am due to fly to Sydney, to attend the Sydney writers’ festival launch party and a 40th birthday. I arrange to work from both the Guardian’s office and an office in Martin Place with a friend.
Before I fly in from Cambodia, I get a message from another friend I’m staying with in Sydney, saying that yeah sure it’s still totally fine that I stay with her … she just needs to “get advice”.
That’s weird. Get advice? What sort of advice?
The penny drops. I don’t have it! I don’t have the virus!! I would know! I can stay, I’m not sick!
My boss gets in touch. Can I please avoid the Guardian offices in Melbourne and Sydney for two weeks?
I don’t have it! I don’t have it! I feel great! My immune system has been stressed and strengthened over the years by years of unsanitary behaviour. Like, if a chip falls on the floor, I will still eat it.
Another friend in Sydney sends me an updated NSW Health advisory as I’m about to get on the plane.
“You need to go into quarantine!” she says.
I don’t have it! I’m not sick!
I read the advisory more closely. It says travellers returning from Cambodia and Thailand are not required to socially isolate but to socially distance.
Socially distance? What the hell is that?
I cancel all my Sydney commitments and return to my house in the country (with toilet rolls purchased in Cambodia) and prepare for two weeks of social distancing – which means refraining from attending crowds and mass gatherings, keeping a distance of 1.5 metres between people, avoiding shaking hands, hugging and kissing and staying away from elderly and sick people.
Sometimes I wonder why, as a very urban, extroverted person, I bought a house in the country on a dirt road, backing on to a forest with only three or four other houses in the street.
But under social distancing guidelines my purchase is coming into its own. I must have been psychic! This house is the perfect quarantine station.
Day one is a novelty. I sleep in and write from bed. I tweet. I read obsessively about the coronavirus. I set up a home gym and do laps at 2.30pm around a deserted oval while listening to podcasts about the virus (my usual yoga class and going to the gym is out).
On the second day, the postman comes bearing an enormous box of wellness supplements to be trialled for a magazine story I’m writing. I can just sit here, in the country, in my isolation with Cambodian toilet paper and survive off hundreds of dollars of expensive, celebrity endorsed supplements – and spend my days refreshing Twitter.
Social distancing is fast beginning to lose its appeal.
Later I try to cycle into town but my bike tyre is flat. It has a puncture. I can’t even wheel it down the driveway. It’s like “the universe” is a co-conspirator in my social distancing.
I walk into town and go to the supermarket after dark. It’s pretty empty. I buy some food and manage to find it on a high shelf – an elusive four-pack of two-ply homebrand toilet paper.
The following day, my elderly neighbour drops in. Bob is nearly 90 and it’s not unusual for him to chill with me for two or three hours and complain about the state of my garden. Once when I was away, he chopped down two trees that were actually noxious weeds.
“Where have you been?” he asks. “You’ve been away so long I thought you got married in Thailand.”
I tell him that I didn’t get married in Thailand, that I am now back – but due to government health warnings I need to socially distance myself because I have travelled to Thailand and Cambodia.
“You need to stay at least a metre away from me,” I tell him hiding behind the door frame.
Bob jumps back. He looks quite freaked out. “I can tell just by looking at you that you’re sick! You’re all red in the face.”
Am I?
I touch my face then remember I shouldn’t touch my face.
“I’m not sick. I’m just being careful. It’s called social distancing.”
Bob looks at the puncture in my tyre and says that he better not see me riding round town because, “You’re under community surveillance now. I don’t want you bringing the disease to these good people around here.”
Bob doesn’t stick around. He tells me that I have his number: “Call me if you’re about to die.”
I go inside and look in the mirror. My face is not red. It’s tanned. I’ve got a tan! I Google “red face” and coronavirus. Is it a symptom?
Dodging Bob, I leave the house to have coffee with a friend. For the last three years Brad has been teaching me how to drive. Every time we meet, we have a mini driving lesson. That is not on the cards today as the front seats in his car are not 1.5 metres apart.
Now I go on a run (the faster I move, the less time there is to expose myself to people) to meet Brad. We sit 1.5 metres apart, on an outside table so any germs I may have can air dry.
Brad tells me he thought twice about seeing me – and by meeting he was taking a risk. I tell him I’m not sick and do not have the virus.
“I am taking these supplements and I ran here! I’m OBSCENELY HEALTHY!”
Brad also tells me about the toilet paper situation in town. “I bought some because I needed some. And I noticed everyone else in the line for the checkout also had toilet paper.” Brad said the vibe was a bit shifty, because there had been so much media about toilet paper hoarding.
“Then I noticed there was a row of people standing outside the checkouts looking at all of us buying toilet paper!”
We murmur about how crazy the world is right now.
Brad goes to pay for the coffees. I slide over $4. He looks at my money like it might be contaminated.
“For godsakes, I don’t have it!!!”
• Brigid Delaney is a Guardian Australia columnist
