At least, now that Johnson himself has gone down with it, Conservatives have stopped downplaying Covid-19 and recognised that it is ten times as deadly as flu. For the first time in the right-wing press, the disease has acquired a heroic dimension. Can’t think why, but for some reason it’s no longer a disease for losers. Suddenly Covid is for men – in particular, blond white men – who have extraordinary resources of character with which to fight. Our prime minister turns out to be one of these. Although he will later pay due tribute to the very nurses whose pay rise he opposed three years previously, Johnson will also remember to tip his hat to his own ‘natural buoyancy and refusal to give in’.

Gosh, how I wish I had Johnson’s character. I’ve been foolishly assuming that my own survival would be down to a mixture of good luck, the care of my wife, and the expertise of my wonderful GP. My character, thank God, doesn’t come into it.

*

By the fifteenth day, much to Nicole’s alarm, I’ve lost six kilos in ten days. I’ve got the voice of an old man and the body of a Bosnian prisoner of war.

But then, for no obvious reason, Day 16 is different. I’ll never know why.

April 6th 2020 was always going to be a date of special significance. All right, I’ll tell you: it’s the fiftieth anniversary of my first full-length play premiering at Hampstead Theatre. In other words, today I’ve been a playwright for fifty years. Because this is an anniversary which only I had noticed, celebrations were always going to be muted – I haven’t heard of street parties – and in the circumstances they’re non-existent.

And yet April 6th is also the day – inexplicable and unexplained – when I stop being ill.

I wake up and say to Nicole that I quite fancy a croissant. I might as well have come out of a coma, to judge by her reaction. ‘Are you having one of your delusions?’ ‘No, I really do want a croissant.’ ‘But you haven’t wanted anything for a week.’ ‘No, but I would quite like a croissant.’

I look round. I smell the air. It doesn’t smell of sewage.

When later I speak to my friend Howard Brenton, who has also had it, he says that the disease departs ‘like a demon leaving your body’.

You see? Medieval, again.

*