Reflecting on their shared time together, it hasn’t all been easy: “I think there’s been more little fights and getting on each other’s nerves here and there because we are around each other so much,” says Carolina. And it hasn’t been easy: in a survey released in July last year by the relationship support organisation Relate, 38 per cent of 16- to 34-year-olds in relationships said they had struggled to support their partner emotionally during lockdown. Fast-forward six months and the couple decided to move in with Erica’s parents for the winter lockdown.

Couples will maybe get a shock to their system after they realise that person isn’t the same, because they probably won’t be exactly the same. Other symbols of the city, like the bolo baos they queue for, promise momentary escape; as Kwok-ying “inhales deeply […] the sweet-tangy smell of burnt pineapple sugar and freshly-baked bread”, we hear that, “something in this is not about disease”. For now, I'm singling out the Kinks one because it's such an original song choice but ask me tomorrow and it'll be a different one! I knew it was meant as a kind of gasp of shock at the end of their plea, a crowning moment of appeal. In Part I, set in Hong Kong and China, forty-something academic John Ryan goes to the local 24/7 McDonalds every day to record events around him.Nifty use of old school samples, tight drums and insistent basslines are the signature moves on this release. Kristal meets Lisette on the last night of her trip to Australia, and the pair share a one-night stand. Kwok-ying is a government health worker who also ends up in the Lamma quarantine centre and who mentions in passing a politician named Carnie Lim in Hong Kong and a leader named Shi in China. However, if you keep an open dialogue with each other, an intense environment with a partner can be a quick way to learn how you both work and can create a stronger partnership. As John traverses the city and feels the splashes of street disinfectant on his bare calves, we’re reminded that for many, it wasn’t the virus itself that left us weakened and exhausted, but the clean-up operation, the nose swabs and restrictions.

In this pandemic-ridden world, this novel reminds us how human contact will never cease to be mankind’s saving grace through the darkest times. O’Sullivan’s multi-perspective narration, incorporating the voices of academics, activists, delusional heiresses, and pangolins, and privileging neither, offers several illuminating angles on the city. Lilydale Films, the Australian production company behind hit teen online series Flunk, has released its latest feature Lockdown Lovers. Ric Forster’s Lockdown Lovers star Kate Mayhew and Stevie McKeon as Kristal and Lisette, two women who share a one-night stand on the last night of the former’s trip to Australia. We see academics and tutors navigating the liminal space of online teaching, some forming new connections and others, cameras off, hiding inside “black boxes”.

Phoebe also thinks about Hong Kong and lockdowns and wonders if there was ever a time when most Hong Kong people weren’t on a type of lockdown. Lockdown Lovers is available to watch on Vimeo OnDemand and will be launching on streaming service Tubi later in the year.

That seems farcical now, but I’m sure we can all remember when half a year was deemed impossible and unnecessary. Please be aware that different computers produce colours differently so colours may look different on your actual print to how they appear on your screen.While people may be social-distancing, the shared experience of the virus offers a new kind of proximity. But O’Sullivan riffs on this newness, and in a refreshing shift of binaries, it no longer just Beijing legislation that has transformed the city into the “dystopian vision”, but the city’s own immune system.

Even as O’Sullivan’s characters lament a lost Hong Kong, he reminds us “how individual one’s view of the future is” and that “we don’t all view it in a single, collective way”. Instead, the stories of Kwok-Ying, Phoebe and John are understated, authentic, and unwaveringly real. I think it takes a year or two, and in lockdown you don’t really know that person in multiple contexts: what they’re like their friends; when they are working in the office; when they are being sociable. The novel reminds us of our undying capacities for contact and closeness even at times of pandemic, when they seem threatened like never before. Producer Melanie Rowland comments: “I think audiences will really connect with this beautiful and heartwarming film.At the same time, John knows he should stay back with Sue and Sam, yet still goes ahead with his trip to Ireland. She received an MPhil in Government and Public Administration from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Phoebe is a twenty-something Hong Kong activist and recently elected local councilor, Kwok-ying is a government health official, and the pangolin is one of the mammals reported as being at the root of the virus.