by Daniel Hurst
“Oh no,” I say, reaching for my mobile phone to check if mine failed to charge to as well. But when I do, I see that the charging cable isn’t plugged into the bottom of it. I could have sworn I put it in before I went to sleep, but I must have forgotten. I had a bad habit of doing that back in my drinking days and waking up in the morning to 1% battery life. Now it seems I’ve done it again. My phone is almost dead, although, by the sounds of it, it wouldn’t have made a difference because the power is out in the house anyway.
“Do we know what caused it?” I ask, not wanting to press any more buttons on my mobile until I really have to in case it dies on me. I had been hoping to see the confirmation of the contract coming through on my email this morning from Papier Projects. Even though I had told Sally that I was going to think about it, I was expecting her to try and entice me with the paperwork before I got back to her. But I won’t be able to see anything if my phone is dead. At least we have the laptop, although Craig is currently using that right now.
“No idea,” he replies. “Without the internet I can’t find the number for the electric people and find out what’s going on.”
“I think we have a paper bill from them somewhere,” I reply, pulling back the duvet and going to get out of the bed.
“It’s not much good if we don’t have a phone to call them on,” he says, and I pause because he is right. Without our mobiles, we are pretty much cut off from the outside world. We never did get around to installing a landline connection in the house. It’s the year 2020. Who even has a landline anymore?
“I managed to fire off an email to work before my phone died,” Craig says as his finger glides across the laptop’s mousepad. “I told them that I wouldn’t be in today. I never take a sick day, so they won’t question it.”
It’s true, Craig is never ill. Not that I would wish sickness on him, but I had sometimes found myself hoping he might get a mild cough or a sniffle and take the day off if only to spend some extra time with me so I’m not on my own so much. But it’s selfish to think like that, and I know it would take a lot to stop him going in. He’s the manager after all. He runs the show, which makes it strange for him to not go in today, especially over something as minor as a power cut.
“You could still go in?” I suggest, not because I want him to but because I know he might be feeling moody about the fact that his day has been messed up by bad luck. He was grumpy enough last night. I don’t want him to be even worse today.
“And leave you here alone, cut off from the world? No chance,” he says, and he turns and smiles at me, which at least tells me that he isn’t mad about the situation.
“That’s okay. I manage by myself most of the time anyway.”
“Yeah, but that’s because you have the internet and the TV, never mind your phone. It would be a hell of a long day being here by yourself without any of those things.”
That’s true, I think to myself. What would I do here all day without electricity? Dig out a pack of cards and play Solitaire? Find a needle and thread and start knitting? Stare at the walls and start talking to myself? The thought of a day without online shopping, emails and reality television is terrifying, so I stop thinking about it.
“Surely the power will come back on soon,” I say, although I’m basing that on my zero years spent working in the electrical industry.
“I hope so,” Craig replies, his eyes still fixed on the laptop screen.
“What are you doing on there?” I ask him, shuffling across the bed to be closer to him and snuggling in by his side.
“Checking if I saved any of my work files on this laptop. I thought I had. Nothing confidential, mind, but a few policy documents that I could at least look at today until the power comes back on.”
I watch him clicking through various files on the laptop, all the while aware that the battery is being drained on what is the last piece of technology that is working in our home right now.
“If you need to go in love, then go. I’ll be fine on my own.”
“That’s not what you said the other day,” he replies, and I realise then that he is still salty about my admission that I wanted to go back to work.
“I said I was bored, but I didn’t mean I was tearing my hair out.”
“Maybe not, but that was when the house had power. If you thought it was bad before, what would you think of it now?”
“Craig, I don’t think anything is bad. You don’t understand. I didn’t apply for that job because I hate being here. I just want to get out and maybe meet some new people for a change.”
“Aha! Here we go!”
Craig suddenly pulls back the duvet and gets out of bed, carrying the laptop to the doorway.
“I’ve found something I can be getting on with. At least until the battery on this thing dies. I’ll be downstairs. See you in a little while.”
Then he leaves me, and I’m not exactly sure what just happened. I didn’t get to discuss things with him properly just then. I didn’t get to mention the fact that I have been offered a job and that I want to go for it.
And most of all, I didn’t get to ask him why he came home with blood on his shirt last night.
33
CRAIG
I put the laptop down as soon as I get downstairs. Now I can get on with what I really need to do. I’ve only been using it to drain the battery, and now that it’s almost gone, I can leave it be. With the laptop soon to be dead, along with our mobile phones, then there will be no way for Megan to make contact with the outside world.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with the electricity. I just flicked a switch in the fuse box in the garage while Megan was asleep, knocking all the power off and sending life in this house back to the dark ages. No television. No internet. No power to charge a mobile phone or laptop.
I had waited for Megan to fall asleep last night so that I could start putting my plan into action. It hadn’t taken long either thanks to all the alcohol she had consumed with Sally. She was out like a light not long after I had got out of the shower, and then I had been free to sneak around and start disconnecting everything.
After turning off one of the switches that provides the power to our home in the remote countryside, I had gone back upstairs and picked up my wife’s phone from where it lay on the bedside table beside her sleeping head. She had plugged the charger in, but it wasn’t going to be much use to her now. She had 5% battery on her device which should be almost gone by now, and with it, her only chance of contacting anybody outside this house.
With the laptop battery dwindling behind me, I walk into the garage. But I’m not going in here to make another check on the grey panel on the wall that houses the fuse box. That has already been locked, and the key is in my back pocket. Instead, I am going to start getting Megan’s new room ready.
Moving an old box aside, I locate the folded camp bed that I bought as a backup in case we ever had several guests staying over at once and needed an extra place for one of them to sleep. At least that’s what I had told Megan at the time. In reality, I had bought it for the time when she would be moving out of our bedroom and into our garage.
As I open up the camp bed so that it stands on the hard concrete floor, I am aware that this bed will be nowhere near as comfortable for my wife as the bed she currently shares with me. But it is brand new, and I did spend £80 on it, so it’s not as if it’s lumpy or full of broken springs or anything.
It could be worse. I could be making her sleep on the floor.
Then she really would be uncomfortable.
Once the bed is set up, I turn to the pile of blankets and sheets that are wrapped in bin liners, spares that we keep in here even though Megan has been on at me to throw them away for years because she thought we didn’t need them.
How wrong she was. It is these very blankets that are going to keep her warm over the next few weeks.
Quickly making up the bed, I’m aware that my wife could walk in behind me at any moment. But I’m almost d
one. Other than the bed, I’ve already got everything else ready in here. Anything that could help her escape has already been removed. All garden items have been moved to the shed outside, so she won’t be able to hack her way through the door with the hedge clippers, or charge at me with them in her hands. I told her I was having a clear-out in here last weekend but, in reality, I was proofing it in case she did decide to go behind my back and attend that interview.
I do want her to have a little freedom so I won’t be tying her up in here, meaning she will be free to at least roam around in between these four walls. But there won’t be much for her to do, and there certainly won’t be anything helpful to get her hands on. All I have left her with is the bed, a bucket, the treadmill, an exercise bench, a set of dumbbells that are too heavy for her to lift and a strategically placed cardboard box. Megan thinks the box contains items that I have accumulated throughout my career in finance. Dour textbooks on economics and user manuals for out-dated software systems. But she is about to find out what they really contain.
More importantly, she is going to find out who I really am.
Happy with how this humble abode is now looking, I head back to the door that will take me into the main house again. As I step into the kitchen, I instantly feel how much warmer it is in here than the room I have just come from. But not to worry. Megan has those blankets. She’ll be fine in the garage.
Too bad if she isn’t.
34
MEGAN
I know it is in here somewhere. I just have to find it.
Aha!
I pull the small silver box out from the bottom of my bedside table, retrieving it from the mess of makeup accessories, eye masks and earplugs that I mainly keep in there. I went through a phase of not being able to fall asleep without a mask and plugs, needing complete darkness and total silence to be able to drop off. But thankfully I have got out of that, although this drawer is still evidence of that strange time.
Pressing the button on the silver box, I’m pleased to see two orange lights turn on. That means that there is still charge in it. If it was fully charged, there would be four lights glowing on this device, but half will do. Without wasting another second, I plug the cable from my phone charger into the silver box and connect it to my phone.
One second later and my phone starts charging.
Result.
It’s not much, but it will mean I have my phone for another hour or so at least, which is better than nothing. Hopefully, the power will have come back on by then, and we can go back to using the plug sockets.
The small portable charger was a gift from my manager in my last job. She gave one out to everybody in the team at Christmas as a thank you for all our hard work over that year. I’m surprised it still works after so much time, but then I haven’t had much need to use it being at home all day, so I suspect that has helped its longevity.
With my phone battery now on life support, I quickly open the app that shows me my emails and check to see if Sally has sent me anything yet about the job offer or even to comment on how much fun last night was. But there is no email from her waiting in my inbox, which is disappointing but not strange. I imagine she is busy and has many people to email about many jobs. I’m sure she’ll get round to me soon enough. But to be polite, I send her a message myself, greeting her with a good morning and a witty comment on the state of my health this morning. Then I press send and put my phone down, not wanting to use it any more than I have to given the perilous state of its battery.
As I do, I notice that one of the orange lights has already gone out on the portable charger, meaning there is now just one single light keeping it going. Soon this charger will be dead too, and then my phone will have nothing to give it a boost. But at least I should be able to get it back up to 10% before that happens.
Leaving my phone to charge on the bedside table, I throw on a dressing gown and head downstairs, my mind switching to the items of food that will be going bad in the fridge now that it isn’t working. By memory, there are two packets of chicken in there, but it’s mainly just some packets of vegetables, so nothing too expensive to replace. But it will all have to be cleared out and thrown away so I might as well get started on that while Craig is busy with the laptop. But then I see the computer sitting unused on the kitchen counter with no sign of my husband anywhere nearby.
“Craig?”
I get no response, so figure he must be in the garage fiddling around with the fuse box again. He’ll be trying to get the power back on, but I wish he wouldn’t mess with that. I’ve told him before; he’ll get himself electrocuted one of these days if he’s not careful. He should leave it to the experts, although they aren’t going to come out if we aren’t able to call them.
I’m just about to put my hand on the garage door handle and push it open when it opens by itself, and I see Craig coming out. He seems surprised to see me and looks a little guilty. He was definitely fiddling with the electrics.
“I was just looking for you.”
“Yeah, I was just having another look at the fuse box to see if I could figure out what was wrong. But no luck.”
“What have I told you about doing that? You shouldn’t be messing with the electrics. You could get hurt.”
“I know, I know,” he says, closing the garage door behind himself. “But it was worth a try. But I can’t see anything wrong at our end which means it must be a blackout in the area, not just us.”
“It could just be us. We are the only ones in the area,” I say sarcastically, making a joke that I like to make every now and again about how remote our home really is.
“You know what I mean. I bet the whole town is down. But I won’t know until I drive in, which I should probably do this morning, just to check.”
“I’ll come with you if you like,” I suggest. “We could get breakfast at the café and maybe have a little walk around the shops.”
“It’s a power cut, not a holiday,” Craig replies, a little curtly. “And I am supposed to be working today.”
“I thought you told them you were sick,” I say, and he looks as if he had temporarily forgotten that.
“Oh right, yeah, I did. But you know me, I am still going to try and do something if I can.”
“Can’t do much without the power,” I say, my stomach rumbling now at the thought of a full English breakfast at the pleasant café in the town. “Come on, let’s go.”
“Okay, but you need to get dressed first,” Craig tells me, and he is right. I can hardly head into town in my dressing gown.
“I’ll be five minutes!” I call to him as I turn and head back out of the kitchen, rushing towards the staircase because I know that the quicker I move, the quicker I will be tucking into my eggs and bacon.
35
CRAIG
Megan is going upstairs to get dressed, which means I have about ten minutes left to finish getting everything ready. There isn’t much more to do, but I want to be thorough.
I want to make sure there is no way she can get out of this garage.
Stepping back inside the room that is about to become my wife’s new home for the foreseeable future, I survey the surroundings. Four concrete walls mean this is basically an enclosed tomb, with the only escape point being the small door leading into the kitchen, which will be locked of course. I had the large garage door removed not long after we moved in, replacing it with a fourth concrete wall to match the three that were already here when we arrived. I had told Megan that it was because I wanted to use this space as a home gym and spare recreational room, instead of just a place to park my car, which meant getting rid of the door would make it more insulated and safer from would-be burglars. Of course, that was never my real intention for this room, and Megan is about to find that out shortly.
Within these four sturdy walls are the camp bed, the bucket which is now her toilet, the box of secretive possessions, and the exercise equipment that has never got much use but will now be one of the few things keepin
g my wife entertained during her time in here. I suspect she won’t be as reluctant to use it when there is nothing else to occupy her time. She might even thank me when she loses a few pounds, although somehow, I think not.
It really does look like a home gym in here, which is the look I was going for, because that way, my wife would never suspect what I was actually planning to use this room for. But with a final check on the room complete, I know it is ready to have its guest move in.
Now all I need to do is get her in here and lock the door behind her.
Heading back into the kitchen, I try to remain calm, doing my best to stop my heart rate going any quicker than it already is. Just because I have planned for this moment for so long doesn’t mean it makes it any easier to go through with it. But it will be over soon, and then I can relax.
I can relax as soon as Megan is in the garage and I am turning the key inside the lock.
36
MEGAN
I throw on a plain t-shirt and an old pair of jogging bottoms, opting for speed and comfort over an outfit that would take more time to put on and make me look like I actually care about my appearance today. I’m not usually this scruffy, but then I’m not usually this hungover either. There is no time to dither. I want my eggs and bacon, and I want them now. But there is time to do one more thing before I rush back downstairs and walk out the front door with Craig.
I check my mobile phone to see if Sally has replied to my email yet.
Refreshing the page on my inbox, I see that there is an email about an upcoming sale at one of my favourite retail outlets but nothing from my new friend at the recruitment agency. I’m disappointed, though not too surprised. It hasn’t been that long since I emailed her, and she is probably snowed under at work. I’m sure she will get back to me soon. There will most likely be an email waiting for me when I return from the café, although whether or not my mobile still has any battery by then is debatable. The portable charger has run out of juice quickly, as I expected it would, so my phone is no longer charging. It has 11% battery which is slightly more than I had predicted it would get up to, though nowhere near enough to get it through the day until the power comes back on, whenever that may be.