by Anna Bell
‘Oh, that is totally real,’ she says, pulling a packet of pasta out of the bag. ‘You really needed to go on a detox, and by putting your phone down the well, you effectively have. I just can’t pretend anymore that this is an organised thing.’
‘But the ritual at the well and the meditation, it all sounded like you knew what you were doing.’
‘The power of the Internet,’ she says winking, ‘but I’m sort of relieved to have told you before we got to the whole self-awareness and mindfulness sessions. I don’t think deep down that’s really you.’
‘It could have been, if we’d gone to a bloody spa instead of this place,’ I say prodding at a wall, a lump of plaster crumbling into my hand. ‘Why are we here?’
‘Because I’ve bought it.’
‘I know you’ve bought this holiday, but I’m quite happy to pay for something else.’
‘No, Daisy, you don’t understand. I’ve bought this place. The whole of it.’
I stare at my sister in shock for a second. She can’t possibly mean she’s bought a farm. What would she want with that?
‘What are you talking about?’ I say, wondering if my lack of phone is clouding my mind from being able to think clearly.
‘I’m talking about a property purchase. I bought the house, the barns, the land – all of it. Ta da!’ she says, doing jazz hands as if that’s going to make it better. On this occasion, it would take the whole cast of Chicago doing jazz hands to make this place look any better.
‘I’m so lost,’ I say, my head spinning. I let her con me into coming here and putting my phone down a well . . . I’m starting to have palpitations.
‘Come and sit down,’ she says, realising that I’m no longer a violent threat, and she leads me into the lounge. She forces me down into one of the rocking chairs and instinctively I start rocking back and forth.
‘It’s a bit dark, can you switch the light on?’ I say, thinking.
‘Much better to use candles,’ she says, bending down to light them again. It looks like we’re about to have some kind of supernatural séance. It might have been fine for the meditation, but now I know that that was all a lie, it feels wrong.
‘It’s a bit creepy,’ I say, thinking that it feels scarier here in the day than at night.
‘Nonsense, it’s totally hygee,’ she says confidently.
‘Hmm, are you sure you’re not just trying to cover up the fact that this place doesn’t have any lights?’ I say, pointing to the ceiling where a bare wire is hanging down from the ceiling in lieu of a light bulb.
‘Maybe – is it working?’ she asks as she sits down.
‘No,’ I say coldly. ‘So do you want to explain to me why you brought me to this place and threw my only lifeline down a well?’
‘OK,’ she says, taking a deep breath. ‘I bought this farm a couple of months ago at an auction. It was a great bargain, I got it for peanuts.’
‘Can’t imagine why,’ I say sarcastically.
She ignores me and carries on.
‘I thought that Rupert and I could turn it into a holiday-cottage business and live up here, as he’s been working so much lately that I’ve barely seen him. I thought this way, if we had another business opportunity, I could tempt him away.’
It’s all starting to make sense now. Why she flinches whenever I mention her husband’s name. ‘I take it he didn’t share your dream?’
‘No, it turned out he was furious,’ she says shaking her head. ‘He thinks I’m totally out of my depth. I’d imagined us coming up here on weekends and painting and fixing away, but what I thought was going to be a fun project, one that was going to bring us closer together, has actually driven us apart.’
I get the impression she’s trying not to cry. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my sister properly upset before; she usually has an emotional fortress around her as strong as the Tower of London, but she seems to have sent the Beefeaters off for the day.
‘So why don’t you sell it and be done with it? Surely your marriage is more important.’
‘That’s what Rupert wants me to do but I can’t. I mean, look at it, it’s got so much potential.’
I raise a sceptical eyebrow.
‘I can’t explain why, but I feel drawn to this place, and I want to convince him that I’m right. I’ve already had builders in to do the roof and some of the plastering, and they totally get my vision.’
‘Probably because you’re paying them. Are you still thinking of moving up here?’
‘No, I don’t think Rupert would come, or at least not for the foreseeable future. He made that abundantly clear. What I want to do is turn it into holiday lets, so he’ll see that it was a wise investment. That’s why I need to get it done quickly. All the while it’s standing here empty it’s not making any money and it’s a failure.’
‘Do you think you’ve been watching too much Homes Under the Hammer while you’ve not been working?’
Rosie laughs. ‘I did watch that a lot in the early days. It’s why I started buying properties. I bought a few terraced houses and “flipped them” as they say in America. You know, bought them as a wreck, got the builders in, then I did the cosmetic bits and pieces and sold them on for a healthy profit. Which is how I ended up with the money for this place.’
Huh. I vaguely remember her saying she was buying a small terraced house to rent out one Christmas, but I never heard anything more about it. And there was me thinking she swanned around after her redundancy being a lady that lunched.
I stop rocking. ‘As great as this all sounds, I still don’t understand what it’s got to do with me. How does my detox fit in?’
‘Well, I’d been planning to come up here and start working on the house, and when I saw what a state you were in and how you didn’t have anything to do after being fired, I thought you could come and help me.’
‘So why didn’t you ask me?’
‘Because I knew you’d say no.’
‘That’s not true,’ I say, lying.
‘Of course it is. I could barely get you to make the two-hour train ride to Manchester where you’d get to stay in our luxury penthouse. Do you think I’d honestly have been able to convince you to willingly come here?’
I purse my lips. She’s right.
‘But helping me aside, I genuinely believe this is the best place for you with everything that’s going on at the moment. It’s perfect for your detox, there’s no mobile signal around here at all.’
‘What?’ I snap. ‘Then why is my phone lying ten metres down the bottom of a well?’
‘So that you’re not tempted to go hiking up the fells to find a signal. Believe me, it’s in the best place. We’ll get it out in a week or two.’
‘How are you going to get it out? I cut the sodding rope and there’s no International Rescue Team to save it like I’d been led to believe.’
And fishing with a stick doesn’t work.
‘Relax, I’ve got a plan.’
‘You and your bloody plans are what got me into this mess in the first place.’
‘Look,’ says Rosie, who’s stopped rocking and is leaning towards me. She grabs my chair and stills it. ‘This hasn’t changed anything. We’re still on a digital detox. You’re still getting away from modern life. It’s just that there’ll be less pretend meditation and more helping to pick out paint colours and curtain samples.’
I gaze around the bare room. ‘I think it’s going to take a bit more than a lick of paint and some curtains.’
‘I know, but it’s all under control,’ she says.
I hate to side with her husband, but I get the impression that this project is far too big for her. A small terraced house is one thing, but a run-down farmhouse and barns is quite another.
‘Rosie, there’s way too much work for the two of us, even if we knew what we were doing.’
‘Ah, well, I’ve got builders coming, and then I’ve got a French help-exchange coming to give us a hand next week too.’
‘A help-exchange?’
‘Yeah, I provide food and somewhere to live and in return they work. She’s called Alexis, seems very polite and formal in her emails.’
‘Um, are you sure that you can class this place as somewhere to live?’
‘I know it’s a dump now, but I’ve got a week to sort out one of the bedrooms so that it looks habitable. You’ll soon see that everything looks a lot worse than it actually is once we get stuck in,’
All the way up here I thought I was the broken one who needed to be fixed, but having listened to my sister, I get the impression that this trip is just as much about her fixing the farm, or, more accurately, her marriage.
It suddenly puts my phone addiction into perspective. Unlike me not being able to snapchat a photo of myself with cat ears to Erica, this is real life-changing stuff for Rosie. And there was me thinking she had the perfect life. For once my sister is the vulnerable one, and having seen a chink in her armour, I’ve realised that she might need me.
I guess a week off from my phone isn’t going to kill me, and it might let the dust settle after my tweet. As Erica kept saying, it will probably all have blown over by then. Meaning that I’ll get my phone back, contact some agencies, and will be sure to have a few interviews lined up for the week after.
‘It’s going to take a hell of a lot of work,’ I say to her, shaking my head.
‘But you’re going to stay and help for a bit, aren’t you?’ she asks, looking at me as if I’m her last hope.
‘Of course I am. I can’t go anywhere until I figure out how to get my phone out of that sodding well.’
Without thinking, Rosie hugs me with relief, and I hug her awkwardly back. I’m reminded of the times that Mum used to force us to hug goodbye when we visited her at uni, and the thought of hugging my sister in public was more embarrassing than the hand-me-downs she forced me to wear.
‘This time next week you’re going to have forgotten all about it. I may have made up that this was a real-life retreat, but I’m still going to take your digital detox very seriously indeed.’
‘Unfortunately, I don’t doubt that for a second.’
Chapter Ten
Time since last phone usage: 24 hours, 8 minutes and 19 seconds
I’m definitely going to have to be more careful what I wish for. First, I wished for sleep and I ended up losing my job, and then I wished for direction in my life and my sister presented me with a DIY project that would have Nick Knowles running for the hills.
‘And with a separating wall here,’ she says, flinging her arms out wide down the centre of the barn, ‘we could turn these two into self-contained lets.’
Since my sister told me the truth about her homestead she’s been animated in a way that I haven’t seen for years. Probably not since she was in her early teens. The sparkle that used to dance in her eyes has taken up residence once again, and she’s positively glowing.
‘But,’ she says shrugging, ‘we need to get the main house done first. I can rent that out and then do this up in the background.’
I follow her back out into the courtyard, turning my back on the well. It’s too painful to think about what lurks at the bottom of it.
It’s been a little over twenty-four hours since I last logged on, and while I haven’t spontaneously combusted, I have felt like I’ve had a limb cut off. I’ve even experienced the phantom-limb effect by imagining my phone vibrating and making noises all day, and most of the time it has nothing to do with the mice.
‘How are you doing?’ asks Rosie, sensing that I’m floundering.
‘OK, I think. I just feel a bit lost. Like now, if I had my phone, I’d be snapping away, taking photos of your project and posting them on Instagram. I really miss taking photos. Not to mention I’ve never gone this long without speaking to Erica before. It’s not right.’
‘Well, why don’t you write her a letter, or a postcard?’
I look at my sister as if she’s really lost the plot this time.
‘A postcard? Are we on holiday in 1985? It’ll take ages to get to her.’
‘We’re in Cumbria, not darkest Peru. If you post it today, she’ll probably get it tomorrow, or Monday at the latest.’
I yelp. I find it bad enough when I have to wait a minute for a WhatsApp reply from her.
‘Why don’t we go to the post office now? I’m sure they’ll sell postcards.’
‘Really? You’ll let me leave the farm?’ I say, as if we’re headed to some vast metropolis and not the sleepy village of Lullamby.
‘Uh-huh. I double checked with the pub earlier and they don’t have WiFi, so there’s nowhere you can sneak off to for your fix.’
My shoulders sink; she knows me better than I thought.
‘At least we’re going out,’ I say, as I bound over to the Land Rover like a dog who’s just been told he’s going for walkies.
Rosie follows me to the car, climbs in, and starts the engine. As we bump down the drive, I can’t see why I had such a problem with the terrain; it doesn’t seem that bad or muddy from up here. The drive to the village only takes a few minutes and Rosie pulls up in a small car park behind the pub.
‘Here we are,’ she says as she hops out.
I step out and peer at the buildings as if we really are in some far and exotic land. The main street is lined with terraced houses, all made up of the same type of brown and grey bricks. It looks completely different under today’s inky sky to how it looked when we drove through yesterday, when the stone looked yellower.
The post office sticks out from the other houses quite literally, with a bright green, latticed bay window poking out into the street, causing the narrow pavement to get even tighter. We push open the door and the bell over the top of it jangles noisily.
I expect to cross the threshold and step back in time, but the inside is surprisingly modern and fresh. There’s a small post-office partition on the left-hand side, and the rest of the space is given over to the shop. Amongst the usual corner-shop staples of tinned goods, bread and magazines, is a large stand selling local produce of delicious-looking cakes and handmade pots of jam and chutney. Behind the counter is an eclectic mix of everything else from warm woolly hats to needles and thread. This really is a general store.
The three people in the shop stop talking as we walk in. They give us a look confirming what we already know –we’re strangers in the village. One of the women, who clearly works there, starts to tidy the display in front of her. Yet, she continues to eye us suspiciously as she does so.
‘This is a bit awkward,’ I hiss at Rosie.
‘Well, you wanted to get out. Afternoon,’ says my sister to the shop women with a jolly lilt to her voice.
‘Afternoon,’ echoes the woman standing behind the counter, and the three of them go back to their conversation, albeit in more hushed tones than before.
‘Ah, there you go,’ says Rosie, locating a swivelling rack of postcards that all essentially offer the same scene – a sheep or a cow in front of a big hill. She pushes me in that direction before she heads over to look at the cakes.
I pick a few postcards at random before spotting writing stationery. If Rosie is really serious about me digitally detoxing, then maybe I could go proper old-school and write Erica a letter too. Although, what I’d fill a whole piece of paper with I don’t know.
I find a pretty writing pad with matching envelopes, and some gel pens. I reconvene with Rosie at the counter, who, much to my delight, has selected a big fat chocolate cake, some cookies, and some lovely bright pink raspberry jam.
The other customer, who had clearly come in as much for a gossip as the loaf of bread tucked under her arm, says her goodbyes and leaves as Rosie and I spread our goods onto the counter.
‘Did you have a good ratch about at the back?’ asks the women as she rings the items through the till. ‘We’re just in the middle of a sort out.’
‘Um . . .’ I say, unsure.
‘Yes, we found everything
,’ says Rosie.
Get her, knowing the lingo. She’s practically one of the locals already.
‘That’s good. Got quite the correspondence planned, have you? Got a man to write some love letters to?’
I blush as my shopping is perused.
‘No, just a friend,’ I say, suddenly wishing for the anonymity of Tesco.
‘Oh, but lovely paper all the same. Terribly popular. Although, not that many people write these days. Awful shame that is. But, luckily for Gerry here, everyone’s selling things on eBay and sending back stuff they’ve bought on the Internet. Keeps her in a job,’ the woman says laughing.
‘Last post goes at four,’ says Gerry, chipping in and pointing sternly at the clock, which says that it’s ten to. I nod, thinking I’d better get scribbling.
‘Now, this is a good choice in jam,’ continues the woman as she picks it up. ‘Goes best with those crumpets from Mill House farm. Those ones there on the end of the shelf,’ she says pointing.
Rosie hesitates for a second before she goes over and picks up a packet, as if that was what was being asked of her.
‘That’s better. Proper supper that is. So you two up for a holiday, then?’
‘Actually, my sister’s bought a place up here,’ I say quickly, catching a look of annoyance on Rosie’s face. Perhaps she was trying to keep that quiet.
‘Oh, have you? What place have you bought? Where’s been for sale, Gerry?’
‘I don’t know, Liz. Mr Tompkins’s place was sold, but that couple from Lazonby bought that. What about the Smiths’ house?’
‘No, they took it back off the market in the end. I think he was threatened with redundancy and thought better of it.’
‘His job at the garage?’ asks Gerry, carrying on as if we’re not even there. You wouldn’t get this kind of conversation in the M&S Food Hall in Dulwich.
‘That’s right. Got taken over by some big firm. Where did you say the house was?’
‘It’s Upper Gables Farm, off the old road,’ says Rosie.
‘Oh,’ say the women together. They’re silent for a moment as they consider it.