It Started With A Tweet

by Anna Bell

  ‘Didn’t I? I just remember you whining all the time.’

  ‘And I just remember you shouting all the time.’

  ‘Huh, I don’t remember that at all.’ She shrugs. ‘At least you’re not such a whiner now. I thought you would have been whinging all day long about the lack of phone. I’ve been impressed.’

  ‘See. I told you I could do it.’

  I’m not going to tell her that I’ve already been out twice in search of the Internet.

  Rosie doesn’t even attempt to resurrect the cubicle; we’ll have to take our chances with the dry shampoo in the meantime.

  ‘Now that I know you’re safe, I’d better get back to the sanding. The plumber’s coming first thing tomorrow.’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t need help? I don’t have a whole lot else to do.’

  ‘Why don’t you go for a walk? You could catch Alexis up?’

  I stutter a laugh. He must have been gone at least an hour by now.

  ‘Um, no, I might just have a stroll around the farm, take some photos. Then maybe I can get them developed to send to Erica next week.’

  ‘That’s a nice idea. While you’re there, will you check the post?’ she asks, handing me the keys. ‘I’m waiting on some paperwork from the land registry and I don’t want it getting all damp in the box.’

  She marches back off to the house and I set off, scraping my hair into a messy bun as I go.

  It’s so much more enjoyable walking in shoes that keep me upright naturally, rather than mimicking walking on an ice rink. I can’t believe I didn’t think to wear my trainers before. I wonder if I could make that walk to the village in them.

  Now that I’m not cursing the mud, I can appreciate the views as I walk. I’m enjoying the quietness of the surroundings when a sheep baas, scaring the living daylights out of me.

  I look around to make sure no one’s watching and I hop over the wall. I position myself between two sheep and, planting a silly smile on my face, I take a selfie. I spin the camera round and sigh before remembering it’s not digital, and I wonder if I should take some more just in case.

  ‘You all right there?’ says a voice.

  I look up and see an old man who’s presumably the farmer.

  ‘Oh, yes, perfectly fine,’ I say, pretending that it’s normal to be squatted down in a field next to a sheep with a camera held far out in the air. ‘I wanted to take a photo of myself with the sheep,’ I say tailing off in embarrassment.

  ‘I’ll take it,’ he says, marching over and grabbing the camera. ‘Say cheese,’ he says, smiling and raising his eyebrows, which are bushy like caterpillars, and it causes me to laugh.

  ‘Thank you, that’s very kind of you.’

  ‘No problem. I hear that you’re our new neighbour.’

  He’s giving me the exact same look of suspicion that Gerry and Liz gave us in the shop.

  ‘Not so much me; that’s my sister. I’m just here temporarily.’

  ‘That’s a shame,’ he says with a twinkle in his eye, sounding a little bit flirtatious. ‘I live over there.’

  He points across the main road at a white-painted cottage halfway up a hill.

  ‘If you need owt, come and see me, I’ll sort you.’ He gives me a wink and leaves me in no doubt that his other comment was flirtatious. ‘You’re lucky with the weather. Blue skies,’ he says very chuffed, despite the fact that really you’d expect it at this time of year. ‘I must be going, though, I’m bidding on a hay bayler on eBay and it’s ending in twenty minutes so I’ve gotta get back.’

  ‘Did you say eBay? You’ve got Internet?’ I say, scouring the landscape for telephone poles.

  ‘Oh aye, I’ve got broadband,’ he says in a voice as proud as mine was earlier, when I was inspecting my wallpaper stripping. ‘Downloads my videos ever so fast.’

  I’m too jealous to be curious as to what type of videos he’s downloading.

  ‘I’ll see you around. Pop in for a brew, if you’re passing,’ he says, like he lives right off the main road and not what looks like a twenty-minute hike up a steep hill. Two minutes ago I would have politely smiled, but that was before he muttered the magic word: broadband.

  ‘I might just do that.’

  I look as if I’ve made his day and he goes bounding off across the field.

  I climb back over the fence as best I can and I reach the end of the lane. If only I’d picked up my bag, I could have totally made it to the village.

  I sigh and turn on my heels, thinking I’ll head back to the farm to take photos, when I catch the mailbox out of the corner of my eye and remember what Rosie said about checking it.

  I try not to look at Jack’s box and cringe at the note I put in there a couple of days ago. He didn’t mention it when I saw him this morning, but then again, me being naked meant that he didn’t really mention a lot.

  I turn the key in the lock and realise that Rosie’s got quite a bit of mail, including a big brown envelope which might just be what she’s after. I pick it all up without really paying much attention, until I see a bright pink piece of paper that has a note to me on it.

  DAISY,

  I DIDN’T MIND RESCUING YOU ONCE – FIRST TIME IS FREE, SECOND TIME I CHARGE. JUST BE THANKFUL THAT IT WAS ME AND NOT RODNEY WHO FOUND YOU – THAT WHOLE BUM THING WOULD HAVE TURNED OUT VERY DIFFERENTLY. HAVE YOU MET HIM YET? OLD FELLOW, FLAT CAP, DROOLS A LOT AT WOMEN (AND COWS WITH GLOSSY COATS).

  ANYWAY, IT’S ME WHO SHOULD BE APOLOGISING ABOUT WALKING IN ON YOU WHEN YOU WERE HANGING OUT NAKED IN YOUR BARN. BUSTER ISN’T REALLY A PERVY DOG, HE JUST HAS A THING FOR PIGEONS AND WHEN HE SAW THE BARN HE MADE A BEELINE FOR IT. I WAS COMING OVER TO THANK YOU FOR THE NOTE, AS THIS WHOLE WRITING THING (AS YOU CAN TELL BY THE MESS I’M MAKING) ISN’T ME. PLEASE KNOW THAT I DIDN’T SEE ANY OF YOU OR YOUR GIANT BUM. I KNOW I SHOULDN’T JOKE ABOUT THINGS LIKE THAT AS WOMEN CAN BE SENSITIVE ABOUT THAT STUFF, BUT YOU ACTUALLY HAVE A NORMAL-SIZED BUM (NOT THAT I’VE BEEN LOOKING, BUT FROM WHEN I GRABBED IT.) AND, YES, I KNOW I’M DIGGING THE HOLE DEEPER. SEE, PROOF THAT I’M PRETTY CRAP AT THIS WRITING THING.

  I’LL PROBABLY SEE YOU AROUND.

  JACK.

  P.S. HAVE GOOGLED PRICE IS RIGHT AND TO PUT YOU OUT OF YOUR MISERY IT’S NOT DES O’CONNOR

  I flip the paper over and see that it’s a flyer for a local barn dance, and I picture him here picking up his post not long ago, hastily scribbling it in his block capitals.

  I can’t believe he’s left me hanging about The Price is Right though.

  I’m smiling as I walk back down to the farm and I make sure that I hide the note in my pocket so that Rosie doesn’t see it. She reminded me far too much of Mum the other day, with her eyebrow twitching at my walk with Jack, and, no doubt, she’d be matchmaking the instant she found out about the notes. I’d much rather keep this to myself, and if she wants to direct her matchmaking attention to me, Alexis is a much better candidate; so easy on the eye.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Time since last Internet usage: 5 days, 3 hours, 10 minutes and 58 seconds

  ‘I haven’t forgotten you,’ I say almost in a whisper to my phone, but it still echoes noisily around the shaft of the well. ‘I’m still working on a plan to get you out.’

  I look down to where the light disappears and imagine my phone being all alone at the bottom. The poor thing. It’s been down there five whole days now. Five.

  I think back to my earlier conversation with Rodney and wonder if I could pop over to his farm. I know he was a little amorous for his age, and Jack may have warned me about him in his note, but I’m sure he can’t be that bad. I mean, I only want to check my emails for a few minutes, I’d even forgo checking Twitter as long as I could satisfy my curiosity that my boss hasn’t come to her senses and rehired me.

  I know that I could go and ask Jack, even a dial-up connection is better than no connection, but I wouldn’t want him to think I’m stalking him after the note writing.

  It’s also not even the fact that I want t
o check anything, it’s that I miss having something to do. The thought of another evening stretching out in front of me is daunting; they’re definitely the worst. During the day I can at least kid myself that I’m busy with the house renovation; after all, I was used to not being able to monitor my phone when I was at work. But in the evenings, there was nothing to come between me and my blossoming relationship with my iPhone. Here, the only thing I have to look forward to is sitting around on uncomfortable chairs either under a harsh bright light, now that Rosie’s hung a single bulb from the ceiling in the lounge, or by candlelight, which is a bit weird now that Alexis has joined us. And I have to make conversation with Rosie, of course. Although it’s getting easier, we’re still a long way from being bosom buddies.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Alexis’s sing-song tones carry across the courtyard and I try not to bang my head on the well roof as I stand back upright.

  ‘You look like you are going to jump down it.’

  He’s wrinkling his forehead in confusion, which he does a lot. It’s mostly reserved for when he’s trying to understand what Rosie and I are talking about, either if we’re talking too quickly for him to keep up, or if we’re using words that don’t make any sense.

  ‘No, no, just making a wish,’ I say, shrugging my shoulders.

  I’m met with more brow wrinkles.

  ‘Um, it’s tradition that you make a wish in a well – that’s why they’re sometimes called wishing wells. You know, like when you throw a coin into a fountain.’

  ‘Ah,’ he says nodding, the brow unfurrowing. ‘You threw a coin down there.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ I say pretending. That’s much simpler to explain than what I was actually doing.

  He looks wistfully down the well. ‘Any time I make a wish, I wish that my dad was still alive,’ he says, closing his eyes for a second.

  ‘Your dad died? Mine too,’ I say. ‘How old were you?’

  ‘I was fifteen, and you?’

  ‘I was only four, but fifteen, that must have been so hard. You would have known him so well.’

  In some ways, I’m jealous that he has more than the few fleeting memories that I have of my own, but in other ways, I can’t imagine the pain of loss that comes from losing a parent when you’re old enough to understand it fully.

  ‘It was, but my older brother is very good, very like my father.’

  ‘And your sisters, they’re a help too?’

  ‘Um, yes, yes, my sisters. But I don’t speak of it too often. Painful.’

  I rub Alexis’s arm as I watch him blink back a tear.

  We stand there looking into the emptiness of the well, silent for a few minutes, presumably both thinking of our dads.

  ‘How was your walk?’ I ask, thinking it best to change the subject.

  ‘It was good,’ he says. ‘How do you say – enlightening.’

  ‘Good. Perhaps I should go on one.’

  ‘Not now, it looks like it is going to rain,’ he says, pointing up to a dark cloud rising over the hill.

  FFS. This bloody weather. I’ll have to go and see Rodney another day.

  Alexis starts to kick his boots noisily against the barn wall to shake off the loose mud. He’d better be careful; I’m worried that it might fall down.

  ‘You want to play cards?’ he asks as he turns to walk to the farmhouse. Any hint of grief having disappeared. ‘I am an expert at poker.’

  My interest is piqued. Poker with sexy Alexis: I know what type of poker could make that more interesting.

  ‘Absolutely, I’m a bit of a shark too.’

  ‘A shark?’

  ‘Oh, a card shark, it’s an expression . . . I’ll be there in a second and I’ll whip your butt.’

  ‘You’ll whip me?’ his face lights up and I close my eyes. I forget how confusing the English language is.

  I choose my words carefully so that I don’t insinuate any more BDSM habits. ‘I meant, I’m going to win.’

  ‘No chance,’ he says.

  He turns and walks away and I follow him. At least now I’ve got poker to look forward to. I play a lot on my iPhone, so I’m sure that it’s no different in person.

  Alexis sits down at the kitchen table and fills Rosie in on his walk while she stirs the casserole in the slow cooker.

  ‘You’re just in time,’ says Rosie, as she starts to spoon out ladles of food onto plates.

  ‘Great.’

  I head over to take the plates and give one to Alexis before sitting down myself at the table.

  For a moment, the three of us are silent as we devour our food. All this fresh air and hard work is a powerful combination that results in extreme hunger most days. We practically inhaled the homemade cake during our coffee break this morning.

  ‘Well, that was really good,’ I say as I polish off the last dregs on my plate.

  ‘Thanks. I even impressed myself. So, Alexis, you missed all the excitement here earlier,’ she says, raising an eyebrow in his direction. ‘Daisy was having a shower and Jack’s dog came running in and knocked the cubicle over.’

  ‘Mon Dieu, my shower is broken?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. It’s back to the drawing board on that one.’

  She stands up and goes over to the slow cooker. ‘Anyone want any more?’

  Alexis nods and holds his plate up and she spoons on another ladle full.

  ‘I’m fine, by the way,’ I say, smiling that he was only concerned about his handiwork.

  ‘I can see that already.’ He gives me a wink and I smile, satisfied at the attention.

  ‘Poor old Jack, he practically ran off in embarrassment,’ says Rosie, laughing.

  ‘Jack was there too? When you were in the shower?’

  I can’t tell whether his brow is furrowing again in confusion or whether there’s a flicker of annoyance there now too. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking on my part that he’s the tiniest bit jealous.

  ‘He wasn’t in the shower with me,’ I say for clarification. ‘He came to retrieve Buster and he arrived just as the curtain went down.’

  ‘And he saw you naked?’ he smirks in the way that only a man could.

  ‘I’d bent down to shield myself from the falling poles, so I don’t think he could get a good view. Can we stop talking about this,’ I say, my cheeks colouring at all this talk of me with no clothes on. Trust Rosie to want to embarrass me by telling it.

  ‘What about the plan for tomorrow,’ asks Alexis, ‘what will we do while the plumber is in the bathroom?’

  I’m desperately hoping that Rosie says we can take a day off. I could do with hitting the shops. I’m starting to covet hiking boots like I used to Louboutins.

  ‘I thought we could start stripping some wallpaper in the upstairs bedrooms, before the carpenter comes to install the windows next week. Once that’s done, we’ll be able to the get the plasterer in there.’

  Alexis nods his head thoughtfully. He puts his knife and fork down onto the plate before standing up and putting it in the sink and starting on the washing-up. Luckily, as dinner was prepared in the slow cooker, there’s very little to do. So I stand up to give him a hand drying.

  ‘So, Alexis suggested that we play cards tonight,’ I say to Rosie.

  ‘Great idea. Do you have any with you?’

  Alexis shakes his head. ‘I just assumed . . .’

  I sigh, another boring evening to look forward to, then. Maybe I can use it as a way to get to know Alexis better; Rosie could have an early night, I could blow the bulb in the lounge, forcing me and him to sit in candlelight . . .

  ‘I think in that case I’m going to go out,’ he says, ruining my fantasies.

  ‘Out? Are you going for another hike?’

  I shudder at the thought. I couldn’t stand up right in the day when I could see, let alone in the dark. I know he likes to go on sunrise walks so maybe he likes to go on starlit ones too.

  ‘No, I am going to the pub,’ he says matter-of-factly.
<
br />   ‘Ah,’ I say nodding. That makes a whole lot more sense. I wait for him to invite Rosie and me but the invitation is not forthcoming.

  He puts the last of the washed plates on the draining board and drains the water before patting his wet hands on his jeans.

  ‘Now, I get ready,’ he says, giving us a smile and walking upstairs.

  ‘I quite fancy going to the pub,’ I say, flipping the kettle on instead.

  ‘Me too, although I think at the moment it’s better for you to stay here. Too much temptation.’

  I’m not entirely sure if she means me with all those people with mobiles, or drinking with Alexis.

  I pull two mugs off the decrepit mug tree and start to make Rosie and myself a cup of tea.

  ‘It would have been nice to have been asked, though,’ I say a little sulkily. I mean, one minute we were playing cards, the next he’s off.

  ‘Oh well, he’s young, free and single, isn’t he? He probably wants to go and sow some wild oats.’

  ‘I’m young, free and single too,’ I say in protest.

  ‘Hmm, yes, I guess you are. Perhaps you could sow your wild oats next week. That way it won’t seem like we’re gate-crashing his evening. Don’t forget, he’s been with us for three days now, and for most of that we’ve been holed up in a bathroom boring him to death with our chattering.’

  ‘Come on, our conversation was scintillating, and I’m sure we were helping with his English.’

  ‘We spent most of the time talking about EastEnders and TOWIE; I’m not entirely sure it’s widening his vocabulary that much.’

  ‘Come on, we taught him what “Well jel” and “vajazzled” mean.’ I can still picture his face as Rosie mentioned the diamantes.

  ‘But do you think it’s safe for him to walk on his own down the dark country lane? I could –’

  ‘He’ll be fine. We bought some head torches in B&Q the other day.’

  He walks back down the stairs in a fresh checked shirt and even skinnier jeans than the ones he was in before. He slings a leather jacket on and I actually have to stop myself from swooning.

  ‘Bonne soirée.’