It Started With A Tweet(39)

I begin to walk up the narrow path, holding the cliff for support, and at first it goes well. I get fairly high fairly quickly and I pull out the phone to check if I’ve got 3G yet.

‘Yes!’ I shout with a little too much gusto, and I feel my foot move and the ground crumble underneath me. I grab at a shrub growing out of the side of the rock face, and as I save myself from falling I drop the phone.

‘Noooooo!’ I shout as I try to grab it, but I can feel myself falling so I cling back onto the rock face.

It lands a metre down the hill in a bush and I sigh with relief that at least it looks intact.

Phew. All I need to do is reach down and grab it.

I bend down and edge forward. It might only be a metre away, but a metre’s a long way when you’re hanging off the side of a rock face. Plus, it seems that the phone has come to rest on the top of a thistly bush, and if I don’t grab it carefully, I risk sending it toppling into the middle of it.

I try to work out my options. I could a) go down the path and try and reach it from below, b) reach down and risk pushing the phone further into the bush, or c) go back to the farmhouse without the phone and pretend none of this ever happened.

I pause for a minute. Option c is looking pretty attractive, and I’m almost tempted until I realise that Rosie’s going to twig if Alexis declares his phone is missing. Alarm bells will ring that I’ve been home alone, coping with my digital addiction, and she’ll instantly point the finger at me.

I take a deep breath and slowly lean over, trying to grab on to a tree root as I do so. I reach my hand out and try to grasp my fingers round the phone, and the tips manage to tickle the touch screen.

‘Just a little bit more,’ I say, wincing as I stretch my limbs into an extreme yoga pose. I’m pretty sure I could see it catching on – the smartphone lunge – as it works all your upper body and your core. My hands finally grasp around the phone, ‘Gotcha!’ I cry, but as I go to pull myself upright, the tree root I’m holding on to bends, throwing me off balance. I tumble sideways and manage to ground myself over a boulder as I cling on with one hand to the prickly bush the phone was in.

I may be hanging off a cliff face, but at least I’ve recovered the phone.

I don’t want to move too much in case I dislodge myself, but a quick peek over my shoulder confirms what I already know: the only way back, other than to fall down the hill, is to climb up. I give it a go but my upper body is still in spasm from the smartphone lunge and I don’t move an inch.

‘Fine pickle you’ve got yourself into, Daisy,’ I say out loud.

I look at the phone, which now appears to have no mobile or Internet coverage. It just says Appels d’urgence, which I’m guessing is the French equivalent of Emergency calls only.

Oh no, nuh-uh. I’m not being that person you hear about on the news who calls the mountain rescue at a cost of thousands. I can imagine the Daily Mail story now: Thousands of taxpayer’s pounds wasted as woman scrambles uphill trying to satisfy smartphone addiction. They’d totally nab my Facebook profile and pad the article out with psychologists reporting on how our digital addiction is killing us. I’d be like one of those stupid people risking their lives to catch bloody Pokémon.

The only trouble is, I’m out of options. If I don’t call the emergency services, then I have no idea how the hell I’m going to get off this sodding hill.





Chapter Thirteen

Time since last Internet usage: 1 day, 21 hours, 1 minute and 11 seconds

I can’t believe that I’m going to be mortified in front of the emergency services again. The last time, they showed up at my flat after I experienced the hottest night of my life. Let’s just say, I was on a date with a professional fire-eater that took an interesting turn when he decided to give me a private show in the bedroom.

Looking back, it was probably no great surprise that my former landlord didn’t give me back my damage deposit. I’m sure those scorch marks were really hard to get off the bedroom ceiling.

The only saving grace in that situation was that I didn’t have to call the emergency services myself; luckily for me, the little old lady from the flat above did that for me. Whereas now I get the double whammy of feeling like an idiot when I call them and when they turn up.

It’s frustrating as I can see the farm from here. If only they could see me. But judging how small it looks on the landscape, I won’t even look like a dot from where they are. Not that I want Rosie to find me when I’ve got Alexis’s phone. I need to get out of here and return it to the kitchen table before he catches me and I look like some sort of stalker-slash-thief.

I look around, hoping to see salvation, but all I can see are the sheep munching away in the field below. They don’t seem the tiniest bit bothered and none of them are exhibiting the slightest interest in morphing into a rescue animal like Lassie.

A cool breeze blows over me and I feel myself shiver. I’ve never known a place where the weather changes so quickly. One minute I’m enjoying blue skies and sunshine, and the next the clouds have gone an inky grey colour and the sun has disappeared leaving it bitter and dark. The winds pick up again and if I’m not mistaken, it feels as if it’s about to snow. In May. Good job I’m wearing jeans that are soaked with mud and shoes that are made for walking in hot French summers, then. Even the hoodie, which I thought was the most practical item of clothing I owned, isn’t doing a particularly good job for the near Arctic wind that has descended.