It Started With A Tweet(55)

I shove the letter hastily into my hoodie pocket, along with the scrunched-up ball, just as Rosie pushes the door open.

‘I’ve got an idea,’ I say, before she can step inside. ‘Let’s go for a walk.’

‘Are you mad? It’s pitch-black out there.’

‘I just want to see the stars.’

‘We can do that standing outside; we don’t need to go for a walk.’

‘Please,’ I say, ‘we can have a wander down the drive. You never know, we might bump into Alexis on the way.’

Rosie rolls her eyes at me. ‘I see what’s going on. We get all deep and meaningful and now you think he’s going to be the man for you. Don’t you think he’s a bit young?’

I can’t tell her that right now I’ve got another man in my sights, as she’d start meddling all over the place.

‘I don’t want to see him in that way. I just thought it would be fun going for a walk. Like going for an adventure.’

Rosie rolls her eyes again and sways a little. I step outside and slam the door so that she has no choice but to join me.

She’s right, it is bloody dark, but thankfully her head torch is surprisingly powerful.

I loop my arm through hers and we start to walk up the small hill to the drive.

‘The stars really are incredible,’ I say, tipping my head back and appreciating them. Even though I’ve been marvelling at them over the last few nights, they still take my breath away. Even when I grumpily went for a wee in the Portaloo during the night, my mood improved as soon as I set foot outside and saw them.

‘I know, I love it here, I really do. I just wish Rupert would see it.’

‘He will, he’s a good egg, that one. Why don’t you write him a letter, tell him how you feel, or make it jokey like the ones you wrote at uni?’

‘I don’t know if that’s really us anymore .?.?.’

‘Then maybe you need to remind him what you once were.’

Rosie and I sway a little as we walk up the drive, and I realise I’m a lot drunker than I thought. I see a flash of light in front of us and my first thought is that it’s a UFO. I jump behind Rosie.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ she screams. ‘You scared the crap out of me.’

‘Look, there’s a tiny light dancing.’

‘You muppet,’ she says giggling. ‘That’ll be Alexis’s head torch, that’s why it looks like it’s in the air.’

I don’t need to be able to see her to know that she’s shaking her head at me.

I creep back round to the front of her and, sure enough, Alexis is just coming into the beam of Rosie’s torch.

‘Bonsoir,’ he says, slightly staggering too. ‘What are you doing ’ere?’

‘Just having a moonlit stroll,’ she says, despite the fact that’s there’s only the tiniest sliver of moon, which is doing nothing to illuminate our walk. ‘Did you have a good time?’

While we’re standing still chatting I seize my opportunity to post the letter through Jack’s box. I stumble slightly as it’s bloody dark. I feel around for the box and I have a slight panic as I try and remember which is his and which is ours. His was on the left. Or was it the right? I don’t want Rosie finding the letter if I accidentally put it in ours by mistake. I’m pretty sure it was the left.

‘Daisy,’ says Rosie.

I slip the letter in, hoping it was the right one.

I see the torch beam coming at me.

‘What are you doing?’ she calls.

‘Um, I was trying to find somewhere for a wee, but it’s a bit dark. I’ll wait until we’re at home.’

‘Come on, then,’ she says, lighting the way, and I walk back to her and loop my arm through hers once more, and I take the opportunity to loop my arm through Alexis’s too.

‘Let’s go and introduce Alexis to the nineties. Do you like to bust a move?’

‘Buster like the dog?’ he says confused.

‘Ha – like dance. Bust a move, spin a groove,’ she says animatedly.

Poor old Alexis, he has no idea what he’s just come back to.





Chapter Seventeen

Time since last Internet usage: 5 days, 21 hours, 0 minutes and 1 second

I was so wrong yesterday, when I thought that wallpaper stripping couldn’t get any worse. If only my problems today were limited to getting hot and sweaty from the steamer, with only the prospect of a dribbly shower in a makeshift cubicle in a barn to make it all better later. Today, I’m still hot and sweaty, have no prospect of a shower, and I have the added bonus of the hangover from hell, and muscles that have seized up from trying to teach a Frenchman the dance moves to S Club 7. I’m practically passing out from the heat, sweating Baileys from every orifice and trying not to gag at the smell of old wallpaper being soaked off the wall. I’m pretty sure MI5 could use this as a new form of torture.

As if all that wasn’t bad enough, the plumber Rosie hired has the audacity to whistle as he works, and he’s clunking around and banging metal pipes as if he’s auditioning for Guns N’ Roses.

‘Here you go,’ says Rosie, plonking a cup of tea down on the windowsill next to me.

I blow my fringe out of my face for the billionth time, and for the billionth time I mentally add: ‘Get Alice band’ to my list of things to buy.