It Started With A Tweet(56)

‘Thanks,’ I say, taking that as a sign to down tools. I balance myself against the ladder and exhale loudly.

‘You look like shit,’ she says.

The only good thing about the bathroom currently being ripped apart is that the only mirror in the house is gone; at least we can’t see how bad we look. Although, if Rosie’s anything to go by, I must look pretty horrendous.

Alexis is not fairing much better either. He’s currently slumped on the floor, supposedly trying to pull off the old rotting skirting board, but I haven’t seen him move for at least five minutes so I suspect he’s having a sneaky snooze.

‘I’m not exactly feeling my best,’ I say, wincing as I pick up the hot tea, scalding my fingers, which seems to take my mind off the rest of my hangover.

‘Me neither. Do you think the boss would let us play hooky for the rest of the day?’

I shake my head. ‘We’ve got to at least strip two walls or we’ll be behind when the window man comes tomorrow.’

‘Remind me again why I put you in charge of organising the work flow?’ she says, sighing and picking up the wallpaper steamer.

‘Because you’re an idiot.’

I’m cursing myself for my organisation. If only I’d had the foresight to have scheduled in the hangover.

‘But at least it was fun last night, eh? Totally took your mind off the whole lack of phone thing, didn’t it?’

‘I guess it did,’ I say, realising that, for the first time, I hadn’t missed my phone in the evening, and I’ve barely noticed its absence today, although that’s mostly because my eyes hurt at the thought of peering at a screen.

But still, it’s progress.

Perhaps all I need to do is drink my way through my digital detox, but my stomach lurches at the thought, telling me that’s a bad idea. I try desperately to keep my stomach at bay, remembering that with the lack of a toilet, I’m going to be retching into a Portaloo or a corner of the garden, neither of which is appealing.

I watch Rosie pick up a broom and subtly poke Alexis in his side. He doesn’t even flinch, and the only noise that comes out is a brief snore.

‘Seriously, we can’t go on like this,’ says Rosie. ‘How about we pop into the village for a fry-up or something? The pub must have something greasy on their menu.’

I take a look at the half-steamed wall. I guess it makes no difference whether we’re doing it now or at ten o’clock tonight, it’s not like we’ve got any pressing social engagements.

‘Let’s do it,’ I say, desperately excited about getting off the farm. ‘I’ll go and change.’

I hurry into the bedroom, and quickly change behind the cardboard screen we’ve erected due to our lack of doors. I spray deodorant on liberally, followed by a spritz of Jimmy Choo perfume, which I instantly regret, as it smells sickly sweet with my hangover-heightened sense of smell, and I towel dry my clammy face. Then I throw on some clean jeans, a T-shirt and a red hoodie. It feels funny to wear tight jeans again after my last few days in tracksuit bottoms, and I do a few power lunges to loosen up the denim as my body adjusts to being restricted.

‘You ready?’ asks Rosie, as she strolls into the bedroom, merely changing into a slightly cleaner fleece than the one she was wearing. ‘Meh,’ she says in response to my raised eyebrow. ‘I’m too hungover to care what I look like.’

‘Do you think we should wake Alexis before we go?’

‘Nah, he seems dead to the world. We’ll bring him back a sausage roll.’

We walk out of the house and the cold air almost knocks me out. It’s ridiculously clichéd to say, but the air here is so fresh, it almost takes my breath away each time I breathe it in. Not that I’m complaining after the stale air of London. I’m sure it will do wonders to cure my hangover. That and the biting wind.

‘Are you OK to drive?’

‘I think so. It’s eleven now, so I’ve had over twelve hours since my last drink.’

‘It’s eleven already? We’ve been stripping wallpaper for two hours?’

‘Uh-huh.’

My heart sinks as I realise how little we’ve done. We should have stayed in bed, at least that way we might have slept off the hangover.

I climb into the car with her and as we bump along I wonder if the question was not ‘Is Rosie OK to drive?’, but ‘Are we OK to be in a car?’ I rub my stomach, willing its contents to stay put as we make our way down the drive.

As we approach the end of it, we see the post van drive off.

‘Ooh, I wonder if we’ve got any post,’ she says, pulling up alongside it.

I look at the mailbox and suddenly a hope surges that I’ll have a reply from Erica, before something starts to niggle at me. A memory of me stumbling along and clinging on to the mailbox in the dark pops into my head. I try to make it clearer, but it’s hazy, like a dream I’m trying to recall.

‘Did we go to the mailbox last night?’ I ask Rosie as I squint at it. I touch the tips of my fingers as they remember the memory of the cold metallic box.

‘No, we walked up to meet Alexis, remember?’

She walks over to the mailbox and pulls out envelopes, and as she flips through them I see a folded piece of paper which she looks at quizzically, and I lunge for the door handle and fling myself out.