It Started With A Tweet

by Anna Bell

  My calf muscles start to ache at the effort, my cheeks feel simultaneously cold and warm, and my lungs feel fuller from the fresh air. This must be quite the workout – almost as good as the military fitness class I see happening on the common near where I live, which I aspire to go to. I’m sure that I’m burning just as many calories.

  Just think, if we had a mobile phone signal in the house, I’d be missing out on all this fresh air and exercise. I feel healthier than I have felt in years. It’s also giving me plenty of time to think about more important things, like what I’m going to do with my life now that I don’t have a job. Which is, of course, what I’m thinking about. I’m absolutely not making a list in my head of all the things I’ve got to tell Erica when I log on to Facebook . . . ahem.

  I’m pretty proud at how much better I’m faring today than yesterday. The hill in front of me doesn’t appear to be getting any closer, but I’ve been walking for a fair while so I’m sure I’ve got somewhere.

  I spin round to see how far away the farmhouse is, but it causes me to lose my footing. Instinctively, I grab for the wall with my left hand, but now that I’ve spun round, it’s on the wrong side of me and I end up on my bum.

  ‘Bugger,’ I shout, as I find myself wedged in. I try to stand up but instead I wedge my bum further into the mud. There’s only one thing for it – I’m going to have to roll onto all fours and push myself up. I take a deep breath and roll over, sinking my hands into the slimy mud. I manage to force myself upright, wiping my hands as best I can down my jeans. I must look as if I’ve been on one of those Tough Mudder runs. Not that it matters; no one’s going to see me up here anyway. I can’t believe I endured that freezing cold shower this morning only to have ended up like this. All I can hope is that I make it back to the farm before Rosie and Alexis start tearing the bathroom to pieces.

  Making sure I’m holding firmly on to the wall, I turn and look at the farmhouse and wonder if I should give up on my walk and go straight to the shower instead. But I feel the weight of the phone in my hoodie and I know that I’ve got to get to the hill. If I don’t try now, who knows when I’ll get another chance? Alexis might not leave it lying around again, or Rosie might not leave me unattended for so long.

  I quicken my pace and I’m practically jogging through the mud, finding that the slippery nature of it is propelling me along quicker.

  I’ve been so focused on not falling over that when I reach the bottom of the hill I notice my surroundings for the first time. I turn around and I almost gasp at the beauty of it. I’ve been walking uphill without realising it and I’m now looking down on the farmhouse in the dip below. I can see for miles. I can’t imagine how incredible the view is going to be from the top.

  I look over to the village, which looks quite big from here; its terraced houses huddled together. I think of Gerry and Liz and wonder who they’re gossiping with – or about. Judging by the grilling that Rosie and I got yesterday, I bet we’re the hot topic of conversation at the moment. Those crazy city dwellers who bought that wreck of a farm. But look at me now, that city dweller’s tramped across a muddy field, and despite the story my jeans suggest, has fought with the mud and won.

  Now all I’ve got to do is get to the top.

  I turn round to face the hill and eye it up like my nemesis. It does look a little steep for my liking. In fact, in front of me is not so much a hill, but a cliff face of imposing rock with shrubs growing out of it. There seems to be a small path that goes up diagonally, but it’s fairly narrow.

  I pull the phone out of my hoodie and double-check to see whether or not I can access the Internet from here – after all, we are pretty high up.

  I yelp and do a fist pump in celebration when I see that there’s one bar of signal on the phone. But there’s no 3G or 4G where that symbol should be; there’s just the dreaded E. Error? Emergency? Evil? I’m not sure what it actually stands for, but I know from previous experience that it’s a bad omen. I wait for what feels like forever while it thinks about loading a page on Chrome before it tells me the Internet can’t be reached.

  ‘Right you are, Mount Everest,’ I say as I channel my inner mountaineer and start my ascent.

  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 bedr
oom.

  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.

  ‘Help!’ I shout as loud as I can. ‘Help!’

  Not even the sheep look up.

  Even if I was close enough to any form of civilisation, I doubt my voice would carry far enough in this wind.

  I’m starting to get cramp in my hand as I cling on to a branch, and I’m wondering how long I’m going to be able to hold on.

  ‘Help, I’m stuck,’ I shout in desperation, as I know that, realistically, I’m going to have to call the emergency services. Yes, it’s embarrassing, but it’s also a matter of life or death.

  ‘Dear Lord, I know that I only ever talk to you in times of crisis, and we haven’t had a chat since last year when I broke my flip-flops during that torrential downpour at the Notting Hill carnival and I asked for me not to get dysentery as I walked the streets barefoot – by the way, thank you for listening – but I really need some help now,’ I mutter under my breath.

  ‘What seems to be the problem?’ comes a voice, and I’m so surprised that I drop Alexis’s phone again.

  ‘Oh, bugger,’ I shout, watching it tumble down the hill, bouncing off rocks as it goes. It’s got to be broken now, surely.

  ‘Are you OK?’ comes the voice again.

  ‘God?’ I say, wondering if I’ve actually died of cold already.

  ‘Um, I tend to go by the name of Jack.’

  I look up, straining to see where the voice is coming from, but all I can see from this angle is the big thistly bush above me.

  ‘I’m down here and I’m stuck,’ I say, relieved that I’m going to be rescued, and I don’t care whether it’s by apparition or a real-life person. A few minutes ago I wanted a sheep to help me – I’m clearly not fussy.

  ‘Hang on a second,’ says the voice. ‘I’ll come on down.’

  Immediately I’m struck by a giggle, as he sounds like he’s a cheesy game-show host. Hang on there, Daisy, I’ll come on down. What game show was that the catchphrase from? I rack my brain to think, but I’m stuck. If only I could ask my friend Google, he never lets me down.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ says the guy whose voice comes from behind me.

  I look down over my shoulder and I recognise the thick woolly hat as that belonging to Big Foot. His eyes are still cold, like the weather, and although his face is contorted into a small smile, it’s of the smirking variety, not a friendly one.

  Of all the sodding people to come and find me.

  ‘Can you help me? It’s a bit uncomfortable like this,’ I say swallowing my pride. As much as I’m loathe to get Mr Grumpy to help me, it’s still better than phoning the emergency services.

  ‘OK, I’m going to have to grab you,’ he says with as much enthusiasm as if he were about to pick up dog poo.

  He sighs and I feel his hands making contact with my bum.

  ‘Oi, watch it,’ I say, ‘this isn’t the time to cop a feel.’

  I feel his hands let go. ‘Fine, if you don’t want any help, I’ll leave you there. It’s just that with the angle of the rock and the way your bum’s hanging over it, it’s the biggest thing for me to grab to be able to lower you down.’

  ‘Oh great, so you’re saying that my bum’s big. Thanks very much.’

  I’m pretty sure mountain rescue would have been a whole lot more polite and wouldn’t have pointed out my gym failings.

  ‘It’s not that it’s big, it just looks it from this angle.’

  ‘Oh, that’s much better,’ I say sarcastically as I wiggle, trying to reduce my ginormous arse, only I think I’ve probably given him more of a view.

  ‘Look, I was perfectly happy climbing on the other side of the hill when I heard you shouting for help, and I’d be perfectly happy leaving you and your bum hanging here. But I should warn you that there is a very black cloud over there, and that’s usually the direction the bad weather comes from, and you’re not really dressed for a storm, are you?’

  I sigh loudly. ‘Oh, go on, then. Grab my large bum.’

  He places his hands back on me. ‘OK, let go of whatever you’re holding on to and I’ll try to lower you down gently.’

  ‘Are you sure? What if I flatten you? You know, me and my big bum.’

  ‘Just let go.’

  I do as he says and I scrabble with my hands as I find myself sliding over the rock.

  True to his word, Jack lowers my bum until my feet are practically touching the ground.

  ‘Oh thank goodness. Thank you so much,’ I say, breathing out in relief.

  ‘You’re welcome. But you really should be more careful. Look at what you’re wearing. You’re dressed like a teenager hanging around the Co-op.’

  ‘Now, hang on –’

  ‘No, this is serious. You’re on a hill dressed in – what are they, canvas?’

  ‘Suede espadrilles.’

  He shakes his head. ‘Suede espadrilles, whatever the hell they are. You should be in walking boots, hiking trainers at a push, but something with a grip on them. You should also be wearing layers. The weather changes like that here,’ he says snapping his fingers. ‘If I hadn’t come along when I did, you’d probably have died of exposure.’

  ‘Actually, I was going to phone the emergency services,’ I say, wincing slightly.

  ‘Oh, even better, just what they want to do with their time. Rescue someone like you who wakes up one morning and decides to go hiking without any equipment, dressed inappropriately. Bloody tourists,’ he says shaking his head.

  I take in his outfit of sturdy-looking boots, grey trousers with reinforced black bits over the knees and thighs and a snuggly fleece. He’s even carrying a harness round his waist, with a helmet clipped to his belt and extra rope slung over one shoulder. I take his point.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ is about all I can manage. ‘Is the lecture over? Only me and my impractical clothing are cold, and if you’ve quite finished, I’d like to go and get a warm shower before my sister gets back and rips it out.’

  Jack stares at me for a second before shaking his head like I’m a lost cause, and stands to one side.

  I brush down my trousers as if I’m dusting off a little bit of light mud, which only reminds me how caked they are from my earlier fall. I shake my hair back and hold my head up, trying to give myself a little bit more dignity.

  I walk about three steps before I feel my feet go out from under me, and I find myself on my bum for
the second time today.

  I hear Jack mutter under his breath and I’m pretty sure it was something along the lines of ‘for fuck’s sake’. I hear him stomp down behind me and, instead of making a fuss, I hold my hand out for him to pull me up.

  ‘You are a liability,’ he says looking at me like I’m a moron as he helps me to get upright. ‘What did you think you were doing up here anyway?’

  ‘I thought I might get a phone signal up here. Oh, God, the phone.’ I look further down the hill and see where it’s come to rest.

  ‘A phone? You came up here to use your phone.’

  ‘Well, not my phone, Alexis’s, but . . .’ I’m not making it any better; he’s still looking at me like I’m a moron. ‘Well, I won’t take up any more of your time.’ I go to walk and he grabs hold of my hand.

  ‘Hang on, you’re going to be sliding all the way home in those things.’ He pulls his rope off his arm. ‘Here.’

  He hands me the end of the rope and starts to walk in front of me.

  ‘You’re going to walk me along like a dog?’

  ‘It’s either that or we hold hands,’ he says with almost a growl.

  ‘Rope it is, then,’ I say, thinking that at least this way I might stay vertical. We start descending in silence until we get to the mobile phone.

  Jack watches as I bend down and pick it up. I give it a quick blow to get the dirt off and, miraculously, not only is it not broken, but it also has 3G.

  ‘Three G,’ I squeal.

  Jack doesn’t look impressed and I get the impression that he’s not about to stand there and wait for me while I log in to Facebook. Which is a pity, as I could totally send Erica an Emoji message with the lion head, as Jack with that beard looks just like one; well, at least he would if he dyed his hair orange.

  ‘Good to know,’ I say, coughing and shoving the phone back into my pocket, hoping that Alexis will leave it around another day, when he just happens to be going out for hours at a time and I’m the proud owner of walking boots and polar fleece layers.