It’s a good stare. I can feel it in my bones.
‘You don’t need to listen to anybody else to know what’s right for you. You don’t need to follow me. You don’t need to follow anyone! You shouldn’t look to me for answers . . . any more than you should look to the people you’ve followed on social media in the past.’ I open my arms expansively. ‘You can make your own decisions!’
Well, that’s flummoxed them good and proper.
I am faced with a wall of incomprehension. This is somewhat better than a wall of anger, but not by much, when you get right down to it.
Silence temporarily descends as they let this strange concept sink in.
‘So, are you saying, Mr Bellows,’ Wilberforce pipes up, this time at a volume that doesn’t knock the birds out of the trees, ‘that detoxing has its good and bad sides? That it’s different for everyone? And that we shouldn’t necessarily rely on anybody else’s opinion to help us decide what to do? That detoxing can only really be a success if the decision to do it comes from within?’
‘Buh?’ I reply incomprehensibly, completely knocked off my feet by this response.
Colin puts an arm around his partner. ‘Sometimes Wilberforce here sees into the heart of the matter far better than you’d imagine, Mr Bellows. It’s his greatest gift.’
I thought his greatest gift was the ability to stop his pug shagging furniture with badly constructed song lyrics, but this is probably much better, and is likely to prove more popular at dinner parties.
It takes me a moment to compose myself before I reply. ‘Yes, Wilberforce. You’re absolutely right,’ I tell the little man. ‘Detoxing comes with its bad points, and good ones too. You just have to take both on board and seek . . . I don’t know . . .’ The right word eludes me.
‘Balance,’ Grace says from behind me.
I throw her a grateful look. ‘Yeah, that’s it. Balance. That’s what it’s really all about.’ I feel myself relax as I say this. My jaw starts to loosen. ‘That’s what I’ve learned . . . and that’s about the only thing I can really guarantee you guys is the absolute truth.’ I hold out my arms again. ‘You just need to get a little balance in your life. And if that means detoxing for a little while to see what things are like on the other side, then fine . . . do it.’ I shrug. ‘Or not. The choice – as I really should have been saying to you right from the get-go – is yours. Find your own balance’ – I look back at Grace one final time as I say this – ‘the way I’ve found mine.’
And with that, I am done. Finally done.
I feel absolutely exhausted.
I lean back against the counter and rub my face with my hands as I let the audience fully digest what I’ve just said. I am very much hoping that when I take my hands away and look at them again, I will see something other than anger and recrimination on their faces.
. . . Oh, thank God for that.
OK, some people still look a bit unsure, but there’s no anger there any more. None that’s detectable to me, anyway.
Wilberforce is getting a lot of pats on the back, which he seems delighted about.
I am equally as delighted, as this means the attention has shifted away from me somewhat.
‘Well done, mate!’ Fergus says as he comes around one side of the counter and gives me a slap on the back. ‘Couldn’t have said it better myself.’ He then thinks for a second. ‘Well, maybe I could, but not by much.’
I give him a wry grin. ‘I’m sure you’ll make me sound much better when you write about this latest chapter of Loggers Off.’
Fergus looks thoughtful. ‘No. I don’t think so. I think I’m done with Loggers Off. I know you’ve blamed yourself for all of this, but let’s face it . . . I pushed you to be the story for me. I think you’ve done quite enough now. And I’ve done quite enough too.’
I look over at Wilberforce and Colin. ‘You know, if you want to write a story about interesting people, then why not go have a chat with those two? You’ll have material to last you years, I guarantee it.’
Fergus raises one eyebrow and looks speculatively over at the eccentric twosome as they continue to happily chat with the other members of the crowd. ‘I might just do that,’ he tells me, and I am suddenly struck with the notion that Loggers Off will indeed be continuing on for a while yet – just without me as its figurehead. ‘I think I’ll go and see if I can make friends,’ Fergus says, and saunters over to the pair with his most ingratiating smile slapped across his face for all to see, and be comforted by.
Grace hands two fresh cups of coffee over to a couple who offer me shy smiles, and then leans across the counter to put my hand in hers once they’ve moved away from us.
Ah . . . that’s the stuff.
‘How are you doing?’ she asks, a look of sympathy on her face. She knows this hasn’t been easy for me.
Actually, I’m fairly sure Grace knows everything about me – all the important stuff, anyway – even though we’ve only been together for a few short weeks.
‘I’m OK. Tired, mostly. But also . . . er . . .’
‘Free?’
‘Yeah,’ I reply with a smile. ‘I’d say so.’
Grace gives me a speculative look. ‘So, you just told everyone in this café that you love me, Andy.’
I suddenly feel very hot. ‘Yes, I did. How do you . . . do you feel about that?’
She thinks for a second, and then I feel her hand squeeze mine just a little harder. ‘I feel very happy about that, Andy . . . and very relieved too. Because I love you too.’ The speculative look grows a little more pronounced. ‘But I think you knew that anyway, didn’t you?’
I smile. ‘Yeah. I think I did.’
And I didn’t even need Google to tell me.
Grace laughs, and then looks over at where Fergus is chatting amiably with Wilberforce and Colin. ‘I think you’re about to get replaced,’ she says, perhaps changing the subject for the moment to cover our blushes.
I grunt. ‘Yeah. Looks like it.’
I suddenly feel a bit downhearted. ‘I hope . . . I hope they don’t just all start doing the same thing with those two they did with me. I hope they all remember what I said about not needing to follow someone else. Do you think they will?’
Grace shrugs slowly. ‘I have no idea, Andy. All you can do is give your best advice to people and let them make their own choices. You’ve told them the right thing to do . . . whether they choose to do it is their business.’
I grimace. ‘That’s not quite the ending to this I had in mind.’
She squeezes my hand. ‘Cheer up. If nothing else, you’ve made two people who are used to being the butt of the joke the heroes of the moment.’
Grace isn’t wrong. Just look at how popular they’ve almost instantly become with the rest of the Loggers Off.
The shift away from me as the centre of attention to Wilberforce and Colin has been incredibly quick. Enough to almost give me whiplash, in fact. The followers have moved on already.
It doesn’t really feel like anything has changed – despite the things I’ve just said.
But . . . I have to hope it has. In the long run, anyway.
I have to hope that these people won’t just fall into the same old trap with Wilberforce and Colin that they did with me – that they’ll take my advice and look for their own path.
Will they look to Colin and his boyfriend to tell them what to do? Or will they find their own balance?
I really don’t know what the answer is, any more than Grace does.
All I can do at this point is follow my own advice, and live my own life. Make my own decisions. And remember to always think for myself, instead of letting other people – or the Internet – do it for me.
Right now, I’m thinking about whether the rest of Grace feels as warm and lovely as her hand does.
And nothing else seems to matter very much.
Not the future of Loggers Off, not Wilberforce and Colin, and definitely not my bloody digital detox – which has most defini
tely come to its natural end here this evening in Heirloom Coffee.
If I only know one thing about the journey I’ve been on, about my time in the analogue wilderness, it’s that all of it has been completely and totally worth it – because I met Grace.
I met the woman I love.
And I would follow her anywhere.
Including on Instagram and Twitter.
Epilogue
BALANCED
Today is an important day.
It’s the day Loggers Off meet at their new venue for the first time – a large community centre in town that holds about five hundred people. A lot of those attending will still meet up at Heirloom Coffee for the debrief afterwards, though. Wilberforce and Colin have promised to come along and continue chatting to those who are interested in hearing from them in a more informal setting. Puggerlugs has his own little Loggers Off T-shirt now. He looks very cute in it.
I won’t be going along, for two very important reasons.
The first – and least important – is that I am no longer doing a digital detox. I am no longer a Logger Off. Haven’t been for over two months now, in fact.
The second reason – which utterly dwarfs the first – is that today is Grace’s birthday.
I’m taking her out for a meal tonight – at a Thai restaurant in the city.
I found it on TripAdvisor. It has a five-star rating, with over seven hundred reviews, so I’m very much hoping it’s going to live up to expectations. The chicken with cashew nuts is meant to be particularly good.
I called the restaurant on the phone to make the booking.
I spoke to a very nice Thai girl called Preeda, who promised to sit us at a quiet table. She also offered to buy a birthday cake for Grace at a little extra cost, which she will bring to the table at the right moment. I don’t know how embarrassed Grace will be when the whole restaurant starts singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to her, but I’m hoping she’ll appreciate the gesture.
It’s not lost on me that if I’d just booked the restaurant online, there would have been no friendly chat with Preeda, and therefore no birthday cake.
During the week I ordered a brand-new black short-sleeved polo shirt on Amazon, and a brand-new pair of blue jeans from ASOS. Both arrived yesterday. I liked the jeans, but the shirt didn’t really fit, so I popped into town this morning to pick up a different one from M&S, which I love. It hides my small spare tyre quite nicely.
I paid for the polo shirt with cash, and spent five minutes chatting with the young guy at the till, whose name was Jarrod. He told me to wish Grace a happy birthday, and said he thought the polo shirt I’d bought was very nice.
Finally, this afternoon, I picked up a bunch of flowers from a local florist. It’s one that has received rave reviews in the local community forum on Facebook. The bunch of red roses is enormous, very fragrant and does a good job of masking the slight odour of cigarette smoke in the Uber that takes me to Heirloom Coffee, where I am to pick Grace up at the end of her workday.
I tried to convince her to take the whole day off, but when you run a business it’s not quite that easy to just chuck a sickie. Especially when that business is thriving – largely thanks to how much attention the coffee shop has got in recent months, and how many times it’s appeared in the local paper.
I’d also like to think that its success is partially down to the new marketing campaign I put together for it. The new logo I designed – which features a stylised rendition of Grace’s locket – looks rather fantastic on the front of the shop, even if I do say so myself.
Needless to say, I did that job for free.
I haven’t had as much time to put into promoting Heirloom as I’d really like, though, because I’ve been inundated with graphic design work.
The coffee shop isn’t the only thing that’s done well from being in the spotlight – however temporary that spotlight turned out to be. Andy Bellows the detox guru may have died a suitable death – but Andy Bellows the busy graphic designer is very much alive and kicking.
No complaints, though. It means I get to take my girlfriend out for an expensive Thai meal on her birthday.
When I climb out of the Uber, I say goodbye to the driver with a broad smile on my face and turn to the café’s front door with the roses clutched in my left hand.
I look every inch the man in love.
If you were to take an Instagram picture of me right now, you’d have to use the hashtags #lovedup, #deadromantic and #veryhappy.
Because I am all of those things.
I am also a man who has learned something very valuable.
A secret that really shouldn’t be much of a secret at all.
And it’s this . . .
Life is about finding your balance. No matter how long it takes. No matter how hard it is to get there. And no matter how many duck ponds you have to drive into.
Because you will get there, eventually. Trust me.
And if you don’t trust me, then you can always google it, can’t you?
But now it’s time for me to walk into Heirloom Coffee, find my girlfriend, hand over these flowers and go for a lovely meal – where there will be five-star food and birthday cake.
The last thing I do before I venture inside is quickly rate my Uber driver on the iPhone app. I give him four stars, because the ride was quick and smooth but the car did smell of cigarettes.
And then, as I push the front door open with my shoulder and see Grace’s eyes light up when she spots the flowers in my hand, I slide my phone back into the pocket of my brand-new jeans – where it will stay until tomorrow.
Because logging off isn’t something you should only do once.
It’s something you should do every single day.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Logging Off is actually a book about people . . . don’t let all that talk about technology fool you. And I have many people to thank for their help in getting this book into your hands.
First off there’s my old agent Jon, and my new agent Ariella. Both of them are very good at stopping me from writing anything too weird or controversial.
Then there’s everyone at Amazon Publishing. Without them you wouldn’t have this book, and I wouldn’t spend at least 80 per cent of my day online, feverishly refreshing my sales page.
Thanks to my family and friends, most of whom I actually speak to in real life sometimes, and not just on Facebook.
And, as always, thank you to my gorgeous wife Gemma – who I met online. This means that, in my book, the Internet is just about the best thing ever.
Finally, my thanks go to you . . . for buying and reading this latest Nick Spalding novel. You are the reason I keep doing this, and you’re just about my favourite person because of it. Even if you don’t follow me on bloody Twitter
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2017 Chloe Waters
Nick Spalding is the bestselling author of fifteen novels, two novellas and two memoirs. Nick worked in media and marketing for most of his life before turning his energy to his genre-spanning humorous writing. He lives in the south of England with his wife.
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