Time since last Internet usage: 2 hours, 46 minutes and 40 seconds
‘I can totally cope,’ I say, laughing a little manically. ‘I’m unplugged, I’m free, and I’m totally fine.’
I try to pretend I’m A-OK that I’ve just thrown my life down a well, but as I shrug my shoulders, I find that they’ve practically lodged themselves at my earlobes. I now see why meditation and yoga feature so heavily in detoxes.
Rosie places a pan of water on one of the hobs on an ancient cooker that looks like it should be condemned.
‘How long’s it been?’ I ask, thinking back to the well incident that seems like a lifetime ago.
‘Seven minutes and thirty-two seconds,’ says Rosie, glancing at her expensive watch.
‘Oh,’ I say a little deflated. Seven minutes is quite a long time in the world of Twitter; I’m sure that would equate to around a hundred tweets on my feed. God knows how many of those would be in relation to #priceless.
But hey, I might have only lasted seven minutes so far, yet in those seven minutes I’ve been all right. I haven’t thrown myself down the well or run to the nearest village.
‘I didn’t even think to bring a watch, I always use my phone to tell the time,’ I say, pointing at my sister’s wrist. I don’t want to be asking her what the time is every seven minutes.
‘We’ll pop it on the list, I’m going to have to go shopping tomorrow anyway.’
My heart starts to race a little. Shopping. The outside world. I know that I’ve been at this old farm for less than an hour, but already I feel desperate to get back to civilisation.
Rosie goes back to her cooking and I look around the kitchen trying to keep my mind occupied. I try and work out how many blocks of seven minutes there are in a day and, without a calculator – as we all know where mine is – I’ve concluded that it’s a bloody long time.
I hear something and I immediately reach for my phone before I realise what I’m doing.
‘What? Did you see something?’ asks Rosie, who’s still a little jumpy, presumably after the pigeon incident earlier.
‘No, I just thought I heard my phone buzz,’ I say straining my ears to hear.
I’m usually so switched on to the nuanced beeping of my phone that I keep expecting a ping to break out through the silence. I hear a creak from what sounds like up above and I look hesitantly up at the ceiling.
‘It’s probably the wind rattling the windows upstairs,’ says Rosie, as she takes a seat at the table.
A shiver runs over my spine and I try to make my ears tune out from hearing noises, as my imagination runs wild at what each squeak and creak could be.
‘So, what’s next on the detox plan, then?’
Rosie glances at one of the pieces of paper she pulled out of her bag earlier and studies it.
‘OK, so tonight, we’ve got, um, an evening of talking ahead of us. You know, just relaxing into the whole thing. Then, tomorrow morning, I thought I’d stock up on supplies and then perhaps we could go for a walk or something.’
‘That sounds a bit vague,’ I say. ‘On the train to Manchester yesterday I googled digital detoxes and the ones I saw had every last minute timetabled, and there were reasons for everything.’
‘Well, I’m going shopping so we can eat something, and the walk is so that you can reconnect with sodding nature without looking at it through a phone lens,’ she says a little stroppily.
‘Sorry,’ I say in a mocking voice, like I would have done as a teenager. ‘It’s just this whole thing was your idea.’
‘I know,’ she says, exhaling loudly. ‘Look, I thought you wouldn’t be into the whole mumbo jumbo stuff, but if you are, here.’
She digs around in her bag and throws me out a floral-print notebook that looks like something straight out of a National Trust gift shop.
‘What am I supposed to do with this?’ I say, flicking through the empty pages.
‘Start a journal. Get in touch with your feelings,’ she says in an earthy tone as if she’s taking the piss.
She’s right, that isn’t very me.
‘Joking aside, I did bring that for you. I figured you’d miss writing things on social media and I thought this would be a good outlet. You always did write an interesting diary.’
I give her a scolding look as she knows as well as I do that I stopped writing one the minute I found out she’d been reading it.
It’s funny how I got so mad that someone had read my personal thoughts, and yet now I broadcast them on a daily basis for the whole world to see.
I stare at the diary and pick up the pen.
My sister has kidnapped me and is holding me against my will in a crumbling old farmhouse.
Now, if I wrote that on Twitter, I’m pretty sure that it would go viral quicker than my #priceless tweet and I’d have the police helicopter hovering overhead before we knew it. But writing it in a journal when I’m the only person that’s going to read it holds little appeal. Not even the little thumbs-up sign and shocked face that I draw next to it make me feel better.
‘I’m starving, when do you think the food is going to be ready?’ I ask, putting the notebook to one side.
Rosie jumps up, goes over to a box of food that she’d brought in from the car, and whips out a packet of Pasta ’n’ Sauce, the type of thing we used to have when we camped as kids.
‘You’re not even going to cook proper food?’ I say, my stomach growling, not from hunger, but from frustration.
‘I will do, but not today as I only brought the basics up. I’ll get better supplies tomorrow.’
‘We could always go to the pub for dinner,’ I say wistfully, imagining the cosy-looking pub with its hanging baskets and thatched roof that totally looked like the type of place that would serve big chunky chips and puff-pastry pies. I’m almost dribbling over the table as I daydream.
‘We’ll go there another night. I don’t think it would be good for you so early on in your transition. I mean, how would you feel, seeing all those other people on their phones? I think it’s best to keep you away.’
She’s treating me like an alcoholic who can’t set foot in a pub for fear of a relapse. ‘I could totally handle seeing other people on their phones,’ I say, imagining them swiping their fingers over those glossy screens and computing that rush of information . . . she’s right, I couldn’t cope. ‘Pasta ’n’ Sauce it is, then,’ I say, sighing. ‘So, did Rupert mind you coming away?’
I figure that we’ve been so focused on me and my problems that I haven’t even asked my sister anything about what’s going on in her life.
‘No, not really,’ she says stirring the saucepan. She’s giving it the attention of a cordon bleu meal rather than a packet of dried pasta and sauce. I might not have spent a lot of time with her over the last few years, but I can still tell when something’s wrong. Perhaps there’s trouble in paradise.
‘Is everything all right with you two?’
Her hand spasms a little and a chunk of pasta falls onto the white hob and blends in with the rusted patches where the paint has flaked off.
‘We’re fine,’ she says, giving me the impression that they’re anything but.
Interesting . . . I’m about to start digging but I decide I’ll bide my time. We are here, distraction free, for a whole week after all.
‘And what about work, are you looking for another job?’
My sister hasn’t always been a kept woman. After graduating with a first she worked for various finance companies, never seeming to settle, and she got made redundant from the last one a year ago. I kept expecting to hear tales of a great new job from my mum, or to hear that she was pregnant, but it’s been a year and neither a bump nor a new business card have been forthcoming.
‘I’ve got projects on the go,’ she says, not elaborating.
I’m about to ask her more about it when my bag starts to move across the floor. I jump up immediately, ecstatic that my phone is vibrating, and it’s only when I pick up the bag and there’s a squeak that definitely isn’t electronic that I remember my phone is down a well.
I drop the bag down onto the floor and squeal as a little brown mouse goes scuttling under one of the cupboards.
Rosie’s eyes follow it but she doesn’t flinch. ‘Mouse poison,’ she says, nodding. ‘I’ll add it to the shopping list.’
I creep slowly back to my chair and balance my feet on the rung of another; I don’t want anything running over my feet. I’m no stranger to mice, I once shared a flat in Clapham with a whole family of them, but I still don’t want them anywhere near me.
Rosie places a steaming bowl of pasta down in front of me, and as I tuck into the food it takes me right back to my childhood holidays, which is apt as, although we technically have a roof over our head, we might as well be camping, for all the facilities on offer here.
My first thought is to take a photo for Instagram, with some witty caption about my old school dinner, but I can’t, and instead I tuck straight in, getting my food hot for once.
‘This is actually pretty good,’ I say through a large mouthful.
‘Well, it was this or pot noodles, and I ate too many of those as a student to stomach them again.’
‘Oh God, yeah, those and cup-a-soups. Just the thought of that stodgy undissolved mixture at the bottom makes me retch.’ We both laugh.
‘I’m still quite partial to a tomato cup-a-soup though,’ she says. ‘Good job I didn’t bring those out for tea, then.’
‘Very good job, or I would have been walking down the hill to that pub.’
‘Hmm, you’d struggle getting home. It’s really dark up here at night without a torch.’
‘I’ve got one on my phone – ah,’ I say, realising the problem. ‘So you’ve been here before, then? You seem to know what it’s like when it’s dark.’
She looks flustered for a second before she regains her composure. ‘Well, not here here, but nearby. It’s all the same up this part of the country. No streetlights but an amazing starlit sky.’
A normal person wouldn’t have noticed the slip in composure, but I do. I played enough board games with her when I was a child to know when she’s lying. There’s something odd about this whole thing, and I can’t quite figure out what it is.
‘So tonight’s plan,’ she says, noticeably changing the subject, ‘according to the people, is for meditation. Preferably in a candlelit environment.’
‘Well, that shouldn’t be too difficult,’ I say, looking up at the ceiling and noticing that there’s no bulb in the kitchen. Do you have candles?’
‘They’re in the cupboard,’ she says, standing up and going over to the tall larder in the corner and pulling out a bag of tea lights and some matches.
‘How did you know that?’
‘Says so, in the notes for this place,’ she says coughing and hovering in the doorway to the lounge. ‘How about we go next door to light the candles and sit in the rocking chairs?’
‘Don’t you have to meditate sitting cross-legged on the floor?’
I’ve only ever done the type of meditation at the end of a yoga class where you lie down on your mat, and usually I fall straight to sleep only to be woken up by the prodding of the teacher.
‘I’m sure this will be fine – besides, we’d probably end up with piles if we sat on the concrete floor.’
‘I’m sure that’s on old wives’ tale Mum used to tell us,’ I say rolling my eyes.
‘Well, you’re welcome to sit on it, if you want.’
I take one look at it as I follow Rosie into the pigeon poo-splattered lounge and opt for a rocking chair, just in case. It’s going to be bad enough going to the toilet in such primitive conditions, let alone making it more difficult for myself with a new medical condition.
At least, since we’ve kept the door between the lounge and the kitchen open, it seems to have aired it slightly. I sit down in the rocking chair while she busily lights the tea lights around us. It’s a good job, too, as the light outside is starting to fade.
I start to rock myself back and forth, and it’s quite comforting, given my mental state. I try and think of things other than what might be going on online. Rosie climbs into her seat and closes her eyes almost instantly – she must be tired after the drive.
We sit in silence for a while, I don’t know how long for, as I don’t have a watch, but I’m guessing it’s longer than seven minutes as the room has got progressively darker and the tea lights appear to be burning brighter.
‘Whatcha’ thinking?’ asks Rosie, opening her eyes.
‘Not a lot, just FOMO,’ I say, shrugging.
Rosie looks at me like I’ve spoken a foreign language. ‘What mo?’
‘FOMO – you know, Fear Of Missing Out on something.’
‘You’re worried that someone’s going to upload a picture of their dinner to Facebook and you’re going to miss it?’
‘No, believe me, I won’t miss the food pictures. It’s just that I don’t like thinking that there’s something going on in my friends’ lives that I don’t know about.’
I can feel my heart racing slightly at the thought. Right now, my friends are out and about interacting with each other, and I’m up here in the arse end of nowhere. I’m almost certain that everyone is having a better time than I am.
And it’s not only that. It’s not knowing whether people are contacting me. What if friends have seen the #priceless tweet and have guessed it’s me? What if someone puts on Facebook that I got fired, and then everyone, including people I haven’t seen since infant school, will know my shame? All I want is ten tiny seconds just to peek into my apps. Just to see what’s going on.
‘Are you OK?’ asks Rosie, a look of concern spreading over her face.
‘I’m wondering if everyone knows that I got fired.’
‘I’m sure you are. But look, it’s better not to know. By the time you’re back online, everyone will have forgotten about it. Better to have a break than react to it.’
It doesn’t do much to ease my apprehension. I’m still twitching. I’m almost planning a midnight raid on the well, but, given that I can barely see across the room, I doubt that would be successful.
I watch Rosie rocking back and forth and try to get into the same rhythm. She looks so relaxed and at ease and I will myself to calm down.
‘Are you ready to start the meditation?’ asks Rosie, in a quiet nasally voice. She sounds as if she’s channelling our old RE teacher Mrs Molton. Her voice was so hypnotic that it practically sent you to sleep, or maybe that was just the boring subject matter.
‘Don’t laugh. This is very serious business,’ Rosie says. ‘Now, I don’t have any music so we’ll have to do it in silence. Close your eyes and empty your mind.’
I do as I’m told, trying to bite my tongue to stifle the giggles.
A pigeon coos loudly and both Rosie and I open an eye to check that it isn’t in the room, but it appears to be perched outside on the window ledge. It coos away and it could almost be on one of those New Age soundtracks.
‘Repeat these affirmations after me,’ continues Rosie. ‘I do not need my phone.’
‘I do not need my phone,’ I say, parroting it back and not meaning it.
‘My phone does not drive my life; I am in control.’
I try and repeat it without laughing. Where is she getting this claptrap from?
Rosie starts to take long, deep breaths and I follow her, rocking back and forth. My eyelids are feeling heavy and I’m fighting the impulse to fall asleep.
‘I don’t need constant validation of my life from people I barely know.’
I try and parrot it back, but it’s getting harder the sleepier I get.
‘I will instead listen to those closest to me, especially my sister Rosie, who is wise beyond her years.’
My eyes fly open and I see Rosie grinning at me.
‘Huh,’ she says, nodding. ‘My meditation’s pretty good, right?’
‘Only because I’m so tired,’ I say laughing.
‘OK,’ she says, clearing her throat and going back to the rocking, and I get in sync with her again before closing my eyes.
‘I will not be controlled by my phone . . . I will take time for myself . . . I will switch off.’
My eyelids are heavy once more, and I fight with the sleep to hear what Rosie is saying next.
I attempt to sit up straight but my neck creaks and my back aches. I try to work out where I am when I see Rosie in the rocking chair next to me, reading a magazine.
‘Hello, sleepy,’ she says smiling. ‘I take it my meditation hit the right note for relaxing.’
‘Sorry about that,’ I say. ‘Have I been asleep long?’
‘About an hour. It’s just before nine, but I’m pretty knackered, so I was thinking of heading up to bed.’
I yawn. ‘Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. I don’t want to fall asleep in this chair again, it’s bloody uncomfortable,’ I say, trying to stand, but finding myself doubled over. I slowly try to straighten one vertebra at a time.
‘We could do some yoga tomorrow for that, sort it out a little,’ says Rosie. ‘I think there’s supposed to be a local class too, if you fancy that?’
She bends down and picks up a large torch and flips it on, before blowing out the tea lights.
I huddle behind her as we make our way back into the kitchen.
‘I’ll pop out to the car and get the bedding,’ she says tugging the heavy front door open.
‘You’re not leaving me in here by myself,’ I say clinging on to her.
‘You’re not on your own, your little mouse buddy is here,’ she laughs.
That makes me jump out of the door even quicker and I grab hold of her arm as I go.
‘It’s just like when we used to go to Grandma’s,’ she says.
‘I’d forgotten about that.’
My grandma never believed in lights at night, so if we needed to go and use the loo – the outside loo at that – we used to go out together with a torch.
‘Do you remember how it always smelt of lemons?’
‘Lemons with a hint of lavender,’ I say nodding. ‘Lemons were her answer to any cleaning situation.’
‘Ha, yes,’ says Rosie laughing.
Weirdly, it’s lighter outside than in because of the full moon, and I don’t feel the need to cling on to her as tightly.
I take a look up at the night sky and gasp. ‘Oh, wow, that’s incredible.’
I can’t remember the last time I saw stars like this; in fact, I can barely remember the last time I saw stars. London isn’t the best place for astronomy.
‘It’s quite something, isn’t it?’ says Rosie, as she opens up the boot of the Land Rover and puts her hands on her hips. ‘Some nights, if you’re really lucky, you can even see the Northern Lights.’
‘What, really?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘I didn’t think it was possible that this place could be more beautiful at night than it was in the day.’
‘Welcome to the Eden Valley,’ says Rosie, turning her attention back to the car as she roots through it and pulls out a bag of bedding. ‘Here we are.’
‘Do we have to blow up the other bed tonight?’ I say, staring at it all folded up. I’ve barely got the energy to talk, let alone blow that thing up.
‘We can share the airbed that’s already there tonight, if you like? Then it will really be like staying at Grandma’s house, sharing a bed.’
‘As long as you don’t fidget like you used to.’
I used to wake up black and blue.
‘I think all those years of sharing a bed with Ru have meant that I’m a lot stiller than I used to be.’
‘OK, then fine,’ I say secretly pleased. I didn’t want to admit to Rosie that I was a little bit scared about sleeping in a bedroom on my own in the creepy house.
‘Right, then, let’s get sorted,’ she says, slamming the boot shut and taking charge once more.
I look over to the well in the corner of the courtyard, its tiled roof dappled with pale moonlight. My heart aches for the phone lying in the holey bucket at the bottom, yet I’m too exhausted to do anything about it.
‘I’ll get you back soon,’ I whisper, before I head back inside.