Time since last Internet usage: 1 day, 2 hours, 22 minutes and 43 seconds
The man staggers forward and just about manages to keep himself from falling into the muddy puddles that are popping up all over the courtyard.
He turns round to face us, and fearing that he’s going to lunge at us again, I hold my position behind my sister. Well, she is the oldest and therefore it’s only right that she should protect me.
But instead of lunging at us, he smiles and pats himself down. Clearly he’d only been going to knock as we opened the door.
Instantly I relax and pull myself out from behind Rosie’s shadow. With his wavy dark hair and glossy chestnut eyes he doesn’t look like much of a threat. Although, I guess what watching five series of Dexter should have taught me was you can never tell what a serial killer looks like.
‘Ah, thank goodness,’ he says with a heavy French accent. ‘I thought I was stuck.’
I look between the man and Rosie. He doesn’t sound like he’s one of the neighbours.
‘I came earlier and you were not ’ere. I look for you in the barn,’ he says shrugging, ‘and then the door was closed.’
I’m nodding along with his story, which sounds so much better in his sing-song accent. It doesn’t occur to me to ask what he’s doing here.
‘I am Alexi,’ he says, jutting out his hand and looking between Rosie and me.
I nudge Rosie. Seeing as it’s her farm, she should welcome him.
‘Oh, um,’ she says shaking his hand.
‘It is wet, no? Perhaps we talk in the ’ouse.’
He gestures towards the farmhouse, but my sister seems rooted to the spot – too confused to move.
‘Yes, good idea,’ I say, walking forward and ushering him inside.
Rosie follows us and we stand like shaggy wet dogs in the kitchen. I pat down my hair, cursing the weather for sending my straight hair into a frizzy mess just as an attractive man shows up.
‘So, you are Rosie?’ he says to me.
‘Ah, no, I’m her sister, Daisy. This is Rosie,’ I say, slapping her on the back.
‘Enchanté,’ he says to us both, and for a minute I’m wondering if I should step forward and get all the kisses. Isn’t that what you do to be polite in France? I’m all for embracing other customs, especially when it involves hot men.
‘What did you say your name was?’ I say, realising that Rosie looks like she’s in shock.
‘Alexi,’ he says.
‘But you can’t be,’ pipes up Rosie. ‘You’re a he.’
He looks at her and squints as if he doesn’t understand what she’s saying.
‘I’m expecting Alexis,’ she says in a shaky voice, emphasising the s. ‘Not Alexi. My advert expressly asked for a woman on the help-exchange website and your photo was of a man and a woman so I assumed you were the woman.’
It slowly dawns on me what’s going on and why Rosie is so confused. This is the help-exchange worker she was expecting next week.
‘I do not understand. You speak so quickly. I am a woman?’
‘No, you are a man,’ says Rosie. ‘I was expecting a woman. I saw the photo of you and the woman or girl, whoever she was, and I thought she was you.’
‘Ah. You thought the girl in the photo was who was writing to you? That was my girlfriend. But I do not understand. You thought she was Alexi?’ he says in a tone that suggests Rosie is quite strange. ‘It is a boy’s name.’
‘Yes, well, in English, Alexis can be a girl’s name. You know, like Alexis Carrington.’
My mum would be so proud of her citing Dynasty; she adored that show in the eighties.
‘I think she was actually Alexis Colby,’ I add.
Rosie gives me a look that suggests I’m not helping. She’s lucky I don’t have my phone as I’d totally be googling it by now to find out which one of us was right. All I can remember is that she was played by Joan Collins.
‘We do not pronounce the s. A-lex-i,’ he says, breaking it down for us, so that we’re in no doubt how it’s said. ‘But now I am ’ere, I will work,’ he says, looking around the kitchen and nodding his head.
I want to point out that, in my book, he’s totally welcome, merely because he’s not a woman, but I’ve already had one death stare so I’m keeping out of it.
Rosie sighs. I know it’s a bit of a shock that he is a he rather than a she, but I don’t understand why she’s getting so het up. He looks very fit and healthy, and his arms look like they’d be very strong . . . you know, for all the lifting and carrying needed for working on the house, obviously. I totally wasn’t looking at them thinking they’d be great for picking me up and throwing me onto the hay bales in the barn.
‘Well, you’re going to be here with just me and Daisy, so I understand if you aren’t comfortable with it being just the three of us.’
‘I am very comfortable with girls,’ he says smiling. ‘I ’ave three sisters.’
‘Of course you do,’ says Rosie. ‘But, um, you know, we weren’t expecting you until next week.’
‘No, no, this week. Today, in fact. I send you an email yesterday to say my plans change. I ’ad been in Portsmouth, but I thought I arrive early.’
Rosie looks like she could cry.
‘Oh,’ she says nodding. ‘We don’t have Internet here.’
‘It is not a problem, I am ’ere now.’
‘But we aren’t ready for you. Your room isn’t done, I don’t have a bed for you; I don’t even have a spare towel.’
Rosie’s head looks like it’s going to explode.
‘I understand this is, ’ow do you say it, “a work in progress”?’ he says with air quotes. ‘I ’ave my sleeping bag and mat.’
He walks around the kitchen, having decided he is staying no matter how hard Rosie tries to convince him otherwise.
‘So, this is the ’ouse,’ he says, looking around and nodding in approval. ‘It is run down but looks OK.’
He’s knocking on the walls and rubbing his hand along the parts Rosie’s already had plastered.
‘Can I look around? Let me see the work I will be making?’
‘Sure,’ says Rosie, ‘go ahead.’
He walks into the lounge and I sidle up to her.
‘Well, this is interesting,’ I whisper, my eyes wild at the unexpected turn of events. ‘At least now I won’t be scared at night any more, or if I am, I sure know where I can take refuge.’
‘There’ll be no funny business under my roof, thank you very much. Especially as we’ve got no doors. Oh God,’ she says, clapping her hand over her mouth. ‘We’ve got no doors on any of the bedrooms. I was going to get a carpenter in to hang them before she, I mean he, arrived.’
‘I’m sure that he won’t mind, he doesn’t seem to be the shy, foreboding type,’ I say staring at his bum in his tight jeans as he pokes his head up the fireplace to check out the chimney.
‘I can’t believe he’s a he,’ she says shaking her head.
I don’t understand what the big deal is. If anything, I think it’s a comfort he’s a man. As much as it grates on my feminist ideals to admit it, the fact that he’s going to be sleeping here makes me feel that little bit safer. ‘Surely that doesn’t matter?’ I say, still thinking that it’s an unexpected bonus.
‘I specifically wanted a woman,’ she says shaking her head. ‘Don’t forget I hadn’t planned to have you come here with me, I thought that I was going to be here on my own. If I’m really honest, the help-exchange was as much about keeping me company as doing work on the house. I thought I’d get a bit lonely rattling round here on my own.’
‘Well, that’s OK. Now you’ll have me and Alexis.’
‘But what about when you go? It’ll just be me and him.’
‘And what’s wrong with that?’
‘I’m a married woman,’ says Rosie, almost a little too loudly, and we both snap our heads round to check that Alexis hasn’t heard.
‘So what? It’s not 1950 anymore, I don’t think anyone will care.’
‘You don’t think Liz and Gerry will mention it?’
Point taken. I forgot that people up here probably take a bit more interest in that kind of thing.
‘But to be honest, I don’t care what everyone else thinks, I care what Rupert will think. I mean we’re barely on speaking terms as it is. What’s he going to say when he finds out that I’m up here on a secluded farm with a Frenchman?’
‘A sexy Frenchman. Sexy Alexis,’ I say, making sure I pronounce his name like he does.
I get the death stare again.
‘And no doors on the bedrooms,’ I add helpfully.
Rosie sighs.
‘Thank you for reminding me. My marriage is already on choppy water, I don’t want it hitting the rocks over this.’
‘Just don’t mention it to him. It’s not like you’re able to talk to him at the moment, anyway – I mean you don’t have your phone.’
‘No . . . but I’m going to have to use the payphone in the village sometimes. Alexis is supposed to be staying for a month, and maybe it will be longer – you saw what he’s like, changing his plans. I can’t not mention a help-ex being here all that time. And what if he comes to visit? I’ve asked him to come several times, what if he takes me up on the offer?’
‘Then cross that bridge when you come to it. Besides, I’m here now, and I’m quite happy to take any hits for the team if it makes it look better in your husband’s eyes.’
‘Down, girl. There’ll be no need for that. If he’s staying here he’s working on the house, not on you. You are supposed to be concentrating on your digital detox and finding yourself, not some Frenchman.’
I pout a little, but she’s right. I think perhaps having zero personal life over the last couple of months has turned me into the desperate version of myself I usually reserve for when a slow song comes on at a wedding and I’ve drunk copious amounts of wine. I’ve got to remember the fact that Marvellous Marcus and his quick reminders were beginning to seem attractive to me last week.
‘Besides, remember he said he had a girlfriend? The one in the photo.’
‘Ah yes, how could we forget Alexis,’ I say using Rosie’s original pronunciation.
Rosie punches me playfully on the arm and I push her back, but before it can escalate, Alexis walks up to us.
‘I go upstairs,’ he says, more of a statement than question.
‘OK,’ says Rosie, ‘but remember it’s a bit of a work in progress,’ she calls up the stairs, but we can already hear him stomping across the floorboards above us.
‘You might need some insulation between the floors,’ I say helpfully.
‘Another thing to add to the list.’
Poor Rosie. This afternoon she’d almost come alive talking about her plans for this place and yet now she looks down in the dumps.
‘I can’t believe I’m about to say this,’ I say, ‘but I’ll stay as long as Alexis does. That way it won’t be awkward for you and Rupert.’
‘You’d do that for me?’ she says, wrinkling her nose in confusion.
‘Uh-huh, but only if you give me my phone back from the well.’
‘No deal,’ she says sighing, as if I’d got her hopes up. ‘I’d rather take my chances with Rupert. You’re doing so well, one day in, you can’t give up now. Your fingers have only just stopped twitching.’
I examine my hand and wonder if my fingers were moving without me noticing.
‘OK, fine,’ I say. ‘I’ll stay here without my phone.’
It’s not as if I’ve got anything to rush back to in my ordinary life.
‘Thank you.’ Rosie hugs me for the second time today. This time it’s not an awkward embrace but more a genuine hold.
I hear footsteps coming back down the stairs.
‘But I’m going to have to find something to do without a phone. I need a distraction,’ I say, whispering as Alexis comes back into the kitchen.
‘Luckily, there’s more than enough for you to do work wise, without looking at him,’ she whispers. ‘In fact, seeing as you’re going to be here for so long, why don’t you help me with the project management?’
‘Me? Project manage a building site?’
I try the title on in my head and I quite like it. I’ve seen more than enough Grand Designs, I know that it’s about good organisation and the ability to sweet-talk builders and contractors with tea and biscuits, and I am the queen of making tea. It would also put me on a more equal footing with Rosie, and be less like I’m just her little sister.
‘Yes, help me sort out a plan of what we’re going to do and when. I imagine you’d be all over a Gantt Chart and working out the critical path.’
‘Now you’re talking my language,’ I say, thinking that’s much more my cup of tea than getting my hands dirty.
‘There is much work,’ says Alexis. ‘We start tomorrow.’
Rosie nods. ‘So, your photo on the help-ex site,’ she says, as she unplugs the kettle and fills it up with water, ‘it was of you and your girlfriend?’
She looks a lot calmer now that I’ve agreed to stay, and it’s as if she’s thawed in her attitude towards Alexis.
‘My girlfriend,’ he says nodding as he pulls out a chair and makes himself at home. ‘Or, how do you say it, my old girlfriend?’
‘Ex-girlfriend,’ I chip in helpfully, nodding at the nugget of information, much to Rosie’s disdain.
‘Yes, that’s it. We travel together in Spain, and when I come here, alone, I forgot to change the photo.’
I notice that I’m sitting up a little straighter and tucking my hair behind my ear. I’m sort of glad that I’m not wearing a shapeless fleece, despite being chilly in my light cardigan.
I realise that I’m falling in lust mainly due to that sexy accent he speaks in. Although he is attractive in the conventional tall, dark and handsome way, I still don’t really know him yet. For all we know he might turn out to have a personality reminiscent of Dickhead Dominic. But unlike Dickhead Dominic, whose words, I imagine, if you closed your eyes, would still wound your soul, Alexis could be telling me how he murders kittens and it would still make my insides stand to attention.
‘So, you said there’s no Internet at the farm?’ He pulls his phone out of his pocket and I almost make a lunge for it. He stares down at it. ‘This does not work also.’ He looks at it sadly.
Welcome to my digital detox world, Alexis.
He shrugs his shoulders and pops the phone on the table. ‘No matter,’ he says.
Why is everyone else coping with the lack of mobile signal and Internet so well? If anything, Rosie’s been relieved since her phone’s been down the well, yet I can’t stop thinking about mine.
While I’ve stopped hearing phone sounds, mainly because I’m trying to tune out noise for fear of it being rodents, I am still reaching for it all the time. Like now, I’m desperate to text Erica to tell her about the arrival of Alexis. He’d so get the flexed arm Emoji in his description. I’d also be trying to take a sneaky snap of him for Instagram – you know, to make it look as if I’m having the best time up on this lovely farm with my sister and a sexy, suave French dude. I’d look proper cosmopolitan.
‘Right, are you hungry? We were just about to make tea,’ says Rosie, standing up.
‘I don’t like tea,’ he says. ‘I’ll just have water.’
‘OK,’ says Rosie, biting her tongue. It must be hard for non-native speakers to understand all the little nuances of our funny language. ‘Would you like some food, for dinner?’
She gets out two pizzas from the fridge and switches on the oven.
‘Food, now? It’s only just after five.’ He looks at us like we’re weird.
‘Of course,’ says Rosie, switching the oven back off, ‘we’ll eat later.’
She must be able to hear my stomach growling as she automatically goes over to the toaster and pops in a couple of crumpets.
‘This ’ouse, then,’ says Alexis, ‘there is a lot to do.’
I’m not sure if that’s a question or a statement.
‘There is,’ says Rosie. ‘I’m getting builders in to do the big things, but then I guess there’ll be a lot for us to get stuck in to. Of course, you won’t have to work all the time.’
I see a look of fear in her eyes as if she doesn’t want to scare him off.
‘Yes, I think there is much to explore here,’ he says.
‘Lots. There are lots of walks and climbs; the Lakes are, of course, outstanding and not very far. Scotland’s only half an hour away and Newcastle’s pretty close too,’ says Rosie, turning into the local tourist information office.
He nods. ‘Yes, lots to explore.’
He looks at me and I turn into a total teenager wishing he would explore me.
The crumpets pop up and Rosie puts them and the jam on the table, and I tuck in. Alexis looks dubiously at one before following suit and tucking into one, I can tell he’s pleasantly surprised.
‘So what are we going to do first?’ he asks.
‘I thought perhaps we’d start on the bathroom. It needs new laminate on the floor and the tiles all need to come off, and the wallpaper stripped. I’ve got a local plumber who can come and check things out and put in new units, and then I’m going to tile it.’
‘You’re going to tile it?’ I say, almost choking.
‘Uh-huh, I’m actually pretty good at it.’
I’m learning so much about my sister.
‘Right, well, why don’t I start a list?’ I say, picking up my new journal. It’ll be much better used for renovation planning than it would be for mindfulness. ‘OK, so bathroom first,’ I say. ‘And then what’s next?’
‘Then kitchen, I guess.’ And as she goes on to tell me exactly what needs to be done, I try and keep up, marking things with stars that need external contractors, and putting initials by the side when Alexis and Rosie volunteer to do things. After half an hour, the list has stretched over seven pages, and I get the impression that this is probably just the tip of the iceberg – after all, these are only the jobs that come instantly to mind, and once each room is started I’m sure there’ll be loads more.
‘This’s some project. We can’t get it all done in a month,’ I say, shaking my head in disbelief.
‘You’d be surprised,’ says Rosie. ‘But no, it’ll probably take longer than that, but at least this will be a good start. I’m just glad that the previous owner did all the damp-proofing before they sold it, as at least now we can crack on with the painting and things.’
‘I hadn’t really thought about who was here before,’ I say, realising that I hadn’t considered who’d used the archaic kitchen, but presumably they left this place a long time ago.
‘There was an old man living here until he went into a home about two years ago. His son considered doing the renovations, he’d pulled out everything in the lounge and had the damp-proofing done, but I think he balked at the project when he realised how much else needed doing: the re-wiring, the plumbing, the plastering . . . If you think it’s a wreck now, you should have seen it when I first bought it. Over the last few weeks I’ve had the builders in to do the first fix.’
‘A good start,’ says Alexis.
‘I think this calls for more than tea and crumpets, and now it’s after five o’clock, let’s open the wine.’
‘After five o’clock?’ says Alexis. ‘You do not drink until after five?’ He mutters something about the British under his breath as I open a bottle of red and pour it into three mismatched glasses.
I hand them out to everyone and raise it up.
‘To the project,’ I say, chinking glasses with Rosie and then Alexis.
As I look at the three of us I wonder what we’ve got ourselves into, but at least with the renovation, and now Alexis, I should have plenty to take my mind off the digital detox.
Siri who . . .?