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‘Blimey,’ says Rosie, as she walks into the tiny box room and spots me hunched over my laptop.
I see Erica out of the corner of my eye giving her an ‘I told you so’ look.
When Rosie arrived at the front door there were a lot of muffled whispers and I presume that Erica has brought her up to speed.
‘Quite the predicament you’ve got yourself in, then,’ she says, sitting down.
I feel myself tense up at the smug look she’s got on her face. I knew she’d react like this; she’s probably itching to get on the phone to Mum to share my misfortune.
‘I’m sure it will all blow over in a day or two,’ I say, not sounding very convincing.
‘It’s OK not to be OK,’ she says, with the most compassion I’ve ever heard in her voice. She stretches out her hands as if I’m about to shatter into a million pieces and she’s going to catch me.
It unnerves me and I almost burst into tears. I’d full on prepared myself for her scorn and self-righteousness.
‘Look, Erica told me that you’ve been staring at that screen for hours now; it’s not healthy. She said she’d suggested you go away.’
‘Yeah, but I don’t want to go anywhere on my own, and it’s too short notice for people who still have their jobs!’
She nods her head and smiles. ‘I’ll go with you.’
‘What?’ I stare at her, my tears forgotten. ‘Um, I think it might be better to stay here and sort out another job, and –’
‘Nonsense, you need a break and I’m free. Let’s go away somewhere.’
I do feel like running away from all of this, but Rosie and I haven’t spent more than a day together since I was fifteen and she went off to uni. Back then we fought like cats and dogs. And despite us being older and wiser now, whenever we’re together at Mum’s, no matter how short the time, sibling rivalry always rears its ugly head.
‘I thought you were staying down here for a couple of days?’ I say, in desperation to find a way out.
‘I came down to see Rupert as he’s here on business, but . . . he’s busier than expected. So I was going to head back to Manchester later this afternoon.’
‘Well, don’t let me keep you,’ I say.
‘Look, you’re already exhausted from all that work and now this has happened, you can’t stay holed up in this flat staring at the screen. Come back on the train with me and I can pack some stuff and we can go away from there.’
‘Where would we go? Somewhere abroad?’
I slowly let the thought creep into my mind. I’m imagining myself on a desert island, somewhere with crystal-clear water and fluorescent cocktails. I’m reaching for my phone to take an Instagram snap, when it starts beeping with tweets on my Twitter stream.
I sigh.
Even if I run away, Twitter will follow me. When I close my eyes, I can see the words of my tweet in large letters, and I can almost hear the digital laughter of everyone reacting to it.
‘No, I was thinking more of a staycation. In fact, on the way over here in the taxi, I had a brilliant idea. We should go on a detox.’
‘A detox? What, some sort of spa retreat where we drink green shakes and lemongrass all day?’
‘Um, no, a digital detox,’ says Rosie, a glint appearing in her eyes that I haven’t seen for a long time. That same glint that always got us into trouble when I followed one of her hair-brained ideas when we were kids.
‘A digital detox?’ I say, confused. ‘Like no phones?’
‘Yes . . . and no computers, tablets, kindles . . .’
I’m starting to hyperventilate at the thought as she practically reels off the usual contents of my handbag. ‘Are you mad?’
Rosie laughs a little. ‘Of course not. I think it would be good for you – good for us – to get away, and for you to have some space from all this.’
She waves her hand like she’s waving a magic wand over my bed, which looks as if it’s been lifted straight from an Apple Store catalogue with my MacBook, iPad and iPhone next to me.
‘I am not going on a digital detox,’ I say, folding my arms. At a push I’d consider going away with her, but this is one step too far. ‘It’s a terrible idea – see,’ I say, pointing to the scared look on Erica’s face.
‘She can barely go one minute without checking her phone, let alone one day,’ she says, backing me up.
‘Oh, I can well imagine. When we were last at home together, she was commenting on Britain’s Got Talent, based on the tweets she was watching, and she hadn’t even realised we’d changed the channel ten minutes before.’
‘Sometimes it’s funnier reading about people’s reactions to something. It’s only like watching Gogglebox,’ I say in my defence.
‘OK, then what about when I had to Whatsapp you during Christmas dinner last year to get you to pass the gravy?’
Erica giggles and I fold my arms across my chest, I have no comeback to that.
‘I could give up my phone, no problem. Yesterday, I went for a whole fourteen hours without checking it,’ I say.
I’m still cursing my dead battery. If I’d just seen those notifications rolling in when I first tweeted I could have deleted it before it started trending.
‘And how many of those fourteen hours were you asleep?’ asks Rosie.
‘About eight or nine,’ I mumble. ‘But I’m sure I could last a whole day.’
‘I was thinking one week,’ says Rosie.
‘One week!’ Erica and I scream in unison.
‘As if,’ says Erica. ‘As much as I agree that Daisy needs to step away from the computer, I don’t think she’d be able to do it.’
‘You’re right,’ says Rosie, nodding. ‘Silly me. I thought Daisy would have more willpower and determination than that. I must have got all those genes in our family –’
‘Hang on,’ I snap, my sister already getting under my skin. ‘I’ll have you know that if I wanted to do a digital detox, I’d be able to. I just don’t want to do one.’
‘OK,’ says Rosie, nodding her head in a patronising way. ‘Sure you would.’
‘I would,’ I say, standing up. ‘I’m not addicted to my phone.’
At that exact moment it beeps, as if to test me and I pick it up without flinching.
‘It’s from Nan,’ I say, scan reading it, ‘she wants to know what a Brazilian is. Oh for fuck’s sake, when did she start going on bloody Twitter?’
‘Didn’t you set it up for her?’ says Rosie. There it is, the smug look that I knew would be all over her face if she came over. ‘So what was it you were saying about not being addicted to your phone? You picked that up in a nanosecond.’
‘Well, it could have been important. In case you haven’t noticed I’m having a big life crisis at the moment and it’s imperative that I keep up to date.’
‘As I said, I was wrong. You’d never be able to digitally detox. It’s a shame, as I had a great place in mind and everything.’
‘You did?’
‘Uh-huh, and I even gave them a ring when I was in the taxi to see if they had any last-minute availability.’
‘And did they?’ I ask, not sure I want to hear the answer.
‘Yes, they do, but if you don’t think you could do it . . .’
‘Holy shit,’ I say, ignoring Rosie and staring at the screen in disbelief as I read a tweet.
Dominic Cutler @DomDomDom2434
Apparently I’m hot as hell . . .
WB_MARKETING Sexy knickers £25, Brazilian £35, New outfit £170. When your Tinder date is hot as hell & you’re going to f**k his brains out = #priceless
‘What?’ asks Erica.
‘Dickhead Dominic is getting in on the action.’
‘Who’s that?’ asks Rosie.
‘The Tinder date from last night, the one who the tweet was about.’
‘Ah,’ she says.
I scrunch my eyes up. I desperately want to look, but at the same time I don’t want to.
‘Daisy, this isn’t good for you,’ says Rosie in a calm voice. ‘Why don’t we pack a few things? All of this will have blown over by the time you get back.’
I watch in horror as my twitter search for ‘#priceless’ has new notifications, and as I click on them, I see that other people are retweeting Dominic’s tweet.
‘I’ll help pack,’ says Erica, pulling open my drawers and seeing they’re all empty.
‘Washing. Haven’t done. Nothing Clean,’ I stutter, unable to string together a sentence.
‘That’s OK,’ says Rosie. ‘You can wash them at mine tonight and I’ve got a tumble dryer too.’
‘What about booking the place? Maybe it’s been booked up since you phoned,’ I say clutching at straws.
Rosie pulls her phone out of her bag. ‘I’ll phone them right now,’ she says, walking out of the room.
I’m vaguely aware of Erica packing me a suitcase full of my dirty washing.
‘There,’ she says, zipping it shut. ‘You’re all good to go.’
She pulls the suitcase off the bed and drags it down the corridor into the lounge before she comes back and gently removes my laptop from in front of me. I snatch my phone and clutch it to my chest before she can nab that too and I find myself escorted to the lounge.
‘Great news!’ says Rosie as she hangs up the phone. ‘We’re all booked in. I’ll print all the paperwork off when we’re back at my flat.’
I groan, wondering why I agreed to go. But at least we’re not going until tomorrow, which means I’ve still got my phone and, hopefully, enough time to convince my sister to change her mind.