It is my wife’s birthday weekend and we are away, with the middle one house-sitting. The term “house-sitting” is new to us – when our grown children lived at home, looking after the dog and the cat while we were away was just part of the deal; we never had to think about it. Now we have to invite them to do us the favour. Potentially, they could all say no.
Some friends are arriving later, but for the first night it’s just the two of us eating by candlelight. The evening is cool. The stars are very bright. My phone pings in my pocket, twice in succession. Although I shouldn’t, I look at it.
“Uh oh,” I say.
“What?” my wife says.
I have two messages. The first is from the bank reporting that some suspicious activity on my card has been blocked. The second is from a different bank, saying the exact same thing about my other card.
“What should I do?” I say.
“Ring them back,” my wife says.
“It’s not that simple,” I say.
“It really is that simple,” my wife says.
“How do I know this is real?” I say. “It could be a scam!”
I tend to treat any report of suspicious activity as suspicious. I assume computer warnings about viruses are themselves viruses. When my children text me to say they’ve lost their phones, I believe them to be convincing bots trying to get my bank details.
“Two identical messages,” I say. “That’s doubly suspicious.”
“Ignore it then,” my wife says.
“But it’s happened twice!” I say. “Someone might be trying to steal my whole life!”
“You don’t need to panic,” she says. This advice comes too late: I am already panicking. Reception is poor, and when my food is served I am still on the phone with the first bank, still treating them as if they might not be a bank at all.
“Date of birth?” I shout. “What do you want that for?”
I stay on the phone all through pudding, until both cards are cancelled.
“Well, this was nice,” my wife says.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “It had to be done.”
By the next afternoon our friends have arrived. There are activities available at this place, including yoga, and walking, and tennis. My wife has already paid for everyone to attend some weird breathing class at five. I am reading in a deckchair.
“Isn’t it lovely,” my wife says.
“Yes it is,” I say.
“You slightly ruined last night by panicking unnecessarily,” she says. “But never mind.”
“I was overwrought,” I say. I don’t mention I’ve been receiving texts and calls all morning reporting more suspicious activity. I figure: the cards are cancelled; I can do no more.
“Are you coming to breathing?” my wife says.
“Maybe,” I say.
My wife goes off in search of someone more fun to talk to, and I return to my book. Some minutes later I notice my wife’s phone ringing on the empty deckchair next to mine. According to the screen, it’s the middle one calling.
“It’s me,” I say, “on Mum’s phone.”
“Oh,” he says. “Did you see the picture I sent her?”
“No,” I say. “What picture?”
“The garden wall sort of blew over last night,” he says.
“What do you mean, blew over?” I say.
“Like, collapsed,” he says.
“What do you mean, collapsed?”
“Have you looked at the picture?”
“I can’t look at the picture and talk to you at the same time,” I say. I hear a derisive exhalation at his end.
“Yes,” he says, “you can.”
The picture looks like the aftermath of an earthquake: jumbled piles of dusty brick and splintered trellis, heaps of uprooted ivy.
“This was the wind, you say?”
“What wind?” my wife says, suddenly standing over me.
“Here,” I say. “Talk to Mum.” I hand the phone over, thinking: I’ve been away for, like, 36 hours.
“Just leave it,” my wife says to the middle one.
“But make sure the tortoise isn’t under it,” I say.
At five past five someone comes to get me for breathing class – a room where everyone is lying on mats with blindfolds on, depriving themselves of oxygen while an instructor walks among them saying encouraging things. I put on a blindfold and breathe along.
“Make your inner wholeness shine and smile,” says the instructor. I think: fat chance.
When I come out there is a text from the middle one that says: “Tortoise is fine.”
