Day 3 of 21
Allie’s diary (via CloudLink Drive // The Lake Dock *new*)
Good news is someone has found my phone.
Bad news is that the ‘someone’ may be a bit of a clown.
His name is Milo. (Allegedly.) And he’s in Romania. (Also, allegedly.) And he won’t (and can’t) tell me any more than that. Both concerning and understandable. We are strangers, after all.
The only reassurances that he isn’t some sort of phone-ransom-pulling scammer are:
– a) He seems a bit too silly.
– b) Have offered to wire this man money, and he isn’t interested.
– c) While he seemed reluctant at first, he now appears to be working off his own back on ‘an assistant’ to fly to the UK to execute a phone swap. So perhaps he really does mean it when he says it’s just that he can’t tell me where he is.
Iris thinks he’s a spy.
I think he’s a contract killer. (Though, a contract killer with a squirty flower slotted into his lapel, maybe.)
Either way, he has my phone, and if he’s to be believed and this isn’t some kind of bizarre scam, it’s looking likely I could have it back in a day or two.
Phew. I need the notes I have on it for a formal review I have next week at the university with Peter, a program manager at Terrarium, who are funding us, and my supervisor, and it needs to go perfectly.
The three-year grant for Bermuda is coming to an end, and while most data is backed up, the data I recorded on voice memos isn’t.
Argh. At the time, it felt like a no-brainer.
Needed to count colonies, keep both eyes on the birds, but now it seems like such a ball-drop.
There’re already rumours they’re looking for reasons not to renew the grant, but telling them the research they’re kindly funding for us is stuck in Romania with a spy/circus hitman does not say, ‘Please keep funding my project, I’m a responsible bird biologist.’ Worried a lot about this with Iris earlier on a TeamSync video call, and she had a – respectfully – ridiculous suggestion.
‘Why can’t you and this Milo bloke have a little trust?
’ she asked. Honestly. ‘Get him to send your stuff?’ She looked so at ease, of course.
Lounging in that cluttered, sun-smoked camper van of hers.
She’s in Wales with a small research team on what she’s calling ‘a bug hunting extravaganza’, and she glowed with it – sun-kissed. Mud-dusted.
‘Iris, you think he’s a spy,’ I reminded her, and she said, ‘Why can’t it just be a genuine accidental swap, though?
Between two normal people and not you and some highwayman.
’ ‘Highwayman’ made me laugh. A lot. A package getting lost in the post is ‘pretty unlikely’ she told me.
Then, ‘Worst comes to worst, you just hold on to the phones until he flies back. Or, like, lock down your bank and stuff, then get him to send you what you need for work. Right?’
Wrong. Surely, surely wrong.
And I told her so, as she ran through non-scary scenarios like a calm detective and I argued back about data and identity theft, all the while changing Clive in number 3’s bedsheets.
He’s a surprisingly neat guest, Clive. (Messy, OnlyFans-marred marriage aside.) Just a sketch of a dalmatian on the back of an envelope and a tube of Trebor mints on his bedside table. Very civilised.
Iris was a bit thrown by it, saying, ‘It is so strange watching you fluff pillows,’ and, ‘It’s like seeing a politician in jogging bottoms or something.
A dog in a pair of shoes.’ Then she asked if I was doing OK with ‘all this your-mum’s-house-being-a-hotel stuff?
’Cause it feels weird for me and I’m just watching.
’ And I laughed. Said I was fine. Pretended that it definitely did not feel like the end of a pencil was being pressed against my heart.
Because, truthfully, everything feels wrong.
Mum’s lovely June House as a pink, taxidermy-filled ‘boutique’ B&B.
She wanted it to be a retreat once – rooms for women and children for respite, like the cottage was for us.
Not like this though. But Sian won’t be told.
Coming home since Mum died is hard enough, but now every time I do, the house has changed more and more.
Mum’s decor: now gone. Her bedroom, lifeless, like a film set.
But it’s worse now there’s a weird, pretend-feeling reception desk in the living room and strange, smiling guests – we have two more now – stalking the corridors in branded pink robes like in-patients in an appendicostomy ward.
And I wish we could talk about it. But neither me nor my sister are good at talking.
I shut down, and Sian avoids speaking about Mum as if she’s shamefully incarcerated rather than having died suddenly of a heart attack, and too soon.
This house creaks with all the unsaid things between us sometimes.
I often fantasise that she reads this diary, somehow.
To air it all. To remind her this house was given to Mum and us as children as a safe place and it’s served its purpose, so maybe, as painful as it would be to say goodbye, we should let it go.
Maybe then I could ask her to stop buying tacky taps shaped like elephants.
To quit foghorning this very distinctive old house across the internet – because if Dad ever happened to see it .
. . Thing is, she probably wouldn’t believe it anyway.
How horrible the elephant taps are, nor how callous our absent dad can be when he wants to be.
She’s only three years younger than me but there are things she doesn’t remember – wasn’t privy to – like I was when we were kids.
Then there’s my lost phone, plus Milo’s, dinging unfamiliarly with notifications, which only adds to this whole ‘wrong’ feeling, although the few I’ve happened to see previews of seem pretty regular and boring, and not phone-swapping fraudster fodder.
Iris believes I’m overthinking. Weighing myself down with it all.
‘Nobody ever won a prize by shouldering everything by themselves, Allie,’ she texted when we hung up. ‘It’s totally fine to take a little risk and open up.’
‘Iris, are you asking me to lean on the contract killer?’ I asked.
‘I’m saying talk to me if you need, amigo,’ she replied. Then, ‘Hold your hands up to your supervisor about the lost research. Find a way with Milo. (P.S. Contract killing is probably pretty trustworthy work anyway.)’
I thanked her, promised to confide in her, and said that I’d lean on Milo as much as I’d ever lean on a stranger who was in another time zone and in possession of my phone.
Just enough to safely get it back to me.
*
2:13 P.M.
Milo via Allie’s phone to Allie’s tablet via TeamSync: Hey!
! I’ve got news!!! An assistant called Sierra lands in Gatwick at 10:16 tomorrow morning to pick up a journo.
Flight number: FO1908. I’ll give her your phone and you could meet her with mine at arrivals?
?? Hold a sign or something? Really hope this works Allie!
! Kinda starting to need mine now too. So much for ‘divine intervention’ haha. Glad we could get through this!! – M
*
2:17 P.M.
Allie’s diary (via CloudLink Drive // The Lake Dock *new*)
Not so much of a clown, after all, it seems. Milo’s solved it. Have confirmed formal review with Terrarium. Big phew. Panicking is an unproductive pursuit, but I admit, I was actually starting to . . .