Day 12 of 21
Allie’s diary (via CloudLink Drive // The Lake Dock *new*)
Ever since our two-hour video call three days ago, I’ve not heard much from Milo.
I’ve received odd notifications from him (my sweet subscription box renewing, and Count Your Chicks sign-ups).
I also forwarded him those messages from his friend Ben, which I’ve spent more time analysing than I’d ever admit.
Because ‘undone’ could definitely be regretful.
But ‘undone’ could also be positive. Excitement that we get along and I like his coffee.
Milo’s response offered no insight either.
He first said, ‘Ah, shit, wish strangling friends across an ocean was scientifically possible. Haha! And it’s just my two buddies who know.
And Sierra who signed an NDA for the movie. So you still have my word!!’
I suppose less comms makes sense now I gain more and more access to my digital life. Plus, I reason that he’s very busy and on set a lot.
I even said this to Sian, who has been mostly avoiding me since I told her offering spa days at the B&B was a terrible idea (due to the fact we have no spa), but she seemed in the mood for chatting after I offered to help with breakfast service.
I toasted bread. She organised eggs in a saucepan (and all while wearing an actual Wee Willie Winkie-style sleep cap, for the morning’s breakfast theme: ‘Breakfast in bed’, God help us.
Next Wednesday, the theme is: woodland. Am scared she’s going to ask me to dress up as a shrub and cover me in miniature pastries).
‘I know you think creative work is frivolous,’ she said, and I interrupted to say I wouldn’t quite say frivolous.
But I couldn’t think of another word. Lighter work, maybe.
Whimsical. At the superficial end of jobs, if pushed.
She carried on though. ‘He’s probably deep in his work.
Obsessive. Creative work takes so much personal energy.
’ Then she smiled down at her pig-shaped, for some reason, egg cups, and I realised she was comparing her breakfasts to Milo’s movie.
And Milo probably is too busy to be worrying about my phone.
He’s signed an NDA. He’s working with an award-winning writer, a trailblazing, record-breaking director who has a journalist there, in Romania, currently writing an exclusive biographical piece about her.
Of course he won’t always have the time to send screenshots of texts from unable to find my house, tucked away in the village, or hourly bird camera updates with his usual, ‘Damn Allie, starting to love checking up on these guys’ messages.
But I also think that something has shifted after that video call.
I would never of course say this aloud to anyone because it sounds nonsensical.
But I felt it.
Hung up and simply stared at the tablet on my bed in front of me like it was a piece of smouldering coal on the duvet.
Perhaps he felt the same. A little blindsided, like me, after that out-of-nowhere deep-dive chat about family and distant fathers and those specific intense memories of summer days you have as a child, and all while making hot chocolate (me) and waiting for catering to deliver dinner (Milo).
We talked about Mum. He lost his own mother, ten years ago, to cancer, and he was so open in the way he spoke about it.
(‘I still can’t say died. It’s simply not something she would’ve ever done.
’) We talked about Dad. ‘Estranged as estranged can be,’ I told him.
I was fifteen when we left. He doesn’t know where we are.
We as good as hid. The broad strokes. And I was surprised really, that I just gave it up to him.
Dad’s chaos and alcoholism that blights every childhood memory like an ink smudge.
But then, Milo did the same. Said his dad was a king-like figure in his childhood, now crippled with arthritis, living in a luxury retirement village Milo pays for, and disapproves of every single thing he does, even the success.
‘Think I’m still waiting for him to love me,’ he said.
It was strange. Different.
Because I don’t do this.
Whether conversations with strangers at wedding tables, blind dates with friends of friends, neighbours in front gardens at dusk, slippers on and wheeling in recycling bins, even heart-to-hearts with friends .
. . I try to hand over parts of myself, settling a ripe peach of it in people’s palms. But I retreat.
Every time. Envisage it being pulverised in a scrunched fist.
But the call with Milo . . .
Maybe it’s something about the face-to-faceness of a video call. Nowhere to hide. No making excuses, no drifting off into another room. You can do that at a friend’s barbecue. You can’t do that on a video call.
It was just us, faces lit by screens.
And what’s weird is, twelve days ago, I didn’t even know this man existed.
And in nine days, we meet to switch back, then I likely won’t hear anything from him again.
*
Forwarded by Allie [ screenshot ]
Milo’s phone: Word! – you haven’t added a word for a while! Tap now to add a word. Have you heard a new word recently? Add it to ‘Milo’s List!’