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Still not there.
Damn!
What if I’d lost it? At least I knew where he lived. I suppose I could always go and knock his bin over again to get his attention...
I finally located the precious scrap of paper in the kitchen. It was sticky with liqueur and had to be peeled off the worktop, but at least all the numbers were legible. Relieved, I was about to go back to bed, when I suddenly thought: What if it gets lost again? What if I forget it’s there and I wipe down the benches in the morning and it gets chucked out along with the biscuit wrappers? My head spun woozily. I was desperate to fall back into bed. But I knew I needed to get him in my phone address book before anything bad happened.
Luckily my phone was where I thought it would be. On the bedside table. So I sat down and placed Kurt’s paper with the number on it beside me on the bed, then I very carefully keyed the details into my phone. Autocorrect renamed him ‘King Kong’ but that didn’t matter. I didn’t know any King Kongs, so I’d obviously know it was Kurt. It took me three attempts to jab thenumber in correctly, mainly because my fingers didn’t seem to be communicating with my brain. But finally, it was in there.
Job’s a good ‘un!
Now to save it, lock the phone and get some sleep...
The sound of a phone ringing at the other end was bemusing to start with. I couldn’t quite work out where the noise was coming from. Then I saw the message,Calling King Kong, and my heart nearly leaped out of my chest. Instead ofsaving, I must have somehowcalledhim instead. Stabbing at ‘end call’ in a panic, I glanced at the time as I sank back on the bed.
It was four-twenty-two.
The whole world was asleep – well, apart from the folks in Australia and the like – and I’d just called Kurt! Howembarrassing. Hopefully, the few rings hadn’t actually woken him up. But he’d still see a middle-of-the-night missed call from someone when he looked at his phone in the morning.
He wouldn’t know it was me, though. Would he?
No, it would just be a number he didn’t recognise... so that was all right. I’d have hated him to think I was some kind of weirdo bunny-boiler, disguised as someone normal.
I shoved the offending phone in my dressing-gown pocket and went to the bathroom to clean my teeth (I’d fallen into bed earlier without bothering). Looking at my bleary-eyed reflection in the mirror, I swore to myself that I would never drink industrial quantities of Irish Cream liqueur ever again in my life...
Trailing back through to the bedroom, I flopped back on the bed, exhausted. All this phone malarkey had totally worn me out. (Nothing to do with the alcohol, of course.) I could just roll over on my side like this and go to sleep right here.
I was dozing off when a sound broke through the sleep haze.
Was it my imagination or was there a phone ringing somewhere? Could I be bothered to answer it? No, I could not. I just needed to sleep.
‘Hello? Hello? Are you there?’
A jolt of panic shot through me at the familiar voice emerging from somewhere in my dressing gown.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I sat up, fully alert now. The phone was in my pocket. I drew it out, and sure enough, I had apparently called King Kong again.
Oh, hell, I must have butt-dialled him when I rolled over.
And this time, he’d actually picked up. At four-thirty-three in the morning.
‘Rori? Are you okay? Did you phone me?’
I froze.How the hell did he know it was me?
Then I remembered. He’d picked up some of my glamping business cards, which had my name and number on them.
‘Are you in trouble? Or does this silence mean you’ve butt-called me?’
Right, there was only one thing to do... I faked a snore.
‘What’s that noise? Look, I’m worried about you, Rori. I’m going to phone the police if you don’t answer. Hang on, is that yousnoring?’
I did a few more snuffling pig-like noises then I snorted loudly, as if I’d just woken myself up. ‘Hello? Hello?’
‘Rori! Are you okay?’
