I sit in front of the family computer painstakingly perfecting my note when suddenly the screen turns black. A fraction of a second later the lights flutter and then turn off. I had music playing, but silence now throbs all around me, and not even the fridge is humming. A power cut. It’s just a power cut. Isn’t it? The blackness settles and I wait. Has someone cut the power? Is there someone here with me? I’m so glad the kids are out. I used to think being alone was frightening; now I know there are far more horrifying things.
I wait, straining my ears for a creaking floorboard, a door opening or closing. I glance about for my phone. Where did I put it? I should keep it close to me at all times the way the kids do, the way Jake does, but as I’ve been without one for a few days I’ve got out of the habit of keeping it close by. I tend to pick it up and put it down wherever I happen to be standing. Tentatively, I begin to edge around the house. It’s pitch-black. The blinds are down, blocking out the streetlight, and I can’t open them manually because, of course, they are designed to rise and fall at the flick of a switch. The combination of privacy, security and convenience renders me powerless. Even if I could rid myself of the fear that there is an intruder, which I can’t quite, I am not familiar enough with my surroundings to walk confidently through the house, so I creep and steal. I feel my way, painstakingly.
An inch-by-inch blind search reveals that my phone is not on the kitchen table or counters, not on the hall console or on any of the coffee or occasional tables in the sitting room. I carefully edge upstairs, trailing my fingers along cool, unfamiliar walls, finding my way around corners and through doors. There is no sign of an intruder, but they wouldn’t advertise themselves, would they? My phone is not by my bed, or in the bathroom by the basin. Eventually, I find it in my dressing room, the last place I searched because I’m not used to having a dressing room and it didn’t pop into my head to look there.
I’m relieved to have the phone in my hand. It feels like a lifeline out of the blackness and silence. I could call an engineer, or Jake. Maybe even the police. I don’t think there’s anyone here, but perhaps it’s better to be safe than sorry. I call Toma.
“Lexi!”
“Toma.”
“How good to hear from you!” The joy in his voice floats across the miles that separate us, it fills my room, even lights up the room and—I can’t deny it—my heart, too. “What are you doing with yourself?”
“Well, right now, I’m sitting in the pitch-black.”
“What?”
“We’ve had a power cut.” Suddenly, I’m certain that’s all it is. Hearing his voice has made me feel more secure and rational. The fear that was causing my shoulders to hunch, my pulse to race, ebbs away. Although my pulse remains speedy, I sigh. “Oh, Toma, I have so much to tell you.”
“Then tell me, Lexi.”
“You have time?”
“For you, always.”
Jake doesn’t come home until after midnight. By the time he does I have already called the mother of one of Logan’s Scout friends to explain about the power cut and make arrangements for him to have a sleepover. I have also called Emily who, unsurprisingly, didn’t want to return to a pitch-black house. She’s staying at Scarlett’s. The power cut is an inconvenience, but the silver lining is that both the kids will enjoy their impromptu sleepovers. Jake strides into the house, using the torch on his phone to light his way. I heard a taxi drop him off, and the slight heaviness in his step suggests he’s had a fair bit to drink. I wonder who with.
“I pressed the buzzer, why didn’t you let me in? I had to climb over the fence. I ripped my trousers.” Then, almost an afterthought, he demands, “Why are you sitting here in the dark?”
“Because we’ve had a power cut.”
“A power cut or has a fuse flipped?”
“I don’t know.”
“You didn’t check?”
“I don’t know where the fuse box is,” I mutter. Jake laughs at this, as though it’s amusing rather than what it is: humiliating or frustrating. I should know where the fuse box is in my own house. “Anyway, I think it’s bigger than a fuse because everything is out,” I mutter defensively.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
I hesitate. “My phone was dead.” How do I explain that I called Toma first and that we chatted all evening, until the battery of my phone drained to almost nothing and I could only make the two calls pertinent to the kids’ arrangements? I told Toma about the kidnapping, walked through every moment of horror; it felt good to talk about it, almost like therapy.
“Why did you let your friends bully you?” Toma asked. “You should have called the police. You know it was the right thing to do.”
“I was weak. I regret it. I let Emily down. I just thought, as they all believed one thing and I was the only one to believe another, I had to be wrong. I was scared I’d make things worse.”
“I would think this Jennifer, she is your friend, yes? I would think she would support you, not your husband’s decision.” And so I told him about the fact Jake is having an affair with Jennifer. “Or, at least, he was. I don’t know if it’s still going on, but maybe that complicated things on the night. Maybe that’s why Jennifer agreed with Jake. I can’t quite explain it.”
Toma went silent. I could almost hear his brain ticking over through the telephone.
“You don’t have to stay with him, Lexi.”
I felt suddenly ashamed. As though I had betrayed someone. Jake, perhaps, for
