too.’ If only I’d carried on to those stairs. If only I’d ignored those open doors.
‘Maybe it’s a demon lift,’ he said. ‘Luring us in, ready to trap us and eat us alive.’
‘Okay, not helping.’
‘Sorry.’ He laughed and it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. That laugh. I’d dreamt about that laugh.
‘Do you think we should bang again?’
‘Maybe, but absolutely no body slamming. I forbid it.’
I laughed and rubbed my shoulder. ‘I won’t be doing that again, don’t worry.’ I pressed the button once more and the speaker suddenly crackled into life.
‘Hello?’
‘Hello! Hi!’ I was so relieved someone had answered. ‘We’re trapped in the lift. Can you get us out, please?’
There was a lot of snuffling and banging and then the man’s voice again. ‘I’ll come and have a look, love. Is it just you in there?’
‘No, I’m with a man. His name’s Daniel.’
‘All right, love, I don’t need his bloody name and address.’ The intercom went off and I turned to Daniel in disbelief.
‘How rude!’
He laughed. ‘At least he’s coming to rescue us. Well done for pressing the buzzer.’ He sat back down on the floor again. It didn’t look very clean and I felt queasy thinking about how I’d been sitting down there just a few minutes ago. I put my shoe back on and picked up my bag of shopping in preparation to leave. The man would free us any moment, I was sure. There were a few clanking noises coming from outside, like a toolbox or something. Progress at last.
‘Here he comes with his rusty spanner,’ Daniel muttered. He eyed my shopping bag with interest. ‘Got anything nice in there? I’m starving.’
‘Didn’t you buy anything?’
‘No, I just used the cashpoint.’
‘Oh no! That seems doubly unfair to get stuck while going to a cashpoint.’
‘Serves me right for not taking the stairs.’ He leaned his head back and sniffed. ‘Still, I’m glad I’m in here with you. Imagine being stuck on your own? How would that have felt?’
Smiling, I rummaged in my bag, taking out a packet of biscuits.
‘Chocolate digestive?’
‘You’re a star!’ He reached for the packet and the clanking noises got louder. There was a sudden whirring sound that sounded like the lift had started back up and was about to move.
‘Yay!’ I said, but the word died on my lips as the lift shuddered again and the lights went off, plunging us into darkness. ‘What’s going on?’ Instinctively, I squatted next to Daniel and gripped his arm. ‘Why has it gone dark? I don’t like it!’
‘Shh shh. It’ll be all right. Don’t worry.’ Daniel caught my hand in his and squeezed it. I leaned into him for comfort.
‘You all right in there?’ A gruff male voice came from somewhere above us. ‘I can’t get you out, I’m afraid. Gonna have to call the fire brigade. Won’t be long.’
‘Can you put the lights back on?’ I shouted.
‘No can do, love. But we’ll have you out soon enough.’
‘Soon enough? What does soon enough mean?’ I muttered.
‘It means soon. We’ll be out soon.’ Daniel rubbed his thumb over the back of my hand. ‘Here, I’ll use the torch on my phone.’
The phone glowed into life, casting a halo of light around us. Somehow, it made everything feel more intimate, as though we were connected together by this ring of light. ‘Don’t use all your battery up,’ I said. ‘Do you need to phone someone to let them know where you are?’
‘Not really. Do you?’
‘Alex won’t be home from work yet.’
‘Are you sure? It’s nearly half seven.’
‘It’s not?’
‘It is. We’ve been here for nearly an hour already.’
I frowned. ‘It doesn’t feel like it. Well, I suppose it does in a way. On one hand I feel like I’ve been in here for ever, but on the other I feel like I’ve only been here for ten minutes or something. Does that make sense?’ I was gabbling now. Shut up, Elena.
‘Well, time flies when you’re having fun.’ He started to unwrap the biscuits and I took his phone, shining the light so he could see what he was doing.
‘It feels more like we’re separate from the outside world.’ I gabbled on, ‘Like we’re in a little bubble and time’s meaningless. We could have been in here for minutes or hours or even days and it wouldn’t have felt real.’
‘Mmm.’ Daniel offered me the packet but I shook my head. I was too wound up to eat. Daniel obviously had no such trouble though, and I listened to the sound of him crunching the biscuits up with his teeth. Usually the sound of someone eating grossed me out, but I was finding listening to Daniel strangely soothing. I wanted to rest my head on his shoulder, but felt that would probably be weird. We sat quietly together, and I found myself thinking about my prom memory again. I wondered if he remembered it in the same way I did. Probably not. He’d had plenty of girlfriends back then.
‘Have you got a girlfriend?’ I asked after a while.
‘Not right now.’ He carried on munching the biscuits. ‘I’m a bit sad really. I still live with my mum and dad.’
‘Do you?’
‘Yeah, it’s all right though. We all get on. And it means I can save up for my own place when I finally get fed up of Mum doing my laundry and cooking me meals.’
‘Basically never then?’
He laughed. ‘So, how long have you been living with this Alex?’
‘About two years. But we’ve been together for three.’
‘Three years? Blimey, that’s a long time.’
‘Mmm.’
‘Are you getting married?’
The atmosphere suddenly got thick and tense. ‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘Really? Three years sounds like a pretty serious relationship.’
‘We’ve not talked about it,’ I said, not wanting to admit that marrying Alex was the last thing I felt like doing right now. ‘Tell me about being a tree surgeon. I have images of you with a stethoscope around your neck, listening to tree trunks.’
‘Well, that’s weird. My official title is an arborist. I cut trees down if they’re rotten or dangerous. Or prune bits off that are overgrown or a bit dodgy. Generally tidy them up so they grow better and remain healthy.’
‘Did you always want to work with trees?’ I cringed inwardly. What kind of stupid question was that?
He laughed. ‘Actually, I probably did. My uncle was a tree surgeon. I thought he was a badass, climbing trees and stuff. I used to help him when I was a teenager. So, when I came back from travelling, I took a course and now I’m his business partner.’
‘Cool.’
‘I suppose, really, when I was a kid, I wanted to work for a forestry commission. Be a park ranger.’
‘Really? I never had you down as the outdoorsy type. I always thought you were really cool and arty. Sort of… urban.’ I winced. How cheesy did that sound?
‘Urban?’ He laughed. ‘I was