On Monday someone will ask what I did at the weekend. I’ll say “not much,” and they’ll say “oh, nice and quiet,” and that’ll be the end of it, and it’ll be a lie, because I did a great deal, all of it indoors, and I’d like it on the record.
Saturday
07:10. Woke. Did not get up. Read in bed for forty minutes, a cozy mystery, the one with the tea shop. The cat arrived at 07:25 and sat on the open page. See the instructions. Used the read-around.
08:00. Tea. Window. The van was there again. Logged.
08:30 to 11:00. The chair. Finished the tea shop book. Guessed the killer on page 61, which is one page over my target, and said nothing to anyone, as there was no one.
11:00. Considered going out. Looked at the sky. Decided the sky looked like reading. Did not go out.
11:15 to 13:00. Started the thriller. The one with four narrators. Made the card. Trusted nobody in the present tense. The cat moved to the blanket. I had the lower third.
13:00. Lunch, standing up, at the counter, book open on the bread board. Soup. Read two chapters. Got soup on chapter nine. Chapter nine is now permanently a bit tomato, which is appropriate, as it’s the one where the sister lies.
13:40. A text: “are you coming tonight?” Replied with the sentence. See the one-sentence method. Put the phone face down. It was done in eleven seconds. It gets faster.
14:00 to 16:30. The chair. The thriller’s THEN timeline met the NOW. Put the card down. The bath was mentioned in the book and I took that as a sign.
16:30 to 17:45. The bath. Kindle, sandwich bag. The twist landed at 17:20 and the Kindle went under and the bag held. Lay there in cooling water feeling that I’d been lied to by an expert, which is the nicest feeling available on a Saturday.
18:00. Dressed, which is to say, changed into the trousers that mean no. Robe. Socks with the case number. Officially off duty.
18:15. Dinner, cooked, actually, with a pan, while an audiobook ran in the kitchen: a gothic one, big house, bad weather. The kitchen’s the audiobook’s department. The chair’s the hardcover’s. These things are settled.
19:30 to 22:00. The chair. Started the gothic in hardcover, having heard the first hour in the kitchen, and this is a thing I do and defend: hear the opening, then read it. You arrive knowing the house.
22:00. The thing I declined was presumably in full swing. Thought about it for roughly the length of one page. Turned the page.
22:30. The cat moved from the blanket to the book. Evening’s reading declared over by the authority that declares it. Sat with her for twenty minutes in the lamp. Thought about nothing. That’s allowed.
23:00. Bed. Read for “ten minutes.”
00:40. Light off.
Sunday
Same, with the Nightcap to write and a different soup.
For the record
So when I’m asked on Monday, the answer is: three books, one bath, one decline, two soups, one van, and a cat who had the blanket for approximately fourteen of sixteen waking hours. I didn’t leave the house. The house didn’t need leaving.