17 March 2023 (continued):

I’m on the floor. ML won’t be back for hours. I wonder if I can slide along the carpet on my back, maybe all the way down the stairs. I edge forward a little. No, this is ridiculous. Dangerous. I mustn’t move. Anyway my phone is up in the attic still.

I wait. ML is at work. I wait. After maybe 40 minutes, I get an idea. We’d watched a drama recently, was it The Responder? Well, there was this scene where a young woman is hiding from her abusive boyfriend in a cupboard. She calls out to her phone which is on the floor outside the cupboard. ‘Call…’

I try it. ‘Alexa’, I shout. Alexa is in the bedroom, I shout louder: ‘Alexa – call…’ It’s not connected to my contacts, I need to say ML’s number. I know it by heart. It takes me a couple of goes though. But, it works.

From the bedroom, the sound of Alexa ringing. And then I hear ML’s beautiful voice, as she picks up. Joy. Joy. Joy. I don’t want to scare her though. ‘Could you call R? I’ve had a fall’. That’s all I tell her for now.

R is my sister M’s wife. She drives, lives near, has keys. She arrives so quickly. Calls upstairs: ‘Rachel?’ And then climbs up, sees me. ‘Oh, Rachel’, she says, in a tone of such intense but gentle concern I’ll never forget.

ML is there moments later. She has driven straight home, despite my playing it down.

An ambulance is called.