At six o’clock on Tuesday evening I put my mobile phone in the kitchen drawer. Mr Gunn put his in beside it. He did this without hesitation, which should have warned me that we were not approaching the evening from equal positions. The drawer already contained batteries, takeaway menus, elastic bands, a screwdriver for repairing glasses, and several keys whose purpose is now archaeological. I placed the phones on top and closed it.
“That’s it,” I said.
Mr Gunn looked at the drawer.
“For how long?”
“Three hours.”
He looked at the clock.
“Why?”
I had read that restaurants were beginning to discourage mobile phones at the table. Some ask customers to put them away, some provide little boxes, and somewhere in Italy, apparently, a restaurant will give you wine if you surrender yours. This had struck me as civilised. I have reached the age at which anything described as a return to “proper conversation” sounds reassuring, provided nobody actually expects me to organise one.
So I had decided that Mr Gunn and I could surely manage from six until nine without consulting a screen. Not a weekend, not a retreat, and not one of those digital detoxes involving a cabin, nettle tea and a woman called Freya explaining that my nervous system has forgotten how to breathe. Three hours seemed proportionate.
Mr Gunn shrugged.
“What happens if somebody phones?”
“They cannot.”
“Why?”
“Because the phones are in the drawer.”
“That doesn’t stop them phoning.”
“No. It stops us answering.”
This appeared to satisfy him. Peace descended for approximately forty seconds.
I had put potatoes in the oven and could not remember how long they had been there. Normally I would ask my phone. I looked at the clock, then at the oven, then at Mr Gunn.
“How long have the potatoes been in?”
“Twenty minutes, maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“They’re potatoes.”
This was not the level of precision I required. I opened the drawer, checked the timer and discovered there were 23 minutes remaining. I set the oven timer. The phone went back, and I wrote ONE on the back of an envelope. Then, after consideration, I added MR GUNN: 0 underneath it.
He noticed.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing.”
I had barely sat down when I remembered the washing was outside. The sky had been grey all afternoon, although in the Highlands this is less a forecast than a default setting. Normally I would check the rain radar. I did not. Instead, I looked out of the window, which felt old-fashioned and wholesome until I realised I could see approximately 50 yards in one direction and no weather whatsoever approaching from the west, which is where all Scottish weather keeps its weapons.
“Do you think it’s going to rain?”
Mr Gunn looked outside.
“Yes.”
“When?”
He looked again.
“Later.”
There are people who can live comfortably with this level of meteorological uncertainty. I am not one of them. The phone came out. Rain in twelve minutes. Interruption two. The washing came in. Mr Gunn remained on zero.
The oven beeped, which was encouraging because it meant at least one appliance in the house could still perform its function without contacting a start up company in California. I began making dinner and discovered that the recipe required 200 millilitres of stock. I could not find the measuring jug. Normally I would ask the phone how many tablespoons were in 200 millilitres, but instead I stared at the drawer.
I decided to estimate. People had apparently managed soup for centuries before smartphones.
Mr Gunn wandered through.
“What are you doing?”
“Working out 200 millilitres without technology.”
He picked up a mug.
“That’s about 200.”
I looked at the mug.
“How do you know?”
“It says 250 on the bottom.”
I turned it over. It did. This was irritating. I used the mug, then checked on my phone to make sure.
“That one definitely shouldn’t count.”
Mr Gunn raised one eyebrow.
“Interruption three. It counts.”
“I was only verifying.”
“I gave you the answer.” He put a mark on the envelope.
“Go away.”
“Still zero.”
He returned to the sitting room.
At 6.34pm there was a thump outside. This house has wildlife cameras because previous experience has established that if something crashes, digs, steals, overturns or dismembers anything after dark, it is usually interesting. I looked through the window and saw nothing. The phone was in the drawer. The camera app was on the phone. I lasted nearly a minute before retrieving it.
It was a pine marten. Interruption four. The pine marten appeared to be carrying something, but the image was unclear, so I enlarged it. Interruption four became four-and-a-half, which I decided not to count because Mr Gunn didn’t insist.
“What’s it got?” Mr Gunn asked.
“I thought you weren’t interested in phones.”
“I’m interested in the pine marten.”
Dinner was served. I had now retrieved my phone four times in 42 minutes. Mr Gunn had retrieved his no times. This was not detoxification. It was interval training with a witness.
We ate without phones, and for several minutes nothing happened. The table was quiet. There was food. There was no news. Nobody knew what strangers were angry about. I had no idea whether anything had happened in Westminster, Hollywood, Inverness or a supermarket car park in Dundee. It was extremely pleasant.
Then Mr Gunn said, “Did David Bowie ever play Aberdeen?”
I stopped. This was not a request. It was simply a thought released into the room. Ten years ago it would have remained unresolved. Twenty years ago someone might have remembered eventually. Thirty years ago we would have argued until one of us went to bed. Now there was a phone six feet away containing the answer.
I resisted. I concentrated on my potato. The question remained on the table between us. Had Bowie played Aberdeen? Possibly. Maybe. Surely. Mr Gunn had already moved on. I had not. The uncertainty began to itch.
“You’re doing that deliberately.”
“Doing what?”
“Not caring.”
“About Bowie?”
“About not knowing.”
He shrugged.
“We’ll survive.”
This sort of attitude has held civilisation back for centuries. I opened the drawer. Interruption five. owie had played in Aberdeen. I will not say when because that is how this starts.
I had 5 on the envelope. Underneath it, MR GUNN: 0. He ate another potato.
At 7.03pm the television refused to open the programme we had planned to watch because the streaming service required me to sign in again. The password was stored on my phone. Interruption six. The streaming service then sent a verification code to my phone. Interruption seven. Having successfully proved to the television that I was myself, I was permitted to watch something I already pay for.
Mr Gunn watched the entire procedure from the sofa.
“In the old days,” he said, “you pressed a button and the television came on.”
“In the old days there were three channels.”
“Yes.”
“And one of them was farming.”
“Still worked.”
The programme began. Three minutes later the dog started barking at the front door. There was nobody there, so I checked the doorbell camera. Interruption eight. A moth had flown past it. The dog regarded this as a successful interception. Mr Gunn congratulated him. Neither required a phone.
At 7.22pm I remembered I had promised to order cat food. I decided it could wait until morning, then remembered why I had promised to order it that evening: we were nearly out. The cats were asleep and therefore unaware that the household supply chain was approaching collapse. I considered leaving the matter until morning, then pictured the cats without food.
Interruption nine.
The pet-food website required my bank to confirm the payment. The bank sent a notification. Interruption ten. The notification asked me to approve the purchase in the banking app. Interruption eleven. The banking app wanted Face ID, which I found personally insulting after everything we had already been through.
Mr Gunn appeared in the doorway.
“What are you doing now?”
“Cat food.”
He nodded and went away.
Cat food secured, I put the phone back. The envelope had acquired tally marks down one side and the appearance of evidence. Mr Gunn’s section remained offensively clean: MR GUNN: 0.
The heating began to feel cold. Our thermostat can technically be adjusted manually. I know this because there is a small box on the wall which presumably contains buttons. I have never touched them and I’m not sure if I should. The heating app was on my phone, and I found myself looking towards the drawer.
Mr Gunn looked towards me.
“No.”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You’re thinking about the heating.”
“How do you know?”
“You’ve been staring at the thermostat for five minutes.”
“Are you cold?”
“No.”
This was because he was wearing a jumper thick enough to shelter livestock. I put on a cardigan. This was a breakthrough.
For perhaps twenty minutes the digital detox held. Then the lights in the sitting room dimmed. Not romantically. They simply went dim. The bulbs are controlled by an app. I could have stood up and used the switch, but the switch turns all four lights off and then, for reasons known only to the manufacturer, brings them back at full brightness resembling an interrogation room.
I sat in the gloom. Mr Gunn continued reading.
“Can you see?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“My book light, see?”
Of course he had a book light. Civilisation had apparently continued quietly beside me while I was installing apps.
I could no longer see my book.
At 8.11pm my watch vibrated. I had forgotten about the watch. This was awkward. Apparently I had spent the entire phone-free evening wearing a smaller phone strapped to my body.
Mr Gunn looked at it.
“That seems like cheating.”
“I forgot I had it on.”
“It’s glowing.”
“I know.”
“It just spoke.”
“I know.”
I took it off. It immediately informed me that removing it would affect my activity tracking. I placed it beside the envelope.
Mr Gunn looked at his score. Still zero.
“You seem to be enjoying this.”
“I’m reading.”
“You’ve not once wanted your phone?”
“No.”
“Not even to check anything?”
“What would I check?”
I genuinely could not answer. There are people like this living among us.
At 8.26pm there was another noise outside. I did not check the wildlife camera. I remained seated. There was a second noise. I remained seated. There was a third noise of sufficient size and confidence to suggest either the pine marten had returned with colleagues or part of the house had detached.
Mr Gunn turned a page.
“Aren’t you going to look?”
“No.”
Another crash.
He looked towards the window.
“That sounded expensive.”
I checked. Interruption thirteen. A deer was eating the roses. There are moments when digital restraint must yield to household emergency.
I went outside and the deer left. When I came back in, I could not find my phone. This was new. For most of the evening I had been attempting not to use it. I now needed it specifically so I could put it away.
I checked the kitchen, the table, the chair, my coat, the bathroom and the windowsill. Eventually I stood in the sitting room.
“I need your phone.”
Mr Gunn lowered his book.
“What for?”
“To find mine.”
“That feels circular.”
“Give it to me.”
He retrieved his phone from the drawer for the first time all evening. I immediately wrote MR GUNN: 1 on the envelope.
“That doesn’t count.”
“You touched it.”
“You asked me to.”
“The phone-free rules contain no spousal exemption.”
“I’m not accepting that.”
He rang mine. It sounded from inside the cupboard where I had put it down while retrieving a torch. Finding my own phone brought my total to fourteen, so I updated the evidence.
MRS GUNN: 14. MR GUNN: 1.
Mr Gunn disputed the second figure. I underlined it.
It was 8.48pm. Twelve minutes remained. I sat down and, for the first time all evening, nothing happened. Mr Gunn read while I sat with my hands folded.
For eight full minutes I possessed no information beyond what was available in the room. It was unexpectedly peaceful.
At 8.56pm, with four minutes remaining, something began screaming inside the kitchen drawer. Not ringing. Not chiming. Screaming. Mr Gunn looked up. I froze. The noise continued with one of those alarm tones designed for people who sleep through earthquakes.
“That’s yours,” I said.
“No.”
“It is absolutely yours.”
The drawer continued to howl.
Mr Gunn went into the kitchen and opened it. His phone was flashing. I followed him.
Across the screen were the words:
TEST SMOKE ALARMS
I looked at him. He looked at the phone.
“You have an alarm to remind you to test the alarms?”
“Yes.”
“At eight fifty-six at night?”
“Monthly.”
“Why eight fifty-six?”
“I must have set it at eight fifty-six.”
The alarm continued.
“Turn it off.”
“I am.”
He pressed something. Nothing happened. He pressed something else. The torch came on. The alarm continued.
I stood beside him enjoying this more than was decent.
“Would you like me to Google how to stop it?”
“No.”
He eventually silenced it. I picked up the envelope and amended the score.
MRS GUNN: 14. MR GUNN: 2.
“Absolutely not,” he said.
“You have now used your phone twice.”
“The first time was because of you.”
“Still a phone.”
“And this was an alarm.”
“Also on a phone.”
“I didn’t seek information.”
“You illuminated the kitchen with it.”
“That was accidental.”
I drew a box around the 2.
At 8.58pm, the score was therefore fourteen to two.
Mr Gunn considered himself undefeated.
He picked up the small folding steps from beside the pantry.
“What are you doing?”
“Testing the smoke alarms.”
“Now?”
“That’s what the reminder is for.”
And off he went.
At nine o’clock the experiment was over.
Mr Gunn maintained that his true score was zero.
I opened the drawer properly. There were seventeen notifications, three emails, two news alerts, a weather warning, four messages, a reminder that I had spent less time on my phone than usual and a notification from the screen-time app congratulating me on reducing my screen use.
From upstairs came a piercing electronic shriek, followed by another.
Then Mr Gunn shouted, perfectly satisfied:
“They’re working.”
My mobile phone, I discovered, is no longer merely a telephone. It is my timer, map, torch, camera, bank, television key, weather station, recipe book, doorbell, thermostat, wildlife ranger, shopping list, password vault and emergency research department for unresolved David Bowie questions. Mr Gunn, apparently, needs none of these things. He needs a newspaper, a lamp and one monthly reminder.
I had not removed a distraction. I had put most of the house in a drawer.
