The Couple in the Cabin

by Daniel Hurst

my saucy mistress,

No thank u

She told me that she was and explained that she had just joined the company as a ‘temp’. That meant her employment was not permanent.

Did that need an explanation?

Let’s go, big boy!’

...

All my clothes, including some of the suits that definitely should not be lying on damp grass. My books, a collection that is bound to include my favourite and the one story I was planning on re-reading at the end of the year. My music collection - records that remind me of simpler times and records that I had planned on storing in my cabin and really wish I had moved in here already because it seems they would be safer in here than out there right now. And even my prized signed sports photo that I successfully bid for in an auction,

You’ve literally just said all of this on the last page…

‘I knew we should have just kept it to hotel rooms,’ Kamilla says, referring to where the two of us could have limited our illicit rendezvous.

Yes, that was perfectly clear thank you, there was no need for the explanation

a fire demands attention,

There’s been a few guys, but it’s never lasted. But there’s still time for me, or at least I hope there is.

I am very confused about the tense structure of this book... Why is it present tense in the past?

Maybe I’ll go to Mum’s again today and have another go at trying to make things better between us. Another attempt at trying to show her that me being in her life isn’t all bad news. Or maybe I’ll just leave it and save myself the disappointment. I’ll just carry on being alone while the days tick by until my birthday, and then I’ll see who wants to come for a drink with me. One of the girls in the office will, I’m sure, and that’s all I need. Somebody to share something with. A drink. A night. A memory. Little did I know it then, but my thirtieth birthday was going to be the night I met somebody I would end up sharing a lot with in my future. The good times. And the bad. Somebody else’s life was about to be changed by me coming into it. And that somebody was eventually going to end up hating me too.

WHAT TENSE ARE WE IN PLEASE

my mistress

The constant use is making me feel ill

Alas, I’ve had little luck so far, although that might be mainly down to the reason I haven’t spoken to any members of the opposite sex since I’ve been here. But the night is still young. It’s only nine, and one more drink should see me possess enough Dutch courage to approach at least one of the lovely ladies in this place. As it turns out, I spend most of the next hour chatting to one of my work friends about how it would be great if we had a more generous annual leave allowance, rather than putting in any real effort to find love in here. Now it’s getting late, time is running out, and I’m hardly helping my chances of ending my status as a singleton. It’s looking very much like I’ll be going home alone. Again. By the time I leave the bar, my mood is in the gutter, but surprisingly, that’s where I find somebody who would very quickly go on to change the course of my life forever, not that I was to know it at the time.

WHAT TENSE ARE WE USING? Choose one and stick to it.

She’s certainly different to all the other women out here tonight with their pristine make-up and without a single hair out of place on their heads. This woman is more real, more natural. More honest. Life isn’t perfect, and instead of everybody here pretending that it is, it seems I’ve found somebody who is willing to admit the truth.

"she's not like other girls" BLEHHHHHHHH

This won’t be the first time I have to act normal while knowing somebody is locked away and only I have the key.

Yeah you've already said that

Nobody at school noticed I was gone. I wasn’t gone for long, but still, not a single person noticed. Not any of the teachers and certainly not any of the other kids in my class. They never notice me. But today, that is okay. I was back for the end of lunchtime, having ran all the way to school from that shed. The faster I ran, the more I got scared about how much trouble I was in, and that made me try to run even faster. I was out of breath by the time I sneaked back into school, and I’m still sweating a bit now as I sit here in the classroom and try to concentrate on what Mrs Smith is saying.

Tense?

I see the screwed-up note that I wrote to Kamilla

Wrong name

red drinks

She's 10 not 5, she will know what wine is.

‘Let’s just say that tonight is not the first time I have seen her,’ Kamilla says quietly.

Kamilla is Rosie

‘I know what she used to be like. But I had to know if she was sorry and wouldn’t do it again.’

But then Kamilla can't be Rosie? Grace and Rosie were both 10 and Kamilla is younger than Grace?

It’s Clark, the man I met at my work event

Ok I was wondering when he would reappear but that's a good plot twist

‘Who’s Clark?’ comes the chilling reply as we stare into each other’s eyes with our phones by our right ears.

He's Rosie's brother? ……Jordan??????

I’m the son of the woman you killed

Ding ding ding

Joshua.

I was close

Meet Kamilla, Rosie’s daughter.’

Ah.

She wanted to see how you would react if you were ever to stumble across the same thing again. Two people who shouldn’t be together, one of whom you cared deeply about.

Sooooo she pimped out her own daughter???

I’ll keep getting away with it for a lot longer than that.’

Bestie this writing is so lazy, I know for a fact he has filmed you saying all that

When he does, I see a small device with a blinking red light.

Tada.

As the door was opened, Kamilla told me that they had been watching this house for some time, which was how they knew not only about the cabin but where I kept the spare key.

Literally how when its apparently out of view

he made a quick call to the police, passing on the car’s registration plate and his concerns that the driver was inebriated,

"Obs passed, log closed."

It’s grass that died because it went too long without nourishment, and it’s not dissimilar to the fate that befell poor Grace’s dad and his mistress.

I can't wait to not read this bad writing anymore

I guess she needs me because she has requested that I visit her at the ward tomorrow, and I have reluctantly said yes to that invite. I’m going to go and see Grace tomorrow,

Basically the same sentence twice in a row