Andy switched on the external security light and opened the front door. What he saw made his jaw drop and his stomach churn. A moment of light headedness gave way to clarity. It was the prince. An actual member of the royal family. The prince who’d been in the media recently following an explosive interview about his personal behaviour and association with criminals. And there he was, standing in Andy’s porch, not three feet from the threshold, looking him directly in the eye. 

Andy didn’t know what to say. He was trying to think of something useful to say when the prince took the initiative. “Terribly sorry, but I’m in a spot of bother and wondered if I could come in.”

Andy stared for a second. The prince was wearing a grey woollen raincoat, and raindrops sparkled on his shoulders as they began to soak in. A pin held his tightly knotted tie to his starched collar. His grey hair was slightly awry at the crown. His eyes were dark and anxious. His silhouette flashed brightly from the orange of a car’s hazard lights outside. “Would that be alright?” he probed.

Pausing for a second further, Andy then spoke. “Come with me,” he said. Closing the door behind him, Andy squeezed past the prince, slipped on his Crocs, and walked out of the porch onto the driveway. The prince followed, several steps behind. Rounding the corner of the brick building which once served as the coal sheds for the terrace, Andy proceeded to the middle door in the block. Taking the brass combination padlock in his left hand, he carefully moved the wheels to undo the lock, slipped the padlock off the handle, and opened the door of the coal shed. The prince cleared his throat proudly behind Andy, but said nothing. Andy stepped inside the coal shed and switched on a small electric lantern, which cast its yellow light over the logs stacked against the wall. 

“Wait in here”, Andy said clearly, “and I’ll see what I can do.”

“In here? In this log store?” asked the prince, his eyebrows raised.

“Yes”, replied Andy firmly.

The prince stepped inside the cramped space, peering around himself, and said nothing. Andy walked out, crossing the driveway, entered the porch and opened the front door. As he stepped inside the hallway, Hunter sat staring at him from the stairs and gave a big yawn. “What the fuck”, mouthed Andy quietly. “What the actual fuck!”, this time louder. Hunter’s eyes narrowed and he turned back upstairs. 

Andy walked quickly down the hallway to the kitchen, where his phone was charging. Unplugging it, he unlocked the screen using his thumbprint and brought up the home screen. Swiping away a Whatsapp notification from his brother, he tapped the phone icon and saw the keypad numbers. “What exactly am I doing here?” he asked himself, once again out loud. His right thumb hovered over the keypad for a second, before slowly tapping out the numbers 9-9-9. He paused another few seconds, staring at the numbers on the screen before tapping “backspace” three times. Andy looked at the clock ticking loudly on the kitchen wall. Ten to eleven. Looking down again to his phone, he tapped the Google icon and then hovered over the search bar, cursor flashing. He stopped, then squeezed the lock button on the side of the phone. Listening to the rhythmic ticking of the clock, he began to zone out – his mind devoid of any thoughts whatsoever, noticing only his heart beating firmly in his chest. After a few moments he shook his head. “Focus on the task, Andy. What are you going to do?” he prompted himself, this time silently. 

At this moment Andy’s other cat, Edison, slank into the kitchen and brushed himself slowly around Andy’s ankles, taking a figure of eight route between his legs. Looking up at Andy, and blinking sleepily, Edison let out a lethargic, elongated “miaow” and stretched out a big yawn.

“Do you want a Dreamie?” Andy asked, reaching for the pink packet sitting beside the coffee machine. It was a nonsensical thing to prioritise in the circumstances but it was the only action he could take in this moment that was immediately obvious and possible. Taking the packet in his left hand, the crinkling of the plastic was heard by Hunter, who at that moment came barrelling down the stairs. Andy led the two greedy cats into the living room where they sat side by side, expectantly, waiting for their cheese-scented crunchy snack. Andy gave one to each cat, and as they crunched contentedly, looked over to the stove, where the remaining embers glowed pink behind the glass door. Staring at the embers in the cosy ingle, Andy felt concerned. “He’s in there with my kiln dried logs. They were expensive”, he mused.

Returning to the kitchen, Andy laid his phone and the packet on the worktop and walked purposefully along the hallway. Opening the door, he exited the house. Feet crunching on wet gravel, he rounded the corner of the coal shed and opened the half-closed door, revealing the prince. “On second thoughts, can’t help you”, Andy said to the prince. The prince said nothing. “Out you come”, added Andy, placing a hand on the shoulder of the prince, gently pulling him back outside. Andy shut the shed door, replaced the padlock, and went back inside the house. He locked the door, removed his Crocs and dressing gown, and trudged back upstairs.

When he woke in the morning, it was to his radio alarm clock and the sound of Taylor Swift’s Opalite on the BBC Radio 2 breakfast show. For a few seconds, Andy thought of nothing but the beat of the music. “Sleepless in the onyx night – but now the sky is opalite”. Then he sat up abruptly, remembering what had happened only hours before. “Was that real?” he wondered. The cats stirred as Andy trudged slowly downstairs to fire up the coffee machine. As it rumbled into life and warmed up, Andy picked up his phone to check his messages. Battery dead.