The 72-Hour Man

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The 72-Hour Man

The silence was the first thing Tom noticed. It wasn’t a peaceful silence. It was a heavy, expectant quiet, broken only by the distant hum of a fridge that was now, he realised with a jolt, entirely his to raid.

“They’ve gone,” he announced to the empty lounge. “Gone to your mother’s.”

He addressed this last part to the indifferent cat, Dave, who was licking his own back with a vigour usually reserved for de-icing a windscreen.

The text from his wife, Cheryl, was a masterpiece of last-minute instruction:

Right. We’re off. Don’t forget: 1. Water my fuchsia. TWO glugs from the green jug. Not the blue one. The blue one’s for the peace lily and you know what happened last time. 2. Do NOT “have a look” at the dripping tap. Just put the bowl under it like a normal person. 3. Dave’s new food is the one with “sensitive” on the tin. Not “senior”. He’s not a pensioner, he’s intolerant. 4. Be good. Love you. Back Sunday tea-time.

Tom puffed out his cheeks. Seventy-two hours. A king’s ransom of free time. He eyed the remote control. It gleamed like Excalibur. He could watch anything. A documentary about welding. A film with swearing in it. Right out loud.

His reign began with a celebratory brew. He filled the kettle, his movements expansive, lordly. He reached for the “Best Dad” mug, then paused. A wicked grin spread across his face. He reached past it and took Cheryl’s favourite mug, the one that said “Nope” with a picture of a grumpy cactus.

This was living.

Day One: The Golden Hours

The first day was a blur of blissful underachievement. He ate fish fingers for lunch, straight from the grill pan, using another fish finger as a spatula. He left a single, defiant, crumb-covered plate on the coffee table. He watched three episodes of World’s Strongest Van Drivers back-to-back. Dave gave him a look of profound disdain and went upstairs.

By evening, Tom had achieved a state of slovenly nirvana. He’d discovered a packet of Jaffa Cakes behind the rice cakes and eaten them while watching a documentary about Victorian sewers. Life was good.

Day Two: The Descent

Saturday morning brought a dangerous sense of invincibility. He’d started talking to the television. “Oh, come on, Clive, you’re never gonna deadlift that pallet of custard creams, you daft sod,” he muttered, spraying Rich Tea crumbs down his vest.

He remembered the fuchsia. He filled the green jug (not the blue one, he wasn’t a monster), and gave the plant two precise glugs. It looked… exactly the same.

Then he eyed the dripping tap. Plink… plink… plink. It was mocking him.

“I’m just having a look,” he told the empty kitchen. “Not fixing. Looking. A man can look.”

An hour later, the kitchen looked like a plumbing supply shop had been hit by a hurricane. Tom was on his back, his head under the sink, surrounded by spanners and washers. He’d found the issue—a perished washer—and triumphantly replaced it. The only problem was, he now had three separate pieces of pipe and no clear memory of how they’d been connected. Water was no longer dripping. It was now a steady, accusatory glug.

“Right,” he said, emerging grease-smudged. “Tactical retreat.”

He found the biggest bowl he could—the one Cheryl made potato salad in for big parties—and slid it under the leak. Plink-GLUG. Plink-GLUG. It was worse.

Day Three: The Reckoning

Sunday. The day of reckoning. A low-level panic began to set in. He’d just shoved the last of the fish finger packaging into the outside bin when he remembered Dave.

The cat’s “sensitive” stomach food. He’d been feeding him the “senior” stuff for two days. He rushed to the kitchen. Dave was sitting by his bowl, looking… content. Plump. Smug, even.

“You alright, mate?” Tom asked, nervously. “Tummy okay?”

Dave responded by being sick on the welcome mat with the efficiency of a factory ejector seat.

The house was a bombsite. The kitchen was flooded, the cat was a biohazard, and he was pretty sure he’d used the “good tea towel” to mop up the sink water. The clock ticked towards 5 PM.

What followed was the most frantic ninety minutes of Tom’s life. He mopped, he scrubbed, he aired the place out with Febreze (“Meadow Fresh,” he prayed, would mask the scent of regret and cat sick). He wrestled the pipes back into a semblance of order, using so much PTFE tape it looked like a mummy’s wrist. The dripping was now more of a slow, persistent weep, but the bowl caught it. He’d call that a draw.

He was slumped on the sofa, trying to look like he’d been calmly reading the paper all weekend, when he heard the key in the door.

“We’re back!” Cheryl called. “Oh, the traffic on the A38 was bloody— what’s that smell?”

She walked in, followed by the two kids, who immediately began complaining about Gran’s cabbage. Cheryl’s eyes scanned the room. They missed nothing. They landed on the slightly damp floor tiles, the cat, who was now licking the carpet, and the “Nope” mug sitting by Tom’s side.

She walked over to the sink. Tom held his breath. She peered at the tap, then at the giant potato salad bowl beneath it. She didn’t say a word. She walked over to the patio doors and looked at her fuchsia.

“You watered it,” she said, a note of surprise in her voice.

“Two glugs,” Tom croaked. “From the green one.”

Cheryl turned and looked at him. She looked at his desperate, pleading eyes, his slightly damp trousers, the proud, pathetic set of his jaw. A slow smile spread across her face.

“Right,” she said, picking up the kettle. “Cuppa. And you can tell me all about your very quiet, very boring weekend.”

She paused, her eyes landing on the kitchen counter.

“And then you can tell me why there are fish finger crumbs in the butter dish. And why Dave looks like he’s eaten a whole Christmas dinner.”

Tom sank back into the sofa. The king was dead. Long live the king.

It was good to be home.