Rebecca Tyrrel: Days Like Those

'It was a damp, chilly afternoon and yet Matthew was garbed in swimwear. What was going on?'

When the lack of broadband, internet poker and access to news of the Obama/Clinton battle finally overwhelmed Matthew, he fled our Devon holiday cottage for London.

Louis, the dogs, Miles the tortoise and I arrived back a week later and we were, as is often the case, greeted at the front door. As is also often the case, Matthew was looking eccentric, and on this occasion more than usually so. It was a damp, chilly afternoon and yet he was garbed in swimwear; a two-piece ensemble consisting of some faded but mildly shocking pink swimming trunks and a large, live cricket perched, Long John Silver-style, on his left shoulder. (We are used to seeing crickets in our house because they are food for Louis' gecko, Caddie, but they do not normally reside on shoulders.)

For a fraction of a second I wondered if Matthew was on his way out to a fancy-dress party. But then, I thought, if someone was odd enough to hold a fancy dress party on a Monday lunchtime, surely Matthew would not dream of attending it. The last time we were invited to one, he declined on the grounds that he would rather spend a week stuck in a telephone box with Vernon Kay than go, and there is no reason to think he has changed his position on the matter.

Before I have time to inquire after his outfit, however, Louis rushes towards the stairs, intending to race up to his bedroom and check on the gecko. But Matthew bars his way, causing the cricket to leap off his shoulder and on to the dartboard, scoring, Matthew has time to note, a magnificent bullseye.

"No, no, don't go up," he says to Louis with tenderness and despair. "Please don't go up yet. I'm afraid I have something to tell you regarding Caddie." He pauses to clear his throat, Louis looks up at him anxiously. "You know whenever we spoke on the phone I told you he was fine?" said Matthew in a measured tone. "Well, I wasn't technically lying. I'm sure he is fine. What I'm not sure about is where he is fine."

I had suspected something was wrong from Matthew's voice over the past few days, but I had assumed he was depressed because of losing money on a bet he had that Rafael Nadal would beat someone called Sodding Nikolay Davydenko of Russia. He was horrified when it happened, and said: "It would never have happened under the Soviets."

Louis' reaction as Matthew went on to relate how he left the door of the gecko's vivarium slightly open one night after posting some crickets into it, and how the gecko was gone by the following morning, was both admirable and touching. "It's not your fault, Dad," he said, his bottom lip wobbling very slightly. "I've done it loads of times. He was bound to escape in the end."

"No," says Matthew, "it's nice of you, but it was my fault and all I can say is that I have done everything I can to keep him alive and get him back. If it is within my power to get your gecko back in his vivarium alive and well, I will do it."

Hence, it suddenly dawned on me, the swimwear; the temperature of the house, to suit the escaped gecko, was set at 85F. Hence the perching cricket; in order to lure the gecko from under the floorboards, Matthew had purchased eight boxes of live insects, each box containing approximately 20, from the pet shop and simply released all 160 of them throughout the house. But that wasn't all. By no means was it all.

The moment he discovered the empty vivarium, Matthew had turned Louis' bedroom upside down. Our Polish cleaning lady thought a burglar had been in and was on her way to report it to the police when she remembered she could not speak a word of English.

Next, Matthew had constructed a Heath Robinson-esque ramp leading to the vivarium, and night after night he had lain on Louis' bed wearing a head torch, watching and waiting, but usually falling asleep at around 2am. He tried to hire infra-red night goggles, like the ones used by David Attenborough in Life In Cold Blood or by soldiers. He tried to hire thermal-imaging equipment used by rescue teams attempting to find earthquake victims.

He said he reckoned he had spent more than 60 hours in Louis' bedroom, and although there was no sighting, he remained convinced that the gecko was still alive, because the water in his bowl was diminishing and the number of loose crickets decreasing.

After explaining all this to Louis, Matthew finally let him pass. The atmosphere was terrible, but within five minutes we heard an excited cry from upstairs. "I've found him. I had him in my hand but I was so nervous I let him go. But he's alive and he's under the floorboards in the bathroom! But he's alive and that's all that matters."

That was a week ago. Louis sprinkles flour on some paper every evening and there are fresh gecko footprints running to and from the water bowl by the morning. Caddie could live under the floorboards indefinitely, feasting on bugs, warming himself on a pipe.

Matthew hasn't given up, either, and every so often, he can be found lying on the bathroom floor with his internet poker on his laptop and a shrimping net leaning up against the wall next to him.