‘No, the owner wants this thing restored by the summer holidays so I’m here until then. It’s an incredible old carousel. I reckon it was carved entirely by one person, and it was found in an old ruin. The owner won it in an auction, and put it on the beach for the public, and their busiest season is once the kids break up from school so that’s my deadline.’
So much for hoping to see him on the train again tomorrow morning to return the phone. ‘Do you do this a lot then? I mean, all those pictures …’
‘Yeah, mainly repairs rather than full restorations because there just aren’t that many carousels to restore in the country – this is a rare treat for me.’ He laughs. ‘And yeah, I really am that boring. That’s pretty much all I use my phone for, as I’m sure you discovered. Pictures of work.’
And keeping track of your shopping lists, of course. Which I know because you buy all of my favourite food.
‘I must be creating such a good picture of myself here. All I do is moan about my flat and talk about work. Sorry, I’m sure I’m not usually this boring.’
‘It’s not boring at all. Pretty much all I do is work and moan about my flat too. At least your job is a lot more interesting than mine.’
‘What do you do?’
‘I’m a fact-checker for a women’s magazine. I have to double-check everything that proper journalists write so we don’t publish anything that’s untrue. I want to be a journalist and I thought I’d get a chance to prove myself there, but it’s been years now and all I am is basically a proofreader who does a lot of googling and phoning around to confirm quotes. I work a lot of overtime because I have nothing better to do and I keep hoping my boss will notice how dedicated I am.’
‘I can’t complain about my job. I work a lot of overtime because I love old carousels and mainly because if I’m working then I’m not sitting in my crappy flat thinking about how many places I’d rather be.’
‘I know that feeling too,’ I say, looking at the window, which gives me a marvellous view of the building next door. I can imagine what his view in that gorgeous cottage is like. ‘Do you do anything other than carousels? There were some pictures that we— I— couldn’t work out, they looked like bits of rollercoaster?’
‘I’m glad you were so thorough in your search for my address.’ He still doesn’t sound annoyed by it. ‘And yes, I’m not strictly carousels, although they’re my speciality. I’m just a repairman in general, really. My firm restores all sorts of old things, from organs to engines to fairground rides, and yes, they were bits of rollercoaster but not rollercoasters as we know them now – the old wooden scenic railways that were popular in the early 1900s, the kind of thing anyone from a baby to a granny could enjoy a ride on, a real throwback to days gone by. I take a lot of pictures because you can rarely get parts in this day and age, and we usually have to find something similar and adjust it or make the parts ourselves.’
He suddenly stops himself. ‘I’m sorry, I must be boring you senseless. I’m not usually this boring, honestly. And the fact I’ve said that twice tonight probably doesn’t bode well. You’re not busy, are you? I’ve been rabbiting on for ages and never asked you if I was interrupting something. You’re probably sitting down for a nice dinner with your husband, and—’
I laugh at the mental image. ‘No husband. I was sitting down with a microwave meal and Netflix. How’s that for busy? Talking to you is much more interesting.’
He laughs too. ‘You obviously don’t know me well enough yet.’
I try to ignore another little flutter of butterflies at that ‘yet’.
‘And you’ve just described my average evening. Netflix and a sarnie. Sometimes I stretch to something really strenuous like cheese on toast.’ He says it with a French accent, like a posh chef describing a gourmet meal, and it makes me laugh again, and I realise that I’m gripping the phone tighter because I don’t want him to go yet. ‘My brother bought me a chef’s blowtorch once. God knows what he thought I was going to cook with it. Beans on toast on fire?’
‘You know what I don’t get?’ I say, trying to stop myself laughing again. ‘Instant mashed potatoes. You sprinkle a little bit out of the packet into the bottom of a mug, and it makes six bowlfuls.’
‘Oh, I love instant mashed potatoes,’ he says. ‘They’re like the ultimate comfort food, and I can pretend they’re healthy because they’re vegetables. Powdered, reconstituted vegetables, but still. I’m spoiled tonight because the landlady at the cottage made me a macaroni cheese and left it in the fridge. At least I now know why she asked if I had any allergies. I wondered if she was planning on filling the roof with asbestos and painting the walls with lead or something. I’m just waiting for that to come out of the oven and I’m going to eat it in the garden with a cup of tea.’ He pauses. ‘You probably thought I was thirty-six this morning, but now I reveal I’m really an eighty-year-old woman in disguise. No wonder I like it in Pearlholme so much. Everyone seems to be elderly around here. You should’ve seen my landlady, bless her. She looked like she could barely carry the key when I collected it. God knows how she’s still managing to cook huge casserole dishes of food.’
I laugh yet again. I’m not good at talking to strangers, which is probably quite weird for someone who spends a lot of time phoning strangers to confirm facts and double-check quotes in articles, but there’s something about him that puts me completely at ease. I’m often on edge in my flat – you can usually hear the shouting of neighbours or fights in the hall, and it never feels safe here, but his warm accent on the other end of the phone settles something inside me.
‘Thanks for picking up my phone this morning. I’m glad it was you. I mean … I saw you … We’re usually much further apart … and I was in such a hurry … and I’m not even sure what I’m trying to say. Just thank you for grabbing it and trying to get it back to me. I assumed I’d been pickpocketed. I always think the worst of people and don’t really trust anyone, so …’
‘My best friend has been saying exactly the same thing about me this afternoon.’
He does a soft snort. ‘Ah, at least we can revel in our trust issues together. Which is, of course, a totally normal thing to talk to a complete stranger about. I don’t talk to many people, as you can tell because I’m so bad at it.’
He’s self-deprecating and rambly in the most adorable way. And I just … don’t want to stop talking to him. ‘Well, that’s three things we have in common – trust issues, full names we don’t use, and being bad at talking to people. And for what it’s worth, you’re doing a great job so far. This is fun.’
I can hear the grin in his voice. ‘Maybe it’s because you’re on my phone. I feel like I’m talking to myself.’
‘Yeah, that must be it.’ I’m sitting here smiling at my empty living room, which is not something that usually evokes a smile. ‘How’d you manage without your phone today? Must’ve been tough – we’re so used to always having them on us.’
‘Oh, you have no idea. My train timetable was on it, directions, and the bus timetable to get into Pearlholme. I didn’t even know the time because I rely on my phone instead of wearing a watch. I had to do the unthinkable. I had to stop strangers in the street and ask for directions.’
‘Oh no, how did you cope?’ I struggle to hold in a giggle.
‘It
