style="font-size:15px;"> ‘Not even any of your wrong numbers?’
‘Not even them.’
‘How old are you?’ I asked, suddenly afraid I was having a conversation with a fifteen-year-old and that the police were on their way.
‘I’m thirty-five and three-quarters.’
‘I can’t believe in all of your thirty-five and three-quarters years no one has ever said that to you before.’
‘Because most of the people I meet aren’t one hundred years old like you.’
‘I’m not going to be one hundred for at least two weeks.’
‘Ah. I see. Thirty? Forty? Fifty?’
‘Thirty.’
‘It’s all downhill from there, believe me.’
And he went silent, and I went silent and then it wasn’t natural any more and we were just two strangers on a wrong number who both wanted to hang up.
I got in there first. ‘It was nice talking to you, Don. Thanks for the offer of the ticket.’
‘Bye, toothless married woman,’ he said and we both laughed. I hung up and caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror and I looked like my mother, just a face full of a smile. It faded fast at the realisation that I’d just spoken to an absolute stranger on the phone. Maybe they were right, maybe I was losing it. I went to bed early and at twelve thirty my phone rang, waking me in fright. I looked at the number flashing and didn’t recognise it, so I ignored it and waited for it to stop so I could go back to sleep. A few seconds later the phone rang again. I answered it, hoping it wasn’t bad news. All I could hear was noise, screams and shouts. I moved it away from my ear, then heard the music, then heard the singing, then recognised the song. He was calling me, Don Lockwood was calling me, so I could hear my favourite song.
‘If you think your life’s a waste of time, if you think your time’s a waste of life, come over to this land, take a look around. Is this a tragic situation, or a massive demonstration, where do we hide?’
I lay back on the bed and listened to the song, then when it was finished, I stayed on the line to speak to him. As soon as the next song started, he hung up.
I smiled. Then texted him.
–Thanks.
He texted back straight away.
–One less thing on your list. Nite.
I stared at those words for a long time then added his number into my phone. Don Lockwood. Just seeing it there made me smile.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I was standing on the fire escape, secret smoking location number three of the year after the disabled toilet on the second floor and the cleaning staff service room. Two other people were there too; a man and a woman but they weren’t there together and none of us spoke. It wasn’t like the smoking section outside a club or pub where everybody spoke to everybody, united by the happiness of being out on a social occasion. This was work and the only reason we were all here, apart from needing to feed the nicotine fix, was to get away from talking to people. We had come here to have a break from thoughts and the hard work that came with the constant interaction with idiots. Or at least people we considered idiots because they were not mind readers and we had to, patiently, use polite words to explain things that we were thinking when really inside we were fighting the urge to take their heads in our hands and softly and repeatedly thud their foreheads off the wall. But there was no such politeness here; we were shutting off our brains, deliberately ignoring each other and satisfied by our right to do so, concentrating only on breathing in and blowing out smoke. Only I wasn’t. I hadn’t stopped thinking, and I wasn’t smoking.
I heard the door open behind me. I didn’t bother turning around, I didn’t care if location number three had been found and we had all been caught. What was another misdemeanour on my current rap sheet? But the other two did care and they hid their cigarettes in their closed and quickly yellowing palms, forgetting the rising smoke would give the game away, and they both quickly turned to see who had stumbled upon their lair. They didn’t appear too concerned by who they saw but they didn’t relax either which meant it wasn’t the boss but it wasn’t someone they knew. The man took a final long drag of his cigarette and quickly left, the scare of the close call enough to ruin his nicotine thrill. The woman stayed where she was, but eyed the new guest up and down as she had done with me when I joined them. I still didn’t turn around to see who it was, partly because I didn’t care who it was, but mostly because I knew who it was.
‘Hi,’ he said, standing so close to me our shoulders rubbed.
‘I’m not talking to you,’ I said, staring straight ahead. The woman sensed something juicy and settled down to suck on the remainder of her cigarette.
‘I told you it was going to be harder than you thought,’ he said gently. ‘But don’t worry, we’ll get there.’
‘Will we now,’ I said. ‘Excuse me,’ I turned to the lady, ‘would you mind if I borrowed a cigarette, please?’
‘I think she means can she take it. She can’t give it back once it’s smoked,’ Life added for me.
She looked at me as though she’d rather sell her favourite grandmother but she gave me one anyway because that’s what people do, they’re mostly polite, even when they’re feeling rude inside.
I inhaled. Then I coughed.
‘You don’t smoke,’ he said.
I inhaled again in his face, then tried to stifle the cough that immediately came after.
‘Why don’t you just tell me why you’re so angry?’
‘Why?’ I finally turned to him. ‘Are you demented? You know bloody well why. You made a fool of me in there. You made me look like a … like a …’
‘Liar, by any chance?’
‘Look, I had a plan. I had it all under control. You were just supposed to sit there and observe, that’s what you said.’
‘I never said that.’
‘Somebody said that.’
‘No, you assumed.’
I silently fumed.
‘So tell me, what was the great plan? You were going to lie again and all of a sudden like the great genius you are, learn Spanish overnight?’
‘I have a great aptitude for learning, that’s what my French teacher said,’ I huffed.
‘And your civics teacher said “could do better”.’ He looked away. ‘I did the right thing.’
Silence.
