The Telephone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 816, 18 March 1955, Page 9

The Telephone

by

DENNIS

McELDOWNEY

ee anyone comes to the door," his mother said when he was settled downstairs on the sofa, "there’s no need to answer. No one need know there’s anybody here." "I wouldn’t be able to help myself," he said. "I’d want to know who it was." "You’re sure’ you don’t mind being left?" "Of course I don’t. I’ve got to start sooner or later." "Miss McKenzie was quite willing to come and sit with you, but I told her you were being independent." He leaned against the cushions and straightened his dressing-gown. His mother returned upstairs to put on her hat. There was a pile of magazines on the small table by the sofa: he swivelled around to it and grasped the edge of an old Punch almanac near the bottom of the pile, nearly toppling the whole lot over as he extracted it. He looked at a few of the jokes he’d seen he didn’t know how many times before, and left it open on his knee. He turned on the radio. Woman’s Hour, a talk on China. His mother descended the _ stairs, hatted and gloved. "I'll have to get away if I want to catch the bus," she said. "T’ll take the key from the door. If you want me you can always phone." Looking at him out of the corner of her eye, she pulled the door behind her; her high heels clip-clopped down the path to the gate. "T shall certainly never forget my visit to that remarkable country," the talk concluded, and he picked up the Punch again. The room was quiet, bright. It returned him a new look, as he remembered it always used to when he came home from a holiday. Everything heightened, unfamiliar, brilliantly coloured. He saw the picture over the mantelpiece and realised he hadn’t really seen it for years, surprised how good it was. The day was comfortably warm; _ the sun filtering through the birches cast flickering patterns on the carpet. The door into the dining-room stood open, showing a corner of the room. His eye desired to see beyond that: corner. Rising carefully to his feet, taking things quietly, he set out to explore. He sat in the chair in the dining-room, looking through the window to the back lawn, nearer, foreshortened compared with his upstairs view of it,- dish-towels hanging limp on the line. He opened cupboards, saw best china piled precariously, starched table-linen, a family album he hadn’t seen for ages. This he tucked under his arm while he moved to the kitchen. Silence and cream enamel surrounded him. On the cream enamel stove the cream enamel! kettle was still warm from brewing his mother the cup of tea she had gulped down while she put on her face; he curved his hand around its comfortably warm, comfortably rounded side. In the safe were lumps of dark clotted meat. Another cupboard. yielded a mouthful of raisins. On his way back to the sofa he opened the front door, and stood watching the sunshine stream on to the road, hearing a cicada somewhere, looking up through the tree by \the gate to the interrupted sky, across which a silver ‘plane heading for the aerodrome suddenly passed low

and clear, its propellers whirring in luminous _ circles. Children running home from school with their faces to the sky glanced sideways at him as they passed. One passed, stopped, returned, peered around the gatepost, ran on again. He shut the door, and sat on the sofa; heard with part of an ear the recipe on the radio, two cups, one tablespoonful, cream the butter and sugar, rediscovered wellremembered snaps pasted in the book by himself worlds ago, enjoyed being alone; no one in the house but himself, owned by him; he could do anything he liked if he liked. Instead, he continued to look at the album. Time went quickly, he thought, though the clock disagreed. But there was plenty to do. When he was through

the album he lay flat-for a quick rest. "I shall lie down with my eyes closed for ten minutes by the clock," he told himself, because he wasn’t going to let himself get tired and spoil the experiment, "and then I’ll have a look at the books in the bookcase." He lay down with his eyes closed for four minutes by the clock, and then he had a look at the books, squatting in front of ‘the shelves finding books he had no idea were there, books he had always wanted to read, books he had no desire to read, more books than he would ever have time to read. It was while he was looking at the books that the telephone rang. He turned on his haunches and stared through the open door to the hall, to the receiver sitting black and still on its table, emitting its breep breep, breep breep. "Let it ring,’ he said, turning back to the books. It continued to ring. After all, people couldn’t expect someone to be there to answer the ’phone all day. They’d grown used to it lately because his mother had been so tied to tne house looking after him. It would give them quite a shock to have it unanswered. It was a shock they would have to get used to. It wouldn’t be anything important. And if it was, it could wait. Whoever it was, was not content to wait. The telephone continued to ring. But he hadn’t answered a telephone . for months. He didn’t think he could answer a ‘phone. How do you answer? You lift the receiver, you say are you there? But. what do you say after that? He could never tackle it on the spur of the moment like that. There would be all the explenations if it were someone he didn’t know; still more: explanations if it were someone he did. "What-are you answering the phone?" He couldn't stand that. Bad enough hearing himself being talked about from a distance when people rang up to ask how he was. They were mighty persistent, whoever they were. Going on and on. You'd think they’d give up after a reasonable time. Let them persist. But he wished to heaven they wouldn't. So much noise, it made you jumpy. Couldn’t hear a thing but that breep breep, breep breep. If anyone came to

the door now he could hardly hear the doorbell. Anyone could come in under cover of that racket, he wouldn’t hear a sound until he looked around .. . If he knew who it was he’d lift up that thing and blast them. They might have known that when hé was alone in the house he didn’t want to be troubled with a noise like that, on and on, louder and louder. What if it was his mother? His mother ringing to ask how he was making out. She would be scared stiff because he hadn’t answered and she'd leave her teaparty and come rushing home, probably in a taxi; and find there was nothing wrong with him except that he was too scared to lift the telephone receiver and say hello to his own mother. He pulled himself up from the floor and walked carefully, quietly, frantically, into the hall, where he looked at it, sitting on its table, black, still, shrieking its head off. He put his hand out towards it. But what if it weren’t his mother? It was unlikely she’d do a silly thing like that. And then he’d have all the explaining to do. He drew back his hand, walked once around the small hall. Well for goodness sake; he wouldn’t worry about talking to anyong if they were ‘there in front of him. Why should he worry because he had to talk to them through a machine. Less reason for

worrying. They weren’t there, they couldn’t see him. He had to begin some time. It might just as well be now. He had walked around the hall, he was alongside the instrument again, he put out his hand to pick it up from the cradle. It stopped ringing. He got back to the sofa in the sudden silence and sat down with the Punch, trying to make out pictures from the shimmering lines. And he hadn’t achieved it, hadn’t got the first time over so that the next could follow more easily, hadn’t a triumph to report to his mother when she returned-and she was probably on_ her agitated way home now. Then it began ringing again. No nonsense this time, he walked quickly, dazedly, to the hall, picked up the receiver, nearly dropped it but recovered it in time and conveyed it safely to his ear, and said "Hello" in a voice unlike his own. It would probably be a wrong number anyway. It wasn’t, but it might as well have been. It was a message from the iibrary about an overdue book. "Yes," he said. So he’d done it. Back on the sofa he reclined, relaxed, closed his eyes, listened to the music on the radio, saw pictures in his mind of himself picking up receivers, dialling numbers, ringing friend after friend, running when it rang, picking up receivers, jotting down messages with a pencil on the pad. These visions occupied him happily until his mother came home, almost before he expected her. "Well, how have you been?" she asked, passing through the sitting-room on her way to turn on the kettle for her homeagain cup of tea. "And how did you enjoy your conversation?" she said, returning, sitting, He sat up. "What conversation?" "Your telephone conversation." "How did you know about it." "IT knew you'd developed a bit of a phobia about the ’phone and I thought it would make things easier if the first ring wasn’t from a stranger. So I rang and I got the engaged signal. I was. so pleased. Who were you talking to? Was it Bill?" "It wasn’t, as a matter of fact, but it’s an idea." He returned to the ’phone, lifted the receiver, jabbed his finger at the first figure of the remembered number; paused, considered, wondered what he should say. He returned the receiver to its cradle. "Oh, well," he said, "I'll ring him tomorrow anyway."