‘Who is this ?’ she demanded. Local kids might have nothing better to do after school than mess with the phone lines and play practical jokes on an old lady, but she absolutely must speak to Mabel, and no disrespectful youth would get in the way of her call.
The phone silenced. Pearl waited a moment longer, quietly pleased with herself for taking such a firm tone with those jokers. Before she could begin dialling Mabel’s familiar number, someone spoke up, clear as day.
‘Hey, doll.’
‘Who’s there ?’ she asked again in a considerably gentler voice, one hushed with nostalgia and a glimmer of superstitious fear. Only George ever dared called her “doll”. And it couldn’t be him. Her late husband left the mortal coil a decade and a half prior.
Her brain took that short utterance and turned it into a loop. Hey, doll. Hey, doll. Hey, doll.
She had nothing more to say. The shock took all the stuffing from her.
‘You forgetting your old man ?’ His unmistakeable laughter rolled out of the phone line and trembled down Pearl’s aged body.
‘George is dead. You can’t just go around impersonating people’s loved ones.’ How cruel. How unutterably cruel.
Hey, doll. Hey, doll.
‘Aw, don’t be like that. I just wanted to have a little chinwag with my favourite sea treasure.’
The light-hearted banter was in perfect imitation of George’s carefree nature, and Pearl simply couldn’t take it. The beloved voice curled in her gut, sick and aching. ‘My husband died fifteen years ago. Stop this nonsense right now. Why would you torment a lonely old woman ?’
She slammed the handset down, crooked, so the bulky piece of plastic fell off the cradle and clattered to the floor. It dangled by the spiralled cord, wavering back and forth in a mocking little dance. Marco leapt from his basket and began a manic barking spree, spittle glistening on his exposed teeth as he snarled and nipped at the phone. Pearl backed away from the receiver and her brave dog. She gave in to the urge to sign the cross over herself.
Hey, doll.
I-I shall just have to call the phone company, she thought, trying desperately to hold onto logic and reason, yet failing utterly to consider how she was to dial out to anyone if this evil prankster stayed on the other end of the line. When the obvious realisation dawned upon her, Pearl took herself down the hall and knocked on the one closed door inside her house, pretending all was normal the whole while. Her grandson audibly moved within the room and showed his face around the large panel of wood.
‘Samuel, dear, you have that mobile telephone, don’t you ?’
‘Yeah, Gran, what’s up ?’ he asked with a sleepy blink.
‘Someone is making prank calls to the house, I will need the telecom people to do something about it. Mabel is waiting for my call.’
‘Ah, sure, I’ll give them a ring before I go for my walk.’
‘Thank you, dear.’
Hey, doll.
***
The turning earth granted sunset to another day. Everything was graced with surreal hues and the humidity and lakeside breeze were in conflict over whether the night should stay a summered warmth or drop temperatures until goosebumps would skitter across exposed skin.
Samuel’s hands were laid at rest in the cosy fleece pockets attached to the front of his hoodie, safe from any threatening chill. Quiet, beneath the grumble of traffic on the distant freeway and wildlife chittering, he heard the wide pant legs of his jeans scuffing together. The sound of moving denim kept him on edge. He shouldn’t have been able to pick up the abrasive rumple-scruff with each step. The world around him, or the stony-metallic sounds of his sneakers crunching over coarse basalt should have drowned out the noise, but no. The loose fabric called out from each stride, dominating his aural attention. Some days, his Cochlear implants seemed to provide a landscape of sound beyond what he wanted. His grandmother liked to call him sullen. Ungrateful for what he’s received from the technology. He loved her, sure, but did she ever have a judgemental streak.
What would she know.
He considered reaching up to switch the processor off and bask in the blackout, but the notion passed in a roil of apathy, and his hands remained motionless, buried in his pockets.
The track ballast relinquished its thermal takings of the day, residual heat wavering up from the black aggregate mounded beneath tarry rail-road sleepers and the dull gleam of metal stretched in endless parallel lines. He stopped at a point no different than the rest, where fields upon fields of chartreuse wheat stems swayed to his left, and the dirt road pitted from rain and wear ran along the other side. Perfunctory fences sagged between star pickets, the wire tired and unconvincing as a barrier or deterrent from anyone jumping over to walk the tracks. The thought had always made him smile, a bored twist of his lips which left his pale grey eyes unmoved. To have fences in place, untended, a half-hearted reminder or stuttered request to stay on your side because here be dragons. No longer belching coal smoke from the heart of roaring flame to cross from state to territory, the locomotives which shot along this stretch were now swift and sleek, efficient diesel-electric prime movers to the antiquated steam engines of old.
His attention shifted once the insipid rustle of his jeans had silenced, and he caught a new tremor on the air. He cast a wan gaze both ways along the line, finding no distant sign of an approaching train. His eyes rolled upward, slowly, to reveal the titanic spans of high-tension power lines striding across the landscape. Each framework giant stood with arms spread wide, looming, humming.
The cooling sky, purple and grey, lent a quality of distortion to the image above. He felt his senses give the slick-sticky stretch of taffy, lengthening, falling, until his hands and feet gained an artificial weight at the end of elongated limbs and the heaviness cuddled around his chest, constricting each breath until he didn’t bother straining against the grip. He was small, and not. Shrunken, but distended, all at once. The atmosphere ballooned, wider, impossibly, the world growing larger and rounder to envelop him, and all the while, the sounds were rising in volume, a convincing chug, a rumble familiar and alien, not a train or anything else hurtling along the mortal plane, but something untrustworthy—
A voice whispered into his ear, ‘Samuel. My darling boy.’
His mother. By God, his dead mother.
The sensations crushed around the young man, unbearable. He hated her so much. Everything stopped.
He took in a massive gasp, filling his barren lungs with desperate, dust-flavoured air. Between blinks, reality snapped back into place. A normal twenty-two year old, roaming along the train tracks. He resumed walking, keeping his eyes resolutely away from the power lines singing overhead, ignoring the goosebumps prickling along his body.
***
A sharp tattoo pounded out from Pearl’s front door, the thin metal of the screen rapping double-time to each knock. The elderly woman took two steps back and nearly fell over her favourite floral armchair before she mustered the tenacity to consider, maybe, seeing whoever had dropped by.
She went through the motions of turning the cold deadbolt and sliding the chain out of its narrow channel to open the door to a smiling technician in a dark blue button-up shirt and pressed slacks. His attire was somehow more formal than she would have expected from a workman, but his bulky work bag with wires and unfamiliar tools protruding from its pockets and the embroidered logos which emblazoning him as an employee of the telecommunications company were also clean and tidy, maybe this was just normal. He wasn’t some grubby plumber or mechanic. He worked with phone lines and electrical things.
Her hand trembled as she inserted her key into the screen lock to let him inside to assess the trouble. ‘I didn’t realise you would make it out so soon,’ she said, more glad than she had any business being to see a friendly, living human.
The technician tucked his sunglasses into the front pocket on his shirt and gave her a winning grin. ‘Our systems are now set up to monitor for connection
issues, ma’am. The computers warned us of an unspecified interruption at this address before we received the call, so here I am.’
It’s a whole new world, she marvelled.
‘I’m so pleased. I tried to call my sister, Mabel, just the same as I always do, but th-there’s . . . There’s something wrong with the phone,’ she finished, strangely embarrassed to relate her experience. The voice had spooked her properly. Rational thought had cast sufficient doubt on her experience and Pearl concluded no kids could have mimicked George’s speech. He had died too long ago. But if they weren’t young pranksters . . .
Maybe it’s someone older. More malicious.
That didn’t feel right, either.
‘Lewis Carlisle.’ He extended his right hand in Pearl’s direction while lifting the thin screen of his tablet computer to scan a row of text. ‘You must be Mrs. Harrison.’
‘Please, call me Pearl.’ His hand was both firm and cautious not to crush hers, showing an amount of respect which surprised the old woman. By the time she reached her seventies, the best she got from most people was a cursory attempt at courtesy. Once she styled her hair into a silver perm and more of her skin sagged than didn’t, Pearl had become a non-human. No one special. Not worthy of real respect. More condescension towards her condition than real empathy.
But Lewis didn’t show any of that. He shook her hand like she still mattered.
‘Marco is in the kitchen, he’s a good boy but might give you a little telling-off until he’s gotten the smell of you.’ They moved through her comfortable home toward the sitting room. She’d had the presence of mind to re-set the phone in its cradle before answering the door. There would be no evidence of her minor panic, not unless someone had waited this long to continue their harassment and answered Lewis’s investigation with the voice of a dead man.
***
Greg sucked down the last of his cola with a bored slurp, nudging the crescent-shaped ice blocks around the bottom of his oversized cup with his equally-oversized straw, hoping for one last sugary taste. The surveillance business paid well because all the Listeners would up and die in protest of the utterly mind-numbing nature of their job. They were random quality control. Making sure the computerised recognition software was functioning well enough to probably catch the keywords it had been instructed to flag. Probably.
He checked the small digital clock in the corner of his computer screen, then the silver and leather watch strapped to his wrist, reassured that his break would come in twelve minutes and four seconds, then he could take his giant cup and replenish his cola supply from the postmix machine he had personally petitioned to have installed in the staff room. The second-hand dispenser sent by God himself to break their workplace monotony. Greg took on the job of cleaning the nozzles and flushing its pipes daily with a kind of passionate fervour, while 2IC Chuck replenished the soda water and flavoured syrup baggies with the same grudging sense of responsibility which he performed every other duty. Toady little man with jowls and warts. Nothing pleased the second-in-command.
The drone of voices changed, a new recording, another subject. Greg lifted his empty cup and inhaled around the edges of the paltry melted dregs, fighting an urge to chomp at the plastic straw. His eyes wandered, his feet jiggled, and he looked at the clock another three times before the next minute was up.
Maybe if he ever caught anything interesting, an error in the system, pouncing on some awesomely vital intelligence, then it would all be worth it. If he could ever be the fucking hero.
Another file played. Ten minutes until break. He bounced his knee, keeping one ear on the voices rambling on. Then the next. The next. The next.
‘Gregory ?’
He froze, lips circled around his straw. He knew that voice.
‘Greg, man, say something.’
What the hell was this ? Some kind of answering machine message or a call that failed to connect ? Maybe a butt-dial. No one else spoke. Just this person sounding painfully reminiscent of his brother.
‘Come on, Greg, I know you’re there. Speak to me. It’s been too long. Don’t reject me when we finally get a chance to talk.’
‘Steve ?’ he whispered into the empty room, in spite of the insanity. He had no microphone or speaker. This wasn’t a phone call connecting over headset, just a pre-recorded sound playing over the speakers wired into the walls around him.
‘Oh, thank God. I thought you were going to ignore me. How’s it hanging, man ?’
‘How . . . how are you doing this ?’
‘Ever heard of a God-damn phone, Greg ?’
Steve’s answer defied every sense of reason, but the poor surveillance officer couldn’t offer up his denial. His next words tried to cling to the dry insides of his throat, but he had to force them out, to whisper to himself, before they choked him, ‘I thought you were dead.’
‘What an ugly thing to say, brother.’
The subtle tone of blame stung worse than Greg could have anticipated. Like he carried personal fault for believing the medical examiner when they declared his older sibling deceased, aged thirty-one, cardiac arrest. Or the coroner, or the sympathetic nurses, the autopsy pathologist, the mortician. ‘Fuck you, Steve.’
‘Yeah, yeah, you too, pal. How’s the fam’ ?’
‘No, you don’t get to just, just call me, or whatever this is, and not tell me how you’re still alive. We buried you, for God’s sake. Black lacquered coffin, expensive fucking flowers sitting on top while we all huddled and cried in the chapel.’
‘You’re the one who relied on their account while refusing to see me.’
Ouch. A sharp truth. Greg would not, point blank, no-God-damn-way, view the body at any point in the process. But their parents hadn’t felt the same qualms. They’d have known their own son laying on the cold steel bench.
‘Are you listening to me ?’
‘Yeah, man.’ Christ, I’ve missed you.
‘Good. We’ve got a lot to catch up on.’
Greg leaned forward and listened, forgetting all about his break and the postmix cola which had momentarily been the highlight of his life.
***
Lewis held the receiver to his ear and frowned when static snarled at him again. ‘Mrs. Harrison, I can dial out, but there is still interference coming through the line. This might be physical damage off-site. Would you like to try it out and see if this is going to be okay for now ?’
‘Call me Pearl,’ she said distractedly as she nodded once and took the phone in a shaking hand. Lewis made no comment, but this wasn’t the first time he had noticed fear at the suggestion of using the phone. An otherwise perfectly charming woman, bustling around, happiest when he accepted sharing a pot of Earl Grey with her. Her hands hadn’t trembled when she provided the fine china teacup or poured the steaming liquid.
Her wrinkled finger punched in a number with the rapid precision of someone who rings the same person weekly. Her hesitant expression crumpled to helpless misery as the line crackled.
‘Don’t you talk to me,’ she whispered and hung up the phone with a decisive crash. She cast a sideways look to Lewis. ‘Still broken.’
‘Mrs. Harrison—sorry, Pearl—was there someone on the other end of the line ?’
‘No, of course not,’ she snapped.
The technician widened his eyes and softened his voice. ‘I’m sorry to be a bother, but I thought I heard otherwise.’
‘Like what, young man ?’
‘Well, like you telling someone not to speak, for starters.’
A very pink blush rose through her round cheeks, filling her face with the colour it otherwise lacked. ‘That’s just . . . just an old woman’s silliness.’
‘I’m here to help.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘And why not, ma’am ?’
Her hands rose to cover her spectacled eyes, hiding from him, herself, the truth. ‘Because I need a priest. I’m hearing the voice of my dead husband.’
‘Yes, and he’s been gone for a long time, dear. Fifteen years. Why now ? Why torment me now, after a decade and a half !’
He was so surprised by the saddened outburst, he found himself murmuring a banal attempt at an explanation, something, anything to soothe her, he didn’t quite know. ‘They have just finished upgrading some other lines in this area, any changes in your service could be caused by that, perhaps they crossed some wires or inadvertently tampered with the phone line. Teething problems . . . What am I even saying ?’ Corporate tripe had rolled out of him before he caught up with the words. ‘That has nothing to do with your, uh, unique situation. I’m sorry.’
Pearl’s shiny eyes turned to him from between parted fingers. ‘You believe me.’
Lewis wasn’t a religious man, but that didn’t make him a sceptic. ‘Well, sure. I believe you have every reason to think you’re hearing your husband. I don’t know why, or how, or if it could be possible. I’ve never met anyone who could speak to the dead.’
‘Why now ?’ she repeated, as if Lewis could provide even the barest of answer. ‘No one has fitted new wiring in my head, young man.’
The technician gave a thin smile and shrugged in answer. ‘You probably know better than I do what might have changed for you, Pearl. Do you want to call someone with my mobile ?’
‘What ? What do you mean ?’
‘You mentioned a priest. Do you need to use my phone to contact them, if your landline isn’t satisfactory ?’
***
‘What’s wrong, son ?’
‘I’m fucking appalled. You have no idea.’
Samuel’s hands shook with the need to hurt someone. Why wouldn’t his mother’s ghost stop talking in his ear ? Saliva flooded his mouth, a precursor to the need to vomit, hurl up whatever contents were left in his stomach after his thin breakfast of reheated pancakes. Nothing special. Just like his life.
‘Fucking pathetic,’ he wheezed, lengthening his stride to reach a sink or the toilet bowl before the rhythmic clenching in his gut evacuated the syrup and cream-drenched foods.
Lost Signals Page 23
