feet. I was in the middle of a rather interesting if depressing article about the ageing populations of the developed world, who combine increased life expectancy due to advances in medicine with a diminishing capacity to enjoy it because of physical and mental deterioration. ‘Nobody phones me at this hour of the day,’ I said.Very few people phone me at any hour, actually, since I retired.
‘If it’s Jakki, tell her I’m busy. And remind her I’ll be late because I’m getting my nails done,’ Fred said, frowning over her list. Jakki is Fred’s business partner and one of the many things about her that irritate me is her propensity to make unnecessary phone calls. Another is the way she spells her name.
I lifted the wall-mounted phone off its cradle and put it to my ear, immediately producing a howl of feedback. I always forget that ordinary phones produce that effect if you’re wearing a hearing aid, or else I forget I’m wearing a hearing aid when I pick up an ordinary phone. Which was the case this morning? I forget. I prised the earpiece out of my right ear and dropped it in my haste, exclaiming ‘Fuck!’ as it hit the vinyl-tiled floor. The last time I did that the hearing instrument was a write-off. My insurance policy covered it, but if I make another thousand-pound claim the company might refuse to renew it. Fortunately it seemed that no damage had been done on this occasion: the device whistled in the palm of my hand as I picked it up, indicating that it was still working. I switched it off, slipped it into my dressing-gown pocket and put the phone to my empty ear. I was conscious of Fred observing me impatiently like the teacher of a chronically clumsy infant pupil. ‘Hallo,’ I said.
‘Is that how you usually answer the phone?’ said a faint female voice. ‘“Fuck”, and then “hallo”?’
‘No, I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I dropped my - I dropped something just as I picked up the . . . Is that Jakki?’
‘No, it’s . . .’
I didn’t catch the name. ‘I’m sorry - who?’
She said something that sounded like ‘Axe’.
I said: ‘Look, this phone’s no good, I’ll go into my study. Hang on.’ I have a phone in my study specially designed for the deaf. You can use it while wearing a hearing aid in the loop mode, and you can increase the volume if necessary. I replaced the kitchen phone on its cradle and made for the door.
‘Who is it?’ Fred asked.
‘I don’t know - not Jakki.’
‘You’ve cut them off anyway, darling.’ (This was a faintly sarcastic ‘darling’.)
‘No, I haven’t.’ I have explained this before to Fred - that both parties have to put their phones down to break the connection - but she doesn’t believe me.
‘Well, if it’s for me and it’s urgent you can get me on my mobile,’ Fred said. ‘I simply must go this minute. I’ll leave the list here on the worktop.’ She added something about melons which I didn’t catch because I had only one earpiece in place and was nearly out of the kitchen, with my back to her. I hoped it wasn’t important.
I sat down at my desk, inserted my right earpiece, set it in the loop mode and picked up the phone. ‘Hallo,’ I said.
‘Oh, I thought you’d cut me off,’ said the voice. It was still faint, so I turned up the volume.
‘No. Sorry about all the confusion. I have a hearing problem, it makes phones difficult. I’m afraid I didn’t get your name.’
‘It’s Alex. We met at the ARC gallery the other evening.’ She spoke with a perceptible transatlantic accent.
‘Oh yes, I remember.’
‘But you didn’t remember our appointment.’
‘What appointment?’ I said, with an internal flutter of panic.
‘You were going to give me some advice about my research.’
‘Was I? Where? When?’
‘Don’t you remember anything?’ she said, with understandable asperity.
‘Well, to be honest, I didn’t hear much. It was frightfully noisy, that room, it’s all the concrete, and as I said, I have a hearing problem . . .’
‘I see.’
‘I’m terribly sorry. It must seem very rude of me but . . .’
‘All right, I forgive you. When shall we meet then? Tomorrow?’
I said I couldn’t meet her tomorrow because I was going to London to see my father, and then it would be the weekend, and she was tied up on Monday so eventually we agreed on the following Tuesday afternoon, at three.