Singing in the Wire

A Willerby Story

The Nevermade call centre was in a barn, two minutes drive down a farm track off Willerby’s main street.

The women working there were not local. They commuted in for for their shifts.

It was always at work. It never closed, The lifts winked byin the fields even at Christmas and on New Year’s Eve.

Occasionally, but often enough for it to be unremarkable, its workers popped into the Green Man drink for a drink before driving home. They never stayed for more than one and were known to be polite, friendly and reserved.  

Lisa was curious about them and asked around, but nobody in Willerby seemed to know what they did.

One Friday evening in mid-July, she left the other locals to their gossip in the snug to go to the faded leather booth by the window at which three were sitting. She introduced herself and the women –Tarjinder, Anastacia and Amy - did their best to answer her questions.

“We listen to the singing in the wire,” said Anastacia, “and join up connections.”

“Who for?” Lisa asked.

“Anyone,” Tarjinder said, “and everyone. There’s always too many but we get through as many as we can.”

“No,” said Lisa. “I mean who do you work for? It must be huge to have a whole department working the hours you’re open.”

The women laughed again. “If it were a company, it’d be the biggest in the world!”, said Amy. “But it isn’t really like that – we’re more public service. Why don’t you come and see for yourself? We’re on late shifts from next week, starting midnight on Monday. Drop in a bit after that if you like.”

“Thanks,” Lisa said, “I’ll do that.”

“See you then”, said Tarjinder, “just ring the bell and we’ll let you in.”

…

Lisa left her house at midnight and by quarter past was on the track.

It was well-surfaced, smooth and straight. Down both its sides ran high cables hanging from rows of wooden telegraph poles.

The night was warm. The moon was bright, and there was no need for more light until she got a few hundred feet down the track where there was a discrete but expensive looking carved stone sign. She used her phone’s torch to read it.

“Nevermade – reconnecting lost lines since 1923.”

When she got there, she saw three cars in the carpark – two Skodas and a ten-year-old Golf.

The building behind them, lit by discrete floodlights angled at its walls was well but practically converted and maintained, with sharply pointed brickwork and unfussy white UPVC windows framing beige roll down blinds.

Lisa went to the door, overhung by a modest wooden awning, and pressed a button next to it.

The bell rang twice, and then there was a voice from the intercom system.

“Nevermade. Tarjinder here. How can we help?”

“It’s, Lisa from the pub on Friday? You said I could drop in.”

“Hiya! Of course!”

There was a buzz. Lisa pushed the door and stepped inside.

“Hey, Lisa”, Tarjinder said, waving from the closest desk. “Good to see you – we weren’t sure you’d come. Tea?”

“You have to say yes,” called Amy from the desk behind Tarjinder’s, “around here we live on it, and I’ll have one too.”

“Isn’t it your turn to brew up?”, Tarjinder asked.

Amy laughed. “Yes, but you’re the one welcoming the guest and that makes it your job.”

Tarjinder rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she said. “Tell you what, Lisa, you sit at my desk, and I’ll make one for everybody. I’ll fill you in on what we do here in a minute but until then sit on my chair, have a look round and listen in on the calls the Amy and Anastacia are on. Sorry we can’t all take a break but there’s too much to do for us all to stop.”

Tarjinder disappeared through a door and Lisa settled into a high backed faux-leather office chair in front of a heavy oak desk, which was spotless, polished and patinaed with age. The only thing on it, aside from some personal family photos in silver frames, was an expensive looking black conference phone and headset, its touchscreen winking blue and red lights.

Lisa swivelled the chair round to see the rest of the room.

Lit by faintly humming old fashioned strip-lights, it was square and uncluttered, aside from the wall furthest from her which was covered floor to ceiling in handwritten thank you cards.

The carpet was grey, thin and threaded with silver lines. On it were three other desks, arranged in a line one behind the other, all identical to the one she was sitting at. The furthest was empty.  Anastacia and Amy were behind the other two. They smiled and waved at Lisa when they saw her looking at them.

Both were on calls.

“OK love, yes,” Lisa heard Amy say, “she’s accepted your call, we have her on the line now. I’ll put you through. When you hear the tone, you can start speaking. I’m sorry, it is just this call you get, and it’s just five minutes. There’ll be a soft beep each minute. Good luck! Now here comes the tone.”

“Yes, he will speak to you,” said Anastacia. “Darling, I know you don’t feel ready, but this your only chance so be ready now anyway. It’s only five minutes. In a moment you’ll here a tone and after that he’ll be on the call. There’ll be a little beep each minute. You can do this, I promise. Here’s the tone.”

She took of her headset and pressed a button on her phone. Then she waved at Lisa again and when she had her attention cocked her ear at her to make a “listen” signal.

“Are you there, Rich?”, said a female voice from the console. “Are you there?”

There was a moment of silence. Then, a male voice. “Yes, Abi, I’m here. What do you want?”

 “I’m not going to say anything mean, I promise,” Abi said, “that’s why I’m calling. I was always too mean.”

“That, and more,” said Rich.

“I know. Can I tell you why I was the way I was, please?”

“I don’t know. Can you?”

“Please don’t be like that. I have to say this” Abi, said. “The first bit will hurt but you deserve to know. Can you just listen?”

There was another short silence. Then, “OK,” Rich said. “Go on.”

“I cheated on you with Marcus just a month after we first got together. You were away at university, and I was at a party, and he was there when I didn’t expect him to be.”

The first beep sounded out.

“We were both drunk, and at the time I thought you and me probably wouldn’t last that long anyway, but I’m not making excuses, I know it was our fault. Marcus and I agreed not to tell you. But then you were so nice, and I felt I didn’t deserve any of it. But there was no way to end it with you that made sense and anyway, I didn’t want to. And then it was six months and then it was a year, then two, and telling you what we’d done seemed even more impossible. I tried to forget about it – to say that it didn’t matter and sometimes for a bit it worked, but I just kept thinking about it all the time and it made me so guilty, like I didn’t deserve any of the nice things you did - like I didn’t deserve you at all”

The second beep.

It made me irritable and that made me angry and that made me mean, and the meaner I was the more I hated myself. I hate how weak I was – I couldn’t tell you why I was being so horrible, and I couldn’t bring myself to end it either. I needed you to do it. And then you did, and I was relieved and thought that would be the end of it all. But it wasn’t. I still think about it all the time. I’m married now, kids and everything, mostly happy, and I’ve never done anything like that since, but I still can’t stop thinking about it.”

The third beep.

“Can you forgive me?”

There was another silence on the line.

“I always knew it was something like that,” said Rich. “No, I don’t forgive you.”

And then there was the click as he hung up.

“I’m sorry, but that’s it,” said Anastacia. “If they or you hang up it counts as the full time.”

For a moment the room was completely silent. Then Abi sniffed. “It’s fine,” she said. “I didn’t deserve anything else. I was going to tell him I often wonder what would have happened if I hadn't gone to that party. I think I might have married him.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself, you did what you could,” Anastacia said. “You couldn’t have done anything else with the cards you had left.”

“Yes,” Abi said. “Thank you anyway.”

And then she hung up too.

Anastacia pulled a sad face at Lisa, pressed another button on her phone and put her headset back on. Then Tarjinder came back into the room from the kitchen with four cups of tea on a tray with a jug of milk and ramekin of sugar.

“No, no need to get up,” she said to Lisa as she took the mismatched mugs to the two other women. “I’ll perch on my desk, and we can talk for a bit.”

“The calls never stop,” she said. “Our job is to listen in. When we get a strong enough whisper, a clear enough song, we pick up and ask them who they want to talk to. Then we call them and ask if they’ll take it. Sometimes they say no, but most of the time they say yes. If they don’t say yes, then that person can keep trying – some do for years – but once the connections made that’s the only call and they only get five minutes.”

“Five minutes isn’t much,” said Lisa.

Tarjinder sighed. “No, it isn’t, but it isn’t supposed to be cruel. There’s just so many calls. So many things so many people regret never saying. And even when we’re fully staffed, we’re only ever a team of twelve and now there’s only ten of us – that’s why we’re short tonight.”

“The one I just heard was really sad,” Lisa said.

“Ah, sorry your first was one of those,” Tarjinder said. “A lot are but not all. Most of the time people just want to say nice stuff they never got round to saying before the person they wanted to say it to slipped out of their life or passed on. We’ve all heard so many beautiful things. Look – in a minute I’ll need to go back to work but you’re welcome to stay as long as you like and listen in. If you want, we can set you up on the spare desk and link the phone to mine – you won’t be able to say anything, but you’ll hear it all. Course, you don’t have to and if you do you can leave whenever you want, just let yourself out if you do.”

She stayed the whole night in the muted hush, soft voices broken only by the boiling of a kettle and the whir of a microwave when one of the women went to the kitchen for a break.

Lisa did not leave her desk – the wires would not let her escape – the quiet intensity of it all, the urgency, the joy and the hurt, the hope and the fear, all of it together pulling and picking at her, demanding she listen, demanding she stay.

“I’m sorry I bullied you at school.”

“I wish we’d had more time. My love, only that, just that.”

“You were a brilliant dad. When I said you’d let me down I was a teenager trying to get a rise out of you. I just wanted you to shout back at me so we could have an argument. I didn’t think you’d cry. I’m sorry I never said that. I always hoped you’d know I didn’t mean it, but I should have checked.”

“I should have got back in contact with you after you kicked the booze. You were a shit, but I know that must have been big for you. I heard you were sorry, and people said you changed. I should have called or messaged to say well done for doing that.”

“You couldn’t have known I’d crash. It isn’t your fault we argued that day – I was just tired. I love you.”

“Did you regret us not having children? We never talked about that enough. It never bothered me. I only ever needed you and I’ve been wondering whether I was selfish in not asking.”

“I’ve never forgotten you –that fortnight on the island in the beach-hut. I hope you never changed. It’d be too dangerous for us to meet or even speak now, but I still think of you, just out of reach, but free. Please never change.”

“Do you remember that day on holiday in Spain when you were six, and mummy was poorly and I took you out to dinner, just the two of us? You did your best manners, and at the end the waiter said you were astonishing as he gave you your extra pudding. That was the proudest of anything I have ever been, ever. I think about it every single day. Thank you.”

“Thank you for everything. It was such a good life. I wish I’d taken more time to realise that and enjoy it.”

“I never told you, but that day I got that job, and you met me in the park with flowers - that was the best day of my whole life.”

There had been light around the edges of the blinds for hours when the last call of the shift came in – to Amy. She took off her headset and waved at the others to do the same.

“It’s Charles,” she said. “But this time Eddie has agreed to the call. I’ve already done the script.”

“Oh, my goodness,” said Tarjinder to Lisa. “This is a big one. He’s been trying for as long as any of us has worked here and Eddie has never picked up.”

“I’m going to take it off mute,” said Amy, “and put it on the big speakers.”

“Eddie? My Eddie? Are you there? Is that you?” The voice sounded elderly and spoke in cut-glass received pronunciation English.

“Yes, Charlie. It’s me,” said a younger voice.

“I’ve been trying so long. Why wouldn’t you talk to me?”

The room went very quiet.

“I’m sorry,” Eddie said.

“It doesn’t matter, where are you, can you talk?”

“I’m here, in Willo House.”

“Me too. I can’t seem to leave it.”

“Me neither.”

There was a nervous chuckle from both.

“Why did you do it?” Charles said. “I have to ask.”

“I couldn’t face the idea of you in prison,” Eddie said. “You said you’d be able to cope with it, but you didn’t know what they were really like. I did. I thought if I was gone, what my note said would make the whole thing collapse. Did it?”

“It did,” Charles said, “but I wish you hadn’t. Life wasn’t worth living without you – I thought all the time about doing what you did but I didn’t have the courage. I lived far too long after it all, alone here in this house, always trying to find you. Eddie, why wouldn’t you speak to me?”

The first beep.

“They always told me I would only get this call,” said Eddie. “Just five minutes. So, I kept putting it off – knowing that you were thinking about me and trying to speak to me – that was something nice to think about. But now this is it, isn’t it? Can we not waste this time? Can we just talk about the good times?”

And – in between the second and third beep – they did. They talked about renovating and fixing – of parties and picnics – of evenings with whiskey and warm log fires and riding horses through autumn mist. They talked about visits to tailors and fine clothes. They talked about boating on rivers and the first swallows of summer.

Then the fourth beep.

“You only have a minute left now”, said Amy, softly.

They ignored her. They took turns saying they loved the other in lots of different ways without ever saying it.

The final beep.

Then just as Amy was about to close the connection there was an exclamation from Charles, and the last words they all heard were, “But Eddie – I see you. You’re here. Were you with me this whole time?”

Then a click and silence.

All four women were crying, and standing by the door, the day shift who’d slipped in to relieve them were crying too.

…

“It’s always intense but that was something else,” said Tarjinder to Lisa, squinting in the morning sun as she opened the door of her Golf. “It’s not usually quite that emotional.”

Lisa looked her in the eye. “It was an honour to be here tonight,” she said. “Thank you for having me.”

“Might you be back?” Anastacia asked. “There’s a spare desk anytime you want it. You could even take some calls next time if you like – we’ll coach you through the first few.”

Lisa thought for a moment, then laughed. “Was this an interview?”

The three other women looked at each other and laughed too. “Well,” Tarjinder said, “as much as there ever is for jobs here. The money’s fine. We don’t know where it comes from, but it arrives every month and goes up with inflation straight away, which feels a perk these days. There’s as many shifts as you want and we’re good with flexible working – swapping shifts, covering each other when we need to, that sort of thing – it’s a bit like a family. There’s even been talk of work-from-home from the tech people if you want it, although I think most of us like coming here too much for that.”

“Good to get a break from the kids,” said Amy.

“And husbands!” Anastacia said.

They all laughed again.

“I’d like the work – I think,” Lisa said, “and the commute is very convenient! Could I do a shift and see how it goes?”

“Of course,” Tarjinder said. “It’s how we all started. Tonight?”

Lisa nodded firmly. “Yes,” she said. “See you tonight. For sure.”

Then, waving at the nightshift as they drove past, she walked home in the silent whispers and in the birdsong, beneath the cables and above the shadows they cast by her feet, unable to forget what she’d heard, still hearing the singing, still hearing the singing in the wire.

…

I hear you singing in the wire,

               I can hear you through the whine.

               And the Wichita lineman

               Is still on the line.

               Glen Campbell. The Wichita Lineman