Call 1.
Somehow, I half-expected the phone to ring,
it often does with uncanny regularity
as I am about to leave the house.
I didn’t recognise her voice, a fathomless
silkily deep friendly tone
in a timbre that sounded like
we were already well acquainted.
Her surprisingly forthright manner
enquired frenetically
as to my whereabouts, asking for my reasons
for letting her down,
evidently, we were supposed to have met
she had some important information
we’d agreed to discuss.
I considered this somewhat bizarre,
worrying even, thinking it a hoax
but I was already late, so in a hurriedly
apologetic gabble I told her to ring back.
Call 2.
I could hear the phone ringing
coming through the gate,
I fumbled with the well-worn key
to the cantankerous front door lock,
one of those minor irritations that I’d always
intended to get fixed but hadn’t done yet.
I knew it would ring off before I could get to it
and the answering machine would cut in
to announce my absence,
so why was I still hurrying
making the fumbling even worse?
On the bus journey home, I pondered
all the female faces that had swept past
the grimy window
in an overwound show-reel travelogue
that could have been my mystery caller.
Bags hastily dropped,
coat slung over the newel post
I pressed the illuminated new message button,
even her over-emphasised resigned sigh
sounded like a purring cat.
Who is this woman?
Call 3.
I have arranged to stay in all day
this nonsense has to stop,
there’s such a pregnant silence whilst waiting
for yet another mysterious call
akin to the jailor’s booted step
clapping on cold hard polished flags,
deafening.
I let my imagination run amok
through the most recent liaisons
my particular line of work delivers
and find myself stationery,
almost catatonic, daydreaming
it could be her, or her, or her
before dismissing each suggestion
as ludicrous.
Then it’s here, a raucous ring
abruptly snapping me to attention
like a hypnotist,
leaving me to stare vacantly
at the blinking handset
which miraculously leaps into my palm.
I wait for that seductive voice, there isn’t one
so, I speak, uncharacteristically feebly
a parched throat but damp forehead,
Ah! You are there, at last, she mocks
regaling me with her previously
unsuccessful endeavours to track me down.
Time is now short, it is my fault unequivocally
so, we must meet, today, 2.30 and
before I recover from her urgent barrage
I hear myself dictating my mobile number
followed by a disconnected thrum
in my right ear. Shit!
Call 4.
It’s been a month since her call, and we met.
Was she the woman I’d expected to meet?
No!
Were the things we discussed important?
Definitely!
I hadn’t realised, I just didn’t have a clue
and now her revelations, to be honest
have left me feeling very distressed indeed.
My heart has been raped violently, comprehensively
and will never be the same again.
She misread my confusion as negativity
so, things swiftly plummeted from there.
Nothing I could say had any effect on her anger,
to her, my frail words of surprise were incendiary,
there were tears but not enough to quench the flames.
Now I see her face on every window poster
her knowing smile,
billboards, hoardings
advertise her eyes,
news presenters impersonate her accent,
but it is the smell of her, that perfume
that I cannot lose, it felt so familiar,
citrus floral velvet grass honeysuckle damask
taunts me like tantalus
relentlessly.
Now I am the prisoner
incarcerated by her new revelations,
drugged with names dates and places,
my only lifeline welded to my palm
and a final agonising wait
for her call.
© Graham Sherwood 06/2018
