Dial M for maddening
No one in our family has ever liked talking over the phone. There is something about the intrusive nature of the beast, and this includes the passiveaggressive jauntiness of a mobile’s ringtone, that puts our backs up and makes me want to clam up like the mute woman in The Piano.
I inherited my phobia from the Aged P, who instilled a belief in me from an early age that the Bakelite behemoth on the hall table only ever brought news of death and suffering. Or attracted the worst kind of ‘ear basher’ (Auntie Flo, in those days). I was seven before I realised it wasn’t called the ‘bloodyphone’. Now I’m afraid I have passed this irrational fear on to my own children, who both flee at the landline’s ring like the inhabitants of New York when King Kong goes on the rampage.
We could, of course, just buy an answer machine, but there are always somehow more interesting things to purchase. And, anyway, it only delays the inevitable (ie you have to return the call). So we carry on being persecuted by our 1970s cradle phone, with its overwrought double ring that always sounds as though it is overacting in an am-dram revival of a Harold Pinter play.
When this happens, on average three times daily, we dive into the furthest room and hope someone else will answer. If no one does, we get a little hysterical with each other. ‘Someone answer the bloody phone!’ ‘No – I did it at Christmas!’ Even our terrier Lupin has taken to howling like White Fang.
None of us really understand why, in this age of social media, anyone would want to call us anyway, especially as we are all so unpleasant when we answer. ‘Yes?! Who? What? Can’t hear you, you’re going to have to speak up!’ etc. Sometimes, old friends haven’t realised it is me, as I either sound clinically depressed, or so unfriendly I make them nervous. Then I try to make amends by being unnaturally cheerful.
Once I shift gears, it is usually OK; I have even enjoyed the odd call. ‘Had a really nice PHONE CALL from Laura today,’ I’ll say, pointedly, to Mr Home Front, to sound like a normal person.
Recently, my big brother Eddie phoned from his home in Derbyshire. I was so disconcerted to hear his voice that I assumed something dreadful must have happened. But, really, he just wanted to know how the Aged P – our true crime enthusiast mother – was getting on in the care home.