Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere by Alice Furse

Author:Alice Furse [Furse, Alice]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781909136502
Publisher: Burning Eye Books
Published: 2014-09-22T00:00:00+00:00

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According to Ruth, “The weather just can’t make up its mind!”

She said it all day into the phone until I felt like driving a staple into my own forehead. She was right, though: there was the first hint of something humid in the air, something almost sticky.

I didn’t like it.

I spoke to a guy who needed customer services but just wouldn’t hold. He’d decided that because he was talking to a real person he was going to start a debate, but the truth was that his only options were holding or hanging up.

“Look, darling, I know what it’s like,” he said. “I work in a call centre too.”

“This isn’t a call centre,” I replied. “It’s a small office. I don’t have any lines free. If it’s longer than a few minutes, I’ll come back to you, okay?”

“I’m on a mobile.”

My phone chirped, which meant another call was trying to get through.

“Well, I can pass a number on for you,” I said.

“Are they going to call me back?”

“I can’t guarantee it, but I promise you I’ll pass it on.”

He started to dictate his number and I wrote it on a yellow note.

“That’s only ten digits,” I said. My phone chirped again, so there were now two calls waiting.

He repeated it and there was meant to be a nine between the last two digits.

“Okay, I’ll pass that on.”

He asked me to read it back to him and as I did it the phone chirped again.

“Is anyone actually going to ring me back?”

“Yes, as soon as they have a chance.”

“Well, be sure that they do, all right, sweetheart?”

Right then, a huge gust of wind blew all the blinds inwards. Rachel, Kyle and Jackie were all on the phone too, and so none of us could immediately get up; instead we hunkered down as if ducking a low-flying plane.

The bloke hung up and my phone started ringing straight away for the other calls, but the wind was still blowing, and papers in people’s letter trays started violently flapping. Even Rachel was caught off-guard, and stumbled over her words.

Ruth’s Sensible Shoes mug went over and her pens scattered across her desk.

I thought the apocalypse had come at last.

But then the wind stopped as quickly as it had started. I leaned back in my chair and looked out of the window. The air had turned grey and heavy and the sky had formed a thick covering of opaque clouds.

The AquAid man, with his navy uniform and clipboard, was unloading blue plastic tanks of water.

I was still holding the bloke’s yellow note. Be sure that they do, sweetheart. I looked at it for a long time before flicking it into the bin.

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