The Phone Rang

The phone rang.

The phone sat on a small trestle table next to where I stood. Instinctively I picked it up.

“Can I speak to Robert please?”

“There’s no Robert here”

“Then why did you answer the phone”?

There was a sharp click, like the breaking of a small bone. Whoever the caller was had hung up. I stood holding the lifeless phone for several seconds, maybe a minute, before reluctantly replacing the receiver. The reluctance, I can reveal dear reader, sprung from a general disgust at my own stupid behaviour. A reluctance, if you like, to accept that I had, in the middle of a burglary, stopped to answer the telephone.

I looked nervously around the apartment I was in, as if expecting to meet the owner, standing holding a mobile, and laughing at me. ‘Caught you out mate, the old getting you to answer the phone in the middle of a burglary trick’. But there was no-one there. The flat was near empty, minimalist I’m sure the designer would have said. The phone lived, as I have said, on a trestle table. The table stood next to a leather sofa. A two-person sofa.

In the corner, towards which the sofa vaguely pointed, stood a massive TV with Blu-Ray, though there were no Blu-Ray discs in the room. There was a chair, an old fashioned wooden chair, with a pot plant on it. But aside from these few impersonal items there was nothing in the lounge. No papers, knick-knacks, mugs, mess, not even an ashtray of loose change or a post-it note saying ‘gone to Clive’s. No drawer space either, so nothing doing in this room.

I had climbed in through the lounge window, which I’d noticed was left open whilst sat drinking coffee and collecting my thoughts in Millicent’s coffee shop over the road. Technically this was my day off. I work one day on, two days off, generally speaking. Crime may not pay but the hours are good. But I’m my own boss, so when I see a window open, and the window of one of those flash new apartments as well, I cannot resist. Because I was acting on the hoof I would not be able to make off with the TV, nice though it was, I‘d need a van and at least one accomplice to help carry it. I was looking for portable merchandise only.

There were two doors out of the lounge and I opened the one on my left. It led to the bedroom.

Before I could enter the phone rang again. And before I could think I had answered it. In fact, before I could think I had turned round, paced across the sandalwood floor with a ‘clip, clip, clip’ of heel on wood, knocked over the trestle table, and whilst I had righted the table with one hand I had lifted the receiver with the other.

“Can I speak to Robert please”?

It was a woman’s voice this time. A young woman’s voice, quite sexy actually. Without thinking I ad-libbed an answer.

“He’s in the bath. Can I take a message”?

The woman paused. “It’s rather personal. I really need to speak to him now.”

“You can’t speak to him now I’m afraid. He’s in the bath. Can I take a message”.

“But I need to speak to him now it’s urgent”. A pause, a gasp for breath, then she continued, desperate this time. “Its really important, I need to speak to Robert”.

“You can’t speak to him” I replied “he’s in the bath”. My excuse was, I had to admit to myself, beginning to sound a bit weak.

“Get Robert!” shrieked the girl. “Julie’s been taken ill. She’s dying. Her pills are at number 43. Tell Robert to pick them up and drive over with them. Get him out of the bath! Get him to the phone now, please!” Hearing my silence the girl screamed down the phone at full volume. “GET ROBERT TO THE PHONE NOW, please.”

I paused. Bit of a tricky one this. Bit of a moral dilemma. I found myself walking round the flat, just to check that Robert really was out. The bathroom led off from the bedroom. I looked in the bath, Robert wasn’t there. An empty flat. It was down to me. So what should I do? I could lie. Tell her Robert was on his way, burgle the flat and be none the wiser. The downside of this was that, the way things looked, it would mean that Julie died. I could tell the truth of course, in which case she’d probably die anyway, and I would both look foolish and risk being caught. Or I could just pretend it was a wrong number, hang up and hope she’d get help from someone else. What would Yvonne have done in this situation I wondered.

The silence at the other end of the phone was getting more impatient and demanding. Momentarily I lost my cool, my ice calm control that makes me so proficient at my job. I found myself wittering nonsense.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Robert seems to have popped out for some bathsalts or something. You’ll have to try someone else. Sorry”.

“Then you’ll have to help” she interrupted. I felt the conversation slipping away from me, as if she wasn’t just winning the game but was the only one of us who knew the rules. In short, for whatever reason, I couldn’t say no.

“What can I do?” I asked.

“I need the pills. You’ll have to go over to John’s, he knows where number 43 is”.

“Where’s John”? I asked.

“I don’t know” she said slowly “I thought you did”.

I paused for thought. Well, I did know a John. I knew lots of John’s in fact. Who did she mean? Who did she think I was for that matter? I sat down on the leather sofa, perfect smooth, untouched like new, it made a soft squeak as my buttocks touched its surface. I could ask which John she meant, of course, but then her next answer would probably be just as absurd. I decided to assert my authority.

“Listen! I don’t know John. I don’t know where Robert is and I don’t know where number 43 is. If you want me to help you then you’ll have to give me more information.”

There was a pause at the other end of the line. The silence indicated that I had successfully made my point, but that didn’t stop the woman on the phone becoming hysterical.

“I don’t know” she bleated. “Julie’s out cold, and there’s no-one else here.

“Is there no-one else you can phone? Someone you can call on – a neighbour, the police. A hospital?

“There’s only Robert,” she replied mournfully. We need Robert.” Her voice changed from desperate wail to confidential whisper “Robert and Julie – they had a thing, you know.”

I didn’t know, obviously, but felt that I had at last gained the initiative in this conversation and if I was going to help there was only one thing I could do. I told her.

“OK, you don’t know, I don’t know. All I can do is search the flat, see if there’s and address book, phone book or something. Hang up, see to Julie, and phone back in five minutes while I look for John’s number”. There was a pause, while we both contemplated our next moves, and I added in a flash of inspiration. “Try the kiss of life or something”.

There was a reluctant click of the receiver, and I was once again left holding a dead phone.

The bedroom contained a single bed, a wardrobe and a chest of drawers. The bed was neatly made with expensive silken sheets. The wardrobe and chest of drawers both looked new, unused like the sofa. Again there were no personal objects, no photos, no books, no piles of soiled clothes, no used mugs, no papers and magazines, no leaky biro, nothing. Not even a poster on the wall.

The top drawer was empty, as was the second. The third contained a scruffy old teddy bear and nothing else, the bottom drawer was empty.

I picked up the tattered old brown bear, its right ear hanging on by one thin thread, and tucked him into the bed with his head on the pillow. ‘Cruelty to animals’ I thought to myself. Leaving teddies in drawers, what is the world coming to?

I approached the wardrobe, a smart teak effect, brand new but old-style. Very smart. As I expected it was empty. No clothes, nothing, not one piece of evidence of human habitation, let alone an address book. I was starting to get a bad vibe about this job. What sort of person lives in a place with nothing in it? I tried the bathroom, on the off chance, but that was empty too. No toothpaste, no brush, no soap, radio, no deodorant, no face cream, no shaver. I switched on the radio, as it was the only thing there. It was tuned to a classic station, I switched it off and put it back, I wasn't in the mood for music.

Back in the bedroom I looked under the bed – nothing there except for a phone. I could take the call in here I thought to myself. As these very thought waves were making their way round my mind the phone rang again. I picked it up.

“Can I speak to Robert please?” It was the man again.

“Sorry there’s no Robert here.”

“Then why did you answer the phone?”

In the tension of the moment, what with my expectation of the call from Julie’s friend, I panicked slightly and found myself answering.

“I’m sorry, Robert’s not here. I’m just another Robert and I’m expecting another call. Can you ring back?”

The man’s voice changed, suddenly acquiring a menacing tone. “I just did. And if I don’t get an answer I’ll have to call round.”

This was spoken as a threat, and though I was safe at the other end of the phone from the man, I found myself sweating. I found myself giving in.

“Robert’s not here. Can I help at all?”

“That’s better. It’s number 49. My time has come. Do you have anything to say to me?”

Number 49 eh? I could actually turn my advantage. If he was number 49 then he must surely know the other numbers. “Do you know number 43?”

“Aha,” said the man. “Consider it done.” He hung up.

I replaced the phone, sat on the crisp newly made bed and tried to think. Before I could however, the phone rang again. I picked it up.

“Is Robert there?”

“Erm” I paused “I know this may sound stupid, but that’s not you is it Tim?”

It was indeed Tim’s voice, and he recognised my own. “Rob, hi there! I’ve just done a really stupid thing, I’ve just dialled the wrong Robert.

“No it’s the right Robert. I mean it’s the right Robert’s phone, only I’m the wrong Robert.” I thought about what I’d just said and added quickly “I’m just visiting” just to clarify the situation.

“Is Robert there?”

“No he’s out. Can I take a message?”

Tim paused before replying, when he did his voice sounded nervous, awkward even. “Er, tell him that John rang”. He paused again. “It’s a bit of an in joke, he calls me John. I’m not sure why.” His voice trailed off.

I had no idea what was happening but something in my subconscious went ‘click’. “John, er, Tim, I need to get to number 43.”

John’s silence sounded shocked. “I didn’t know you knew” he mused slowly. “Yes I can take you. I’m going there on Tuesday.”

“No I need to go now. Julie’s ill. She needs her tablets. They’re at number 43. She needs them now. I don’t know where 43 is. You’ll have to come here now, to Robert’s flat, and take me to 43.” I think I made the point clearly and succinctly, even if I do say so myself. But the response wasn’t what I expected. After a pause of several seconds I heard laughter.

There was no doubt about it, somebody was laughing at me. A different voice now, not Tim’s, a stranger laughing at me. “Robert Pearson?” it asked.

“Yeah” I answered, a bit perplexed and too shocked to think about the implications of giving your name mid robbery. I was trying to recognise the voice, it wasn’t Tim’s now but still sounded familiar.

“This is Mike Kanger. You’re live on Frequency Radio. Have you ever been had?”
Of course, I should have known the voice straight away. ‘Have you ever been had’ was the most talked about sketch in the country. Mike Kanger was a master impressionist and conjured up incredible, complex, detailed and surreal hoaxes. I should have spotted the style straight away.

“You sod," I said. But it hadn’t quite registered, I couldn’t quite believe it, and part of my mind was still on emergency mode, worried about the girl Julie. So I stammered confusion at him, live on air. “But the girl,” I started to say.

“They do say I’ve got the most flexible voice in the business,” said the girl, or was it Mike.

“Fuck!” I stood defeated. A glorious career in the burglary business had come to an early and ignoble ending.

“It’s good to know you’re such a good sport mate.” He paused as if gloating at my suffering and continued “Do you remember a girl called Yvonne?”

Yvonne, what the fuck did a national radio DJ know about Yvonne?

“Well Yvonne helped set this one up. She told us your routine and your little weakness with telephones, so it was just a matter of following you, tracing the number and having a bit of fun.”

He paused to allow the full implication of this to sink in. But I was still too busy puzzling over the call to notice any of the implications.

Mike Kanger’s voice changed, he was now hurrying the conversation to conclusion, obviously with the joke now over there was an add break looming. “Well thanks again mate, you’re a total sport. You’ll be getting a Frequency Radio T-shirt and teasmade."

I hung up and lounged over to the window. Over the road people were still thronging in and out of Millicent’s coffee shop. I could hear faint echoes of the music from Millicent’s juke box, reggae of some description. The people down there were laughing, smiling, looking happy and fashionable.

The phone rang, but this time I ignored it and continued to stare out of the window at the life outside. On the streets traffic and people thronged, horns were tooted, shouts were made, people fought and people kissed. Whereas here, I was alone in a room, an empty room save for an empty wardrobe, an unused bed and untouched sofa. I decided to join them.