Arnos Hell Read online

  “I think it’s a double plus good idea, for both of us. You are a dark-haired beauty like Liz Taylor and I am told that I look a little bit like Richard Burton.”

  She smiled. “Today you look like Richard Burton in 1984 - old and wasted.”

  “I thought it the best performance of his career.”

  “Is this the best of yours?”

  “Christ no.” She laughed and he knew he had won. “I feel like death warmed over, and soon I have to go to that noisy room upstairs and have people moaning at me about their illnesses for six hours. For God’s sake say you’ll go out with me and give me the will to live.”

  She laughed again. “Okay. It won’t be this Saturday night obviously.”

  “How about this afternoon. You finish at three, don’t you? We could go for a coffee after work, or maybe a hair of the dog.”

  “Don’t you have to work on two hours for coming in late?”

  “No. I made a deal with that Devil on the podium. For working Saturday night I get to finish on time today, and I get to finish at eight next Saturday.”

  “Okay, after work then.”

  The pod at which Caroline was already seated was full up so Bob had to sit elsewhere, and he was glad to do so. His head was too fuzzy to concentrate on calls and making conversation with her. He sat at another pod across the room. He could see her back.

  The calls flooded in.

  “Good morning this is NHS Direct, I’m Bob a call handler... Dentist.

  “Good morning this is NHS Direct, I’m Bob a call handler...Diarrhoea.

  “Good morning this is NHS Direct, I’m Bob a call handler...Depression

  “Good morning this is NHS Direct, I’m Bob a call handler...Dentist

  There was certain repetitiveness to the work but the odd calls stood out in the crowd, like diamonds in a coal mine. One lady rang about her dog because she thought “they might be able to help.” It was hard to convince her otherwise. People were like that with phone lines. Finally, Bob said, “Take the dog to your doctor.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t. That would be silly.”

  “But it’s okay to phone a nurse for advice?”

  “Well, there’s no need to be sarcastic young man.”

  His head was hurting again. He wanted to kill her. He had often wished telephones were equipped to send electric shocks to the callers but never more so than today.

  “We are the NHS,” he said curtly. “We are not vets. Take him to a vet.” He cut her off and hoped he wasn’t being monitored.

  The clock showed 2:55 so he pressed ‘make busy’ on the phone and logged off the various screens on his computer. He picked up his scrap paper to take to the shredder. Even random notes had to be completely destroyed to preserve patient confidentiality. As he stood up he looked across at Caroline, would also be closing down her screens, though, as a nurse, she had more. Suddenly she yelped and jumped back from her monitor. Everyone nearby who was not on calls looked at her.

  “Caroline?” Anne, at the supervisors’ podium, was looking over her glasses in that headmistress mannerism she had. “Are you all right?”

  The girl half turned to face Anne so Bob saw her in profile. Her hand was on her heart and she looked pale. “I’m fine.”

  “What was it?”

  “I don’t know. Some sort of optical illusion as the screen closed down. It made me jump. Sorry.”

  Bob met her at the door. “Ready for a coffee, or a drink?”

  “A drink. Let’s go.” She was still a little pale.

  “SOME ARE BORN POOR, some are made poor and some have poverty thrust upon them,” said Bob. “With me, it was all three.”

  He was sat opposite Caroline at a table for two in the corner of Bar Med. He had a pint of beer shandy to quench thirst and give his system a medicinal dose of alcohol. She, to his surprise, had a brandy and coke. She still seemed a little pale.

  “So you’re not rich.”

  “No, alas. I have only my measly salary to live on and no wealthy relatives behind me. I only say this in case you plan trips to Acapulco and so forth. I know all you nurses are loaded.”

  “After rigorous training, several hard years working all hours in hospitals and lots of hard study we do, finally, get a living wage,” she said tartly.

  “Oh, I agree you’re worth it,” said Bob. “To... to be honest I hesitated about asking you out because of the difference in ... you know... money. A man likes to treat a girl now and then.” He looked down at his hands, looked back at her apologetically. “Sorry. I thought it was best to lay my cards on the table.”

  “Don’t be silly,” she said. “You don’t have to treat me.” She smiled. “It’s the thought that counts. How did you come to be so poor, not that you are.”

  “Bad career choices. Using my skill and judgement I went for a career in the Post Office, which was a job for life, as they say, at the time. Times changed. Computers and the internet meant people send fewer letters and documents by mail; they could fill in lots of forms online, supermarkets hurt the shop section of the Post Office. The killer blow was when the Government decided to pay benefits straight into bank accounts. That was a third of our income gone almost overnight. Post Offices shut down everywhere and sad Assistant Managers had to seek a new career in call centres. And now call centres are moving to India because staff are cheaper. I feel like a harbinger of doom. Any industry I go into collapses.”

  “Poor you.”

  He leaned back and took a big swig of shandy. “So tell me the story of your life?”

  She took a deep breath. “My mother was a Faith Healer. My father was a Vicar. They divorced.”

  “Good heavens.”

  She smiled. “Might as well lay the cards on the table, as you say. They were very happy at first, as I suppose all married couples are or they wouldn’t do it. When they first got together mother wasn’t a healer. She became one later. Dad’s belief system did not include her sort of actions. He didn’t even want to think about it. As for mother, it became the centre of her life, the main reason, she felt, she had been put on this Earth. Finally, after many years of distress to them both, they divorced.”

  Bob took a deep breath, exhaled, taken aback to have such confidences revealed so early in the game. He thought they might get chatting about favourite films or holidays. “It’s an unusual background,” he said weakly.

  She smiled again. “Sorry. As you said, best to lay my cards on the table.”

  “Are they still around.”

  “Mother is, practising up north. Father died a few years ago. I had gone with Dad when they split, I was young, and never really knew Mother well, I’m afraid.”

  “Do you believe in...faith healing?” Bob hesitated to discuss the matter. He was a thoroughly modern agnostic and religious thoughts had never entered his essentially materialist head.

  “Oh yes. I’ve seen it work.”

  Bob was silent for a moment. “Is there a rational explanation for it?”

  “Do you need one?”

  “I’d rather have one, to be honest. Wouldn’t you?” He leaned forward, putting his arms on the table, suddenly interested in the matter. “I mean, you’re a nurse. That involves lots of scientific study of how the body works, of disease and so on. Do you believe people can be cured by faith rather than medicine?”

  “Yes, because I’ve seen it work. It’s probably mind over matter, at least, that’s how I think of it. I mean, modern research shows that a positive attitude helps in fighting disease, so the activity of the mind counts.”

  “What does your mother think?”

  “She thinks she is the channel for some kind of energy. When she lays on her hands a healing energy comes through them and into the sick person. She doesn’t cure people overnight or make them rise from the dead like Lazarus, but they often get better.”

  “And where does the energy come from. Her?”

  Caroline spread her hands helplessly. “She certainly feels tired afterwards.”
>
  “How about...God?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. Bring God into your world and you bring a whole lot of other baggage - the devil, angels, ghosts, heaven, and hell. My parents split over a theological dispute so I prefer to leave the whole area alone. Sorry.”

  “I can see how you would feel that way,” said Bob. “Another drink.” He drained the last of his shandy.

  “An orange juice now, please. I’m driving.”

  “So am I but I’ll risk another shandy.” He advanced on the bar.

  When he returned he said, “Since you’re telling me your secrets maybe I should tell you mine.”

  She looked wary. “You don’t have to.”

  “It’s nothing very terrible. I think you should know though because if things work out with us you’re bound to find out anyway.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Intriguing.”

  He looked at the table. “It’s not very... manly.”

  “Oh, come on, Bob. I’m a nurse. I’ve seen men reduced to tears and screaming in pain. I’ve got no time for macho posturing. I’ve seen their macho posture crack.”

  “I’m scared of the dark,” he said suddenly, blurting it out.

  “Oh.” She looked taken aback.

  He went on, still speaking quickly. “When I was very young my parents had to put me with an auntie for a few months when they went away to work. She lived in an old house with a dark cellar and her idea of punishment for naughty boys was to lock them down there for the night. There were rats. I used to crouch there in the coal and listen to them. Sometimes they ran over me. I imagined worse things. She liked to tell me ghost stories as well, the...” He stopped.

  She touched his hand. “I can keep a secret, Bob. And it doesn’t bother me. It’s not your fault.”

  He nodded, took a deep breath and another sip of his drink. Then he remembered something. “Talking of ghosts, which I probably shouldn’t, you looked as if you saw one earlier, just before we left work.”

  Caroline reddened and looked at the table. “It was nothing,” she said.

  “So nothing you needed a brandy.”

  For a moment she looked angry and he feared he had overstepped the mark. Then she grunted and said, “It was an optical illusion. You know how the screen sort of flashes sometimes as it closes down. I thought I saw something... a face.”

  “What kind of face?”

  She looked a little helpless, shrugged. “I don’t know. It looked sort of ... Indian.”

  Bob had a mental picture of Sitting Bull or Geronimo, some fierce redskin with a hat of many feathers and a Winchester repeating rifle stolen from James Stewart. “A vivid imagination,” he said. “I see faces everywhere, in clouds, carpets, bushes. I suppose it’s the mind imposing a random order over matter.”

  She smiled and looked at him appraisingly. “You’re a clever sod. You can switch a conversation to light and humour when it gets heavy. But you’re honest too. I think.”

  “It might be my only virtue.” He paused then said deliberately. “Caroline, would you go out with me tonight?”

  “I’m out with you now.”

  “Yes, but I haven’t showered, I’m still a bit shaky, I’ve just done six hours hard call handling and the conversation has been, as you said, heavy. Will you go out with me for dinner and chat about your favourite films and holiday destinations and slag off old boyfriends and have the usual first date conversations we should have had today.”

  She thrilled him. She said, “Yes.”

  Chapter Three

  “Hello, NHS Direct, I’m Bob a call handler. Can I take the telephone number you’re calling from please?”

  “My phone number?”

  “Yes please.”

  “Oh, I don’t know what it is?” The caller was a young lady. “I’m calling on my boyfriend’s mobile. Do you want my home number?”

  “Are you at home?”

  “No, I’m down town. What do you want my phone number for?”

  “To call you back.” It was never like this in training, thought Bob, doing the role-plays. There you asked for the phone number and got it, asked for the address and got it. In real life, many of the callers either didn’t know the number they were calling from or argued about having to give their address. People who cheerfully put every detail of their lives on Facebook for all to view became guarded and secretive when asked their names by the NHS. The previous week he had been exasperated by a lady suffering chest pain who refused to give her phone number because it was ex-directory. She would rather die, and she nearly had. After wasting several minutes arguing callers would often moan about how long it was taking and how much it was costing them. If a sane person was on the other end of the line it took a minute to get their demographic details and a minute to find out what was wrong. Call handler training was excellent, Bob decided, but the public needed training too.

  Eventually, he discovered the girl only wanted details of how to get the morning after pill, a typical Saturday night call. She was planning ahead. Bob explained that they were free from the walk-in centre in town and that it was open at eight in the morning. Yes, she could buy it from any large pharmacist but it would cost about twenty-three pounds. She went away, happily, to have wild crazy sex at the taxpayers' expense. One of the nurses at the call centre also did several shifts at the walk-in clinics and had told Bob that on Saturday and Sunday early shifts they spent most of their time handing out morning-after pills.

  Bob yawned and stretched.

  “Long way to go yet,” said Paula, the nurse to his right. She was a dark haired, plump woman in her late thirties. He glanced at the clock on his phone: 3 a.m. There were four hours to go ‘til shifts end. Easy hours though because the calls would tail off now. Decent folk were in their beds. There might be one or two emergency calls for babies or old people, and inevitably there would be a few from the lonely and depressed who wanted someone to talk to about their problems. There were few of them but they called often, sometimes nightly. Sometimes during the last few months, Bob had felt a certain empathy with them. Now he sympathized but was not himself feeling down. He was content.

  The evening with Caroline had gone well. The conversation has stayed light and easy, the meal had been excellent, the wine good. On films, arts, social attitudes, even politics, they discovered that they held many views in common. She had insisted on sharing the cost of the taxi home, even though she got off at Totterdown - two miles from town - and he lived in the more distant suburb of Brislington.

  She kissed him chastely good night and he had the taxi driver wait while he watched her to her door. Gazing fondly at her in the October darkness he watched her pull out her silly key ring with the tiny torch on (she had shown it to him earlier). She illuminated the keyhole with it, slid the key in and, with a quick wave to him, slipped inside.

  The Taxi driver said, “She’s a cracker mate. You want to keep hold of her.”

  Bob had agreed heartily.

  THE NEXT CALLER WAS a sad man called Brian who rang about every three days. Brian had a lot of problems and wanted to talk to a nurse about them. Annette, one of the older nurses, overheard his name and offered to take it. Bob transferred the call.

  “I never realized until I started work here how many depressed and lonely people are out there.” Bob waved a hand to indicate the rest of the world.

  “I feel sorry for them,” said Paula. “It must be tough to be like that.”

  Bob pulled a face. “Life is tough for everyone at times. Some of these people seem to just give up and let the health service and social services and relatives and everyone else take the strain. I sometimes think that’s the easy option.”

  Paula disagreed. “They don’t want to be like that. They can’t help it. They’re not as strong as you or I, at least at this particular time in their lives.” Her tone changed and became somewhat reproving as she added, “You’re sounding like Eddie.”

  Bob laughed. “Not quite that bad, yet. But
I might after I’ve been here as long as he has. Anyone for coffee?”

  Everyone was for coffee. By this time there were only three nurses in the building and one call handler, himself. On night shifts the few on duty gathered together at one pod. The other two nurses on shift that night - Annette and Doreen - were older women and sat together at the far end of the pod so they could discuss disobedient grandchildren, knitting patterns, recipes and such. Because Doreen had a rather stentorian voice Bob had sat next to Paula, who spoke softly and was easy company. The centre was well staffed until ten but by midnight the last of the late shift workers were gone. If there was a long queue the nurses were kept busy for the next few hours, though many callers would have specified no call back after eleven. There were fewer calls incoming, but fewer call handlers too, namely one, and Bob was busy too. If the board went red some nurses would call handle. The system worked.

  Bob made coffee for all. “Is it okay if I take my break now?”

  “Go ahead,” said Paula.

  “Come and wake me up if I’m not back by four,” he joked.

  In fact, he was exhausted. Since the best thing after Friday night would have been to lie in Saturday morning he couldn’t - sod’s law. He woke up at seven, couldn’t possibly have slept again and so rose and went about his chores and shopping. His night shift started at eleven, by which time he was about ready for bed. He knew that youth, strength, willpower and coffee would get him to the dawn but a nap in the middle would help. So he stretched out on the tearoom couch and closed his eyes. He was having that dazed, detached from reality sensation that comes with extreme tiredness. Three in the morning was, he knew, the hour when one’s body was at its lowest ebb: the hour of the wolf. Where had he heard it called that? He couldn’t remember.

  “HELLO, THIS IS NHS Direct, can I take the telephone number you’re calling from.”

  “No. You cannot take the telephone number I am calling from.”

  “Can I take your shoe size, your bra size or the hair on your chinny-chin-chin?