I received a phone call the other day. “John Vautrey from Hartman’s about your order for hinges.”
How helpful of him because in just 9 words, he gave me all the information I needed: who I was talking to and what it was about. There was no need for me to ask any supplementary questions or make follow up enquiries to find out exactly what the call concerned.
There are 14 Johns in my contacts list and if John Vautrey ever rings me again, I’ll immediately know who I’m talking to.
There is a danger in not knowing quickly who is on the other end of the phone line and that danger is real and potentially embarrassing, as I have discovered.
Last week, the phone rang. “This is Lucy.”
“Lucy,” I thought. “Which one? I don’t recognise the voice. It’s not my daughter, Lucy. I’ve worked with three women called Lucy and I haven’t seen any of them for years so it could be one of them. I’ll let her talk and while she’s talking, I’ll work out or discover which one it is.”
“Hi,” I said. “How are you?”
“I’m too hot,” she replied. “It’s 32 outside but it’s got to be more than 40 in here. I wish we had air conditioning.”
I still didn’t recognise the voice and what she said gave me no clue at all. I opened the lap top and went to my contacts list to see how many Lucys I know. I became vaguely aware that this Lucy - the one on the phone - was talking about climate change deniers but I was busy searching and so I wasn’t really listening. Oh no! I’ve got seven contacts called Lucy or Lucie. Time for some subtle delving.
“It’s been a long time,” I said. “What can I do for you?”
“A long time?” She sounded mystified. “You only rang yesterday. I’m calling to tell you that the engineer to mend your printer will be arriving some time between two and three this afternoon.”
“You didn’t tell me your name was Lucy when I rang yesterday,” I grumbled, feeling slightly embarrassed.
Caroline and I moved away from London in March 2012 to an estate in Wavendon with 39 other properties and of course, when we arrived, we knew no one. I got to know our immediate neighbours but by our first Christmas, there were many on the estate I hadn’t met and still haven’t. It’s not really the kind of place where you just bump into people.
Graham is someone I used to play cricket with in Finchley in North London and he established a tradition over a number of years, of inviting some club members to his house every Boxing Day morning for drinks etc. It was an occasion I always enjoyed very much.
Sometime in the middle of December, it occurred to me that I hadn’t heard from Graham and I supposed that either his drinks party was not to happen this year, or he thought that as we now lived more than 50 miles away, we wouldn’t come even if we were invited.
Caroline is more gregarious and much more sociable than I am and she had met neighbours.
“We’ve been invited to Sally’s on Boxing Day morning for drinks,” she told me a couple of days before Christmas. “Shall we go?”
“No,” I said, firmly. “I don’t want to. Who is she? I don’t know her.”
Caroline told me that Sally and her husband lived on the other side of the estate. She had met her once or twice on the estate grounds before but had bumped into her at the supermarket that morning and got chatting.
“That’s what happens when you’re friendly and talk to strangers,” I grumbled. “You get put in difficult situations.”
I listed the reasons I didn’t want to go to Sally’s. “I don’t drink and I can’t stand for long before my knee hurts and anyway, we still might hear from Graham.”
“Graham would have rung by now,” Caroline insisted and I knew that she was probably right.
Eventually, I agreed very reluctantly that we would go. “An hour at most, though,” I stipulated.
On Christmas Eve morning, the phone rang.
“Hello, is that Terry? This is Graham.”
“Oh, bloody hell, Graham. I wish you’d rung sooner. I’ve got to go to some bloody woman’s house on Boxing Day and it’s going to be hell. I really wish we were coming to yours instead.”
“This is the bloody woman’s husband,” the voice said. “Perhaps, I’ll see you on Wednesday.”
That was a little awkward.
