She nodded. “It’s nothing.”
“You’re on nights tonight, yeah? With me and Bob?”
“And Nancy and Paula and Mandy, I think.”
“Fancy a coffee across the road?
“I do, but I several chores and a crucial hairdresser’s appointment. I’ll see you later.” She leaned forward and gave a quick kiss on his lips, startling him. “You’re still okay with me Bob, don’t fret.” She left.
Don’t fret, thought Bob. It was nice of her but he still felt a fool. What kind of woofter squeaks when the lights go out, Bob? What girl wants to go out with such a gutless little boy? In his head, he knew he couldn’t help it, knew it was a kind of mental problem inflicted on him by ill-treatment in childhood. In his heart, he felt like a cowardly wimp. Caroline had been kind this time but how long would she put up with it?
He went home.
Chapter Five
“Hello, NHS Direct, can I take the telephone number you’re calling from?”
The caller gave her telephone number.
“And can I take the address, please,” said Bob. This was swiftly done. He suspected it was a repeat caller and this proved to be the case. It was a mother whose baby had a rash, a temperature and was vomiting. Bob put the call in the queue and advised her it would be about half an hour before a nurse called back but if the child worsened to call back immediately or ring her doctor.
Bob turned to Eddie. “That was a good start.”
“I heard it. A sane person who understood the system, didn’t think you were a KGB operative when you asked her details and answered the relevant questions concisely.”
“She even knew her own telephone number.”
“Maybe we’re in for a pleasant night.”
“Long way to go yet.” Bob glanced at the clock. It was 11:12 p.m. He and Eddie had just started and there were still two late shift call handlers on too. They would finish at midnight.
Nancy, the stern older nurse, was filling in the shift sheet at the supervisors’ podium and noticed something. “Why two call handlers on a quiet Monday night?”
“It’s Halloween,” said Bob. “They wanted two big strong men here in case you girls got scared.” He flexed his arms to show off his biceps.
“Oh, yes. I completely forgot.” Nancy had no children or grandchildren to pester her for tricks, treats, Easter eggs or presents and so ignored the family feast days.
“I had brats ringing my bell earlier tonight,” said Eddie.
“I suppose you told them where to go,” said Mandy. She appeared to realize that Eddie had a yen for her and seemed to weigh him up in return.
“As a matter of fact, I gave them several little treats each and wished them a pleasant evening.”
“Oh, aren’t you sweet.” Mandy beamed her approval.
“No, not in the slightest. But last year I told some of them where to go and in the morning I found my car coated with flour. Halloween. Bah! It’s just a protection racket. The police should do something.”
“Bah, humbug!” Paula mocked. “I bet you’re great fun at Christmas.”
“Christmas is a shopkeepers' racket. Everything costs twice as much as usual from September until December 23rd then half as much on December 26th after the suckers have all paid.”
“You’re a naturally joyous person,” said Mandy. “Happy Halloween.”
BOB SURVEYED THE CALL centre and tried to stay alert. Most of the lights were turned off except in the one corner where night shift workers gathered together on a pod of six seats. They always chose the pod nearest the supervisors’ station - in case the phone rang - and close to the main door and the tearoom. Bob sat next to Caroline. Eddie was on his right, next to Mandy. Nancy and a nurse named Pauline were at the far end of the pod. Pauline was young but was the kind of plump, rather matronly girl that got on well with older females. In his few dealings with her, Bob had always found her very pleasant.
It was half past midnight and the queue was all gone. The nurses were checking their e-mails, updating their knowledge of medicine or doing whatever it was nurses did in those rare minutes they were not responding to calls. Eddie was reading ‘Childhood’s End’, a paperback science-fiction novel by Arthur C. Clarke - our local boy made good, Eddie called him proudly. In fact, Arthur was from Minehead, quite far from Bristol, but given the paucity of famous people from the area, this was near enough to claim him.
Bob gazed out of the window. The grassy slopes that led down from the call centre to the cemetery looked eerie in the moonlight. The illuminated street lamps and windows of Bristol, farther away, were somehow comforting. There was a crackle in his headphones.
“Hello, NHS Direct, can I...” He stopped speaking.
Bob looked up from his book. “Did the loon ring off?”
Bob blinked and frowned at his telephone control. “I’m not sure it was a call. There was no beep.” Every time a call came through there was an introductory beep on the headset. “I thought I heard something though.”
“Oooooh.” Eddie raised both hands and waggled his fingers in ghostly impersonation. “Phantoms.” He returned to his book unperturbed. Then his headset beeped. He took the call, a routine medication query from an old lady who had accidentally taken two bedtime pills instead of one. There being no queue, he put her straight through to a nurse who dealt with it immediately.
Eddie picked up his book again. “You know, if it wasn’t for the difficulty of sleeping during the day I would cheerfully stay on nights forever. It’s a lovely peaceful shift.”
“But you can’t go for a drink afterwards,” said Mandy slyly.
“I could have one at home.”
“Beer for breakfast.” She pulled a face and shuddered.
“Not beer. When I was a big strong builder - long, long ago - I did a few months of nights on Marks and Spencers in Bath, refurbishing it, and when I got home I used to have tea with a drop of whiskey in. It helped put me to sleep.”
“Night shifts put the kibosh on any social life though,” said Bob.
“Not at all. You still have two nights off, and you can stay up all night.”
“By yourself,” said Caroline. “In this job, the two nights off are liable to be Tuesday and Wednesday. Who parties then?”
“Well, I’m a sad, lonely old fart with no social life anyway. I might well switch to permanent nights. The shift allowance means it’s more money too.”
“And you’ll save money by never going out,” said Bob.
“And one day you’ll be the richest, saddest call handler in the cemetery,” said Mandy.
Eddie puckered his lips and frowned in thought. “I shall consider it.”
Bob’s headset beeped and he took a call. It was a mother whose baby would not go to sleep. He passed it to Caroline then checked his e-mail - not work e-mail but the private ones. It was fine to do that as long as he didn’t open obvious porn junk mail or any of the lewd joke photos sent by lewd male friends. He tapped in the address for the relevant screen.
“What the Hell!” he exclaimed.
“What the Hell?” said Eddie.
Bob shook his head and blinked. “Oh, nothing. I was just surfing and got a site I didn’t want. He peered at the title: Dardanelles? The name seemed vaguely familiar but he couldn’t place it and didn’t care anyway. He took a different route to his e-mail site and found there wasn’t a single one he could safely open. He closed it and yawned.
Eddie said, “You should have bought a book to pass the long lonely hours. You’ll know next... Hello?” He frowned, looked at his telephone set. “Hello?”
Mandy raised both hands and waggled her fingers. “Oooooh, phantoms!”
Eddie blinked. “I’m sure I heard something.”
“I’m sure I did too,” said Bob. “Maybe the phones are on the blink.”
“Maybe you’re both just tired,” said Caroline. “You men just have no... Hello, NHS Direct, I’m Caroline a Nurse Advisor...” She gave the call handlers a
n indignant look and took the call. Bob looked at his phone and realized he was in not ready. Eddie was too. He pressed the button to take calls. An incoming call normally went straight to call handlers but if they were not receiving it would pass on to a nurse. Caroline was annoyed, and rightfully, that the two call handlers were not doing their job. She took the demographics. The caller had drunk some sort of cleansing lotion instead of mouthwash when brushing her teeth for bed. Caroline put her on hold to look up details of the offending liquid. She clicked at her mouse a few times then turned to Nancy. “Nancy, can you get Toxbase up. I can’t seem to find it.” Toxbase was an NHS approved website the nurses used to check the toxicity of various substances. They had several calls every day where someone, usually children, had eaten something unpalatable.
Nancy looked up the details and Caroline reassured the caller she would live. The ingested liquid was not horribly toxic but she might get diarrhoea. She was advised to call back if she had any severe symptoms.
Caroline went into not ready and frowned at her screen. “That was odd. Toxbase is on my favourites. It should be easy to get.”
“Got it now?” asked Pauline.
Caroline nodded.
“The phones and the computers are playing up,” said Bob.
“It’s Halloween,” said Eddie.
“Ooooh, phantoms.” Mandy giggled and waved her hands again, then squeaked and sank from view. Bob had kicked the lever to lower her chair and it had gone down suddenly. As she was short she had it quite high. She swore at him.
“You expletive deleted, you should say,” Eddie corrected. “No swearing in the call centre.”
Then Caroline squeaked loudly and pushed her chair back from the screen. Everyone looked up. “It wasn’t me,” said Eddie.
She was white and trembling. Bob put a hand on her shoulder. “What was it?”
“I heard a shout on the headphones.”
Mandy did not say, “Oooh, phantoms.” She was looking at Caroline in some alarm. “What did it say?”
“Get out.”
“It said get out?” Nancy was irritated. She had been half listening to the young people’s chatter and they seemed to have worked themselves into a state.
“It shouted ‘get out,’” said Caroline. “Almost screamed it.”
“Did you hear a beep at the start?” asked Eddie.
Caroline frowned. “I’m pretty sure I didn’t, no.”
“Oh you must have,” said Nancy. “It was just some prank caller. Forget it.”
Caroline looked at her warily then nodded. “Okay.”
Nancy went back to her paperwork and Bob leaned over to Caroline. He whispered, “You didn’t hear a beep did you?”
She looked confused, a little distressed, and slightly sheepish. “I’m almost sure I didn’t. But not absolutely sure.” She shrugged. “I suppose Nancy is right. All this talk of Halloween is making us jumpy.”
“Stop whispering you two,” said Nancy. “You young people watch too many silly films. Eddie, put the kettle on and make us all a nice cup of tea.”
Eddie stood, saluted and walked into the kitchen.
Chapter Six
“Hello, NHS Direct, can I take the telephone number you’re calling from, please.”
“I don’t know it, mate.”
Bob sighed. It was the dulcet tones of a drunken cockney or some student who thought it was 'cool' to sound as if he came from London. Imitation Eastenders accents proliferated among the young of every region and Bob was just old enough to find it depressing. “Can I take the address you’re calling from?” If it was a real emergency at least he would know where to send the ambulance.
“I’m on a mobile, mate." Like many callers, this one seemed to think that having a mobile removed him from the nation’s geography.
Bob closed his eyes and counted to three. “I know you’re on a mobile but where are you?”
“Bristol, mate. Look, mate, this is an emergency, know what I mean? It’s my mate. He drank a load of aftershave.”
“Is he breathing?” said Bob.
“Oh, yeah, he’s breathing, mate.”
“Is he responding normally to you?”
“No mate, he’s completely pissed, know what I mean?”
“Is he conscious? Has he passed out?”
“No mate. Listen, mate, I need to speak to a Doctor, know what I mean?”
“What’s the address you’re calling from?”
“I don’t know, mate.” The caller got angry. “Look this is an emergency, mate. I need a doctor.”
“I’ll put you through to a nurse, just a moment.” Bob turned to Mandy who had been listening to his half of the conversation. “A drunken cockney whose mate has ingested aftershave. I can’t get the phone number or the address out of him. Will you take it?”
“Put him through.”
Bob transferred the call. Mandy explained she was a nurse and set about establishing the condition of the patient. Eventually, she established that he had drunk the aftershave because they had run out of booze - for a joke - and had been sick, which was probably the best thing for him. Mandy clicked at her mouse and looked frustrated. She turned to Caroline: “Have you still got toxbase up?”
“No, but I’ll get it.” She clicked and tapped at keys, twisted her face in consternation. “No, I can’t get it up again.”
“Nancy?”
Nancy had been trying at the same time as Caroline. “No, I can’t get it either. Something else keeps coming up instead?”
“I haven’t got it,” said Paula, “before you ask. There must be a problem with it.”
“Don’t worry.” Mandy returned to the caller. She advised him to get a taxi and take his friend to the accident and emergency ward at the Bristol Royal Infirmary.
“Did you get his name, or address, or telephone number?” asked Bob.
“I gave up trying eventually, mate, know what I mean? I’ll log it as anonymous. He’ll live to trouble us another day.” She shivered. “Is it me or is it cold in here?”
“It’s cold in here,” said Paula.
“It is a bit,” agreed Nancy. “Unusual here. The air conditioning at Acuma House was always too cold in winter and too hot in summer but it’s been all right here so far.”
“That’s twenty-first-century air-conditioning for the twenty-first century,” said Eddie with mock enthusiasm. “Can I put whiskey in my tea to keep warm?”
“No drinking on duty,” said Nancy.
“It would make for a happier atmosphere at the call centre,” pleaded Eddie. “It would help us with stress and trauma on the job.”
“You can bring it up at the next shared governance meeting,” said Paula. She pulled a face. “It is cold, and I left my coat downstairs.”
“Go and get it,” said Nancy.
Paula shook her head. “I’ll be all right.”
Eddie smiled. “Paula is scared to go downstairs alone. Scared of the Boogie Man.”
“I am not.”
Caroline turned to Nancy, who was nominally in charge. “As it’s pretty dead can I go to the library. I want to check on something that came up yesterday.”
Bob pretended shock. “You have gaps in your medical knowledge!”
Paula said, “We all have gaps in our medical knowledge, even doctors. That’s why we double-check before giving advice if we’re not sure.”
Nancy told Caroline to go ahead. The library was a small room, not much more than a cupboard really, at the other end of the call centre. It contained medical books and the latest general publications.
Bob whispered to Paula: “I was only joking about gaps in your knowledge.” She smiled. He liked Paula who was beautiful but had allowed herself to become plump. Not too plump, for she was an enthusiast, he had discovered, for dancing, and regularly attended Fifties nights out. Strutting her stuff to the strains of Buddy Holly and Elvis kept her in reasonably good shape. He thought now, looking at her, that a slimmed down Paula would be absolutely
stunning. But would she have the same personality? Some beautiful girls were a pain in the neck, he had found - probably because they could get away with it - whereas plump ones tended to be chatty and pleasant. On the whole, he decided he liked Paula as she was.
Eddie put down his book to discourse on the subject. “My medical knowledge,” he said proudly, “is entirely a gap. I know nothing at all of illness.”
“You may be fit now,” said Paula, “but you’re getting older. You should prepare yourself mentally for the sickness that is coming your way.”
Eddie dismissed this with a chopping motion of his hand. “I don’t waste my time with it. When it comes, I’ll be too busy looking good.”
“Bruce Lee was never ill,” said Bob, “until he died.”
“He had a serious back injury,” said Eddie. “Not sure if he was ever ill.”
Nancy interrupted their idle chatter. “Paula, can you get toxbase yet?”
Paula looked guilty and played with her mouse. “No.”
“Can you get any of our normal websites?”
Paula tried again and shook her head. “I can get the internal stuff okay on the intranet, but all I get on the internet is this silly Dardanelles site.”
Bob and Eddie dutifully tried their own computers. “Dardanelles,” said Eddie.
“Dardanelles,” agreed Bob. “Can we still operate?”
Nancy replied impatiently. “Of course, we can still take the calls. If anything comes up that needs information we can’t access we’ll have to ring back later or fax it to another centre if it’s an emergency. The algorithms are still working.” The computer software included an extensive database of questions to assess the callers’ illness, known as algorithms. They were built into the system, not accessed externally.
Eddie suddenly jumped.
“What was that?” demanded Nancy.
He looked at his telephone in annoyance. “Must have been that hoax caller again. He shouted at me to get out.”
“Did you hear the beep?” asked Bob.
Eddie glowered at him. “Of course I heard the beep. Without the beep, there’s no call.”
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