The Helpline

by Katherine Collette

‘What’s going on?’ I said.

  ‘What do you mean, “What’s going on?”? Just exchanging pleasantries. Let me know if you need any more.’ She tossed the Post-its over. They landed by the phone; I didn’t pick them up.

  ‘Want to know how I am?’ she said.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘I’m good. I’m very good. Want to know why?’ Without waiting for a response, she rolled towards me. She lowered the volume of her voice. ‘Because I know how we’re going to get the biscuits back. Yes. I’ve started a petition. You’ll need to sign. Everyone needs to sign.’ She shoved a clipboard in my lap. Inside was a wad of paper and on every sheet, the same thing:

  We, the undersigned, request the biscuits that were previously made available in three varieties in the staff kitchen be reinstated.

  ‘A petition?’ I tried to let her down easy. ‘Petitions never work.’

  ‘It’ll work if we get enough people. Frank from Traffic Control reckons we need six hundred signatures. That’s our target. Once we hit the target we’ll give the petition to the mayor and she’ll have to reconsider.’

  ‘You’ll never get six hundred.’

  ‘It’ll be easy. I’m going to start with finance; they’re up in arms apparently. There was talk of a strike.’ She waggled her hand at the clipboard. ‘Hurry up. Once you sign, I’ll have to get moving. Oh and—’ she coughed. ‘Frank reckons they’ve been wanting to get rid of the biscuits all along. Might not be your fault after all.’

  It was as close to an apology as I could hope for. Perhaps that is why I failed to give it due consideration. With no thought to the long-term implications, I put my name down and handed the clipboard back.

  One might argue my disillusion with petitions had nothing to do with petitions at all. It was their association with something entirely unrelated that triggered my disdain.

  The year was 1989. Sharon and I were at the Boronia mall (figure 3 depicts our exact locations). She was sitting near the entrance to the supermarket with Jay and Marion from Friends of the Animals. They were collecting signatures and handing out leaflets. I was on a bench near the toilets, ignoring them and wishing I were elsewhere.

  It had been a long day, filled with small and moderate-sized humiliations (see figure 4).

  Sharon was no wallflower. She stood in the middle of the path, the sandwich board beside her. ‘Sign the petition,’ she said. ‘Stand up for animal rights.’

  In the time we were there I saw, in no particular order: the Eames twins from next door, Nicole Foster and Lucy Daniels from school and Mrs Phillips who taught Italian class. Every time I saw a familiar face my toes curled under and I inched further away.

  To compensate I told people I was there alone. ‘Just waiting for my father to pick me up,’ I said to a family walking past. ‘He’ll be here any minute.’ Every now and then I went and stood behind a pillar and stared at the bricks.

  At the point marked A (figure 4), Sharon saw me standing there. She nudged Marion. ‘Germaine. Germaine. I know you can hear me. Germaine Johnson who is standing behind the—see? You can hear me. Don’t you want to come sit down here with your mother? I saved you a seat.’ She was laughing too much to keep talking.

  The knowledge that she belonged to me and I belonged to her made life difficult enough but she had to take it further. Not content simply to exist, she was actively committed to undermining my efforts at social advancement to the greatest possible extent. Was it not enough to be the object of ridicule in my own right? Must she continually add to the list of social transgressions I had inadvertently committed? She was very argumentative; it was almost sport with her.

  ‘Meat is murder.’

  With Sharon, everything was an issue. You couldn’t go to the shops and buy a bag of groceries; first you had to endure a commentary on the origin of the milk. Her favourite word was ‘Why?’ and everything was a feminist injustice.

  ‘Thanks for your support,’ said Sharon to a woman with a dog. ‘Donations are tax deductible.’

  Her efforts at encouragement were also suboptimal, though on the surface they appeared enthusiastic. At the ceremony for the Victorian Primary Schools Mathematics Competition she gave me a solo standing ovation, which would have been fine if I’d come first. But for a paltry third?

  ‘Don’t be so modest, Germaine,’ she said. ‘It might be the only thing you ever win.’

  The peak of the day’s humiliation occurred at the point marked B (figure 4).

  A respectable-looking older couple came out of the car park. He was wearing a beige suit and she was in a pale blue cardigan. They walked down the ramp towards the supermarket. As they approached, Sharon said, ‘Sign the petition?’ as she had a thousand times before. Most people said yes and signed, or no and didn’t.

  This couple said nothing. They ignored her and kept walking. Sharon, who was used to being ignored and had no problem forcing an issue, made out like she thought they hadn’t heard. She stood up, held her clipboard out and said, louder this time, ‘Sign the petition?’

  Well. The respectable-looking man wasn’t as respectable as the suit would have had you believe. He turned around and, in a voice even louder than Sharon’s, said, ‘Fuck off.’

  Most people would back down if someone started yelling obscenities but not Sharon. Sharon loves ‘healthy and informed debate’ and if that’s not on offer she’ll settle for unhealthy and ill-informed debate. ‘We’re anti-fur,’ she said and then everything went downhill (or in fact uphill, if you look at the graph).

  Sharon, deciding a picture was worth a thousand words, tried to show the ‘respectable’ man a photograph of some chickens but he wasn’t interested. He was so opposed to seeing it that he covered his eyes with one arm and, with the other, went to rip the photograph in two. But as he lunged forward Sharon stepped back. Neither of them saw the sandwich board set out behind her and no one expected she’d roll over the top of it but that’s what happened, and she landed heavily on the concrete.

  By this time, a crowd had formed. There must have been fifty people standing there. They all saw the manager come out of the supermarket and, without asking what happened or questioning anyone, tell Sharon, Jay and Marion they had to leave. ‘We have to leave?’ said Sharon, still on the ground. ‘Us?’

  ‘Yes, you,’ said the manager. The respectable man smirked and not one person standing there watching said anything.

  Sharon was angry but Marion started packing up. ‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘Sharon—stop.’ Jay put the leaflets back in the milk crate and folded up the tablecloth.

  ‘Germaine,’ Sharon called. ‘Germaine. We’re going home.’

  The crowd turned in a single unit to gawk at me as I broke cover and oh, the humanity. I wished a sinkhole could have formed in that exact location and swallowed me up. Even if respectability was a veneer, an illusion, I wanted it. At that moment I’d have given anything to be on their side.

  16

  One of the most annoying things about the helpline was when someone called and you helped them and then they called back saying whatever you’d done hadn’t been any help. This was the ‘repeat caller’ category in my spreadsheet. It was the least efficient category. Second and third calls always took longer than a first call because the caller was more argumentative.

  ‘James’ said he’d called previously about his pension payment. He said someone told him they’d sort it out and all they did was send him information about government processes and areas of responsibility.

  I asked if he’d read it. He claimed he had but when I asked which level of government had oversight of income support payments, he had no idea.

  ‘Here’s a hint…It’s not council.’

  ‘Okay,’ said James. ‘But can you help me anyway?’

  I was helping, wasn’t I? I was directing his call. I swear I spent half my time saying the same thing over and over. The only thing that stopped me going mad was the fact I’d worked out what to do about it.

  It was
Professor John Douglas’s belief that you shouldn’t collect data unless you were going to use it. I had a use now, a higher purpose:

  To automate the helpline.

  It was going to make my job a lot easier. Calls like this proved we didn’t need people answering the phone; we needed recorded messages, a voice that said, Press 2 if your call relates to pension payments. Then we could send the call straight through to the Department of Social Services or—even more expedient—have the phone ring out.

  All the data and information I’d been collecting was going to be pivotal in making it happen. I couldn’t wait to present the idea to Francine. She was going to be so pleased.

  ‘It’s very stressful,’ said James.

  ‘It’s basic common sense. Just call the department and speak to them.’

  ‘But they don’t answer.’

  Sounded like they’d adopted my system already.

  ‘I just want to talk to a real person,’ James went on.

  ‘What if we speak for ten minutes and then you call them. Would that work?’ Didn’t matter how long my conversation with James went for; I was removing the repeat caller category when calculating average call times anyway.

  ‘So you can help me?’ said James.

  ‘No, but we can talk. What do you want to talk about?’

  James must have inadvertently hung up.

  He rang back straight away, though. ‘Helpline,’ I said.*

  But it wasn’t James.

  It was Celia.

  I’d been wondering if she’d call. Either she was going to or she wasn’t. This wasn’t a case in which identifying potential outcomes helped to work out which was more likely.

  ‘I have something to say to you,’ she said.

  If only Eva had answered the phone. The stupid petition, she was off getting signatures again. Maybe I should pretend there was a problem with the line.

  But I didn’t have to worry. Celia said, in her normal voice, as though we had never met in real life, ‘Beds. They’re so big when there’s only one of you in it.’

  I relaxed. ‘Maybe that’s how they’re meant to be. Maybe people aren’t meant to sleep in the same bed.’ The times Peter and I shared a bed he created a big dent in the middle and rolled into it. I was on the edge, trying not to fall out.

  ‘I still sleep on my side,’ said Celia. ‘Next to the window.’

  ‘I don’t have a side. I sleep on one side for a week and then the other for a week and then I don’t have to wash the sheets as much.’

  ‘Does it work like that?’

  ‘Yeah, I read it somewhere. Australian Journal of Domestic Chemistry, I think.’

  Later in the week the mayor called. She said, ‘Germaine, do you feel like a coffee?’

  I said, ‘Don’t you mean a skinny cappuccino?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I mean.’

  In the café, we sat at our usual table. The mayor waited until the drinks arrived before telling me she’d spoken to Don.

  My eye twitched when his name was mentioned; I couldn’t help it. I even turned around to look behind me, half-hoping, half-dreading he’d be there, but he wasn’t: just a void his exact size and shape. Much like the one in my apartment.

  ‘He said he saw you. At a…convention?’

  ‘Sudoku,’ I said. ‘He used to be the world champion.’

  ‘Poor Don,’ she said. ‘He’s paid the price ten times over.’

  ‘And he didn’t even do it,’ I said.

  The mayor drank her coffee.

  ‘Don and I are planning the mayoral ball at the moment. This year it’s at the golf club. We’re trying to sort out the catering. Don wants to do something special. He’s very particular about things, you know.’

  He was particular; I was particular. It seemed like we were meant to be. ‘I really enjoyed seeing him,’ I said. This was code for: You can tell him I’m interested.

  She said, ‘I’m sure he did too.’ Was she also speaking in code? It was hard to tell; that is the problem with codes that have not been previously agreed. And even if it was code, she might have been speculating, she might not know for sure he’d enjoyed my company. She patted her lips with a napkin.

  ‘The ball’s a big deal, Germaine. A lot of important people attend.’

  I asked if staff were allowed to come, and she said occasionally a staff member would attend.

  ‘As a reward?’ I said.

  She bobbed her head from side to side. She said, ‘I’m not sure everyone would see it that way. I guess some people might think it was boring,’ and we laughed together at the idea.

  It would have been good if we’d gone back to talking about Don, but the mayor wanted to know how the senior citizens had responded to the letter I’d sent. I was pleased to tell her their response was as it should be: they were taking it very seriously.

  ‘Even Celia?’ she said.

  I conceded Celia’s attitude was less than satisfactory, but said the rest of them appeared to understand. The mayor was pleased, which made me pleased also. In numeric form it would have been: Pleased2.

  Saturday morning. I had no intention of going to the senior citizens centre but I happened to be driving past with, coincidentally, a couple of textbooks and a calculator in my bag, and on a whim decided to do something different.

  Gladys and Betsy were sitting on the chairs in the foyer. Gladys was wearing normal clothes but Betsy was in her exercise outfit again. Gladys looked worried when she saw me. ‘Germaine? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing, I was just in the neighbourhood.’ I glanced down the hall. Where was the homework club? Where were the troubled youth? I’d imagined more loitering.

  ‘Do you live nearby?’ said Betsy.

  ‘Not really. You going for a run?’

  ‘I’m teaching aerobics after homework club.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Homework club. Forgot that was on.’ I hitched the bag of textbooks on my shoulder.

  ‘Be great if you could help,’ said Betsy. ‘We’d really appreciate it.’

  ‘Suppose I could stay for a bit. Not long, though. Hour, hour and a half tops.’

  A book slid off Betsy’s lap as she got up and waved at me to follow.

  Homework club was held in the main hall. There were tables in clusters with students of various sizes—little ones, medium-sized ones, ones of university age—grouped around them. Some of the tutors were sitting down; others were wandering around helping. I was the youngest tutor by multiple decades; the others were all ancient.

  ‘Germaine,’ called a voice from up the back. It wasn’t until it giggled that I realised who it was. Jin-Jin. She was being so loud and friendly I had no choice but to go over.

  ‘Hi, Jin-Jin,’ I said, still standing.

  ‘Are you here for homework club?’

  ‘They asked me to come down and tutor people in mathematics.’

  ‘Are you good at mathematics?’

  ‘I’d want to be, given I studied it for five years.’

  ‘Great,’ she said. ‘I need some help, please.’

  I cursed myself and contemplated the empty seat. How annoying. Here I was, making a voluntary contribution to the betterment of society, and Jin-Jin was going to be the beneficiary. I’d have preferred to help someone more deserving. Underprivileged but obviously intelligent, a child preferably, with untapped genius that only I was able to unlock.

  Helping Jin-Jin was only going to encourage her.

  She patted the chair and I lowered myself into it. ‘I can only give you fifteen minutes of my time.’

  She giggled. ‘How are you getting home?’

  ‘I’m not going home after. I’m going…elsewhere.’

  ‘Okay.’ Jin-Jin opened her book. She was doing a basic mathematics subject, part of a business degree, she said. The problem was a probability equation:

  The following table gives a set of outcomes and their probabilities.

  Let A be the event ‘the outcome is greater than 1’.

 
; Find:

  Outcome = 1, Probability = 0.1

  Outcome = 2, Probability = 0.6

  Outcome = 3, Probability = 0.3

  Easy.

  But Jin-Jin didn’t think so. She didn’t understand what an event was and she didn’t understand what an outcome was. She was having difficulty working out where the numbers went.

  ‘I hate maths,’ she said. ‘I’m never going to use it. I want to do Human Resources.’

  ‘Human Resources?’ I said. ‘Oh, Jin-Jin.’

  ‘I like people. I’m good at relationships,’ she said, but she wasn’t giggling now. In fact, she looked sad. She did a halfhearted pencil scribble in her book.

  I was encouraging. ‘Mathematics is all about relationships, Jin-Jin. Relationships between numbers.’

  ‘Are you in a relationship?’ she said.

  ‘No.’ Not yet, my heart fluttered.

  Jin-Jin rested her elbow on the table, cupping her chin in her hand. ‘My boyfriend Lee and I had a fight.’

  ‘Oh, well.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Jin-Jin wasn’t smiling anymore and I realised I’d never seen Jin-Jin not smiling. It was an uncomfortable experience. I shifted her exercise book closer and started working on the problem.

  ‘It’s complicated,’ she said.

  ‘Relationships between numbers are much simpler than relationships between people,’ I told her. ‘People are unpredictable; you never know what they’re going to do, you never know what they’re going to say. But numbers? Numbers are reliable.’

  ‘He thinks I study too much.’

  ‘No one can study too much. It’s an oxymoron.’

  ‘I don’t want to break up.’

  ‘It’s quite probable you will. Most relationships end eventually.’

  ‘How probable?’ she said and then, perking up: ‘You said you can estimate the probability of anything. What is the probability Lee and I will break up?’

  I hesitated. This was not the most appropriate application of the theory in question but perhaps I could use it as an example, a way of demonstrating the theory’s underlying essence.

  ‘Let’s see. What’s his name? Lee? Right. The probability that you, Jin-Jin, and Lee will break up is equal to the probability that you break up with him plus the probability that he breaks up with you.’