Hello…Hello

 

I’m shaking.

Trembling.

There was a phone call.

“Hello,” I’d said cheerily.

My friend had said that if she had no work then she might call.

At first there was no reply, but then I heard the hideous tell-tale call centre sound in the back ground.

“Hello,” a female Asian voice says.

“Hello,” I reply.

“Hello,” she says again.

“Hello,” I answer.

We continue the ‘Hello’ game a few times more.

She has my name, she has my phone number and she tells me that there is a problem with my computer.

I don’t listen. I know it’s a scam. I know Microsoft don’t call you up to say this or that is wrong with your computer. I know that I have more than enough virus protection, flaming firewalls and Trojan horse booby traps to keep my computer safe from all determined Greeks and geeks. I know she is lying and is probably in Bradford, Luton or some other such unholy place.

I know it’s nonsense. They’ve called before. A man last time. Worried me. Frightened me. But then I had then gone onto YouTube and found a man who had taped a similar call… and then had teased his caller with pretended gullibility. Thus forewarned I am only angry.

“Why are you doing this?” I ask.

She begins again with her script.

“Why are you lying?” I ask.

She continues calmly never once changing her sing-song voice of jasmine flowers.

My voice is rising; hers is like a still ocean unruffled by the breeze.

I wonder if she too is duped. If the sincerity of her voice is because she truly believes in what she is saying?

I tell her it’s a scam. I tell her I know it’s a scam. I want her to hang up. She doesn’t. She persists with her script. I then I find myself lying also.

I tell her that her phone call is being recorded.

She remains unruffled.

I tell her that the police will soon be knocking on her door.

Her voice is silvery and rounded like the moon.

I tell her that she is lying. I’m trembling. I feel rage and anger building that this woman has disrupted my peace and tranquillity. That she has changed my mood into darkness and the gunge water you find at the bottom of a dishwasher.

I hold the phone away from my ear and pretend that I am speaking to someone else in the room about her bogus call.

She hangs up.

I leave the phone off the hook so that she can’t call anybody else.

After a while it makes an annoying sound. Then I hear an automated operator’s voice. I’m thinking maybe I should dispense with the phone once and for all.

And I am angry with myself that I could not find the right words to crack her lies and that I lied myself.

I am angry that I raised my voice whereas she remained calm and serene.

But above all, I am angry that I am being lied to by a woman.

I search YouTube again and waste minutes listening to similar scams. I hear the same woman’s voice again. She is calm and serene as she realises that the man she had called has rumbled her. He is typing offensive words into a box one letter too many or one letter too short so that her phishing scam will not be activated. He reads out the letters. They spell enough of a rude word to shock. She understands enough to realise he is not going to be fooled. And calmly she ends the call as if it was he and not she who was the time waster.

My phone is still off the hook… looks like my friend will not be able to get through… but at least Indian Jasmine Woman can’t phone anyone else and it’s so peaceful here now that my equanimity is returning bit by bit.