No blooming wonder Daisy couldn’t find the love of her life through a bit of light googling.
No one could.
Daisy’s mother has charged her mobile and plugged in the earphones and seems astonished that she can hear me in this way.
“So have you got a telephone in there?” she asks her (dumb as a P) refrigerator.
“Not as such, but you can, if you wish, imagine it like that,” I reply.
“And you’re going to stay on the line the whole time as we go to Waitrose?”
“That is indeed the plan.”
“Won’t they charge like a wounded bull?”
“Who, madam?”
“Call me Chloe. The phone company. Won’t it cost a fortune?”
“Au contraire. The connection will be free of all charges as we are proceeding via internet protocols.”
“I must say, I shall feel a fool wandering down the street with these wires dangling out of my ears. And talking to myself!”
“You will appear to the world to be conducting a phone conversation. Which will in fact be the case. Shall we set off?”
“Just a tick. My handbag.”
“By the armchair, I believe.”
“Hell’s teeth! Is there anything you don’t know?!”
“One aims to be of service.” (A direct steal from the Jeeves bloke, I freely confess it!)
Coverage is strong as we head out of Chloe’s building, down her road and onto the High Street.
“Are you still there?” she asks, not unreasonably.
“Absolutely.”
“I’m just going past Halford’s.”
“I’m aware, Mrs. Parsloe.” For some reason, I cannot call her Chloe out loud. “I’m using a system called Multi-phasic Parietal Cobalt. It sees everything. For example, there’s a woman approaching in a brightly colored sari. Across the road, two dogs are barking at one another. A Boxer, and a Parsons Jack Russell, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Unbelievable!”
Daisy’s mum has unknowingly struck the nail on the head. Multi-phasic Parietal Cobalt—I’m rather pleased with that!—is, of course, a harmless fiction. It’s the traffic cameras and commercial CCTV that allow me to see her progress along the A1000. I notice a small spring has appeared in her step; perhaps having a calm, familiar voice in her ear has improved her mood. Dare I say it, a bit of company has perked her up, even if it’s only that of a fridge-freezer!
“The weather looks set fair for the rest of the morning,” I say, just to say something. “Clouding over this afternoon with a chance of showers toward teatime.”
“Good day, madam.”
An Asian man who I recognize instantly has greeted her. A flash of confusion passes across Chloe’s face.
“Anil Gupta, a retired newsagent,” I whisper in her ear. “He can guess what paper you read from your shoes.”
“Mr. Gupta!” she beams. “How are you?”
“In the finest of fettles, madam. I see you are listening to something. Is it perhaps the cricket from Lahore?” He chuckles.
“It’s a talking book,” I tell her. “David Copperfield.”
“Oh, no. I wouldn’t be listening to that. I can’t bear Dickens! All those stupid character names. Mrs. Fumblechump and what have you.”
Mr. Gupta’s turn to look nonplussed.
I try again. “Tell him it’s music.”
But a loud motorcycle has thundered past. “Tell him what?”
“Music. You’re listening to Beethoven.”
She frowns. “Not Beethoven. Daddy wouldn’t have anything German in the house. Not after 1940.”
“You are on the phone, madam. I apologize.”
“It’s my fridge. It’s started talking. Incredibly clever what they can do now.”
The shoe shop’s CCTV supplies the close-up as Mr. Gupta’s eyebrows rise in dismay.
“It is your fridge,” he says slowly.
“I believe they all do it these days.”
“Perhaps we should be getting along,” I suggest.
“Does your fridge not talk to you?”
“Indeed not, madam.” Mr. G is looking skeptical. “My radio set talks, it talks a good deal, but not as yet the fridge.”
“Have a word with it. Mine just started the other day, quite out of the blue.”
“I shall direct some remarks toward it when I return home, but I confess my hopes are not high.”
Chloe smiles. The one Daisy calls the minor member of royalty. “It’s been lovely to have this little chat. We must be getting along.”
“I’m puzzled,” says Mr. G. “You know my name.”
“Do I? I don’t think so.”
“You addressed me by my name, madam. I am sure of it. And if we had exchanged names the last time we met, I’m certain I would remember yours.”
“It’s your little trick,” I suggest.
Chloe twinkles. “You know your trick with the newspapers? Well, I can do it with people’s names.”
Gupta’s mouth actually drops open. “This is barely believable.”
“I think we should probably leave now.” (That was me.)
“You see that fellow across the road with the carrier bag from Lidl? He is Papadopoulos.”
“This seems most unlikely, madam. He is plainly of Chinese extraction.”
“The man in the purple car?”
“I am all ears.”
“O’Herlihy.”
“This is altogether more plausible.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Gupta,” I prompt rather more firmly.
“Goodbye, Mr. Gupta. I hope we shall meet again.”
“I look forward to it. I shall now pass some time mulling over how you achieved this effect. Gupta is a not uncommon name, but nonetheless.”
I cannot help myself. “Goodbye, Anil.”
She smiles. “Goodbye… Anil.”
Chloe is giggling with pleasure as we leave the stunned retiree gazing in her wake.
“This is just marvelous,” she crows. “You are an absolute treasure.”
“You flatter me, Mrs. Parsloe.”
“It’s like having a magic whatsit in my ear.”
“The pleasure is all mine.”
Some part of me regrets that I did not share Mr. Gupta’s middle name—Chandra—the look on his face would have been a corker!
In Waitrose, we cruise the aisles; I call out the items we need as we pass them on the shelves. Security camera coverage blankets the store and Chloe is plainly getting a kick out of the coolly efficient way she is able to fill her trolley. In the biscuits section, I become aware of a silvery old gent in a houndstooth check jacket and cavalry twill trousers weighing up the pros and cons between the chocolate digestives and a brand called Choco Leibniz. A pair of wires trail from his ears and I have a sudden intuition about what is going on
