Down the line

"Hello. Hello?"

Static. Then silence. Then a dialling tone. The calls had been happening for years. The phone company had checked the line again and again, but with no success. So, I just lived with them. Assumed that there was some kind of glitch. Mildly irritating, but not a big deal.

And then, after a while, the calls started to change. A voice – a very distant voice – that I could almost hear through the crackling. It sounded like a woman, saying something and ending with a sob. But each time, the line went dead.

The calls were on and off. Sometimes days, weeks or even months would go by without one, and then there would be several in a day. I still couldn't quite hear the voice, or what it said, however hard I listened.

The phone stayed in the hall, even when we decorated the house and rearranged all the furniture. When we got cordless phones, the base unit and the chargers stayed on the old-fashioned telephone table. And when we all got mobiles, it was almost the only call we got to the landline. I could have blocked the calls, I could have moved the phone, I could have changed my number, but I didn't. I wasn't sure why, but it just seemed important. When the calls didn’t come, they featured in my dreams. Never quite directly. Just a ringing phone, or a half-heard woman’s voice.

And then the phone rang again, late on a Tuesday night. This time the line was clearer. A familiar voice. She said “Mum”. And I realised I knew what she would say next.

"Mum. I can't go on. I can't do this anymore." She sounded desperate, and I dropped to the floor, clutching the phone. I tried to make her hear me and my shouted words of comfort. But she couldn't. She sobbed, and the line went dead.

I have lived in this house since I was a baby – my mother was only 15 when I was born, and my gran took us both in. My mother ran away about a year later. We spoke on the phone sometimes, and I saw her every now and then, but the occasions became fewer and further between.

Late one Tuesday night, when I was 15, my gran answered the phone. It was my mother. Gran didn’t know that I was close behind her, that I could hear every word. My mother said, “Mum. I can't go on. I can't do this anymore.” Gran called the police. They traced my mother, broke into her shabby flat and found her unconscious on the floor, next to a pile of sleeping pills and a bottle of cheap vodka.
​
I haven't heard the voice since. Not for many years. But I know now why I can never move away or change my number. Because one day the phone could ring again, and I might be able to make her hear my voice. I know that nothing will change. Nothing can change. But perhaps I can let her know that I'm okay.