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Oh, to spell like we speak
Ring, ring goes the telephone. Five sets of trills. Eventually it is picked up. "Hello," says Barney, "everything okay?" Quiet at the other end. "Hello. Evelyn, you there?"
- By Kevin Martin
- Published: 23:05 June 17, 2009
Ring, ring goes the telephone. Five sets of trills. Eventually it is picked up. "Hello," says Barney, "everything okay?" Quiet at the other end. "Hello. Evelyn, you there?" More pregnant silence only this time interspersed with a stifled sob. "Evelyn, what's wrong? Speak to me." Barney doesn't add dammit, although it's on the tip of his tongue. "Evelyn!" he tells his sister firmly, "If you won't speak put Bob on." A second, deeper sob. "Where's Bob, Evelyn?" Somewhere amid the static issuing into his ear and a series of unstifled half-laugh, half-wails on the other end of the line, Barney only manages to catch Evelyn say: "The swine flu". She terminates the call.
The crash of her hanging up echoes so severely in Barney's ear he immediately holds the phone well away and looks, momentarily, like a man trying to avoid the telephonic transmission of bacteria. Evelyn is in Queensland; Barney in New South Wales - in the cities of Brisbane and Sydney, respectively. Barney ends the call and looks nonplussed. "This puts me in a pickle, and it puts Evelyn in an even greater pickle," he tells me.
I, seated at a table sipping on a Gloria Jeans Irish nut cream, wonder idly if he's chosen 'pickle' because he's aware of my Indian roots and by doing so is trying to aptly convey the gravity of his situation. It's hard to say, for he continues, "This blinking [not his exact word] flu is playing lightning chess with us all, matey! I mean, look what it's turning Australia into - a great chessboard - and we, well we're all blinking [not Barney's word again] helpless pawns being swept aside by Mr Check Mate, Swine Flu. I can't go visit Bob now, knowing how contagious it is. And Evelyn. Poor Evelyn, no wonder she sounded so doubly distraught. She was probably distressed not only for Bob but herself."
The last thing I recall on that occasion is Barney heading off to a washbasin to rinse his hands and, almost as soon as he'd finished, running head on into someone's sneeze, veering madly and rushing back to the washbasin for further rinsing. He returned to the table with an unused tissue spread across his nose like a surgical mask.
A working week passes. On Sunday we meet up again. Barney's not looking any the worse for wear. Just the usual job weariness we're all clad in: Tired of eye, sunken of cheek, paler of skin - that's beginning to disappear by Sunday but will make a resilient comeback one day later.
"I've taken a week's leave," he tells me, first up. "Flying to Brisbane." I feel he accurately interprets the look on my face, for I'm wondering at Barney's new-found bravery. Only a week ago the mention of swine flu was making him go weak at the knees. "How's Evelyn?" I ask. "Fine," says Barney. "That's great, isn't it?" I say. "Not really," he ventures. This time, I'm the one confused. How can the news of someone avoiding a contagious illness not be grand? "How's Bob?" I ask. "Gone," says Barney, with finality. "Gone? What do you mean gone? Passed away?" I ask, choosing an appropriate euphemism. The word 'dead' or 'died' somehow seems callous. "No," says Barney, a tad sheepishly, "Not dead, though he may well be for Evelyn. Just gone. The swine flew. That's what she meant the last time. Just upped and left. Poor Evelyn, trying to be funny through her misery".
Pity sometimes we can't spell how we speak, I thought. For some unrelated reason - this spelling analogy - reminded me of a childhood friend in the days of snail mail who once wrote that he'd seen the movie "Irma Ladoos"! The same guy had earlier tipped me off that a great police thriller was due shortly at the cinemas: "El CID"! He even managed to edit the title, putting in the fullstops he felt the film authors had overlooked: C.I.D.
Kevin Martin is a journalist based in Sydney, Australia.
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