SHORT STORY
Cold Calling
HELLO! has invited acclaimed writers to entertain readers in these testing times. This week, a darkly humorous tale by award-winning, best-selling novelist Liz Nugent
PHOTOS: BETA BAJGARTOVA. GETTY IMAGES
Two or three phone calls per week. Every week for six months. All more or less the same.
“Hello Mrs Redmond, this is Martin/ Tim/Alice/Marmaduke [I’m serious], I’m calling from your internet provider to let you know that your broadband server has been hacked and unfortunately, all of your emails and social media accounts are seriously compromised.”
First of all, I am Miss Redmond. If there was a Mr Redmond in the house, I wouldn’t bother answering the phone. It’s only Cathy who rings occasionally from Canada and those are the phone calls I enjoy most because I get to hear about my grandchildren and their ice hockey achievements.
Margaret from the Bridge Club calls regularly enough with “startling news” such as Andrew Hamilton is getting false teeth, or Mary Grady’s hair is a wig. I entertain this news because I haven’t got a lot of other people to talk to. I tell her about the two-for-one deals in SuperValu on riesling and that Sarah Frost was wearing a ridiculous hat with a peacock feather in it at church last Sunday, as if she was going to a wedding. We speculate that Sarah is going potty like her mother before her. Sarah’s antics keep us going for at least 15 minutes.