The Fandom of the Operator

9

And then I awoke once more. And my teenage years were behind me and I was twenty-two.

And I was married.

To Sandra.

I was sitting in a dingy kitchenette in a ground-floor flat in a road called Mafeking Avenue in Brentford. I looked out of the window towards a dismal little yard and the back wall of a public house and I thought, Whatever am I doing here?

I thought back to my teenage years, but they were all out of focus. A snatch of detail here, a little incident there. This was the real and for now and I was here and it was all rather dull.

In fact, it was very dull indeed.

I stubbed out my cigarette. The ashtray overflowed onto a pink gingham tablecloth of grubby vinyl. From upstairs came the sounds of arguing voices.

“Mike! I hate you, Mike.”

Mike had flown Spitfires in the war. Mike, I knew, was dying of TB.

“Shut up, woman. You’re drunk!”

The woman’s name was Viv. She drank a bottle of dry Martini a day and went to Weight Watchers on a Thursday evening. At the YMCA hall that no longer housed the Blue Triangle Club. There weren’t any clubs like that any more. The council had tightened up on the licensing laws.

“Go out to work, Mike. Get yourself a job.”

“I’m retired. I have a disability allowance.”

“You’re a lazy skiver.”

“I’m dying of TB.”

“Liar! You’re a liar.”

But he wasn’t and in six months he would be dead. I stared all around and about my dire surroundings. How had I come to this? What was I doing here? Was this my life? Was this my life?

I took out another cigarette and lit it up. It was a Players Number 10. Cheapest fags that ever there were. I couldn’t afford Passing Cloud any more. I didn’t even know whether they made Passing Cloud any more.

I was out of work. Again. Work and I didn’t get on. My face never fitted and I could not subscribe to the “company ethic”. I kept on getting sacked. Which was OK in those days. You could draw the dole immediately even if you were sacked. They knew me well enough at the dole office.

“Wotcha, Gary boy,” they would say. “How did you screw up this time?” And they would tell me to get my hair cut. Get my hair cut? Get real!

But the thing was, these were the early nineteen seventies and there was plenty of work about. Loads of it. There wasn’t any unemployment. The blokes at the dole office kept finding me more work. They said that I was the only officially unemployed person in Brentford and it looked bad on their records and I’d have to start work again on the following Monday. And so here I was, sitting at this table, and Sandra had gone off to work at the new nylons company on the Great West Road and I had an interview at ten-thirty. And it was nearly ten now and I didn’t want to go.

I was sure that I’d had some aspirations when I was young. I’m sure that I wanted to be a mortician. Or a coroner, or an embalmer, but I’m sure that I never wanted to be this.

I turned the piece of paper between my fingers. A telecommunications engineer. What was one of those anyway? Telephone man. Rooting amongst wires. I wondered whether they’d let me empty the coin boxes in telephone booths. I knew how to do that anyway. Dave had shown me.

I missed Dave. He was in proper grown-up prison now. For breaking and entering, this time. His brief had asked for over two hundred similar offences to be taken into consideration and Dave was away on a five-year stretch.

The local authorities were never happier than when I was employed and Dave was banged up. It meant that not only was there no official unemployment in the area, but there was no crime either.

I gazed once more at the piece of paper. Telecommunications engineer. What was that all about? How dull was that? What could you do? There wasn’t much to telephones. You spoke in one end, words went down wires and came out the other. If the wires got broken you joined them up again. Fascinating? Challenging?

I didn’t think so.

I won’t go, I told myself. I’ll make some excuse. I’ll be sick.

A shadow fell across the piece of paper. I looked up to see Harry peering in through the window. Harry was now employed by the dole office to escort unenthusiastic would-be employees to interviews at their new definitely soon-to-be places of employment.

One of the reasons that there was full employment in those days was that by law companies were obliged to employ the first person who arrived for an interview when a vacancy came up.

Actually it was a blinder of a system. How many times have you seen some big fat blackguard on TV who was the head of some huge multinational consortium, wining and dining it, living high off the hog, burning the candle at both ends and indulging in numerous other clichés, and said to yourself, “I could do that job!”? But you know that you’d never get the opportunity to do so. Because it’s always “jobs for the boys” or the Masonic handshake, or nepotism, or some such thing.

Well, back in the early nineteen seventies it wasn’t like that. If a job as a managing director came up, folk who fancied being a managing director would rush along and apply for it and the first in the queue would get it. You don’t believe me, I can tell. But ask yourself this: what has Richard Branson got that you haven’t got? A beard, a toothy smile and a jumper? And that’s it, right? Richard Branson answered an ad in the early 1970s: “Young man wanted to run soon-to-be multimillion-pound music empire”. He won’t own up to it now, of course. He’ll tell you he worked his way up from nothing.

But then, he would, wouldn’t he?

No, in truth, that’s the way the seventies did business. It was a seventies tradition, or a new charter, or something.

And it worked.

It did.

It really did.

And I’d been offered the job of telecommunications engineer. Not “Young man wanted to start off multimillion-dollar computer industry. Name of Bill would be a benefit.” Some other specky twonk got that one. I got telecommunications engineer. I didn’t want to. But I did.

“Up and at it,” called Harry through the now open window. All now open because he’d put his big elbow through it.

“I’m not well,” I said. “I’ve got Bright’s disease.”

“Take it up with Bright,” said Harry. “You’re off to an interview. I’ve a car waiting outside.”

“Is it a Mini Metro?” I asked.

“No,” said Harry. “They haven’t been invented yet.”

“I hate you, Harry,” I said.

“And I respect you for it,” said Harry. “But up and at it, or – and this is not a personal thing, but merely in the line of duty – I will come in there and smash your face in.”

I got up from the table.

“Put your tie on,” said Harry.

I put my tie on.

“And your trousers.”

I put my trousers on too.

“Put them on the right way round.”

I took them off again and did so.

“There,” said Harry. “You look very smart. You really should get your hair cut, though.”

“I’ve tucked it into my trousers, haven’t I?”

“You’re a weirdo,” said Harry. “Although, don’t get me wrong, weirdo has its place in the overall scheme of things.”

“You have a heart of gold,” I said.

“Let’s go,” said Harry.

I had never seen the inside of a telephone exchange. And I can’t say that I liked the look of it. I did like the smell, though. A kind of electrical burning smell of the type that you only get now in the carriages of intercity trains. The smell is called ozone, apparently. I’d always thought that ozone was the smell you got at the seaside when you sniffed near the sea. But apparently that’s something else entirely. That’s sewerage. Ozone is different. It smells ever so nice, though. I was really taken with it. Mr Holland showed me around. He’d been in telecommunications all his life so far. His dad had known Alexander Graham Bell and Faraday.

“Let me tell you something about the history of telecommunications,” said Mr Holland.

“Must you?” I said.

“I must.”

“Go on, then.”

“It all began with Adam and Eve.”

“This would be quite a long history, then. Could we move on a bit?”

“And then the 83102 superseded the 83101 and the coil-exchanger really came into its own.”

“Fascinating,” I said. “I never knew there was so much to it.”

“You start on Monday, then.”

“But what do I have to do?”

“Ah,” said Mr Holland, and he led me to a tiny booth. It was even smaller than my kitchenette. And it didn’t have any windows at all, although it did have a door and a table.

“Sit there,” said Mr Holland.

And a chair.

I sat on the chair.

“Now,” said Mr Holland. “Do you see this?” He pointed to a bulb that was attached to a Bakelite fitting that was in turn attached to the table.

“I see it,” I said. “It’s a bulb.”

“It’s an attached bulb. From the fitting, wires extend through the table and down into the floor.”

I peered beneath the table. “You’re right,” I said. “They do. Bravo for those wires.”

“And do you see this switch?” He pointed to the switch in question. It was also attached to the table and certain other wires ran from it, through the table (which to me seemed a pretty sad table, what with all these holes cut through it and everything), and similarly vanished into the floor.

“I spy this switch,” I said. “There it is: I have it.”

“Good,” said Mr Holland. “I can see that you’re a natural for this job.”

“Hm!” said I, thoughtfully.

“The nature of the job is this,” said Mr Holland, whom I noted wore a bow tie – always a bad sign, in my opinion. “At certain times the light bulb will come on and it will be your duty to press the switch and turn it off.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because it has come on.”

“Oh,” I said. “But why?”

“But why what?”

“Why does it need to be switched off?”

Mr Holland laughed. “Because it has come on, of course.”

“I see,” I said, but I didn’t. “No,” I continued, “I don’t see. Why does the bulb come on?”

Mr Holland stared at me queerly. And it wasn’t that kind of queerly at all. “You have applied for the post of telecommunications engineer, haven’t you?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“So I am assuming that you do know how to switch a light bulb off.”

“Of course,” I said. “Everybody knows how to do that.”

“You’d be surprised,” said Mr Holland. “You’d be surprised.”

“So this is what a telecommunications engineer does: switch off a light bulb?”

“Switch it off when it comes on. And not before. You didn’t think it was going to be all glamour, did you? Out joining broken wires together?” Mr Holland laughed again.

“Perish the thought,” I said. “My constitution would not survive such constant excitement.”

“Are you taking the piddle?” asked Mr Holland.

“Definitely. Yes.”

“Well, it’s not a necessary requirement for the job. But it’s not prohibited, as long as you do it in your own time. Do you have your own gloves?”

I shook my head.

“You’ll need your own gloves.”

“Why?” I asked.

“For when it’s winter,” said Mr Holland. “When you’re coming to work, if it’s cold you’ll want to wear gloves. I can’t lend you mine. I only have one pair.”

“I’ll get some from Woolworth’s,” I said.

“False economy,” said Mr Holland. “Buy a leather pair from Rowse’s in Ealing Broadway. You’ll pay the extra, but they’ll last you a lifetime.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” I said.

“I think you’re the right man for this job,” said Mr Holland. “Do you want me to run through your duties once again?”

“It’s switch off the bulb if it comes on, isn’t it?”

“Are you sure?”

“Sure,” said I, nodding my head.

“You’re a natural. I think we can say that the job is yours. Any questions?”

“Why does the bulb go on?” I asked.

Mr Holland laughed once again. “You young blokes,” he said. “Always trying to run before you can walk. Always wanting to know more, more, more. You tickle me, you really do. Where will it all end, eh?”

“In the heat death of the universe, or so I’ve read.”

“Well, let’s hope that doesn’t happen before I go on my holidays. I’ve booked a caravan at Camber Sands, one of the most beautiful spots in the country. Ever been there?”

“Only in my worst nightmare,” I said.

Mr Holland laughed once again. And then he stopped laughing for ever. “Enough of humour,” he said. “Telecommunications is a serious business. You do your job, young Barry, and I’ll do mine, and everyone will be happy for it and able to make phone calls as they like.”

“Praise be to that,” I said. “And it’s Gary.”

“I’ll just bet it is. See you on Monday morning, then, Barry. Sharp at seven.”

“Seven?” I said. “What, seven in the morning?”

“Telecommunications never sleep. An unmanned bulb station is an accident waiting to happen. Seven till seven. Weekends off. Who could ask for more?”

“Would you like me to make a list?”

“It was a rhetorical question. See you on Monday. Sharp at seven.”

“In your dreams, you will.”

The bulb booth door opened and in came Harry. “Everything hunky-dory?” he asked.

“No,” said I.

“Yes,” said Mr Holland.

“Good,” said Harry. “I’ll get Gary here sharp at seven on Monday.”

“Whatever,” said Mr Holland. “I’m so glad that the vacancy is filled. We’ll miss old Mr Hurst. Thirty-five years, man and boy, and woman in his later years, he boyed, manned and womanned that bulb switch. Things will never be the same without him, but we live in changing times and I’m sure young Barry will follow the example of his predecessor.”

“In a pig’s ear, I will,” I said.

“He certainly will,” said Harry.

“Seven on Monday,” said Mr Holland. “Look forward to it. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye,” I said. “For ever.”

“You’ll be here,” said Harry.

“I bloody won’t,” I said.

But I would.

Oh yes.

I would.

I really would.