The Telephone Box
The old red call box had been an unlikely broker of romances – and its work was not done yet
Like many things that were popular in her youth, pay phones were almost obsolete now, Linda observed.
The iconic, bright red telephone kiosks had been vanishing for years, so she shouldn’t have been surprised that ‘her’ phone box no longer stood sentinel at the corner of her old road.
She hadn’t been back to her home town for decades – there were bound to be changes. And Linda wasn’t entirely unhappy about the disappearance of this personal landmark.
In the 1970s, she’d spent hours huddled in that phone booth talking to her dad. She lived with her mum, and because money was tight in their single-parent household, they didn’t have a landline.
It was handy having the phone box close by, although far from ideal.
With a pang of sadness, Linda remembered Pete Williams.
She recalled him so clearly from that time but knew she probably wouldn’t recognise him now – it was almost fifty years ago, after all.
Two years older than her, Pete was in the Upper Sixth Form. Tall and good-looking. The school heart-throb. All the girls fancied Pete Williams.
Never for a moment did Linda dream that he’d notice her, but he started waiting for her by the school gates and walking her home most days.
Only as far as the phone box, because there he’d turn into town to catch his bus – until one Friday afternoon he finally asked her out. He had tickets for a concert the following evening, and he wanted to take Linda.
“I’d love to go, Pete! But I’ll have to check with my mum first,” she added reluctantly.
“OK, I’ll call you later. What’s your telephone number?”
Without hesitation, Linda reeled off the familiar four digits adding, “It’s the phone box. We don’t have a telephone.”
He didn’t tease her. Not everyone had a home phone back then.
“I’ll be there at seven, waiting. If the line’s engaged, try again, and I’ll answer as soon as it’s free.”
Linda didn’t think to ask for Pete’s number. It was an oversight she would later regret.
At ten to seven, Linda shoved her feet into her new platform shoes ready to leave the upstairs flat.
Plenty of time to spare, but she’d been in a rush to stake her claim to the phone box. In her haste, she lost her footing on the stairs and tumbled from the top step, not stopping until she landed with a sickening crack at the bottom.
Trying to ignore the pain, Linda tearfully begged her mum to help her hobble to the phone box. Worried by Linda’s rapidly swelling ankle, her mother insisted they drive straight to the hospital.
“Stop at the phone box, Mum!” Linda cried as they set off just after seven. Surely she wouldn’t be too late.
Obligingly, her mother slowed down as they drew alongside the box, but it was occupied by a girl Linda recognised from school – Susie, a sixth former.
Linda wanted to wait to pick up Pete’s call as soon as Susie hung up, but Linda’s mum wouldn’t hear of it.
“I know what you girls are like! She’ll be talking for hours!”
And with Linda trapped in the passenger seat, her mother accelerated away and drove straight to the hospital.
The following Monday at school, Pete wasn’t waiting for Linda by the school gates. She saw him though, with his arm around Susie.
He looked shamefaced when he saw Linda limping on crutches, her leg encased in plaster.
“What happened?”
“I broke my ankle on Friday night… on my way to the phone box.”
“Oh! I thought…” He frowned and looked embarrassed.
Susie eyed Linda warily.
“Are you the girl Pete was calling? He described you, and had me look up the road…”
Thankfully, Linda was saved the agony of any further discussion as her mum arrived to drive her home, but the story of how Pete and Susie got together quickly became legend in the school.
For a while, Linda was referred to as ‘that girl who broke her leg and missed Pete William’s phone call’.
She tried not to think about what might have been.
Linda left the seaside town for university a few years later, and her mother remarried and moved away at the same time. Linda hadn’t returned since, but recently she’d retired to a little village about an hour away, and decided it was time.
Now, she wondered if this trip down Memory Lane was a mistake.
The day had begun brightly, but clouds were scudding across the sky, and there was a nip in the air.
Linda decided to walk down to the seafront where she hoped there would be a café open on this early winter’s afternoon.
Tucking her hands in her pockets, she headed down a familiar road of older bungalows with well-tended gardens. She hadn’t gone far when she spotted it.
“No! It can’t be!” she chuckled.
There, at the edge of one of the gardens, was a bright red telephone box.
It must be a garden decoration, not a working pay phone, Linda decided, as she drew nearer. She’d read that these old kiosks were often sold off when they were decommissioned. It wasn’t exactly her idea of a garden ornament though.
As Linda approached the telephone box, an elderly woman came out of the bungalow next door and bustled across the lawn, clutching books to her chest.
“Admiring our Little Free Library?” she asked, pulling open the door to reveal book-lined shelves.
“A library! How quaint!”
The phone box’s odd location suddenly made sense. Linda had read about these Little Free Libraries where you could ‘take a book and share a book’.
In fact, there was one in her village – just a glass-fronted cupboard attached to a post, nothing as grand as this.
Even though it was a long shot, Linda wondered if this could be ‘her’ old phone box.
“I noticed the phone box that used to sit on the corner back there has gone. I don’t suppose you know where this one came from, do you?”
“Oh, this isn’t a ‘real’ phone box. My neighbour built it for his wife. Look!”
The woman pointed to the glass panel at the top of the booth.
Where the word TELEPHONE would have been on an original kiosk, the word LIBRARY boldly declared the little booth’s purpose. The woman beckoned Linda to follow her and pointed to the wording on the glass panels. One side read LIVE LOVE LAUGH, another READ READ READ, and on the back, S.W. 1959 – 2018.
“SW?” Linda pondered the initials.
“Sue … my neighbour. She died. A great one for books, was Susie.”
“Susie …” Linda repeated the name, thinking how odd that she’d been remembering another Susie and another phone box just moments ago.
“Yes, Sue worked in our local library for years until it closed – budget cuts, you know. Very sad. The library closing, and Sue… This project kept her hubby busy.”
Linda nodded. She’d lost her own husband quite a few years ago and knew how important it was to stay busy.
“A lovely tribute to his wife,” Linda murmured.
“Yes, Sue would’ve approved of the library, and the telephone booth … it was how they met after all. Such a cute story.
“Years ago, Sue was passing an empty phone box, heard it ringing and answered it. Quite out of character for Sue – she was very reserved. But apparently she had a strong urge to pick up that phone – and met her future husband!”
The woman laughed as she delivered the punchline.
“You’re kidding!”
“No. Oh, look! There’s the man himself!”
The woman waved to a tall, sprightly man making his way down the path. He was carrying a bundle of fairy lights.
Linda watched, half expecting to recognise him. He smiled at her.
“You look familiar. Do I know you?”
Linda shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Not from around here, then?”
“Not any more. I moved away a long time ago, but I went to school here in the seventies. I was Linda Green back then …”
“I remember you! You were a year above me – you probably don’t remember me. You never really notice the people younger than you.”
He laughed. Adjusting the tangle of Christmas lights, he held out his hand.
“Richard Watkins.”
“Richard, I was explaining how you and Sue met… Oh, heck!” Richard’s neighbour suddenly looked alarmed and exclaimed, “I have to dash! Cake in the oven!”
And with a wave of her hand, she scurried back towards her bungalow.
Richard watched her go with an air of regret.
“That’s a shame,” he said, contemplating the jumble of Christmas lights. “I was going to ask Helen to help me put these on the library – add a bit of early festive cheer.”
“I can help,” Linda offered.
It took a while to untangle the strands, and it was tricky draping the telephone box-library with the lights because the door had to open and close unhindered, but between the two of them they did it.
And later, sitting in Richard’s conservatory, drinking tea, Linda recounted her own telephone box story.
Ironically, Richard remembered Pete Williams and Susie and confessed that it was his knowledge of their story that had prompted him to ask his own Sue out when she answered his call to the empty phone box.
“Don’t tell me that you were calling a phone box to make plans with another girl!” A coincidence like that would be too ironic.
“No, phoning a mate to arrange to go to the cinema,” he grinned.
“Gosh, to hear us talk, you’d think that phones were ringing away in empty kiosks all over the country back in the day,” Linda chuckled. “And actually, I did hear a few! Wouldn’t happen today though, no one uses pay phones any more.”
“Shame,” Richard said as Linda uttered a heartfelt “Thank goodness!”
Richard’s twinkly gaze held hers, and for a moment, she felt like a teenager again.
The afternoon was closing in as much later, standing on Richard’s doorstep, they surveyed their handiwork.
“Thanks again for your help with the lights. And, I’m really glad we met today.”
Richard beamed at Linda who found herself hesitating, reluctant to leave, and hoping that perhaps he would ask for her number. He didn’t.
Buttoning up her jacket against the chill in the air, she said, “Better be going then,” and set off down the path.
Passing Richard’s Little Free Library kiosk, she couldn’t shake the feeling that another possibility had slipped through her fingers.
She liked Richard. Why hadn’t she asked him for his number?
It wasn’t the 1970s any more! There was nothing to stop her from going back and asking.
Pausing in her tracks, Linda pivoted … and saw Richard running towards her waving his mobile.
“Linda! Wait! I didn’t get your number.”
Delighted, Linda dictated it to him, and he immediately sent her a text.
“So you have my number too. Don’t want to leave anything to chance … but I’ll definitely call you,” he promised.
Tucking her mobile safely into her pocket, Linda retraced her steps.
At the end of the road, she turned and saw the Little Free Library telephone box twinkling in the dusk and spotted Richard beside it, the glow from his phone illuminating his face.
A moment later, her own mobile trilled. Hastily retrieving it, she glanced at the screen.
“Hello, Richard.”
Linda smiled warmly, glad she hadn’t missed this call.
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