‘We’ve talked for hundreds of hours’: the joy of volunteering as a telephone friend | Life and style
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All best friends were once strangers. Why then does hooking up with someone you don’t know, forming platonic connections in the modern world, feel like such a brave, even brave thing to do?
Let me tell you about my friend Pauline. Like all good friends, we make it a point to catch up at least once a week, talking for hours about anything and everything. But Pauline and I, though always there for each other, are unlike the more traditional companions because, apart from being born 50 years apart and living several hundred miles apart, we have never met. We are phone friends.
It was the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic and I was watching cat videos on YouTube. An advert has appeared – a charity for older people aims to tackle social isolation through weekly phone calls. Thirty minutes a week was the commitment. A simple chat can change an elderly person’s life, so they said.
There were rules, of course. You only had to talk on the phone, only know each other’s names, never meet in real life.
I now volunteer for several charities for older people, but I didn’t think much of it at the time. Nevertheless, the idea was immediately liked. Maybe it was an age thing. I had just turned 30, a milestone no one can ignore, and I was beginning to wonder what mark I was leaving on the world, what my future held, who I was. And then there was Covid, of course.
It is no coincidence that this all started in 2020. Was it the sense of privilege I felt during the pandemic that made me sign up for these calls? Was I trying to clear my own conscience? A young man in a nice apartment with a nice boyfriend who never runs out of food, work or, for that matter, company.
I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who found myself pondering these big existential questions during those difficult weeks, months (years, right?).
Around this time, I took time off from my TV job to finish writing my novel, as condescending as that sounds, and I had some time, to say the least. So, after completing various vetting procedures, security checks and training programs, the calls began.
“Do you watch a lot on TV?” I ask.
“Of course!” Pauline answers. “I never turn off the TV! He became something of a friend. What are you looking at?”
She had overtaken me. I had made a mental list of shows I assumed she would watch in preparation for the conversation: Countryfile; Money on the ceiling; Countdown. I had been watching them all of the previous week in case the conversation dried up.
“I’m watching reality TV.” Pauline announces. “I like it Made in Chelsea.”
I spat out my coffee. “Really?”
“Of course. I watch it on E4. And that other one in Essex. I haven’t missed an episode of that.”
On paper, it shouldn’t really work, of course. Our lives are poles apart. Yet, for all our apparent differences, there is more that unites us and Pauline than divides us. It kind of works.
After a few months, there are few things we haven’t discussed. And not just what we watch on TV, but memories of our past, dreams of our future. With each call we get to know each other a little better, we get more comfortable revealing a little more of ourselves. But how sad I think it took a national pandemic for this to happen. This friendship and countless others across the country would never have flourished without him.
“My cat, Muriel,” I say one day, “she turned five yesterday. We threw her a party. She tried some Pawsecco. It’s nettle and ginseng, slightly fizzy. I sound crazy, don’t I?’
There is a momentary pause. “Good to hear you sounding more like yourself,” she interjects out of nowhere. “Is it the pills?”
“I’m sorry?”
“The pills you told me about – are you feeling better? happier?”
A few weeks earlier I found myself opening up about my mental health issues to Pauline over the phone. I’m usually reluctant to talk about such things, even with my closest friends, but maybe that’s one of the benefits of phone friendship, not having to look another person in the eye.
“I think so,” I answer hesitantly, even though I know it’s true, I feel a lot more myself, but there’s something about the fact that it’s coming from Pauline that kind of unnerves me.
“I’m glad you noticed, Pauline.” I feel much better. Thank you.”
I am aware that our connection is direct, a deeper connection than I could have imagined when I first signed up for these calls. I guess sometimes in life we’re not sure what we’re looking for until it’s right in front of our eyes or, in my case, ears.
“I hope you don’t mind,” says Pauline, “but I spoke to a guy from the electrical department the other day and contacted you. I called you my friend. Are you OK?”
“Of course you’re my friend,” I reply, but it’s only when I say the words that I know it’s true. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t take comfort in knowing that someone is there for me as I am for them. Someone who is always on the other end of the phone. True friendships are not transactional or philanthropic. They are mutually beneficial. Enriching life.
Pauline takes a deep breath and I hear her shake her head. “If only I had more gay men in my life.”
I start to laugh. She is forever extolling the virtues of homosexuals. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, I’ve always had an affinity for gays. Men and women.”
I smile into the receiver.
“There’s another name for someone like you, Pauline.”
“There is?”
after the promotion of the newsletter
“Yeah, and it rhymes with bag nag.”
There were many moments that were anything but cute. Thinking about her situation one day, during one of our chats, I’m struck by her closed-mindedness, the cruelty of it all, and a thought pops into my head that I haven’t fully considered yet. What happens when Pauline is no longer with us? When I call and there is no answer?
“Are you still there?”
“Alone?”
“Why are you crying?”
I let out an ugly guttural cry that I can’t control. I grab the pillow I’m leaning against and press my face into it, suppressing all the rage, sadness, shame of it all.
I think this is a disease of our society. Where the elderly are invisible and the neighbors are annoying and nobody cares about anyone but themselves.
“Let’s talk about something a little more cheerful,” Pauline suggests, and suddenly she comforts me. “How’s Tom?”
A smile appears on my face at the mention of my partner. I am smiling.
“He has a lovely accent, doesn’t he?”
“There is,” I reply. “Aren’t I lucky?”
The previous week she had heard Tom on the phone with his mother while we were sitting together on the couch.
“And may I say there’s something very attractive about an Irish accent?”
“You are,” I say. “And there is. It’s like butter, Pauline. You should hear the things he whispers in my ear.
A mischievous giggle can be heard over the phone. “I’m glad it’s not just me then.”
“How do you look, Pauline? I’ve never seen you, have I? We only know our voices.”
I immediately regret the question. During all the hundreds of hours we had talked, I had unconsciously painted an image of Pauline in my mind, and I did not want that image to be shattered.
“I know what,” she says, “I’ll tell you what I used to look like.” I feel myself exhale.
“I had long blonde hair, really reddish blonde, and a heart-shaped face. Hazel eyes, a dainty little nose and cupid’s mouth. Everyone commented on my neck – it was as long as a swan’s. And I used to wear a lot of jewelry – it makes no sense now, of course.
I beam into the earpiece, closing my eyes to try to picture her.
“I have to let you in,” I add, realizing how ridiculous it is to say that.
“Will you call again when you have time?”
“I will! Why stop calling?”
I realize this has gone beyond volunteering. It’s been almost four years. Hundreds of hours of conversations. Countless stories. Laugh. Secrets. And now tears. It’s not charity anymore, if it ever was. We are friends, simple as that. I’ll keep calling Pauline of course. I’ll keep calling until she picks up.
Pauline’s name has been changed for privacy. The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers by Samuel Burr (Orion Fiction, £14.99) is available from guardianbookshop.com for £13.19
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