"Forget? I didn't forget anything! I remember everything! Everything!" screamed a familiar voice at the other end of the line.
I froze, then gulped, said: "Er-"
"Why are you accusing me of forgetting things? What are you accusing me of forgetting? What? I haven't forgotten anything!" Eric gasped and spluttered.
"Eric, I'm sorry! I thought you were somebody else!"
"I'm me!" he yelled. "I'm not anybody else! I'm me! Me!"
"I thought you were Jamie!" I wailed, closing my eyes.
"That dwarf? You bastard!"
"I'm sorry, I-" Then I broke off and thought. "What do you mean, 'that dwarf', in that tone? He's my friend. It isn't his fault he's small," I told him.
"Oh, yeah?" came the reply. "How do you know?"
"What do you mean how do I know? It wasn't his fault he was born like that!" I said, getting quite angry.
"You only have his word for that."
"I only have his word for what?" I said.
"That he's a dwarf!" Eric spat.
"What?" I shouted, scarcely able to believe my ears. "I can see he's a dwarf, you idiot!"
"That's what he wants you to think! Maybe he's really an alien! Maybe the rest of them are even smaller than he is! How do you know he isn't really a giant alien from a very small race of aliens? Eh?"
"Don't be stupid!" I screamed into the phone, gripping it sorely with my burned hand.
"Well, don't say I didn't warn you!" Eric shouted.
"Don't worry!" I shouted back.
"Anyway," Eric said in a suddenly calm voice, so that for a second or two I thought somebody else had come on the line, and I was left somewhat nonplussed as he went on in level, ordinary speech: "How are you?"
"Eh?" I said, confused. "Ah… fine. Fine. How are you?"
"Oh, not too bad. Nearly there."
"What? Here?"
"No. There. Christ, it can't be a bad line over this distance, can it?"
"What distance? Eh? Can it? I don't know." I put my other hand to my forehead, getting the feeling that I was losing the thread of the conversation entirely.
"I'm nearly there," Eric explained tiredly, with a calm sigh. "Not nearly here. I'm already here. How else could I be calling you from here?"
"But where's 'here'?" I said.
"You mean you don't know where you are again?" Eric exclaimed incredulously. I closed my eyes again and moaned. He went on; "And you accuse me of forgetting things. Ha!"
"Look, you bloody madman!" I screamed into the green plastic as I gripped it hard and sent spears of pain up my right arm and felt my face contort. "I'm getting fed up with you calling me up here and being deliberately awkward! Stop playing games!" I gasped for breath. "You know damn well what I mean when I ask where 'here is! I mean where the hell are you! I know where I am and you know where I am. Just stop trying to mess me about, OK?"
"H'm. Sure, Frank," Eric said, sounding uninterested. "Sorry if I was rubbing you up the wrong way."
"Well-" I started to shout again, then controlled myself and quieted down, breathing hard. "Well… just… just don't do that to me. I was only asking where you are."
"Yeah, that's OK, Frank; I understand," Eric said evenly. "But I can't actually tell you where I am or somebody might overhear. Surely you can see that, can't you?"
"All right. All right," I said. "But you're not in a call-box, are you?" "Well, of course I'm not in a call-box," he said with a bit of an edge in his voice again; then I heard him control his tone. "Yeah, that's right. I'm in somebody's house. Well, a cottage actually."
"What?" I said. "Who? Whose?"
"I don't know," he replied, and I could almost hear him shrug. "I suppose I could find out if you're really that interested. Are you really that interested?"
"What? No. Yes. I mean, no. What does it matter? But where- I mean how- I mean who do you-?"
"Look, Frank, " Eric said tiredly, "it's just somebody's little holiday cottage or weekend retreat or something, right? I don't know whose it is; but, as you so perceptively put it, it doesn't matter, all right?"
"You mean you've broken in to someobdy's home?" I said.
"Yeah; so what? I didn't even have to break in, in fact. I found the key to the back door in the guttering. What's wrong? It's a very nice little place."
"Aren't you frightened of getting caught?"
"Not much. I'm sitting here in the front room looking down the drive and I can see way down the road. No problem. I've got food and there's a bath and there's a phone and there's a freezer- Christ, you could fit an Alsatian in there — and a bed and everything. Luxury."
"An Alsatian!" I screeched.
"Well, yes, if I had one. I don't, but if I did I could have kept that in there. As it is-"
"Don't," I interrupted, closing my eyes yet again and holding up my hand as though he was there in the house with me. "Don't tell me."
"OK. Well, I just thought I'd ring you and tell you I'm all right, and see how you are."
"I'm fine. Are you sure you're OK, too?"
"Yeah; never felt better. Feeling great. I think it's my diet; all-"
"Listen!" I broke in desperately, feeling my eyes widen as I thought of what I wanted to ask him. "You didn't feel anything this morning, did you? About dawn? Anything? I mean, anything at all? Nothing inside you — ah — you didn't feel anything? Did you feel anything?"
"What are you gibbering about?" Eric said, slightly angrily.
"Did you feel anything this morning, very early?"
"What on earth do you mean — 'feel anything'?"
"I mean did you experience anything; anything at all about dawn this morning?"
"Well," Eric said in measured tones, and slowly, "Funny you should say that…."
"Yes? Yes?" I said excitedly, pressing the receiver so close to my mouth that my teeth clattered off the mouthpiece.
"Not a damn thing. This morning was one of the few I can honestly say I experienced not a thing," Eric informed me urbanely. "I was asleep."
"But you said you didn't sleep!" I said furiously.
"Christ, Frank, nobody's perfect." I could hear him start to laugh.
"But-" I started. I closed my mouth and gritted my teeth. Once more, I closed my eyes.
He said: " Anyway, Frank, old sport; to be quite honest, this is getting boring. I might call you again but, either way, I'll see you soon. Ta ta."
Before I could say anything, the line went dead, and I was left fuming and belligerent, holding the telephone and glaring at it like it was to blame. I considered hitting something with it, but decided that would be too much like a bad joke, so I slammed it down on the cradle instead. It chimed once in response and I gave it another glare, then turned my back on it and stamped downstairs, threw myself into an easy chair and punched the buttons on the remote control for the television repeatedly through channel after channel time after time for about ten minutes. At the end of that period I realised that I had got just as much out of watching three programmes simultaneously (the news, yet another awful American crime series and a programme on archaeology) as I ever got from watching the damn things separately. I hurled the control unit away in disgust and stormed outside in the fading light to go and throw a few stones at the waves.