Melissa Kite
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‘But…’ he said, as he surveyed the old fuses…His face darkened and there was a terrible pause.
Each time they reschedule they send me a long letter of apology and £44
‘But?’ I said, feeling my lifeline slip away.
‘But you will need your isolation switch changing first.’
‘Is the isolation switch anything to do with the mains box?’
‘Not exactly. But in order to fit the isolation switch you will have to shut off the electricity and that means going into the mains box and we might not be able to do that because of the asbestos.’
‘But that means we really can’t rewire until Skanska come and change the blasted box.’
‘I-I don’t know,’ said Alex, looking quite keen to get away now. ‘If you decide to go ahead s-someone will deal with it.’
S-someone? Who? ‘Who?’ I shouted, hysterically.
Alex then garbled some mumbo-jumbo about my also urgently needing a new ‘protective earth bonding cable’, all the while backing towards the door. At which point, I’m afraid to say, I looked up at him and said in a very faint, silly voice, ‘I’m just a girl with no lights.’
As soon as the words were out of my mouth I shrank in shame. Who was I kidding? I’m no Julia Roberts in Notting Hill, batting her eyelids at Hugh Grant and cooing, ‘I’m just a girl standing in front of a boy asking him to love me.’
I’m a forty-something south London singleton in grey tracksuit bottoms, with uncombed hair and the remnants of last night’s mascara halfway down her face — the results of a morning’s weeping with frustration.
Needless to say, the British Gas man did not look moved to do anything other than get the hell out. He made me sign the checklist sheet before leaving me standing in my gloomy hallway. I surveyed my options: call British Gas and argue; call Skanska and argue; call UK Power and argue; call all of the above at once on three different phones and put the headsets together and argue. Then I thought, ‘Candles are lovely.’Also in Society
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