Chapter Eight
July 30th, 1976
Sirius shuffled awkwardly inside the small red telephone booth located a few blocks down the street from his flat. The confined space smelled vaguely of sour milk and wet laundry.
He had spent the better part of the afternoon as a dog, watching muggles talking on the foreign device hanging in front of him now, and he reckoned that he had observed enough to understand its function.
Nevertheless, he still felt uneasy about what he was about to do.
He reached out to pick up the black phone receiver off its hook but then retracted his hand and shoved it firmly into his pocket. Sirius looked over his shoulder at the empty street. Rain dripped lightly from the night sky. A nearby streetlamp flickered for half a second and illuminated the greenness of the leaves on the trees scattered along the pavement. Most people had already retired to their houses for a nightcap. He waited for an elderly woman to finish hobbling slowly down the street before he turned his attention back to the phone.
He knew he was being ridiculous. All he needed to do was pick up the phone and call; he had seen some painfully boring and slow people doing it all day long.
Still, there was a twist in his stomach - quite like the one he received when eating copious amounts of Fizzing Whizbees - that did not want to settle.
Sirius, his hands still shoved into his pockets, cracked his neck from side to side and then hopped up and down a bit inside the cramped, claustrophobic box, as though to psych himself up for an important match of Quidditch against James.
While doing so, he spotted a few teenagers roaming down the street and stopped immediately. Feeling utterly foolish, he reached for the handle of the telephone booth to exit without calling - as he had done previously the prior two nights. He hesitated and then looked up at the dull-looking black telephone.
"Stop being such a bloody tosser," he grumbled to himself darkly.
He braced the glass side of the box with one arm and then reached out to grab the phone with the other. He thought about what his dear Mum would say if she could see him now, and the knot in his stomach felt more manageable.
Gritting his teeth, Sirius picked up the receiver in one hand and then fished through his pockets to find a rather lackluster coin to put into the machine. It made a clinking sound as it entered and Sirius put in another six just to make sure it worked before he turned the great dial in the right direction to put in the numbers as he had observed the muggles doing. He was not sure if he was doing it correctly, but if the everyday muggle could do it, so could he.
Sirius hadn't needed to look at a slip of paper - the purple numbers had washed off his hand three days ago - for he had the ten digits memorized.
Once he had finished rotating the small plastic dial in accordance with the ten digits, Sirius scrunched up the receiver to his ear, the way he had examined, and listened intently. At first, there was no sound, and he felt like a complete and utter idiot.
"Ahh, fuck," he mumbled as anxiousness brewed in his belly.
He fidgeted with the hem of his t-shirt uncomfortably, feeling more like an illiterate giant in the grossly undersized and stuffy telephone booth than ever. He knew that he should have taken up James's offer to take Muggle Studies with him.
He was about to put down the receiver and head home to his flat after another unsuccessful attempt when he heard the faint sound of a dial coming from the bottom of the receiver. Hastily, Sirius turned the receiver upside down - or rather, right side up - and put that end to his ear. The louder dialing tone sounded twice more before a woman's voice answered the phone with a rehearsed-sounding greeting.
Sirius managed to contain his surprise from being greeted by a bit of plastic and then cleared his throat. "Er, Eliza?" he choked out.
"No, this is Joyce Price."
"Oh," mumbled Sirius, feeling unspeakably stupid. He kicked the bottom of the booth with his boot in frustration at messing up such a seemingly simple task. "Fuck me," he cursed. No doubt he had mucked up using the large wheel when he had put the numbers in.
"Excuse me!"
Sirius winced. "No! I didn't – gah! Right then, I'll just-"
"Eliza is my niece," the woman's voice interrupted him in a clipped tone. "She's here. I'll get her for you."
He held his breath as he heard the woman call for Eliza distantly.
"Who should I say is calling?"
Sirius, however, was spared the task of responding as he heard the frantic female insistence of "I'm here! I'm here! I've got it! Thanks, Aunt Joyce! You can go, I've got it! No, really! It's okay! I've been expecting this! Yes, he's usually like that! Don't worry, I'm trying to fix him!" vaguely from the receiver. He waited silently as muffled noises filled his ear before finally….
"Sirius?"
Sirius felt a flood of relief prickle down his shoulders. His posture immediately softened, and he relaxed his grip on the phone at his ear. He let out the breath he had been holding for the last thirty seconds.
"Is that you, Sirius?" the voice asked again, this time in more concern.
"Um, hello," the boy answered gauchely.
"Oh!" she chirped happily. "You called."
Sirius shoved his free hand into the pocket of his trousers. "Well, you told me you wanted-"
"No! No! It's fine. I'm just surprised you actually did."
As Sirius propped his back up against the glass of the booth, his feelings were of a similar nature.
"So, you can hear me okay?" he asked dubiously as he glanced back at the long, coiled wire drooping from the receiver.
"Oh, yes, very clear. Why? Are you in an area with bad reception?"
Sirius did not know how to answer this, so he chose not to say anything at all.
Fortunately, Eliza seemed to have plenty to say. "Oh, Sirius!" she gushed. "I'm having a really lovely time. We went to see a film with my aunt and uncle - completely brilliant. It's so amazing how much they can do with cinema now. I mean, I've seen a few old-fashioned things on the telly before, but nothing ever like this. You'll have to go sometime."
Sirius continued to listen to her prattle on animatedly. Part of him was glad to hear her blithe voice again, but the other, the much larger part of him, felt as though this made it feel like she was farther away than ever - a place where all that existed was giddy laughter and brilliant smiles and biscuits of every flavor.
"So then yesterday, my mum, aunt, and I went shopping. Aunt Joyce – she's the one who first picked up the phone - needed to get a new vacuum because hers broke when she accidentally sucked up one of my cousins - Geoffrey, he's the one who's teething, you should see the bite I've got on my finger! - well, his action figure with it. He loves soldier toys. I don't understand it all. It must be a boy thing. Have you ever been shopping here? They have some quite charming stores in Bath. We were mostly window-shopping, but I still got a few things. We were walking past this jewelry store, and I saw the most beautiful necklace in the window - Oh! I just have to tell you this story. Okay, so today I met up with a few of my friends from school, right? Well, we're just walking along the street when suddenly Fanny falls flat on her, well, fanny! God, it was hysterical. See, she always wears the most ridiculous shoes. You'd never believe the heel sizes! Bennett and I keep telling her not to because she'll fall, and then she did, and we laughed, and it was really just the most-"
Eliza put a pause to her bright laughter to take a deep breath. As her chuckles diminished, she sighed into the phone.
"I'm babbling too much about me again, aren't I? Johnny says I'm a right pain for doing it so often. Says I'm a complete narcissist sometimes. I don't mean to, it's just that I seem to lack any form of tact."
Sirius privately agreed. Eliza speaking in person was one thing. Over the phone, however, it seemed that her prattling reached new bounds.
"Course, tact is just about people wanting you to shut up or tell them what they want to hear. Everyone's afraid of the truth. I like the truth. If I ever met it, I'd look it right in the face until it got scared and went away. Anyway, tell me about what you've been up to! How's Marty's doing? Are Dad and Johnny doing okay? Mum's spoken with them, but you can never trust them to say anything of significance. Have you made any progress on the motorbike?"
Sirius shifted his shoulders backwards into a more tense position. He had only gone to Marty's twice since Eliza left. The first occasion had been to help Mr. Boyd stock a rather large shipment of produce the day after Eliza and Susan left for Bath and the second had been a brief check on the condition of his bike yesterday - he had not even ventured inside the building.
While the loss of a warm meal was definitely missed - his own cooking skills were severely limited and the only thing he kept in his flat was a few bottles of firewhiskey and a box of moldy owl treats - he really had not had the desire to habit the diner as of late. Martin Boyd was too busy manning the kitchen all by himself to have time to go to the loo - let alone keep Sirius company. Johnny was, astonishingly, more sour than ever, seeing as he had to serve the entire diner without the help of his sister. Unlike Boyd, however, Johnny had still managed to find the spare second to glare contemptibly at Sirius whenever he had passed by his booth on his way to the counter.
So, Sirius had mainly been passing the slow hours alone in his flat. It was painfully dull. Sirius had never been one to stay cooped up; he became restless easily and despised feeling entrapped.
He'd gone over to the Potters twice in the past week but could only take so much of his friend's long-winded pining before he had no choice but to leave. James was not nearly half as fun anymore. He kept going on about being more responsible and respectful; James had even proposed cutting back on pranks, calling them a "foolhardy risk." Sirius would be much happier when James finally got Red out of his system and returned back to his normal self.
Sirius did not believe in love.
"You know, Sirius, it's much harder to put up with your annoying Mr. Taciturn routine when it's over the phone," Eliza scolded teasingly, effectively removing Sirius from his thoughts.
"Sorry," he mumbled roughly.
"Ahh, it's okay, Trouble," she assured him in a placating voice. "I get the feeling you don't do this sort of thing very often."
He smirked. "Not really," he allowed.
"Well, I'll just have to help you out. Let me guess, you're slouching and probably fiddling with the box of cigarettes in your pocket."
Sirius immediately removed his hand from his trouser pocket.
"And you've got your usual getup on, but it's more wrinkled than normal because I'm not there to inspire you to look fresh."
He rolled his eyes.
"And after you finish rolling your eyes, I'll point out that the vagabond look probably works for you anyway, Trouble, because you're ruddy irritating like that. Do make sure to shave before I get back."
Sirius laughed loudly against the receiver.
Eliza chuckled happily, pleased with herself for eliciting such a response from him. She had never heard him laugh without restraint before. It was quite an achievement.
"All right, yes! I'm coming! Tell him I'll be there in a minute!" she yelled distantly. "Sorry, Sirius," Eliza continued in a clearer voice. "I've got to go. My uncle's been waiting for me to put the finishing touches on my chocolate crème pie all day. He's got the patience of a fly, or worse, Johnny. One minute, Uncle Evan!"
Sirius fumbled with the phone against his ear and sank his slumped shoulders against the booth glass once more. "Okay, then," he murmured.
"I wouldn't, but he has been waiting for ages. Sorry!"
"S'fine."
"All right, well, I reckon I should go."
Sirius held the receiver intently to his ear without saying anything. The agitation in her voice concerned him, and he began to have second thoughts about whether he had made the right decision of calling her. "Yeah."
"Yeah."
Sirius's fingers clenched around the receiver.
"I'm glad you know," Eliza said, as though reading his mind. "That you called, I mean. Of course, I kind of instigated and enabled and all of those other awful words Johnny uses, but I'm still glad you called."
Sirius's posture relaxed.
"See you soon?"
Sirius nodded, but then realizing that she could not see him, answered affirmatively.
"So long, Trouble."
"Night, Skip."
He heard a clicking sound and then nothing more. Slowly, he put the receiver back into its place.
He stared at the phone for nearly ten more minutes in silence inside that small, red, cramped telephone booth.
A/N:
this is perhaps my favorite chapter.
to all of those beautiful people who review: thank you. you are a gentleman and a scholar.
to all those dastardly souls who refrain: a plague on all your houses.
yours,
molly
