Page 28 of The Typo

ChapterFifteen

At five to twelve, I was as nervous as Cinderella herself, fearing that my jokey comment about turning into a pumpkin might be about to turn symbolically true. However, I was grateful that at least I had some company for this call, even if it was company of the variety that was going to undo all my hard work vacuuming. When I’d returned from work, I’d discovered Eliza and Fraser hanging around on the landing. Obviously, they’d made a point of completely ignoring me, but as soon as I’d opened my door, they’d shot into the flat and made themselves at home on the sofa. I slipped a note under Mr McTavish’s door and hoped he wouldn’t mind me borrowing his pets again for the evening.

‘What do you think, have I got the eyeliner right?’

Inspired by my feline companions, I’d decided to be adventurous and gone for a delicate cat eye look, telling myself that having a bit of extra definition on my features would give me the confidence I needed to get through this video call. I wondered if Cameron was as apprehensive as I was. The more I thought about it, the bigger a deal it seemed. I knew I needed to put things into perspective, that ultimately my life wouldn’t change if he hated me on sight, but catastrophising was a hard habit to unlearn.

I clicked on the link and waited, trying not to get impatient as the minutes ticked past the agreed time. Maybe he’d got confused about the time difference. Or maybe he’d changed his mind about wanting to ‘meet’ me, and a better offer had come along. I decided to kill some time by googling him for the umpteenth time, trying out a variety of search terms in a bid to track him down. I managed to discover a few more of the pictures he’d taken, buried deep away on obscure websites, but the accompanying text focused entirely on the subject of the images, rather than enlightening me any further about the man behind the lens.

I couldn’t help worrying that he’d been doing the same thing and that was the reason why he wasn’t joining me. I hastily typed ‘Amy Cameron Edinburgh’ into the search engine to see what came up, kicking myself for not having done this basic bit of self-preservation research before. Half a dozen Amy Camerons popped up, none of whom were me. For once, Ian’s stinginess in paying for the most basic of websites for the Variety was working in my favour because there were no staff biographies, and the site itself didn’t appear until page six of the search results. My biggest fear was that the review by Ottilie Havers would show up front and centre of the results, but thankfully there was no sign of it. But what if Cameron was more technically savvy than me and had somehow managed to track it down and realised that the ‘completely soulless’ performer Amy Rose was me?

I really needed to stop spiralling. As usual, I was letting my gloomy imagination get carried away with itself. There was probably the most prosaic of explanations for his absence.

‘I think we’ve been stood up,’ I said to Eliza who, to my complete surprise, had deigned to leap onto my lap and curl up. I stroked her soft back and she gently patted my hand away. ‘Okay, you’re right, I’ve been stood up. Undoubtedly had he known you two were around, he’d have been on the call like a shot.’

I yawned, tiredness now winning its battle against my nervous energy. A girl had to know when to accept the facts. Besides, I was due to work this weekend. Saturdays were always a tough shift, and a late night was not going to help me get through it.

‘Right, I give up,’ I said, clicking off the Zoom link decisively. Fraser casually wound his way around my ankles before settling down by the bathroom door. ‘I’ll turn the tap on for you in a second, I’m just going to check my emails again.’

I didn’t know why I was torturing myself like this. I knew I should face facts and accept that the online meeting wasn’t meant to be. But despite my protective pessimism, I couldn’t help feeling hopeful as I refreshed my inbox and waited to see what would happen. And there, amongst the adverts and the spam, was another missive from Cameron.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: 4 Feb, 00:28

Subject: Storm!

Hi Amy,

I’m typing this while the sides of the ship are pounded by waves and lightning cracks overhead. The storm seems to have weakened the internet signal so I don’t even know if this will get through to you, but I promise, I’ve spent the last half an hour trying to connect to our call and have been frustrated at every turn. I think I’ve tried holding my laptop up at every angle from every position on the ship, but no luck I’m afraid, and I don’t know Ushuaia well enough to track down an internet café at such short notice, if such places still exist and are open of an evening.

I don’t know how you feel about sharing your phone number with me, but I’ll put mine at the bottom of this email and if you want to ping me yours, I’d love to give you a call and see if that works instead.

C x

I glanced at my watch. It was getting on for one in the morning, and Cameron had sent the email twenty minutes ago. I had a full diary at work tomorrow, and I really needed to be on top of things. But I knew if I went to bed now, I’d only lie awake wondering what might have been and berating myself for being a coward for not following through. It was time to seize the initiative for once. Sure, Cameron had offered to call me, but why waste valuable time sending my number and waiting to see if the internet would deliver it to him in time.

‘Wish me luck, guys,’ I muttered to the cats, and then dialled his number, carefully checking each digit against his email before I hit connect.

The long low burr of the international dialling tone seemed to go on forever, ratcheting up my tension levels. I was about to give up when someone answered.

‘Amy? Is that you?’

His voice was a rich baritone, the note of uncertainty as he answered going a long way to soothe my own apprehension. He was well spoken, an accent which would be described in Hollywood movies as classic Englishman, although we mustn’t hold that against him, I found myself silently repeating Malcolm’s usual joke about our neighbours south of the border.

‘Hi, yes, it’s me,’ I said. ‘Um, how’s everything going?’ Best to start with a generic question to help me get over my sensation of being somewhat tongue-tied. I rang strangers for work all the time. How come I felt so out of my comfort zone picking up the phone now?

‘It’s going well, now I’m finally speaking to you.’ I could hear the smile in his voice. ‘I’m so sorry that it’s been such a pain trying to get hold of me. It’s been a bit of a nightmare evening to be honest. We had a difficult situation on board which I got roped into trying to deal with, then the storm blew up out of nowhere, and it’s sent the equipment into complete meltdown. It’s almost worse than when we were crossing the Drake Passage, although at least I’m not throwing up all over the place now. Sorry, far too much information. I’m jabbering on because I’m nervous. I’ll shut up now.’

I laughed, my tension easing.

‘It’s awfully crackly, but don’t worry, I can hear you, though I’ll pretend to have missed the mention of seasickness to spare your blushes.’

‘Thanks, I appreciate it. Jeez, did you hear that crack? The storm must be getting nearer.’

‘Have you done that trick of counting the seconds to work out how far away it is?’

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