Free Loose Connections by Rachel Trezise

Third Time Lucky

    It was 9.47 and from the window Rosemary could see the postman was delivering an oddly shaped parcel to the teenager in the semi across the road. It was round and wrapped in brown paper. It looked like a motorcycle helmet. Her repairman was seventeen minutes late. I’ll make another coffee, Rosemary thought. I’ll make another coffee and then I’ll ring them, again.
    She was about to move away from the window when she saw the white van pulling slowly into the cul-de-sac, the company’s familiar purple and red emblem pasted on the side. She bunched the curtain in her fist, waiting for the worker to step out of the cab. Whole minutes slipped by, the van sitting motionless in the road, one wheel wedged against the kerb. Rosemary’s fingers gripped the fabric until it turned wet in her hand. 
    When the van began to shake she let the curtain go. It fell back into position, an ugly crease left where her hand had been. The cab door opened, the hinges squeaking. Rosemary stood behind the gauzy curtain watching the figure emerge, her eyes narrowing. The repairman slammed the door and walked to the back of the vehicle. It was a man. Rosemary realised on seeing him that she’d hoped they’d send a woman this time. Women had a reputation for getting things done. The repairman looked a bit like an elf. He was short, and much too thin, with long, mousey hair tied into a messy ponytail. But even from behind the curtain she could see that his hands were quite beautiful. His fingers were slender and feminine, what her mother would have called piano fingers. As he unlocked the back doors she saw a winter sunbeam bounce off his gold signet ring. 
    This was the third repairman Rosemary’s Internet Service Provider had sent in as many weeks. Rosemary was a translator and she worked from home. Most of her work involved legal documents. Her Internet connection had expired without explanation when she’d been about to complete a particularly important assignment. It was a purchase contract for a Corsican villa. Her failure to deliver the translated document to the French estate agency was delaying the entire sale. Her commission fee was falling by the day. There were just a few details she needed to verify on the National Association of Estate Agents website, before e-mailing the contract to Paris. She could have used the computer suite at the central library, or popped next door to borrow Linda’s laptop, but she refused to drive into the city centre, pay a small fortune to park, and then cart all of her paperwork and books through the arcade. Nor was she going to make a nuisance of herself by bothering her neighbours, not when she was paying hard-earned money for her own Internet connection. It was a matter of principle! And when the company had actually managed to fix the problem she was going to sue them for loss of earnings. 
    The first person they had sent was an obese man in his late thirties. Rosemary swore he had not showered in a month. He smelled like rotting vegetables. He sat at the PC and turned it on and off a couple of times. Rosemary had to leave the room because his smell was so bad. After half an hour he’d called her back into her little office under the stairs. ‘A bit of a puzzle, this one, love,’ he said. 
    Rosemary hated it when strangers called her ‘love’. She leaned in the doorway, her hand covering her nose. He waved at the socket near the floor. ‘Is this the main telephone line?’ he said. 
    Rosemary nodded. 
    â€˜Hmm, no chance of a cuppa is there then, love?’ he said. ‘I think I’ll be here a while.’ 
    She took four of her home-made banana flapjacks from the cooling tray on the counter and laid them on a saucer. She put them down on the desk with the tea. She wanted the job done quickly, and the best way to a fat man’s heart was through his fat stomach. An hour or so later she could