Free Loose Connections by Rachel Trezise Page B

took a pair of spectacles out of his pocket and put them on, staring harder at the faded picture. 
    â€˜Toulouse,’ Rosemary said, surprised by his curiosity. Nobody looked at those photos any more. The kids had no interest in their heritage. ‘My mother was French.’ 
    â€˜The pink city,’ the man said, nodding knowingly. He sat in her leather chair but he didn’t look at the monitor. ‘Do you speak French?’ He crossed his legs, the angular contour of his knee bone clear through the black cotton of his trousers.
    â€˜I’m a translator,’ Rosemary said. ‘That’s what I do for a living. I work from home.’ She wondered why she was telling him this. She paused. ‘I need the Internet.’
    â€˜Say something,’ he said. He was looking at her face. ‘Say something in French.’ 
    Rosemary’s hands dropped from her hips. She knocked her arms against her sides like a little girl. ‘Repare-moi cette putain de connection Internet,’ she said, a sentence that roughly translated to, ‘Fix my bloody Internet.’ 
    He understood the sarcasm, if not the language. ‘OK,’ he said, a broad smile splashed across his face. He turned to the screen. ‘What’s the problem exactly?’ His smile evaporated, his ripe lower lip curved over its own little shadow. 
    Rosemary felt the severe tension that she’d forgotten for a moment seizing her nerves again. She folded her arms across her waist. ‘The last guy they sent said the whole street was out. I know it’s a lie because I saw the kid across the road take a parcel this morning. It came from eBay, I know it did, and that 
    means he’s using the Internet.’ Her voice was bitter again. ‘You know I’m going to sue when this is over?’ she said. ‘For loss of earnings and all of my expenses. I’m losing money every day.’ 
    â€˜That’s a good idea,’ the repairman said. He tapped at the keypad, his fingers dancing madly. Rosemary tried not to look at them. ‘I’ll leave you to it, shall I?’ she said, turning out of the room. 
    â€˜We get paid commission on call-outs,’ the man said without looking up at her. Rosemary watched him work for a few seconds, waiting for his next sentence. The signet ring was on his right index finger. The seal was some kind of Celtic cross. There was no wedding ring but the skin on his ring finger was soft from having worn one at some time. 
    â€˜What does that mean?’ Rosemary said, remembering herself. 
    The repairman knelt down on the floor and studied the back of the tower, his bony limbs reminding her of a stick insect. ‘It means that if there were people who were less than honest working for your ISP, they might tell you they weren’t sure of the solution so they could earn themselves a few extra quid.’ He waved a miniature screwdriver in the air. ‘Then, if the job needs a second call-out, it means their mate can make some money too.’ 
    â€˜Is that what you’re doing to me?’ 
    â€˜No!’ He looked up at her, his strange yellow eyes glowing. ‘Why would I tell you if that’s what I was doing? You’d report me, wouldn’t you?’ He smiled.
    Rosemary smiled back but she didn’t know why. She was irked by the vague statement. There was something distasteful about it. She was annoyed by his calm manner and the interest he’d paid to her pictures. She wanted her Internet fixed. She wanted to check her e-mails. She took one last look at his pretty fingers. ‘I’ll just get you some tea,’ she said, closing the door behind her. 
    Â 
    â€˜Thank you,’ the repairman said as the woman disappeared from the room. He remembered that one of his colleagues, Big Mike, had said something about her tea. He’d said something about biscuits as well, that she made them