Serendipity

My mobile phone is a simple Nokia held together with sellotape.   

It does calls and texts and that’s it.

A Facebook friend asked recently if I remembered Peter Plough from primary school.  He's back living in the village and they speak regularly on the phone.   

I told her that I remembered him.  Even as a child he was quite a memorable character.  He’s also my OldestBestFriend’s second cousin.  I asked if he would like his second cousin’s contact details as I know she’d like to get back in touch. 

Yesterday morning I messaged OBF’s contact numbers to the Facebook friend, which required me to have my mobile by the pc so I could copy them out of its phone book.  That done I closed everything on the pc and went downstairs to do the dishes, forgetting to pocket my mobile.  I may have also forgotten to close the mobile's phone book.

Fester went into the office to continue his endless list of pits.   

A little while later he appeared in the kitchen holding the mobile before him like some explosive device grumbling "I don't know ... it had Peter on it before I pressed something and it went off."

There's only one Peter in my mobile’s phone book so I phoned him to see if he’d called me.  

Peter Ceylon was one of the half dozen inhabitants of our university flat.   

We lost touch for decades until he was persuaded by another ex-flatmate to come to the Covens we had in London.  Despite the years, avoir-du-poids and grey hair he was the same as ever.  I last saw him at our late flatmate Paula’s funeral last year. 

He hadn’t phoned me.   

Peter’s so shy he never phones anyone.   

Maybe his mobile had decided to do it for him.   

It’s happened to me before.

Or it may be OBF’s number on my mobile’s phone book is right next to his. 

Fester can’t even text so he wouldn’t realise what he was looking at.

However it came about Peter and I had a lovely long chat, and the laughter of old friendship filled my garden for some minutes.