The Invoice Read Online Free PDF Page A

think about it?”
    “Well, not really…”
    “Here we are…five written surveys and one telephone poll.”
    I suddenly remembered a phone call, something like six months ago. A young woman. I enjoyed talking to her. She had a sexy voice, and for once she wasn’t trying to sell anything. It was kind of fun, choosing between the possible answers: agree strongly, agree, disagree, or don’t know.
    Maud went on: “I’m getting quite a high reading from this.”
    I wandered into the kitchen, then back into the living room.
    “Really?” I said. “Oh…I must have been happy that day.”
    “But you did answer truthfully?”
    “That depends how you look at it.”
    “What do you mean?”
    I walked up and down between the sofa and the wall, glad Maud couldn’t see me.
    “It changes,” I said. “From day to day. I mean, sometimes you’re in a good mood, so things don’t feel so important…”
    “Really?”
    I sat down on the sofa, but stood up again immediately.
    “I think it’s rather unprofessional to base everything on surveys like that. I mean, how was I to know that my answers would form the basis of—”
    She interrupted me again.
    “Obviously that’s not the whole picture. Your responses are only advisory. The calculations are ninety percent based on absolute facts. But all the evidence suggests that self-evaluation gives a fairly good prognosis.”
    I tried to remember those questions, and what I had answered. Maybe I’d been trying to make out like I was more successful than I really was? After all, I did like the woman’s voice. Maybe I was trying to impress her? I could even have just been messing about and making things up.
    “Have you got my answers there?” I said. “What did I say?”
    “I’ve got a general overview. Basically just the scores. I can see the analysis of your results, which are the raw data presented in a more accessible format. If you want more information I’d have to put in a request for your file to be brought up. It could take a while.”
    I told her I did want more information. She said she’d get back to me and we hung up.

It was late afternoon before she called back. I could tell that I should have eaten something, even if I wasn’t exactly hungry. It was completely still outside, extremely hot, and somewhere in the distance a car alarm was going off.
    “There’s rather a lot of material,” she said. “It’s not available digitally yet, and I’ve only just received it, so obviously I haven’t had time to get to grips with the details properly…”
    “Okay,” I said.
    I could hear her leafing through some papers. She almost groaned as she picked up something heavy. We exchanged some polite jokes about “the paperless society.”
    “You wanted the questionnaire results…” she eventually said.
    “That’s right,” I said.
    “If you could just confirm your address, I can send them to—”
    “Have you got them there?” I asked.
    “Yes,” she said.
    “Can’t you just tell me what I said?” I went on.
    She hesitated for a moment.
    “It will take a while to dig them out.”
    “I can wait,” I said.
    “Er…well, we don’t usually…over the phone. But if you tell me your address I can send you a copy…”
    “But,” I said, “can’t you just read them out? I mean, I’ve given you my ID number and everything.”
    She said nothing for a few moments.
    “Well, I suppose so,” she said slowly.
    “Just a few of them,” I said.
    I heard her shuffling the documents again.
    “Okay, you’ll have to wait a moment while I go through the file.”
    “I’m happy to wait,” I said.
    We sat there like that for two or three minutes without saying much at all. Just the sound of her breathing as she searched through the documents. I found myself thinking that she should put the phone down, then realized that she was probably wearing a headset. She cleared her throat and went on.
    “So, what do you want to know, then?” she said.
    “Just the