After a few seconds of fumbling with the mouse, Sylvia managed to open Bernie’s email: ‘That’s great’, she read aloud. ‘Now let’s try a Zoom meeting. Just click on the link below. What does she mean by a link?’
‘It must be that blue writing,’ Stan told her, pointing at the screen. ‘That stuff there, that looks like gibberish.’
Sylvia moved the mouse. At first, she couldn’t see the pointer. Then it suddenly appeared at the opposite side of the screen from the blue text. She carefully drew the mouse across the table, watching the pointer intently as it, too, moved. To her surprise, when it reached the blue text the pointer vanished and was replaced by the image of a hand with one finger pointing.
‘That’s it!’ Stan said with unexpected excitement in his voice. ‘Click the mouse now!’
Sylvia pressed down the button on top of the mouse. At once the screen seemed to burst into life. Boxes seemed to be appearing and disappearing all over the place. Messages popped up and then vanished again. Then, all of a sudden, Bernie’s smiling face appeared, occupying a large rectangle near the centre of the screen.
‘Hi there!’ came her unmistakeable tones, with that broad Liverpool accent that came across even in those few words of greeting. ‘No – hang on a minute! You’re on mute. I can un-mute you, because I’m the host of this meeting, but I’ll show you how you can do it yourself as well, for if you’re doing a Zoom with someone else. … OK. Say something, so we can check the audio’s working.’
‘Hello?’ Sylvia ventured uncertainly. ‘Is this alright? Can you hear me?’
‘You’re coming across loud and clear!’ Bernie confirmed. ‘Now let’s sort it so that I can see you as well. Can you see somewhere on your screen a black rectangle? It’s probably at the top. It should say “Stan and Sylvia” in white writing inside it.’
‘I’m not sure … oh yes! There it is.’
‘OK. That’s where you’ll be able to see yourself once we get the video working properly. Now if you hover your mouse down near the bottom of the Zoom window, some buttons ought to pop up.’
Sylvia moved the mouse pointer down towards the bottom of the screen. For what seemed like a long time nothing happened, then some strange pictures appeared near where the pointer was positioned.
‘Can you see them?’ Bernie asked.
‘I can see something,’ Sylvia answered doubtfully.
‘Can you see an icon that looks like a TV camera?’
‘Yes, I think so. It’s second from the left.’
‘That sounds right. Try clicking on that.’
Sylvia tried to follow Bernie’s instructions. She carefully manoeuvred the pointer along the line of icons and clicked the mouse button. For several moments nothing happened. Sylvia and Stan sat looking hopefully at the screen, where Bernie’s face also registered concentration.
‘Hang on!’ Bernie called out at last. ‘You must’ve hit the mute button by mistake. Can you see? There’s a red line through it now. Click on it again, so I can hear you again; and then have another go at turning the video on.’
It seemed like forever, but in reality it was only a few minutes later that they had got everything sorted out and Sylvia could see both a large image of Bernie in the centre of her screen and a smaller one of herself (with Stan sitting beside her) above it.
‘That’s better,’ Bernie declared with satisfaction. ‘Now, if we had more people on the call, they’d each have their own window, like the one you can see me in, and the person who’s speaking at any given time would be the one who appears largest.’
‘I see,’ Sylvia said, hoping that she did.
‘It all seems like a lot of faffing about, when we could just give you a ring,’ Stan grumbled.
‘Except that you can only speak to one person at a time on the phone,’ Bernie pointed out. ‘Now you’ve got a computer, you’ll be able to join in virtual church on Sundays, with all your friends.’
‘And I’m going to start ordering things online,’ Sylvia added. ‘Then we won’t need Bernie to do all our shopping for us.’
‘Not that I mind doing it,’ Bernie said hastily. ‘That isn’t why I gave you the laptop.’