Sounds Like Radio Episode 20
Bill rang. He was on a mobile in some echoey space and he suggested, in his take-it-or-leave-it way, that Cesca join “a few of us” who were going for pizza that night.
“Only if you like pizza,” he said. “I’ve got a friend visiting and there’s a gang of us getting together.”
He sounded casual, just as though it didn’t matter one way or the other how she responded.
Cesca felt a little flare of irritation: it might mean nothing to him but it had meant something to her.
It was all pretty confusing, and not any fun at all.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Oh, OK,” he said. “Whatever.”
Cesca could hear that someone else was talking to him. The sounds became muffled as he put a hand over the phone.
“It’d be cool to make up the numbers, though,” Bill then said.
Cesca, alone in the office, shrugged.
“I could come for a bit,” she said. Bill was like a glass of prosecco – hard to refuse.
It turned out that he had been at the airport picking up an old friend called Travis who had moved to Australia.
“I’ve known this man for twenty years,” Bill said at the door of the restaurant.
He clapped Travis – smaller than Bill and deeply tanned – on the back.
“Best mate a man could have!”
Travis had come back from Oz to see his sister Kelly, and she joined them at the restaurant.
Cesca had expected a larger party: “making up the numbers” implied more than four.
Bill was very much at ease with his old friends. Cesca observed him, trying to work out why he was so different with them.
He talked about old times, became earnest about politics, leaned in and discussed coral reef destruction with Travis.
The constant throw-away manner that she was used to fell away with these people that he obviously liked. Loved, even.
But Cesca reminded herself that she had only seen him in the one context before that night.
Bill headed off to pay the bill and Kelly went to the loo.
“There’s something you need to know about Bill,” Travis said.
The sentence had come out of the blue. A minute before they had been swapping jokes and arguing playfully over the after-dinner mints.
“I don’t need to know; it’s fine,” she said.
She was looking for ways to forget Bill, and secrets about him were not what she needed.
“Actually I hardly know him – I was making up numbers, really.
“We happen to work next door to each other, and Bill’s only there temporarily while –”
“It’s quite important,” Travis said.
His face had changed. He seemed almost to be pleading with her, but she did not want to know.
If Bill had something in his past, or some terrible fault, she wasn’t willing to accept that burden.
She had enough on her plate and Bill had never got close enough to her to earn that right.
“Really,” she said. “He’s lovely, and I like him, but we’re not good friends or anything.
“Gosh, is that the time? I really have to dash. It’s been great and I think I gave Bill enough cash for the pizza.
“Tell him, and Kelly . . . tell them thanks and bye.”
Gerry saw now that Miriam was a very unhappy girl.
Cesca had shared the information about nights on the drama studio bed and the mean flatmates.
“Don’t you wish, sometimes,” Gerry asked Cesca one morning in the small studio, “that you could wave a magic wand and give someone better luck?”
“You’re thinking of Miriam?” Cesca said.
They had left Miriam in the office, diligently filing purchase orders.
“Yes,” Gerry said. “She’s not had it good – family, home . . .”
“Work, too, though I am trying my best to knock her into shape gently.
“Did you know that Kevin’s wife offered Miriam a room at their house yesterday?” She smiled.
“If I were Monica I’d value the company, frankly.”
“That’s great! I hope her mood improves soon. She feels guilty for deceiving you, too, I know.
“She should have a dozen great friends at her age, a social life, a fun flat to live in. She’s nineteen.”
Gerry shook her head.
“At that age you need connections.”
“You need those at any age,” Cesca said.
“It’s not healthy for her.”
They both looked up when Miriam passed the window to the corridor, her head down.
“Talking of healthy . . .” Cesca said. “Those snacks!”
Gerry had seen it, too – the purple foil flash of the large chocolate bar in Miriam’s hand.
“I guess she needs the sugar,” Cesca said.
The doorbell rang – it rang in every studio that wasn’t in live broadcast or record mode.
“Ah, that’ll be the features people,” Cesca said.
“Gerry, could you nip upstairs and welcome them? I really have to clean this crackly fader.
“There’ll be a producer up there who we’ve had before – Rachel – and a contributor called Theo Fraser.”
“Will do. Is this the chocolate feature for Radio Four?” Gerry was pulling open the studio door.
“Yes, it is.”
“There’s a coincidence. More chocolate.”
“There’s an interviewer coming in separately so it may be her at the door instead. Her name is Brenda Walsh.”
It was a simple interview and Cesca had given the job to Gerry.