Sounds Like Radio Episode 22
Theo defied all Gerry’s expectations.
He was around twenty-six, shy and impeccably polite, elegant in a deep blue suit, with an attractive face and a neat beard.
Rachel looked stressed as they all stood in the lobby.
“I got a call five minutes ago in our taxi,” she said. “Brenda is held up. I can wait half an hour but then we may have to rethink.”
Theo Fraser had gone outside again.
He was back at the taxi, fetching another handsome black case to add to the ones he’d already stacked in the kitchen.
“You’re going to think I’m a pain,” he said as he came back in. “I’ve brought all sorts of stuff with me.”
They set up in the studio and waited for Brenda.
Gerry asked Miriam to come in and help with the equipment, explaining that she would have to remain in the studio with Theo and Brenda throughout.
“Health and safety,” Gerry said. “It’s important.”
Theo laid out his wares – small transparent boxes of cocoa beans, flat tablets of chocolate in all sorts of shapes and colours, his marble slab, and a beautiful little paddle to manipulate it.
“You won’t hear most of this on air, of course,” he said, smiling modestly.
“It’s just that I’m a chocolate geek and I do love my kit.”
“No problem,” Miriam said loudly.
Everyone turned to look at her, over by the bank of power sockets
“I mean, I like chocolate, too, that’s all. I don’t know anything about it.” Her voice grew shy.
“Except that I like nuts in there and . . . um, raisins.”
Theo’s fine features lit up.
“And that is very much a valid view,” he said.
“Flavourings are crucial, and don’t let any chocolate snob tell you otherwise. Who doesn’t like to find an almond!”
“Right!” Miriam blurted out.
There was a short pause while the pair looked at each other.
“None of this is chocolate yet, actually,” Theo carried on, “not as you’d recognise it.
“It’s not sweetened, not tempered, not anything much.
“But in this state you can sample the extraordinary range of flavours and understand production and choices for various users.”
Miriam was gazing across the room at Theo.
“Miriam, could you plug in the heater now?” Gerry waved a hand to wake the girl up, and laughed.
“I know you’re a chocolate fan.”
Miriam blinked.
“Only the rubbishy kind,” she said quickly.
“There is no such thing as rubbishy,” Theo said, giving her a radiant smile.
“There is a place for thirty per cent solids.”
“Well, I know what I like,” Miriam said, blushing.
Brenda phoned again: she was not going to reach Sounds Like in time to do the interview.
Theo rearranged his tablets and lined up his boxes while Rachel tried to find a replacement.
Theo leaned back in his chair.
“It’s not for me to suggest,” he said tentatively, “and I hate being pushy, but I have to get back to London so I can’t stay beyond twelve.
“I wonder if Miriam could interview me?
“I know you have the questions prepared, Rachel, and I’ve done this before so we can make it smooth.”
Rachel looked at Miriam, who seemed half terrified, and half about to burst with excitement.
“In for a penny,” Rachel said with a shrug.
“I can cut the questions out in the edit and make a different kind of feature, one without an interviewer’s voice.”
“Nobody wants to hear me,” Miriam said, and giggled.
Theo pulled his chair in to the table.
“I don’t know about that,” he said. “Let’s start.”
It took over an hour, during which time Gerry almost forgot the faders under her hands and the meter monitoring levels.
She and Rachel fell into complete silence as they watched two people who were separated from them by a sheet of sound-proof glass falling in love.
“They were strangers at half nine this morning,” Rachel whispered as she and Gerry watched Theo hand Miriam another tiny piece of chocolate, their eyes fixed on each other.
“This is extraordinary,” Gerry breathed.
Theo and Miriam’s conversation had strayed quickly from the script.
Rachel stood up soon after they began, intending to enter the studio and get the interview back on track, but after a minute she sat down again, looked at Gerry, and waited.
Theo and Miriam tasted the chocolate in tandem, his hands touching hers for an instant as the dark slivers changed hands.
“Don’t hold it for long,” he said, gazing at her. “Don’t let your body heat spoil the pleasure.”
Miriam disagreed about whether a sample contained hints of honey or hints of champagne, and Theo nodded respectfully.
They laughed when they both decided a sample had a hint of charcoal.
They both frowned when they tried something made of a hundred per cent cocoa solids, but agreed that there was merit in “the hit”.
Theo listened to Miriam just as though she was an expert, and Miriam asked a dozen questions outside the script.
“This is from the same cocoa plantation?” She held a morsel of black chocolate in one hand, a paler piece in the other.
“Isn’t it amazing?” he said. “Costa Rica, both of them.”
“I’d love to go there,” Miriam said.
He had opened his mouth to say something but he paused, and Gerry saw his mind working.
“We have a lodge there,” he said softly.
Gerry opened the fader a notch; she was losing his voice as the conversation grew intimate.
“The company has a lodge, I mean. Guests come, sometimes.”
“Surely they’ve said all there is to say?” Gerry eventually said to Rachel.
“About chocolate, yes,” Rachel murmured.
“I don’t know whether they’ve said all there is to say to each other, about everything else in the universe.”
Gerry signalled to the pair that she’d stopped recording.
Theo and Miriam kept talking.
Five minutes later they came through to the control room.
“I have time to show Miriam a shop I know in Small Heath,” he said, as though it was the most normal thing in the world.
“They really understand how to make a good milk, and I haven’t been able to explain it properly.”
“I’ll be back later,” Miriam said.
Gerry watched, open-mouthed, as they left the studio, Theo holding the door open for Miriam.
Miriam seemed taller, straighter, lovelier.
“But she’s still on shift?” Rachel said.
“Until five,” Gerry said, “but I don’t think our boss will penalise her.
“We have a particular reason for wanting Miriam to feel good about herself.”