Sounds Like Radio Episode 27
Gerry was setting up for another mental health phone-in. It felt good to be a proper part of the team.
Daisy and Rav talked to her as though she was a pro and asked her opinion on how the pilot had gone.
They were waiting for Danny while he read the scripted portions of the show.
Daisy put her feet up on a flight case and asked Gerry about herself.
She was surprised when she found out that Gerry was an apprentice.
“You’re so slick,” Daisy said, sounding impressed.
They chatted some more as Rav went out to get drinks for Danny and the atmosphere grew cosy.
“Rats!” Daisy said suddenly.
“What’s wrong?” Gerry asked.
“I had your query on my programme notes and didn’t follow it up. Gosh, I’m sorry, Gerry.”
“Query?” Gerry was pretending she had forgotten, but she hadn’t.
“That caller in the first phone-in, your friend. I dug out her e-mail and –”
“Oh, you really don’t need to. As I said – just a whim.”
“But you asked, and I will. You never know, it could be a great moment.
“I might make it the subject of my next feature – old friends reunited.” Daisy laughed. “Though I think that’s been done.”
Gerry was even less sure that she wanted to make any contact with Bronwen, but it was too late now to stop Daisy; it would look odd.
Danny looked up at the glass. He was ready to start the show.
The callers were even better this time, more varied in their questions, more demanding of Danny’s skills, and Daisy beamed with delight.
“Male, forties, on line three,” Rav said half an hour in. “It might be an interesting one. Have a read.”
As Danny joked around with a caller, Daisy read Rav’s notes at top speed.
She was slick at her job, absorbing in seconds what callers wanted to say, and making choices that would create a good programme.
“Yeah, I like your thinking,” she told Rav.
“We also haven’t had enough men. I’ll shoot the notes to Danny. Going to line three next, Gerry.”
The voice that she faded up was unmistakeable. It was Kevin – tentative, reluctant, apologetic.
Gerry racked her brains to work out if he even knew that the mental health phone-in was coming from Sounds Like Radio.
He didn’t concern himself much with admin.
“But do you feel your behaviour is unusual?” Danny was saying.
Gerry could hear the furrows in Kevin’s brow.
“Um . . . I think it’s sometimes unusual. My wife struggles.”
There was immense effort in the voice. Gerry knew that these words had never left his mouth before.
“OK,” Danny said. “Tell me some more.”
Danny was hunched forward, his arms encircling the heavy base of the table microphone.
He was self-confident but he knew his job and he was a good therapist.
He joked about, but he obviously had a passion for drawing the damage and distress out of his callers.
Kevin warmed up a little. He talked about the house, at first embarrassed but then more comfortable, and described Monica’s frustrations.
Gerry could see details of other callers building up on Rav’s monitor, but Daisy waved him away when Rav drew her attention to them.
She wanted this call to continue.
“Can you trace anything back, Kevin?” Danny said.
Strangely and strikingly, Kevin hesitated less at that question than at any other.
“Nobody mended anything,” he said.
“When? At home? During your childhood?”
There was a silence and a faint rustling. She realised that Kevin was nodding!
A man with more than twenty years of radio experience, and he had forgotten that a nod cannot be heard on the wireless!
“That’s a yes?” Danny asked gently.
“He never replaced a washer; he never screwed a loose door handle back on. Everything was a mess.
“We had a toilet seat that never got mended. All the taps dripped.”
“He had problems, your dad?” Danny asked.
Another silence.
“He was drunk, mostly.”
Danny sat back, his posture triumphant but his face serious.