Three's a Crowd

by Simon Booker

  ‘Can you stay late tomorrow evening, after your TfL session?’ said Jennifer. ‘I’d like to put the two of you in a studio and see what happens.’

  Harriet beamed.

  ‘Can’t wait.’

  I didn’t invite her to stay for another drink or risk anything that might be taken as an overture. Every instinct I had was telling me to play the long game. Meanwhile, there was no word from Tom, which came as a relief.

  As things would turn out, he was merely biding his time and planning his own campaign but how was I to know?

  * * *

  Wednesday was Harriet’s final day of recording the Voice of London announcements. I kept my distance from her studio but asked the technician, Sadiq, to let me know of any problems or signs of unprofessional behaviour. Three full days of reciting bus and tube routes was hardly hard labour (especially with a five grand fee) but would be a test of patience and resilience. She passed with no problem, taking suggestions with a smile and doing exactly as directed by Martyn. According to Sadiq, she was ‘a total pro’.

  The TfL Marketing Manager was full of praise, too, delighted to have accomplished his task on schedule and in good time for the new Voice of London’s debut, which was imminent. All that remained was to programme the recordings into the system. (I didn’t ask. Never been one for the technical side.)

  Settling at the microphones in studio B, we started our first dry run on the dot of 7 p.m., acting as if we were doing a live breakfast show at the other end of the day. Pam supplied Harriet with traffic reports, horoscopes and weather updates and picked the playlist. Jennifer wanted to retain the ‘agony uncle’ element of the show so I’d selected a couple of emails from listeners. I considered letting Harriet see these in advance, so she could prepare her response, but decided against it. She needed to be up to the job or we’d both suffer a very public humiliation. Live radio is about dealing with the unexpected, the ability to ad-lib without making an arse of yourself (although that can work, too, as many of my peers demonstrate every day).

  Jennifer and Pam took their seats in the control room, watching as Harriet sat at the guest mic. I operated the control panel, flicking up the two mic faders.

  ‘Good morning from Silk FM,’ I said. ‘Welcome to the breakfast show. I’m Richard Young…’

  ‘… and I’m Harriet Brown. London’s weather: looking mixed – a sunny start with a top temperature of nineteen centigrade and the possibility of showers this afternoon…’

  I did a time-check, cued the first track – Nat King Cole’s ‘Mona Lisa’ – and we were off. And the weirdest thing? Even then – right from that very first link, when Harriet picked up from me mid-sentence, with no rehearsal – it felt like we’d been working together for years.

  Things continued in the same vein, with Harriet back-announcing Nat King Cole and doing a time-check.

  ‘Thank you for your emails to agony uncle Richard,’ she said. ‘It’s great to be working with such a wise owl.’

  I smiled. ‘Flattery so early in the morning?’

  ‘I don’t want to embarrass you,’ said Harriet, ‘but I knew you were smart the first time I met you.’

  ‘Only because I paid for lunch.’

  ‘No, because you listened. Which makes you a rare bird. As my Nan says, “knowledge speaks but wisdom listens”.’

  ‘Sounds like a woman who knows a thing or two.’

  ‘Guess who said it first.’

  ‘Confucius?’ I said. ‘Oscar Wilde?’

  ‘Jimi Hendrix.’

  I was about to interject but she was in full flow.

  ‘Do you know the difference between knowledge and wisdom, Richard?’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in fruit salad.’ Without breaking her stride, she glanced up at the clock. ‘And with the time at exactly six minutes past seven we go from the wisdom of the late, great Jimi Hendrix to Silk FM’s own breakfast-time guru, Richard Young…’

  Which was my cue to read the email.

  ‘ “Dear Richard,” writes Janis from Finsbury Park, “I’m a single mum with three kids and two jobs. My boyfriend wants to move in but has no job and no income thanks to chronic back pain. He says he’ll pay his way by being a house-husband and babysitter so I’ll save on childcare. I love him to bits and the kids like him, too. Do I say yes?” ’ I turned to Harriet. ‘Before I respond, what do you think?’

  ‘Hmm. Tricky one, Janis,’ said Harriet. ‘I’d need to know more before offering serious advice, like how long have you been together and what’s his history? If you’re going to leave your kids with someone, you need to be a bazillion per cent sure who you’re dealing with.’

  ‘My thoughts exactly,’ I said.

  Which was true. Okay, hardly a tough test but I’d lobbed her the question with no warning and she’d responded off the cuff. Most importantly, she’d impressed the boss. I could tell by the look on Jennifer’s face.

  The rest of the hour continued in the same vein. Right from the start, Harriet seemed entirely at ease. By the time we hit eight o’clock she sounded like a complete natural. Warm, witty, relaxed – everything required of a sidekick. As the hour came to an end, Jennifer took me aside, to ask if I was happy.

  ‘Very,’ I said.

  Even so, I was surprised by the speed of her decision. She called Harriet over.

  ‘How would you feel if we offered you the job, starting two weeks on Monday?’

  Harriet didn’t miss a beat. ‘Ecstatic.’

  ‘Terrific. We’ll talk money later.’ Jennifer extended a handshake to seal the deal. ‘We’re kicking around ideas for the show over the weekend. Are you free?’

  ‘I am now.’

  ‘Good. It’s a two-day brainstorm, figuring out a three-year strategy for Silk FM, with the focus on the new breakfast show. There’ll be flip charts and blue-sky thinking courtesy of overpaid consultants who say things like “going forward” and “360-degree thinking”.’

  Harriet turned to me, grinning.

  ‘Is this really happening?’

  I could feel my pulse quicken as I returned her smile.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s happening.’

  HARRIET

  Not gonna lie, I was totally freaking out in that studio. The Thoughts were back with a vengeance and kept crashing over me like waves during a storm I’M GOING TO SAY FUCK-FUCK-FUCKETY-FUCK IN FRONT OF THE BOSS AND RUIN EVERYTHING but I managed to push them away and it must have gone okay or they wouldn’t have offered me the job.

  Thank God for Nan – again. If she hadn’t given me one of her pep talks I’d have been sunk.

  ‘You’ll do fine, love. It’s just sitting in a little studio, chatting, like one of your voice-over thingumabobs, yeah?’

  ‘Yeah, sort of, Nan, but—’

  She frowned and wagged a finger at me.

  ‘No buts, Harriet. The point is, it’s not in front of an audience, or other actors, and that’s what makes you have a bit of a wobble.’

  I loved that. A bit of a wobble. Try: full-scale meltdown that leaves me gasping for breath and on the verge of a panic attack. All the same, she had a point. It was a bit like doing a voice-over or an audiobook, just without a script.

  But if I’m honest, taking the Silk FM gig was also a way of telling myself that I wasn’t really a barista, I was still an actress – well, a performer – without spending more than a nanosecond facing up to the fact that the thought of ever setting foot onstage again filled me with sheer blind terror. Trouble is, I’ve been reading up on ‘Pure’ OCD and that’s exactly what they say you shouldn’t do – use avoidance strategies. You’re supposed to embrace The Thoughts so they lose their power, not keep pushing them away to smoulder in the dark, gathering potency like psychological compost.

  And as for the possibility of them taking over while I’m live on-air, with gazillions of people listening to me have a very public meltdown, well, I’m not even going
there…

  TOM

  I wouldn’t call it stalking but that doesn’t make what I did right.

  Harriet called on Saturday afternoon.

  ‘They’ve offered me a job.’

  ‘Who have?’

  ‘Silk FM. I’m going to be your dad’s sidekick. On the breakfast show.’

  Fuck!

  I knew it was his dream gig. By the sound of it, it was hers too. She had the grace to sound sheepish but I could tell she was excited.

  ‘It all came together over dinner last night…’

  Over dinner…?

  ‘… after we’d finished the dry run. Jennifer said they don’t normally move so quickly – and she wasn’t even thinking about a co-presenter till Richard mentioned it – but she wants to cash in on the publicity for the Voice of London launch in a couple of weeks, so it’s all kick-bollock-scramble.’

  I cleared my throat, playing for time. This was not how things were supposed to go. It seemed pretty obvious that my father was more smitten than I’d thought. He had every intention of winning and was prepared to play dirty.

  ‘Congratulations,’ I said.

  I could hear the relief in her voice.

  ‘You mean it?’

  ‘Absolutely. Why wouldn’t I?’

  ‘Maybe because I’m going to be working with your father?’

  I did my best to sound nonchalant.

  ‘You’ll be colleagues. Co-presenters. Does that mean we can’t be friends?’

  ‘Of course not,’ she said.

  ‘So what’s the problem? It’s a great gig and leaves time for other jobs.’

  ‘So you’re happy for me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  I was amazed by the ease with which the lie sprang to my lips. We moved on quickly, talking about how the Silk FM PR woman was liaising with Transport for London’s marketing department to organize, like, press interviews and photo-calls for the coming week. I was slow on the uptake. Maybe I was in shock.

  ‘Does this mean you’ve quit your job at the café?’ I said.

  ‘Of course.’

  I took a breath.

  ‘Dalston will miss you.’

  It was the best I could do.

  ‘What about you?’ she said. I could hear the smile in her voice. She was giving me an opening but I sidestepped it.

  ‘We should celebrate,’ I said.

  ‘Definitely.’

  I had no weekend plans but needy is never a good look.

  ‘How’s next week?’ I said.

  ‘Completely crazy.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I’ll pencil in Friday. If you can’t make it let me know.’

  I heard the doorbell.

  ‘Gotta go,’ said Harriet. ‘He’s here.’

  My stomach gave a lurch.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your father. Jennifer said we need to sound like we’ve known each other forever so he’s taking me out.’

  I tried to sound casual.

  ‘Somewhere nice?’

  ‘Just my local. He suggested a restaurant but I wanted to meet on home ground, somewhere I can be myself, not worrying if I’m using the wrong knife and fork or if the thoughts are going to…’

  She tailed off.

  ‘What thoughts?’ I said.

  Her voice sounded small.

  ‘Never mind.’

  We talked for another couple of minutes but I don’t remember what was said. The conversation ended and I gazed at my phone for, like, half an hour, then stared into the middle distance till the room grew dark.

  When an email pinged in, I waited several minutes before checking my phone. If this was a message from Harriet I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what she had to say. That’s the thing about being smitten. Falling in love blows a fuse inside my head and makes me doubt myself. Love should come with a health warning, like cigarettes. Love may cause inability to think clearly. Do not love while using heavy machinery. Love may lead to loss of appetite and sleep. Love may lead to poor judgement.

  I finally checked the email and saw it wasn’t from Harriet. My first reaction was relief. Then I frowned. It was from someone called Paul Mendoza. His name was familiar but it took a moment before things fell into place.

  The producer guy, the one at the networking event.

  I’d sent him a couple of songs from the musical and here he was, popping into my inbox on a Saturday night and apologizing for not having replied sooner. My pulse-rate quickened as I read his message. I read it a second time, blinking in disbelief not just at the contents but at the timing too. Next thing I knew, I was on my bike, heading for Walthamstow.

  HARRIET

  Dad would soooo love Richard’s car. It’s a 1964 E-Type Jag, pillar box red. The word ‘phallic’ doesn’t do it justice. A babe magnet but classy, too. Some middle-aged blokes, they get a classic motor and look like knobs. ‘Boys and their toys’ and all that. Not Richard. He loves his car but he’s not precious about it and it’s not pristine. Thank God. The number of times I’ve spilled coffee or smeared ketchup all over Nan’s Micra.

  ‘Never save anything for best,’ he said as we pulled away from the kerb. ‘It’s a nice car but that’s all it is – a car. For driving, not sitting in a museum.’

  I could do without the personalized number-plate – too flash for my taste – but each to their own.

  We could have walked – the pub’s only a couple of streets away – but I could see he wanted to check out my reaction to his wheels. I didn’t have to pretend. I was impressed.

  ‘Do you know about cars?’ I said.

  He shrugged.

  ‘I can change the oil and fix a flat tyre but that’s about it.’

  Tick.

  Dad says a man’s not a man unless he can light a fire, wire a plug and mend a puncture. Oh, and carve a chicken and tie a bow tie – not that I’ve ever seen him wear one. I’m not sure what he’d make of Richard. It’s not the age gap, more the way he makes his living. I can hear Dad now.

  ‘A bleedin’ DJ? Not exactly a proper job, is it?’

  Like they say, you can take the boy out of the East End blah blah blah…

  (All the same, Richard could definitely be considered a DILF. That’s a thing, right?)

  He found a parking space outside the pub. Heads turned as we went inside. A couple of lads laughed, taking the piss. I was embarrassed but not about the car – it was Richard’s hat that made me want to roll my eyes. God, I hate fedoras. The über-twat’s hat of choice, IMHO. Still, I didn’t know him well enough to start criticizing the way he dresses. I once told Cockweasel I hated him coming over in trackies and trainers. ‘It’s disrespectful, like you don’t think I’m worth making an effort.’ He told me he wore ‘proper’ clothes at work so dressing down showed he was relaxed and I should take it as a compliment. Then he saw my face so he apologized and promised to try harder. Next time I saw him he turned up in triple denim and cowboy boots, taking the piss. I should have known then.

  Still, that was then, this is now. With the Silk FM job, the Voice of London gig and two decent-looking blokes paying a bit of attention, it was amazing how quickly things could turn around. At the same time, I knew everything could fall to pieces in an instant, especially if The Thoughts took over and/or I messed things up with Richard. So it felt like the pub was a test, a kind of audition. He hadn’t mentioned our Hyde Park Corner snogathon and neither had I. It was our elephant in the room, flapping its ears and trumpeting, but if that’s how he wanted to play things, fine by me.

  He bought a pricey bottle of red and we settled at a table in the corner. We talked about the breakfast show for a while. He said the trick is to imagine I’m talking to one person.

  ‘A mother getting the kids ready for school, say, or a man shaving. Think how they’re feeling. Frazzled? Running late? Too much to do, too little time? Dreading the commute to work? They need a show that sets them up for the day. Music, news, weather and travel, yes – but they also need to feel the person
on the radio is their friend, someone who knows what they’re going through and can make them smile, which is where you come in.’

  ‘I’m no comedian,’ I said. ‘Especially first thing in the morning.’

  ‘Be yourself and the banter will come naturally.’ He sipped his wine. ‘Become your listener’s friend and they’ll stick with you for life.’

  I like a man who knows what he’s on about. Doesn’t matter if it’s beer or books, astronomy or architecture – there’s something sexy about a bloke who knows his onions. (BTW: if you want to know where that phrase comes from, Nan told me it was a bloke called S. G. Onions who made counterfeit coins to teach kids how to recognize the real thing. If they could tell the fake coin from the genuine article, it meant they ‘knew their onions’. I don’t believe a word but Nan swears it’s true.)

  I listened as Richard told me more about his hopes for the new show and what it had been like working at other radio stations and how he’d ended up at Silk FM, even though the music he has to play is for the Saga generation. Just as it was starting to feel like a monologue, he apologized for monopolizing the conversation and asked me about my family. So I told him about Mum and Dad’s shops, how they’d spent years saving up for the cruise, and how I was staying with Nan while they were away.

  ‘So you’ve never lived away from home?’

  ‘I had a flat for a while,’ I said, not mentioning that it was during the Cockweasel phase. ‘But it got lonely so I moved back home.’

  For the first hour, I was on my guard, hoping he wouldn’t get flirty. By the time we ordered a second bottle there was no sign of anything leery so I started to relax.

  ‘Tom says you have a tricky relationship,’ I said.

  Richard raised an eyebrow.

  ‘I was wondering when his name would come up.’