Barefoot in the Dark Read online

  ‘No,’ he said, idly twizzling the laces round his finger. ‘I just didn’t know what else to do with it.’

  ‘Er… leave it there?’ Patti suggested. ‘Bet you were popular when its owner came limping back for it and found it had disappeared.’

  ‘Ah, but I figured they wouldn’t,’ he said. ‘It had obviously been there a while. And a Northbound train came in while I was waiting for mine, so they clearly weren’t going to, either. Would you, in the rain? I thought I’d take it down to Central Station and hand it in at the lost property office.’

  Patti crossed the cubicle again and reached behind him for mugs. ‘But you didn’t.’

  ‘No. I schlepped all the way down there and it was shut.’ He placed the trainer back on the filing cabinet and smiled fondly at it. For reasons he couldn’t fathom exactly, the absurdity of finding this pristine little trainer had brought an unexpected lift to his day. A good deed done. A resolution adhered to. ‘I’ll drop it by tomorrow,’ he said, gathering up his script. Patti was poised by the coffee machine, waiting. Jack nodded. ‘Make mine a large one, will you? Oh, and no sugar.’

  ‘No sugar?’ she asked incredulously, teaspoon arrested mid-plunge.

  ‘New Year’s resolution number thirty,’ said Jack.

  Jack’s show, which was (to his mind at least) rather unimaginatively called ‘Valentine’s Day’, had been running from eleven till one, Mondays to Fridays for well over three and a half years. Almost an institution, as Hilary, their most recent producer, had not long ago pointed out. This comment, with its scary Jimmy Young-ish connotations, had alarmed Jack. His contract was due for renewal in a few months, and he wondered, as he was apt to recently, how they’d take it if he didn’t want to renew, if – no, no, when– he was offered the job at ITV Wales.

  He slipped the cans from his ears and sat back for a breather while they went to the ‘Daily Audio Diary’ – a regular they ran before the twelve-thirty news. For reasons best known to herself, Hilary had thought it would be interesting to give the job this week to a retired clam digger from Tenby, a man in his eighties with a fearsome cough. This, the first of five three-minute shorts was, even with some fairly brutal editing, not so much a diary as a montage of alarming respiratory symptoms, punctuated with violent expulsions of phlegm. Patti pulled the cans from her own head and winced.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ she observed. ‘That is sonot nice. Anyway. Good weekend?’

  Jack, who knew Patti spent the bulk of her weekend hopping from bar to club to all-night rave to bar again (between intervals spent shopping for her peculiar handbags), wondered whether now would be a good moment to admit that his principal post-divorce occupation was not the procurement of young women, as Patti imagined, but the sharing of one too many pints of Fosters with Danny in the Dog and Trouserleg. He needed to get out more. He needed to get inmore, in fact.

  ‘I emulsioned my bedroom,’ he confessed. ‘I bought a new toaster. I had a row with a man in B and Q about a light bulb. Oh, and I found an abandoned trainer at the station this morning. Does that count as a high spot?’

  Patti smiled indulgently. ‘Ahhh. Hey, but I’m sure Prince Charming would have thought so. Except the owner of that –’ she nodded her head towards the adjacent cubicle, ‘– is probably not so much gorgeous blonde in ball gown as irritating pubescent with tongue-stud and scowl.’ She began flicking idly through the next two pages of her script. ‘A nice thought, though.’

  ‘What is?’ said Jack, who had lost the thread, having moved on from contemplation of his risible social life to the contemplation of his impending transformation from successful young broadcaster (he hadbeen that once, hadn’t he?) to irritable old git who lived on Pot Noodles and shouted at cars.

  ‘That trainer. The thought that it might belong to a latterday Cinderella. Be rather karmic, wouldn’t it? If you tracked her down. I mean, what with you being such a dead ringer for Prince Charming and all… ’

  He glanced at her now. She was winding him up.

  There was a crackle in his cans. Hilary, who sounded as though she was eating a crustacean of some sort, waved at him through the glass.

  ‘You can do me a favour, Jack, actually,’ she mumbled at him through it. ‘We’ve got five minutes to fill at one thirty-five because that MP we’d arranged on the sewage story has had to go and have an abscess drained. Have a prattle about it then, why don’t you? You’re good at that. It’ll save me trawling around for something else for you to go to.’

  Patti grinned. Then slapped a hand down on her script. ‘Now there’sa thought! Hil? We should make it a comp. We should offer a prize to whoever comes to claim it. That would be a laugh, wouldn’t it?’

  Laugh? Competitions were the bane of Jack’s life. Constantly bombarded with freebies from publicists – here’s three copies of our latest bestseller, now if you could just manage a brief interview… and maybe a teensy mention of the title… there was a constant flow of stuff to be won and shipped out. They spent ridiculous amounts of time sifting through emails and postcards and even more packaging up parcels of tat. Back when he’d been working at Red Dragon FM and they’d come by a (sweaty, frankly) Craig James tour T-shirt, they’d had enough emails and phone calls almost to jam the national grid.

  And what would be the point? Quite apart from the fact that he knew he was being teased (so why the hell hadhe picked the trainer up, anyway?), the chances of anyone listening actually owning it were about as likely as Wales winning the next World Cup. The nearest the average ‘Valentine’s Day’listener got to leisure footwear was the sort of crepe soled shoe you could buy in Clarks and fold in half. The notion depressed him. He was forty years old. In radio terms, almost out to pasture. Almost in the hinterland of light chat and muzak. In lifeterms almost out to pasture, come to that. How long before he would start feeling drawn to beige clothes? And just when he had so much to give. He really needed to step up his TV encroachment campaign. Perhaps he would call Allegra after he’d finished up here, and see how things were shaping up with the new show. Perhaps he’d finally ask her out for that drink. Or perhaps not. She might say yes. No. Let’s face it. notthe right attitude. He wouldring Allegra. He Wouldsay yes. And there was football on Sky. Shouldn’t risk it. Yes, he should. This wasmust.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, flicking through his own script. It would at least save him another trip to Central Station. He took a final gulp of his coffee and grimaced. He would have to dump resolution number thirty, for certain. ‘Whatever,’ he said. ‘Yeah, OK. I’ll fill with the trainer. Have we got a prize of some sort knocking around?’

  Chapter 3

  ‘Be of good cheer!’ announced Simon. ‘Because I have found your trainer!’

  Hope, who was only of fair to middling cheer most days at the moment, was sitting in the staff room repairing the seam on a suede cushion. She looked up now to see Simon in the doorway, a refill pad clutched to his chest.

  She smiled nevertheless. Because that was what you did. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Your trainer,’ he went on, crossing the room and plonking himself down opposite her. ‘It’s turned up! Who’d have believed it?’

  ‘Not me, for one. Who’s found it? Did someone hand it in or something?’ This was patently impossible. Who would know it was hers?

  Simon shook his head. ‘Nope!’ he said happily. ‘It’s turned up on the radio.’

  Hope stopped stitching. ‘The radio?’

  He gestured back towards the office. ‘Just then. I wasn’t really listening, but then they mentioned Cefn Melin Station – it’s some sort of competition they’ve got going.’

  ‘You’ve lost me.’

  ‘I’m not sure what it’s all about, but the gist was that someone there found the trainer a few days back and they’ve been asking the listeners to help find its owner.’ He consulted his pad. ‘Reebok. Size four. It has to be yours.’

  Hope filed the information that he had noted this information and fretted about it. ‘Sounds a bit d
aft.’

  ‘Oh, it’s some sort of spoof. It’s that kind of show. They’ve called it Operation Cinderella. From what I could make out, they’ve been asking people to ring in. Anyway, I made a note of the number for you.’

  Hope finished the knot and bit the end off the cotton. She wasn’t sure whether to be amused – it wasfunny – or, more pressingly, alarmed at the little swirly doodles she could see Simon had drawn next to her name on his pad. His quiet devotion, which had been burgeoning steadily since her divorce, was becoming almost palpable. And the longer he went on without doing anything about it the worse her inevitable rejection would be. Perhaps she should invent a lover to dissuade him. Perhaps she should invent one anyway. So much less stressful than a real one.

  ‘Well, if it’s true, that’s incredible. I mean, what are the chances of that happening?’

  ‘I know,’ he said happily. ‘So I got the number –’

  She stabbed the needle back into the spool of cotton. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘– so you can ring and fix up when you’re going on.’

  ‘Going on? What, on the radio?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘God, I don’t have to do that, do I?’

  ‘Oh, I think you probably do. So you can claim your prize.’

  ‘There’s a prize?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Apparently. Champagne, I think.’

  ‘Really? God, how embarrassing.’

  ‘What’s embarrassing?’

  This was Madeleine, who had spent the morning in discussion with a big supermarket sponsor and who had returned with a melon under one arm. She put it down and crossed her arms, while Simon repeated his news.

  ‘And no-one else has come to claim it, apparently. So he said, anyway.’

  ‘So who said?’ asked Madeleine.

  ‘Jack Valentine.’

  ‘Jack Valentine? What, the presenter, Jack Valentine? Really?’ Madeleine clearly knew who he was. Which was more than Hope did.

  ‘So have you called them?’ Madeleine asked, turning to her.

  Hope grimaced. ‘Not yet. I’m just trying to tot up all the reasons why not, but I can think of any. Give me a minute.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, Hope. Call them!’ urged Simon.

  Madeleine, who always thought on her feet, clicked her fingers. ‘Hey, hey hey!’ she said suddenly. ‘Hey hey hey!’

  ‘Hey hey what?’ asked Hope, picking up the cotton and the cushion, and not liking the sound of things at all.

  ‘Hey hey hey,’ Madeleine said again, fifteen minutes later, and this time on a rising note. ‘This is good.This is doublegood, in fact. Tell me, Simon,’ she went on, turning to train her beam upon him. ‘Just how big is this radio show anyway? Prime time?’

  ‘Lunchtime,’ he said. ‘It’s just finished.’

  ‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘That’s a little disappointing. I thought he was on in the mornings. But nevertheless… never-the-less…’

  ‘Nevertheless what?’ Hope asked her.

  ‘You know what I’m thinking, don’t you?’ she said, grinning. ‘I’m thinking the fun run.’

  ‘You are?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Er, why?’

  ‘Trainers, of course! Serendipity! The happy correlation that you surely cannot fail to see which exists between between a lost trainer and a charity fun run! You cansee it, can’t you? We can make something out of this. I’m thinking the P word. I’m thinking the Cword. I’m – God, yes– thinking the Sword, in fact.’

  As manager of the Heartbeat fundraising department Hope knew all about the P word and the S word, of course. Together they comprised her mission statement. Her raison d’etre. Publicity and Sponsorship. Or, more accurately, ways and means of prising cash from the wallets of the financially well-placed. Which in the case of putting on an event of this magnitude – which was what they were trying to do right now – was no small feat, as the heaps of polite rejections on Hope’s desk bore witness to. It wasn’t, she thought, great for her psyche, this job.

  Madeleine slipped her backside on to the corner of Simon’s desk, scattering his carefully stacked piles of receipts. And then splayed her fingers.

  ‘We have a misplaced trainer, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And now we also have access to a celebrity.’

  Ah. That would be the C word, then. ‘Right,’ agreed Hope.

  ‘Which means we have a chance of some publicity.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So what does that add up to? Hmm?’

  ‘Sponsorship,’ announced Simon with the oily beam of a clever-dick school boy.

  ‘Exactly,’ beamed Madeleine. ‘Precisely, Simon. We have, in short, a serious fundraising opportunity here.’

  She trained her eyes upon Hope.

  ‘You, in fact,’ she said, stabbing the air in front of her. ‘Youhave a serious fundraising opportunity here, Hope. Or should I say Cinderella?’ She threw her head back and laughed her big laugh. ‘Because, sweetie, you are going to the ball.’

  ‘Export this time?’

  Jack took a long look at the half pint of beer that was beginning to swim in front of him. This was becoming too much of a habit. He and Danny had been here less than an hour and a half, but already they had got through three pints each. Well, two and a half in his case. He wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or concerned that he was a good half pint behind.

  ‘Christ, mate,’ he said, pretending a midweek joie de vivrethat was entirely at odds with the whining of his gut. It was becoming tiring, this façade of buckish blokedom he felt obliged to veneer himself with whenever he was with Danny in the pub. But it was required. He was wifeless and carefree and potent. And he had wasted no time in broadcasting the fact. Which was another good reason for not upending the Export with such fervour. Because doing so made him believe everything Danny said, including the notion that women would be queuing round the block for him. (Twenty-seven-year-olds, blonde and leggy, they’d agreed.) The sober him knew this was not about to happen, because for it to happen you first had to be there. On the block. Out there. Ready for action. Yet he wasn’t even sure where ‘there’ actually was. He shook his head. ‘You’re a bit ferocious on the beer tonight, aren’t you?’

  Danny had stood up and was ferreting in his jeans pocket for money.

  ‘Bah! What’s the matter with you? It’s – oh. Hey. Almost forgot. He pulled something else from his pocket and handed it to Jack. It was a pink post-it note with a website address scribbled on it.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Dave gave it to me. Thought you might like it too. Don’t worry. It’s all straight stuff,’ he added. ‘College girls. Cheerleaders. That sort of thing. Check it out.’

  Jack read it. www.shaggalicious.com.

  God. It wouldn’t, it couldn’t, come to that.

  He sat back. He would have to knock this on the head. This was the second Wednesday running that he had drunk one too many in the Dog and Trouserleg. And would, as a consequence, be the second Thursday running that he surfaced for work as if from a particularly noisome and gloopy swamp, with a number of large mammals playing keepy-uppy on his head. He was too old for midweek drinking. It had been all right when he was young but now a hangover was becoming a two-day event, the love affair between his stomach and lager having gone the same way as his marriage to Lydia. Dyspeptic and altogether sour.

  Forgetting to eat. That was the thing. That was why he felt as if his duodenum was trying to make a forced entry through the back of his tonsils. Gastric irritation. Drinking on an empty stomach. He could almost hear Lydia droning on about it now. But it was true. He had not eaten since eleven-thirty and that had only been a doughnut. The consequences of this oversight, which were becoming more apparent by the moment, lowered his mood further. So wimpish. So girly.

  ‘So go on, then,’ Danny urged, flapping a damp ten-pound note in the face of the barmaid. She was new, and called Emma. Jack didn’t know how Danny had garnered so much i
nformation about her, but she was apparently nineteen, and in her gap year before starting a degree in European Studies at college. But she was mainly, everyone agreed (and Jack wasn’t about to contradict them), a bit-of-a-serious-babe. She was also busy serving someone else, so she ignored Danny. He turned back to Jack. ‘Go on then,’ he said again. ‘Give us the low-down. Did your mystery Cinderella turn out to be a stunner, or what? I hear she got in touch.’

  Jack suppressed a sigh. Danny, whose current grounding was in the shape of three kids in five years (one only weeks old) and a wife with a hands-on approach to fighting off hands-on activities, was apt to regular flights of carnal speculation. Jack sometimes wondered if Danny was having less sex than he was. Which would have been difficult.

  ‘Haven’t a clue,’ he replied. He had, if he was honest, entirely lost interest in the subject. No. More than that. The trainer nonsense was beginning to fill him with an ill-defined but distinct unease. He was beginning to find the whole spectrum of nonsensical things he was obliged to do in the name of listener numbers embarrassing. When he’d got his MA in Broadcast Journalism, was this the kind of thing he’d had in mind? This puerile quasi game-show presenter he was turning into? It was not. He had nothing against game-show hosting as a career choice. It was just that it had never been his.

  ‘I haven’t met her yet,’ he said dully, reconsidering the alarming volume of beer still in his glass. ‘I didn’t even speak to her. Hil did. She’s coming in Friday.’ It was of little consequence. All he knew of the trainer’s owner was that she was thirty-nine and that she worked for some charity or other. The word ‘cardigan’ had lodged itself in his mind. As had ‘worthy’ and ‘well-scrubbed’. Why ‘scrubbed’, particularly? It just seemed to fit. He wasn’t holding his breath.

  Danny drained the glass in his hand and sighed extravagantly. ‘God, I envy you,’ he said, as if he’d only just thought about it. ‘My whole life right now is just one long round of crap and sick and Jules having a face on. What I wouldn’t give to be you, mate.’