Name & Address Withheld (42 page)

‘You’re right. Thanks. I just can’t believe I was so stupid.’

‘You’re not the only one out there, Sarah. In fact—straw poll. Hands up here in the studio everyone who’s snogged a colleague in the past and it’s all ended in awkwardness or tears… Hmm. Let’s see…I’d say that’s five out of six of us.’

Sarah giggled. ‘Thanks, Lizzie. I feel heaps better already.’

‘Hey, no worries, Sarah. Better luck next time.’

All was not well in the driver’s seat. He didn’t like to admit it, but Lizzie was sounding different tonight. Her mood was—well, cheeky, almost, excited, happy. Too happy. Something had changed since last Thursday. She’d been just as good then—funny, even—but this was different. Now she was being almost flirtatious. He slumped in his seat. Fuck. Could she have met somebody else? All the odds were in her favour. Intelligent, beautiful, funny, sexy—very sexy—and available. God, he was stupid to think she would just be around for him for ever.

He took a piece of chewing gum from the supply he kept in his glove compartment and chewed vigorously. He’d kept
telling himself that he just wanted her to be happy, and after what he’d put her through it was the very least she deserved, but what about his chance to get things right? To show her he was serious? He was living on his own now. Happy alone. Not just behaving like a typical male and flinging himself from one woman to the next, regardless of name, face or personality. She deserved so much more than he’d given her. She wasn’t responding to his overtures of reconciliation, but he really wanted to talk to her.

Frustrated, he spat his gum onto the tarmac before drumming his fingers on the side of the car. He dialled the City FM number into his mobile and held the phone to his ear, but he didn’t press ‘call’. As the traffic ground to a halt once again, he closed his eyes, rested his head on the headrest and listened. Lizzie’s voice soothed and haunted him all at the same time.

‘Right. Who’s next…?’

Lizzie looked down at her scribbled notes in the margin of the running order.

‘Remember, the number to call is 0990 99 88 77, and I’m here for you until eleven tonight. Next I’m going to see what I can do for Robbie on line four… Good evening, Robbie.’

‘Hello, Lizzie. All right, sweetheart? Here it is in a nutshell…’

In a nutshell? Was the man a squirrel?

‘Ready?’

Lizzie could feel instant dislike creeping into her headphones, but made sure her feelings remained undetectable beneath several layers of professional veneer.

‘Ready.’

‘Me and me best mate—’

Lizzie winced. She didn’t like to think that she was one of those people who pulled grammatical rank, but sometimes the increasingly everyday use of
EastEnders
English grated. She buttoned her lip and resisted the almost overwhelming urge she
had to mutter ‘my best friend and I’ or just ‘me and my best friend’, and focused on listening sympathetically instead.

‘—are in love with the same girl. We met her at the same time and we both fancy her like mad. The trouble is I really want to ask her out again, but I think my mate would go spare.’

Go spare… Another phrase straight out of Walford’s mouth. ‘Ask her out
again
? So you’ve tried and failed in the past?’

‘Yeah. Well, not exactly failed. We both went out with her—if you know what I’m saying—in our first year at college. He went out with her first, but then I sharked her off him. He was well cross.’

‘Right. OK.’

Lizzie wasn’t sure that it was right or OK. She was tempted to ask him what he’d done at college that didn’t require him to be able to formulate a coherent sentence, but decided to keep her prejudice to herself. Robbie seemed to think he was a bit of a stud. Lizzie’s gut instinct told her otherwise. But she knew better than to get personal.

‘Does the girl involved know how you both feel?’ Lizzie never ceased to be amazed at how people got themselves into these situations. There was a slight pause while Robbie did his best to summon any emotional intelligence he had to the fore. His search engine was going to have trouble finding any.

‘Not sure. Not really. We’re all still mates and that. We have a few classes together every week. It’s just that I really want to be with her. We had some good times, you know. If you know what I mean. Trouble is, she’s sort of got a boyfriend at the moment. Nothing serious or nothin’, but it makes it all a bit more tricky.’

‘I see…’ It seemed the girl had managed a lucky escape…unless, of course, she was still working her way through all the undergraduates. Lizzie doubted it. She was sure she could do better than Robbie at any rate. ‘Can I ask how old you are, Robbie?’

‘Twenty.’

‘And your mate?’

‘Twenty.’

Mere children. In men’s years they were still only in their
early-to-mid-teens, with way too much testosterone for their own good. Lizzie knew she had to take his problem at face value, even if she was certain that he wouldn’t know love if it came up and tapped him on the shoulder.

‘And the girl?’

Poor love, Lizzie thought to herself. Two hormonally charged students lusting over her and calling up a radio station for maximum embarrassment when she’s trying to date someone else. Lizzie hoped she wasn’t listening.

‘Twenty-one, I think.’ True love? Hardly. He didn’t even know how old she was, let alone her star sign.

‘Have you seen anybody else since the two of you split up?’ Deathly silence. ‘Robbie?’

‘Well…no…not really. I could’ve shagged untold women if I’d wanted, but trouble is I’m in love with her. I should never have let her go.’

‘And can I ask why it ended?’

‘Um…well, she said something about me being immature or something…’ Lizzie had to swallow hard to remove the smile in her voice ‘…but that was like a year and a bit ago. Now I know what she wants. Trouble is my mate thinks that he does too. I don’t want this to become some sort of competition.’

Oh, yes. Much less immature now, quite obviously. ‘Well, Robbie, if she’s seeing someone else at the moment and seems to be quite happy with him then I think you and your friend have got your answer. She’s not the only girl on the planet, or even on campus, and I think you’ll find it’s much easier and much more fun to go out with someone that wants to go out with you too. Plus, it isn’t just up to you two to decide, as you so generously put it, “who gets her”. If this girl was single—and she’s obviously not at the moment—ultimately it would be up to her to decide who she wanted to go out with, and assuming that she would even contemplate going back over old ground, if you and your mate don’t think that you could cope with one of you being chosen over the other then maybe you should agree that she is off-limits for both of you.’

‘But…’

‘You’ll get over it. You’re still young. I’d say get out there and have some fun. But remember—good sex is safe sex.’

‘So just shag around and see what happens?’ Robbie didn’t sound heartbroken at the prospect of seeing some other girls. True love was on ice.

‘You really do have a way with words, Robbie. I’m surprised there isn’t a queue…’

It was too much for the production team. Phil snorted into Lizzie’s headset, and out of the corner of her eye she could see the researchers laughing in the phone room. ‘And a top tip from me—maybe if you don’t call it “shagging around”, you might just find that there are more girls interested in spending some time with you. ‘

Ben was the only one of the team suffering a sense of humour failure, and he shook his head firmly at her. Lizzie shrugged her shoulders and mouthed ‘tosser’ at Ben, but Ben always had been a bit of a goody-goody. Lizzie knew that plenty of her listeners would approve of the sarcastic approach in this instance. And she was sure Robbie could take it—assuming, of course, he’d even got it in the first place.

‘OK, then.’ Robbie seemed unfazed. She didn’t get the impression that he was particularly well endowed in the grey matter department, or indeed in any area. ‘And Lizzie?’

‘Yup?’

‘One more thing.’

Oh, no. Lizzie was sure she didn’t want to hear this, but she couldn’t just cut him off… Phil could, though. She nodded at Phil and mimed cutting her throat with her finger, but he was obviously doing something technical and wasn’t looking. Damn.

‘I’d love to buy you a beer… It’s about time someone gave you a night to remember. You’re single now aren’t you? Forget married men. What you need is a younger model.’

It was no good. Phil lost it totally, and as he fell about in the studio Lizzie could see the researcher who’d briefed Robbie tearing her hair out in the phone gallery at the way it was all
going. He obviously hadn’t sounded like a total wanker when she’d taken the call earlier.

‘Yeah, Robbie—whatever. Don’t wait up.’

Time to move it all on. Lizzie glanced at the studio clock and her running order. ‘Right it’s 8:22 and you’re listening to City FM on 99.9. Coming up after the adverts is a man with a voice to soothe and a soul to die for. Mr Bill Withers and “Lean on Me”. Stay with us. We’ll be back right after these.’

It was all cued up. Lizzie took her headphones off for a minute. Her ears needed some air. Ben’s body language indicated he was limbering up for a rant.

‘Steady on, Liz. He rang in for advice, not a dressing down.’

‘He was a jumped-up little wanker, Ben, and you know it.’

‘You know you just have to be nice, though. It’s still the first half-hour of the show and you never know who’s listening.’

‘Ease up.’ Phil came to Lizzie’s defence. ‘He was a total twat…probably wanks himself to sleep over her publicity shot…’

‘Thanks.’ His intentions might have been honourable but Lizzie didn’t appreciate the mental picture that Phil had just painted. It was too sordid for her female mind to want to visualise. Men.

‘Don’t worry, mate.’ Phil hadn’t finished yet. ‘Seriously, I doubt he was listening…and even if he was I bet he was having a bloody good laugh. You have to draw the line somewhere.’

Ben was always paranoid until 9:00 p.m. as he had it on good authority—i.e. he had slept with the controller’s PA’s best friend on more than one occasion—that big boss Richard Drake often listened to the first part of her show on a Tuesday, when he was at the gym. Lizzie hoped he had been mid-sit-up during her mini-outburst, just in case he, like Ben, had failed to see the funny side.

‘Sorry.’ It wouldn’t have registered on even the most sensitive apology scale but it seemed to do the trick for now. Just sometimes Lizzie had to handle things her way.

Phil mixed back to the studio a few seconds early and Lizzie was miles away, with Bill Withers and a bunch of flowers. It
was only a split-second silence, but enough to get Ben waving his arms quite strenuously. Lizzie dipped her head to apologise silently while burbling away into her microphone on automatic pilot.

‘How was that for you? I love that song. Restores my faith in human nature. Remember, you can always lean on us if you need anything. The number, just to remind you, is 0990 99 88 77 and the time is 8:26. I’m Lizzie Ford. You’re listening to City FM and this is
The Agony and the Ecstasy.
’

As she was going through her spiel Ben’s voice cut into her headphones. ‘Lost Sam on line six; instead going to line five. A man. Won’t give his name. Wing it and for Christ’s sake be gentle. Only three minutes thirty-two to the news.’

‘Now, we have a mystery man on line five who’d rather not give us his name.’

Could it be? Lizzie was an irrepressible optimist.

‘Hello, line five.’ She was as cheery as you could be if you didn’t know who you were about to speak to and were hoping for the man of your daydream to surprise you. Her heart skipped a beat in the momentary silence before he spoke.

‘Hello, Lizzie.’

It wasn’t the voice she’d been hoping to hear. She fought off disappointment. No wonder she always felt let down. Her expectations were obviously far too high.

‘I need a bit of a female perspective.’

‘I can certainly help you with that…’ He sounded normal enough, and thankfully a million miles from Planet Robbie at any rate.

‘It all sounds a bit pathetic, really, but I didn’t know who else to call. The thing is I’ve had a bit of a fight with my girlfriend. I’m thirty-two and we’ve been together for just over a year and a half now, and it’s all been going really well. Then, in a fit of jealousy, I went and accused her of something she hasn’t done. She denied it, but I wouldn’t take no for an answer, so she packed me a bag, took my keys and threw me out of the flat. Now she won’t have me back because she says that she can’t share her life with a man who doesn’t trust her.’

‘You can see her point. Why didn’t you believe her the first time?’

‘Oh, all the usual recipes for disaster. I’d had a couple of beers; I’d been wound up by my mates. I just lost it, I’m afraid. I realise now that I was totally out of order. I love her and I want to make it up to her. She means the world to me. But typically every time I try and apologise something goes wrong, and now she won’t even answer my calls. I leave messages every time. I’ve even dropped in to see her but she never answers the door.’

‘Maybe she’s out.’

‘Maybe. Either way, I just don’t know what to do next.’

‘If I were you I’d lay off the heavy-handed approach…stop pestering her with calls and visits. Don’t take this the wrong way, but right now she’s probably worrying that you’re some sort of nutter. If you keep this up she’ll think she’s had a lucky escape.’

They were running up to the news. Ben had just started counting down twenty seconds in her eyeline. Pushed for time and thinking about Matt, Lizzie knew exactly what to suggest.

‘Send her some flowers and a simple message and then sit tight. If she still doesn’t get in touch wait a few days, then give her a call—just the one, though. Tell her how you feel, but make sure you give her time to come round. Don’t bombard her with attention. There’s a fine line between stalking and caring. Let her miss you and just remember that to be there for her you don’t need to be sitting on her doorstep when she gets back from work every day. Give her space, but don’t give up. No one said women were easy, but we’re worth it.’