“Miss Needham was at Frank Jasper’s show the other night,” I feel driven to explain.
I don’t see why this antagonises her—at least, not until she says “It isn’t Miss.”
“Forgive me, you did say there was just you and your sister.”
She gazes at me as sadly as Jasper did. “I lost my husband last year.”
How could I know that? I’m tempted to point out that Jasper should have if he were what he claims to be, but she’s saying “Maybe now you can understand how much it meant to hear from someone who’s gone over.
That sounds like being unable to keep your balance, a thought I suffocate with all the sympathy I can muster. “I do, Mrs Needham.”
“Then why did you make fun of my feelings on your show?”
“I honestly don’t think I did. If you can bear to listen—”
“I’ve listened to you long enough. It’s like my friend says, you can’t bear hearing anybody but yourself.” Her wrist grows shaky as she levers herself to her feet, and she bats me away with the back of her other hand as I make to aid her. “I won’t be wasting any more time,” she says, “talking to anyone here.”
“If you’d like to speak to the station manager—”
“He lets you get away with what you do, does he? Then I wouldn’t want to know him.”
I poke the lift button on her behalf, earning a nod that I’m not sufficiently unwise to mistake for approval. She stares up at the ruddy numbers until a lift arrives with a thin ding of its electronic bell. Once the doors have shut behind her Shilpa murmurs “I expect she said all she wanted to say.”
I don’t even know whether I’m entitled to hope that’s the case. I should have been aware of trespassing on her emotions when I put her on the air, but how much more cynically did Jasper use them? I mightn’t have broadcast the recording if Paula hadn’t told me to be more confrontational. Or am I blaming her and Jasper to avoid taking all the blame I should? I’d like to talk to Christine about it—I feel as if I’m keeping a secret from her as I return to my desk. While she’s busy in the control room, perhaps I should mention the incident to Paula; suppose Cheryl Needham decides to complain to our new owners? I’m pushing back my chair when a face looks in from the reception area. I clamp my hands on the sides of the desk and rise slowly out of a crouch as I see I’m not mistaken. It’s Frank Jasper.
9: A Hesitant Assertion
I don’t know if Jasper saw me. He’s beyond Shilpa’s counter, and moves away to speak to someone—Cheryl Needham, I’m instinctively sure. He was surveying the newsroom the way he used to look around at school, searching for somebody to use or to impress. That’s what he did before playing his trick with the knife. The similarity is one more reason for my fists to close while I stalk across the room to ease the door wide.
Cheryl Needham isn’t out there, but several people are with Jasper. There’s a man tall and broad enough to guard the entrance to a nightclub. He’s wearing a suit, unlike the teenager in a singlet that exhibits how he’s worked on the muscles of his brawny arms. I feel as if I ought to recognise the men and their companion, a small pale fleshy woman with red hair. I saw them recently—saw them with Jasper outside the Palace. They must be fans he’s brought along to witness whatever routine he intends to perform, and I speak to Shilpa because I don’t immediately trust myself to be polite to him. “Any problem, Shilpa?”
“We’ve not been any, have we, love?” the large man says and simpers at her.
I don’t need to be psychic to identify the redhead as his wife, since she seems to think he’s making too much of Shilpa. Perhaps that’s why Jasper intervenes. “Robbie and Margaret,” he says before turning to the almost neckless teenager. “And Wayne, let me introduce you all to—”
“Allow me. I’m Graham Wilde.”
The woman seems about to speak, but her husband shakes his bulky head. It’s Wayne who says “So?”
“Didn’t Frank mention me? I was a subject of his. The one with the grandfather who didn’t have a name.”
The large man looks ready to defend Jasper. He’s beginning to put me in mind of a bodyguard, not least because his flat crooked nose looks like a result of a punch. “We don’t know anything about that, chum,” he says.
“You just missed another of your subjects, Frank. The lady whose aunt didn’t make a will was complaining about the show.”
Jasper adopts his saddened look. “I hope she wasn’t complaining about me.”
“Give over distracting Frank, will you.” Wayne is giving me a red-eyed glare. “We’re here for my girlfriend.”
However unlikely the idea seems in a number of ways, I can only ask “Is she working here?”
“Are you having a fucking laugh?”
“It’s all right, Wayne,” the woman says more indulgently than I find appropriate. “He’s not going to know.”
“Then he fucking should. They all should.”
“Cover your lugs if you need to, love,” the large man tells Shilpa. “I reckon you’re not used to our kind of language.”
“Don’t be making out it’s mine,” says his wife.
“Someone should be with you very soon,” Shilpa assures them all, unless she’s warning them.
“Thought that’s what he was for.”
Apparendy Wayne has me in mind. As he shows more displeasure by turning his back on me, I catch sight of the tattoo that occupies much of the left side of his short neck. So I didn’t recognise him and his companions just from seeing them outside the Palace. “Forgive me,” I murmur.
Wayne swings around to stare at me, and the girl’s name comes with him. “What for?”
“I didn’t realise you were here about Kylie Goodchild.”
His eyes narrow, which appears to squeeze them redder. “What’s it got to do with you?”
“Nothing personal. I just saw her on your neck.”
I’m making her sound like a love bite, which may well have been in the area. Perhaps that’s why Robbie Goodchild looks uneasy, dragging the fingertips of one hand across his forehead, and I make a bid to divert his thoughts. “Who are you here to see?”
Margaret Goodchild seems glad to have the subject changed. “Whoever Mr Jasper says we should.”
“It won’t be me.”
“Why not?” Wayne demands, touching the name on his neck as if it’s some kind of charm.
If they’re here to broadcast an appeal the news team will handle it, and I’m about to say so when Christine opens the door behind me. “One minute, Graham.”
That’s how soon I’m on the air. Once we’re on the far side of the door Christine says “What’s he doing here?”
“Jasper? Someone must have encouraged him,” I say loudly, but nobody in the newsroom owns up. “I assume he’ll be claiming he can find that couple’s daughter.”
“I hope someone does soon.”
“Obviously I do, but they won’t with his kind of help.”
Christine frowns at me as if I’m willing him to fail, but it’s simply that I know he’s bound to. As I sit at the studio console Sammy Baxter predicts a week of increasingly sultry heat in the tone of a housewife passing on the good news to a neighbour over their garden fence. I’m donning headphones when Paula Harding strides down the newsroom and disappears towards Reception. I wish I could hear how she deals with Jasper, but I’m on the air.
It’s Play A Blinder Day, which sets the rest of us the task of learning how it feels to be blind. I tried wearing a blindfold designed to help passengers sleep on planes and groped all the way through my apartment, an adventure that took most of an hour. Although I managed not to break anything I missed Christine, not least whenever I imagined rediscovering each other just by touch. Perhaps we can do that tonight, though the callers to Wilde Card are starting to make me feel guilty. So far all of them are blind, and they don’t think much of their dedicated day—one finds the idea offensive, and another says the whole idea is patronising, while the third contributo
r objects that it simply lets people believe they’re aware of the blind and then forget about them for the rest of the year. I feel awkward for arguing with any of these callers, but isn’t my reluctance condescending too? As I’m reduced to suggesting that a token reminder is better than none, Paula reappears outside the control room.
Her back is to the window. She may be addressing the newsroom, since all the staff raise their heads. They’re looking not at her but towards Reception, and in a moment Margaret Goodchild comes into view. I’m trying to concentrate on my latest caller—he thinks a new tax ought to finance aids for the disabled—when she’s joined by Frank Jasper.
Is he talking about her daughter? She and Paula and my colleagues are all watching him. As he takes a couple of tentative steps towards the nearest desks I see that he’s holding an object in both hands—a large thin book. He extends it as though he’s mistaken it for a dowser’s wand, and his progress grows more confident. He’s almost striding as he reaches the nearest unoccupied desk. It’s mine.
What trick is he trying on now? I think the spectacle has deafened me to the voice in my headphones until I realise the caller is waiting for me to speak. “That isn’t how taxation works, Peter,” I say as Jasper turns away from my desk. He’s gazing at the book he holds at arm’s length. His mouth moves as he advances towards me, but I can’t read his words. Paula watches him pace past her, and doesn’t intervene even when Margaret Goodchild opens the door of the control room for him.
As Jasper glides through the doorway without a sound I could imagine that he’s talking to the book, since he doesn’t lift his gaze from the leafy Oriental pattern on the cover. I’m about to put Peter on hold when Wayne and Kylie’s father step into the control room. “Stay on the line, Peter,” I say and set off an advert for Frugoway Holidays. “What’s going on in there, Chris?”
“I’m not sure,” she says, and the headphones also bring me Jasper’s voice. “I feel closer to him,” he’s saying. “I feel he has something to tell us.
I’m able to doubt his intentions until he ventures forward as if the book is leading him—as if he wants everyone to think so. He might be holding it out to somebody he can’t or doesn’t need to see. As a jingle (“There’s less to pay with Frugoway”) brings the advert to an end Paula waves to attract my attention, and I wonder why she doesn’t follow Jasper—indeed, why she let him come this far. Instead she nods at the microphone, presumably to remind me that controversy is meant to sell. She can have her wish, and I say “Peter, can I call you back?”
There’s no sound in the headphones apart from my own flattened voice. I could feel like Jasper, sending a question into the void to somebody who isn’t there. “Peter’s had to leave us,” I say, “but here’s a surprise guest. Frank Jasper must have felt welcome when I had him on the other day, because he’s back with us.”
I’m expecting some response, but he’s intent on the book. “I’m being told,” he says, “it’s somebody who had a lot to say to her.”
“Who are you talking to, Frank?”
“Don’t distract him.” Margaret Goodchild clasps her hands together and hurries into the studio, letting the door thump shut. “Please don’t,” she murmurs. “That’s our Kylie’s book.”
“I have to let the listeners know what’s happening, Mrs Goodchild. We’re live.” She seems to find some of this encouraging, and so I say “Kylie Goodchild’s parents have enlisted Frank Jasper. That’s right, is it, Mrs Goodchild? He offered you his services?”
“My husband went to him,” she says in a whisper entirely too awed for my taste.
“And Frank says he isn’t charging you.”
“He says he never does.”
Is this just when the police are involved? I wonder if it’s for fear of being investigated. I don’t like to interrogate Kylie’s mother, but as I withhold a question her husband shoves open the door into the studio. Paula steps into the control room as Robbie Goodchild mutters “What’s he saying?”
“He wants to know if we’re paying Mr Jasper.”
“I’d give Frank everything we’ve got if he can bring our Kylie back.” Robbie Goodchild scowls at me and looks away. “I don’t mean what this lad’s saying. How’s it any of his business?”
His wife raises a finger without quite touching her lips. “We’re being broadcast, Robbie.”
“That’s his lookout. I’m asking you what Frank said.”
“He says somebody here was talking to Kylie.”
“He didn’t name anyone,” I point out to the listeners as well.
Wayne looks ready to shove Kylie’s father aside. “Which fucker else is he going to mean?”
“You mustn’t say things like that,” Margaret Goodchild pleads. “You’ll be getting us thrown out.”
“What doesn’t he want folk hearing?” her husband demands just as. Jasper says “He saw her recently. That’s what I’m getting now.”
I won’t let this go unchallenged. “I’m sure that’s true of somebody in here.”
“Sounds like he’s fucking talking about you,” Wayne shouts and glares at the book, which Jasper appears to be pointing at me. “Is he in her fucking album?”
“I’m sorry, that’s got to be all,” I say and interrupt the broadcast with a Frugohome insurance advert. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“Please look in Kylie’s album first,” Margaret Goodchild begs. “See if you’re there.”
“Forgive me, Mrs Goodchild, but I can tell you I’m not without looking.”
“Then you won’t mind fucking doing what she wants,” says Wayne, “will you?”
No doubt he’s concerned for his girlfriend, but his aggression seems a little studied. I suppose he’d feel unmanly to let his actual emotions show. Paula strides out of the control room, and I think she’s off to call security until she halts at Trevor Lofthouse’s desk. Meanwhile Margaret Goodchild takes a small framed photograph out of her handbag. “Here she is,” she says as if she’s trying to pretend she has no reason to sound anything but proud. “Please don’t be sure till you’ve had a proper look.”
The photograph shows the head and shoulders of a slim pretty teenager with long hair not nearly as red as her mother’s and a smile that looks as though the camera had to take it by surprise. I take time to scrutinise it before saying “I’m really sorry, Mrs Goodchild, but I’ve never seen her that I can remember.”
I don’t see what else I can do besides looking sympathetic, no easy task while I’m furious with Jasper for offering her hope that’s no better than a trick. The advert is coming to an end, and I’m finding another to keep Wayne off the air when Paula ushers Lofthouse into the control room. “Take everyone outside, Graham,” she says. “Trevor will sit in for you.”
I’m not far from feeling driven off the air. As I let Trevor have my place at the console, Kylie’s mother hustles Wayne and her husband out of the studio. She’s still displaying the photograph, which Christine gives more than a glance. “Here’s Trevor Lofthouse filling in for Graham,” Lofthouse says as I follow Jasper out, and Paula is about to speak when Jasper halts. “Wait, there’s something else,” he says.
He’s facing Trevor’s desk. The hubbub of the newsroom subsides to not much more than a murmur. Now that he has his audience’s attention he says “I’m nearly seeing her.”
Kylie’s mother swallows so hard that wrinkles dig into her throat. She’s barely able to ask “Is she here?”
“Not now.” For a moment I take him to be urging silence, and then he says “She’s under something, or she was.”
Kylie’s father drags his nails across his forehead. Before the marks can fade he mutters “Don’t say she’s under the ground, for God’s sake.”
“I’m not seeing that. I feel she was under a bridge.”
Is he playing with the possibility that she has run away from home to sleep rough? Kylie’s father stares at him, but the performance seems to be over. He takes the photograph none too g
ently from his wife and holds it above his head. “Come on, some of you saw her. You must of been here when she came.”
Everybody gazes at the photograph, and then heads begin to shake. Once they all have Paula says “You might try asking Shilpa at Reception.’”
“She’s the girl I was talking to before.”
I suspect Paula hoped to ease him and his companions out of the newsroom, but she isn’t as skilful as Jasper with tricks. Goodchild is still elevating the photograph when his wife gives Jasper a beseeching look. “Can you see anything else, Mr Jasper?” she says with not much of a voice.
“I don’t believe I’m going to be told any more just now”
“She’s all right, right?” Wayne insists. “You told Marg she wasn’t here like the ones you reckon you talk to.”
“She wasn’t speaking to me, no.”
As I refrain from commenting that he’s told the truth twice on the run, Kylie’s mother says “Then could we see about her album?”
“It’s all yours, ma’am.”
Patterson is trying to sound more American than ever. When he passes her the album Kylie’s mother holds out both hands as if to cradle it. He seems to think she wants it opened, and he spreads it wide at two pages near the middle of the book. The left one is occupied by a childish drawing of a bearded leering fellow in a turban—I suspect he’s meant to be Mohammed—and its neighbour bears an inscription framed by cartoon flowers. A sheet of paper that marked the place slips out and flutters face down to the carpet. “I’ll get it, Marg,” says Wayne.
He’s still in the last of his crouch, which makes him look ready to lunge at someone, when he mumbles “What the fuck.” As he straightens up he trains his raw gaze on me and turns the page away from him almost violently enough to tear the cheap but glossy paper. It’s a photograph from one of the stacks on the reception counter, pictures of the station personnel. It’s of me, and I’ve signed it to Kylie Goodchild. “Seen it before, have you?” Wayne says so fiercely he sprinkles me with saliva.
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