“Here we are, mate. This is it.”
Radio Rabbit was run from the basement of a converted Victorian school in a part of town that some people thought of as Lad-broke Grove and others Shepherd’s Bush—nobody was quite sure, least of all Gabriel. No other city that he knew of had quite so many half-secret but long-established side roads, each one of them a great tragicomic story all its own. The car came to a halt. He signed the chit and stepped out. The night was uncommonly dark; the street-lamps did not make it this far up the cul-de-sac, and the rain fell so finely that he felt it only as a gentle film.
He pressed the buzzer at the side of the shiny door. The lock sprang. He felt his heart lighten, then quicken. A security man, a stuffed bear that someone had thought amusing to dress in a suit, nodded him through. Or might not have moved at all. Gabriel was a regular, and after eleven the bear did not seem to bother to sign people in or out. Not that it mattered; they could always burn together live on air. Be fitting, in a way. He passed down the familiar corridor hung with the fifteen or so faces of Radio Rabbit, including, right at the far end, the one with which he was in love.
Honey-highlighted hair that fell straight in careless strands about her pretty brow; blue-green eyes that appeared a little melancholy and yet forever just about to wink; high cheekbones, but rounded rather than sharp, so that when she smiled (and a smile was the natural set of her lips) she had the cheekiest face of any woman he had ever met—a face full of friendship, mischief, passion, and vitality, collusive, playful, understanding, a face forever caught between laughter and a kiss… And yet there was also a distancing cool there—resolve and firmness in the rise of her chin, in the slight sideways angle of her head to the camera, most of all in the way those eyes came at you from somewhere deep and old as the pool of life itself.
He pushed open the familiar door and mouthed his hello to Wayne, the lone producer, assistant, researcher, screener of callers, or whatever it was that he titled himself. In the studio, behind the glass, cans on her head, eyes on her computer screen, Connie was absorbed in the technical business of her job. She did not see him arrive. He watched her a moment, thirsty as a hermit for her beauty and her being.
There was a song playing. Something by Tom Waits. Wayne motioned for him to wait. So he helped himself to some of the vending machine coffee (which always tasted of acorns and cinnamon) and stood sipping it—the spy about to board the plane that would drop him deep behind the iron curtain. Then the red “on air” light went out as they cut to some ads and Wayne waved him in.
Connie looked up as he opened the heavy padded door and greeted him with that smile that women reserve for men they love but cannot love, which of course makes men love them even more. He took his seat opposite hers.
“Hi, you. We have three minutes five,” she said. Then, a little softer, “Hmmm—you look tired, Gabriel Glover. Have you been sorting your life out?”
This was her perennial question—faux-comic Connie code for Have you either proposed to or left Lina? Can we therefore end the misery-exhilaration cycle of our relationship and either never see each other again or live happily ever after somewhere in the countryside?
“Of course not.”
“Well… no rush.” She was mocking him but not with her eyes.
“Are we still playing it cool?” he asked.
“Yes. We’re learning to become friends.” She nodded slowly, as if ticking off a wayward pupil. “As we should have done in the first place.”
“I think I am addicted to you. I’ve been missing you like… like… like something I am addicted to.”
She smiled. “Well, sort your life out and you won’t bloody have to.”
“I am doing.”
“Feels like it.”
“Connie.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Don’t try to be cute. You know how much I hate all this mess. I really hate it.”
There was nothing he could say. There was never, ever anything he could say.
She relented. “Are you okay?”
And she meant it. She felt for him.
“Yes. I’m fine.” And her generosity and understanding and inexhaustible patience made it worse. “I brought the stuff—I’ve read it through and made some suggestions.” She was writing a script for some radio and awards thing she was hosting. He’d taken unbelievable pains to imagine her voice and edit accordingly.
She beamed her thanks. “Good job Wayne is watching or I’d have to kiss you. A lot.”
“Does Wayne ever fall asleep?”
“Gabriel.”
“Sorry. You started it.”
“Never. Wayne never sleeps.”
“That’s a shame.” He smoothed the piece of paper on which he would write the callers’ names. “I mean, that’s a shame, mate ”
“One minute, thirty seconds. No, mate, you started it—if you remember.”
“Mate, I remember everything.”
She said, “I keep thinking about when we went to Rome. I think about you all the time.”
He said, “I get scared when I am thinking about you that it’s getting in the way of thinking about you.”
“Soulmates.”
“Soulmates.”
Even though the red light was off, they were talking in hushed voices—partly because they were in a radio studio, partly because the excitement of being in each other’s presence again demanded it, and partly because they were lovers and here they were, somewhere half secret, and it was the dead of night and it felt like they were the last people awake in the middle of a great city and only hushed voices would do. The song played on.
“Fifty seconds.”
He said, “We could try breaking up completely—after this.”
“We’re not together, so how can we break up?”
“We’ve done it before.”
“Yeah… about a hundred times, and it’s never worked.”
“We could try extra-hard this time. No calls. No texts. Nothing.” He took out his favorite pen. “No sudden collapses. Not even any action.”
She made a suspicious face, then lightened. “Okay… Okay. Good. It’s a deal. We leave each other alone. You take some proper time to work out what it is you want and what it is you’re doing.”
“But I can’t stop wanting you, Connie, and I can’t imagine my life without you.”
“Nor mine without you. So.”
“So?”
“So sort your life out, Gabriel—for the love of Jesus, sort your life out.” She gave him an expression that mixed exasperation with desire. “I’m going to introduce you in the usual way, okay?”
“Sure.”
“Signal me if it gets too heavy and we’ll move on to someone else.”
“Okay.”
The song ended in applause. The red light came on. And her voice spoke softly to the hearts of three thousand sleepless Londoners: “You are listening to Radio Rabbit with me, Connie Carmichael, and that was ‘Strange Weather,’ by Tom Waits. Who I still haven’t met, despite the celebrity-stuffed life I lead. Well, it’s midweek and it’s midnight and that means it’s time for our self-help phone-in. With me in the studio is our regular guest, your friend and mine, the editor of the Randy K. Norris Self-Help! magazine, Gabriel Glover. How’s the week shaping up for you, Gabriel?”
“Terrific, so far.”
23
Comrade Masha
The river slunk and the city slept. Parisians dreamed in three million darkened rooms. But Nicholas was still awake, sitting alone in his high-backed leather chair.