She hardly heard the music that heralded the start of the show, hardly saw what was going on around her. Then she felt Leo’s fingers brush the back of her hand. His gaze caught hers and he smiled, then started the introduction.
‘And tonight I have Alex Jackson with me. She’s the founder of Together Our Way, a charity which helps young people with all kinds of disabilities participate in sport...’ He glanced down at the paper the producer had put in front of him and frowned suddenly. ‘Alex is going to be on the line with me here, and so if you’ve got any questions for her then you know the number to call...’
The jingle for the phone number started to play and Leo took the opportunity to scrunch up the paper in front of him, tossing it towards the control room. It bounced off the glass and dropped to the floor and then suddenly, seamlessly, Leo was talking again.
‘To start us all off, I’m going to ask Alex a few questions about Together Our Way. And, just in case anyone accuses me of monopolising her time here, she will be right here with me every Monday for the next four weeks, as part of our Charity Partnership Project...’
Suddenly his gaze was on her. The smile on his lips, the look in his eyes, said that he was talking just to her. ‘Alex, how long since you founded your charity...?’
He’d given her an easy one to start with. ‘Five years.’
‘And in that time you’ve made yourselves felt. How many sports fixtures are you planning next month?’
‘We have eight. But our own sports meetings are just the tip of the iceberg. We’ve been working with schools and clubs, advising them on how their sport can be fully inclusive, and we’ve developed a training day for group leaders. Mostly, though, we work with the young people themselves, to help...’
Suddenly, her mind went blank.
‘I imagine that there’s a bit of confidence-building to be done.’ Leo’s eyes were suddenly warm and soothing, dark as a blue Mediterranean sea.
‘Yes, that’s right. Many of our young people need assistance with special equipment or training, but it’s also a matter of showing everyone what’s possible.’
‘So you’re out to capture hearts and minds?’ Somehow, he made it seem as if it was his heart and his mind that were the ones in question and that they were just waiting to be captured.
‘Yes. I think that’s the aim of any charity, isn’t it? Money’s vital to us, of course, because we couldn’t do what we do without it. But hearts and minds are just as important.’
‘And I see that the charity’s run on a shoestring, so all the donations you receive go straight into your work.’
He was feeding her lines, bringing up all the points that Alex wanted to highlight. She smiled a thank you. ‘Yes, that’s right...’
* * *
Alex felt as if she’d run a marathon. It had only been an hour, but she was exhausted, her heart thumping in her chest. All the same, Leo had been right. She was eager for more, and had been disappointed when he’d announced that this was all they had time for tonight and handed over to the next presenter.
‘Did we speak to everyone?’ Leo had said that there were callers waiting but Alex had been unable to gauge how many, or whether they’d been able to speak to them all.
‘There are always people who don’t get through. Some of them try again.’ Now that they were off-air, Leo seemed suddenly more guarded.
‘But... They may be in trouble. They might need someone to talk to...’
‘Yeah, a lot of them do. We have procedures to deal with that. You needn’t worry about that side of things.’
She couldn’t—wouldn’t—let him give her the brush-off like this. ‘I’m... I’m sorry Leo, but that’s not the answer I’d hoped for.’
Alex was expecting some kind of reaction; Leo clearly wasn’t used to being challenged by anyone around here. But she hadn’t expected a smile.
‘What answer were you hoping for, then?’
She took a deep breath. ‘That there’s some way that I could get back to the people who didn’t get through.’
He leaned forward, flipping a switch on the console in front of him. Alex’s headphones went dead and she realised that, even though the sound engineer in the control room seemed to be paying no attention to it, their conversation could be overheard. She slipped the headset off and laid it down.
‘The call-handlers take names and numbers from everyone, and they always ask what the caller wants to say.’
‘And they make a note of that?’
‘Yes, they do. And they pass the list on to me.’ That seemed to be the end of it as far as Leo was concerned. He was the trustworthy one, the one who got things done, and he was ready to steamroller over anyone who questioned him.
Maybe she’d deserved it. Maybe he had called her all those years ago, and he still remembered that she hadn’t called him back.
‘Look, Leo. I think there’s something... We need to clear something up.’
‘What would that be?’
He gave so little. It was questions all the way with Leo, and she was starting to wonder whether he wasn’t hiding behind them.
‘Did you call me after the party?’ Alex wondered how he’d like a taste of his own medicine, and answered his question with one of her own.
He seemed surprised. ‘I’m not sure I remember.’
‘Why don’t you try?’ If this issue was getting in the way of the work she was committed to now, she wanted an answer.
‘I said I would.’ His slight shrug seemed designed to imply that it really didn’t matter all that much to him. ‘But that’s the way it works. It’s a lady’s privilege not to call back.’
He flashed her his most charming, roguish smile. That alone probably made the chances of any woman not calling him back extremely slim. Or maybe it was just Leo’s way of changing the subject.
‘Since you won’t give me a straight answer, I’ll assume that you did call. And I’ve been wanting to tell you that I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you, but I really couldn’t. Something happened on the way home and...it was impossible.’
She had his full attention now. Leo couldn’t hide the surprise in his eyes. ‘What happened?’
‘I...’ Alex gulped. It was all such a long time ago now and it ought to be irrelevant, but it wasn’t. A rap sounded on the glass that separated them from the control room and she jumped.
‘I’m sorry.’ Leo snapped suddenly into professional mode. ‘The producer’s here, and I need to have a word with him. Would you mind waiting?’
Alex nodded and he swung to his feet, striding to the door and closing it behind him. He reappeared on the other side of the glass, where a man was waiting for him.
Leo’s back was turned to her but the man was glancing at her, even though Leo was obviously talking to him. Curiosity got the better of Alex and she reached for her headphones, flipping the switch that she now knew controlled the sound between the control room and the studio.
‘It’s not acceptable, Justin.’ Leo’s voice rang in her ears.
‘I really don’t see what the problem is...’ Alex saw Justin spread his hands in a gesture of puzzlement.
‘Well, there isn’t any problem because I’m not going to do it. I won’t introduce Alex Jackson as a disabled person. She has a disability, and she’s open about that, but I’m not going to read out an introduction