Read Barefoot in the Dark for Free Online

up,’ she responded, wondering quite what it was that the girl had been expecting. ‘So I had to come in this. Sorry.’ But Patti didn’t seem to get the joke.
    But the whole thing was a joke. Clearly. The man – Jack Valentine – spoke for a while about some ongoing drama about groundwater in a basement somewhere, about the fact that there was an outbreak of Japanese knotweed somewhere else, and then, seemingly without pause, or indeed, reason, about the fact that pretty much everywhere in Cardiff, the men, it had been revealed in some survey, had turned out to be the least romantic in the UK. He then pressed a switch and more music started playing. It was a Disney theme of some sort, – oh, God, it was Cinderella – over which he began speaking, this time with some feeling, recounting his encounter with a small abandoned trainer and his quest to track down the maiden to whom it belonged. Hope was wincing along so comprehensively to this that she was completely unprepared when he pointed his pen at her and said, ‘So, Cinderella. The nation needs to be told. What happened to you on the way home from the ball?’
    He was smiling right at her, and nodding his head minutely, to indicate, she assumed, that she should say something back. Hope swallowed. Her tongue had become glued to her teeth.
    Hope wasn’t sure what it was that she did say, only that for what felt like about half a day she twittered on about who she was and where she worked and how she’d come to lose her trainer and that she’d had to walk all the way to the shoe shop with nothing on her feet and how someone in the office had heard the announcement on the radio and how funny it had been that she should lose her trainer of all things because her charity was doing, well, a charity fun run, and wasn’t that a coincidence? And he’d smilingly agreed that it was.
    And then it was over. Just three minutes had passed.
    Someone else shuffled in then, a young boy with a lip stud, wearing jeans with a crotch that hung down between his kneecaps, three T-shirts and an expression of mild dissent on his face. And suddenly Jack Valentine was saying something about the weather and the boy started talking about low pressure and fronts. Hope realised, somewhat shocked, that this mellifluous voice was the very same she’d heard read the weather when she’d been on the way here. These radio people were so odd.
    He went. Someone else came. A plate of biscuits arrived with him. Jack Valentine chatted to someone in the cubicle, and Patti – was it Patti? – scribbled furiously on a pad. Hope really wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do. So she sat stone still and silent, in case the nation should hear her, while a red light burned steadily and the clock hands marched round.
    ‘Way to go!’ said Jack Valentine suddenly, startling her.
    ‘Oh,’ Hope whispered. ‘Is it all right to speak now?’
    There was a further moment’s hesitation as Jack Valentine listened to something that was being said to him in his headphones, then he pulled them off and nodded at her.
    ‘You were great,’ he said heartily. ‘Just great.’
    ‘Great,’ agreed Patti. Hope thought they probably said this to everyone. She hadn’t been great in the least.
    ‘It’s just, well, you know I was talking about Heartbeat,’ she went on. ‘Well, I was wondering if I could have a chat to you about it. You see, the fun run –’
    ‘Isn’t fun run an oxymoron?’ asked Patti, looking pleased with herself.
    ‘Not necessarily,’ said Jack, smiling at Hope politely. He had friendly eyes. The palest of pale turquoise. Not green. Not blue.
    ‘Well, it’s just that we were rather hoping we might be able to –’
    ‘Hold up.’ He looked beyond her and pulled one half of the headphones over his head again. Her mother had been right. He did have a good head of hair. Short, but indeed dense, and the colour of wet sand. He started nodding.
    ‘I can’t imagine why anyone would want to