Red Letter Days

by Sarah-Jane Stratford

  Hannah decided to stay through lunch to circulate among the more important cast and crew, offering congratulations and reminding them that she was the sort of executive producer who could be spoken to, should speaking ever be required. Being British, they wouldn’t dream of it, but she still liked to make things clear.

  As soon as the crew broke for lunch, she was surrounded by the director, Terry Bishop, as well as Peter Proud and several other men from the crew, none of whom could say enough about how pleased they were and hoped she was pleased too. Even though most of them had spent years working in theater and film, they still seemed so young, so fresh, so full of life. She felt guilty, enjoying this so much, but couldn’t help it.

  “Yon stunt doubles are making ready to rehearse!” Beryl broke in. Hannah caught the tone. Beryl was eager to see the sword fighting and archery, but also thought this fawning was going on too long. Hannah could not risk becoming too familiar. With some reluctance, she left the main stage.

  She noted the few women of the crew chose not to approach. Phoebe sat alone in a corner, reading the script. That was smart. She should memorize the gold standard for an episode. It annoyed Hannah that Phoebe had worn her suit. It didn’t matter that Hannah might have done the same thing, thinking it made a good impression. She didn’t offer advice for young women to ignore. Let her be friendless. That’ll teach her. Hannah would keep her in this job long enough to shore up some funds, then she’d let her go fend for herself. She’d do all right once she had the lay of the land. The detective show Phoebe had worked on was silly, but her script was good. Very good. Even Beryl, reading only out of curiosity, agreed.

  “I’ll be keen to see if she can write with any sort of a British voice,” Beryl said. “Her dialogue reminds me of the GIs who roamed Glasgow like they owned it, and that’s no great happy memory for me.”

  “If that’s all she can do, her star won’t shoot far,” Hannah conceded.

  Behind the main building was a lawn that must have pretended to be garden or grassland in hundreds of films since the studio was built in 1899. Today, it was a good place for stuntmen to parry and shoot. Every episode of Robin Hood would of course be full of derring-do. Most of the actors did their own fighting, a testament to the hard work of drama schools, but stuntmen were needed to allow the action to be as dangerous as possible. Hannah was determined to put hearts in throats every single episode.

  The youngest crew member, a fourteen-year-old called Dennis who Hannah thought really ought to be in school, found an excuse to linger near the action. He was, at least, educating himself in the ways of the business, and Hannah smiled to see him cradle his transistor radio, no doubt a much-prized possession, under his ear as he gaped at the stuntmen—a Saturday kiddies’ matinee in real life. Hannah felt his excitement as she watched the archer whose job it was to hit bull’s-eyes. Twang, twang, twang. Its rhythm felt like the rock and roll that was becoming so popular. Paul preferred the soundtrack of the Depression, which reminded him of his youthful fire and fury. Hannah still loved that music, too, but found the new tunes irresistible. She liked the way they got under her skin.

  “That stuff’s for the kids, old girl,” he once chided her gently.

  “Now look, darling, if you want our children to like our music, you can’t go about assigning who can listen to what,” Hannah retorted. So now he was writing a story on the music of generations and how adults viewed the rise of the teenager.

  Hannah congratulated the stunt choreographer and discussed his needs for an upcoming episode. As she passed Dennis on her way inside, a familiar voice emanated from his radio.

  “It’s a disgrace, the sort of films coming from France and Italy, and shows these countries have only descended further into degeneracy,” Hedda Hopper fumed. “If distributors won’t stop showing them out of decency, their hand can at least be forced when good Americans refuse to patronize any picture house screening such muck. Furthermore, I am given to understand that some of these pictures are being made by Reds! Not European pinkos, no indeed, but the American traitors already condemned by HUAC, now living cowardly abroad so that they can continue to spread their filth and attempt to corrupt impressionable minds. One way or another, these Runaway Reds will be stopped.”

  Hannah’s hand rose to strike the radio out of Dennis’s grip. She balled it into a fist instead and strode over to the archery expert.

  “Can you teach me to do this?” she asked.

  The archer was astonished, but very pleased. He guided Hannah’s hands, gently pushing her into position. She glared at the bright red bull’s-eye, liking the feeling of the power in her fingers. Her eyes traveled the arrow to its point, the bowstring humming under her fingers as she pulled it back. She let loose per the archer’s instruction and heard a delicious hiss as the arrow shot past her cheek and hit the bull’s-eye with a hard thwack.

  “Well done, Miss Wolfson, very well done indeed!” cried the archer as the other men cheered. Hannah felt better. A few more episodes to show the networks, and soon, she was sure, Robin Hood would hit the American airwaves.

  I can hardly wait.

  * * *

  • • •

  Joan waved out her front window when she saw Phoebe near their building.

  “Coffee’s just brewed!” Joan called.

  Phoebe passed a twelve-year-old boy honing his skill with marbles. She vaguely recognized him as the landlady’s son. He looked at her with interest.

  “You’ve been at work, miss?”

  “And returned in triumph,” she said, hoping to make him smile. He only gazed at her with deep respect, which Phoebe found both flattering and unsettling.

  “Goodness, have you befriended Freddie?” Joan was startled. “He seems a bit of a hooligan, though I suppose he’d be better off with a good education, poor fellow.”

  Joan’s son Alvie, supposedly getting a good education, lay on his belly in front of a battered television, oblivious to company. I’ve seen more animated piles of laundry, Phoebe thought. Joan drew her attention to a stack of Hollywood magazines.

  “Listen to this from Hedda Hopper: ‘Readers will be delighted to know our vigilant efforts to rout out Reds in Hollywood have just this month seen five so-called Americans removed from influence. But we know there are still Reds among us, working to corrupt our most impressionable youth. Don’t lose heart, good readers. Decent Americans can stop them, I’m even happy to shoulder the burden myself.’ She certainly has a bee in her bonnet, doesn’t she?”

  “Isn’t there something more important for a gossip columnist to worry about?” Phoebe asked. “Maybe Grace Kelly has a rash, or Lassie has worms?”

  “You are funny, aren’t you?” Joan smiled fondly.

  “My sister’s the real cutup,” Phoebe said, then wished she hadn’t. It was dangerous to think of Mona around other people. She took a huge gulp of coffee and offered Joan a cigarette. The big band music put her right back in the break room at the airfield. Where she’d worn coveralls and work boots. “I need to dress down for the set,” she said. “Trousers, probably. I thought I was done with those after VJ Day. I haven’t got a penny for clothes, not that those crew-shrews would believe it.”

  “Ooh, I can help!” Joan squealed, and dragged Phoebe into the bedroom. Phoebe hop-skipped right over Alvie as she followed Joan, and he didn’t break rhythm as he blew a bubble. Joan opened a trunk and produced a pair of dark brown tweed trousers with a huge cuff. “I got these during the war—there was a stretch in ’43 when we all wanted to look serious. They’ll fit you fine, we’ve got the same hips.” She thrust a matching brown-and-orange Pendleton jacket at Phoebe. “This will too. Then you’ll knit a few things and buy something more modern when you can, though you’ll still need a girdle for those slim trousers the girls wear.”

  “I think I’d rather just get another skirt,” Phoebe said.

  “You can wear socks w
ith trousers,” Joan explained. “Stockings are twelvepence a pair, socks are three. And cheaper still if you knit them yourself.”

  “Next I’ll tie my hair up in a kerchief,” Phoebe muttered. A timer buzzed in the kitchen, and Joan ran for the stove.

  “The pot roast’s done! If Charlie’s in a good mood, would you like to join us?”

  “That’s all right, thanks,” Phoebe said. “And thanks for all these, really.”

  “Share and share alike, right?” Joan grinned happily.

  “Share and share alike, you said it.”

  Phoebe looked forward to having something to share soon.

  * * *

  • • •

  The Other Girls barely glanced at Phoebe when she showed up in trousers and chunky shoes. She decided the isolation was just as well—fewer distractions meant she could focus. Besides, however lonely she might feel, being on set was exciting. She loved watching Mr. Bishop direct the actors, the actors act, and even the men arrange the lighting. She loved watching as the sets were wheeled in and out and dressed and undressed, coming to life and disappearing. Lunches she spent in a corner, eating a sandwich and reading the script, paying close attention to the construction and characterization. On Friday she was given a pay packet. Her ribs completely unlocked for the first time since Mr. Kelvin had told her she was blacklisted. She had income, she had a roof, she had a friend, and soon, very soon, she was going to have a script. She was not going to be stopped again.

  * * *

  • • •

  The London Library was in St. James’s Square, a short walk from Meard Street and a bastion of stately elegance, looking down its nose at the shabby collection of musicians and artists who flocked to the cheap rents and air of possibility. Phoebe felt shabby herself, wearing trousers and a Pendleton, but she’d had no time to wash her stockings and wasn’t ready to part with twelvepence for more. She had less regret when she got inside—the marble was just as chilly as in her beloved Manhattan library.

  “May I help you, miss?” the librarian asked, seeing Phoebe hover.

  “Can we adjust the thermostat?” she asked. The librarian frowned. “Sorry,” Phoebe hurried on. “I’m looking for anything there is on Robin Hood, please.”

  “How much do you already know about medieval history?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Level four, H—England.”

  Phoebe looked around each room as she ascended, drinking them in. When she arrived at her destination, she ran her hand along the books, her mind thrilling to the reception of knowledge. As she made her way down the aisle, she gathered book after book, amassing a large stack. General history, a book about this king and that, a book on the plague, the peasants’ revolt, witchcraft.

  Progress down the aisle was hampered by a pair of legs that stretched nearly to Ancient Rome and were attached to a young man whose long nose was buried in an anvil-sized book. He must have sensed her looming over him, but didn’t move. Even a ladylike half cough, half “ahem” only resulted in his turning a page.

  It would be unseemly to kick him, Phoebe decided, though she could say she tripped. She could go drop off her bounty at a free table and come back, at which point he might be gone.

  But she felt as if she’d been drawn into a game, and was determined to win. She took another step so that her shoes just brushed his trousers, and stared down at his well-greased curls and the bridge of his nose.

  After a pause, his eyes rolled up from under his glasses.

  “I expect I’m blocking medieval basket weaving.”

  Phoebe forgot she was annoyed.

  “Are there really books on that? Shove over, let me see.” She nudged him hard with her foot—it might, indeed, have been classed a kick—and he was so astonished, he shoved over. There weren’t any books on craft, but there was one on medieval manorial law—whatever that meant—and she added it to her pile.

  “Are you a student?” he asked.

  A “hah!” escaped Phoebe before she could stop it. It was a funny question for a woman who was twenty-nine. Though perhaps her clothes, loose ponytail, and mountain of books made her look the part. She hadn’t even bothered with makeup, except lipstick. Just so she still felt like herself.

  “After a fashion,” she amended, selecting a book about medieval clothing and one on courtly love. A book of legends seemed misplaced next to one on battles, but she supposed it might depend on the nature of both. She laid them on the pile, which finally collapsed in a clatter to rival Jericho’s walls. The din was followed by the hum of readers sighing in exasperation, letting her know she had interrupted something important and must now feel her shame.

  The young man set aside his book and helped gather hers.

  “You don’t have to do that,” she said. “I can make two trips.”

  He shrugged. “I’ve got time.”

  They deposited Phoebe’s books at an empty table where she gloried over her bounty, pawing through the titles and choosing the shortest volumes to start with. When she remembered the man, she realized he’d disappeared, and she hadn’t even thanked him. Ah well, the stereotype of rude Americans lives on. She put him out of her mind as she settled down to learn about the world that might have once contained a man called Robin Hood.

  Like most legends, there were almost no facts. Phoebe liked facts. But she enjoyed the most popular tale—Robin of Locksley, a landowner loyal to Richard the Lionheart, became an enemy of Prince John and the local sheriff. His name besmirched, his estate stolen, he turned outlaw as he attempted to regain his name and fight for a more equal society, in the process becoming a one-man wealth redistribution system. They might as well have called him Red Robin Hood. Phoebe snickered out loud, engendering a chorus of angry “shhhs.”

  She read on. Discussions of village life were scattered, and many made it appear idyllic, a busy world of baking bread and brewing ale, of gardens and animals and weaving and dyeing and sewing and all the many tasks allotted to this day and that month. None of the books offered the sort of details Phoebe hungered for. Things like daily strife and conflict, and what sort of fun—and trouble—people got up to when they could. Because they did, they must. People didn’t change that much. Whether swathed in tunics, kirtles, and doublets or dresses, jackets, and bucket hats, people were still people.

  Phoebe put aside happy peasant life and turned to the plague. There was a pleasing democracy to the disease, as not all the stone houses, fine clothes, and certainty of superiority kept the rich from dying just as readily as the poor. Phoebe was just reading “The swollen tumours turned black and oozed pus, indicating imminent death,” when a note dropped on the book: Coffee? Cake?

  Phoebe blinked, returning from imminent death to the library. She looked up at the bespectacled, long-nosed fellow from the stacks. He grinned. A pleasant grin. Whether it was the peculiar experience of being asked, or the tumors and pus, Phoebe was too jumbled to do anything more than shake her head and plunge back into disease and misery.

  An hour later, having at last obtained some useful knowledge of medieval crime and punishment, her thoughts turned to coffee. She followed the example of other patrons and wrote a large note instructing that her things be left in peace. Then she took the book on warfare and made her way to the basement canteen.

  The beauty of the library gave her high hopes for the canteen—squashy chairs and a rich aroma of coffee. Instead, she entered a chilly utilitarian room full of men, all wearing some shade of gray, buried in notes or books or newspapers. Phoebe sighed. She pictured her favorite Midtown diner, flossy, bright, loud. A fat red stool and a white-capped counterman asking her in a good-natured holler, “What’ll it be, honey?” She’d sip hot coffee, strong enough to peel paint, and dunk two doughnuts as she listened to men in suits shout about this and that, swelling her full of hot air. Then she’d sail home to write, high for hours on the energy that wa
s only New York.

  “Yes, miss?” the barista snapped through her reverie.

  “Coffee, please, and do you have any plain doughnuts?”

  The barista raised an eyebrow and indicated the trays of refreshments under glass covers. Phoebe wondered how many days they’d been there.

  “Try the Madeira cake,” came a voice behind her.

  She whirled around to face the man from the stacks, smiling crookedly.

  “Did you follow me?” she demanded. Her fingers hurt and she saw her hand had curled into a tight fist.

  The man didn’t notice. “I was thirsty again, a happy coincidence. And I’ve secured the only empty table, so I hope you’ll join me.”

  He really did look hopeful. His huge brown eyes sparkled under thick black eyebrows. He had a mole on his cheek and could fence with that nose. A detail Phoebe found rather appealing.

  “I don’t share tables with strangers,” Phoebe informed him.

  “I should hope not,” he said, and laid a hand on his chest. “Reg Bassill. Allow me,” he went on, handing a coin to the barista.

  “No, thanks, I can manage,” Phoebe said with some asperity. He was no aristocrat, nothing like Nigel Elliott, but he had a friendly voice and suaveness, plus that funny smile, which was in danger of disarming her. She couldn’t cede an inch.

  “All right then,” he said easily. “But we are still partial strangers, you know.”

  She threw back her shoulders. “Phoebe Adler,” she announced, watching to see if his expression changed. It didn’t, and she decided to share the table. The sooner she sat, the sooner coffee would be over and she’d be back at work.