by Nicola Upson
‘I didn’t know you worked on the Radio Times, Julian,’ Josephine said.
‘Yes, back in twenty-nine – it’s how I started at the BBC. Viv and I shared a desk. I taught her all she knows.’
‘God help me if that were true.’ Ignoring Terry’s next move, she turned to Josephine and said: ‘I don’t suppose you’d do me an enormous favour? We’ve got a photographer downstairs, taking some rehearsal pictures of your play. Would you have one taken with them? Readers love to see who’s behind the broadcast, and we don’t get the chance to do it very often.’
‘Will that hold you up?’ Josephine asked hopefully, but Terry shook his head.
‘No, of course not. You go down with Viv and I’ll join you in a few minutes.’ He glared at his colleague. ‘It’ll give me time to cobble a few words together. Unless, of course . . . now that would be a splendid idea.’ There was an impatient sigh from the door as he kept them in suspense. ‘Why don’t we ask the author to do it? Get Josephine to write something for you, Viv. “The drama of kingship” by the author of Richard of Bordeaux. That would be quite a coup. You two can work out the details between you.’
He ushered them out of his office, leaving Josephine unsure as to whether it had been a serious suggestion or merely a ploy to get rid of them. Hoping to discourage the idea, she changed the subject. ‘Julian said the editor was on grace term – what’s that?’
‘It’s like time off for good behaviour. If you’ve been at the BBC for ten years in what they call – and I quote – “a creative and responsible role”, you get three months off and a grant to expand your horizons in a way which will benefit both you and the Corporation. Maurice Gorham’s spending the summer in America.’
‘Leaving you in charge?’ The surprise in her voice must have been obvious because the other woman gave a wry smile, and Josephine felt obliged to explain her lack of tact. ‘Sorry, that didn’t sound quite right. I just meant that a woman in such a senior position must be unusual here.’
‘I suppose they wondered what harm I could do in three months, and it would have taken them that long to break someone else in. I’ve worked with Maurice for years, and the job’s not as lofty as you might think. Everyone at the top is a bit sniffy about the Radio Times, even if it does make thousands of pounds a year. But it keeps you in touch with everything – drama, talks, outside broadcasts – and that’s what I love about it. Do you mind if we go via my office? I need to drop these notes off.’ Josephine shook her head and followed Vivienne Beresford down yet another flight of stairs. She was fascinated by the vast array of functions stacked one on top of another within the building, from general offices, restaurants and post rooms to libraries, council chambers and the different-sized studios that Julian had mentioned; it was surprising that anyone who had to move around the departments got any work done at all.
The Radio Times offices were away from the main building in one of the adjoining houses on Portland Place. ‘You’re right about the women, though,’ Vivienne continued, opening the door onto a small courtyard that functioned as a shortcut. ‘It took them ten years to trust the British public with a female announcer, and even then I swear they half-believed the building would crumble to the ground in protest as soon as Sheila opened her mouth. On the other hand, I believe the waiting list of charwomen currently stands at around three thousand. Right, these are our offices – cramped, chaotic and friendly, but give me that any day. The other place is far too anonymous for my liking.’
Josephine assumed that Vivienne had not bothered to move for her brief tenure in charge: the office she headed for was shared with a kindly faced, grey-haired typist, so elderly that the room might well have been built around her, and her desk had nothing temporary about it; letters and proof pages for the new issue sat happily alongside personal photographs, postcards and well-thumbed reference books. Directly opposite, a framed Radio Times cover from 1929 stood on the floor against a filing cabinet, and Josephine’s attention was drawn immediately to the painting that had replaced it on the wall. ‘Is that the Coronation cover?’ she asked.
‘Yes, it’s the original artwork. Stunning, isn’t it? Maurice did so well in persuading Nevinson to do it for us. I must remember to return it to his office before he gets back from the States – it’s his pride and joy.’
Josephine smiled and walked over to take a closer look. ‘I’m not surprised. It’s lovely.’ The artist, more famous for his harrowing war images than his royal tributes, had chosen an unusual perspective for this particular cover design, looking down into Whitehall from a top floor window. The pavements were packed with cheering crowds, while hundreds more gathered to watch the procession from every vantage point afforded by the buildings on either side, their faces just visible through the flags and bunting that all but obscured the sober grey stone of London’s governmental heart. Sunlight – it was, of course, a fine, dry day – glinted on the polished helmets of the guards below, echoing the ceremonial red-and-yellow masts that lined the street and bringing a feeling of warmth and celebration to the image as a whole. And in the foreground, resting on the window ledge at which the viewer sat, was a microphone, poised and ready to broadcast the BBC’s coronation commentary to the world. The design was a masterful combination of symbolism and atmosphere, worthy of the history being made. In fact, it was so convincing that Josephine half-believed she could hear the horses’ hooves and the cheers of the crowd as she looked at it, that she could – if she wished – throw open the window and feel the rough cloth of the flag between her fingers.
‘I think that will knock everything else on the bookstands into a cocked hat, don’t you?’ Vivienne said, joining her by the painting. ‘We shouldn’t be smug, but we are.’
‘You’ve every right to be. I’m surprised your boss didn’t hang around to enjoy his moment of glory, though. Won’t he be lonely in America? Most of them are over here.’
‘I think Maurice has lived with the build-up for so long that he feels as if he’s seen the event already – we all do. Because there’s such a large print-order for this issue, the cover and the colour supplement had to go to press a while ago. Look, this is it.’ She showed Josephine what she meant, opening the supplement to reveal a double-page map of the coronation procession. ‘We knew the important stuff weeks ago – the route, the order of service, the street layout – so everything that should be so exciting is actually old news.’ She pointed to Nevinson’s painting again. ‘Actually, it was this that gave us the biggest headache of all. Before he could finish it, he had to know how the city would be decorated, but nothing had been announced. Poor Maurice ended up at the Privy Council, only to be told that they couldn’t possibly say anything but if we made it red and yellow we wouldn’t be far wrong. I half think he left the country just in case they were lying.’ Josephine laughed and handed the map back, but Vivienne shook her head. ‘I’ll have thousands of the damned things on Friday, so you might as well keep it and plot your position. It’s going to be chaos out there. I assume you’re staying on for it?’
‘Yes, but I have a good friend at Scotland Yard. He’s organised some seating for us near the Abbey.’
‘Very handy.’
‘What about you?’
‘Oh, equally nepotistic. My husband’s a broadcaster here . . .’
‘Anthony Beresford?’ Josephine felt slow for not having made the connection earlier: Beresford was one of the best-known voices at the BBC.
‘That’s right. He’s one of the observers on the day, so I’ll probably be with him during the commentary.’ She picked up a sheaf of papers from her desk and opened the door. ‘Right, I’d better not make you late for the read-through or Julian will regain the moral high ground. They’re in the concert-hall green room.’
‘What about your grace term?’ Josephine asked as they walked through the courtyard and back into Broadcasting House. ‘I imagine some time off would be welcome after this.’
‘Not really. I’d rather be at work, if I’m
honest. Maurice is off for another two months and I’m enjoying myself – not that anything’s particularly different. The workload seems remarkably similar whether he’s here or not.’ Josephine had already learned that Vivienne Beresford used a smile when it counted, not when it was expected, and it came now, warm and conspiratorial. ‘Anyway, when my time comes to spend the Corporation’s money, I’ll do it somewhere much closer to home. Anthony was a foreign correspondent for a while after we were married, so I’ve had enough of moving around. I’m happiest on English soil – always have been.’
Thankfully, the BBC’s concert hall was on the lower ground floor and comparatively easy to navigate. ‘I’ll apologise in advance for putting you through this,’ Vivienne said as she opened the outer door to the green room. ‘The shots aren’t always flattering – less action than actionable, if you know what I mean – but it does help the magazine.’
The space designed for artists using the concert hall could not have been more different from the public areas of Broadcasting House – as vibrant and modern as the entrance hall was classic and restrained, with a chocolate-brown carpet and pale-green walls, offset by beautiful art-deco chairs upholstered in a Chelsea stripe. The room had the potential to be divided into two by central curtains which were currently drawn back, and the photographer had placed his tripod at the far end, where a large mirror brought light and the illusion of space to the room. He had his back to the door and the session was in full swing, with all but a handful of the cast oblivious to the women’s entrance. Standing script in hand by another striking flower arrangement, they waited as the photographer tried to tease what he wanted from the most prominent actress, an auburn-haired woman with the look of a worldly Betty Balfour, whom Josephine recognised as her queen. ‘Come on, Millie darling,’ he said impatiently, and his voice was high-pitched and regrettably clear. ‘At least try to smile. Just remember you’re knocking off the acting editor’s husband.’
Josephine could not decide if she had actually heard herself gasp or had simply imagined it, but she saw her own embarrassment reflected in the faces looking back at her. The murmur of conversation in the room stopped instantly, as if an imaginary director had said ‘cut’, and she looked pleadingly at Lydia, who responded with one of the finest performances she had ever given. ‘Josephine, darling – how wonderful to see you. Everyone’s been longing to meet you. We’re all so excited about this.’ She wrapped Josephine in an enormous hug and dragged her over to the rest of the cast, whose relief made each and every one of them far more amenable to the presence of an author than they might otherwise have been. As she was introduced to Darnley, Bothwell and Rizzio in turn, she glanced quickly at Vivienne Beresford, who stood still and impassive, her humiliation acknowledged only by the tide of crimson rising slowly from her neck; before she could think of something – anything – to say which might involve the editor in the conversation and make the situation easier for her, Millicent Gray dropped her script onto the coffee table, glared at the camera and walked over to the door. For a moment, Josephine thought she was going to bring the confrontation out into the open, but she left the room without meeting the other woman’s eye. A few seconds later, Vivienne Beresford turned and followed her out into the corridor.
‘I think we might be looking for a new queen,’ the photographer said, apparently unruffled by the damage he had done. ‘Could be your moment after all, Lydia darling, although I wouldn’t bet against Millicent in a fight.’
Lydia chose not to rise to the bait, but the actor playing Bothwell – introduced to Josephine as Douglas Graham – was not quite so restrained. ‘Don’t be so bloody stupid, Leaman,’ he said. ‘It’s about time you learned to keep your mouth shut. In fact, I’m surprised someone didn’t do it for you years ago.’
‘Are you offering, Dougie? No? Then I’d save your histrionics for the broadcast. Anyway, it’s not as if I’ve let the cat out of the bag, is it? Vivienne knows perfectly well what’s going on. We all do, so I don’t quite see what the fuss is about.’ The words were defiant, but Leaman sounded rather less sure of himself as he turned to Josephine. ‘And last but not least, the author. Then I’ll leave you all to it.’
By now, he seemed to have lost heart for anything creative, and Josephine’s ordeal consisted of nothing more arduous than a few perfunctory portrait shots. When it was over, she sat down gratefully next to Lydia. ‘Now I know what Julian meant by Millicent Gray and tension in the building. I wanted the ground to swallow me up, so God knows how Vivienne Beresford felt. You were marvellous, by the way.’
‘Thank you. It’s nice to be appreciated. I think Viv’s used to it, though. Gerard Leaman may be a troublemaking little shit, but he’s right about the affair being the worst kept secret at the BBC. And regardless of her marriage, Viv’s no stranger to gossip. Her maiden name was Hanlon.’
Josephine looked blank. ‘Should that mean something to me?’
‘Yes. She’s Olivia Hanlon’s sister.’ When the explanation failed to bring the moment of clarity that Lydia expected, she added impatiently: ‘You must have heard of Olivia Hanlon! The night-club hostess? She owned the Golden Hat in Soho. It was legendary back in the twenties.’
‘Yes, I remember it, but I couldn’t have told you who owned it.’
‘Well, discretion was her middle name, I suppose. Then she drowned in a swimming pool about ten years ago and discretion went out the window. There was quite a fuss about it at the time.’
‘Not in Inverness, there wasn’t. Must have clashed with a flower show.’ Josephine thought about the intelligent, no-nonsense woman she had just met, trying – and failing – to see her as the unhappy victim of a bad marriage, whose past refused to lie down. ‘Vivienne didn’t strike me as the type to be made a fool of. Why doesn’t she divorce him?’
Lydia shrugged. ‘Who knows what goes on in a marriage? And there are two sides to every story, aren’t there?’
It was an innocent observation, but they were straying into territory that made Josephine uncomfortable. Her deepening relationship with Lydia’s lover carried with it a complex blend of joy and soul-searching, and – while she suspected that Lydia was perfectly aware of the situation and had her own reasons for tolerating it – the subject remained an unspoken source of friction between them, threatening their friendship but never quite derailing it. Reluctant now to continue a conversation that could have any kind of subtext, she steered it carefully back to Vivienne Beresford. ‘When you say there was a fuss about her sister’s death, do you mean it was suspicious or just scandalous?’
‘Both. There was talk of debts and suicide, and some of the papers hinted that she was bumped off because of something she knew, but I suppose that was inevitable with what she did for a living. Nothing was ever proved, though. The verdict was death by misadventure, and that was that.’
Josephine was prevented from asking anything else by the arrival of Julian Terry and the return of a noticeably subdued Millicent Gray. The producer was accompanied by a young woman with a notebook and stopwatch whom Josephine took to be his assistant, and another man who was introduced to the cast as a studio technician. ‘Right everyone,’ he said when the formalities were dispensed with, ‘we’ll read straight through from the top and I’ll try to keep any interventions to a minimum so we get a rough idea of the timing. Obviously the pace will be different when we’re working in the studios, but this will tell us if any major cuts are needed.’ Glancing apologetically at Josephine, he continued: ‘For that reason, if you have any questions about your characterisation, I’ll ask you to save them until the end, when there’ll be plenty of time to discuss it. We’re lucky enough to have the author here with us, so we might as well use her – and I want you all to be completely comfortable with your characters before we address any additional problems thrown up by working with the microphone. Is that all clear?’ Terry’s ignorance of any unpleasantness helped to defuse the remaining tension in the room, and everyone nodded, keen to get on. ‘Right t
hen, Beatrix – kick us off when you’re ready.’
Josephine listened intently to the opening scenes of her play, noting where changes had been made and enjoying the way in which the cast grew in confidence as they lost their initial nerves and began to enjoy the story. On reflection, Queen of Scots was a shrewd choice for radio: writers like her, who had cut their teeth in the theatre, found it hard to think about a play as something whose magic was not in part visual; much of the success of Richard of Bordeaux lay in its seductive sets and costumes, and many critics had blamed the comparative failure of Queen of Scots on a lack of appeal to the eye; here, freed of any visual expectations, Josephine’s words took on a new intensity and their impact thrilled her. Fascinated, she watched Terry as he worked, making notes on the strengths and weaknesses of each actor, and deciding whether persuasion, encouragement or bullying would best get him what he wanted. He was a benevolent dictator, working always for the good of the play, instilling trust in the cast by his own confidence, and Josephine found herself wondering if he manipulated people so effortlessly in all areas of his life.
Time flew, and before she knew it the actress who had opened the play was speaking its final words. Terry held up his hand for silence. ‘And then we’ll have the closing song . . .Thank you, everybody. That was wonderful.’ He led a round of applause and looked across at Josephine. ‘Happy?’
With twenty people staring back at her, she was relieved not to have to lie. ‘Very happy. Honestly – I couldn’t be more pleased. It was like coming to the play for the first time.’
‘Excellent. Let’s go through the scenes one by one and I’ll give you my thoughts, but any questions first?’
They spent another couple of hours with the script, then Terry called it a day and scheduled the next rehearsal, this time in the studios. The cast drifted out in twos and threes, and Lydia took Josephine’s arm. ‘Fancy a drink? I don’t have to be at the Criterion till eight.’