‘You don’t think it’s a bit too political?’
‘Not at all. It’s ten years since Sir John Reith decided that politicians and politics could enter the BBC’s hallowed portals. Since then, we have all shades of opinion in our studios. We are totally independent of government, remember. You know Guy Baron?’
Verity said she did.
‘Well, he calls himself a Communist though I don’t think he really is one. Anyway, in his The Week in Westminster he makes a point of having guests from every part of the House and the DG welcomes it. He is insistent – as was Sir John – that we must be balanced. We must be fair to all parties and represent all views.’
‘Except the most extreme. I imagine you would draw the line at having a Nazi telling the country we’d be better off without the Jews.’
Barnes was shocked. ‘That goes without saying. We do not allow anything to be broadcast which might incite hatred of any race or section of the community.’
‘Then I’d be happy to be interviewed on the Spanish Civil War.’ Verity wanted to ask if Frieda knew enough about it to ask her the right questions but Barnes pre-empted her.
‘The idea is that Frieda represents the ordinary listener who may not know a lot about the war but wants to learn a bit about it without being drowned in detail, if you understand me. I suggest you send Frieda the questions you want her to ask. By the way, what will be the main thrust of your argument?’
‘It would be that the Spanish Civil War was the first battle in the great European war which will shortly be upon us. Democracy lost that battle but it must win the war.’
‘You won’t be too depressing, will you?’ Frieda put in.
‘Don’t worry! I’ll end on a positive note. It may not be true but I’ll argue that right wins out over wrong and dictators are, in the last resort, weaker than democracies. Will that do?’
‘Perfectly!’ Barnes exclaimed. ‘And don’t forget to include stories of courage and heroism and one or two humorous incidents . . .’
They went on to discuss details and it was agreed that the interview would be recorded on a Marconi-Stille direct disc machine on Wednesday week and broadcast a week or two later.
When they had finished, Frieda asked Verity if she had time for a cup of tea. The canteen was in the basement and, as they entered, Verity couldn’t prevent herself looking round to see if there were any ‘personalities’. She was rewarded by the sight of Henry Hall and most of his band tucking into Fullers cake and biscuits but, to her slight disappointment, there was no sign of the Bandwaggon stars, Arthur Askey and Richard Murdoch. She was about to mention her favourite show when Frieda once again raised the subject which was uppermost in her mind.
‘It’s just so awful . . . I can’t imagine how Byron must have suffered waiting to be killed. And the children . . . Are they all right?’
‘As I told you on the telephone, they’re very shocked, and so Edward and I have arranged for them to stay with us until Jean’s mother comes to claim them.’
‘Oh dear, you are a true Samaritan. I feel so guilty, though I don’t really know why. I was right not to come down, wasn’t I, Verity? I wake up in the middle of the night and worry about it.’
‘It would only have made things worse, especially as the press are hanging around Rodmell like wasps round a rotten apple. I say, Frieda, can I ask you something personal – something I have no right to ask you?’
‘Are you going to ask me if Byron and I were in love?’
Verity was surprised at her acuity. ‘Yes, I was. You told me on the telephone that you had been in love with him.’
‘I thought I was, at least at the beginning. Byron didn’t love me though and I had to accept that. In fact, I’m not sure if he even knew what the word meant. I quickly realized that to him I was just a “bit on the side”. To be fair, he never pretended I was anything else. I think the only person he really loved was himself, but I suppose I ought not to speak ill of the dead.’
‘What made you fall for him?’
‘I like famous people. Isn’t that an awful thing to say? And I was down in the dumps. My career was going nowhere. I had gone for so many auditions and been rejected. I was flattered when he made a pass at me and I suppose being with him was some kind of substitute for having failed as an actress. I was always performing when we were together. You must have noticed when we met at that evening at the Embassy that I was playing a part – trying to give him what he needed. In a funny sort of way, he was very insecure. In return, he took me to nice places like the Embassy and Ciro’s – he was a very good dancer – and introduced me to interesting and famous people. I suppose my dancing days are over,’ she added sadly.
‘That was it? Nothing else?’ Verity wasn’t normally judgemental – she’d lived too rackety a life to take the moral high ground – but Frieda’s explanation sounded superficial to the point of triviality.
‘He was a very good lover – sensitive and caring. I hate men my own age. My first experience of men was more like rape – he was a friend of my brother’s and probably more frightened than I was. The more I said no, the more determined he became – I imagine so that he could brag to his friends he was no longer a virgin. I suppose it was all about his self-respect but it did nothing for mine. Anyway, to find that Byron knew what to do and how to do it was rather a relief. I discovered sex could be deeply satisfying. I expect you think I’m just a tart.’
‘No, I don’t,’ Verity said, although she did think Frieda was naive and foolish. ‘But, before Byron, they weren’t all boys, were they?’
‘What do you mean?’ Frieda asked sharply.
It flashed through Verity’s mind that Frieda thought she was accusing her of being a lesbian. She hurriedly made it clear that all she meant was that Frieda’s previous lovers had been men rather than boys.
‘Well, you know how people talk . . . Forgive me if I am being impertinent but I heard that you were with Lewis Cathcart before . . .’
‘Who told you that?’ Frieda sounded annoyed but also relieved. ‘Do you know him?’
‘No, but I thought I might see if he’ll talk to me. He might have some idea about who hated Byron enough to kill him.’
‘Well, I happen to know that you won’t find him here today. He’s gone off to make a programme in Wales with a poet friend of his, Dylan Thomas. Have you head of him?’
‘Yes, I have. He’s also a friend of the painter, Mark Redel. I gather you used to model for him in Highgate.’
‘For Mark? Yes, I did. But that was all. We weren’t lovers or anything.’ Frieda was silent for a moment while she considered what Verity was implying. ‘But surely you don’t think that Lewis might have . . .? I mean, he had no reason to . . . Our affair had finished before I met Byron.’
‘You were finished with him or did he finish with you?’
‘I told him I had found someone else. He was very upset when we broke up,’ she confessed, sounding very slightly smug. ‘But he was getting on my wick. He patronized and stifled me. He didn’t want me to get this job and, when I did, he tried to persuade Mr Barnes to sack me. I couldn’t forgive him for that. Thank God, Reg – Mr Barnes – told him to go to hell. You don’t really think Lewis could have killed Byron, do you?’
‘I don’t know. Do you?’
‘No, I can’t believe that.’
But Verity saw that Frieda did believe that Lewis was, at least, capable of it. She thought she would try one last question. ‘By the way, Frieda, when we got back to Edward’s rooms in Albany after our evening at the Embassy, the porter gave him an envelope which I opened. It was a horrible anonymous letter saying disgusting things about us . . . and about you and Byron. Did he get one too?’
‘Not that he ever told me. What sort of things did it say?’
‘Stupid, beastly things about us being immoral and . . . and worse.’
‘Gosh! Do you think it was from the murderer?’
‘It could have been.’
Frieda w
as rather less effusive when she said goodbye to Verity than when she had greeted her. There were no kisses – just a perfunctory handshake – and she seemed glad to see the back of her. Maybe, Verity thought, she felt she had revealed too much about herself. As a commissionaire opened the swing doors for her, a man wearing a clerical collar stepped back to let her pass. It was Paul Fisher, Rodmell’s vicar – the last person she expected to see at the BBC. For a second or two she couldn’t think who he was.
‘Mr Fisher! What are you doing here?’ she asked in surprise.
‘Hello, Lady Edward. I might ask the same of you.’ He seemed embarrassed and she was sure he would have pretended not to notice her had it been possible.
‘What a coincidence!’ she exclaimed. ‘We were talking about you at breakfast. After he dropped me at the station, Edward was going to meet the girl you very kindly suggested might be able to help with Ada and Jean.’
‘That was a very Christian act – taking in the Gates children.’
‘Not Christian,’ Verity could not resist correcting him. ‘It was what anyone would do in the circumstances – even a Communist.’
Fisher looked as though he was about to start an argument but seemed to think better of it.
‘So what are you doing at the BBC?’ he asked.
‘I’m being interviewed next week about the Spanish Civil War and I was talking through the arrangements. And you?’
‘I’m taking the Daily Service tomorrow and some next week as well. My friend Pat M’Cormick, the vicar at St Martin-in-the-Fields, put my name forward. He took the very first service here.’
‘Goodness. I’m impressed. I shall certainly listen even though I’m not one of the faithful.’
‘I’m well aware of that, Lady Edward.’ He sounded so disapproving that Verity recoiled as though he had hit her. She recovered herself and tried to be friendly. He was Edward’s friend, she reminded herself, and she had no wish to quarrel with him.
‘Please call me Verity. Everyone does. I didn’t mean to offend you. Do you think I talk too much about being an atheist?’
‘It’s not that,’ Fisher responded defensively. ‘It’s just that I’m a friend of Tommie Fox, as you know, and he told me how you wouldn’t let him bless your wedding. He was very hurt.’
His look of reproach stung Verity to the quick. She resented being rebuked by someone who had no right to chastise her and felt herself become angry – her normal reaction when corrected.
‘I won’t try to convert you if you don’t try to convert me!’ she said with an effort at good humour.
‘This is no time for levity, Lady Edward,’ he said, ignoring her request to call her by her first name. ‘We live in a godless age and we face unimaginable evil. How can we hope to overcome our enemies if we cannot overcome ourselves?’
‘You are very severe, Mr Fisher. Did not Christ say forgive your enemies, turn the other cheek?’
‘How can you say that to me? Can you really forgive what the Fascists are doing to the Jews in Germany and to the brave Christian priests who protest against an evil regime? Christ is being crucified again even as we speak.’
Verity was ashamed. ‘You are right, of course. There can be no forgiveness for that. I have seen enough of it to know its true nature.’
Fisher seemed satisfied. The smile on his thin lips made him suddenly less severe and better-looking. He raised his hat. ‘We shall see each other in Sussex, no doubt, but goodbye for now.’
‘Good heavens!’ Verity exclaimed, perhaps inappropriately, as he disappeared into Broadcasting House. Silently, she added, ‘It’s a bit much to be dressed down by a bigot and a prig in this temple of free speech. I must ring Tommie and find out what has made him such a Bible basher.’ Her experience of Church of England vicars was not great but those she had met tended to be amiable men with liberal views, unwilling or unable to preach hellfire at the non-believer. Paul Fisher made her more certain than ever that she was an atheist.
10
The next few days passed quickly and quietly as time tends to do before any major catastrophe, at least in retrospect. Edward spent a day at the Oval with Tommie Fox watching England draw with the West Indies. A third wicket stand of 264 between Len Hutton and Walter Hammond recalled Hutton’s mighty 364 against Australia at the Oval the previous year.
Edward itched to take up a cricket bat again but had to make do with a box of croquet mallets and balls he discovered in what had once been the summerhouse but was now little more than a ruined shed given over to rats and birds. Basil tried to evict the rats but they were too fierce for him so he turned his attention to the birds who protested loudly but otherwise ignored him.
Leonard and Virginia they saw almost every day. Edward grew very much to like Leonard and at his urging made a determined attack on Virginia’s Three Guineas which puzzled and rather repelled him. Virginia was so complicated and subtle a character that he found it hard to get a grip on her. While he now thought of Leonard as a friend, he still regarded Virginia as something between a seer and La Gioconda – elusive but infinitely fascinating.
Verity was much less struck by Leonard and made no attempt to read Virginia’s novels, having convinced herself that she would not understand them. However, she became very fond of her and constantly sought her advice or approbation. It was almost as if she had adopted Virginia as an unpractical but wise older sister – the sister she had never had. Verity accepted her for what she was and her uncomplicated affection seemed to spark something similar in Virginia who, in Verity’s company, was cheerful and sometimes merry. She seemed to see in her something of Julian, her beloved nephew. Leonard and Edward would look at each other in delighted surprise when they heard the two women – so different in every way – laughing together.
‘When I first knew Virginia, she used to laugh and make jokes but now she laughs so seldom that I treasure each occasion. I owe your wife a lot, Edward.’
‘Not as much as I owe her,’ Edward responded fervently.
Verity found she was nervous as she pushed through the swing doors of Broadcasting House the following Wednesday. She had stopped before entering to admire the famous window boxes outside the Director General’s office on the first floor which, viewed from the street, recalled Sir John Reith’s shaggy eyebrows. She might not sympathize with all his views but his creation – the BBC – seemed to her almost perfect.
Frieda met her and took her straight up to the third floor. It was six o’clock and they used the interval until the recording to rehearse some of the questions Verity would be asked. Frieda wanted the conversation to sound spontaneous but found that it helped to prime the pump, as it were. Although Verity was no novice when it came to broadcasting, she had in front of her, as was her practice, a list of the names, dates, facts and figures which could so unaccountably elude her at a crucial moment when she was in full flow.
At twenty to seven they went into Studio 3D. Reg Barnes, talking to them from the control room behind a plate-glass window, tested their voice levels and twiddled knobs until he was satisfied with the technical side. The two women sat opposite one another across a table, each with a microphone in front of her. Frieda faced the control room so that she could take instructions from Reg Barnes. Although there was a clock on the wall, he said he would put his hand in the air when they were five minutes from the end and again two minutes before the stop signal. He was a comfortable calm figure and Verity knew she was in good hands. At five to seven she fought down an impulse to run out to the lavatory and the recording began. It was to last forty minutes.
She listened to Frieda’s introduction with some astonishment, hardly recognizing herself. Was she really the hard-bitten war correspondent Frieda painted her? There were references to her ‘scoop’ – her dispatch from Guernica just after its destruction by the Luftwaffe in April 1937 – her deportation from Vienna after the Anschluss and also her recent illness. Verity had not wanted this mentioned but Frieda felt that her recovery from TB might
encourage others who had been struck down by the disease to feel that they too could regain their health and return to normal life. Verity had reluctantly agreed but absolutely refused to discuss her marriage so was annoyed when Frieda sneakily mentioned that she was the wife of the celebrated amateur sleuth, Lord Edward Corinth.
After the first questions about how she had become a war correspondent and the problems a woman faced competing with men in a difficult and occasionally dangerous job, she relaxed and rather enjoyed talking about herself. Frieda asked one or two awkward questions about why she had joined and then left the Communist Party but they ended with what was almost a call to arms. She said the Nazis could be defeated and that in her experience the worst thing about war was the waiting.
All in all she thought it had gone well. When the red light went off, she got up, stretched and – leaving Frieda to tidy up her papers – went into the control room to see if Barnes was happy with the interview.
He was playing it back on the Marconi-Stille machine. ‘Very good! You’ll get a lot of sneers from the far right, but take that as a compliment. I think the DG will be pleased.’
Verity listened to the first few minutes of the interview but then begged Barnes to stop the machine. ‘I can’t bear my voice! I sound quite different in my head. Have I really got that clipped, nasal whine? Please tell me I sound more like Greta Garbo.’
‘You mustn’t be so hard on yourself. You have a low voice for a woman and that always sounds better on the wireless. Now, where is Frieda? There are a few things I need to say to her about the next interview.’
‘Who is that with?’
‘E. M. Delafield. She writes in Time and Tide.’
‘Of course! I love her books, particularly The Diary of a Provincial Lady.’
Barnes glanced through the window of the control room into the studio. ‘Good heavens! What on earth . . .?’
He got up hurriedly, knocking over a chair. Verity turned round, anxious to discover what had happened, and saw that Frieda appeared to be lying across the table. Her first thought was that she had fainted. The studio was certainly stuffy despite what Frieda had told her about the building’s ventilation system.
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