Radio Girls

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Radio Girls Page 24

by Sarah-Jane Stratford


  “That’s very good advice,” Maisie said gravely. “If I see any nice young girls, I’ll be sure to pass it along.”

  FOURTEEN

  London, September 1928

  Dear Lola,

  I’m so pleased the show is such a success and you’re enjoying Rome. I do miss you, though. You needn’t worry about my moving anytime soon. I’m earning more money as a Talks assistant, but I’d rather build up some savings, and of course get some more decent clothes and things. I do wish you were here to help me with shopping (which wasn’t true but it would delight Lola). Tell me more about this visconte who meets you at the stage door every night. I hope he’s noble in every sense of the word! We all miss you. Mrs. Crewe wants you to hurry home from such a disreputable place as Italy, though she’s glad you decided to keep your room here. As am I, and thank you again for giving me free rein with your things. I’m putting them to good use, and will tell all when you get home.

  Yours,

  Maisie

  Even if she had funds enough to move, there was absolutely no time for flat-hunting. In addition to her full days as a Talks assistant, she continued to type Hilda’s notes on broadcasting as they accumulated, every few weeks. A fine book was taking shape. Her budget now allowed for her own copies of morning papers, and as she had mastered the art of balancing in the tram without holding a strap, she could read and mark interesting events or people that might generate a Talk. And now she was sniffing around at what this unauthorized branch of the Fascist party was up to, as it was trying to upset her apple cart. She never felt tired, only energized.

  This week was particularly historic, as she was the first one to attack a submitted script with a red pencil. The Talk was A Day in the Life of a London Postman. She worked on it in the tram, in the evenings, even in the bath. Make it conversational. Bring out the most interesting bits. Help him be his most natural self. Then she presented it with high ceremony to Hilda.

  “Excellent work, Miss Musgrave,” Hilda said half an hour later, handing it back to her. Covered in blue writing. Hilda had made several dozen more revisions—all of them perfect.

  “Sometimes I wonder why any of us even bother,” Maisie murmured to Phyllida, who was reading the script over her shoulder.

  “Hers is better,” Phyllida said unhelpfully.

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “And next time you’ll do better, too,” Phyllida said, bopping Maisie on the shoulder.

  Maisie looked forward to getting her hands dirtier with Questions for Women Voters, which was an instant success. So much post came in asking follow-up questions, they had to run an extra five minutes at the end of each broadcast just to address a tenth of them.

  “We need a daily program, frankly, and an hour long,” Maisie told Simon, as they strolled through the National Gallery. He was keen to show her what he considered all the best art.

  “If the ladies have so many questions, maybe they’re not ready to vote,” Simon said, laughing in the face of Maisie’s lightning-bolt glare. “Joking! Rights for one should be rights for all, certainly. And it’s far better than having women protesting on the streets, yowling like banshees and creating all kinds of mess. I remember seeing it as a lad, grim stuff.” He pretended to shudder.

  “If equal rights were just given from the beginning, then no one would have to fight for them on the street and create a mess,” Maisie said.

  “Ah, there’s no arguing with the radical ladies.”

  “Not radical; reasonable, I think.”

  They laughed, and Maisie tried not to feel too pleased with herself. She couldn’t entirely believe it, believe this was her, the former Mousy Maisie, exploring the National Gallery with a charming and handsome and honest-to-goodness aristocrat, who seemed to like her. She still felt a bit awkward around him. Even after an acquaintanceship of several months, she hadn’t seen much of him. Indeed, their only contact over the last few weeks had been letters.

  “Can you forgive me, dearest?” he asked. “I’ve been working at it like a family of beavers. The words, the words, eh? Well, you know, you do a bit of writing yourself. Awfully satisfying when it comes out right and is printed, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” she agreed, thinking it was high time she tried to write something for print again.

  “But I can’t help wishing for a larger readership,” he complained. “Pinpoint is doing such fine work, but so few know it.” They stopped before The Hay Wain. “Ah, Constable. A great beauty, isn’t it? He really knew how to capture the best of Britain, the country life, the ordinary worker. Now, you see, that’s the sort of man I’d like my work to reach.”

  “Constable?”

  “The worker, darling. Provided he can read. Ah, I suppose that is the advantage you have over me. With radio, it doesn’t matter if the people are illiterate; you can still present them with useful facts and thus shape their minds.”

  “Well, we actually try to—”

  “Wouldn’t it be grand if the newspapers and BBC worked together, after a fashion? Get the most important information to the people, make sure no one missed it?”

  “But news does get everywhere,” Maisie said. “Every town and village has a paper, and there’s Reuters and—”

  “Of course, of course. But it’s not the same as a really brilliant editor, putting together all the best stories, not just facts but essays, opinions. Think of it, darling. A good, strong voice, clear of all the other dross that ends up in papers, that would provide some real meat for the man. Or woman,” he added graciously.

  “I don’t know,” Maisie said. “It sounds like it waters things down an awful lot.”

  “Not if the writing is masterful. Besides, isn’t that rather what your BBC does? It is only a single entity, based in London and so not unreasonably viewed as London-centric, and travels unaltered all through the country.”

  “But that’s what makes us so democratic,” Maisie argued. “Anyone anywhere can hear a poem or a debate or a play and they don’t have to be able to read or be in London and they can enjoy it equally.”

  “They don’t have to be bothered with a lot of different views.”

  “But we do present different views! Miss Matheson says that’s one of the most important—”

  “Oh, Miss Matheson, Miss Matheson. Honestly, darling, she begins to sound like a deity. Come, let’s pay obeisance to Vermeer.”

  He took her hand to pull her along. She was sure his argument was flawed and wanted to think about it, but when he touched her, the ability to think fell out of her ears. She just wanted to follow that touch wherever it went.

  “If that’s true, you’d best be careful,” Phyllida warned. They were cranking out mimeographs, so they could steal a moment for a private conversation. “At least go to one of those clinics.”

  “Those . . . Oh!” Those sorts of clinics. She had come a long way from Cyril. She wasn’t sure if she was in love, but she wasn’t sure she cared. When she was with Simon, she just wanted . . .

  “But what do you think when you’re not with him?”

  “Mostly about the BBC.”

  “Aye, so be careful. Don’t want to get yourself in what they might call ‘a situation.’”

  “You have to be married to go to those clinics, though,” said Maisie.

  “So you borrow a ring and call yourself ‘Mrs.’ They’re not going to check.” Phyllida shrugged.

  “How do you know?” Maisie demanded.

  Phyllida gave Maisie a disdainful frown.

  “I came up through the typing pool. Try to find something I don’t know.”

  Maisie laughed, gathered the mimeographs, and headed for the corridor.

  “As it happens, unlike some people we need not mention, Simon Brock-Morland is thus far as honorable as his title.”

  Beanie, hurrying past them, skittered to a halt.
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  “Simon Brock-Morland? Don’t say you know him!”

  “I do, actually.” Maisie grinned.

  “He’s courting her,” Phyllida added, smirking.

  “Is he? Really? Fancy that—here I thought I was the one who specialized in unlikely scenarios. Anyway, must dash, rehearsal. Cheerio!”

  Maisie had her own rehearsal to attend, so kept pace with Beanie.

  “So you know him, too? You do, don’t you? Do you like him?”

  Beanie gave Maisie a sidelong glance, looped arms with her, and propelled her up the stairs, heads close together.

  “I don’t know him well, if that’s what you’re asking. I was just paraded before him a few times as a viable candidate, doing my show horse rounds.”

  “Sorry?”

  “He’s eligible. I’m available. Got to display all the wares. Les parents may be tickled by my work, living the regular life, doing good, et cetera, et cetera, but I’m still who I am and there are expectations, don’t you know? Can’t let the side down. Duty will come for us all and can’t shirk it forever. Got to produce more top foals and what.”

  Beanie was too well trained to let her real feelings show, even accidentally. But Maisie swore she heard a twinge of bitterness in that cut-glass accent.

  “But you don’t have to marry anyone you don’t want to, surely? It’s nearly 1929, for heaven’s sake.”

  “You really aren’t British.” Beanie giggled, shaking her head. “Ah, well, in any event, the Honorable Mr. Brock-Morland didn’t take my bait, even though the story says he could do with some extra dosh.”

  “Just because he’s the second son doesn’t mean he hasn’t got money.”

  “Perfectly true. But I hear his father isn’t the best manager of things. Of course, one can’t ever be sure. And thank goodness for that, or what would we talk about?”

  Maisie turned this information over and over. If Simon was concerned about money, but seemed to be interested in her and not someone like Beanie . . .

  “He might like that you’re clever, you know,” Beanie said. “He’s a funny one that way. Or he hopes to shock the family, of course. Shocking one’s family is quite ‘the fad’ these days. This year’s pea-shooting. Ah, here’s for me, cheerio.”

  Beanie was halfway down the corridor when Maisie shouted after her.

  “How do families like that lose money? It’s not just taxes or peasant revolts. It can’t be.”

  Beanie turned and stared at her. “It would take a lot more journeys up and down the stairs to answer that question.”

  “Can you, though? Answer it?”

  “Are you looking for gossip about Simon? I can likely scrape some up for you. He was rather a pompous ass to me. You’re not in love with him, are you? Not that it matters. On the other hand.” She paused, studying Maisie. Her expression was so serious, she was unrecognizable. “If you really want to know more about reversals of fortune, there are any number of stories written on it, I should think. But if this is towards a Talk, you tell Miss Matheson I want to be the one to present it.”

  “You? Really?”

  Beanie laughed, looking much more like herself.

  “I told you. Shocking one’s family is all the thing.”

  Georgina would certainly be shocked if she saw Maisie using stage makeup to good effect, and especially if she saw the disguised Maisie entering a secret meeting of Fascists.

  Except she probably doesn’t know what Fascists are.

  This time, the Lion was dismissing any effect women voting might have, as he assumed most women were too featherbrained to even find their way to the polling booths. Maisie ignored him and inched her way to Hoppel, who was having a whispered conversation in the back corner. She was so intent on her quarry, she didn’t notice his companion until she was upon them. The teapot-shaped man who had looked at Simon with such interest. His bowler hat was tipped back and a cane hung over his arm in a parody of Charlie Chaplin. Neither man noticed her.

  “Your friend at the BBC really must try and control that impossible woman,” the teapot-shaped man said in a gravelly voice. “She is making every attempt to see Labour win the election. I am convinced it’s the fault of the BBC, and that ghastly Manchester Guardian drivel, that trade unions are allowed to thrive. Total disaster for business—we’ll all be paupers if this carries on. Appalling state, might as well be living in Moscow.”

  “‘Appalling’ is the only word,” Hoppel agreed. “I tell you, Grigson, plenty of men are willing to work for whatever they’re offered, but then those damn unions give them notions. And these book clubs! That’s the sort of thing that makes a workingman think he’s better than he is. More of that dreadful woman’s influence. The sooner we see the back of her, the better.”

  “Another who thinks she’s better than she is,” Grigson said with a disparaging sniff. “But here’s good news. I have purchased a newspaper and think I have found the man to run it. Might have a bit of a time finding a few more sound fellows to write for it, but I think we’ll manage.”

  “I know some writers,” Maisie burst in. Good spies listened, yes, but better ones seized opportunities.

  Both men turned to look at her, surprised. Grigson laughed in what he clearly intended to be a fatherly manner. It grated on Maisie like fingernails on a chalkboard.

  “Do you now? And I suppose these ‘writers’ are in fact brothers or cousins in need of a good job?”

  “Well, perhaps,” she said, trying to speak in Lola’s accent. “But truly, they are very talented and eager.”

  “Ah, that’s very nice too,” Grigson said. “I tell you what, dear. Take my card, and if you’d like to have these writers drop through their stuff to me, I’ll have a look at it.”

  “That’s very kind of you, sir. Thank you so much.”

  “Not at all, not at all. But, ah, I say, dear, have the boys just leave off envelopes addressed to me and not saying anything about what it’s regarding, all right? You can manage that, can’t you?”

  “Certainly, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  She had a feeling they were the sort of idiots who liked to see a girl so elated by a nothing sort of promise, there was a skip in her step as she walked away. She skipped, they laughed, and she smirked. Then the old thought floated through her contempt, the question, wondering if she had in fact told the truth, and Edwin Musgrave had provided her with brothers and cousins.

  On the tram, she shook off those thoughts and looked at the card. The fist inside sucked all the breath from her body. Arthur Grigson. A company director. At Nestlé.

  She should have been flabbergasted. But she wasn’t.

  Neither was Hilda. “Although I would like to be, I must say.” Maisie had met her at the door to Savoy Hill that morning and they walked up the stairs together. They murmured, though they could have bellowed and no one would have heard them over the din, even at that hour. “All this fuss, just to keep a wealthy company run by wealthy men earning a bit more money. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they call themselves Christians, too. Silly idiots.”

  “They also want to keep women from working. Or voting.”

  “They wouldn’t, if they thought women working and voting would earn themselves one extra half-farthing. Never mind. The more we educate our listeners, the harder their work will be.”

  “And the more fun for us,” Maisie said.

  It was a grueling day. Hilda asked both Maisie and Phyllida to accompany her in rehearsing Virginia Woolf, an uncomfortable hour during which the writer refused to meet any of their eyes. She gazed at the microphone as though she expected it to bite her and looked fully prepared to bite back.

  “I enjoyed Orlando very much,” Phyllida ventured, with her most winning smile. Virginia Woolf stared at her without blinking.

  “Thank you,” she said at last. “It was a great pleasure to write.” This
comment was delivered with what looked very much like a glare at Hilda.

  “We’re all very lucky, aren’t we?” Hilda asked. “Getting to do work we enjoy? Wouldn’t have been possible, even when you were born, Miss Fenwick.”

  “No, quite,” Phyllida answered, but her voice was wavering under that ceaseless glare, and Hilda’s usual cheer and disinterest in Miss Woolf’s temper was making it worse. Maisie and Phyllida exchanged a look, but there was nothing to do except carry on until, at last, Miss Woolf rose to leave.

  Maisie stepped forward to walk her out. Miss Woolf said nothing, but shunned the lift for the stairs, moving with such ominous solemnity as to unnerve anyone coming upstairs, so that they jumped aside to let her pass. Maisie didn’t like the writer’s behavior, but couldn’t help be impressed.

  “Are you working on something new, Miss Woolf?” Maisie asked, hoping she seemed polite. In fact, she wanted to punish Virginia Woolf by forcing her to talk.

  “I am,” was the succinct reply.

  “Another novel, dare we hope?”

  “Of sorts.” They reached reception, and the writer gave Maisie the faintest of nods. “It is, in part, about the importance of having one’s own space. And having that space respected.” She raised an eyebrow at Maisie, then turned and sashayed out the door.

  Well, what idiot’s going to argue otherwise?

  Maisie ran back upstairs, where Hilda had forgotten Virginia Woolf and wanted to address the problem of some letters they were getting in response to Questions for Women Voters, letters from married women whose husbands were angry about them registering to vote.

  “What sort of marriage do you call that?” Phyllida demanded. “One that needs walking out of, is what I say.”

  “We can’t be accused of promoting marital discord,” Hilda said. “Or more scandalously, divorce. So, let’s think about these women.”

 

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