Radio Girls (31 page)

“It's going to be all hands on deck for the correspondence tomorrow, I should think,” Phyllida exclaimed later that afternoon, rubbing her hands together. Fielden sighed heavily.

Maisie looked up from the script she was revising. “Hmm? What? Why?”

Fielden sighed again and Phyllida laughed.

“Maisie, I know you've not forgotten the evening's debate topic?”

She hadn't forgotten the topic, just that it was this evening. There were times when a single day at the BBC felt like it lasted a week, which was part of what she loved about it, but it did occasionally make life confusing. However, tonight's debate was
Should Married Women Work?
—a subject half the women in Savoy Hill felt was already decided and were delighted to share with the world.

“Oh, goodness!” Maisie screeched, prompting another sigh from Fielden. “It's going to be a tremendous show, isn't it?”

They powered through their work that afternoon and Maisie skipped to the studio just before six thirty to ready it for the debate at seven. She was setting up the microphones when Reith strode in. Reith never entered the studios, and Maisie suspected this shift in habit did not presage anything good.

“Good evening, sir. You're here quite late. Is there something amiss?”

“Hmm? Oh, Miss Musgrave. No. I simply thought I had best supervise this debate. Best make sure all the right sort of things are said, mitigating against complaints and what.”

She wondered how much he agreed with Hoppel's opinion that the BBC needed to be less progressive. She wondered how many other men held the same opinion.

“It's very good, having these debates,” she said. “Very patriotic, really.”

“Is it?” He looked as though she were using the word incorrectly.

“Oh, absolutely! They discuss the complexities of government and social policy, and of course question it, too, but maybe, perhaps, give ordinary people information for discussing with their representatives, which might mean changing policy, and you can only have that sort of thing in a civilized and democratic society like ours,” she said, hardly pausing to breathe.

“Hm, well, it's a very interesting perspective you have, Miss Musgrave,” he said, nodding. She felt like a dog who had just performed a trick, and that he was barely restraining himself from patting her on the head. “Quite extraordinary, that we can even ask the question, isn't it? These times, these times.” He sighed and took out his cigarettes.

“No! I mean, er, they do ask that no one smoke in the studios, sir,” she reminded him, feeling herself blush.

“Ah. Yes, of course,” he muttered, tucking the case back in his jacket.

Maisie was relieved when Hilda and Phyllida came in, escorting the debaters and the moderator, Mrs. Strachey. All married women. Reith groaned softly, but then exerted himself to shake hands and
welcome them—he wouldn't have it said he wasn't worthy of being called a gentleman.

“Awfully good of all you ladies to come in and give listeners fodder for chat over supper.”

Supper. Simon. She had promised to meet him at seven. If she left now and took a cab, she would only be five minutes late. But then she would miss the debate.

Maybe it won't be that interesting. Maybe . . .

The woman arguing in favor of married women working was laughing at Reith. “My good man, unless she does absolutely all she wants every day and is subject to no one else's whim, I think you'll find the average married woman does work, just not for pay, which itself can hardly be counted as fair and ought to be changed at once.”

She would ring the restaurant and leave him a message. She had heard of people doing such things. She whispered hastily to Phyllida, then nipped across the corridor to the engineers' second office and snatched up the phone.

“Number please?”

“Er . . . the Spencer, a restaurant. In Chelsea,” Maisie specified.

“Do you know the number, miss?”

“No . . .” Maisie looked desperately across at Phyllida, who was holding the door open. It would have to close at any moment. The
BROADCAS
TING IN PROGRESS
sign would light up.

“One moment, please,” the operator informed her, looking up the exchange. Phyllida held up five fingers. Then four. Then three. “I'm connecting you now, miss.”

But the receiver was dangling well away from its rest and Maisie was back inside the studio with seconds to spare as the door closed, the switches flipped, and Billy gave the signal for the debate to begin.

If the Spencer had been a different sort of restaurant, it wouldn't have let in a sweaty, red-faced woman, coat and scarf akimbo, eyes wild. But Simon's penchant for “Bohemian” establishments meant that they were used to that sort of thing, so Maisie was admitted, at seven thirty-eight, and raked the room for Simon.

He was at the bar. He stood up and smiled, as he had been trained to do. But there was more ice in his manner than in the drink he offered her.

“I'm awfully sorry,” she gabbled. “It was a terribly important debate—I'd clean forgotten when we spoke—and then the DG, Mr. Reith, I mean, came to observe, and I did try to ring the restaurant and leave a message, but I was called back and—”

“It's perfectly all right, darling,” Simon insisted. “I do understand. I daresay I've had enough such nights myself and not been able to give you the attention you deserve, so it's no wonder you wouldn't be able to make the time for me.”

“No, that's not—”

“Of course it isn't. Do forgive me. I'm in a beastly mood. Been rather a rotten week.”

He tossed back half his whiskey and gave her a rueful smile. She wanted to stroke his face—a woman could behave such a way in a Bohemian spot—but she didn't dare. Touching him set something off in her. She knew that if he were to ask her up to his flat, she would go. She wanted him to ask. She hoped he wouldn't. She didn't know.

“I am sorry,” she said. “It's only . . . the debates are so critical, and I'm needed.”

She hoped he wouldn't guess she was lying. Even Hilda wasn't required to supervise the debates. They went because they couldn't stay away.

“And I'm sure it was exciting,” he said. “But I can't help feeling you're more fond of your BBC than of me.”

His voice was teasing, and he winked. She laughed, feeling like she was supposed to. But it was a thing that was lying there between them, a parcel neither of them wanted to pick up. She could easily have pointed out he was so keen on his work, and on the social duties he claimed to despise but engaged in anyway, that they had barely seen each other ten times in six months of acquaintance. But his work was important, and he was trying to build something. And there were notes sent back and forth, which made her feel he was present,
even when he wasn't. And. And. And it was true. She was entranced by him, but the BBC had her heart.

He looked at her a long moment, then ordered another drink.

“I have to go away,” he said at last, his voice flat and defeated.

“Oh. You mean for Christmas?”

“Longer than that, I think.” He downed the glass again and turned to her. “Bit of a nuisance with the family, and they need someone to do a bit of managing here and there, so I am called. I cannot shirk.”

Maisie forced her face to remain neutral. Beanie was right. His family was in trouble.

“Is there anything I can do?” she asked.

He took her hand. Again, that tingle. Running all through her body. He turned her palm over and buried his face in it. A long, slow gasp escaped her, which she hoped was masked by the din in the room.
Ask me home. Don't ask me home. Ask me.

He looked up at her, his whole soul in his eyes. “Maisie. Tell me you care more for me than the BBC.”

“I do,” she breathed.

“Do you mean that?”

No. “Yes.”

But she didn't understand why she had to rank them.

He pulled her toward him and kissed her a long time. She could feel his body melting into hers. Then she realized that in fact he was blind drunk, and it was all she could do to pour him into a cab, where he gave the directions and waved her off, not seeming to remember that this was a long goodbye.

It wasn't until she was mulling it all over on the way home that she realized he hadn't told her he cared more for her than his work.

He hadn't said he loved her.

She didn't tell Phyllida what had happened, and if Phyllida noticed that there were no letters from Simon over the next few days, she didn't
mention it. Maisie had thought he would still write, but she kept seeing the look in his eyes when he surmised that she cared more about the BBC than him.

What she would like would be to talk to Hilda. In a neutral place, free from the demands of work, Hilda composed Maisie's idea of a favorite aunt, someone very much your champion who could also listen and counsel to great satisfaction. Maybe over tea and cakes.

There was just the matter of finding free time.

“Yes, yes, will give it a think, not a chance, good,” Hilda said, running down a list of people Maisie had compiled as potential speakers. “And we're meeting with the governors in the New Year. I think they'll give us another bump in hours. We'll see how this series goes over.” She was having lunch with E. M. Forster, who had agreed to do a broadcast, and his initial series of thoughts were so fine, Hilda decided it should be an open-ended series.

“I don't think the DG will be keen,” Fielden said, bringing his own list of upcoming candidates for a series on scientific innovation throughout the 1920s.

“Mr. Forster is well considered; that's all he'll care about,” Hilda grunted, stabbing at her curls with a comb. “I think this lipstick is too bright. What do you think?” she asked Maisie.

“Forster won't notice,” Fielden put in.

“I think it's cheerful,” Maisie said. “You need that on a rotten day like this.” Fielden shrugged. He was used to everyone pretending like he hadn't spoken.

Hilda glanced at her watch. “Goodness, that was a long meeting. I'll have to take a cab. Miss Musgrave, you'll greet Miss Woolf when she comes in, won't you?” After that rehearsal, Maisie wasn't surprised Hilda was lukewarm toward Virginia Woolf, but the whole thing seemed odd. It wasn't like Hilda to shrug off writers. Especially as Miss Woolf was good friends with Vita.

But I had a hard time getting through
To the Lighthouse,
too.

It was Vera, the new head typist's birthday, and Phyllida was joining in the festivities. The rest of the staff was at lunch, so only Maisie
and Fielden remained in the department. Maisie loved when it was quiet like this, and she could lose herself in thinking. The next debate in
Questions for Women Voters
was: “Should Boys and Girls Have the Same Education?” and Maisie was keen to interview the speaker for girls, the head of Cheltenham. “Oh, good Lord, I'll have to hide in the broom cupboard all morning,” Beanie had wailed.
Why shouldn't boys and girls have the same education? The real question should be about the rich versus the poor—that would be something, all right. Someone would say the poor have to leave school at twelve because we need the laborers and then someone else will say that's awfully classist, and maybe we'll finally get Parliament to take up the issue of schools, and wouldn't that be something, too?

Her legs kicked back and forth of their own accord as she wrote. Phyllida's status as the most outspoken avowed radical in Talks was being challenged.

“I don't suppose the copy of Woolf's newest magnum opus is to be found?” Fielden called from his desk.

“It is. I suppose you want me to fetch it for you?” Maisie asked. Fielden's icy stare only made her snicker as she went into Hilda's office.

The usual tower of books. Maisie ran her finger down the spines. Poetry, poetry, something called
The Well of Loneliness
(rather a poignant title),
All Quiet on the Western Front
(Reith was on the warpath over all the anti-war screeds getting so much credence these days), something in German Maisie couldn't read, and there it was,
Orlando
. She slipped it from the pile and straightened all the other books.
Ooh, hallo, a Bartlett script!
She picked it up and started to read, then noticed a BBC interoffice memo underneath it. Or rather, she noticed it was turned over. A venal sin, of which the all-capped
DO NOT WRITE ON THIS SIDE
commandment marching three times down the sheet was a fierce reminder. But under the top
DO NO
T WRITE ON THIS SIDE
, Hilda had scribbled, “Shall!!”

Maisie, though exultant in Hilda's nose-tweaking, obediently turned the page over.

But it wasn't a memo; it was a letter. A personal letter. “Dearest Vita.” Dearest. Vita.

Well, lots of good friends address each other that way. Very Jane Austen
.