Radio Girls (39 page)

“May we help you?”

Maisie lurched forward into the desk, banging her knee so hard she thought it might be fractured. It was the dyspeptic Trent, looking as though he'd like to beat her to death and refraining only because he didn't want blood staining the parquet floor.

“I was just looking for some international letter paper,” she explained. “I wanted to write to my mother and tell her about my engagement.”

“And did Mr. Simon say you could have the use of his desk?”

“I was going to use the sofa, actually. He's still asleep. But I'm a lark type of girl. Very keen on catching worms.”

He looked her up and down, probably wondering what the
attraction was. Eyes locked on hers, he pulled out a drawer and withdrew several sheets of thin blue paper.

“Ah, there you are,” Simon murmured. Maisie turned to see him, clad only in pajama bottoms resting at his hips, running his hand through already tousled hair. That body. Smooth, sculpted, strong. She had touched every inch of that lightly burnished flesh. She could go to him now and touch him again. She wanted to. Better to do that, better to touch him, to kiss him, to lose herself in him, take him back inside her, than to believe all her eyes had told her. He had been drawn into something he didn't understand. Who among us didn't make mistakes, after all?

“I thought you'd used and abandoned me,” he said, pulling her into his chest and kissing her neck. “Let's go back to bed. I'm never up before nine. Trent must think the end is nigh.”

“I've got to be at work long before nine,” she reminded him. “Very busy day ahead, I'm afraid.”
Just got busier, too
.

“Mm, busy little bee. And I suppose you want to go home and change. Do you want breakfast first? Trent makes a rather lovely mess of bacon and eggs.”

“No, that's all right,” she said, instantly regretting it. Her turning down food was a dead giveaway. “Miss Matheson said she was going to stand us muffins and jam this morning, and, well . . . for once, I'm not feeling hungry for food.” She ran her hand down his back, thrilling to his shiver. She could do this. She had the right to touch him now, to . . .

What the hell am I doing? He's not . . .

“I hope you weren't riffling too much in my desk, there,” he said suddenly, and she wondered if there was an edge in his voice.

“No. Just hoped to find some blue letter paper. But the mess was a bit of an allaying force.”

He laughed.

“Yes, I imagine your secretary brain looks at that dog's dinner and wants to fill it with any amount of bourgeois in-trays and labels and files.”

“Nothing bourgeois about organization,” she snapped. “And I'm not a secretary anymore. I'm a Talks assistant.”

“Of course, of course, I know. And soon you'll be a producer and then the director and have the power to come in whenever you like and dictate the whole course of action.”

She barely heard him. She had to get to the BBC. She had to talk to Hilda.

“If you're not going to be a good girl and come back to bed with me, then it's cruel to stay,” he chided her. “Shall I give you cab fare?”

“No,” she said. She wanted to walk, clear her head. “No, that's all right.”

“I promised the lads a drink tonight, but will we have dinner tomorrow?”

“I'd love that,” she said, hardly registering either of their words.

“And what else do you love?” His eyes were teasing, and so warm. So honest.

“You,” she told him, kissing him again. “I love you.”

But I have no idea who you are
.

M
aisie walked slowly down Eversholt Street. All around her was the pulse of early-morning life. Dustmen, milkmen, postmen. And boys, newsboys, delivery boys, shoeshine boys. But not Tommies. Not anymore. No more war. They had fought, and won, and now the former enemy was subdued and come to heel and peace reigned.

And I'm the Queen of Sheba.

Maybe it all meant nothing. It might. She looked around her. It was later now. The street was full of the working and middle classes, all heading to different jobs, none as important as her own. Because she had power, didn't she? She was part of something that was doing something. She was . . . She was on the verge of running late.

She was hot and flustered when she reached her desk, and slammed her coat and hat on the rack. She stared at her neat piles of paper. There was a great deal to do. Letters from assorted experts in fields, hoping to be considered for broadcasts. Scripts to revise. Letters to draft.

Phyllida hissed in her ear, “You look hellish. Are you feeling all right?”

Maisie just nodded.

“Rubbish. Can I get you some tea? Or bicarbonate of soda?”

Maisie burst out laughing. If only, if only she were nursing a hangover! What a marvelously fashionable, mundane ailment that would be.

“Oh,
there
you are, Miss Fenwick,” Fielden said. “I made the mistake of looking for you at your own desk.”

“What luck Miss Musgrave's desk is less than twenty feet away. Otherwise I'd feel dreadful about your having to trek so far.”

“I don't know how the pair of you aren't making a fortune in the music halls,” Fielden said, including Maisie as part of the great comic duo. “Can you type these, please? And we've got to reschedule Mr. Jennings from Lloyd's.”

“We need more broadcasting time.” Phyllida sighed, looking at the schedule.

“We need more everything time,” Fielden agreed, glad to have company in his complaints. “More time, more space, more staff.”

“Maybe when the new building is ready,” Maisie said automatically. The already designated “Broadcasting House” was well under construction and on schedule for 1932, but seemed like Arcadia, something not to be reached.

Almost as if she were listening, they heard Hilda cry from her office, “But we haven't space as it is!”

Then they looked at each other, alarmed. When did Hilda ever raise her voice?

They crept to the edge of her door, as near as they dared. Reith was there, arms folded, rocking back and forth on his heels.

“No, you misunderstand me,” he said, his voice calm and singsongy. “It's just a bit of departmental rearranging. A better use of all our best resources.”

“You cannot be serious.” Hilda was standing, white-faced, her eyes wide and glassy.

“You've said you need more staff, that you are all at full pressure. Everyone knows you in Talks work later than everyone else. It's too much for just one person. And I am not taking away your title, far
from it. I do think you're getting a bit hysterical. Really, you should be grateful.”

“Grateful? You are telling me I am incapable of running this department.”

“Now, you see? That's the hysteria talking. My dear Miss Matheson, I am including you as one of those best resources I mentioned, and I doubt there is any man in Britain who doesn't know of your brilliance in running this department. This little change—”

“Little!”

“—will allow you to focus on the Talks you like best. Everyone can be more carefully designated, without so much mishmash. Focused minds, focused work. And you and Mr. Siepmann are doing such similar work anyway. It makes sense to consolidate your mental acumen, no? Miss Somerville will head up the Schools Broadcast herself—she's delighted to do so—and you and Mr. Siepmann can divide the spoils here and thus bring more to Talks overall.”

“Mr. Reith,” Hilda said, licking her lips, “I do appreciate what you are attempting to do, truly, but whilst I do need more staff here, my hope was for some more fine producers and one or two additional administrative staff. That's all. I think if you talk to my staff as stands, they will assure you that I am a very good director. If you add another director, however much you may pretend he is doing different work, it will only add confusion. You are a man of great experience. You know that's true. Would you have had a second captain serving with you in the trenches?”

“To help me manage a thousand troops? Absolutely. Now, my dear Miss Matheson, I know this all seems a bit of a shock, but try to take it as the compliment it is. You have done a great deal in building up this department, and now it is simply too much for one person to handle all on her own.”

Maisie was on her way in to tell him just how wrong he was, but she couldn't move. Fielden's arm was encircled around her waist, holding her with surprising strength. To push back would create some very undesirable contact; to pull forward risked toppling into the office. He was infuriating, Fielden, but damned clever.

“You and Siepmann and I can meet in my office and we'll talk it through,” Reith said, grinding out his cigarette in Hilda's ashtray. “I guarantee by the time you've talked to him, heard his persuasive arguments, you'll be overjoyed.”

“So this was his idea?”

“Hmm? Oh, no. It's long been my concern and he's always asking how he can be more useful. When I said I thought Talks needed some reworking, it became obvious that he was the man for the job.”

“I see.”

“Good! Well, see you in my office later, then. Cheerio!”

Fielden's fingers dug into Maisie's side, urging her away. They all shrank back as Reith strode off, whistling. Maisie was about to go into Hilda's office when the phone rang. Phyllida, controlling the tremble in her voice, announced to Hilda that it was a personal call and they didn't give a name.

Which must mean Vita. Hilda closed her door.

Maisie pushed at Fielden in a blind rage.

“Didn't I tell you?” she snapped. “Didn't I warn you? Now everything is going to be ruined.”

“What could we have done differently, Miss Musgrave? You're so clever; you tell me. What else could we have done?”

His eyes were full of their usual sarcastic fury, but there was a hint of pink around the edges of his eyelids. And the only answer was “nothing.” Because the only option would have been tamping down Hilda, and that was never going to happen.

Hilda avoided them all until after the promised meeting with Reith and Siepmann. When she returned, she called Maisie into her office and shut the door.

“Here. I've brought you a bun,” she said, setting it on a trestle table.

“You didn't have to—”

“I know you all heard enough. Apparently there will soon be a memo. The department is to be split. I am director of General Talks and Siepmann director of Adult Education. And it is hoped the politics might be ‘toned down.'”

She methodically stabbed her blotter with a pen. She looked drawn, even ill.

“Miss Matheson, we can manage this,” Maisie said in a sudden swell of confidence. “The DG will hate bad publicity. We just need to make it obvious that anything Siepmann is handling is going poorly and have it be known in a few quarters that the new regime is confusing and making for bad Talks and he'll set it all right.”

Hilda looked at her with misty eyes. “You sound like me, you silly goose.”

“Good.”

“Miss Musgrave, I'm afraid it only gets worse. The DG has determined that you do not have the necessary qualifications to be the producer on
The Week in Westminster.
”

There was no reason to be surprised. Maisie frowned at the bun. She gouged off the top.

“I made the point as plainly as I could. But the DG—”

“I know.”

It was foolish of them to think this was going to go any other way. A woman's program, by women, for women, should not have spurred his interest. But he had warned Maisie against ambition once. This must be her punishment for not heeding him.

“I'm still a Talks assistant?”

“You are.”

Maisie stabbed her finger farther into the bun, making it bleed cream.

“Who gets the position?”

“Cyril Underwood.”

Hilda spoke without expression. She wasn't the slaughterer, just the messenger.

“He wanted to be a producer on an important program,” Maisie stated, ripping off a chunk of bun and shoving it in her mouth to stop her chin shaking. “He had better consider this a compliment.”

“If Reith wanted the program to fail, or didn't think it had worth, he would have let you have the position.”

“Yes. I suppose so.”

There was nothing to do but look at each other.

“He's a schoolboy,” Maisie said at last, without bitterness.

“Some of them never recover from it,” Hilda agreed.

The phone was ringing. Business had to go on.

Maisie stood and brushed the crumbs from her skirt. “It is a terrific program,” she said.

“One of our finest,” Hilda agreed.

So there was that.

And something else.

“Miss Matheson, may I send one of the lads out to have some film exposed?”

Hilda raised an eyebrow. For the first time that day, she smiled. “You have more information.”

“I do. The sort that had made me think the day couldn't possibly get worse.”

“That's the BBC for you. Always surprising.”

They smiled, though neither of them felt like it.

Everyone did their best to smile when Siepmann descended on them, Cyril in tow, “just to say hello.” He was quick to assure everyone that nothing was really going to change, even though there were going to be immense changes.

“Ah, Miss Musgrave, industrious as ever, aren't you, dear?” Siepmann bent his head around to examine her work.

I wonder how hard it would be to accidentally topple him out the window.

“Yes, I understood you were rather hoping to be producer on the little
Westminster
program, but you understand that Underwood here needs that sort of experience more than you, don't you? Of course you do. Very clever little thing. I've always said so.”

“And I've always appreciated it, Mr. Siepmann.”

“Ah, isn't that nice? Well, must be tootling on, but of course we'll soon be seeing a great deal more of each other.”

Cyril lingered, biting his lips.

“Did you need something?” Maisie asked. “Because we're really very busy, you know. Apparently, that's the whole reason for this little massive upheaval.”

“I'm sorry,” Cyril said.

“No, you're not. Don't bother lying. It's really never suited you.”

“Maisie . . .” Her sharp glare backed him down. “Miss Musgrave. I didn't ask for the
Week in Westminster
assignment. I want you to know that.”

“All right, so I know.”

“I really am sorry. I know you'd have done a fine job.”