Radio Girls(106)

“I’m feeling some affinity to him,” Maisie remarked. Hilda laughed, set the tray in a dumbwaiter, and rolled it upstairs. They followed their supper to Hilda’s domain, a large sitting room with a bedroom beyond. Hilda stoked the fire and tossed cushions on the floor.

The room was as bright and warm and cheerful as Maisie could have imagined. But she remembered why they were there and what she had discovered in Simon’s flat that morning, a thousand years ago. Hilda handed her a glass of sherry just as she started to cry.

“Your photos were developed with great haste and I’ve had a look at them, so I have somewhat more of a sense of what’s bringing on the great floods. I’m so very sorry.” She pressed a handkerchief into Maisie’s hand. “You have notes, too?”

Maisie passed her pad to Hilda, and shoved a chunk of Wensleydale in her mouth.

“Isn’t it possible,” she asked through the cheese, “that Simon doesn’t know what he’s doing, or who he’s involved with? He wants to run a newspaper. He’s said so a dozen times. And now here’s his chance. Maybe he doesn’t know the rest.”

“I hope so. And I’m sure you would have noticed if he has Fascist inclinations.”

“He can’t have. He was so horrified at that meeting I brought him to.” Maisie hesitated, remembering. “Actually, he thought it was hilarious. And they were talking about wanting to control the press.” She paused. “And Grigson was there, looking at him. But then we left before they could talk. Or . . . I wonder. I suppose he could have gone back in after I left?”

Hilda lit a cigarette and slid a cake tin off a shelf. Victoria sponge. Maisie laid a slice of Wensleydale on the cake. They went together nicely.

“It’s possible,” said Hilda. “It’s also possible Grigson recognized him. I knew who he was myself, remember? He’s been plastered over the society pages at various and sundry times. A big man in business would know of someone like that, especially when the aristocrat in question is trying his hand at journalism.”

“But he . . . he can’t . . .” Maisie slugged down some sherry. “He’s made a lot of remarks about newspapers—calls them ‘bourgeois,’ actually—and definitely wants to show them how to do the job, but of course he believes in a varied and free press. He must, surely.”

Hilda refilled Maisie’s glass. “There’s a sort of man who thinks he ought to have power. As of the divine right of kings. Hideously atavistic, of course, but impervious to evolution. And it’s a media baron who can wield real power. Think of William Randolph Hearst.”

“Must I?”

“It looks to me as though Grigson—and likely Hoppel too—courted him more with power than money. He runs the one paper they start with. Then they buy more, and he remains the voice behind them all. And then it’s easy to disseminate whatever information you like. ‘Nothing to fear from Fascism. The real fear is, et cetera, et cetera.’ Once that’s the majority opinion in all the respectable papers, anyone disagreeing looks foolish. You don’t have to silence them by aggression. Much more civilized.”

Torquhil nosed his way in and assayed the cheese plate. Hilda snapped her fingers and he withdrew to lay his head in her lap.

“How can he like someone like me if that’s the sort of power he really wants to wield?”

Hilda took a long drag of her cigarette.

“He may have some severe shortcomings, but he’d have to be a hopeless idiot not to like you. And if he were a hopeless idiot, you would have no interest in him. So there we are.”

Maisie took the ring from her bag and turned it this way and that, catching the light from the fire. Torquhil watched with desultory interest. She looked again at the photos she’d taken of Simon’s papers.

“So this is where we stand. Grigson has arranged for a contract between Nestlé and the Brock-Morland cacao holdings, which might get the family out of debt, and asked Simon to run his newspaper. I wonder if Simon even went to Germany at all.”

“That’s easy enough to find out, not that it matters. But he likely did. His family does have business there. Possibly less than they used to.”

“So it is bad for them.”

“It does seem so.”

Maisie ate another piece of cake. “I have to go to Nestlé,” she said.

“I don’t think that’s wise, now that we—”

“No. I know what I have to do. I know what I have to prove. You won’t try to stop me, will you?”

“I hope you know me better than that by now.”




It was almost surreal, being back at the BBC the next day and trying to pretend things were ordinary. Especially when Siepmann strutted in again to, as he said, “assess the space.”

“We’re going to be a bit snug, aren’t we? And still dreadfully busy, I’m sure.” He turned to Phyllida and put a consoling hand on her shoulder. Her eyes flitted toward it, but he bravely kept it there. “I’ll be bringing my girl over as well. You don’t need to worry about being the lone secretary here.”

“I can hardly contain myself for relief,” Phyllida said. She made a sharp turn back to the typewriter, forcing off his hand.

“Now, now, girls,” he said with a tinkling laugh. “Do let’s all be more cheerful and obliging. I would hate to have to recommend any of you be removed. And after all, this little reorganization is all to the good. We can’t have people thinking Talks is a woman’s sole domain, or the men won’t listen in.”