Radio Girls(17)
After breakfast, she put on her coat, hat, gloves, and scarf. Her handbag, empty save for a handkerchief, two pennies for lunch, and emergency sixpence, went over her wrist, and she hoped her rickety umbrella could stay folded.
She was one of the lucky ones, as it took her only one tram to reach the Strand, the street above Savoy Hill. The ride was long and she had to stand, but she didn’t mind. The car had a rhythmic sway, the bell tinkled happily, and one never knew when a sudden screech or thrust would disrupt the song, jolting them all out of their morning meditation. It was a kind of jazz, the only kind she could afford, and so she embraced the fizz of cigarette smoke, the lingering smell of coffee, and the crinkle of newspapers that added to the hum and percussion. It wasn’t stealing to read the paper over a man’s shoulder, gleaning nuggets of the world and enjoying the smell of Palmolive shaving cream. And she watched London unfold before her.
The dark rows of unloved terrace houses gave way to streets wide enough to encompass history, close enough to wrap that history around you and make you feel how fleeting and finite you were within it. Maisie exulted in the oldness of the buildings, their grandeur and glisten, stoically gazing down on the throng of people and trams and buses and cabs and horse-drawn carriages, with a snake of private cars looping in, men encasing their wealth in sleek metal and leather and wire wheels. Women, too, occasionally, nearly always driving open-top cars, bursts of impertinent sunshine in beaded cloches, cherry-red lips widespread in ecstatic smiles, eyes fireworking from behind their motoring goggles. Racing their way somewhere they no doubt called important.
Maisie turned from them and held her breath, waiting for the entrance onto the Strand, this last mile of the marathon. So many magnificent buildings to pass on the way, the Royal Courts of Justice, the charming and appropriately antique Twinings tea shop, and then at last, the Savoy Hotel, an almost-palace on a street that once boasted palaces. She alighted at the corner of Savoy Street and revolved once on the spot, drinking in the day before measuring each step down the hill to Savoy Hill House, home of the BBC. The pub on the left, the Savoy Tup, was still shuttered at this hour. It and the Lyceum, just up on the Strand, were popular lunch spots for the denizens of Savoy Hill. Until she was paid, Maisie confined her lunches to an apple and a bun, but the Tup had been the purveyor of the sandwiches Hilda ordered that first day, and so Maisie hailed it with respect.
She hadn’t yet visited the decrepit Savoy Chapel, just outside the BBC, but knew it was the subject of many jokes, its location considered ideal for the days when one’s entire department was imploding (at least once a week) or as a hiding place from Mr. Reith when he was on the warpath (at least once a day).
No less worthy of worship was the Thames, at the foot of the hill. Maisie stopped outside the BBC’s door and looked down at it. Some bright day, it would be the height of bliss to eat a sandwich and cake on the Victoria Embankment.
The BBC shared its home with the Institute of Electrical Engineers, who, being more than fifty years the senior, showed its scorn for this damp-eared upstart by designing the carved-out space so that the two entities never met. The IEE commandeered Savoy Hill’s majestic entranceway on the Embankment, and it was said they had a good laugh whenever some grand person came to broadcast and had to use the BBC’s unprepossessing entrance at the side of the building. Maisie thought that since the BBC was the natural and rather exciting outgrowth of the IEE’s work, they should be hovering like proud mothers. Instead, each organization went about its business as though the other didn’t exist.
And indeed, once through that wooden door, nothing else did exist.
It was easy to maintain her status as Invisible Girl as she whizzed back and forth between the executive offices and the Talks Department. Maisie had a long experience of listening to many conversations at once and gleaning anything that might be useful, and information flew through the narrow corridors of Savoy Hill at a speed Lindbergh would envy. Thus, as the week progressed, she learned that Cyril Underwood-not-typewriter worked in the Schools Department, where they produced broadcasts heard in schoolrooms throughout Britain, considered a daunting task. Scores of complimentary letters from teachers and heads did nothing to allay the staff’s horror of a scalding letter, or even worse, negative commentary in a newspaper. They soldiered on, both pets and prodigals under Mr. Reith’s watchful eye. There was a woman producer there, too, a Mary Somerville, apparently hired through “an old girls’ network, who knew?” and quite brilliant. The curvy, curly blonde in the typing pool was Phyllida Fenwick, the de facto head of the consortium by dint of being the tallest and loudest. The proprietress of the tearoom, her temperament both leonine and motherly, was Mrs. Hudson. Then there were those who simply announced themselves, like Beanie.
“It’s Sabine, of course, Sabine Warwick, not of the Greville side—wouldn’t want to look after that pile anyway—but baronets just the same. And new creations, but 1780, so well entrenched in Debrett’s. Bit scandalizing, me working, but Mama thinks I’ve not got the stamina, so must prove the old dear wrong. Pater’s pleased for once. Thinks it shows moral fiber, good example to the ordinary folk, and very modern. Keen on being modern, he is. Bought some of the West End theaters in his wilding days, and proud to be a patron, don’t you know. So here I am in our mouse hole of a Drama Department! The DG thinks I bring refinement, and Pater is bursting his buttons, contemplating all the edifying drama I’m bringing to the poor wretches who never saw a play. Great good fun, really.”