Radio Girls(21)

The buzz certainly didn’t care about the listeners. Today it was full of the ineffable sense of the self. Any evening held the potential for adventure, but a Saturday evening was portentous. It was stuffed with hours in which things could happen and could keep rolling on and on and on. Unblocked time—provided you weren’t obliged to attend church in the morning—in which a whole life could unfold. Worlds could turn. The weight of everyone’s anticipation was making Maisie a little nauseous.

The tearoom’s happy chatter felt like an insult, especially when snippets of plans to spend money arrowed into her ears.

“Can you believe it? I’ll finally pay off that dear silk frock! I can’t wait to see Maurice’s face when he sees me in it.”

“I’m taking Doris dancing at that new spot everyone’s been rabbiting on about.” (Billy? A date? Poor Doris.)

“We’re getting our fittings for that masquerade ball. What an absolute hoot!”

Maisie reminded herself she didn’t care. She would keep herself fed and sheltered and could start improving herself and become someone that a man (not Billy) would want to take dancing at the new spot. Provided I learn how to dance.

Any moment now, someone would say something. She was so sure she was about to hear Cyril’s voice saying, “Hallo, New York. Payday, what? Come along and pick up your pennies,” that she stopped hearing the rest of the din and was only roused when she took a sip and saw her cup was empty. The room was empty, too. She ran back to the executive offices.

“Now, see here, Miss Musgrave. I can excuse your foreignness only so long. You ought to have been back three minutes ago, and please tell me you are not panting.” Miss Shields sniffed.

“No . . . I . . . Sorry,” Maisie muttered, backing to her table.

She typed, hardly knowing what keys she was hitting. Would Alfred or another mail boy come in with an envelope? It was ridiculous not to ask, but questions were verboten for Maisie long before she met Miss Jenkins. Lorelei had no interest in any granddaughter, much less an inquisitive one. Georgina felt the same about a daughter. Librarians welcomed questions, but Maisie had already learned to be cautious with her curiosity, hugging information as it was provided, but letting her wondering mind explore the stacks alone, satisfied to stumble upon scraps of knowledge in her quest for whatever she originally sought.

Sister Bennister hadn’t been one for encouraging questions, and all Maisie really wanted to ask in the hospital was why this war had had to happen, and the opinions on that front flew at the same rate as the bullets on the Western front.

But no one was as violently opposed to questions as Miss Jenkins. “You must appear from day one to know your work intimately. Never give anyone reason to query your capacity. If there is something you don’t know, up to and including where the ladies’ room is, simply keep your eyes and ears open and figure it out.”

Maisie plucked the correspondence from Hilda’s in-tray. Her eyes and ears were open, but all she could see or hear was Hilda, on the phone.

“Oh, certainly,” Hilda was saying. “I haven’t got any quarrel with his politics. We’re all allowed to hold whatever opinion we wish. That’s the beauty of a free country . . . Precisely, even if it’s irretrievably silly . . . No, no, my hesitation with inviting him to broadcast is that his work is painfully dull . . . Yes, the BBC is committed to airing all points of view, but we’re also very keen on keeping listeners awake. No, I assure you . . . If it were bad work, that would at least be a conversation point. Dull is simply pointless.”

Hilda hung up a few minutes later, and Maisie handed her a sheaf of letters.

“Thank you, Miss Musgrave. Been a good first week, wouldn’t you say?”

“I suppose so, Miss Matheson.”

“Many more to come, I hope,” Hilda said. Maisie nodded absently, trying to control her nerves. She was dizzy, and couldn’t feel her fingers anymore.

Hilda looked over the next week’s schedule, her pencil running a steady gauntlet through all the broadcasts, each name provisionally knighted as she went along.

“It’s horribly impertinent of me, I’m sure,” she said suddenly, eyes still on the schedule, “but I’m given to understand that this is about the usual time for a weekly employee to collect pay at the cashier window.”

“The cashier window?” What—and where—on earth was the cashier window?

Hilda’s smile was infuriatingly kind.

“I’m sure you’ve passed it a dozen times without noticing. On the fourth floor, the little cage at the south end of the corridor.” She paused, grinning. “Looks not unlike the sort of jail cells you see in Western films.”

“Do I go now?” Maisie asked, half standing. “I’m not done with this.”

“We will never be done with the post. Go and get your money. You don’t want the cashier to run out before your first pay.”

She laughed at Maisie’s traumatized face.

“I’m pulling your leg, Miss Musgrave. Run along and collect your wages.”

Maisie was a fast runner. She could have leapfrogged anyone who had a five-minute start on her. But she walked, forcing sedateness into her stride. She wasn’t going to let anyone laugh at her eagerness.

There was a queue for the cashier’s window, a retired corner that Maisie had indeed never noticed.