Radio Girls(29)

“That’s all right. You looked like you could use a decent feed.”

Now she blushed. She hated looking undernourished. Keep the conversation on him. New York or no, men want to talk about themselves.

“How did you find this restaurant?”

“Chap’s got to know a good chipper. I’ve always fancied things that maybe don’t look the best, but get to know them and you find they’re better than anything posh could ever be.”

“So you don’t like posh things?” She fought down the idea he was talking about her.

“If I did, I wouldn’t be working at the BBC.” He laughed. “Though I think my job’s a doddle compared to yours, working for the biggest taskmasters in the building: Matheson, the Shield, our Lord and Master. Tell me, which is the most maddening?”

Even though he’d asked, Maisie knew the contempt men had for women’s gossip. She considered how to change the subject, but he wasn’t waiting for her answer.

“Funny thing with Matheson,” he said, “having what you’d think would be a man’s job, hm?”

“I suppose that’s part of us being modern? She seems to do well, anyway.”

“Oh, yes, audiences are very keen on the Talks,” he said. “That’s one advantage you have over us Schools lot. You know your audiences choose to listen.”

“But you get plenty of letters from students saying how much they like the broadcasts.”

“If they’re anything like I was at school, they’re being forced to write them.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. You know you’re doing very good work. Mr. Reith wouldn’t be so pleased otherwise.”

“Ha! The DG governs Schools with a tyranny I think Vlad the Impaler might have thought a tad overbearing. It’s why I’m such a heavy smoker.” He lit a second cigarette for emphasis and shrugged. “But it’s a good laugh. And what about you—do you like your job?”

She did. More than she’d ever imagined. But she didn’t want him to think she wanted to be a woman like Hilda. He had to know she was eager to move on to the real work of life, as soon as she was invited.

Probably shouldn’t say that on a first date, though.

“It’s stimulating,” she answered.

“It is that,” he agreed. “Fascinating stuff, radio. Glorious being in on the ground floor, as it were, isn’t it? Maybe we’ll get to see how far it can go. Mind you, my father still hopes I’ll give up this nonsense and go in for law.”

“I’m sure he only wants the best for you.”

“Oh, yes, nothing to be said against dear old Dad. Wants the best for all the brood. The best school, the best job, the best wife. Well, not for Kitty, I suppose. My sister,” he clarified, with a laugh.

Maisie was still trembling from the word “wife.”




In a dim and poky coffeehouse just up the road, he ordered for them again. Rhubarb cake with extra cream, drinking chocolate. And she trusted him, and it was good.

“You’re all right, Maisie,” Cyril said suddenly.

Her heart went pogoing again, around and around the shop.

Except he sounded surprised. Did he? Was he? She shoved the thought down, and while it was struggling to assert itself, Cyril reached over and patted her hand. The voltage sent all her thoughts scattering far beyond Galileo’s reach.

Possibly, just possibly, she was going to be kissed tonight.

Cyril was talking. She watched his moving mouth; she was dissolving.

“I’d like to do some proper producing, as a lead. Bit off that Miss Somerville does and I don’t, though she’s quite good—not saying she isn’t. Can’t tell the chaps from school I’m junior to a woman, though. They’d rag me to death.”

“You’d be brilliant at producing, I’m sure,” Maisie told his lips.

“I wouldn’t mind a stint in New York radio either, someday. Meant to be quite different, but maybe you know about that?”

She remembered that the supposed point of this outing was for her to describe New York. Maybe he means for us to have another date? He must, surely. I hope. Please.

“Tell me,” he asked. “Why do they call it the Big Apple?”

Sooner or later he’s got to ask a question whose answer I know.

“Oh, er, well, a lot of apples grow there,” she ventured, half remembering reading something about the nickname, and that it had nothing to do with fruit.

“I thought it might be named after you,” he said, waggling his eyebrows.

Maisie tried to remember to breathe.

“What?”

“Well, its skin turns red.”

A treacherous joke about green apples entered her mind, but she couldn’t speak.

Skin. Those freckles. She pictured him on the sand in Brighton, legs, arms, that wide-open grin lighting his face as he ran by the water. The smell of the sea on his skin, the tiny grains of sand caught on his flesh as he pulled her close . . .

“Maisie!”

“Sorry?”

“I asked if you were ready to go,” he said, looking impatient. The plates and cups were empty.

“Yes,” she answered, hoping she wasn’t expected to use any more syllables.

“Let’s get a cab,” he suggested, and she was soon sitting on a plush upholstered seat, surrounded by dark wood and small windows. She’d never been in a London cab before. She longed to stroke the cushions and polished wood.