Radio Girls(3)

Georgina always said Maisie didn’t belong in London.

I can’t have her be right.




Outside the handsome stone building with the brass sign reading: BRITISH BROADCASTING COMPANY beside the door, Maisie had a sinking feeling that Georgina knew whereof she spoke, though she had only ever visited a London suggested by stage sets. Maisie laid her fingers on the dark wooden door, feeling the pull of a place bursting with life. She forced her hand to stop shaking and to remember how to work a doorknob.

The door opened onto a vast reception room, vehemently modern, with a marble floor polished to the gleam and hazard of a skating rink and wallpaper featuring incongruous tropical trees. Two women in a corner, swathed in fox furs, twittered and chirped to each other, rhythmically tapping ash from their cigarettes into a burnished brass tray.

A clatter heralding imminent devastation—the earthquake of San Francisco, come to London—sent Maisie’s arms around herself in feeble protection as two men pelted down the stairs, cramming on hats and straightening ties, faces glowing with purpose. They zipped past on either side of Maisie, close enough to knock her both east and west, a billiard ball on a table, and sprang out the door, never seeing her.

Maisie straightened her coat, congratulating herself on staying upright. She sidled up to the cherrywood table, where the much-Marcelled receptionist turned away from the telephone to appraise her.

“Have you an appointment?” the receptionist asked in a deep voice, pleasant enough to be welcoming and authoritative enough to be respected.

“Please, I’m . . . I’m to see Miss Shields at three o’clock,” Maisie whispered, unfolding the precious letter to prove her credibility.

“Hum,” came the answer. A bell must have been rung, because a moment later a plump young boy with a shock of red hair appeared. He could not have been more than twelve, and bore himself with the imperiousness of a courtier.

“Ah, Rusty,” the receptionist greeted him. “This is”—a glance at the letter again—“Miss Musgrave, for Miss Shields, right away, please.”

“Yes, miss! This way, please, miss.” An exuberant wave of the arm, inviting Maisie into the bowels of the BBC.

“Did you want to take the lift, miss, or the stairs? It’s up at the top, you see.”

She knew she should save her strength where she could, as it was hours before supper, but there was a buzz emanating from all those floors above and she wanted to walk through as much of it as she could.

“I don’t mind the stairs,” Maisie assured Rusty, and was rewarded by an approving grin.

The BBC had existed only four years, so Maisie didn’t expect the sort of ponderous grandeur that characterized a steady establishment, places that filled her with awe, wonder, and desire. The sort of places she dreamed of spending her days in, and her nights, too. Savoy Hill was a different narcotic. The bright, pulsing energy of the new, of a staff enveloped in a technological marvel, in a venture that might turn in upon itself and disappear tomorrow—though they would all battle like they were at the walls of Agincourt to prevent such defeat. Behind some of these doors, people were certainly shut in soundproof rooms, speaking out to the nation. But in the corridors, it was a rush of thundering feet and rustling paper and rapid conversation.

“Did you hear? Old Matheson landed us Anthony Asquith.”

“Pah. I’m holding out for Tallulah Bankhead coming to broadcast.”

“You’d likely pass out stone cold!”

“Worth it, depending where I land.”

The colloquy buzzed and whirled around Maisie’s head, cloudier than perfume, and just as dizzying.

“I say, anyone fancy the American tonight?”

Maisie stumbled.

The bar, you idiot. He means the bar at the Savoy. Was that the sort of place these people went after work? Her presence on its pavement would provide the doorman with a good laugh before he directed her back to the main road.

The voice continued. “They’ve got a new bartender, straight from the 300 Club in New York!”

“Any man can mix a drink, he puts his mind to it. Tell me when they’ve got that Texas Guinan and her girls!”

He pronounced it “Gwynen.”

Quite unintentionally, Maisie stopped and spoke into the din.

“Guy-nan. Her name, it’s pronounced Guy-nan. And she’s not one of the . . . er, dancers. She owns the club.”

And was, allegedly, a friend of Georgina, though a life’s experience had taught Maisie to query any information that sprang from the maternal font. Georgina described Texas Guinan as “no actress, nor beauty, but she has a force of personality, child (which Maisie still had to be, as Georgina never aged). Well worth cultivating” (because what else were people but hothouse lettuces?).

Through the vapor of her rising mortification, Maisie felt several people staring at her in amused interest, spurring a sudden fondness for her own well-cultivated disguise of Invisible Girl, the foe she had made friend, usually so useful in cloaking her. Even Rusty had abandoned his sacred duty to gaze upon his charge in wonder.

A young man loped up to her, all sunshine grin and summer freckles. His hair flopped over one side of his head in untidy brown curls, and he wore fashionable baggy trousers and what Maisie guessed was a school tie.

“You’re American?” he asked in a well-bred accent. “Are you from New York? You are, aren’t you?”