Radio Girls(32)

The 2LO looked more like a skeleton than an organ. Six meters of machine, comprising a line of valves backed by polished wood. Delicate and solid. Within this elegant contraption lay the power of communication.

Hilda was pointing, naming every segment, her knowledge as intimate as if she had built it herself, while Eckersley buzzed away at whatever he did, making the magic happen. But it wasn’t magic. It was better. This was the result of endless questions, of the search for answers, of not resting until those answers were found. And then beginning all over again, with more questions.

The rectifier, the oscillator, the modulated amplifier, the modulator, the sub modulator. Valves and valves and valves. Making sound fly on airwaves.

How did anyone ask the questions that answered in this configuration of wood and glass and wire that was changing the whole world? Thousands of years ago, someone had gazed into the night sky and seen that some stars were planets. And then they mapped the universe. They unlocked mathematics. They saw the way the sun moved across the earth and how to harness its power, warming homes and baths, growing plants. And they developed tools. The capacity to sail around the globe, to build cathedrals, to run a factory, to capture images on paper and then on screen. And now, to send a story throughout the country, from a machine.

“In its infancy.” That was the phrase. Radio was a form in its infancy.

This is the cradle of civilization.

She stared harder, wanting to read the five pips that began each broadcast, before that call crackled through wirelesses up and down the country.

From Penzance to John o’ Groats, anyone who had a wireless and the license fee could tune in and hear a symphony, poetry, gardening advice, a thriller, a debate, scenes from new plays, sporting events, stories about places scattered throughout the globe, because why shouldn’t a farmwife in South Yorkshire know something of Shanghai, or San Francisco, or S?o Paulo?

“It’s just so wonderful,” Maisie breathed, wishing she could fold herself inside it and be part of those flickers, entering wirelesses in every home and pub and shop, seeing the faces as they listened to the stories.

“It is,” Hilda agreed. “Quite an instrument for communication,” She continued, her eyes traversing the length of the transmitter. “A magnificent tool. Of course, one quirk about tools is that many of them can also be wielded as weapons.”

Maisie looked up at her, but Hilda was lost in the machine.

No wonder Reith was so particular about the BBC’s content. With millions of listeners already, it would be catastrophic to broadcast something, call it fact, and then discover it was wrong. Broadcasting was only five years old, but it was becoming an institution. And institutions had power.

And I’m a part of this.

Her heart was pounding, the fist beating her ribs.

“Time we were getting back to the office,” Hilda announced. “I imagine there are at least twenty new crises to corral. Such is life at our BBC.”

No doubt. And Maisie couldn’t wait to get back to it.




Her new vigor was a talisman, a shield against any arrow that might be slung her way, attempting to pierce Invisible Girl. She shoved Cyril to the back of her mind, where she was hoping he would fall out. There was too much else to think of, and it was all more important.

“Miss Musgrave, are you capable of bringing a broadcaster up for rehearsal?” Fielden asked. “Our Lady is still meeting with that ball of scruff from the Urban Allotment Society.”

The broadcaster was a City man, Mr. Emmet, talking about the importance of investments and stocks, peevish because Hilda had revised his script four times.

Maisie guided him into the studio, where Billy and the new engineer were running tests and making adjustments to the mike.

“We’re about to do a rehearsal,” she informed them. They looked up at her, then turned back to their work, muttering something about being nearly done.

“I suppose there’s no hope of a drink,” Mr. Emmet asked, holding out his hat for Maisie to hang.

“Not in the studio, I’m afraid, sir.”

He snorted and settled himself in the chair.

“I’ll just run and tell Miss Matheson you’re here,” Maisie said.

“You should take him to the Tup,” Billy said in an undertone. Maisie was astonished—Billy never spoke to her. “City chaps are awful lightweights. After a few, maybe he’ll think you’re one worth marrying.”

The talisman pushed back her tears but did nothing to allay her mounting rage. It could just have been a matter of Billy being himself, but it was possible, just possible, that Cyril had told them.




Her talisman got its real test a few days later, when she was hurrying to the Talks Department. She saw Cyril before he saw her, and that fist in her chest flung itself in five directions at once. She concentrated on breathing and putting one foot in front of the other, thinking about the script she was about to type.

Cyril saw her and stopped. “Maisie, hallo. How are you keeping?”

She had to dig her nails into her palms to prevent herself from stopping or shaking.

“Copacetic,” she answered, trying to sound like a brusque New Yorker, far too busy and important to even break pace. He jogged backward to keep eye contact.

“Good, good. I say, will you stop a moment?”

He put out a hand and she stopped, mostly to avoid his skin making contact.