Radio Girls(36)

“Spoken like the American.” Fielden sniffed.

“Canadian!” the entire Talks Department chorused.

“Go on, Miss Musgrave,” Hilda encouraged. It was still alien, seeing someone look interested in her thoughts.

“I suppose, now that women vote, things must be different.”

“Three general elections in almost as many years,” Fielden said. “Hardly auspicious.”

“I think it’s something to think about,” Hilda said, following the script, but Maisie believed her. “We’ll give it a bit of a thrash.”

After the meeting, Maisie heard Collins express his surprise that “the little occasional girl has a thought in her head. Who would have thought, a thought?” The others hadn’t.

I can’t blame them. I wouldn’t have imagined it myself.

“If you could type up the minutes now, Miss Musgrave, that would be very useful,” Hilda said. “Or do you need to get back to the DG?”

“Oh. I can do them now, yes,” Maisie said, confirming from the carriage clock that she had ten minutes to spare. She lingered, turning the pad over and over.

“Was there something else?” Hilda looked up, surprised at the sudden lack of industry.

“Oh. No. Yes. Er, I was wondering . . .” The question was there, bouncing on her tongue, but it fell right back down her throat. Instead she asked, “Could I take your newspapers home to read, when you’re done with them? The ones in English,” she added, unnecessarily. Hilda came to work with an upholstered holdall in addition to her handbag, in which she carried newspapers, magazines, and at least three books in rotation. She also had the principal newspapers from Germany, France, Italy, and America sent to the office every week, and read them through. In the evenings, she went to the theater, concerts, salons, lectures, and, more nebulously, “events.” When did she sleep? She always had more energy than all the rest of them.

“Of course,” Hilda said. “Though I rather thought you read the papers on your tram ride.”

Over men’s shoulders, yes, but Hilda thought she bought at least one paper in the morning. Maisie was surprised to realize she knew something Hilda didn’t: what it was to be poor. Hilda didn’t know what it meant to have to mind each literal penny. Pennies were important, one after another meant a bun, soap, toothpaste. A penny spent on a newspaper might be the difference between being able to buy thread to mend stockings, and allowing a hole to show meant your status plummeted, even among the poor. Maisie was slowly rising out of penury, but all her savings now were for a dress. One good dress fixed your status. But she wanted to read more of the papers. That would change her status, too, if only at the BBC.

Reith was also a devotee of the papers, and assigned a phalanx of staff to mark every one of the articles on the BBC for his delectation.

“Ah, Miss Musgrave!” he greeted Maisie one afternoon as she brought in his tea. “Here’s a fine thing. The Times writes that the BBC is ‘doing good work in bringing more education to the British public.’ And they don’t just mean the Schools broadcasts. They mean music and the Talks. Very good, very good.”

He continued to read aloud as he stirred in sugar.

“‘Whilst many still think the wireless a fad of this peculiar modern age in which we live’—peculiar, indeed. I saw a couple dancing the other night and was of half a mind to call for an exorcist—‘it cannot be denied that the BBC is presenting programming of an overall informative, enlightened, and elevating matter that is a credit to its purported mission.’” He raised his tea in a salute to the paper, though more likely to himself, then favored Maisie with his warmest scowl.

“It’s a very satisfying thing, seeing this validation in the newspapers.” Reith sighed happily, reading through the piece again. “Though they do say ‘enlightened.’ I often worry about that word. It sounds like a euphemism for ‘too modern.’”

Maisie had been at the BBC long enough to learn that when the newspapers wanted to be critical of radio, euphemism was the last thing they employed.

“I’m sure they only mean in relation to the Enlightenment, sir.”

“Hum.” (Possibly he wasn’t too keen on the Enlightenment either?)

“It’s a fine testament to Miss Matheson,” she said, hoping to restore his cheer. She thought she saw a shadow cross his face, but whether it was an ongoing meditation on the intricacies of Enlightenment or something else, she couldn’t be sure. It might just have been the light.

“Yes, this piece singles her out for mention. Apparently she is ‘the linchpin that makes the BBC more than just frivolous,’” he said, putting down the paper to stir more sugar in his tea. “And it congratulates me for being so visionary as to entrust a woman in such a critical post. Though not me by name, but the BBC. We’re quite the avatars of daring, apparently.”

“Yes, sir! Onwards and upwards,” Maisie crowed. His scowl chilled. Maybe because it was Hilda’s expression? “Oh, I only mean . . . everyone says the BBC is one of the few places where women can have more than clerical jobs.”

“Yes. I daresay it is,” he said. “Do go and file this newspaper, Miss Musgrave, and ask Miss Shields to come in.”

Maisie obeyed, berating herself in a manner to do Georgina proud. Why didn’t she say the article was a testament to him? That was what he wanted to hear, and it would have been so easy to say. Men loved compliments. Lola always quoted the glossies on this point. Maisie glanced through the open door, but could only see the back of Miss Shields’s head, radiating triumphant disapproval at her.