Radio Girls(55)

“I beg your pardon?” Maisie wondered if Billy had developed a fixation about hands, after having injured his own.

“It’s just, I’ve heard that Negresses’ skin feels different, as well as being black, and I was wondering. Oh, but she was wearing gloves.” He answered his question in crushing disappointment.

Mr. Eckersley may expect all his engineers to be clever, but that doesn’t stop them being appallingly ignorant.




An hour later, Maisie was in the midst of a telegram flurry with John Maynard Keynes, whom they wanted for a series and whose schedule was making even a single broadcast impossible to set up. The economist was more popular than Charlie Chaplin. It was infuriating, both because she wanted to ask him about Germany and because she had to meet the man who had said: “Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking.”

“We should emblazon that around the office, shouldn’t we?” Hilda said.

“He’s so clever and seems charming. Why do you suppose he’s not married?” Maisie asked, risking presumption for curiosity.

Fielden, overhearing, doubled over laughing. Hilda looked a little amused herself.

“Possibly he’s married to his work. Anyway, here’s luck. Alexander Fleming’s agreed to a series of interviews. That will be fun, won’t it?” Hilda said. “Bit different.”

Interviews. Maisie’s fingers froze on the typewriter keys. A nice little interview, with one of the prettier ladies.

She bolted from the office and ran at top speed all the way down to reception. Miss Mitterand was just shaking Beanie’s hand.

“Miss Mitterand!” Maisie gasped. “Are you free for a drink later?”




There it was, in the next issue. Shiny and bold and bright. And a lesson in one of the pitfalls of ambition: Even getting something you wanted might not be satisfactory.

“Bert certainly likes to edit. It’s half the original length, and I think only every third word might still be hers.” Maisie sighed.

“Quite an achievement for a first effort,” Hilda told her firmly. “But you obviously have a touch, Miss Musgrave. You ought to try again. And then again.”

“And more after that,” Maisie agreed, returning to her desk with a kinetically imperfect but emotionally exuberant pirouette.





TEN




“You ought to let me buy you a drink tonight. Say you can,” Lola begged.

“I’ve got to work late,” Maisie said between bites of toast. “We’re so busy.”

“But it’s your birthday!”

“It’s nothing to fuss about,” Maisie muttered. If Georgina had her way, her daughter wouldn’t even know her birthdate. As it was, May first always rendered Georgina defensive, embarrassed at having any child at all, but particularly Maisie, whose insistence on growing was beyond vexing. But once, in one of her occasional fits of communicativeness, she told Maisie her name derived from her birthdate, a choice that seemed fraught with romanticism and so must have come from her father.

Her father. In a blue cardboard box under her bed was the long-awaited letter from the General Register Office, a terse response to her query about Edwin Musgrave’s birth and life, informing her that if she could provide a place, or at least an area, or an exact year of said birth, they might be able to assist. She couldn’t, so they couldn’t.

“You work too much,” Lola scolded. “I never see you anymore, and now I’m going on this European tour and won’t see you at all for who knows how long!”

Even though Maisie knew that Lola wouldn’t give her another thought from the moment she stepped on the boat at Folkestone, her throat tightened. Lola was always so kind to her, and while it was the benevolence of the worldly who adored the dark opposite, it was still kindness, and genuinely meant.

“I’m sorry,” Maisie said. “Let’s do meet up after your show. A drink would be swell. And we’re toasting your soon-to-be-diva status in Europe, too!”

Lola struck a dramatic pose. “What do you think? Constance Worth? A prettier Gracie Fields, maybe?”

“Your own unique self, wherever you are,” Maisie insisted.

Lola smiled broadly. “Here. Happy birthday.” She handed Maisie what looked like a folded handkerchief and proved, on unwrapping, to contain a white silk rose on a slide, for her hair.

“Oh, Lola! It’s perfect. Thank you!” She set it in place before the hall mirror, blinking hard and regretting the decision to apply her new mascara. Lola reached over and adjusted the rose. It looked better. Maisie blinked at her reflection. Brighter eyes blinked back from a rounder face. She hadn’t known her hair and skin could shine. Even her nose and chin seemed interesting, as opposed to just oversized. She was never going to be the sort who was called “pretty,” but that didn’t matter. Even she could admit that she now had a quality which might be called “striking.”

“I thought that would look well.” Lola nodded approvingly. “See you tonight!”

Hilda was at a breakfast with Lady Astor and “a few other political women; I wanted to bring you, but they’d already booked the table to bursting point.” A year ago, the prospect of joining would have chilled Maisie to the bone. Now she was disappointed not to be there.