Radio Girls(60)

The afternoon post, as if determined to further vex Reith, was full of letters praising various Talks, as well as invitations for Hilda to speak at this society or that charity or some other lunch.

Then Maisie came to a large square envelope—a parcel, really—and had the oddest sensation of her heart doing a loop-the-loop through her, like a carnival ride.

It had her name. on it.

Definitely her: Miss M. Musgrave c/o BBC etc., etc. Her hands shook as she opened it, risking death by a thousand paper cuts.

Four copies of Pinpoint magazine were inside. There was a note in a man’s confident, elegant hand:

Dear Miss Musgrave, I can’t tell you how I enjoyed our chat the other week. I wanted to send you some copies of our little magazine that very afternoon, but thought perhaps I would wait so as to include this latest issue. I should very much like to know what you think of it. If you’re free Saturday afternoon, would you care to meet me for tea? Please don’t let the prospect of my disappointment sway you, should you not be able (or willing; he cringes with mortification). Yours, very sincerely, Simon Brock-Morland.

Maisie’s breath was short and ragged. It could be a trick, of course. A Cyril sort of trick. Simon Brock-Morland might think she was an advocate of free love. But tea, not a drink. An afternoon, not an evening. It all seemed quite civilized. Maybe.

“Ooh, what have we been sent?” Hilda’s eager eye danced over the magazines.

“Have you heard of Pinpoint?”

“No, I haven’t. It must be quite new if it’s not one of our regular flow.” Her eyes slid to Maisie. “I say, are you all right? You look a bit pale.”

“No, I’m fine, thank you. May I read one of the copies as well?”

“Of course.”

Maisie slid the note into the top copy and handed the rest to Hilda.

She would thank him politely but decline. One didn’t meet men for tea after just an accidental and unwanted shared lunch. Even if he was a writer. Who called her fun and clever and made the back of her neck tingle. She would ask Phyllida if she wanted to go to the pictures; they could see the new Buster Keaton at the Odeon.

She still couldn’t breathe.





ELEVEN




“Are there Russian spies amongst us and is this government doing enough to quash them?”

Audiences had been interested to see what sort of Talks they might expect now that “controversial” material was allowed, and thus far Hilda did not disappoint. This was the third of dozens of scheduled debates on slippery subjects of the day, and audiences were primed.

So were the broadcasters. Studio One seemed far too small and stuffy—though Maisie thought it didn’t matter, as everyone was holding their breath.

The moderator, Mrs. Strachey (Rachel, but she went by Ray), introduced the speakers on each side, and the debate took shape.

“I have a quarrel with the very title of this debate,” began the first speaker, “because the second question assumes the answer to the first is a resounding yes. And until such time as we have proof positive—by which I don’t mean a sensationalist story in a publication favored by fluff-headed young girls titillated by the notion of white slavery—we cannot insist upon the government allocating precious time and resources to chasing down what doesn’t exist.”

“But the dissonant voices in Britain are growing!” he was countered. “Trade unionists and Communists are advocating against our finest traditions.”

“We have a long tradition of dissonance, which surely must be welcome in any free society. As effective as our system might seem to those who benefit from it the most, we must also allow that it has its imperfections, and we ought to be open to correcting them as such.”

Maisie glanced at Hilda, watching the broadcasters, nodding along with each point. Reith liked to suggest that controversial material was simply to “educate and inform,” but Hilda insisted it must go further. It must provoke thought.

The legions of the provoked made their feelings known in letter after letter. But by last count, there were two and a half million BBC licenses purchased, so Hilda felt emboldened to carry on provoking.

Maisie wondered if Hilda was what was termed “a radical.” It seemed unlikely. Lady Astor was a Conservative, so why would she have employed a radical political secretary? Maisie and Phyllida often discussed it on Sunday walks.

“I’ve heard the rumor Miss Matheson’s a Communist. Hardly matters if she can’t vote, though, does it?”

“Miss Matheson can vote,” Phyllida corrected her.

“But she’s not married,” Maisie said. “Doesn’t a woman have to be married?”

“The stupid rule is you have to be over thirty. Then you have to either own property yourself or be married to a chap who does. Or be a graduate. It’s mad,” Phyllida scoffed. “The fight was for equal suffrage, not this cobbled-together rubbish. I don’t want to wait. I want to make things happen now!”

“America doesn’t bar women under thirty.”

“Nae, because America was so late joining the war,” Phyllida said, without judgment. “We lost loads more young men, so if women over twenty-one were allowed to vote here, we’d be the majority. And, you know, heaven forfend.”

Maisie was looking forward to the debate on equal suffrage.