Radio Girls(68)

“Aren’t you afraid of anything, Simon?”

“I try to leave fear behind and look to the future. Making Britain more glorious than ever and all that, what?”

“Didn’t people think that before the war, though?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, that Britain was so strong and glorious and everyone was certain there was nothing but a great future to keep on coming, because all those treaties meant war wasn’t possible anymore. But then it happened anyway and now—”

“Yes, yes, you’re quite right,” he agreed with blunt but easy politeness. “But I prefer to think it’s the sort of thing that makes us stronger going forward.”

She hoped so. It was hard, though, not to feel a little trepidatious. Maisie didn’t believe in ghosts, thought the obsession with spiritualism absurd, but could understand it, too. It was hard to walk through London and not feel the occasional shadow.

She looked at Simon. Tall, handsome, burnished gold and bronze, a man tanned from rough play, not work, sporty, beloved, educated, wealthy, and aristocratic. Born to be feared, not feel it. Not that most people feared aristocrats anymore. Except maybe Lady Astor. A little fear in general can’t be a bad thing, though, can it?

“Maisie, if your head buzzes any louder, you’ll be mistaken for a beehive,” Simon chided.

“Yes. It does that,” she apologized, shaking off the various thoughts.

“Doesn’t it create interference at work?”

Maisie laughed until she saw his confusion.

“Sorry. I thought you meant . . . ‘interference’? Because of the technical . . . ? Never mind. Anyway, it’s good to think at the BBC. They like that sort of thing.”

“Even from secretaries?” he teased.

“Would you want a secretary who couldn’t think?”

“I daresay that would depend on her thoughts. But fair enough. My compliments to the BBC for welcoming thoughts, even from secretaries.”

Then he bent down and kissed her on the lips. Lightly. Then not so lightly. Then she wasn’t sure, because time stopped.

“Well, look at us,” Simon breathed, his mouth still close to hers. Whiskey and cigarettes on his breath. She wanted to weave the scent into a cocoon coat. “We Britons don’t behave like this, I’ll have you know. Even in Chelsea.”

Her laugh came out in a shuddering gasp, and he stroked her cheek.

“I think we may have arrived,” he said, his tone a mix of regret and excitement.

They stood before the gaudy front window of a fortune-telling establishment.

“Inauspicious, to say the least,” Simon said, chuckling. “Shall we venture in?”

Now that they were upon the meeting, Maisie was uneasy. She tugged her hat down as far as it would go. At the mention of “Lion,” they were waved into the pink-and-purple shop’s spacious back room without question.

She didn’t see Mr. Hoppel, but it was otherwise much the same crowd. The golden-haired speaker—Maisie felt silly thinking of him as Lion—continued to detail their plans. His pleasant lilting tones, so perfect for broadcast, were somehow more disquieting than the expected roar.

“Of course, it’s best that we prevent all women working, aside from servants. But we must better instruct them in the care of children.”

Simon nudged Maisie. “Ah, you naughty workingwomen!”

Maisie knew he meant her to smile, but she couldn’t.

“We can perhaps engage one woman for the BBC under the new regime, to broadcast solely to women, guiding them appropriately. An aristocrat, perhaps, so she commands authority and need only volunteer.”

“Ah, they mean to put you out of work, methinks!” said Simon, chuckling. “This is capital.”

“It’s not funny,” Maisie whispered.

“And we will certainly see that the press is more responsible as well. Some of what these so-called journalists are allowed to publish is virtually obscene.”

Rather depends upon how you define the word, I think.

“I think the blighter means to insult me,” Simon whispered, delighted.

Maisie saw a teapot-shaped man in a bowler hat gazing at them with an intent frown. Her heart chilled. People of a certain class knew their own, and a City man might recognize members of the aristocracy. And Simon had a face one remembered.

“We are going to save our country, and we will begin by insisting that the truth be told,” the Lion assured everyone with a warm smile.

The truth. Their truth. So different from the truth as Hilda saw it. As Maisie saw it. As most, she hoped, saw it. But she didn’t know.

Maisie’s fingers twitched. She needed a pencil. She needed to write. It wasn’t going to wait. And that man was still looking at them, with the look of one who wanted to introduce himself.

“I’ve got a merciless headache,” she whispered, reflexively pleased by her first usage of the standard women’s social maneuver. “I think I’ve got to get home.”

Simon promptly proved what it meant to have been inculcated in gentlemanly gallantry since the swaddling stage. Within seconds they were on the street and he had hailed a cab, though she insisted she could manage with the tram.

“I’m grateful to you, Maisie, really. Another minute and they’d have stoned me to death.” He laughed, then took her hand and kissed it, gazing into her eyes.