Radio Girls(69)

The treacherous fist in her chest clawed its way to her brain and nearly made her say, “I feel better now. Let’s go anywhere, everywhere, now, forever.”

But she was too dazed to form words, and he skillfully handed the driver some money and her into the cab and, with one lingering look, was gone.

The fist inside settled down and her fingers closed around her pencil. Words flowing across the blue lines in her boxy, conscientious script.

“Could the Fear of Communism Lead to Something Worse? Would the British People Willingly Sacrifice Hard-Won Freedoms for This False Fear? Thoughts from a Canadian.”

She stared at that for a moment and amended:

“A Canadian-American.”

She had no idea where she meant these words to end up. It didn’t matter. She just kept writing, and writing, and was still writing when she got out of the cab, as she walked through the door, and by the dim light in the sitting room, not noticing that her fingers were growing cramped and she hadn’t even taken off her hat.





THIRTEEN




Maisie was pacing outside Savoy Hill when Hilda sauntered up.

“I’ve got to speak with you. Can we go inside the chapel a minute?”

“My goodness, Miss Musgrave, how very cloak-and-daggerish!” Hilda, always delighted with novelty, was glad to accommodate. They were as alone as Maisie hoped; the chapel’s only other occupant was a red squirrel, genuflecting over an abandoned sandwich.

“Miss Matheson, I’ve been reading the Radio Times every week, cover to cover—”

“Oh, and here I thought you liked yourself,” Hilda said, eyes dancing.

Maisie refused to smile.

“The thing is, I’ve been noticing these, well, adverts of sorts, for meetings. I’ve typed them all up so you can see.” Hilda glanced at the notes and back at Maisie, encouraging her to go on. “And I went along, and it seems to be a branch of the Fascists. Or a splinter, perhaps. Anyway, the DG’s friend Mr. Hoppel was there, and he works for Siemens, and you had once thought . . .”

Hilda exhaled heavily and leaned against the baptismal font.

“Well, well, well. You’ve been having quite an extracurricular time of things.”

“What do you make of it?” Maisie asked.

“What do you make of it?” Hilda countered.

“Oh, don’t do that, Miss Matheson, not this time, please!”

“I certainly shall! You’ve not taken up spying as a lark. You know there’s likely something afoot. So? What are your instincts suggesting?”

“They were your instincts. They came from that German pamphlet you had.”

“I’m well aware. Go on.”

“All right. Well, last night, I was out with, well, a fellow—”

“The Honorable Mr. Brock-Morland?”

Maisie nearly toppled into a pew. “How on earth did you know?”

“He sent you that letter with the Pinpoint copies, and at least one other note besides. Remember, I was a secretary, too. Political, not clerical, but nonetheless, we see everything.”

Maisie had a sudden flash on Miss Jenkins instructing them to be the eyes and ears of whatever business they were so fortunate as to gain employ with.

“Oh. Well, I . . . Well, they want to take over the BBC. Or at least influence, but it’s the same, because they want to stop all women working here, all women working anywhere, and they want to take over newspapers too, so they ‘tell the truth,’ as they call it. But mostly the BBC.”

“Ah! So they see what we’re worth, do they? That’s most gratifying. Almost compensates for the lack of original thinking.”

“Miss Matheson, they’re awfully serious, and most of the people there looked quite posh and important, the sort who can influence things. And if that man Hoppel is involved, and he’s so high up in Siemens, and Siemens is one of the companies you thought those Nazi people were trying to get support from, and—”

“Miss Musgrave—”

“If MI5 is concerned, then—”

“Be quiet!” For once, Hilda looked enraged and, possibly, a little alarmed. “Some things you just don’t say in some places.” She stroked her onyx necklace. “We’ve got to go in. I’m three minutes late. Mr. Fielden has likely already rung Scotland Yard.”

“But—”

Hilda held up a warning finger. “Later.” Then she smiled her biggest Bonfire Night smile. “I promise.”




It wasn’t that Maisie didn’t trust her, but “later” had a way of stretching into weeks in Savoy Hill. Despite Hilda’s organization and Reith’s dictatorship, things spiraled out of control almost hourly. Just that morning, the well-rehearsed Mrs. Lonsdale, discussing her champion border collies, meant to say, “I breed them,” and instead said, “I bleed them.” Hilda instructed Fielden to have the mailroom set up a temporary holding tent for the coming deluge of complaints. Billy forgot to give Mr. Wallis his cue to begin, leaving thirty-two seconds of dead air, and “Beaky” Brendon’s “easy-to-train” singing parrots got loose of their cage in the corridor. Which might have been less of a problem if the string quartet hadn’t opened the door to Studio One just as Rusty thundered down the corridor with a butterfly net procured from Sound Effects (people had long since given up asking why the effects men had certain objects). Eckersley could be heard baying for blood over the “destruction” of the studio (“Just a few feathers and droppings; you’d think it was a zeppelin air raid,” Maisie said). Beaky Brendon himself had hysterics when Samson the cat got involved in the roundup, but since only a few tail feathers were sacrificed, no one else was particularly ruffled. The parrots were wrangled, Hilda slung some brandy down Beaky Brendon’s throat, and he recovered after she offered to give the parrots some as well. Samson went back to scouring Savoy Hill for mice, and everyone else went back to being several days behind in their work, a complaint so often stated, no one, including the complainants, paid any attention.