Radio Girls(79)

“Another who thinks she’s better than she is,” Grigson said with a disparaging sniff. “But here’s good news. I have purchased a newspaper and think I have found the man to run it. Might have a bit of a time finding a few more sound fellows to write for it, but I think we’ll manage.”

“I know some writers,” Maisie burst in. Good spies listened, yes, but better ones seized opportunities.

Both men turned to look at her, surprised. Grigson laughed in what he clearly intended to be a fatherly manner. It grated on Maisie like fingernails on a chalkboard.

“Do you now? And I suppose these ‘writers’ are in fact brothers or cousins in need of a good job?”

“Well, perhaps,” she said, trying to speak in Lola’s accent. “But truly, they are very talented and eager.”

“Ah, that’s very nice too,” Grigson said. “I tell you what, dear. Take my card, and if you’d like to have these writers drop through their stuff to me, I’ll have a look at it.”

“That’s very kind of you, sir. Thank you so much.”

“Not at all, not at all. But, ah, I say, dear, have the boys just leave off envelopes addressed to me and not saying anything about what it’s regarding, all right? You can manage that, can’t you?”

“Certainly, sir. Thank you, sir.”

She had a feeling they were the sort of idiots who liked to see a girl so elated by a nothing sort of promise, there was a skip in her step as she walked away. She skipped, they laughed, and she smirked. Then the old thought floated through her contempt, the question, wondering if she had in fact told the truth, and Edwin Musgrave had provided her with brothers and cousins.

On the tram, she shook off those thoughts and looked at the card. The fist inside sucked all the breath from her body. Arthur Grigson. A company director. At Nestlé.

She should have been flabbergasted. But she wasn’t.




Neither was Hilda. “Although I would like to be, I must say.” Maisie had met her at the door to Savoy Hill that morning and they walked up the stairs together. They murmured, though they could have bellowed and no one would have heard them over the din, even at that hour. “All this fuss, just to keep a wealthy company run by wealthy men earning a bit more money. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they call themselves Christians, too. Silly idiots.”

“They also want to keep women from working. Or voting.”

“They wouldn’t, if they thought women working and voting would earn themselves one extra half-farthing. Never mind. The more we educate our listeners, the harder their work will be.”

“And the more fun for us,” Maisie said.

It was a grueling day. Hilda asked both Maisie and Phyllida to accompany her in rehearsing Virginia Woolf, an uncomfortable hour during which the writer refused to meet any of their eyes. She gazed at the microphone as though she expected it to bite her and looked fully prepared to bite back.

“I enjoyed Orlando very much,” Phyllida ventured, with her most winning smile. Virginia Woolf stared at her without blinking.

“Thank you,” she said at last. “It was a great pleasure to write.” This comment was delivered with what looked very much like a glare at Hilda.

“We’re all very lucky, aren’t we?” Hilda asked. “Getting to do work we enjoy? Wouldn’t have been possible, even when you were born, Miss Fenwick.”

“No, quite,” Phyllida answered, but her voice was wavering under that ceaseless glare, and Hilda’s usual cheer and disinterest in Miss Woolf’s temper was making it worse. Maisie and Phyllida exchanged a look, but there was nothing to do except carry on until, at last, Miss Woolf rose to leave.

Maisie stepped forward to walk her out. Miss Woolf said nothing, but shunned the lift for the stairs, moving with such ominous solemnity as to unnerve anyone coming upstairs, so that they jumped aside to let her pass. Maisie didn’t like the writer’s behavior, but couldn’t help be impressed.

“Are you working on something new, Miss Woolf?” Maisie asked, hoping she seemed polite. In fact, she wanted to punish Virginia Woolf by forcing her to talk.

“I am,” was the succinct reply.

“Another novel, dare we hope?”

“Of sorts.” They reached reception, and the writer gave Maisie the faintest of nods. “It is, in part, about the importance of having one’s own space. And having that space respected.” She raised an eyebrow at Maisie, then turned and sashayed out the door.

Well, what idiot’s going to argue otherwise?

Maisie ran back upstairs, where Hilda had forgotten Virginia Woolf and wanted to address the problem of some letters they were getting in response to Questions for Women Voters, letters from married women whose husbands were angry about them registering to vote.

“What sort of marriage do you call that?” Phyllida demanded. “One that needs walking out of, is what I say.”

“We can’t be accused of promoting marital discord,” Hilda said. “Or more scandalously, divorce. So, let’s think about these women.”

Maisie rolled her pencil up and down her pad. Just a few years ago, she wouldn’t have wanted to vote, to do anything that required making her own decisions. The old ideas, home, safety, someone who loved her, a family at last. So here were women whose husbands still believed that their voices should be sufficient in speaking for the whole family. It had for centuries; why should it not now?