Radio Girls(98)

She bit the tip of her pencil, then wrote:

It’s been the most beautiful September. The skies are such a brilliant blue, and all the Georgian buildings look like paintings in the afternoon light. You ought to see it. Will you be home soon?

Then she crossed that out. She didn’t want to sound needy. Hilda and Vita, if Maisie’s calculations were correct, must have enjoyed only a few weeks together before Vita went to Berlin with Harold. Maybe they, too, felt their love grow stronger in the absence. Maisie was sure it was Vita who had given the gift that was Torquhil. It was probably just as well Simon didn’t give gifts.

He’ll allow the promotion, I’m sure, Simon wrote back. Who’s more right for it than you? And this is just the sort of program we should have more of, good, solid information about the intricacies of government, so that we dispel ignorance. Ignorance is quite passé, very nineteenth century. We want a capable public, strong minds, strong bodies. That’s how we retain our glory, and aren’t you just the right sort of person to be one of the leaders thereof?

Sometimes he was the one who sounded like a Communist.

The Week in Westminster had, at least, been approved. “Another political program, really?” was Reith’s initial squall. “Lady Astor will be a regular contributor, and Megan Lloyd George. All the best women,” Hilda promised in her most soothing tones. “And it will be at eleven in the morning, when workingwomen are drinking their tea.” This example of the stalwartness of British women charmed him enough that he forgot the crumpets would be served with politics.

“But he doesn’t want to pass around promotions,” Phyllida said, with a sigh both supportive and selfish, because Maisie and Hilda were angling to have her made Talks assistant when Maisie stepped up.

“That would be three women in vital positions in the most important department in the BBC,” Reith fretted. “I think we had at least be sure this new women’s fare is a success before we risk anything so radical.”

“I’m not sure how making me a producer is ‘radical,’” Maisie said to Phyllida, who reported all the details of every meeting with a thoroughness that made Maisie think she should apply to MI5 herself.

“To be fair, this is a man who still thinks women riding bicycles is radical.”




Reith’s hedging notwithstanding, Maisie was involving herself more and more deeply in the preparations for the program. Broadcasters were already giving them scripts, discussing assorted minutiae about days spent in Parliament. Maisie huddled over a cup of tea and a script by Megan Lloyd George, the sole female MP for the Liberal party. A fascinating story, but one that read like a dry news report.

No, no, you’ve got to talk to us, Miss Lloyd George. Talk to us like we’re good friends and just as clever as yourself. Every word counts, and then it will be your delivery. But if I just shift this and change that, and let’s make the story of a first day in Westminster after an election more personal. That will make everyone just love you, and then I think . . .

Two hours later, she presented it to Hilda, who read it straight through.

“Very good work, Miss Musgrave. I can’t add anything. You’ve done it most satisfactorily.”

“I know,” said Maisie. Then she blushed. “I mean, thank you.”

Hilda grinned. “You meant what you said the first time.”

Maisie grinned back. “I know.”




Planning to break into Nestlé was more difficult than Siemens. Maisie made several reconnaissance visits and confirmed Hilda’s observation that, British arm or not, being beholden to their Swiss overlords subsumed the company with a penchant for high order and exactness, which didn’t allow for deviations and unauthorized visitors. But she had to get in. She wanted the evidence of Grigson’s lack of ethics, at least, and if he was found to be engaged in anything worse, so much the better.

After the morning tea break, Maisie knocked on Hilda’s door for their meeting. Hilda was sitting bolt upright in her chair, hand pressed to her heart, staring at a mountain of telegrams.

“Miss Matheson?”

Hilda didn’t look up.

“The American stock market crashed yesterday.”

“But that’s happened before,” Maisie said, remembering her vague attempts to understand the wilderness that was nineteenth-century American banking.

“It appears to be rather bad,” Hilda said, struggling to light a cigarette. Her hands were shaking. Maisie moved to help her just as Phyllida came in with a brandy.

“The whole business of stocks never made much sense to me anyway,” Phyllida said. “Unless they’re talking about cattle.”

Maisie read a few of the telegrams. Whatever a “run on the banks” was, it didn’t sound good.

“So people will get their money, and—”

“There is no money,” Hilda interrupted, her voice hollow. She threw back the brandy in one gulp. Phyllida hovered uncertainly, the bottle cradled in her arms.

“You, er, didn’t have money in American stocks, did you?” she asked.

Hilda glanced at her and shook her head. Then she fixed her eyes on Maisie.

“America was doing a great deal to prop up the Weimar Republic.”

Germany was still struggling. And if there was to be no more American money, and Mr. Keynes and other economists urging the end to reparations weren’t heeded, Germany might become desperate. And here was the example of Italy, who had neatly turned its desperation into a thriving dictatorship. And here were these German patriots, building their agenda, helped by corporate money and ideologues.