Radio Girls (42 page)

Maisie had also meant it when she said how busy they were and how much planning was under way. There were new series being prepared with all-encompassing titles like
Points of View
and
People and Things
. A veneer of polite banality that masked the heady politics beneath. Hilda vented her rage, both with Reith and the world economy, by exploring more controversy than ever and seemed to be daring anyone to stop her.

Siepmann, heady with victory and busy arranging his new offices to suit his exalted position, didn't seem to notice the programming. He did notice Torquhil, though.

“And here I thought he was an innovative broadcaster.” Siepmann patted the tolerant dog, who glanced at him suspiciously before returning to his pride of place by Hilda's fire.

“He is very nice,” Cyril said, watching Torquhil trot away. “I like having a dog about the office. Makes things friendlier.”

“So glad you think so,” Phyllida drawled, barely beating Fielden and Maisie to the same line.

It was all their triumph, though, to see Cyril bow his head and return to the arrangement of his desk.

The newspapers were curiously quiet about the change to Talks, perhaps because it had been presented to them so as to look like the triumph of Hilda's good work that Reith insisted on saying it was, even within the BBC. It was only Maisie's determination to keep Hilda from reproach that stopped her leaking the truth to the press.

“Er, Miss Musgrave?” Cyril again, twisting his hands together. “I hate to trouble you for the
Week in Westminster
files, but—”

“Yes, of course,” Maisie said, in a tone she decided sounded breezy. “They're all here in this drawer.” She indicated said drawer. “Do you wish to move them closer to you?”

“Oh, no. No, you can still store them. You're still Talks assistant on the program.”

“How smashing for me, thank you.”

“Smashing for me, actually, or I'd be quite at sea. Er, I don't suppose you'd like to go over programming for the next year—perhaps over lunch . . . ?”

“Dreadfully busy today. Can't manage, I'm afraid.” She couldn't put off a meeting forever, but she certainly wasn't giving him her free time.

“What are you working on now?” he asked, with polite curiosity.

She couldn't resist giving him a sly smile.

“I'm booking a Miss Rachel Klay of the Fabian Society for
Points of View
. Subject: Do the Fascists Want to Control Our Information? Last-minute replacement. We're airing it next week.”

“That, er, sounds rather incendiary,” he said, his tone both quavering and admiring.

“Oh, I don't know. It's only an opinion piece. Nothing for anyone to worry about,” Maisie said with a shrug. But she didn't stop smiling.

“If you wanted to break into files, why didn't you ask me for picklocks?” Ellis demanded when Hilda and Maisie showed him the takings from Maisie's espionage.

“Because if she were to be searched, a nail file is an expected thing for a woman to possess. Picklocks tend to raise eyebrows,” Hilda pointed out.

“They could be a prop, or used for radio sound effects, and they don't leave evidence,” Ellis rejoined. “Really, Miss Musgrave, you could be done for burglary now.”

“Gosh, thanks,” Maisie said.

“Oh, never mind that!” Hilda snapped. “Look at this mess. Look at what people are saying, about unions, women, media, Jews, homosexuals, books, music. They would probably stop science if they didn't think it was a moneymaker. The talk is only growing, Ellis—look at it.”

“Whispered, Matty. Whispered on fringes, the way people always have. No one's ever liked Jews, homosexuals, or women who make noise—you can't get aerated about all history.”

“I bloody well can,” she retorted. “And I'm going to see them exposed.”

“The trouble with you sort in media,” said Ellis, lighting his cheroot, “is you think there's great power in printing things. It never really changes anything, you know.”

“It does, though. Knowledge is power. Why else do you think they want to control media? Apparently this man Goebbels is quite the acolyte of American advertising. His writing is brilliant in its simplicity. If only he were using it to sell washing powder.”

“It's just a load of tosh, shouting in the wind.”

“No, it's really good propaganda. If they can keep capitalizing on it, they won't stay marginalized for long. Look, just look at this contract. These Nazis have promised that if they come to power, they'll give Nestlé a government contract. Nestlé can supply all the chocolate for the whole German army.”

“Well, that will make the soldiers rebel for sure, and that will be the end of it.”

“Stop it!” Maisie screamed. Then she clapped her hands over her mouth. “Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean . . . Actually I did, but not quite so—”

Hilda put a hand on her shoulder and turned to Ellis.

“Miss Musgrave speaks for us both.”

“I do apologize,” Ellis said, for once meaning it. “There is so much happening just now, it's hard to spare energy for suppositions about the future. And you must admit, it all looks like angry little boys playing at silly adventure games.”

“Everyone thought it was an adventure in 1914, too,” Hilda said.

Ellis sighed heavily and slugged down half his brandy. “You haven't many options when you want to stop something before it starts. You need better proof than photographs, for one thing. Anyone can swear they are faked.”

“They'll do that anyway,” Maisie said. “But I can get the contract they're planning to give Simon. I don't know if it's illegal, but it's got to be unethical.”

Ellis looked at her with deep admiration. “Good. And this is everything you have thus far? You had better leave it with me now. I can be sure it's properly managed and analyzed. If anything proves to be beyond the usual ethical flexibility of business, I can arrange for further steps to be taken.”

“All we need, I think, is to embarrass them,” Hilda said, running a finger along the papers. “If it's obvious they're wishing to upend the BBC, it's possible people might choose not to purchase anything made by Siemens or Nestlé. As much as a business might hate a union, bad publicity that affects their bottom line is a different circle of hell altogether.”

“Yes,” Maisie agreed. “And I've been wanting to tell them to go to hell for such a while now.”

Maisie and Phyllida took their lunch to the chapel—a good enough place for a confession. Maisie felt guilty, breaking her promise to Hilda, but she felt worse keeping such secrets from the only real friend she'd ever had. And Phyllida, to her credit, was far more appalled by what was going on than the fact that she was so late in hearing it.

“D'ye know,” Phyllida said, lighting a cigarette, “they're not wrong. We should bring back some sort of feudalism or what have you. Something where treason's punished by being burned at the stake. Or is it drawing and quartering? I always forget.”

“It's not treason, exactly, I think.”

“Near as, damn it. Useless mongrels.”

“He asked me to marry him, Phyllida. He gave me a ring, said he loves me. And I'm stupid enough to still want it to mean something.” Maisie drew up her knees under her chin.

“Eh, it probably does. But, Maisie, go on. If even half of this is true, you can't have any softness for him now. You can't. You know that.”

“I do.”

“And your life isn't without love. You know that, too.”

“I do.”

“Good. So that's sorted.” Phyllida ground her cigarette in the baptismal font. “I never liked him anyway.”

“You never met him.”

“I didn't have to.”

For once, it was hard to concentrate on her BBC work. Maisie's mind kept wandering to Simon. Was it really possible he would take steps to compromise Britain's press, its whole democracy, just for money? Money, and to feel his power as an aristocrat? Whatever Phyllida said, it just didn't seem right. It couldn't be. The times had changed too much. He had to accept that, surely? The questions ping-ponged about in her brain as she brought a script to Hilda to examine.

“Miss Musgrave, what is this?”

“A script, for the competitive bridge players you hated so much.”

“No, this. Are you awake?”

It was the sharpness of the tone rather than the words that snapped Maisie back to attention. She couldn't think how, but one of the photographs was in Hilda's hand, rather than Ellis's safekeeping. The photograph of Grigson's letter indicating the intent to remove women from the BBC, along with all the most popular programming.

“Ellis was going to analyze this. No paper can print it without verification. And we haven't much time.”

“I can't think what happened,” Maisie said, staring at the photograph as though it was an unexploded grenade.

“Post it to Ellis now, tonight.” Hilda said. “Here, I'll write up an envelope for you.”

“Maybe you should take it to him in person?” Maisie was suddenly panicked.

“I think at this juncture it's safer going through the post. If you get it by the seven o'clock and send it express, it might even reach him tonight.”

“I'm so sorry, Miss Matheson. I can't think how I—”

“It happens, Miss Musgrave. But it's the sort of thing you can't ever let happen again.” She sealed the envelope and slipped it back between the pages of the script.

“Go.”