Radio Girls (11 page)

Lemaître himself insisted the real revelation was Hilda's revised script, and Maisie agreed. There was never enough time to study the scripts she typed—the Talks assistants were the ones who enjoyed that privilege—but even when she was able to read them thoughtfully, she had yet to understand how Hilda was able to take a treatise and turn it into a conversation, every time. This man had seen something transformative in the stars and Hilda had figured out how to tether his words back to earth for all the ordinary Britons having their tea.

Maisie sighed and shifted her mind to Cyril, across the room.

Maybe he'll shout, “Hallo, New York. Come tell us what you have for tea over there. And it's not tea, is it? It's coffee.” And I'll go over, and say how the puddings aren't as good as they are here, and he'll say something, and I'll say something . . .

He wasn't looking at her. She ran the last bite of buttered scone around her plate to pick up stray crumbs and had just popped it into her mouth as Beanie sat down next to her.

“You're still hungry, aren't you? I don't think I can manage the rest of this.”

Beanie, resplendent in green-and-gold silk, looking more
glamorous than the actresses she booked for broadcasting, slid half a buttered scone to Maisie.

“It's lucky you're not too particular about food, having the appetite you do,” Beanie went on conversationally. “Personally, I make sure to eat a gargantuan breakfast before I come in. Having a cook helps. Mind you, she's nothing to the cook at the family manse, but what can you do? Still, it's great fun, isn't it, lunching in pubs and things? So different from hotels and restaurants, well, my usual sort of restaurant. You ought to see the shock when I tell a school chum I can't lunch with her because I have to work! And they always say, ‘Now, Beanie, of course you don't
have
to,' and that's perfectly true,
merci
la famille
, but I've really grown very fond of it. Certainly isn't a bore, anyway.”

Maisie finished the scone, and Beanie accompanied her as she took her tray to the shelves for washing and then out into the corridor.

“Mind you, the chums can't imagine anything more fun than shopping and parties. I rather think it depends on the party, don't you? Or I suppose you wouldn't know.”

It was often annoying when Beanie was right.

“Hallo, Beanie. Hallo, New York. How's tricks?”

Maisie's heart jumped.

“She's not ‘New York.' She's Canadian. I rather thought that was known,” Beanie scolded. “But I must say, Maisie, I think you'd do better for yourself saying you're from New York.
Très
glamorous, and you should really play up any glamour anyone associates you with. Besides, most people don't think of New York as America, exactly, or not in the same way.”

“What does that matter?” Maisie asked. Beanie's commentary might be rude, but it was fascinating, and Cyril was enthralled right alongside her.

“It matters enormously. There are those who are still cross with Americans, what with being rather late to join the war, and they do tend to run on and on when they talk, and at a volume that presumes we're all deaf,” Beanie boomed. “Not you, of course. The average
titmouse is louder than you, and you never have a great deal to say for yourself. Probably anyone would guess you're Canadian anyway, if they remember Canada exists.”

“I rather thought we were guessing she was a spy,” Cyril interjected.

“Oh, Mr. Underwood, are you still here? You've got the most unique sense of humor. A spy, now really! Spies are meant to be dreadfully clever and good with language, you know.”

“And beautifully mannered, I imagine.” Cyril grinned.

Beanie considered.

“No, I've never heard of that mattering. But perhaps, why not? Well, must be getting on, cheerio!”

Maisie watched her skip away. It must be so liberating, being so totally at ease with yourself and never caring what anyone thought of you. Then she realized she and Cyril were alone. Or as alone as it was possible to be in a Savoy Hill corridor.

“I . . . I . . .” The pages in her hand were dampening in her sweating palms. “I think I need to be getting back.”

“I as well,” he agreed, frowning. “Another wild and woolly afternoon looms. We're the storm before the calm, is what I say.”

She smiled. He was so handsome, so charming, so . . .

“Do you know, you've got an awfully pretty smile, New York. I do hope you don't mind me calling you that.”

“Oh, no, not at all,” Maisie assured him, wishing her voice weren't springing about like a pogo stick.

“You don't sound very certain.”

“I'm sorry. I do. I mean, I am. Certain, that is.”

“How is it possible that you've been working here three months—”

“Seven,” she interjected. Then hated herself for interrupting him.

“Good Lord! That makes it yet more scandalous that we've not had the opportunity for you to tell me all about New York. Let's rectify that, shall we? I don't suppose you have dinner plans Saturday night?”

The pogo stick scooped up her heart and sent it bouncing down the corridor.

Her tongue remembered to move.

“I . . . er, yes . . . I mean no. I mean I don't have plans, so I'd love that.” She hoped she didn't sound as squeaky to him as she did in her head.

“Wonderful,” he said. “You'd best be off now—we don't want you having to slink back to the States because you've been sacked!”

“Oh. Yes, no, right, thank you!”

She couldn't decide if it was encouraging or disconcerting that she could hear him chuckling as she jogged away, her run so very different from Beanie's.

“Y
ou really haven't any choice.” Lola was adamant, brandishing the dress she called her “pink silk”—though the fabric had no more met a worm than Maisie had the king.

“I don't know,” Maisie demurred, valiantly trying to neither insult Lola nor cry. A date should mean a new frock, jewelry, perfume. Hair in soft waves. A smaller nose. The smile he called pretty radiating as though powered by the BBC's new transmitter at Selfridges department store.

“At least your shoes are smart,” Lola encouraged. “They're not evening shoes, but they'll do.”

The longed-for new shoes had at last been purchased without an ounce of the expected ceremony. Increasingly, and to her astonishment, the BBC dominated Maisie's mind even when she wasn't there, so her life outside it, tonight excepted, was rendered mundane. She needed shoes; she saved the money; she bought them. Chocolate-brown, double-strap, low-heeled beauties that would last. Comfortable, practical, and smart. They would do.

“I bet we can do something with that dress.” Lola waved a hand
at the stalwart brown wool that comprised nearly the whole of Maisie's wardrobe.

A strip of mulberry-colored velvet ribbon from Lola's bottomless stash was tacked to the top of the drop-waist skirt. A matching ribbon wrapped around Maisie's head, set off with a pink flower. A pink-beaded necklace.

“You've got to have some makeup, you know,” Lola insisted.

The mascara, shadow, blush, and lipstick didn't transform her, but even Maisie could admit the effect was rather nice. As she finished touching up her lips, she wondered what would happen if Cyril tried to kiss her.

The lipstick dropped, and she concertinaed to the floor after it. She had no experience, none. Miss Havisham was the local good-time girl compared to Maisie. By her age, most girls had kissed at least one boy. Nurses used to giggle about it in the hospital.

“I kissed him in the altar boys' changing room at our church!”

“I think he thought he'd won the prize—didn't have the heart to tell him anything worthwhile was too far under the corset to be felt.”

“He really knew his stuff. I barely held on to the goods—sometimes wish I hadn't. But who wants the first time to be in his father's motorcar?”

The stories were endless—kisses, pinches, squeezes, giggles. Filling the hospital ward with men who were hale and hearty and ribald and laughing, hiding the shadows of the men lying bandaged and broken. Some days it had felt as though there would never be any kisses again. The memories had to be made bigger, filling the space despair created.

“Much better,” Lola said, appraising Maisie. “But do try not to look so terrified.”

Maisie nodded, too scared to talk.

“Best get downstairs,” Lola advised. “You don't want Mrs. Crewe to open the door to him.”

Maisie catapulted down the stairs. The bell rang as she reached the hall, and she skittered around Mrs. Crewe, yelping, “Sorry, sorry,
so sorry,” and flung open the door to receive Cyril, smoking a cigarette, handsome and at ease.

“Well, New York, don't you look smart?”

“Good evening, Cyril. Thank you,” she said, attempting poise between pants.

“It's almost properly warm tonight, but you might as well bring that wrap anyway.”

Wrap? She looked down to see Lola draping a pink shawl—more fringe than fabric—over her arm. She took the bag Lola held out, smiling at Lola's enormous gestures of approval.

“Well, then.” Cyril grinned. “Let's see where the night takes us.”

At Cyril's direction, it took them to the outskirts of Soho, to a street whose scruffiness unsettled Maisie. But she felt safe with Cyril.

“I think you'll like this.” He waved her into a steamy fish-and-chip shop, so packed, every other chip shop in London must be empty.

“The place is always stuffed to the gills,” Cyril confided, his eyes twinkling.

“Stuffed? Looks fried to me,” Maisie rejoined, pointing to “Plaice” on the menu, quite forgetting her role was to giggle prettily.

Cyril gaped like she was an exotic zoo creature. And didn't laugh.

Stop it, Maisie. Stopitstopitstopit
.

Disappointment had loosened her tongue. In the fantasy, she was accepting a glass of something sweet right now, her senses entranced by the heft and curve of the glass, the one-note song it made as it touched Cyril's, the bubbles tickling her nose, the smell of grapes and the essence of a French countryside turning her tipsy even before she took a sip, or maybe that was his eyes, smile, freckles.

Oh, what did you expect, really? Drinks at the Dorchester, dinner at the Criterion, dancing till two? You don't know what he earns, and at least he wants to feed you. And you can't dance. Just trust him. He knows what he's doing. Trust him
.

Cyril seized Maisie's elbow and pulled her through the throng,
murmuring his most refined “Please excuse me” and “I do beg your pardon” as he nudged past this one and that until they slipped into the seats of a couple just leaving.

“The cod's the best, all right?” Cyril asked her, and shouted an order that was somehow heard above the din before Maisie could answer. She would have preferred rock salmon.
Trust him. Trust him. Trust him
.

He was right. A steaming plate of fried glory was soon laid before her. The mingled smells of fish in batter and plump chips with crisp skins infused with oil worked on her like barbiturates. It may not have been the elegant meal of her dreams, but she nonetheless ate with gusto.

“So, you're enjoying it?” Cyril's voice wafted across to her.

“Everything is perfect,” Maisie said, grinning. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

He couldn't have been blushing. It was just the heat.

“That's all right. You looked like you could use a decent feed.”

Now
she
blushed. She hated looking undernourished.
Keep the conversation on him. New York or no, men want to talk about themselves
.

“How did you find this restaurant?”

“Chap's got to know a good chipper. I've always fancied things that maybe don't look the best, but get to know them and you find they're better than anything posh could ever be.”

“So you don't like posh things?” She fought down the idea he was talking about her.

“If I did, I wouldn't be working at the BBC.” He laughed. “Though I think my job's a doddle compared to yours, working for the biggest taskmasters in the building: Matheson, the Shield, our Lord and Master. Tell me, which is the most maddening?”

Even though he'd asked, Maisie knew the contempt men had for women's gossip. She considered how to change the subject, but he wasn't waiting for her answer.

“Funny thing with Matheson,” he said, “having what you'd think would be a man's job, hm?”

“I suppose that's part of us being modern? She seems to do well, anyway.”

“Oh, yes, audiences are very keen on the Talks,” he said. “That's one advantage you have over us Schools lot. You know your audiences choose to listen.”

“But you get plenty of letters from students saying how much they like the broadcasts.”

“If they're anything like I was at school, they're being forced to write them.”

“Oh, I don't think so. You know you're doing very good work. Mr. Reith wouldn't be so pleased otherwise.”

“
Ha! The DG governs Schools with a tyranny I think Vlad the Impaler might have thought a tad overbearing. It's why I'm such a heavy smoker.” He lit a second cigarette for emphasis and shrugged. “But it's a good laugh. And what about you—do you like your job?”

She did. More than she'd ever imagined. But she didn't want him to think she wanted to be a woman like Hilda. He had to know she was eager to move on to the real work of life, as soon as she was invited.

Probably shouldn't say that on a first date, though
.

“It's stimulating,” she answered.

“It is that,” he agreed. “Fascinating stuff, radio. Glorious being in on the ground floor, as it were, isn't it? Maybe we'll get to see how far it can go. Mind you, my father still hopes I'll give up this nonsense and go in for law.”

“I'm sure he only wants the best for you.”

“Oh, yes, nothing to be said against dear old Dad. Wants the best for all the brood. The best school, the best job, the best wife. Well, not for Kitty, I suppose. My sister,” he clarified, with a laugh.

Maisie was still trembling from the word “wife.”

In a dim and poky coffeehouse just up the road, he ordered for them again. Rhubarb cake with extra cream, drinking chocolate. And she trusted him, and it was good.

“You're all right, Maisie,” Cyril said suddenly.

Her heart went pogoing again, around and around the shop.

Except he sounded surprised. Did he? Was he? She shoved the thought down, and while it was struggling to assert itself, Cyril reached over and patted her hand. The voltage sent all her thoughts scattering far beyond Galileo's reach.

Possibly, just possibly, she was going to be kissed tonight.

Cyril was talking. She watched his moving mouth; she was dissolving.

“I'd like to do some proper producing, as a lead. Bit off that Miss Somerville does and I don't, though she's quite good—not saying she isn't. Can't tell the chaps from school I'm junior to a woman, though. They'd rag me to death.”

“You'd be brilliant at producing, I'm sure,” Maisie told his lips.

“I wouldn't mind a stint in New York radio either, someday. Meant to be quite different, but maybe you know about that?”

She remembered that the supposed point of this outing was for her to describe New York.
Maybe he means for us to have another date? He must, surely. I hope. Please.

“Tell me,” he asked. “Why do they call it the Big Apple?”

Sooner or later he's got to ask a question whose answer I know.