Maisie couldn’t. She still respected and even admired Reith. But she wouldn’t dare question how his mind worked. He kept them all in Savoy Hill, and that had to be enough.
That Friday, Hilda left early on some sort of weekend adventure. The two producers and Talks assistants assumed “Field Marshal Fielden” would flex his muscle, but even Fielden claimed to have a weekend scheme ahead and so ducked out. Maisie paid no attention to the suppositions or the thoughts of a quiet Saturday morning. She had assignments to begin. She helped herself to some biscuits and opened Hilda’s notebook.
It was such an effort, turning Hilda’s scratch into words, that she had already typed two pages before the meaning began to sink in. She stopped typing and started to read, realizing her brain was still struggling to catch up.
Or catch on.
“Broadcast speech can be overheard by everybody; the printed word is often overlooked. This universality has its most obvious use in relation to what we call news—the announcement of events. But when we have said ‘news,’ we have at once roused the fundamental controversy. What news is broadcast?”
On and on and on—Hilda’s thoughts on broadcasting. And news. And what made a valuable story. What radio was, what it ought to be, how to achieve that and then improve on it further.
An education.
EIGHT
“Will a shilling do?”
“Go ahead, pet. I expect you know how to use it.” Miss Cryer waved her to the phone at the back of the little post office.
Maisie pulled out her pad. There were several phone boxes within a hundred yards of Savoy Hill, but there was nearly always a queue, and anyway, she wanted to take notes as she talked. She expected the call to cost sixpence. The extra money was for Miss Cryer’s confidence. The post office on Savoy Street that she managed with such tender respect, from morning till eight at night, was also a purveyor of rather good sweets and thus another pillar propping up the BBC.
A receptionist answered and hearing “Miss Musgrave of BBC Talks” put Maisie through with no waiting.
“Good morning, Mr. Emmet. Thank you so much. I won’t take but a moment of your time.”
“Not at all, not at all. Just having elevenses,” he assured her. She could tell he was deepening and smoothing his voice, attempting to sound radio-perfect. It wasn’t his voice so much as his attitude—he’s lucky Miss Matheson didn’t beat him to death with a pencil.
“I was wondering, Mr. Emmet, if you could explain to me a bit what happens if a nation experiences an equity drop. Is it a political concern at all?”
“Is this for an upcoming Talk?” he asked brightly. “Do you want to have me back again?”
Not on our lives.
“We are exploring a number of routes, and hearing your thoughts on this would be useful,” she said, opting for partial truth.
“Ah, I see. Well, in the simplest terms, it means negative equity. That is, a nation’s holdings and general wealth are worth less. Its currency is less competitive. That can affect costs and national income—exports and the like. Mind you, it happens all the time. A strong economy overall can weather it. Look at your America, all those mad ups and downs over the last hundred years at least, yes? But the economy’s soaring. Aren’t people living better than ever before?”
Spoken like someone who’s never walked through the Lower East Side in Manhattan. Or the East End of London, for that matter.
“Can you tell me what happens if there is an equity drop in a weak economy?” she asked.
“That’s when you might have a problem,” he said with an alarming chuckle.
“It’s funny?”
“Oh, not for them, of course, but it’s usually due to mismanagement somewhere, so it’s deserved. And then they are ripe for someone to come in and sort things out at a good rate.”
The man was making an argument for the benevolence of vultures.
“Someone? How do you mean?”
“An outside nation, perhaps, or someone with strong views and personality. Italy’s still got any number of problems, but you see how Mussolini’s created order. Order means a strong economy.”
“I see. Thank you, Mr. Emmet. That’s enormously helpful.”
Back in the office, correspondence typed, calls put through, scripts marked, and rehearsal schedules fixed, Maisie found herself with a moment to think. Her eyes wandered over her notes and she remembered Hilda’s word “connection.” She had meant it differently, but . . .
“Miss Matheson?”
Hilda was reading through the listings for the Radio Times.
“Mm?”
“If we were to do a Talk on Germany’s economy, could we perhaps draw a parallel to the American South after the Civil War?”
Hilda looked up at her, pencil between her teeth.
“It’s not perfect,” Maisie said quickly, “but the South’s economy was a mess after the war and the North didn’t do a whole lot to help, and then the South made some . . . well, not political changes, exactly, I guess, but policies that weren’t very good. I’m not wording this well . . .”