Read Online A Whistling Woman by A.S. Byatt - Free Book Online Page A

consultation. One of the series he had inaugurated was a kind of literary guessing-game called
Gobbets
. The idea was simple. Four guessers, a chairman and an actor sat round (or along) a table. The actor read out quotations and the guessers guessed where they came from. At the time, many people assumed that this was the way television would go, or one of the ways—civilised, after-dinner mind-flexing, the reader’s version of snooker or tennis. Frederica didn’t have a television. She was beginning to see that this was an impossible state of affairs, for Leo wept with rage that his friends could see
Batman
and
Dr. Who,
and he could not. She was not unusual in this. She did not consider television to be
important,
despite her journalist friend Tony Watson’s excited speeches on how all elections from henceforth would be won and lost on the small screen. She had a vague idea that it was sinful to spend one’s evenings passively staring, whether at news, satire, discussion or whatever. All these things could be better and quicker experienced by other means. And then, there was the old individualist’s supercilious fear of becoming part of a
mass.
Which was thought, by the producers of
Gobbets,
to be interested in the attribution and discussion of literary quotations.
    Wilkie told Frederica that she could come and be part of the team, for a trial run. “We can never find enough women to go on the programme,” he explained. “They won’t play. You do some reviewing, we’ll class you as a journalist.” The programmes were recorded in blocks of four, sometimes in the Television Centre, sometimes in Manchester. There was an atmosphere of party-going and an illusion of a complex cultural life which was going on, on and off the screen. Frederica guessed Marvell’s “Garden,” and Henry Green’s
Loving
and Auden’s “September 1939” and an obscure passage from
Sense and Sensibility
. She failed to guess a passage from Byron, whom she had never got on with, and a passage from
Dombey and Son,
which made her briefly furious. She was surprised to be invited back—despite the difficulty of finding women. Wilkie said to her “You’re not scared of the camera. That’s very unusual. You just say what you think.”
    Frederica thought about being scared of the camera. If she wasn’t, it was because she didn’t take it seriously. She didn’t see herself and didn’t want to. Small cheques arrived. She travelled to Manchester in a carriage full of poets, historians and thinkers and listened whilst they talked about how to write about war.

Then Wilkie said casually that he wanted her to audition for a new series which was partly about television itself, about what it did, what effects it had. On everything from politics to science to art. “I’ve put you down for an audition,” he said. “To do interviews on it. To ask questions. You’d be good.”
    â€œNo, I wouldn’t. I’m not an interviewer.”
    â€œYou’re not scared. You think fast. It’d be a good idea to have a thinking woman. They don’t go in for them.”
    â€œI don’t think so.”
    â€œCome along to the auditions anyway. For the experience. You don’t know where it may lead.”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œAnd what else are you doing at the moment, Frederica?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œWell, then.”
    Wilkie’s new project was called
Through the Looking-Glass
. The auditions took place, not in the Television Centre, but in some large warehouse or temporary studio in Islington. Frederica went to be auditioned without enthusiasm, and therefore without preparation. She wore a dark green shirt, with white collar and cuffs. She had learned from
Gobbets
not to wear black, or stripes. She had also learned to mistrust the girls with little trays of make-up, rouge and sponges,