Read Online Radio Girls by Sarah-Jane Stratford - Free Book Online Page A

heaven.
    â€œYou’ll have to type the script again, implementing my changes,” Hilda directed, waving a hand at the illegible red scrawl. Maisie felt a slight descent from heaven.
    â€œYou’re making changes to Mr. Conrad’s work?” she asked.
    She hadn’t meant to speak out loud, but however much power Hilda might wield, she couldn’t think it extended to altering a syllable of a man’s words, not a man like this.
    â€œMany can write; few can broadcast. Thus far,” Hilda added with a cackle. “There’s a trick to it, I’ve found. I mean to devote myself to developing, refining, and teaching it. You’ll see. You shall come to rehearsals with me soon, and you’ll see.”
    All Maisie could see were typed words slathered in red graffiti.
    â€œYes, I am sorry about that.” Hilda laughed, not sounding sorry at all. “Never had much of a neat hand. But I’m sure you’ll soon decipher it and be raring away. You’ll get used to me in time.”
    Maisie settled herself before the typewriter.
    I’m not so sure about that.

THREE

    â€œT remendous congratters. Knew you’d land it, but I miss us gadding about during the days,” Lola mourned, as though there’d ever been any gadding. Maisie knew she was only missed as an audience to the drama that was Lola’s ramshackle—and indeed, often entertaining—life, and that as soon as Lola was cast in a show again, she would disappear, and Maisie would be forgotten.
    Maisie embraced her new routine with all the ardor of a new bride. Up at seven, washed and dressed, all in the space of fifteen minutes.
The length of a Talk
. This efficiency, she decided, marked some small advantage to being poor. With so few clothes to choose from, getting dressed was no quarrelsome effort. It was almost an argument for
not
acquiring more blouses and skirts, jumpers and jackets, else how much time would be lost in dividing and conquering them? But she still sighed as she buttoned herself into her blue serge dress, the dullest of her three outfits. She lined her shoes with fresh paper and went down for breakfast.
    Though inflexible on points like acquiring a wireless, Mrs. Crewe was admirable about breakfasts. There was porridge and toast, cornflakes and coffee, with the boarders free to use as much treacle, butter,and cream as they wished. Maisie craved eggs and bacon, but it was a lovely porridge. And the other girls’ desire to be fashionably slim meant she could be even more extravagant with the cream and butter.
    After breakfast, she put on her coat, hat, gloves, and scarf. Her handbag, empty save for a handkerchief, two pennies for lunch, and emergency sixpence, went over her wrist, and she hoped her rickety umbrella could stay folded.
    She was one of the lucky ones, as it took her only one tram to reach the Strand, the street above Savoy Hill. The ride was long and she had to stand, but she didn’t mind. The car had a rhythmic sway, the bell tinkled happily, and one never knew when a sudden screech or thrust would disrupt the song, jolting them all out of their morning meditation. It was a kind of jazz, the only kind she could afford, and so she embraced the fizz of cigarette smoke, the lingering smell of coffee, and the crinkle of newspapers that added to the hum and percussion. It wasn’t stealing to read the paper over a man’s shoulder, gleaning nuggets of the world and enjoying the smell of Palmolive shaving cream. And she watched London unfold before her.
    The dark rows of unloved terrace houses gave way to streets wide enough to encompass history, close enough to wrap that history around you and make you feel how fleeting and finite you were within it. Maisie exulted in the oldness of the buildings, their grandeur and glisten, stoically gazing down on the throng of people and trams and buses and cabs and horse-drawn carriages, with a snake of private cars looping in,