“So, Miss Adler, what brings you to London?” Reg asked when they were settled.
“The weather, obviously,” Phoebe said with an airy wave of her fork. The Madeira cake wasn’t her usual sort of thing, but it wasn’t bad.
“Obviously,” he agreed. “You’re a student, you said?”
“Yes, in the sense of being one who studies the world,” she said, throwing out her arms. “By which I mean I’m a writer.”
“Oh, terrific,” he said, his eyes sparkling more than ever. “Have you written anything I might have read?”
“Only if you’ve got some questionable reading habits. I wrote for radio and a television show: not a great one, I’m not too proud to admit, but I’m trying—” She stopped before his interested eyes got her to reveal what she was trying. If loose lips sank ships, hers were on the verge of taking down an armada. “I’m working on a novel. Set in the Middle Ages. It’s about a woman accused of a crime.” Once she’d started, she couldn’t stop. “She runs away but she’s hunting the evidence that proves she’s innocent.”
“Cracking stuff,” he complimented her. “Though might it be more dramatic if she stays and fights for her innocence? Surely running away indicates guilt?”
“Everyone’s a critic,” Phoebe said, rolling her eyes.
“Not at all,” Reg hastened to assure her. “Only I think evidence would more likely be found on the scene, rather than abroad.”
“I don’t need help with the plot, thank you,” Phoebe snapped, thinking it was a pretty good point and then feeling silly for getting enraged about a pretend project.
“Rotten habit, pax, pax,” he said, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “Can’t help myself, I’m a history chap.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m finishing a postgrad in history and working as a supply teacher, much to my family’s chagrin.”
“A supply teacher?” Phoebe was mystified. “You teach pens and pencils?”
He laughed. “No, it means I’m called in to teach in local secondary schools when the permanent teacher is off ill or something.”
Phoebe drank this all in. It was like a free English lesson.
Reg continued. “What I’d really like is to get into politics. I’m doing some lowly work for the Labour Party now, and I’ve published a bit in broadsheets, but nothing so glamorous as yourself.”
Phoebe didn’t ask what a broadsheet was. She didn’t want to encourage his talking about politics. In her long experience of Perry Street, once a man got started, he was unlikely to ever stop.
He offered her a cigarette. “So, your wronged woman. I assume she’s wellborn?”
“I was actually thinking she was just ordinary,” Phoebe said.
“It would be nearly impossible for a woman like that to get anywhere on her own. They wouldn’t do it. What you have to understand about the medieval person is that there was no real sense of being an individual. You were bound by duty and community, and everyone had their role and knew what they had to do. An ordinary person wouldn’t begin to know how to travel a larger world.”
“I said this was a novel, not a history,” Phoebe pointed out.
He laughed. “Quite right. But do bear in mind that only someone in a higher class would know how to read, which might prove useful.”
“Because there were so many newspapers around?”
“No, but it’s a fun way for a woman to confound people. Most didn’t expect a woman to be clever, and it’s much more fun when she is.”
Something in his expression startled her. She’d seen men look at Anne this way, which suggested he was flirting. A light tingle ran through her, and she squashed it. Now was no time to trust strange men, however big and brown their eyes might be. She had work to do.
“Consider it borne in mind, thanks,” she said, finishing her coffee. “I’d better get back and get her into more mischief.”
She could hear Mona and Anne screaming at her to stay a little longer. She snapped back at them to let her focus on making a living.
“Oh, of course,” he said, and she wondered if she saw disappointment flicker across his face. “But if I may, just one more thing. You should take your character through a forest.”
“I wasn’t planning on her being pursued by a bear.”
He grinned. “Medieval legend is full of forests. People believed mythical creatures lived there, but if you could make it through to the other side, you were changed. Of course, that’s all for knights, and you likely don’t want to include magic, but anyway it’s something to think on. Will you be back here on Monday?”
Phoebe was about to say she would be at work before she remembered she wasn’t supposed to have a job. That Hannah had taken a risk for her, and until she went back to renew her residency permit and perhaps was granted some leniency, she had to tread carefully.
“That’s up to the muse, not me.”
“Of course. Well, I hope I see you again, Miss Adler,” he said, extending his hand.
She gave it a firm shake. “Likewise, Mr. Bassill.”
“Reg,” he said. “Reggie occasionally, Reginald when it’s official, but I prefer Reg.”
“Mr. Bassill,” Phoebe said with finality, and went back upstairs.
A forest. And Robin Hood took place in Sherwood Forest. There must be something to do with the idea of everyone believing in the frightening sorts of things that might be in the forest. Fear was a tremendous motivator for doing things, and also not doing things. Phoebe wrote the word “FOREST” in capital letters and circled it. She picked up the general history of kings, but was overcome by a sudden puckishness and instead opened the book on courtly love. Robin Hood and Maid Marian knew every trick in the book. She should learn them too. To write better scripts, obviously.
* * *
• • •
New patrons were allowed to check out only three books at a time. Phoebe bore hers home with great ceremony, feeling as if she’d ascended to a new rank. A student of history, in the service of her art. The evening sky was cool, with a soft sheen, and the air smelled of the salt and vinegar of early suppers eaten before theater, concerts, rehearsals, dances, cinema, all life’s happy temptations. Anticipation, that’s what she smelled, and it carried her home in a buzzy glow. She didn’t care that she wasn’t going out on the town. She was going somewhere better—deep inside her own head on a journey back through time. This script was going to be her best ever. It didn’t matter that she said that about every new script she started. It was true.
A few working girls waited at the corner. Phoebe nodded respectfully. Everyone had to eat. As she reached number seven, she encountered Freddie, kicking a ball around with a few other boys.
“I say, miss,” he hailed her. “Will you be reading them books?”
“And using them to create terrific adventures,” Phoebe promised.
The other boys snorted in skepticism, but Freddie gave her a shy smile.
“Cor,” he said respectfully. Phoebe didn’t know the word, but the sentiment was clear and they exchanged conspiratorial grins. She made a mental note to herself to help him watch the show if he didn’t have a television.
Upstairs, she hurried to her own door, trusting that the hum of big band music wafting from Joan’s flat would silence her arrival. She couldn’t talk, not when she was so ready to work.
She set down the books and took her knitting bag to the chair, where she conjured Sherwood Forest. Miles of huge trees, green and sweet-smelling. Soft bracken. The hum of insects and animals. There were spots of blue on the forest floor. Water, reflecting sky. But it wouldn’t be square shaped.
Phoebe shook her head. There were two blue envelopes by the door. Mail! Joan must have brought it up and Phoebe hadn’t even noticed.
She seized the envelopes, squealing on seeing Mona’s firm, impat
ient backhand and Anne’s generous handwriting with the loopy flourish. She opened Mona’s first.
Well, sister, it’s the usual here—nothing but parties and dancing all night. Trust you’re the same, you flibbertigibbet, never did do an honest day’s work, did you? Nor I neither, aren’t we a shame to our name?
I caused quite the ruckus the other day—I organized wheelchair races all through our floor. I may have degenerating muscle function, but I beat everyone except Tommy Morton, who’s fourteen. The little twerp just came out of an iron lung too. He says I look like Judy Holliday. I choose to think it’s a compliment.
I’m proud of you, P. Do everything for me. If you don’t, I’ll ask Myrna Alsop to lick the next envelope and she’s got syphilis.
Date some dashing Englishman and tell me all the details. Though I’m not sans opportunities. Tommy Morton’s offered to take me on a midnight wheeling down the corridor. I could get arrested for corrupting a minor. Worth it just for the headlines.
Love you,
M
(It’s ’cause Judy and I have the same nose and dimple. But my hair is prettier.)
Phoebe wiped her eyes. For the millionth time, she longed to trade places with Mona, just for a day. Give her sister a wild day of freedom. She’d no doubt create at least three international scandals. (Darn tooting! she heard Mona say.)
Anne’s letter was a drawing—cartoons of Phoebe’s things under her guard. The beloved chair, green Bakelite radio, Victorian glassware. And a tiny cartoon of what must be Anne’s latest work, which Phoebe suspected wouldn’t be intelligible even full size. On the back, Anne scrawled:
You’re the word person, not me. My big news: teaching art one day a week at P.S. 3. Living end, huh? Village humming along, but a few more people spooked by the witch-hunting. So heigh-ho, you started a fad! Miss, love, hugs.
Well, of course. The Village was full of artists, writers, teachers, leftist activists, and homosexuals. Everything the Red hunters in Congress despised and feared. Anne as a teacher was a little astonishing, but good for her.
Phoebe noticed Anne hadn’t mentioned Jimmy.
She stored the letters in the back of her notebook. Monday she would buy some sticking gum so she could paste Anne’s cartoons to the wall.
I’ll have my treasures back again someday. I’ll get everything back. We all will.
* * *
• • •
She worked all day Sunday. She read the new week’s script twice during lunch on Monday, worked as late as she dared that night, then spent the rest of the week’s lunches scribbling notes. The Other Girls overflowed with witticisms regarding people who must be taking correspondence courses, thought themselves clever, were writing fan letters to “them in Hollywood.” Even Tommy caustically remarked that she had better not be using any of the show’s paper or pencils to do whatever she was up to. Phoebe was just relieved no one would cross the line and peep in her bag to read her notebook. If they actually knew what she was up to, the taunts would become torments, and she’d be lucky to last on the job another week.
And she needed this job. Because even after another weekend spent writing and rewriting, she had to admit the script wasn’t up to her standards. It was about a peasant found murdered and the outlaws accused of the crime.
She reread it Sunday night by the watchful gaze of Mona’s photos and Anne’s drawings, all tacked to the wall in pride of place, and sighed. It was just another detective story, with bows and arrows instead of revolvers.
“It’s no good,” she told the photos. “It’s certainly not good enough, so it might as well be a trash barge floating out to Fresh Kills.” A fresh kill was how she felt. Her great chance, and she was blowing it. She twisted up the pages and tossed them into the fire grate. To hell with it, she decided. She’d hatch another plot tomorrow. It didn’t matter if Hannah was expecting something soon or not. It was better to wait and give her something excellent.
“Maybe I should try a love story,” she suggested to Mona. “No one else seems to have done that and it works coming from a woman, especially if Hannah’s going to send the script around.”
Don’t be ridiculous, Mona’s reply snapped. You have to write something you have at least some understanding of.
Phoebe sighed and opened one of her library books to a chapter on medieval crime and punishment.
CHAPTER TEN
* * *
Rhoda stood in front of the television, waving a bottle and spoon.
“‘Are you tired, run-down, listless? Do you pop out at parties? Are you unpoopular?’” She stopped herself with a fit of giggles.
“What the heck is that child doing?” Paul asked, baffled.
Hannah and Gemma were wiping their eyes from laughter.
“It’s from I Love Lucy,” Hannah explained. “ITV is airing it, so the British get to meet Lucy at last.”
“Boy, they really are showing the best of American culture, huh?” Paul asked.
Gemma turned from Paul so he couldn’t see her roll her eyes and picked up Julie, playing on the floor with an eggbeater. “Teatime for the cherubs,” she announced. “Meat and vegetables, as is fitting for the Lucy advertisement.”
“And pudding?” Rhoda wanted to know.
“Jamaican sweet potato pudding if you clean your plate,” Gemma promised.
Rhoda shot into the kitchen, still carrying her bottle and spoon.
Paul shook his head and opened the latest delivery of the New York Times. Hannah lit a cigarette. It bothered her a bit, that Lucy Ricardo wanted to work and Ricky was determined to keep her home. But Lucy was funny, there was no denying it. Clever of ITV to pick up the show and start drawing eyes to their channel. She liked them. She was glad they were the ones who would air Robin Hood. Three more episodes were finished. She didn’t risk saying so out loud, but she knew the show was good. Better than good. She curled up next to Paul and read along with him.
* * *
• • •
Monday afternoon, Beryl took a call and ran shrieking into Hannah’s office.
“Miss Wolfson, Miss Wolfson! Oi, Sidney, get along, yon fellow from CBS is ringing through!”
“Keep the heid, keep the heid!” Sidney shouted, running into Hannah’s office. He and Beryl folded their hands under their chins and watched, hardly breathing, as Hannah picked up the phone. She wasn’t sure what “keep the heid” meant, but could take an educated guess. Her head was light and buzzy, but her voice perfectly calm.
“Miss Wolfson?” a secretary inquired. “I have Dale Winston, head of programming for CBS, long-distance.”
“Miss Wolfson!” Dale boomed in a heavy Midwestern twang. Hannah tipped the phone away from her ear. “Listen, I just watched one and I don’t need to see the rest, I know a winner when I see it. Boys will go nuts for this show.”
“I’m hoping everyone will like it,” Hannah said stoutly.
“Sure, sure,” he said with a ringing laugh. “It’s got ‘huge hit’ written all over it. We’ve moved some stuff so we can start it in a couple weeks—end of September. Lemme tell you, honey, that never happens.” He sounded almost scolding. “The papers are already in the mail. Express, we’re not kidding around.”
Hannah was smiling too hard to speak. She felt tears coming on. It almost didn’t matter what the terms of the deal were. Robin Hood would be on CBS, perhaps within days of its debut on ITV.
“This McClellan writer of yours,” Dale began, and Hannah’s smile tensed. McClellan was Ring Lardner Jr. “He’s something, all right. Looks like he hasn’t done much of anything before this. Is he some bright kid or something?”
“Keep the heid” indeed.
“Lots of bright hungry writers around,” Hannah said airily. “He’s done some theater and radio, really it was just a lucky—”
“Sure, sure, sure,” Dale said. H
annah visualized him waving away theater and radio with a meaty hand. “Love to meet him if I get over there.”
“I’m sure he’d be honored to meet you,” Hannah said, casting a wild glance at Sidney, whose eyes went round. Beryl whispered, “Jings!” Sidney gestured at his watch and a production schedule. “We will certainly discuss this further,” Hannah went on in a firm voice, “after the paperwork is finished. I’m afraid I’m meant to be heading up a production meeting now, but let’s arrange—”
“Sure, sure, sure,” he said again, chuckling. “Let’s get the ball rolling. Seriously, honey, congratulations. It’s gonna be huge. Believe me, I’m an expert.”
“I believe you,” Hannah said.
She hung up. Sidney and Beryl stared, looking like they were holding their breaths. Suddenly, Hannah whooped and upended her tin of Fortnum & Mason biscuits onto the desk for them all to devour. “Open the bottle of whatever’s the best we’ve got!” she shouted. “Robin Hood is going to storm the beaches of America!”
* * *
• • •
As the day of the first broadcast grew closer, Hannah planned a home viewing party. Sidney, Beryl, any guests they wished to bring. Shirley and Will. She would like to invite Joan but didn’t want Charlie.
“What about Olivia and Ben?” Paul suggested. “I like Ben, he’s got a head on him, and not a big one like those other movie writers here.”
“You just like looking at Olivia,” Hannah teased. Instead, she invited the Robin Hood stars Richard Greene and Bernadette O’Farrell. She expected they would already have plans, but it was right to invite them.
“Oh swell, actors,” was Paul’s response when he heard this. “Just what we need to expose the kids to.”
“Dear, you’re talking about the children of a writer,” Hannah said, laughing.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Paul demanded, no longer amused.
“It’s a joke. For heaven’s sake, you’d think you were the one who was about to have a debut.”
Red Letter Days Page 15
