As Maddy and Mrs Bosham walked up Kingsway in the hot sunshine Maddy felt more nervous about the audition than she had ever felt about anything before. The trouble was that she wanted so desperately to get the job. Since Mrs Bosham’s television set had arrived Maddy had spent hours sitting in front of it, telling herself that she could do just as well as any of the girls of her own age who took part in programmes.
‘Your trouble is, you’ve got too much bounce,’ Mr Manyweather had told her. ‘It’s an unusual thing to have to tell anyone, but you have so much vivacity that you would appear to be about to pop out through the screen and bite people.’
The class had roared with laughter at this description of Maddy. She had laughed too, but had determined to get her audition speech really beautifully under control. Mr Manyweather had warned them that it would be wise to do the speeches of youthful characters, not of adults. Usually the Academy encouraged even the ‘Babies’ to do classical speeches for auditions, however much too adult they might seem for young students, but on this occasion Mr Manyweather advised Maddy to find something quite childish. She had taken him literally at first, and had found a revolting little poem in baby language entitled ‘I’se Not Cwying’, with which she reduced the class to helpless laughter, and Mr Manyweather to shudders of agony.
‘That was without exception the most nauseating exhibition I’ve ever seen,’ he said, wiping his spectacles as she finished. ‘Don’t you dare repeat it at the audition. I’d rather you did Lady Macbeth.’
Eventually he found for her a speech of Gerda’s from The Snow Queen, which was quite dramatic but was the right age, and told her, ‘Work on it—it needs all the sincerity in the world. I’m sorry I shan’t have an opportunity to hear you again before you go for the audition. Your day is Thursday, Thursday morning at eleven-fifteen. You ought to have a chaperone with you. Can your mother go?’
‘No,’ said Maddy. ‘She’s miles away in Fenchester, but I expect Mrs Bosham would like to come. She’s my landlady.’
Mrs Bosham was only too pleased to oblige.
‘The ’ousework can go to pot fer once,’ she said. ‘I’d love to come to one of them there studios and see what ’appens.’
‘It won’t be a proper studio,’ Maddy warned her, ‘just the producer’s office. The producer’s name is Morgan Evans. He’s Welsh,’ she added unnecessarily.
She had not gone to the Academy at all that morning, but had spent a long time brushing her hair and dressing very carefully. Now, in a neat blue dress with a clean white collar, and navy shoes and white socks, she looked as neat as a bandbox, walking along beside Mrs Bosham.
‘You do me credit today,’ Mrs Bosham told her.
Maddy was unusually quiet, as she was wondering about Morgan Evans, and whether he would be very Welsh—like Fluellen in Henry V.
‘I reckon that’s the place,’ said Mrs Bosham suddenly, pointing to an enormous building that towered up over Kingsway. They stood still and looked up at it, and then went in. Inside there was confusion. People were surging about as though they had trains to catch, builders were hammering, and the array of telephones on the commissionaire’s desk rang continuously.
‘I have an appointment to see Mr Morgan Evans,’ said Maddy importantly to the uniformed commissionaire behind the desk. ‘It is for eleven-fifteen. We’re a little early, I’m afraid.’
‘Better too early than too late, I always say,’ Mrs Bosham chimed in, and the commissionaire looked at her curiously.
‘I’ll just find out if Mr Evans is ready to see you, miss,’ said the man, picking up a phone. ‘What name is it?’
‘Madeleine Fayne,’ said Maddy.
He consulted a list of extensions then plugged in and rang a number.
‘Mr Morgan Evans there?’ he inquired a few moments later. Maddy could hear a voice squeaking rather crossly at the other end. The commissionaire sighed, said, ‘Thanks’, and put the phone down.
‘Seems to ’ve moved. Have to try again.’
‘This is a madhouse,’ the commissionaire confided to Maddy and Mrs Bosham. ‘Nobody seems to stay in the same office for two minutes. Like musical chairs, it is. Got the builders in, y’see.’
At last the producer was tracked down, and by this time it was well past eleven-fifteen.
‘Right, Mr Evans, I’ll send them up,’ said the commissionaire. ‘Third floor, turn right, number three-six-two,’ he told Maddy.
Mrs Bosham was a trifle doubtful about the lift. ‘But there’s no one to work it,’ she objected.
‘It’s automatic,’ Maddy told her.
‘Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t,’ said Mrs Bosham, shaking her head. ‘You’ll not get me in a contraption like that. Silly ’aporths we’d look if it got stuck. Stairs are good enough fer me. Come on.’
By the time they reached the third floor they were out of breath and panting.
‘I can’t go in yet,’ gasped Maddy. ‘Wait a minute till I get my breath back.’
They stood still in the middle of the corridor, and let the stream of messengers and secretaries and technicians swirl past them. An office door, marked 362, stared them in the face. Suddenly the door opened and a girl looked out. ‘Oh, are you Madeleine Fayne?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ said Maddy, who had regained her breath.
‘Oh, good, we thought you’d got lost on the way up. Come in. Are you Mrs Fayne?’ she inquired of Mrs Bosham.
‘Oh, no, no—I’m Mrs Bosham.’
‘Oh, I see,’ said the girl, as though that explained everything.
The office was very small indeed, and squashed inside it were three desks, littered with papers and books and files. The walls were covered with photographs of actors and actresses, and the room seemed to be filled with people. A middle-aged man, with thick hair that was beginning to go grey, sat at the largest of the desks, and was looking piercingly at Maddy with extremely blue eyes from under heavy brows.
‘This is Mr Morgan Evans and this is his assistant,’ the girl said, and proceeded to sit down at a desk with a typewriter.
The assistant was sitting at a small desk with two telephones on it, and two other young men were sitting on the floor, writing furiously on foolscap, clipped on to script boards.
‘This is Madeleine Fayne and chaperone,’ the girl reminded Mr Morgan Evans.
The assistant found a very small and rather rickety chair for Mrs Bosham, and she sat down on it gingerly.
‘Well, Madeleine, how old are you?’
‘Fourteen,’ said Maddy.
‘H’m—and you are one of Leon Manyweather’s protégées, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘H’m—I’ve heard something about you. Let’s see, you’ve not done any television, have you?’
‘No,’ said Maddy. ‘But I was in a film.’
‘Ah, yes.’ Mr Evans narrowed his eyes. ‘I thought I’d seen you somewhere before. An historical film, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes. It was called Forsaken Crown.’
‘H’m. You played the lead, the heroine, didn’t you?’
‘H’m—it was quite a long and difficult part. Are you doing any more films?’
‘Not at present. My parents want me to complete my training at the Academy first. But television wouldn’t interfere with that, would it?’
‘Television interferes with everything,’ said Mr Morgan Evans gloomily, and everyone in the office laughed. ‘I won’t go into details about what we’re wanting until I’ve seen what you can do. It’s not so much an actress we need as a personality. The job really calls for someone with a lot of experience, but who looks very young.’
Maddy nearly decided to change her mind and do ‘I’se Not Cwying’ after all, but then didn’t dare, because Mr Manyweather had condemned it so definitely.
‘Have you had any stage experience?’
‘In repertory, in my home town.’
‘H’m.’
Everybody looked at Maddy very hard, weighing her up, and she looked right back at them, determined not to show that she was nervous.
‘Right. Well, let’s hear your audition. Stand over there by the door.’
It was the only corner of the room where there were a few square inches to spare.
Maddy took up the position in which she had been taught to stand—not too stiff, nice and relaxed, with one foot slightly in front of the other. Then she reminded herself not to overact, and tried to imagine that just her head was framed in a television close-up. All was going beautifully, and she knew she was being quite sincere, yet not being too carried away, when something terrible happened. Mrs Bosham’s chair collapsed. She landed on the floor with a screech of horror among the splintered pieces of wood. There was general confusion, and everyone tried not to laugh while she was helped to her feet. The assistant gave up his chair, a much stronger one, and she was settled into it, very red in the face.
‘Start again, dear,’ said Morgan Evans.
Maddy did so. But when she reached the particular passage during which Mrs Bosham’s downfall had taken place, she suddenly remembered it, and felt a giggle bubbling up inside her. She tried to quell it, but first of all a terribly unsuitable grin appeared on her face, then her voice broke, and she collapsed altogether, bending double and holding her tummy.
‘Oh, I’m sorry—oh, I’m sorry,’ she kept exclaiming between paroxysms. Her laughter was so infectious that everyone joined in, including Mrs Bosham.
‘I’m that sorry,’ said Mrs Bosham, wiping her streaming eyes. ‘It’s all my fault. She’d be all right if it ’adn’t been fer me.’
‘Look, I think it’ll take some time for us to settle down again, don’t you, Maddy? So we’ll go and have a coffee, and then try again. What you have done so far is very good indeed.’
They all adjourned to the restaurant behind the building, and while they drank coffee Morgan Evans pumped Maddy about herself, and seemed surprised and amused by her answers.
‘Now, I’ll tell you what it’s all about. Have you ever heard of a magazine called The World of Youth?’
‘Oh, yes, it’s for children, isn’t it? Well, teenagers.’
‘That’s right. Well, this magazine is having a half-hour programme every weekend, intended to appeal to girls and boys in their teens, and based on the sort of things they have in their magazine. Now, they want someone to compère the programme—it can be either a girl or a boy—they don’t care which—but it’s got to be someone with a lot of poise, a lot of acting ability and complete self assurance.’
‘Sounds just like me,’ said Maddy, giggling.
‘But it’ll be hard work. It’ll mean mid-week rehearsals, and then all day Saturday for about fourteen weeks.’
‘Sounds wonderful,’ said Maddy longingly. ‘Would I be able to miss any lessons?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ laughed Morgan Evans. ‘The rehearsals would be arranged so that you didn’t miss any schooling.’
‘Pity,’ said Maddy. ‘Oh, I do hope I can do it…’
‘We’re auditioning hundreds of youngsters,’ said Morgan Evans. ‘Before we finally decide we’ll probably hold a camera audition.’
‘How exciting,’ said Maddy. ‘I have been inside a television studio, you know.’
And she proceeded to describe their outing with Mr Manyweather.
By the time they had finished coffee Maddy was feeling much more confident; Mrs Bosham had recovered her composure, and was talking sixteen to the dozen to the secretary, who was listening in a somewhat dazed fashion.
‘Well, back to the salt mines,’ said Morgan Evans, and they all trailed back to the office.
‘I don’t think I’ll ask you to render the same passage again, Maddy, in case we all get afflicted in the same way a second time,’ said the producer. ‘Instead, I’ll give you something to read.’
‘Oh, help,’ said Maddy. ‘I’m not too good at sight reading.’
‘Nobody is, but you’d be working at such speed in this series that if you were a bad reader at rehearsal it would hold up everyone else.’
He handed her a script. ‘Now take a look at this. Read it over to yourself for a few minutes, and then read Helen’s part to me.’
Maddy took the script and began to read it rather fearfully to herself. It seemed to be a commentary on a trip to Cornwall. Helen’s lines described the journey, but other characters kept butting in all the time, and Maddy got confused as to what was happening. ‘You do want me just to read Helen, don’t you?’ she asked.
‘Yes, skip the other people’s lines.’
As she read, the phone kept ringing, but the secretary answered it in as soft a voice as possible, and the other people all kept silent in order not to interrupt Maddy’s study.
‘Right?’ said Mr Morgan Evans at last. ‘Let’s have it then.’
Maddy knew that she was reading very badly, but the layout of the script was confusing. It was quite unlike an ordinary play. The dialogue was in a column at the right side of the page, and a description of the action was in another column at the left side. Mr Manyweather had shown them such a script at the studios, and had promised to try and bring some for them to rehearse with him, but had not been able to do so.
When she had finished Maddy said shamefacedly, ‘Oh dear, that wasn’t very good.’
‘It wasn’t too bad,’ said Mr Morgan Evans. ‘Quite a lot of the children we’ve seen just couldn’t read it at all. In fact, I began to wonder if some of them could read. But you see, you’d have a great deal of that sort of material to cope with. Do you think you could mange it?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Maddy fervently. ‘I’m absolutely sure I could.’
‘Right. Well, we’ve got dozens more to see—but you never know. Now, if you’ll give my secretary your address and phone number we’ll know where to contact you. Or it might be done through Leon Manyweather. By the way, do you think your parents would object to you doing this?’
‘Oh, no,’ said Maddy airily. ‘They’re used to anything.’
‘Good. Well, you may be hearing from us.’
Maddy said goodbye all round, and so did Mrs Bosham, who added, ‘I’m that sorry about the chair.’
In silence they made their way down the stairs, and Maddy did not speak until they were out in the street.
‘Well now, I wonder…’ she said.
‘I think you done very well,’ said Mrs Bosham. ‘Course, me and that chair was a bit of a bloomer—I’m ever so sorry. And you were just doing your piece real nice. Still, it gave you a chance to ’ave a nice talk to the gentleman, while we was ’aving coffee.’
‘Yes,’ Maddy agreed. ‘But I didn’t read very well. It was a jolly difficult piece. Oh, I don’t think I’ve got the job.’
And yet they had seemed to like her. The way they had all looked at her, in a careful, calculating sort of way, had made her feel there was a chance.
‘I should try and forget about it now, ducks,’ advised Mrs Bosham. ‘Then if anything does happen about it, it’ll come as a nice surprise.’
It was easy to talk about forgetting, but not so easy to do it, for at the Academy everyone was talking about the auditions. When Maddy went into the canteen for lunch she was swooped on by Buster and Snooks, who had not yet had their auditions, and was made to tell them all about it.
‘Sounds to me as if you’ve got the job,’ said Buster gloomily. ‘Having coffee and everything.’
‘But that was only because Mrs Bosham’s chair collapsed,’ said Maddy.
‘Is he nice?’ Snooks demanded.
‘Yes, terribly nice. Not funny, like Mr Manyweather. But nice.’
The other two girls were going for their auditions the following morning, Buster a quarter of an hour before Snooks, and Mrs Snooks was taking them both. Eric and Colin were going in the afternoon, so it was totally impossible for Maddy to put the audition out of her mind, either at school or afterwards, when she kept going over and over the interview to Zillah and saying, ‘What do you think?’
Zillah did not know what to think, as she had never been to an audition in her life. That evening every time the phone rang at Fitzherbert Street Maddy rushed to answer it, but it was always either a wrong number or a call for one of the other lodgers.
The next day was Friday, and during the television lesson everyone who had already been to the audition told Mr Manyweather about it in detail. He listened in an interested fashion, and when they had finished he said, ‘It sounds as if you all did quite nicely, but you can’t all get it. In fact none of you may; someone from quite another school may be the lucky one. But whatever the result, it is good experience for you to have been up for the audition. You’ll all go up for many an audition that you don’t get. You realise that, don’t you?’
Maddy told herself that of course she knew it. But she had always been so lucky about things…
Just then Buster and Snooks burst in, having returned from their auditions, and they, too, had to tell their experiences in detail.
‘That only leaves Eric and Colin to go this afternoon, doesn’t it?’ said Mr Manyweather. ‘Well, I don’t suppose we’ll hear the result until next week, and now we must get on with some work.’
But just then the bell rang for the end of the period, so they didn’t.
For several days nothing was heard about the results of the audition. Every morning the ‘Babies’ demanded accusingly of each other, ‘Heard anything?’ only to be told, ‘No, not a murmur.’
Then one afternoon as they sat at lessons in the schoolhouse the door opened and Miss Smith, the secretary of the Academy, came in. She was a smart, brisk woman with kindly eyes, who always took a deep interest in the fortunes of all students and ex-students.
‘Maddy,’ she said, after apologising for the interruption to the geography teacher, who was drawing a map on the blackboard, ‘Maddy, you’re wanted outside.’
‘Wanted?’ exclaimed Maddy. ‘I haven’t done anything…’
‘Not that sort of wanted. Will you excuse her a moment? It’s rather important.’
Outside in the corridor stood Mr Manyweather, looking pleased and excited.
‘Gretchen, my girl,’ he said, ‘they want you for a camera audition. That’s good, isn’t it?’
Maddy executed a few steps of the can-can to express her delight.
‘Mind you, it doesn’t mean you’ve got it. But Morgan Evans seemed very pleased with you. And what’s even better—the camera audition is going to be in the form of a panel game. Now, you’re better value when you’re being spontaneous than when you’ve learned up a party piece, so I think your chances are good.’
‘Is anyone else going from here?’ Maddy wanted to know.
‘No. You’re the only one.’
‘I’m glad. Because I’d hate to compete against any of my friends, really.’
‘You’ll have to get used to that in show business,’ Mr Manyweather told her. ‘But this time I think it probably is a good thing.’
‘When am I to go?’
‘Tomorrow morning. I’ll come with you, if you like. I gather your chaperone smashed up the joint last time.’
Maddy giggled reminiscently. ‘What shall I wear?’ she asked.
‘Not black. Not white. Something simple. No frills.’
‘My pale blue?’ asked Maddy, wishing her mother were near to advise her.
‘Blue’s a good colour for television. Yes, I should wear that. It’s at eleven o’clock. I’ll pick you up in front of the Academy at ten-thirty. O.K.?’
‘Thank you so much,’ beamed Maddy, and hurried back into the classroom, where all her friends started mouthing, ‘Have you got it?’
‘Camera audition,’ she whispered back.
‘Quiet, please. We’ve had enough disturbance this afternoon,’ said the geography teacher.
She was a retired headmistress, who came for a few periods a week to instruct the ‘Babies’. She did not enjoy the task, for she felt their minds were not really on geography. The occasional absence of pupils to attend auditions worried her considerably. The ballet shoes and fencing foils left lying about in corners seemed out of place to her, and she disliked the constant theatrical gossip that went on.
‘It’s like a chorus dressing-room, not a classroom,’ she would complain.
Next day Maddy was early at the Academy, which seemed strangely quiet in its Saturday morning calm. Only an isolated student rehearsal was going on, and the cleaners were having a good scrub-out, now that there were few students about to trample on the freshly washed floors.
Maddy, tense with determination, stood on the doorstep and waited for Mr Manyweather. She had just got to be good.
Eventually ‘Agatha’ appeared, looking as eccentric as ever.
‘Hop in,’ shouted Mr Manyweather, who was wearing a strange sort of pirate cap to prevent his hair being blown about. ‘We’ll have to hurry—we’re rather late.’
It was a nightmare journey through the back streets of Kingsway, and Maddy’s carefully combed hair was all over the place by the time they arrived. But there was no time to do anything about it. They were due in the studio.
‘Aren’t I going to have any make-up on?’ demanded Maddy, extremely disappointed.
‘No, I don’t think so. Television make-up is so slight, that they don’t bother with children. Schoolgirl complexions are all right without any make-up.’
‘From what I’ve seen of most schoolgirls’ complexions, they’re jolly spotty,’ observed Maddy.
They were directed to a small studio, smelling strongly of paint, where there was what appeared to be a drawing-room cut in half, with three cameras trained on it, and the same jumble of cables and lights and microphones that Maddy had seen before. In the middle of it all Morgan Evans stood talking to a girl and two boys.
‘Ah, there she is,’ he cried, when he saw Maddy, then, ‘Leon, my dear fellow. How good of you to come along.’
‘I’m doing a spot of chaperoning,’ laughed Mr Manyweather.
‘Glad to have you here. Will you come up in the gallery with me?’
‘No, I think I’m supposed to stay with my charge all the time, aren’t I?’
While they talked Maddy looked hard at the other three. With a sinking heart she saw that the girl was much prettier than she was. She had brown curly hair and large brown eyes, and lovely teeth. There was something very appealing about her. She was talking and laughing with the two boys with complete unconcern, and yet did not give any impression of showing off. The two boys did not seem to present much competition. One had a funny, humorous face with a turned-up nose and freckles, and the other—the better-looking one—was a bit stolid. But whenever Maddy looked at the girl her own hair felt untidier, her nose felt snubbier, and her dress seemed suddenly to be too short for her.
‘Now, I’ve explained the game to the others,’ said Morgan Evans, turning to Maddy. ‘And it’s really very simple. Are you any good at making up poetry?’
Maddy grimaced.
‘Not much.’
‘Well, that’s all the better, because it makes it funnier. You see, the idea of the game is this. We give you three lines of a verse, and you have to make up a last line. The others on the panel decide if it’s good enough to pass. If it’s not, you have to pay a forfeit. And here is our chairman, Derek Lacey.’
He indicated a very suave young man, whom Maddy recognised as a minor film star. He was looking rather bored with the whole thing.
‘Now, shall we start? Let’s make it good—the sponsors are up in the viewing room. I don’t mean sponsors—I mean the editorial board of the magazine. If they like this game it’ll go into the show.’
‘Are they auditioning more than just us four?’ Maddy whispered to Mr Manyweather.
‘No. They’ve narrowed it down to you four. So do your best. Don’t be afraid to laugh, but don’t giggle too often. Morgan Evans told me he liked you very much, but was afraid you might be an incorrigible giggler. So just show that you can control it, will you? Don’t take any notice of the cameras—you don’t need to play to them at all in a panel game.’
Maddy took him at his word and tried to ignore the looming cameras and the suspended mike that swung dangerously over their heads. At first it was difficult, for everything was so strange. They had to sit on quite comfortable chairs in a semicircle, and the question master was at a small desk, with some papers in front of him. They were instructed to smile and say ‘Hullo’ to one of the cameras when their names were announced. The floor manager stood listening on his headphones to Morgan Evans speaking from the control room. Then he pointed to Derek Lacey, who flashed a toothy smile and started off.
‘Hullo, viewers. Today we have a new game for you, called “Poetic Licence”. We’ve four young poets here who are going to show us what they can do, and if they can’t do anything, then they’ll have to pay a forfeit. The idea is that I give each player in turn three lines of a verse, such as
Roses are red,
Dandelions are yellow,
And our producer…
then I stop, and the player has to make up a last line. Now, if he were to add “Is a very fine fellow” he’d be doing very well, wouldn’t he? But if he couldn’t think of a line, then he’d have to pay a forfeit. Now I’ll introduce you to the four would-be poets. First of all, here is Lalage Weinberg. She’s fourteen and goes to school in Hendon. Then sitting next to her is Michael Oxley, who’s thirteen and at school in Hove. Then Madeleine Fayne, who is fourteen and goes to school right in the heart of London.’ Maddy did a rather tremulous grin, and said ‘Hullo’ much too loudly. ‘And finally Philip Manning, also fourteen, who lives in South London and goes to school there. Now, we’re all set to start. Have you got your thinking caps on, poets? Remember it’ll be much worse if you don’t have a shot at a rhyme. Now, here we go.’
Michael Oxley, the freckled boy, couldn’t even make an attempt at the first rhyme, and blushed and ‘hummed’ and ‘hawed’ for so long that eventually the chairman struck a gong and said, ‘I think this calls for a forfeit, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ agreed the other three, rather timidly.
Michael’s forfeit was to pick apples out of a bowl of water, with his mouth. He got so wet and dropped them so often that everyone roared with laughter and the ice was broken.
The verse that the other girl was given was quite easy. It was:
‘Come into the garden, Maud,
And take a walk with me,
And then we’ll go indoors again…’
‘And have a cup of tea,’ added Lalage, smiling prettily.
‘Very good,’ praised the chairman. ‘Now, Philip, you must help the male side to pull up a bit. Here’s yours:
‘Oh, who will o’er the hills with me
Upon my motor scooter.
It’s new and shiny as can be…’
Philip went hurriedly through the alphabet, murmuring, ‘booter, cooter, dooter,’ and just as the chairman picked up the stick with which to strike the gong, he shouted, ‘But hasn’t any hooter.’
‘Jolly good. You nearly got a forfeit, though. Now, Madeleine, here’s yours:
‘Oh where, and oh where
Is my little pussy cat?
She’s black and white and furry…’
Maddy added, ‘But not very fat,’ and heaved a sigh of relief to think that the first round was over.
As it became more difficult to find rhymes the answers grew wilder, so that eventually all the players were having to pay forfeits. Maddy quite forgot that it was a camera audition and began to enjoy herself. Even the chairman unbent a little, and dropped his obviously rehearsed attitudes. The worst forfeit Maddy had was to recite ‘Sister Susie’ while eating a jam puff.
The players were enjoying themselves so much that they were quite surprised when the floor manager made a sign to the chairman, who said, ‘Well, that’s all for today, I’m afraid. So it’s goodbye to you from me, Derek Lacey, and from our four young poets. Say goodbye, all of you.’
The floor manager indicated a camera for them to say goodbye into, and they all chorused goodbyes. Maddy was furious because Lalage blew a kiss towards the camera. She wished Mrs Bosham were there to call her a ‘soppy ’aporth’.
They stood about, laughing and talking, until Morgan Evans came down from the gallery. As if by magic the studio had emptied; the bright lights were switched off, and the cameramen, boom-swingers, electricians and engineers had disappeared in an instant.
‘Very good,’ cried Morgan Evans as he came into the studio. ‘Really most amusing. We’ve made a telerecording, so that we can decide about it at leisure. Now, I’d like you all to come up and meet the sponsors. Oh, dear me, I keep calling them that, but they’re not sponsors, they’re an editorial board. They’re in the viewing room.’
He led the way along seemingly endless corridors to a small, comfortable room with a deep, soft carpet and an enormous television set in one corner, where several rather large gentlemen sat smoking cigars and drinking sherry. Maddy noticed that they were very different from Morgan Evans. They wore proper suits with jackets and trousers that matched, and had stiff collars. There were four of them, and Derek Lacey promptly monopolised the lot, while Maddy, Lalage and the boys stood in a row looking self-conscious. Maddy found the editorial board rather confusing because all wore horn-rimmed spectacles, which made them look alike. At length the four men managed to escape from Derek Lacey, one at a time, and come over to talk to the children. Each asked exactly the same questions, and said that he had enjoyed the programme very much, but no reference was made to any decision about who should get the job.
‘And do you read The World of Youth?’ said one of the editorial board to Maddy.
‘Oh, and why not?’
‘I don’t have time.’
‘Don’t have time? But what magazine or periodical do you take?’
‘None.’
‘That’s most extraordinary.’
‘I can’t really afford to,’ said Maddy. ‘I just read any old magazines that people leave lying around at the Academy.’
‘And do they leave The World of Youth?’
‘No,’ said Maddy truthfully. ‘It’s usually either The Stage or Theatre World.’
Her questioner sighed and shook his head, and Maddy was certain that she had given the wrong answers.
At last the boys and girls were allowed to leave. Morgan Evans shook hands with each, saying, ‘You’ll be hearing from us,’ and Mr Manyweather, after a hurried conversation with Morgan Evans, said to Maddy, ‘Come on, it’s lunch-time. I’d better take you back.’
When they were safely ensconced in ‘Agatha’ and she had been manoeuvred out of the parking place, Maddy said, ‘Well?’
‘You did very well,’ he told her. ‘Better than I’d dared to hope. But you’re up against pretty strong competition in that other girl. She’s very pretty, and she’s—well, she’s more feminine than you are.’
‘I know what you mean,’ Maddy agreed glumly. ‘I thought she was just a bit soppy, but she’s—she’s better behaved, somehow.’
‘Oh well, we can’t really tell. Morgan Evans said he thought you were excellent.’
‘But it’s those funny old men with spectacles who have the last say, isn’t it?’ asked Maddy.
‘Yes. And they had said they wanted a blond.’
For the rest of the weekend and throughout Monday and Tuesday Maddy turned over and over in her mind her chances of getting the job. On Wednesday afternoon she was hurrying up the stairs of the schoolhouse, late for an English lesson, when a voice behind her called, ‘Maddy’.
She turned, and there was Mr Manyweather. He took her by the shoulders saying, ‘I was looking for you,’ then, gripping her very firmly he said, ‘You didn’t get it. The other girl did.’