FRIDAY, 12 APRIL 1921, NEW YORK
Poppy, Delilah, and Rollo climbed into the back of a bright yellow taxi cab. Aunt Dot was already safely ensconced in another cab from the same company, with her wheelchair squashed into the back seat beside her, and Miss King in the front seat next to the driver. Poppy thought it strange that the steering wheel appeared to be on the wrong side of the vehicle and was even more alarmed when they headed out of Battery Park and onto the main road called Broadway on the wrong side of the road. She mentioned as much to her companions and they broke into fits of giggles but failed to tell her why their lives were not in imminent danger.
Both Rollo and Delilah were in buoyant moods, having left their worries at the immigration desk. And both tried to outdo the other, pointing out to Poppy this or that landmark on their ride through lower Manhattan. On their right, apparently, was the Financial District, and as they passed the intersection to Wall Street Rollo told her that his brother Frederick – known as Freddy – worked there.
“I think I’ve met your brother. The last time I was here with Uncle Elmo,” said Delilah. “It was at one of those outrageous Long Island parties – we all jumped into a champagne fountain!”
“That sounds like Freddy,” said Rollo with a grin. “When he’s not in champagne fountains, he works just down there at the New York Stock Exchange.”
Poppy was a little puzzled. Champagne fountains? Wasn’t alcohol banned in New York? She asked her friends and was again met with a giggle from Delilah and a snort of derision from Rollo. “The sale of it, yes, and the production of new liquor. But at these sorts of parties they don’t sell it – not officially anyway – and it comes from the host’s private stock. Thank all that’s mighty the Drys haven’t managed to stop people drinking in the privacy of their own homes… yet,” he growled.
“Oh look, Poppy, over there, on the left – that’s the Woolworth Building!” chirruped Delilah.
The yellow cab had stopped at the intersection of Broadway and Barclay, and Poppy looked to where Delilah was pointing. She gasped. Towering above them was the tallest building she had ever seen. It was designed like a Gothic cathedral, but towered far, far higher than any European church steeple. She opened the window and looked out, craning her neck as far back as she could, and still she couldn’t see the top.
“They call it a skyscraper,” Delilah informed her. “Because, I suppose, it scrapes the sky!”
Rollo chuckled. “Superbly deduced, Miz Marconi.”
Despite his teasing tone, Rollo too appeared impressed. “I rode the elevator to the very top when President Wilson opened it in 1913. I covered it for The New York Times. Sixty storeys up! You can see right across to Montauk, Long Island, on a clear day. If I’d had a telescope I bet I could have seen my family’s house.”
This was the second mention Rollo had made of his family this morning. Poppy noted that whatever tension she’d detected the other evening when he was speaking to Theo Spencer had gone. She wondered whether she’d get to meet Rollo’s family – his mother and his brother. She hoped so. She was intrigued to find out more about her mentor and what made him tick.
The cab pulled off again and proceeded north on Broadway. They passed the City Hall on their right, whose white marble façade and Georgian architecture reminded Poppy of something from the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. Gothic on one side of the street, French Renaissance on the other: Poppy was struck by the hodgepodge of Old World styles – all of them bigger and more impressive than anything she’d seen before. And in between were spanking new buildings in the latest Art Deco style. Poppy’s neck was beginning to ache from trying to take it all in.
Rollo looked at her, his blue eyes twinkling. “Don’t worry, Miz Denby, there’ll be plenty of time for sightseeing.”
But Poppy couldn’t keep her eyes off it all: block after block. At Madison Square Garden, the cab forked onto Fifth Avenue and a few blocks after that Delilah squeaked: “There’s the Waldorf Astoria! That’s where they’re going to be recording my radio show – I did tell you, didn’t I, that the director saw me in London and said I didn’t need to audition?”
Poppy said that she had.
“Isn’t the radio station out of town?” asked Rollo.
“Yes, in Schenectady,” answered the effervescent actress. “But they’ve also got a studio in the hotel!”
“Golly!” said Poppy. “A real radio show. How exciting for you. I’d love to see how they go about it. Do you think I might be able to sit in on one of the recordings? And, Rollo, do you think the Times might be interested in an article on it?”
“They might be,” he said. “I’m not really sure of the set-up there at the moment. We’ll find out who’s who and what’s what on Monday. But it’s always wise to have something in the bank just in case you’re asked for a story idea. Just like you did the first day we met? Do you remember?”
Poppy did. And ironically, it was a story that involved Delilah too.
“I was very impressed that you weren’t waiting around to be told what to do. Editors like go-getters, Poppy.” Rollo smiled at his protégé. Poppy smiled back.
“Thanks, Rollo. As long as that’s all right with the people at the radio station, Delilah.”
“I don’t know why it wouldn’t be,” answered the young actress. “They’d be fools to turn down free publicity – but, like Rollo, I’ll have to wait and see what’s what on Monday. I’ll let you know.”
“Thank you,” said Poppy, then looked over her shoulder to see if Aunt Dot and Miss King’s yellow cab was still behind them. It was.
Poppy pursed her lips as she thought about her aunt. She hadn’t voiced her concerns yet to anyone, but she was a tad worried about Dot.
Dot, being Dot, was as effusive and jolly as ever. But on the voyage over Poppy had watched her aunt when the older woman thought no one was looking, and a pall of sadness came over her. Poppy wasn’t surprised; there was a lot for her to be concerned about. Primarily, of course, there was Grace – Dot’s long-term companion, who was now in prison for perverting the course of justice. Dot and Grace cared deeply for one another and Poppy knew that Dot’s heart was breaking not being able to see her. There was talk that Grace might have her two-year sentence commuted – and Rollo’s sweetheart, the solicitor Yasmin Reece-Lansdale, was working on it – but for now the former bookkeeper and suffragette remained in Holloway prison.
Then there was Elizabeth Dorchester – the woman who had been at the centre of Poppy’s first big story. Elizabeth had stayed briefly with Aunt Dot when she was finally released from the mental asylum she had been kept in for seven years, but during the short stay the two women had not had a chance to talk through all the bad blood and misunderstanding that had developed between them over the years. Dot carried a lot of guilt for being unaware of Elizabeth’s suffering for so many years, and for the inadvertent role she had played in it. Dot needed to make things right between them, but, Poppy knew, she feared Elizabeth would spurn her efforts at reconciliation.
Poppy feared the same. Elizabeth’s sudden departure to New York had been heralded by barely more than a scrawled note left on the kitchen table of Aunt Dot’s Chelsea townhouse. Elizabeth, no doubt, had wanted to distance herself from the people and places associated with her confinement. And that, Poppy suspected, included her former friend Dot Denby.
If Poppy had had a chance to discuss all this with Dot before her eccentric relative arrived unannounced at Southampton harbour, then the young journalist would have tried to dissuade her aunt from travelling all the way to New York only to be hurt again. But Dot was a grown woman who could make her own decisions. And Poppy had to respect that. Nonetheless, she worried about her and would try her utmost to help ease the tension between the former friends. After all, Elizabeth owed Poppy her life.
Poppy reined in her thoughts and turned her attention back to her companions in the cab.
“When do you start recording?” Rollo was asking.
“Next week sometime. We’ll have a few days of rehearsals first, starting on Monday,” answered Delilah.
“Good-o! That will give us the weekend to settle in. Then Monday we can all travel downtown together. Will you be able to get to the Astoria on your own, Delilah? It’s on a different line to the Times.”
“Easy as pie,” said Delilah, and then confirmed with the native New Yorker the route she would need to take.
“Will we be passing the newspaper building soon?” asked Poppy.
“No. That’s on West 43rd Street,” answered Rollo. “If we’d stayed on Broadway we would have passed it, but that would have taken us to the wrong side of the park. On Monday we’ll catch the subway. That’s like the Underground,” he added for Poppy’s benefit. “It’s far quicker – and cheaper – than travelling by cab.”
Poppy sighed. She hated the Underground in London. She disliked being in tunnels and the stifling hot air – she far preferred travelling by bus; on the open-air top deck, if possible. Here she saw trams running down the middle of the road. That would be a much better option! She’d raise it with Rollo over the weekend. For now, she took in the rest of the journey through central Manhattan, with New Yorkers out and about in the April morning sunshine, waiting at crossings or buying wares from hawkers’ barrows. Poppy was pleased to see that in this most modern of cities, with offices stacked in layers, ordinary folk could still buy and sell on street corners, and horse-drawn trolley cars were not yet extinct.
Half an hour later, with the beautiful Central Park on their left, the cab turned into 82nd Street and pulled up to a five-storey townhouse. This would be their home for the next three months. “Welcome to Chez Rolandson,” said Rollo, and winced as the driver slapped him with the fare.