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  Dot paused, lipstick in hand. “Let’s leave that story for another day, shall we, Grace?”

  Grace looked across at her friend and nodded in agreement.

  When they got to Oxford Street, Grace found a parking spot as close to the stationer’s as she could, then she and Poppy offloaded Dot’s wheelchair that had been precariously strapped to the back of the motor, balanced on the spare wheel, and helped her into it. The veteran suffragette fluffed her hair, tossed her scarf and pointed her umbrella up the street. “Into the breach, sisters! Into the breach!”

  Their advance was slowed by a flight of three steps leading up to the front door of the stationer’s. Poppy had forgotten about them. Grace, however, was not surprised. “It’s either the tradesman’s entrance around the back or the old heave-ho.” She grasped one side of Dot’s chair and nodded for Poppy to do the same. Dot was no lightweight and it took all of Poppy’s strength to hold up her side of the contraption. But they managed with Dot cheering them on. Back on solid ground, she pushed open the door with her umbrella and announced to whoever was on the shop floor: “Take me to the manager!”

  The same assistant who had taken Poppy into the back room was still on duty. He nodded at Poppy in recognition, then turned his attention to Dot. “I’m sorry, madam, but the manager has left early.”

  “A likely story! Show me the way, Poppy!”

  Flushing with embarrassment, the assistant stood in front of the wheelchair and blocked the women’s advance.

  “It’s true, madam; he left soon after this – this – young lady left.”

  “Soon after he insulted her, you mean!”

  “I don’t know anything about that, madam. But unless you are here to buy stationery, I will have to ask you to leave.”

  “We are not going anywhere until we have spoken to the manager,” said Grace in a voice that would have tamed vipers.

  “He’s not here.”

  Grace pushed the chair forward. The man did not move. Dot raised her umbrella threateningly. Poppy feared someone was going to get hurt.

  “Let’s go, Aunt Dot. Grace. It’s not worth it. I wouldn’t want to work here anyway. I’ve still got the interview at the newspaper…”

  Dot pursed her lips and jutted her chin. “Don’t back down, Poppy.”

  “I’m not, Aunt Dot. I really don’t want to work here.”

  The assistant smiled smugly. Poppy wasn’t ordinarily a spiteful woman, but she could not abide smugness. So she added: “No, I don’t want to work here. I have far more ambition than that.”

  Dot laughed out loud and pointed her umbrella at the man’s chest. “Ha! Take that!”

  Then she turned her chair around and the three women left in much the same way they had come.

  On Fleet Street, Poppy stood at the bottom of another flight of stairs; this one flanked by two brass globes. The plaque on the wall declared “The Daily Globe. Established 1900”. Poppy took a deep breath, prayed a quick prayer and walked up the steps with as much confidence as she could muster. In the black and white mosaic entrance hall she was greeted by a middle-aged woman behind a polished teak reception desk with a basque relief of Egyptian gods on the wall behind her.

  Poppy introduced herself and said she had an appointment with the editor.

  The woman ran her finger down a list and nodded. “Indeed you have, Miss Denby. Take the lift to the fourth floor. Turn right and the door to the newsroom will be in front of you. Go through the newsroom and Mr Rolandson’s office will be on the far side. If you get lost just ask anyone for directions.”

  “Thank you, I will.”

  Then, as Poppy walked towards the lift, the woman called after her: “Oh, and Miss Denby, good luck.” Poppy felt a flush of gratitude and thanked her.

  Buoyed, she followed the directions to the fourth floor. In the lift – the first she’d ever been in – she told her twelve-year-old self to stay calm and pretend to be a confident woman who took job interviews in her stride.

  She took her own advice and quickly checked her hair in the mirror on the wall. It was a twenty-two-year-old Poppy who stepped onto the landing of the fourth floor and pushed open the doors of the newsroom. She stifled a gasp. It was just as she had imagined it would be. Half a dozen desks were scattered around the room, each within a personal nest of filing cabinets. Typewriters clattered and a telephone pealed. A few hardy pot plants were managing to survive, if not thrive, in the smoke-filled air and there was an underlying stench of sweat. Weary-looking men with loosened ties, rolled-up shirt sleeves and braces looked up from their desks and nodded in greeting. No one seemed over friendly, but neither were they hostile.

  Someone answered the telephone and called out: “Bert, it’s for you. The Dorchester story.” A very large man pushed aside a box of sandwiches, heaved his way out of his chair and shuffled over to the telephone desk. Poppy noticed that under his sagging belly his trousers weren’t done up properly. She hoped one of the other men would tell him. They didn’t. But one of them did clock that she’d noticed and winked at her. Poppy ignored him as she arrived at a door at the far end of the room marked “Rollo Rolandson, Editor”. She took a calming breath and knocked.

  “Come in!” A distinctive accent: transatlantic, possibly Canadian, maybe American. Poppy opened the door. At first she didn’t see him. The room was so full of piles of newspapers, leaning towers of manila folders, overfull bookshelves, assorted photography paraphernalia and typewriters in various states of repair that she could not have been blamed if she’d thought she’d walked into a storeroom. The transatlantic voice addressed her again from somewhere in the middle of the room. Her eyes focused through the dim light filtering through a filthy window-pane and she saw a shock of red hair above a moon-shaped face.

  “Sorry for the mess. Here, take a seat.”

  The red hair moved from behind what Poppy assumed was a desk and lifted a pile of files off a chair. Attached to the head was a very short, squat body. Poppy, who was five foot five, towered above him. Rollo Rolandson – if that’s who it was – couldn’t have been more than four-and-a-half feet tall. He dusted off the chair and turned his moon-face up to her with a grin. “Please, Miz Denby, take a seat.”

  Poppy did as she was bid and waited for the editor to negotiate the obstacle course back to behind his desk. He picked up a sheet of paper which she recognized as her application form and perused it for a moment, making small grunting noises, and Poppy wasn’t sure whether they were of approval or disdain.

  “You are a little sketchy on your experience here, Miz Denby.” He pronounced the Miss with a “z”.

  Poppy cleared her throat. “I have worked in a mission.”

  “A Methodist Mission?”

  “That’s correct.” Poppy kept her voice neutral, hoping to deflect the prejudice she was used to whenever anyone heard she attended a non-conformist church.

  “So how do you feel about alcohol?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Alcohol, Miz Denby. I do believe the Methodists are prohibitionists.”

  Oh dear, thought Poppy, here it comes. She folded and then refolded her hands in her lap. “That’s not entirely true, sir. Not as a rule of faith. Although a lot of Methodists are teetotallers and support temperance programmes. They have seen the damage alcohol can cause to individuals, families and communities.”

  He raised his hand. Poppy noted that they were particularly large. “I don’t need a lesson in do-goodism, Miz Denby – I want to know whether you personally approve or disapprove of alcohol.”

  Poppy gave an internal sigh. This was not going as she had expected. Just as she had for the stationer’s job she had gone to the British Library and done as much research as she possibly could on the history of the British press. She had read samples of every newspaper that had been published in London in the last two years. She knew, for instance, that there was currently a battle going on in Fleet Street between the evening papers that were financed largely by wealthy be
nefactors and covered stories of interest to the “gentlemanly” classes and a new class of papers, disparagingly referred to as the gutter press, but which preferred to be called tabloids due to their more compact size. The tabloids covered stories tailored to a broader social spectrum: “jazz journalism”, entertainment news and gossip; and on a more serious note, social activism, seeing themselves as watchdogs of the democratic process.

  But Rollo Rolandson was not asking about any of that. He was asking about her views on alcohol. Poppy cleared her throat and chose her words carefully. “Well, sir, I don’t have a problem with it in principle. I’ve even been known to have a glass of champagne myself.”

  “Excellent!” Rollo threw his hands in the air and brought them crashing down on his desk. A precarious pile of files wobbled. Poppy reached out a hand to steady them.

  Rollo grinned. “And that, Miz Denby, is why I need an assistant. Your first job will be to organize this office. Can you do that?”

  Poppy looked around at the clutter that threatened to engulf them both. It reminded her of the donation room at the mission. It was not quite the cutting-edge job in journalism that she had hoped for, but it was a start.

  She nodded decisively. “Yes, Mr Rolandson. I can do that.”

  “Excellent!” he said again. But this time he stopped before he slapped down his hands. Instead he reached one over the desk. “Welcome to The Globe, Miz Denby.”

  Poppy shook it vigorously. “Thank you, sir. I’m delighted to be part of the team.”

  CHAPTER 5

  There was a knock on Rollo Rolandson’s door. He let go of Poppy’s hand and called: “Come in!”

  The door opened. “Sorry to disturb you, Rollo, but I thought you might like to see – Miss Denby!”

  “Mr Rokeby!” Without the bowler hat, Poppy noticed his brown hair and soft, grey eyes. They twinkled in delight.

  “You two know each other?”

  Daniel Rokeby stepped into the office. He was holding a pile of photographic prints and smiling widely. “I met Miss Denby when she first arrived in London. A month ago, was it?”

  “Three weeks,” Poppy corrected.

  “Well, I’ll be. Miz Denby has just joined us at The Globe, Dan,” Rollo remarked, shaking his head in disbelief.

  “You said you’d always wanted to be a journalist,” Daniel said, smiling.

  “You want to be a journalist?” Rollo raised his shaggy eyebrows.

  “I – well – I –” Poppy blushed.

  “You’re in the right place then. But don’t go getting ideas above your station; I need an assistant, not a reporter. I’ve got plenty of them out there.” He cocked his thumb towards the newsroom. “What I don’t have is someone to help me sort this lot out.”

  “Ah, the editor’s assistant job,” said Daniel wryly.

  “It is. And Miz Denby here is all too pleased to take it, aren’t you, Miz Denby?”

  “I am, sir. Very much, sir,” Poppy replied, relieved that she still seemed to have a job despite her “deception”.

  “Less of the sir! It’s Rollo. We’re all mates around here, aren’t we, Danny Boy?”

  Daniel and Poppy smiled at Rollo’s attempt at a cockney accent.

  “Most of the time,” said Daniel and raised a conspiratorial eyebrow towards Poppy.

  “What you got there, then, Dan?”

  “Just the pics for tomorrow.”

  “Show me at the briefing. After you’ve given Miz Denby the grand tour.”

  Daniel gave Rollo a mock salute, then gestured towards the door. “Shall we, Miss Denby?”

  “Thank you, Mr Rokeby; I would like that very much.”

  She tried to ignore Rollo’s knowing laughter as they left the office and the equally suggestive looks from the reporters in the newsroom as she accompanied the handsome photographer towards the lift.

  Half an hour later, Daniel and Poppy had finished their grand tour. First, they had taken the lift down to the basement where the printing presses droned away day and night. On the ground floor was the foyer where Poppy had first entered the building. As well as the lift, a staircase wound its way up to the fourth floor, where a balcony surrounded the atrium. Egyptian-style bronze and black lacquer statuettes stood sentinel in alcoves overlooking the black and white mosaic floor. It was an entrance hall designed to impress as completely modern, set apart from the other old-style Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian newspapers that occupied Fleet Street.

  She was introduced to the kind receptionist, Mavis Bradshaw, who congratulated her on her appointment but asked her if she realized she had been hired as a glorified maid.

  “I do, Mrs Bradshaw,” Poppy replied, then lowered her voice. “But I don’t intend to stay one,” she added with a smile. Daniel and Mavis both laughed at this and Daniel added that he had no doubt that a young lady as resourceful as Miss Denby would soon convince Rollo of her worth.

  Poppy blushed at this and said, “Please, call me Poppy.”

  Now on first name terms, Poppy and Daniel toured the rest of the building. Behind the reception area on the ground floor was the typesetters’ hall. Half a dozen men stood bent over trays of metal letters, piecing together the copy for the next day’s edition from sheaves of typescript. The next floor up, which they mutually agreed to access via the stairs, housed the advertising department and the accounts department.

  “This is what keeps the whole thing running,” said Daniel. “If our advertisers want us to run a story, it’s hard to say no. Someone has to pay the bills.”

  On the walk up to the second floor, which housed the photography and art department, Daniel warned her to stay clear of the balustrade. It was a little loose and awaiting repair. Then he asked her if she had finished the mystery novel she had been reading on the train. “What was it called? The Mysterious Affair at Styles?”

  “That’s the one,” replied Poppy, surprised that he remembered such a small detail. Well, he had remembered her name. And she his… she flushed. “Yes, I have.”

  “And?” He smiled and looked directly at her. Poppy was not used to such a direct gaze from a man – particularly one with such lovely grey eyes. She felt something flutter in her stomach.

  “Er, it was good. I enjoyed it. I enjoy most mysteries,” she answered, hoping Daniel would not be able to read her thoughts.

  “Oh, why’s that?” His gaze was averted as he guided her towards a set of doors off the landing.

  Poppy exhaled, hoping he would interpret her erratic breathing as due to the ascent of the stairs. “I suppose it’s because I enjoy puzzles. I love to figure out who did it. I’d like to think journalism’s a little bit like that too. Following leads, finding out the who, what, where and why…”

  He laughed. “Sometimes. Sometimes though it’s just writing – or photographing – what you’re told to.”

  Poppy looked a little disappointed and he was quick to add, “Oh, but I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. And as soon as you’ve had a chance to show Rollo what you can do –”

  “You mean beyond my filing and cleaning skills.”

  He grinned. “Yes, beyond that. Once you’ve written something.” He stopped and turned to her, his face alight with a new idea. “Books would be a good start.”

  “Books?” she asked.

  “Yes, books. You should consider writing some book reviews. Our arts editor struggles to produce enough copy for each edition. I’m sure he’d be delighted to receive some submissions.”

  Poppy was touched that he was taking so much interest in furthering her career. “Are you sure Mr Rolandson won’t think I’m trying to rise above my station?”

  Daniel laughed. “That’s just his sense of humour. He’s American; it takes a while to get used to him, but he’s a decent fellow.”

  “What’s he doing over here?”

  “Came over as a war correspondent and won this paper in a poker game.”

  Poppy gasped. “He won it in a poker game?”

  “He’s very good.
”

  “Or very lucky.”

  Daniel’s grey eyes twinkled. “Oh, luck has nothing to do with anything Rollo does. It was strategic. He knew the previous owner wanted to sell, but he didn’t like the price being asked. So he offered to play for it. He won.”

  Poppy laughed, all interest in the grand tour gone. This conversation was far more interesting than how many filing cabinets were in each department. “My, my. I suspected he was eccentric, but…”

  “Because he’s a dwarf?”

  “No, because he gave me this job in light of my views on alcohol.”

  Daniel threw back his head and laughed, eliciting amused looks from a pair of men exiting the art department. When they were gone, chuckling to themselves and casting knowing glances at the young couple, Daniel lowered his voice and asked, “So, Miss Denby, what exactly are your views on alcohol?”

  Poppy straightened her spine and said with affected primness, “Everything in moderation, Mr Rokeby.”

  “Ha! He’d be relieved to hear that. He threatened to give up his American citizenship when they brought in prohibition over there earlier this year.”

  Daniel took his watch out of his pocket and checked the time. He put it back in and then turned his full attention back to Poppy. If he had somewhere else to go he did not seem intent on getting there. “So, what got him onto the subject of alcohol in your job interview?”

  “He heard I was a Methodist and jumped to conclusions about my views on the devil’s brew.”

  Daniel grinned, then leaned towards her. She did not feel the need to pull away. “I’m an Anglican myself,” he said. “At least I was. I don’t go to church any more. Not since the war.”

  Poppy didn’t need to ask why. Thousands of men had lost their faith in the trenches, her brother one of them. She had hoped he would get it back after the war, but he didn’t last that long. Daniel noticed her silence. He took a step back. “I’m sorry if I offended you. About God, I mean. I did the same at the station, and –”