Human Voices. Penelope Fitzgerald

should not take more than two glasses of beer before reporting for work, and the shadow of disapproval still hung over it. Higher grades were expected to go to the Langham for a drink, but this one hadn’t.

      ‘I ask you about that fellow,’ said Tad, ‘because it was he who just came into Studio LG14. I was clearing up the Messages preparatory to returning them to registry, and I asked him what he was doing in the studios, as one cannot be too careful in the present circumstances. He replied that he had an administrative post in the BBC, and, as he seemed respectable, I explained the standard routine to him. I think one should never be too busy to teach those who are anxious to learn.’

      ‘Well, you set out to impress him,’ said Teddy. ‘What did you tell him?’

      ‘I told him the rules of writing a good news talk – “the first sentence must interest, the second must inform”. Next I pointed out the timeless clock, which is such an unusual feature of our studios, and demonstrated the “ten seconds from now”.’

      The familiar words sounded dramatic, and even tragic.

      ‘What did he do?’

      ‘He nodded, and showed interest.’

      ‘But didn’t he say anything?’

      ‘Quite quietly. He said, “Tell me more.”’

      Tad’s self-assurance wavered and trembled. ‘He does not look quite the same now as he did then. Who is he?’

      ‘That’s Jeffrey Haggard,’ Willie said. ‘He’s the Director of Programme Planning.’

      Tad was silent for a moment. ‘Then he would be familiar with the ten second cue?’

      ‘He invented it. It’s called the Haggard cue, or the Jeff, sometimes.’ Teddy laughed, louder than the din of crockery.

      ‘God, Tad, you’ve made me happy to-day. Jeepers Creepers, you’ve gone and explained the ten second cue to DPP …’

      Their table rocked and shook, while Tad sat motionless, steadying his cup with his hand.

      ‘Doubtless Mr Haggard will think me ludicrous.’

      ‘He thinks everything’s ludicrous,’ said Willie hastily.

      Teddy laughed and laughed, not able to get over it, meaning no harm. He wouldn’t laugh like that if he was Polish, Willie thought. However, in his scheme of things to come there would no frontiers, and indeed no countries.

      

      The Director of Programme Planning ordered a second double in his dry, quiet, disconcerting voice. Probably in the whole of his life he had never had to ask for anything twice. The barman, knowing, as most people did, that Mr Haggard had run through three wives and had lost his digestion into the bargain, wondered what he’d sound like if he got angry.

      The whisky, though it had no visible effect, was exactly calculated to raise DPP from a previous despair far enough to face the rest of the evening. When he had finished it he went back to his office, where he managed with no secretary and very few staff, and rang RPD.

      ‘Mrs Milne, I want Sam. I can hear him shouting, presumably in the next room.’

      On the telephone his voice dropped even lower, like a voice’s shadow. He waited, looking idly at the schedules that entirely covered the walls, the charts of Public Listening and Evening Meal Habits, and the graphs, supplied by the Ministry of Information, of the nation’s morale.

      RPD was put through.

      ‘Jeff, I want you to hear my case.’

      DPP had been hearing it for more than ten years. But, to do his friend justice, it was never the same twice running. The world seemed new created every day for Sam Brooks, who felt no resentment and, indeed, very little recollection of what he had suffered the day before.

      ‘Jeff, Establishment have hinted that I’m putting in for too many girls.’

      ‘How can that be?’

      ‘They know I like to have them around, they know I need that. I’ve drafted a reply, saying nothing, mind you, about the five thousand discs a week, or the fact that we provide a service to every other department of the Corporation. See what you think of the way I’ve put it – I begin quite simply, by asking them whether they realize that through the skill of the recording engineer, sound can be transformed from air to wax, the kind of thing which through all the preceding centuries has been possible only to the bees. It’s the transference of pattern, you see – surely that says something encouraging about the human mind. Don’t forget that Mozart composed that trio while he was playing a game of billiards.’

      ‘Sam, I went to a meeting to-day.’

      ‘What about?’

      ‘It was about the use of recordings in news bulletins.’

      ‘Why wasn’t I asked?’

      But Sam was never asked to meetings.

      ‘We had two Directors and three Ministries – War, Information, Supply. They’d called it, quite genuinely I think, in the interests of truth.’

      The word made its mark. Broadcasting House was in fact dedicated to the strangest project of the war, or of any war, that is, telling the truth. Without prompting, the BBC had decided that truth was more important than consolation, and, in the long run, would be more effective. And yet there was no guarantee of this. Truth ensures trust, but not victory, or even happiness. But the BBC had clung tenaciously to its first notion, droning quietly on, at intervals from dawn to midnight, telling, as far as possible, exactly what happened. An idea so unfamiliar was bound to upset many of the other authorities, but they had got used to it little by little, and the listeners had always expected it.

      ‘The object of the meeting was to cut down the number of recordings in news transmissions – in the interests of truth, as they said. The direct human voice must be used whenever we can manage it – if not, the public must be clearly told what they’ve been listening to – the programme must be announced as recorded, that is, Not Quite Fresh.’

      Sam’s Department was under attack, and with it every recording engineer, every RPA, every piece of equipment, every TD7, mixer and fader and every waxing and groove in the building. As the protector and defender of them all, he became passionate.

      ‘Did they give specific instances? Could they even find one?’

      ‘They started with Big Ben. It’s always got to be relayed direct from Westminster, the real thing, never from disc. That’s got to be firmly fixed in the listeners’ minds. Then, if Big Ben is silent, the public will know that the war has taken a distinctly unpleasant turn.’

      ‘Jeff, the escape of Big Ben freezes in cold weather.’

      ‘We shall have to leave that to the Ministry of Works.’

      ‘And the King’s stammer. Ah, what about that. My standby recordings for his speeches to the nation – His Majesty without stammer, in case of emergency.’

      ‘Above all, not those.’

      ‘And Churchill.…’

      ‘Some things have to go, that was decided at a preliminary talk long before I got there. Otherwise it’s just a general directive, and we’ve lived through a good many of those. It doesn’t affect the total amount of recording. If you want to overwork, you’ve nothing to worry about.’ Sam said that he accepted that no-one present had had the slightest understanding of his Department’s work, but it was strange, very strange, that there had been no attempt whatever, at any stage, to consider his point of view.

      ‘If someone could have reasoned with him, Jeff. Perhaps this idea that’s come to me about the bees.…’

      ‘I protested against any cuts in your mobile recording units. I managed to save your cars.’

      ‘Those Wolseleys!’

      ‘They’re