Free Away With The Fairies by Kerry Greenwood

adding a mere touch of tonic, Jill, please. I’m having a rather complicated day. Miss Prout?’
    ‘I’ll have one too,’ said Miss Prout.
    Phryne waited until she had a drink, then surveyed Miss Prout. She was an enthusiastic young woman with bad skin, a mass of unruly hair bandolined to her scalp, an unwise hat and too much Tangee lipstick in a strange shade of orange. Not bad looking if she would eat more fruit and omit the rouge. Brown eyes, however, alight with a mission. In this she strangely resembled Mrs Charlesworth.
    ‘I’ve never been in a place like this,’ said Miss Prout.
    ‘Do me the favour of not writing about us. We like to keep ourselves to ourselves. But I,’ said Phryne, ‘am fascinated with this magazine world. Tell me about it. Is it always like it was today?’
    Miss Prout took a vengeful gulp of her drink. The fact that she did not gasp at the strength of it was interesting. ‘Yes, it’s always like that. Me trying to make the mag more popular, Mrs Charlesworth trying to drag us back into the Middle Ages. She wants to make us a suffragist tract, no fun, no gossip. She only lets fashion notes in because the readers like it. She doesn’t approve of it.’
    ‘The same could be said for Hilda and her flower fairies,’ said Phryne.
    ‘Oh, well, yes, no one can really like that stuff, but the readers do, and it’s well known that readers have no taste.’
    ‘But they’d like the gossip and the film news,’ prompted Phryne carefully.
    ‘Of course. Everyone likes gossip, it’s a natural human desire. People in Mrs Charlesworth’s Middle Ages were probably listening with their ear to the castle wall, trying to get the latest on Guinevere and Lancelot. There’s nothing wrong with giving the readers what they want!’
    ‘Provided they want what you have to provide,’ said Phryne, picking up her fork.
    ‘Well, of course.’ Miss Prout looked at her cold collation. Someone had gone to considerable trouble to make curls in the celery and roses out of radishes and even the tomatoes were cut into interesting shapes. The ham was made into little scrolls, decorated with salad cream and capers. ‘This isn’t lunch, Miss Fisher. It’s a work of art.’
    ‘They say the first bite is with the eye,’ said Phryne.
    ‘It seems like sacrilege to eat it.’
    ‘Go ahead,’ urged her friend. ‘There’ll be tears before bedtime if you appreciate it so much that it goes back untouched. Apropos of gossip, aren’t there gossip magazines? And, come to think of it, film magazines, and American “True Confessions” magazines. Why do you want to import them into Women’s Choice ?’
    ‘A lot of women can’t bring themselves to buy a magazine that is just about gossip. A respectable lady can’t be seen reading The Hawklet in the street. Husbands would object to their money being spent on True Confessions . But a magazine that gives them that vicarious thrill—all right, I’m admitting it’s a thrill—and still has a nice cover and some recipes for baked trout would pass unnoticed.’
    ‘Miss Prout, why not go and work for Table Talk ? Why this crusade to change Women’s Choice ?’
    ‘Because I want to save it. New magazines will spring up with just this combination of gossip and recipes, and then Women’s Choice will go the way of the dodo. It’s a worthy mag with a lot of things to say which ought to be said. It can keep its famous historical homes and its book reviews and its articles on companionate marriage. And on birth control and “Divorce: By a Woman Barrister”. But unless we sweeten the message a little, the readers will go elsewhere and all our work will be wasted. Anyway, Mrs Charlesworth’s lying when she says such stuff will not sully her pristine magazine.’
    The stiff drink was having the effect of loosening Miss Prout’s tongue, at least. Phryne ate capers and murmured encouragingly.
    ‘She’s allowed the “Is This Problem Yours?” page. There’s not a lot of