The Angel in the Corner

by Monica Dickens

  ‘Hullo, darling,’ she said. It was the first time she had been sure enough of him to call him that. ‘You’re very late. I waited and waited, but I couldn’t keep awake. I think I’ve slept for hours. I’m starving. What happened to you?’

  ‘I had a bit of trouble running Anderson down.’ He sat on the bed and pulled down the sheet. He could not take his eyes off her.

  ‘Is it all right about the job?’

  ‘It’s a bit vague at the moment. Things have to be worked out. Don’t bother now. I’ll tell you in the morning.’

  ‘Aren’t you hungry, Joe? Don’t you want to go out and get dinner? I’ll get dressed.’ Her voice was quick and breathless, and her eyes had darkened.

  ‘Don’t get dressed,’ he said. ‘You fool, don’t you know you’re on your honeymoon?’ He pushed her back on to the pillow, and found that she was warm and eager and readily excited. Her clouded eyes searched his face, and he knew that his desire was written fiercely there.

  ‘Joe,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t be angry, but I’m afraid.’

  ‘Don’t be,’ he said. ‘It’s all right. You’re lovely, Jin. Come to me. This is what you were made for. Come to me. I’ll show you.… I’ll show you what it can be like.’

  He had always said that he had no use for girls who did not know their way around. Now he knew the joyful pride and mastery of awakening desires that were untried, unguessed; of teaching her and leading her, and seeing in her willing response the unending delight that they could find together.

  *

  When Virginia woke next morning, her first sensation was of hunger. She remembered that they had not eaten dinner. She remembered a lot of other things, and she was glad when Joe woke and turned to her and wanted her again.

  She lay in bed and watched him dress. She had never felt so delightfully indolent. She could imagine that it must be gratifying to be a courtesan and lie languorously in bed every morning after your lover had left you. Joe was shaving at the washbasin in the corner. He wore only a pair of briefs, and Virginia contemplated the muscles of his back and shoulders with pleasure.

  ‘If only one could spend all the time in bed,’ she said lazily. ‘How easy life would be.’

  ‘You’re right there.’ He turned round, rubbing his face with a towel. ‘But you can’t try it today. You’ve got to get up and catch a train. We’re going back to London.’

  ‘What about the job?’ Virginia sat up.

  Joe threw the towel on the floor, and pulled his shirt over his head. ‘No deal. Anderson doesn’t keep his promises, it seems. Of course, he said he’d remember me if anything came up, but I know just how much that means. Luckily, I’d told the Mortimers not to get rid of the room until they heard from me, so at least we’ve somewhere to go.’

  ‘But what will we live on? I’ve only got a little money in the bank. That wouldn’t last long, and what they pay you at the club is chicken feed. What will you –’

  ‘Stop fussing, Jin, for God’s sake. You’ve had a nice trip to Glasgow. What are you crabbing about? Everything will be all right. Just leave it to me. You haven’t a thing to worry about.’

  When they got back to London, Virginia telephoned the airport to find out whether Helen had left on the plane for New York. She was told that Mr and Mrs Spenser Eldredge had left on flight No. 453, Pan-American Clipper for New York, on Friday morning.

  She ran from the telephone box on the corner back to the basement room, where she had left Joe lying on the bed reading a newspaper. She had given him his breakfast in bed, and the dirty cup and plates were strewn beside him on the floor.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘They’ve gone. She can’t do anything to me now.’

  ‘She never could have,’ he said. ‘You’re twenty-one, and you’re married to me. So what? If she doesn’t like it, she can do the other thing.’

  ‘But it would have been so awful. There would have been a row, and we all would have said terrible things. Or she might have been hurt and pleading, and I would have felt worse than I do already for playing her such a dirty trick.’

  ‘I’m the dirty trick, I suppose. Thanks.’

  ‘You know I didn’t mean that. But it is a dirty trick, from a mother’s point of view, to get married without her approval. I hope my daughter never does it.’

  ‘Oh? Are we going to have kids?’

  ‘I hope so. Do you mind?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ he said, reading the newspaper. ‘I’ll find out.’

  ‘Joe, I wish you wouldn’t smoke in bed. It’s dangerous. Here, let me get you an ash-tray. That’s better than flicking the ash at that plate and missing it. Shall I ever cure you of being so untidy?’

  ‘You’d better not try, my love.’

  ‘They’ll be in New York by now,’ Virginia said, moving about the room to pick up the clothes he had scattered the night before. ‘I wonder how Helen feels. After all, we did live together all those years, and I know she loves me, though she didn’t always show it. I love her too, in spite of everything. I’m sorry that I had to do this to her. I know you can’t stand her, but you can understand how I feel. Think if it was your mother.’

  He lowered the paper. ‘My mother was lovely in every way,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t have done it. Wouldn’t have had to. She left me alone, and anyone that I liked, she liked too.’

  ‘Would she have liked me?’

  ‘You bet. She was a funny little woman. All eyes, you know, at the end, when she was dying, only no one knew she was dying, because she went on working. I saw her dead. They shouldn’t let a boy do that.’ He stared in front of him and flicked his cigarette ash at the plate on the floor. ‘I took up her hand. They’d crossed them on her chest, you know, like they do. It was rough. It felt like a cold steel file.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Joe. I wish I had the kind of mother who would be – well, a mother for you too. But Helen will come round in time, you’ll see. She’ll be nice to you.’

  ‘Like hell she will.’ He leaned over and ground out his cigarette on the egg-smeared plate. ‘The old girl hates my guts.’

  ‘Not really. Wait until they next come over. She will have got over being upset about all this. She’ll feel quite differently when she sees how happy I am.’

  ‘Are you happy, Jin?’ He looked at her seriously.

  ‘Deliriously.’ She bent to kiss him. ‘I’m going up to the flat now that I know Helen’s gone, to get the rest of my things. Heaven knows where I’ll put them,’ she looked round the room, ‘but we’ll manage. Are you going to stay here?’

  ‘Why? Why do you want to know what I’m going to do?’ There was an edge of resentment in his voice.

  ‘I’d just like to know that you’ll be here when I get back, that’s all.’

  ‘Afraid I’ll get away from you? Don’t worry. You’re stuck.’ He raised his arms above his head and yawned. ‘I believe I’m going to like marriage, if you’ll give me breakfast in bed every day.’

  As Virginia went up the stone steps to the pavement, he looked out of the window and called after her: ‘If Spenser’s left any whisky behind, bring it.’

  A moving-van blocked almost the whole width of the mews. Upstairs in the flat, two men were busy with crates and shavings and labels, packing up the contents of the drawing-room.

  ‘What are you doing with that?’ Virginia asked, as the younger of the men wrapped the china figure of a dancer in a newspaper and stowed it in a barrel. ‘That belongs to me.’

  ‘None of my business,’ the young man said. ‘Better ask Mr Fiske.’ He jerked his head to where the older, stouter man was kneeling by the fireplace, trying to persuade the fire-irons into a neat bundle.

  ‘You can’t take away my things,’ Virginia told him. ‘I have a place of my own now. I need them.’

  ‘I was told to take everything to storage,’ Mr Fiske said. ‘Only following my orders.’ He sat back on his heels, curling up the crêpe soles of his shoes. ‘I never heard anything about separating the knick-kna
cks. It’s a bit late now. We’re pretty near done. What do you expect me to do, miss – unpack all the boxes?’

  ‘Could you?’ She wanted to have her possessions round her in Joe’s room. They would make it seem like her room too.

  ‘Be a lot to ask.’ He shook his head and glanced at the younger man, who had paused with a clock in one hand, and a piece of newspaper in the other, disturbed at the turn of the conversation.

  ‘In any case,’ Mr Fiske said, standing up and cradling the fire-irons over to a box, ‘I don’t know who you are, miss, do I? It might be worth my job to let you take anything.’

  ‘But I used to live here! I lived here for years. Naturally a lot of the things are mine. I’m Mrs Eldredge’s daughter – Miss Martin. Mrs Colonna, rather.’ She laughed. ‘It’s hard to get used to. I just got married.’

  Mr Fiske’s face broadened into a beam of delight. ‘Well, well! Isn’t that wonderful, miss – pardon me – madam, I should say.’ He threw the fire-irons into the box with a noise like Agincourt, and came forward with his hand out. ‘Allow me to offer my heartiest congratulations. I hope you will be very happy.’

  ‘I’m sure I shall. Thank you very much. Now, about my things –’

  ‘Geoffrey, come here, and shake hands with the young lady, and offer your congratulations.’ Mr Fiske was not ready to be brought back to business.

  The young man set down the clock, palmed his trousers, and shook hands damply. ‘Best respects, I’m sure.’

  ‘What a happy, happy time for you,’ Mr Fiske said, his eyes glazed with sentiment. ‘A time to remember all your life, believe me. The wife and I often look back on our first days together. We were at Sydenham then, of course. I’ve never forgotten it.’

  ‘I’m sure you haven’t.’ Virginia fidgeted. ‘That’s nice, but could you please tell me what I’m –’

  ‘Ah, happy days, happy days!’ Mr Fiske sat down on a nailed-up crate, and beat his hands gently on his knees. ‘As I always tell Gwennie – that’s my daughter, you know, and a high-spirited one if you like – there’s many fathers are not best pleased when their girls decide to fly the nest, but I’m not like that. I’ll be the happiest man in Her Majesty’s kingdom – God bless her sweet face – to see my girl settled down with the fellow of her choice. You be careful with that clock, Geoffrey. I know an antique when I see it.’

  He got up. ‘Well, back to work. This won’t buy the baby new clothes. If you’ll pardon the expression, madam, being newly married. All the best to you, my dear, and to the lucky man.’

  He took nails in his mouth, and began to hammer down the lid of the barrel which held Virginia’s dancing figure, and probably many other things that belonged to her. He softly whistled a romantic tune between the nails that splayed out between his teeth. Virginia abandoned the hope of getting him to unpack anything. She could always go to the warehouse later on when she and Joe found a larger place. You could have things unpacked there if you paid for it.

  She went into her bedroom. All the furniture was gone. The suitcases which she had packed and left behind when she fled breathlessly to meet Joe were stacked in one corner and labelled with storage tags.

  She went back to Mr Fiske. ‘Did my mother tell you to take those cases in the small bedroom?’

  ‘Everything to go was what she said.’

  ‘Well, you can’t. They’re my clothes. You may get away with my china, but you’re not getting away with my clothes.’

  ‘My dear young lady,’ Mr Fiske stopped work again. ‘I’m not trying to get away with anything. I’m merely following my orders.’

  ‘I’m taking those cases away with me now, as soon as I call a taxi.’

  ‘Phone’s cut off,’ Geoffrey said.

  ‘I’ll go out and get one then. Don’t you dare put those cases in the van before I get back.’

  ‘No call to get worked up,’ Mr Fiske said. ‘Gently does it. I know how it is, when you’re just married. All the excitement, and the novelty and that. You’re not yourself, I expect.’

  ‘I am perfectly myself, and the fact that I’ve just got married has nothing to do with wanting my clothes.’

  ‘All right, all right.’ Mr Fiske continued to soothe her paternally, as if she were the high-spirited Gwennie. ‘I haven’t said you couldn’t take them, have I? Just to prove my good intentions, I’ll carry them down for you myself.’

  ‘I can manage.’ Virginia rejected his coals of fire. ‘You’ve got your work to do.’

  ‘I must say we did want to get finished by dinner-time, reckoning without interruptions. That’s why we’re hurrying along, see?’ said Mr Fiske, who did not look as if he could hurry along from a fire. He sat down again and lit his pipe. Virginia went back to the bedroom. She had closed the door when she came out before, and now she saw that there was an envelope pinned to the top panel. On the envelope was written: ‘Mrs Joe Colonna’.

  For a moment, Virginia thought that it was a parting shot from Helen, or, less likely, a gesture of reconciliation; but it was not Helen’s handwriting. She took down the envelope. It was large and thick. Inside was a bundle of folded five-pound notes, stiff and new. There was a note with them. It said:

  Dearest Jinny,

  Forgive an old man who only wants to be a father to you, but I couldn’t go away without giving a present to the bride. I’m taking a chance that you will come back to get your things, but if someone else finds this first, I hope it brings them lots of luck too. Be happy. I cannot imagine you as an unhappy person.

  Your affectionate step-father,

  Spenser Eldredge

  Virginia counted the notes. Spenser’s wedding gift was a hundred pounds. Her eyes filled with tears, and one fell on to the suitcase as she bent to open it and stuff the money inside. Darling Spenser. Perhaps what she had done was worse for him than it was for Helen. He had wanted so much to take her to America.

  She blew her nose, and went into the kitchen to look in the cupboard of the dresser. It seemed a shame to take his whisky, but Joe had asked her to bring it, and if she did not take it, Mr Fiske would. She took the two bottles of whisky, half a bottle of brandy, and all the tins of food and soup that remained on the shelves. She had a feeling that she and Joe were going to need them.

  *

  Joe looked out of the window, and saw the taxi-driver helping Virginia to pull the suitcases on to the pavement. He ran up the steps and paid the taxi. Luckily he had some change in his pocket. It made him feel good to do that.

  ‘Loot,’ he said, when he carried the cases down into the room. ‘What have you got?’

  ‘All my clothes, and some food, and yes, there was some whisky left behind. There, in that one.’

  ‘Wonderful. We’ll have a celebration tonight. A sort of house warming, what do you say? I had thought of taking you out, but it would be more fun to have our party here.’

  ‘Oh, yes, darling.’ She came into his arms eagerly. She was splendid to kiss, so warm and full of life, and he still got that dangerous, exhilarated feeling of wanting to grab her too fiercely and hurt her.

  He raised his head. ‘The old hypnotism still work?’

  ‘Do you think it was only that?’ She always looked worried when she spoke of that peculiar evening, as if she were trying to puzzle something out. ‘I did feel that night that you had some power over me. Was it only – this kind of power?’

  ‘I don’t know. I told you, I had no idea what I was doing. I only knew I wanted you terribly.’

  ‘Why did you let Nora stay on after I’d gone?’

  ‘Why look a gift horse in the mouth? The poor girl didn’t have much fun though. My heart wasn’t in it.’

  ‘She looked very smug next day.’

  ‘That was for your benefit. You’re not sore about that after all this time, are you?’

  ‘Perhaps I should be, but I don’t care. I don’t care about anything you’ve done, as long as it’s all in the past.’

  ‘It is, my love, it is.’ He hugged her, s
waying from side to side. ‘I’ll never look at another woman. Do you believe that?’ He believed it himself. He could not remember ever being so happy, and he knew that she was perfectly happy too as long as he held her, and shut out the conflictions of her old life beyond the barrier of his arms.

  ‘What have you got in the gunnysack?’ he asked. ‘I’ll open all the tins and cook you something you never had before. Did you bring that white dress – the one with all the vital parts missing? Wear it. Wear it for me, will you? Let’s make a big night of it.’

  ‘Joe.’ She held back a little from him, and he saw that clear candid look in her eyes, that searching for truth that made him look away when he could not tell it to her. ‘Aren’t you going to the club tonight? Can’t you still have your job there?’

  Here it came. Sooner than he had planned, and just when things were going so well. She was not so different from other women after all, with her uncanny ability to ask the awkward question at the wrong moment.

  He walked away from her. ‘I’m not going back there,’ he said. ‘I chucked up that miserable job for good before we went to Glasgow.’

  ‘They’d take you back, though. William’s kind. He likes you too.’

  ‘He can find another mug to be kind to. Get this into your head. I’m not going back there. I can’t think how I stuck it so long.’

  ‘What will you do, then? Have you thought of something else? I hate to be sordid, but we must have some money coming in from somewhere. How are we going to live?’

  ‘You’ve got a job, haven’t you, on that fancy magazine? We can get by on that for a start.’ He looked at her to see how she was taking it. She was pale, but she was taking it all right. You could say that for Jin; she would never let you knock her cold.

  She said quite calmly, measuring her gaze to his: ‘I haven’t got the job any more. I told them I wasn’t coming back.’

  ‘Go back and tell them you’ve changed your mind.’

  ‘I can’t. They probably wouldn’t even take me after I walked out on them like that. You don’t call up an editor one day and say: “I’m not coming in any more. I’m going to be married,” and then waltz in a few days later, and say: “Turn that woman out of my chair. My husband says I’m to go on working here.” What a funny man you are, Joe. You see things all upside down sometimes.’