The Angel in the Corner

by Monica Dickens

  Two or three times in the night, she would tiptoe heavily into Virginia’s room to see whether she was asleep. Often Virginia was awake, and Mrs Benberg would shuffle downstairs in her voluminous wrapper and furry slippers to heat some milk, and would sit in the frayed wicker armchair and talk about anything that came into her head until she had talked Virginia into drowsiness.

  ‘Shall I ever sleep well again, do you think?’ Virginia asked one night. ‘I haven’t slept properly since Jenny died.’

  ‘Don’t be neurotic,’ Mrs Benberg said. ‘Of course you will. You’ve had the peace knocked out of you for a while, but it will return in due season, like the income-tax demand.’

  ‘I can’t believe that anything will come back for me the way it was,’ Virginia said. ‘It’s all changed. I always thought I was so lucky. You always said that things would go well for me.’

  ‘So they have, in a way.’ Mrs Benberg shifted in the chair, which creaked protestingly at every movement of her large body. ‘You’re alive, aren’t you? Isn’t that something? Most people would have been killed, but not you. You’re too tough.’

  ‘I used to think I was. I’m not so sure now. I’m not sure of anything. You always think you’re immune, and that things like this only happen to other people. Then when they happen to you, it knocks the bottom out of your confidence. Tiny – my old nurse – she used to teach me that there was an angel looking out for me. I used to believe that. I don’t any more.’

  ‘Oh – angels.’ Mrs Benberg heaved herself out of the creaking chair and stood by the bed, vast as the Statue of Liberty in her long, faded wrapper. ‘Papist stuff. But I’ve an open mind. I’ve nothing against angels, for those who want to put their trust in them. If you believe in them, that makes them believable. If you don’t, not. It’s as simple as that. I can’t imagine that angels are so foolhardy as to waste their time fussing over people who don’t believe in them.’

  ‘I don’t believe in anything,’ Virginia said. ‘I feel as if there was nothing left to depend on. I don’t know what is going to happen to me.’

  ‘I do,’ Mrs Benberg said cheerfully. ‘I see it all. But I’m not telling. You’ll find out for yourself in your own good time. At this moment, I see that you’ll go to sleep if I take my loud tongue and my big carcass out of here, and let you get some rest. I put something in your milk. Not poison. Something the doctor gave me.’ She winked at Virginia, then bent to kiss her, her heavy, untidily braided hair swinging over her shoulders like hunks of rope.

  She turned off the light, and Virginia lay in the dark and waited for sleep. A street lamp shone into the room through the gap in the curtains which did not meet because Mrs Benberg had shrunk them by too many drastic washings with boiling water and soda. The lamp threw a broken patch of light into the corner of the room, just as the lamp outside the house on the hill had sent its patch of light into the corner of the room where she slept as a child. That was the corner towards which Tiny used to nod before she left the room. ‘You look after my Jinny, now,’ she would adjure the angel, which she had summoned as an antidote to nightmares.

  Poor old Tiny. Had she been disappointed not to find her angel waiting for her outside the gate of Heaven when she climbed wearily up there at last? But if Tiny had found Heaven and a gate, and Saint Peter with a big golden key like the ones with which Royalty opened new buildings, and all the other things that Tiny had believed, then there would be an angel too. Everything or nothing, and Mrs Benberg had said that as long as you believed in things, that made them true for you. Was that what she had said? Something like that. …

  Virginia felt dreamy and confused. The street lamp had sent her back into the memory of her old bedroom, and she could almost hear Tiny’s hobbling step in the passage outside, coming to listen whether Virginia was asleep. No, that was a firm, heavy step. Mrs Benberg listening at the door to reassure herself once more before she rolled into the big double bed alongside the snoring ridge that was Mr Benberg.

  He was snoring now. Virginia could hear him across the passage. Her father had never snored like that. But his bedroom was on the floor below; she would not have heard him. Yet sometimes, long after she had gone to bed, she had been able to hear his voice and her mother’s raised in argument. That was when they still shared a bedroom. When they went into separate bedrooms, Virginia used to hear first one door bang, then the other, then silence in the chill, unhappy house. Silence while she lay and watched the patch of lamplight and fought against sleep because she was afraid of nightmares.

  She put her hand to her cheek and touched the tender, raised flesh. That nightmare was a reality, a million years away from childish dreams and fears. When she was a child, lying in bed wanting sleep and fearing sleep, she used to say to herself: Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom His love commits me here, ever this night be at my side, to light and guard, to rule and guide. She said it like a parrot, without finding any meaning in the words. There was just the impression of an angel, and those soft, white wings like a swan.

  Angel of God.… She stared at the patch of yellow light, and the light was the evening sun, and the corner was a wall, the wall of the garden where the tangled roses dropped their petals like tears on to the weeds. The peach tree waited with its arms outspread. The quiet garden waited with Virginia, as the tide of contentment flowed gently over her and the last piercing rays of the sun bathed her face with the light that held behind it the promise she had come so far to seek.

  As the sun sank, the bright light mellowed, and was diffused into an atmosphere through which, with an instant’s clearness, she saw her angel smiling before her. The smile … the face.… With a lifting of the heart as if she were swept forward on wings, she reached out with a cry and became one with the vision.

  The door flew open and the light snapped on. Mrs Benberg stood dishevelled in the doorway. Virginia was sitting up in bed with her arms flung out on the quilt in front of her. ‘What happened?’ she asked, staring at Mrs Benberg.

  ‘You called out. You must have been dreaming.’

  ‘No. I don’t know. Yes … a dream.’ But how could a mere dream leave you with this warmth and peace, this assurance of a quiet word spoken to dispel anxiety for ever?

  ‘I saw it,’ she said. ‘I saw the angel.’

  ‘Yes, dearie,’ Mrs Benberg said soothingly. ‘Sweet dreams. Lie down now and dream again. You’re not awake even now.’ She came forward to settle Virginia back on the pillows, but Virginia said: ‘I’m quite awake,’ and remained sitting upright, drawing up her knees and clasping her arms tightly round them.

  ‘I must tell you something,’ she said. ‘You’ll think I am insane, but I must tell you.’

  ‘Carry on.’ Mrs Benberg folded her arms. ‘I’m half insane myself, I often think, so you won’t surprise me.’

  ‘The angel … perhaps it was a dream, but how could I have dreamed it like that? You see’ – she searched the shadowless corner where the lamp had shone before the electric light conquered it, but the faded wallpaper kept its secret. ‘You see, the face –’ she looked up wonderingly. ‘It had my face.’

  Mrs Benberg blinked her eyes several times, then raised her thick eyebrows, and lowered them again in thought.

  ‘An angel with your face,’ she said, as practically as if Virginia had described a common or garden sight. ‘That’s interesting. Most interesting. I would have never have thought of that, but now that you mention it – yes, yes, I see.’

  ‘See what? What did it mean?’

  ‘Why,’ said Mrs Benberg, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, ‘it means that you are your own angel. Too simple.’

  ‘You think it means that there is no one to help you – no one but yourself? But that’s a terrible thought.’

  ‘No, it’s wonderful. Simply superb. It fits, don’t you see? It fits!’ Mrs Benberg glowed with enthusiasm. She shifted her heavy weight from foot to foot, clasping her hands. ‘Oh, you remarkable girl, to dream something as true as
that. It’s what I always knew, but I never thought of seeing it in terms of angels.’

  ‘What fits? I don’t understand.’

  ‘You don’t know your Saint Luke, that’s the trouble with you. “The kingdom of God is within you.” That’s what fits,’ Mrs Benberg said triumphantly. ‘Some people think that Christ simply meant that He was standing among the Pharisees – within their company, so to speak. But more likely He meant that He was within their minds, and ergo, the minds of all who had gone before, and who were to come after. That’s you, my precious. That’s why you are your own angel, because Christ can only work through you. He can only help you through your own will to help yourself. How do you think you have made such a good showing with your life so far? You thought you had a guardian angel. Well, you did, only you were looking for him in the wrong place. People pray to the wrong place most of the time. They get down on their creaking knees and they pray to an old man with a beard, somewhere away off in the sky. There’s nothing in the sky to pray to, except the Martians, and I don’t see why they should listen. What you pray to is inside your own self. That’s where God is. Now do you see what it means – about the angel?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Virginia lay back. ‘An angel with my own face. I think –’

  ‘Think no more,’ Mrs Benberg said briskly. ‘You’re half-doped. I don’t trust these doctors with their innocent-looking potions. Think no more tonight. We’ll think about it tomorrow. An angel with your face!’ She chuckled. ‘You like the idea?’

  Virginia nodded. Her eyes were closing. ‘If you could believe that, you wouldn’t ever have to give up, whatever happened. In the garden …’ she murmured, ‘the angel didn’t have a scar.’

  ‘Of course not! Nor lipstick nor powder either. Heavens, how material you are. When will I make you see?’ Mrs Benberg fussed, drawing her wrapper round her, and clicking her teeth. ‘Joe did his best to destroy you, and I don’t mean only at the end. I can say that to you, because you know it too. But he didn’t have a chance. He couldn’t cut into what’s inside you. That’s what he couldn’t bear.’

  ‘Please don’t.’ Virginia turned her head away.

  ‘Weep for him if you like. I know you hate me to say his name. But be glad of him too. You did what you could for him, and it wasn’t your fault that it wasn’t enough. But don’t forget, he did something for you too. When he found he couldn’t destroy you, he gave you back yourself.’ She swept to the door with her braids and her voluminous garments, as if she were part of a Wagner opera. From the pillow, Virginia returned her smile, before Mrs Benberg switched off the light and sailed across the passage to the room where Mr Benberg could be heard coughing and calling out feebly to know what was the matter.

  Chapter 17

  Virginia sat in the airport lounge and waited to board the plane that would take her to New York. Other people were waiting with her, but she paid scarcely any attention to these strangers with whom she would soon be imprisoned in a tiny world pursuing its orbit high over the Atlantic. She did not want to look at them, because she did not want them to look at her. Over her head she wore a soft scarf which was pulled forward on one side of her face, but it could not completely hide the dark, ugly scar that stood out in a thick welt against the pale skin of her cheek.

  The loudspeaker drew a breath and spoke. ‘Mr Harold Martin wanted at the ticket desk. Will Mr Harold Martin, passenger for New York, please go to the ticket desk.’

  A tall, middle-aged man with dull grey clothes and tired eyes got up, disentangling himself from his coat and hand-baggage, and walked to the door of the lounge. Virginia saw the stoop of his shoulders and the way his jacket bulged with too many things in the pockets. When he had gone through the swing-doors, she remained sitting perfectly still with her eyes fixed on the doors to see him come back.

  The passengers had been called to the plane before he returned. As she went forward with the crowd, Virginia looked back, and saw him come into the lounge. He walked just behind her into the blazing night of the airfield, and then he went ahead, his long legs striding across the tarmac, one hand up to keep the wind from taking his weather-beaten grey hat. He went into the plane before her, and when she climbed in and saw that he was sitting alone, Virginia pushed past a hesitating woman and sat quickly down in the seat beside him.

  He was sitting on the right side of the plane, so that when he turned to her with a brief smile, he saw the scar at once. He did not look away awkwardly, as most people did. He remained looking at her for a moment with pity in his eyes, and then he gave her a wider smile.

  When the plane began to taxi out into the night, Virginia leaned forward, pulling the scarf across her cheek. ‘Do you mind if I look out? It’s my first flight.’

  ‘Sit by the window,’ he said at once. ‘Change places quickly. You’re not supposed to stand up.’ He unfastened his safety-belt and helped her with hers, and then she was clutching the arms of the seat and watching the runway lights glide by, faster, faster, until suddenly they were below her and dropping away and she was part of the earth no longer.

  ‘Like it?’ he asked, as she settled back into her seat with a sigh. ‘One never quite gets over the thrill of being safe on the ground one moment, and safe in the air the next.’

  Virginia took off the scarf and shook out her hair. He could not see the right side of her face now, and so she could talk to him without being conscious of the scar and of his eyes either dwelling on it, or deliberately looking away. But, of course, he knew how to look at a woman with a blemished face. She had forgotten that.

  For a while, she did not say anything. She had twelve hours in which to say the words. There was no hurry. He was looking through papers in his brief-case. Virginia opened a novel and tried to read, but her eyes kept sliding round to the long, lined face with the bony temples from which the thin hair had long ago receded. The stewardess brought coffee and sandwiches, and when the little trays were taken away, he took out a tarnished silver case and offered Virginia a cigarette. On the little finger of his right hand, he wore a signet ring with the seal carved into a red stone. Virginia did not need the evidence of the ring, but it was the memory of the red stone shining under the light above the piano that finally touched her into speech.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said in a small voice. ‘This is going to sound very odd, but I think you are my father.’

  *

  They talked most of the night. When the lights in the plane were turned off, and the other passengers settled themselves with grunts and rustlings to uneasy slumber, Virginia and her father switched on the little reading lights and talked their way into each other’s lives again while the plane beat its way across the sea with a thick roar that was no longer a noise but an unheeded part of the atmosphere.

  Virginia’s father told her that his wife had died two years ago, soon after her baby was born. ‘Something went wrong,’ he said. ‘She never really recovered from the birth. She was ill all the time, and then one morning, she just went, quite quietly. She was a very quiet woman. Peaceful to be with. I wish you had known her.’

  ‘I did.’ Virginia told him about her visit to the house.

  ‘Typical of her not to tell me. She was always thinking about not upsetting me, and the irony of that was that with her, I never felt like getting upset. Since you met her, perhaps you can understand how much she did for me. You never liked me very much when we lived together, did you? I don’t blame you. I was a rotten father, and a rotten husband, and a pretty rotten person altogether to have about the house, I should imagine. Vivien – that was my wife’s name – she didn’t think so. She didn’t despise me like – well, she really loved me, I think. That makes a lot of difference to a man. If a woman believes that a man is something, he can become it. Vivien thought I was worthwhile, even when I lost my job and we were on our beam ends. Your mother now,’ he paused and kneaded his large-knuckled hands, frowning at them, ‘your mother never thought I was worth anything, and so of course I wasn’t, to her. But I
learned a few things after I left Helen. Pity she couldn’t benefit from any of them. I learned about being lonely. I learned what can happen to you if you think about nothing but yourself. I tell you, Jinny – I can tell you this now that you’ve grown up without my help – there were times when I thought of coming back.’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’

  ‘I didn’t think Helen would have me. And then, of course, I met Vivien and everything was changed. I had a home, and Vivien showed me how to enjoy a child, a joy I never allowed myself with you.’

  He took out his wallet and showed Virginia the pictures of his children, a serious-faced schoolboy and a two-year-old baby, fat and pleasing. ‘We have a house in Richmond. Modest, but there’s a garden, and Andrew does well at the school. I have a housekeeper who looks after them, and looks after me in a sketchy way when I’m at home. I do these trips quite often. I’m with another travel firm now, and we’re pushing holidays in Britain on to the Americans for all we’re worth. I was damn lucky to get the job, and I have to go where I’m told, but I hate being away so much. Mrs Leavis is – well, adequate. I can’t stand the woman myself, but she’s reliable with the children. I’ve talked too much, and you’ve been sitting there listening so quietly. You never used to be so quiet. But of course, I only remember you as a schoolgirl. You used to drop things and fall over your feet all the time. I suppose you don’t do that now. Tell me what happened to the schoolgirl. Tell me everything. At least,’ he glanced at her uncertainly, ‘as much as you want to tell. I don’t even know where you’re going now, or why.’

  ‘I’m going to stay with Helen. I’ve been ill.’

  ‘I can see that.’ He put his hand under her chin, and turning her face, gently touched her cheek. ‘An accident?’ It was the first time he had mentioned the scar.