The Angel in the Corner - Monica Dickens [111]
‘Oh, no, my dear. Oh, no, no. The day you are wrong, the stars will fall from their courses.’
Mrs Benberg looked at him sharply to see if he was mocking her, but he had left the room with his wet-weather limp to get Virginia’s coat, and she could not see his face.
*
The stars did not fall. Mrs Benberg was right again. When Virginia got back to the flat, Joe was lying on the bed with his clothes on, fast asleep.
‘Darling?’ Virginia put her hand on his shoulder. He hunched the shoulder up towards his ear, and twitched his cheek fretfully, as if a fly were disturbing his sleep.
‘No, darling,’ Virginia said to his sleeping, innocent face. ‘This is too much. I’m not going to wait until morning to hear what you’ve been up to.’ She turned him on to his back and sat down on the bed beside him. ‘Please wake up,’ she said loudly. ‘I want to talk to you.’
‘For God’s sake –’ Joe mumbled himself half out of sleep, opened his eyes and closed them again and rolled over. ‘Leave me alone. I need sleep.’ He flung an arm across his face, but Virginia pulled it away, and turned him back to face her.
‘Tell me where you’ve been. Then you can sleep,’ she said.
He smiled dreamily up at her, and raised his hand to stroke the inside of her arm. ‘Pretty girl,’ he said. ‘Come to bed now. We’ll talk in the morning.’
‘We’ll talk now. You’re not getting away with it like that.’ Don’t nag at him, Mrs Benberg had said, but Mrs Benberg did not know that he would try to take refuge in sleep or caresses. ‘Three days and three nights,’ Virginia said, ‘I’ve waited here for you, with no idea where you were. How about giving me some sort of explanation?’
Joe looked at her calmly. ‘You weren’t waiting tonight,’ he said. ‘How about giving me an explanation of that?’
‘That’s easy. I went to see some friends. How was I to know you would come back tonight? For all I knew you were never coming back.’
‘Big loss that would have been.’
‘Don’t make silly jokes. This is serious. How do you think I felt, waiting here night after night, thinking of all the worst things that could have happened to you?’
‘Why, you’re angry,’ he said wonderingly.
‘Of course I’m angry. You always get angry after you’ve been anxious. First you are relieved, like I was when I saw you on the bed. Then you get angry, like I am now. Not about you staying away longer than you said. That’s nothing. I’m angry because you didn’t take the trouble to let me know.’
‘I couldn’t.’ Joe turned his head slightly, so that he was not looking at her. ‘I didn’t want to give them the chance of tracing me here, in case they were on to me.’
‘They? Who’s they?’ Virginia knew, but she had to hear him say it.
‘If you must know, Jin, the Warwickshire constabulary.’
Virginia sighed. ‘Yes,’ she said flatly. ‘Yes. That’s what I was afraid of.’ She was not angry any more. She was disheartened and suddenly very tired.
‘There was nothing I could do. After they got Jack, I didn’t dare come straight home. I came a roundabout way, moving about, you see, until I was sure they weren’t on to me. You understand?’
‘All but one small detail. What had Jack done?’
‘Nothing really. It was what he tried to do. But this damn fool girl at the cinema got panicky and gave him the all-clear too soon. The cashier only had to let out one peep and the whole place was swarming with people.’
‘Joe –’ She gripped his arm and searched his eyes, leaning forward so that her hair fell over her face. ‘Are you mixed up in this?’
‘Oh, lord, no, sweetheart.’ He spoke too easily. His smile was too casual. ‘I just happened to meet Jack at the races. I had no idea he was going, of course, but I was afraid we might have been seen together. That’s why I had to watch myself. There, I’ve told you all about it, and there’s nothing more to worry about. Now let’s get some sleep. I haven’t had much these last few nights.’
Virginia’s mind was seething with questions, but she knew that it was useless to ask them. He was not going to tell her the truth. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘there’s nothing more to worry about.’ He closed his