The Angel in the Corner - Monica Dickens [115]
A pounding on the door saved Virginia from answering. Mrs Batey, with one of Edgar’s old shirts tied round her waist by the sleeves to make an apron, had brought a plate of gingerbread.
‘I was making a batch, dear,’ she said, ‘so I made extra for you. I know you need it. It’s the sweetness, see. Enriches the blood. Oh, excuse me.’ She came right into the room and confronted Helen. ‘I didn’t know you had company.’
‘This is my mother,’ Virginia said. ‘She’s just come over from America. Helen, this is Mrs Batey.’
‘Your mum!’ Mrs Batey wiped her hand on Edgar’s shirt and seized Helen’s hand, which was still gloved. ‘Well, this is a treat, I must say.’ She stood flushed and beaming, taking in every detail of Helen’s clothes and jewellery, for retailing to the rest of the women in the flats.
Helen glanced nervously at her glove. ‘I’m glad to know you, Mrs Batey,’ she said, too condescendingly. ‘My daughter has told me in her letters that you have been kind to her.’
‘Well, of course.’ Mrs Batey squirmed with pleasure, and pushed back her disordered hair. ‘I’ve done what I can. I always believe in helping the young ones when they’re starting out. And as I say, we’re all in this world to help each other. Virginia is a lovely girl, Mrs – er, and since she didn’t have a mother’s care, I’ve treated her like my own, and glad to do it. Especially now that she’s carrying. I’ll be here to help her when her time comes. Don’t worry about that.’
‘Thank you,’ Helen said, ‘but Virginia is coming away with me. She won’t be here more than a few days at the most.’
‘Yes, I will –’ Virginia began, but Helen silenced her with a look, and Virginia realized that they could not have an argument in front of Mrs Batey.
Mrs Batey’s shining face had fallen. She looked from one to the other in undisguised disappointment. ‘Well, that is bad news,’ she said. ‘There’s many here that will be sorry to see her go, but I dare say it’s all for the best for her to have everything nice, and what she should have. Not that there’s anything wrong with these flats, mind, but this would be a pokey place to start a family. Of course, I have a much larger place,’ she said grandly. ‘One of the better flats.’
‘Mum!’ screamed a voice outside the door. ‘Baby’s done a puddle again.’
‘Oh dear, I’ll have to go,’ Mrs Batey said equably. ‘No peace for the wicked, they say. Bring the plate back any time, love, and good-bye, Mrs – er. Step across the way any time you feel like it.’ Mrs Batey opened the door, and shooed away the dirty child who tried to peer round her legs to look at Helen.
‘Who,’ Helen said faintly, ‘who was that woman?’
‘I told you. Mrs Batey. She’s my friend. She’s been nicer to me than any friend I ever had, so don’t be witty about her, please.’
‘Oh, my God,’ Helen said. ‘I didn’t know you’d become a Socialist, on top of everything else. Don’t be bitter with me, honey.’ She did not call Virginia ‘Dear Heart’ any more. That was too English. ‘You’re a little warped, I expect, because of your condition.’
‘Don’t drag that in,’ Virginia said. ‘It makes no difference to the way I feel. As soon as you get pregnant, everyone starts to make that an excuse for everything you do. Why should they? It doesn’t make you a different person, just because you are temporarily two people.’
‘You haven’t changed,’ Helen said. ‘You look ghastly – ten years older, but that’s beside the point. You haven’t changed. Right now I’m going to take you back to the Savoy and feed you two people the biggest dinner you have probably had since I went away. Some sort of cream soup, I think. Steak, very rare, then perhaps a crème aux marrons, if they still do that well. What do you say?’
Virginia could feel the juices beginning to flow in her mouth. The thought of sitting down in the comfort of the Savoy Grill and eating that food made her almost faint with desire.
‘Change into something you can be seen in,’ Helen