The Angel in the Corner - Monica Dickens [15]
‘Has she gone?’ The blankets heaved again, and the voice was clearer, as if Doris Miller had sat up in the bed.
‘Please let me talk to you just for a moment.’ Virginia took a step forward into the room. She could not step farther without treading on Mr Porritt’s stockinged feet. ‘I want to write something that will be good publicity for you. You can see it before it’s printed, if you like.’
‘Get the hell out of here!’ Miss Miller cried. ‘How dare you come here bothering me, making fun of me. Don’t think I don’t know your kind. The press. I’ve had some. All they want to do is tear your guts out.’
‘No, honestly, I –’
‘Go away, or I’ll call the police.’
‘Go away or we’ll call the police,’ George said half-heartedly.
‘Don’t just stand there, George. Go and call them! No, wait a minute – what did she say the paper was? The Northgate Gazette. Go downstairs and ring up the editor and tell him what I think of him for sending this woman here to meddle in my business. She’s trying to make trouble for me, but I’ll make worse trouble for her.’
‘You can’t afford, you know,’ Virginia said, trying to keep calm, ‘not to work with the press. Every actress needs publicity.’
‘I’ll get all the publicity I want my own way,’ Miss Miller retorted, ‘and that won’t be from some twopenny-halfpenny scandal sheet in the back end of nowhere. George, get down to that telephone and lay it on hot. And you get going, or I’ll get up and kick you down the stairs myself.’
‘Get going,’ George said, looking at Virginia sadly, ‘or she’ll kick you down the stairs.’
Virginia backed on to the landing, and lowered her voice. ‘You won’t really telephone the editor?’
‘I’ll have to,’ George said. ‘You heard what she said. Just got to get my shoes.’ Virginia went dejectedly down the stairs. In the hall, she saw the telephone hanging on the wall, with a box for money below it. She thought of cutting the wires, but what good would that do? She could not cut the wires of all the telephone boxes in Paddington.
*
When Virginia went into the reporters’ room, Reggie was alone, looking very pleased with himself.
‘In there.’ He poked his thick thumb towards the dog-kennel. ‘The old man’s waiting to see you.’
‘A big help you turned out to be.’ The editor sat leaning back with his hands on the edge of the desk, his pill boxes and medicine bottles ranged before him like boy scouts. ‘I’ve had Doris Miller’s husband on my tail, and the theatre too. It seems you were very rude and insulting. Quite a credit to the Gazette.’
‘But I wasn’t! I swear it.’
‘You must have been, or she would have talked to you. You must have been damned rude for an actress to kick you out. I’ve never known one yet who didn’t crave to see her name in print.’
‘You don’t understand,’ Virginia said. ‘She thinks it’s a terrible come-down to have to do pantomime at the Hurleigh Empire. She’s afraid that if we do a story on it, one of the dailies will pick it up and make fun of her. She thinks it will spoil her chances of a come-back. Poor old soul, you can’t help feeling sorry for her, in a way.’
‘Better start feeling sorry for yourself,’ the editor said sourly. ‘And for me. You may not think the story was worth much. She’s a has-been, I know, but she’s the nearest approach to a star we ever get in this backwater. Of course we should write her up. You’ve made a mess of it, and made me look a fool, and more of a fool for giving you the chance. I tell you, if old man Deems wants to send any more of his half-wits round here, I’ll tell him where he can put them. I’ve tried to make this rag into a decent newspaper, and I can’t have the people who represent it going about insulting everybody right and left.’
‘You won’t believe that I didn’t, will you?’
He shook his head. ‘The subject is closed. I’m through with you.’
‘Can’t I even stay till the end of the week?’
He rocked the front legs of his chair down to the floor. ‘How can I let you, you idiot, with that big oaf in there crowing his head off at me for taking the wrong