The Angel in the Corner - Monica Dickens [17]
‘That’s the sort of facile thing everyone says who can’t be bothered to go to church,’ Virginia said. ‘You didn’t bother to bring me up to believe in religion, and now I haven’t got any. I don’t know anything about it, and I don’t know where to start. I just know the things that Tiny told me, about angels, and Now I lay me down to sleep. They’re childish, but at least she made me believe in them.’
‘There is no need to get bitter with me,’ Helen said, ‘just because you’re disappointed with yourself today. You’re not often disappointed, I must say, but you’ve found out now what it is to fail at something, and I have no doubt the experience will be a salutary lesson for you.’
‘Please don’t preach at me,’ Virginia said. ‘I came home to get some help.’
‘No, you didn’t, because you didn’t think I would be here, you came to get a sandwich,’ Helen said triumphantly. She went back to her desk, lifted and shook her hand to run the bracelets up her arm, and began to write again.
‘I’m going down to the college,’ Virginia said. ‘Don’t wait supper for me. Or are you going out?’
‘Yes, I’m going out,’ Helen said without looking round. ‘And don’t ask me with whom, because I shan’t tell you. I have a new boy-friend.’
Could it be Felix? Oh, the rat. But presumably it could be. He might have decided that there were choicer pickings to be had from ripe fruit. The back of Helen’s head, and the clipped nape of her neck looked very smug.
It was the last evening class of the course. Virginia did not have to attend it, and the Latimer College seemed trivial and useless now that she had been in and out of a newspaper job; but some mulish element in her dejection forced her to make the worst of a bad day.
Before the class was over, she was disconcerted to find that the heaviness on her chest was moving into her throat, up through her face, and trying to squeeze itself out of her eyes in tears. She stared at Miss Thompson, and Miss Thompson wavered and blurred. Virginia hardly ever cried. She had found that by straining her eyes wide open and thinking of something else, she could usually avoid it. It did not work now. A tear spilled out of her eye, and slid down her cheek. She turned her face quickly away from Mr Benberg, sought for a handkerchief, found none, and had to use the back of her hand.
After the class was over, the students said farewell to Miss Thompson and to each other, with the illusory regret of people who have been brought together by chance, and are not likely to see each other again. As Virginia walked despondently along the dark passage that led to the basement stairs, there was a touch on her sleeve. It was Mr Benberg, in a bright bue belted overcoat, multi-coloured woollen gloves, and a limp-brimmed hat turned down all the way round.
Forgive me,’ he said. ‘We’ve said good-bye, I know, and you’re anxious to be away, but I had to say – well – you were crying in there.’
‘No. Yes, I was.’ She hoped that his kindly look would not make her cry again.
‘What’s wrong?.’ He matched his step to hers as they went down the long passage, which smelled of unwashed floor and wet raincoats.
‘Everything. I did everything wrong today, and they threw me out of the newspaper office.’
She thought that he would tell her that there were other fish in the sea, but he seemed to understand. ‘Going back to your mother?’ he asked.
‘No, she’s out.’
‘People shouldn’t be alone when they feel low. Don’t go home. Come back with me, do please, and have something to eat, and meet my wife. I’ve told her so much about you.’
‘That’s very kind of you, but I –’ Virginia began. Then she changed her mind. Her own company was dreary at the moment. The company of Mr and Mrs Benberg was not likely to be stimulating, but perhaps it was better than being alone.
*
Mrs Benberg had a steak and kidney pudding waiting in its steaming cloth, and there