The Angel in the Corner - Monica Dickens [27]
‘I saw your picture in the Tatler, not long ago, when you were at a dance. It was just like you. I see that now. I kept the picture. I have it upstairs, but I didn’t show it to Harold. Perhaps I should, but I thought it was better for him not to know what you looked like than to know that you were beautiful, and he couldn’t see you. Have you come to see him?’ Her face grew flushed again with eagerness.
Virginia shook her head. ‘I came to see you. I saw you in the street one night with him, and I wanted to see you again. I think I ought to go,’ she added uncertainly. ‘I don’t think my mother would like me to be here.’ She did not normally care what Helen liked or did not like, but she had made a pact with her and she could not go over to the other camp.
Mrs Martin seemed to understand. ‘I wish Harold could see you,’ she said, ‘but if your mother wants it this way, that’s her business. Perhaps she’s right. I don’t know. The whole thing is such a pity. I shan’t tell him you came, if that’s what is worrying you. Perhaps you could come again, Virginia, if you ever want to. I’m always here. I don’t go out much.’ Her hand touched her discoloured cheek, and she smiled.
When Virginia was leaving, Mrs Martin said: ‘I wish you had come in the afternoon. You could have seen Andrew when he got back from school.’
‘Your son?’
‘Yes. Perhaps when he is older, you two will meet. And the other one too.’ She glanced down at her smock. ‘People think I’m very old to be having a baby, but I’m not really. I’m only thirty-eight. I look older, you see, because of this.’ She touched her face again. ‘I always looked quite old, even when I was young. Funny, to think I tried to commit suicide once. Now I don’t mind about it at all. There are so many other things.’
When she went to the house, Virginia had thought that if she could discover a hint that her father was happy, she would not be troubled by the thought of his existence. Now that she felt sure he was happy, she found that she wanted more than ever to see him again. She walked down the hill away from the house as if she were walking away from home. But as long as she lived with her mother, she could not go back. She could not do that to Helen.
Chapter 5
One evening, when Helen was out at a cocktail party, Felix came up to the flat. Virginia sat down contentedly with Felix, secure in the knowledge that her mother could not join them. She still did not know whether he had taken her mother out on the night when she went to the Benbergs. Helen had not chosen to tell her, and Virginia had not chosen to ask.
Virginia did not know whether Felix had come to see her or her mother. He seemed a little nervous, rubbing his small, clean hands, and glancing round the room, as if he might be wondering where Helen was.
‘I’m afraid I’ve stayed away too long,’ he said in his soothing bedside voice, ‘but I’ve been frightfully busy. Caesarians at the hospital – emergencies mostly – and half the women in London decided to have babies this week.’ He leaned back and closed his eyes for a moment. Virginia saw that he looked tired.
‘I hope you don’t mind my coming,’ he said, ‘but Robert and I get on each other’s nerves at times, even when he’s not working, and I felt the need for a little feminine stimulation.’
‘Haven’t you got a girl friend?’ He seemed less nervous now that he had started on a scotch and soda. Virginia felt that she could ask him that.
‘Not at the moment. I was engaged once – not long ago, as a matter of fact – but it didn’t work out.’
‘Why not?’ Virginia asked with a slight sigh. Here we go again. He wants to talk about his love troubles. Why do they always think the next girl will be interested?
‘It sounds absurd,’ Felix said, ‘but do you know what it was she finally couldn’t bear any longer about me? She didn’t like my being a gynaecologist.’
‘I can understand that in a way. After all, your patients are women. She might have been jealous.’
‘It wasn’t that. She was too conceited to be jealous of anyone else. It was – oh, well, skip it. It was just a neurosis.