The Angel in the Corner - Monica Dickens [3]
The man had looked about thirty-five. Refreshing after the coltish boys at the college. Life was full of the excitement of brief contacts. Always something new. Virginia walked down to Oxford Street to catch her bus. The tall houses, cramped yet dignified, like duchesses in an Ascot crowd, were dark and abandoned, for most of them were offices. Although it was early, there were few people about, and those who were in the street hurried along it to get out of the cold. At the corner of Oxford Street, the man selling newspapers wore a Russian cap with fur ear-pieces, given to him by an American soldier, but his coat was threadbare, and his mittens had more than finger-holes in them.
The light and bustle of the Tottenham Court Road were stimulating after the dark reaches of Bloomsbury. The people here were mostly out for the evening, not just hurrying home. Coloured men in dashing hats walked with white girls unhurriedly, as if they were parading, not going anywhere in particular. Outside the cinema, a small crowd was marshalled into line, as meek and chilly as if they were waiting for bread. Virginia felt fleetingly sorry for them, reminded herself that they were not forced to go to the cinema, and ran across the road just in time to jump on her bus as it moved forward with the change of lights.
Virginia was taking the extra evening classes at the college because she wanted to complete the course as quickly as possible. She was almost certain that she could get on to the women’s magazine of which her mother was the editor. Her mother did not know about this yet. When Virginia had started to study journalism, Helen had said: ‘Don’t expect me to get you an easy job in the office. For your own good, and of what else must I think, you’ll have to find work for yourself, the way I did. In any case, I don’t approve of parents and children in the same organization.’
Virginia had replied that she would not dream of asking her mother for any favours; but she did not add that the managing editor, who liked her better than he liked her mother, had half promised to find her an opening when she was ready.
The Earl’s Court Road looked as uninviting as it has always done, and as it presumably always will, a depressing thoroughfare of fairly respectable poverty, down which the buses hurry, as if anxious to reach the more adventurous air of the river. The college was three terrace houses turned into one building, with the same peeling paint and smutted ledges as its neighbours.
In the basement where the evening classes were held, Virginia kept her coat on, for it was cold. She sat next to Mr Benberg, one of the older students, who wore a raincoat with the collar turned up. He had a long, grey face with weak eyes, and a recurring downward twitch to one side of his mouth, which interrupted any lifting of his expression and brought it back to bondage.
Mr Benberg worked during the day in an insurance office. He had no intention of trying to change it for a newspaper office, but he came down the Earl’s Court Road each night in pursuit of a secret dream of being the greatest writer in the world. He was not very good at the work. His efforts and failures to please Miss Thompson were tragic, although neither he nor she saw the tragedy.
Miss Thompson, with her acid jokes and her hair which looked like the dying foliage of an autumn plant, was talking tonight about newspaper make-up, and criticizing, as despairingly as any school-teacher, the homework of her grown-up class.
‘It is quite clear,’ she said, coming round from behind the high desk, which was a mistake, since her figure was better above the waist than below it, ‘it is quite clear that none of you, at this moment, is ready to make up the front page of a national daily.’
Her voice spelled sinus trouble. She finished her sentence with a high little hum at the back of her nose, and looked round for laughs. She got only one,