The Angel in the Corner - Monica Dickens [52]
‘But I did. I’ve told you a thousand times. You don’t understand. You’ll never understand about the dream. I don’t understand it any more myself. It seems so far away. I begin to wonder if I ever saw – what I thought I saw.’
‘Lots of people wonder that, after they’ve seen mice running up the walls. You were tight, my love.’ It was only occasionally, when he said words like ‘tight’ that his accent was just perceptibly wrong. Virginia did not mind that. She liked the way he talked, unselfconsciously, without precision. ‘Here,’ he said, handing her the glass. ‘Take this to that chap in the corner, and see that he pays for it. His credit’s poor.’
‘Not that I wasn’t quite pleased,’ he said when she returned, ‘that you had thought of an excuse to come back. Of course I didn’t know you were going to behave the way you did.’
‘I didn’t know you were going to kiss me.’
‘What did you think I would do? How odd you are, Jin. You’re worlds apart from me. The only sensible thing about you is that you know it. Don’t think I don’t know why you’ve never taken me home since your mother came back. Here, let’s have a drink. We’ll have one on the house.’
‘No, you won’t.’ Mary came up to the bar, with his quill pen sticking out behind his ear like a plumage of a bedraggled hen. ‘You’ll pay for it, even if the experience is a novelty.’
‘I can’t. I haven’t any money.’
‘I’ll pay,’ Virginia said quickly, opening her bag. ‘How much is it?’ she asked Joe, embarrassed because Mary was looking on.
‘Six bob,’ Joe said, not in the least embarrassed. He swept the money into his palm and dropped it into the cash drawer. He raised his glass. ‘Your mother,’ he said. ‘Here’s to her. Not that I want to meet the old girl,’ he added, mixing a drink for Mary.
‘Perhaps she doesn’t want to meet you, dear,’ Mary said, entering cheerfully into the discussion. ‘Miss Jinny may be smarter than we know. If I were a girl, which rumour has it that I am, I would think twice before I took a lusty boy like you to meet my mother.’ He put on his debauched face.
‘Don’t try to seduce me, you dirty old man,’ Joe said. ‘I’m not a customer.’
‘I’m sorry. I forgot.’ Mary took his drink and wandered over to the piano, where he began to pick out a tune with one finger.
‘You … do … something to me,’ Virginia sang. ‘That’s the tune you tried to make Nora sing. Remember?’
‘The silly little bitch didn’t know it. I’d been humming it all day, and then you came. Queer that.’ He listened to the piano for a moment, and then said: ‘Oh, hell, don’t let’s get sentimental. I can’t stand that. Look Jin, you’ll have to go. I don’t want you around tonight. I’ve got a couple of men coming in to see me on business.’
‘What kind of business?’
‘Nothing to do with you. There might be a little money in it though. If there is, I’ll take you out one day soon. Dinner, if you like. Anywhere you want to go. That satisfy you? All right, be a good girl and run along. I’m going to be busy.’
*
That was just the way he was nowadays. He could not understand himself. He had never known a girl like Virginia. She was no use to him, or he to her, and yet he could not shake free of her. Every time he tried to push her off, he found himself offering her something nice, so that she would not be disgusted with him.
Well, she was going away soon, and he would be free again. Damn it, but he was going to miss her. She had no right to make him miss her.
After he had haggled with the two men in the back room over a little deal that involved persuading a disqualified doctor to report knife wounds as dog bites, Joe drank quite a lot that evening. Some of the drinks were paid for by club members. Some he took for himself. He did not care whether William and Mary liked it or not. He would not be here much longer. As soon as Virginia had gone, he was going up to Glasgow to see a man about a job at a greyhound track. Why wait until she had gone? The greyhounds lured him, and Glasgow was a tough, exciting place to be. Better than fiddling away his time here playing flunkey to a lot of highbrows and pansies.