The Angel in the Corner - Monica Dickens [61]
‘This sounds interesting,’ Midge said. ‘What’s the deal, Joe?’
‘We’re going to be married.’ Joe looked round the room defiantly.
‘Well,’ said Midge, sitting down at the table with a thud and a sigh, ‘now I’ve heard everything.’
Chapter 9
Virginia spent her wedding night in the night train to Glasgow, sitting up in a carriage with five other people, dozing fitfully, with her head on Joe’s shoulder. Joe slept for long periods, peacefully, with his dark lashes fanned out, and a slight smirk in the corner of his mouth. Virginia, sitting uncomfortably awake, squashed into the corner by his limp weight, would have liked to study him while he slept; but the woman opposite was awake all the time, and never took her eyes off them. When Virginia looked at her, she would shift her gaze slightly, but as soon as Virginia looked away, or closed her eyes, she knew that the woman’s eyes were on her again.
They were hooded, censorious eyes, and the woman was solid and masterful, in a creased plastic raincoat, with a hand-bag like a small portmanteau set firmly on the middle of her lap. What did she think of Joe and Virginia? Did she guess that they were newly married from the way Virginia could not help fingering the thin platinum ring on her finger?
Why did she look so disapprovingly because they lay against one another when they slept? Did she guess that they had eloped? Half dozing into a shallow dream, interwoven with the reality of the railway carriage, like two exposures on one negative, Virginia imagined that the woman knew the whole story, and was sitting there in judgement.
The night was interminable. The dark, sleeping land outside the steamy windows would never grow light and come to life. Joe would not stay awake and talk. He only wanted to sleep. Once, when he stirred and opened his eyes, Virginia said: ‘How can you sleep like that? I wish I could.’
‘You’d better,’ he muttered. ‘This is the last good night’s sleep you’ll get for some time.’ The woman opposite cleared her throat and scraped her stoutly shod feet on the dirty carriage floor, as if she had heard and understood.
The train stopped at a station long enough for them to go out and have tea and sandwiches. Then they got back into the train and Joe went to sleep again, and it was three o’clock in the morning, the dismal slump between night and day.
What have I done? What have I done? Virginia cried to herself as the train rocketed her through the darkness. She had thrown up her mother, her job, her friends, everything she knew, to fly off on this crazy escapade with a stranger.
She must not allow herself to panic. There was nothing to panic about, she told herself, as she watched the grey veil of receding night draw gradually away before the coming dawn. This was no crazy escapade. It was a great adventure, an exciting plunge into living. Joe was not a stranger. He was her husband. They were pledged for ever, and she would not regret it. It would turn out well. Why should her luck change? Things had always turned out well for her as long as she believed that they would.
She would make a success of this, a greater success than anything she had ever hoped to achieve. Joe was clever, attractive, confident. With Virginia behind him, he would get where he ought to be. They would get away from Glasgow; but while he was working there, she would get a job on a newspaper, and they would save money together, and make a good start in London. They would have children, and she and Joe would never quarrel and make them feel in the way, as Virginia often had when she was young.
As morning came up sweetly on the sour Glasgow suburbs, she thought of her father and his wife, and wished that she could tell them she was married. Other men seemed to like Joe. Her father would like him, and be glad for her.
She thought of Helen, baffled and deceived, and felt more guilty than triumphant. Helen would have found the note long ago, yesterday evening when she came