The Angel in the Corner - Monica Dickens [63]
*
When Virginia woke next morning, her first sensation was of hunger. She remembered that they had not eaten dinner. She remembered a lot of other things, and she was glad when Joe woke and turned to her and wanted her again.
She lay in bed and watched him dress. She had never felt so delightfully indolent. She could imagine that it must be gratifying to be a courtesan and lie languorously in bed every morning after your lover had left you. Joe was shaving at the washbasin in the corner. He wore only a pair of briefs, and Virginia contemplated the muscles of his back and shoulders with pleasure.
‘If only one could spend all the time in bed,’ she said lazily. ‘How easy life would be.’
‘You’re right there.’ He turned round, rubbing his face with a towel. ‘But you can’t try it today. You’ve got to get up and catch a train. We’re going back to London.’
‘What about the job?’ Virginia sat up.
Joe threw the towel on the floor, and pulled his shirt over his head. ‘No deal. Anderson doesn’t keep his promises, it seems. Of course, he said he’d remember me if anything came up, but I know just how much that means. Luckily, I’d told the Mortimers not to get rid of the room until they heard from me, so at least we’ve somewhere to go.’
‘But what will we live on? I’ve only got a little money in the bank. That wouldn’t last long, and what they pay you at the club is chicken feed. What will you –’
‘Stop fussing, Jin, for God’s sake. You’ve had a nice trip to Glasgow. What are you crabbing about? Everything will be all right. Just leave it to me. You haven’t a thing to worry about.’
When they got back to London, Virginia telephoned the airport to find out whether Helen had left on the plane for New York. She was told that Mr and Mrs Spenser Eldredge had left on flight No. 453, Pan-American Clipper for New York, on Friday morning.
She ran from the telephone box on the corner back to the basement room, where she had left Joe lying on the bed reading a newspaper. She had given him his breakfast in bed, and the dirty cup and plates were strewn beside him on the floor.
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘They’ve gone. She can’t do anything to me now.’
‘She never could have,’ he said. ‘You’re twenty-one, and you’re married to me. So what? If she doesn’t like it, she can do the other thing.’
‘But it would have been so awful. There would have been a row, and we all would have said terrible things. Or she might have been hurt and pleading, and I would have felt worse than I do already for playing her such a dirty trick.’
‘I’m the dirty trick, I suppose. Thanks.’
‘You know I didn’t mean that. But it is a dirty trick, from a mother’s point of view, to get married without her approval. I hope my daughter never does it.’
‘Oh? Are we going to have kids?’
‘I hope so. Do you mind?’
‘Don’t know,’ he said, reading the newspaper. ‘I’ll find out.’
‘Joe, I wish you wouldn’t smoke in bed. It’s dangerous. Here, let me get you an ash-tray. That’s better than flicking the ash at that plate and missing it. Shall I ever cure you of being so untidy?’
‘You’d better not try, my love.’
‘They’ll be in New York by now,’ Virginia said, moving about the room to pick up the clothes he had scattered the night before. ‘I wonder how Helen feels. After all, we did live together all those years, and I know she loves me, though she didn’t always show it. I love her too, in spite of everything. I’m sorry that I had to do this to her. I know you can’t stand her, but you can understand how I feel. Think if it was your mother.’
He lowered the paper. ‘My mother was lovely in every way,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t have done it. Wouldn’t have had to. She left me alone, and anyone that I liked, she liked too.’
‘Would she have liked me?’
‘You bet. She was a funny little woman. All eyes, you know, at the end, when she was dying, only no one knew she was dying, because she went