The Angel in the Corner - Monica Dickens [66]
*
Joe looked out of the window, and saw the taxi-driver helping Virginia to pull the suitcases on to the pavement. He ran up the steps and paid the taxi. Luckily he had some change in his pocket. It made him feel good to do that.
‘Loot,’ he said, when he carried the cases down into the room. ‘What have you got?’
‘All my clothes, and some food, and yes, there was some whisky left behind. There, in that one.’
‘Wonderful. We’ll have a celebration tonight. A sort of house warming, what do you say? I had thought of taking you out, but it would be more fun to have our party here.’
‘Oh, yes, darling.’ She came into his arms eagerly. She was splendid to kiss, so warm and full of life, and he still got that dangerous, exhilarated feeling of wanting to grab her too fiercely and hurt her.
He raised his head. ‘The old hypnotism still work?’
‘Do you think it was only that?’ She always looked worried when she spoke of that peculiar evening, as if she were trying to puzzle something out. ‘I did feel that night that you had some power over me. Was it only – this kind of power?’
‘I don’t know. I told you, I had no idea what I was doing. I only knew I wanted you terribly.’
‘Why did you let Nora stay on after I’d gone?’
‘Why look a gift horse in the mouth? The poor girl didn’t have much fun though. My heart wasn’t in it.’
‘She looked very smug next day.’
‘That was for your benefit. You’re not sore about that after all this time, are you?’
‘Perhaps I should be, but I don’t care. I don’t care about anything you’ve done, as long as it’s all in the past.’
‘It is, my love, it is.’ He hugged her, swaying from side to side. ‘I’ll never look at another woman. Do you believe that?’ He believed it himself. He could not remember ever being so happy, and he knew that she was perfectly happy too as long as he held her, and shut out the conflictions of her old life beyond the barrier of his arms.
‘What have you got in the gunnysack?’ he asked. ‘I’ll open all the tins and cook you something you never had before. Did you bring that white dress – the one with all the vital parts missing? Wear it. Wear it for me, will you? Let’s make a big night of it.’
‘Joe.’ She held back a little from him, and he saw that clear candid look in her eyes, that searching for truth that made him look away when he could not tell it to her. ‘Aren’t you going to the club tonight? Can’t you still have your job there?’
Here it came. Sooner than he had planned, and just when things were going so well. She was not so different from other women after all, with her uncanny ability to ask the awkward question at the wrong moment.
He walked away from her. ‘I’m not going back there,’ he said. ‘I chucked up that miserable job for good before we went to Glasgow.’
‘They’d take you back, though. William’s kind. He likes you too.’
‘He can find another mug to be kind to. Get this into your head. I’m not going back there. I can’t think how I stuck it so long.’
‘What will you do, then? Have you thought of something else? I hate to be sordid, but we must have some money coming in from somewhere. How are we going to live?’
‘You’ve got a job, haven’t you, on that fancy magazine? We can get by on that for a start.’ He looked at her to see how she was taking it. She was pale, but she was taking it all right. You could say that for Jin; she would never let you knock her cold.
She said quite calmly, measuring her gaze to his: ‘I haven’t got the job any more. I told them I wasn’t coming back.’
‘Go back and tell them you’ve changed your mind.’
‘I can’t. They probably wouldn’t even take me after I walked out on them like that. You don’t call up an editor one day and say: “I’m not coming in any more. I’m going