The Angel in the Corner - Monica Dickens [74]
‘Oh, of course not.’ Derek stood up and came behind her, resting his soft hand lightly on her shoulder. ‘I didn’t mean anything. I just wanted you to feel that you could always tell me anything. Your mother’s gone now. I know how I would feel if I didn’t have my mother to rely on. Everyone needs somebody to talk to.’
‘I’ve got Joe to talk to, thank you.’ Virginia typed: ‘With sincere good wishes,’ which was how Jane liked to end her letters, and pulled the paper out of the machine with a snap. ‘I wish you’d stop this Derek, this – hinting that I’ve made a mistake in marrying Joe.’ She swung round to look at him. ‘I know you don’t think much of him, although you’ve hung around him for ages, but I think the world of him. I’m perfectly happy, and I intend to stay that way for the rest of my life.’
‘Of course, my dear, of course.’ Derek pushed back his sheep-dog hair. ‘I wouldn’t want anything else for you.’
‘Well, then, stop hanging about like a ghoul, waiting to see me come in with swollen eyes. Please leave me alone. Joe wouldn’t like it if I told him.’
‘There’s nothing to tell him,’ Derek said nervously. ‘I don’t know what you mean. Why should you tell Joe?’
He looked so scared that Virginia laughed and said: ‘Of course I wouldn’t. There’s nothing to tell.’ She was often tempted to laugh with Joe about Derek behaving like a sheep-dog as well as looking like one, but after she had told him about Felix, and seen his sullenly jealous reaction to the idea of a man in her past, she did not want him to start imagining about men in her present.
‘Why don’t you go home?’ she asked, starting another letter. ‘It’s late.’
‘I thought I might go part of the way home with you. It’s raining. I’ve got an umbrella.’
‘So have I.’
‘Oh, well, I just thought – if you’re ready to leave, we could go along together.’
‘I’m not finished. Don’t wait for me.’
‘I’m afraid you’re working too hard,’ he said anxiously. ‘You don’t look as well as you used to. Are you sure you feel all right?’
‘Want something, Derek?’ Jane Stuart came into the room and waved her glasses at him.
‘I just came to bring you back those beach pictures.’ He looked once more hopefully at Virginia, and seeing her put another page in the typewriter, he left the room.
Virginia waited until she thought that he had left the building. She did not want to hurt Derek’s feelings, but she did not want his company on the bus. She wanted to sit and relax, so that she would not seem tired to Joe when she got home. He did not like her to be tired. He liked her to be lively and ready for anything he wanted, whether it was a meal, or the cinema, or a tour of his favourite bars, or some childish jokes and fooling, or the passionate love-making in which she never wanted to disappoint him.
Virginia was glad to see the light in the basement window. When Joe was out, she seldom knew where he was. He rarely told her in the morning what his plans were for the day, and he would not always tell her at night where he had been.
When she went into the room, he was sitting at the table by the window with his back to her. He greeted her briefly without turning round, and said: ‘Don’t disturb me. I’m working.’
There was a new typewriter on the table, two thick packets of typing paper, an assortment of shiny note-books, and half a bottle of whisky. Virginia kissed the back of Joe’s neck, where the black hair grew out of the smooth brown skin. He quickly put his hands over the paper in the machine, and said: ‘Run away for a bit, there’s a good girl. Go and cook something. I’m starving. I’m an author.’
In the kitchen, Virginia found a steak bleeding through its wrapping paper, a camembert cheese, a pound of the best bacon, and several other items of food of the kind she could not afford to buy nowadays. She looked in the cupboard under the sink, and saw two bottles of whisky that had not been there in the morning.
She went into the other room, and waited until he paused in his erratic typing to light a cigarette and pour