The Angel in the Corner - Monica Dickens [87]
‘Shut up,’ Joe said, and she jerked up her hands as he took a step towards her. ‘Shut up talking like that. We’re married. We’ll get out all right, the sooner the better. You can keep your stinking basement.’
Mollie slammed the door in his face. Joe turned back into the room as Virginia got to her feet, pulling herself up by the arm of a chair. What would he say to her? What would she say to him? What did a woman say after you had knocked her down?
Virginia pushed back her hair. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Thanks for not letting her see me on the floor. That would have been too much of a triumph for her.’
‘Go on,’ Joe said. ‘Say it. Say what you think of me, and let’s get it over. I knocked you down. What are you going to say about that?’
‘I don’t know.’ Virginia rubbed the side of her mouth thoughtfully. ‘I never was knocked down before. I don’t know what to say, except don’t do it again.’ She looked at him candidly. ‘It hurts.’
Joe went to the bed and flung himself on it face downwards. That was the worst of getting drunk. One minute you wanted to hit out. The next minute you wanted to cry.
*
When Virginia got out of bed the next morning, Joe woke up, groaned, begged feebly for water, and rolled over on his side again. Virginia dressed, and made the best she could of her face, although the swollen side of her mouth and the small slit in her lip could not be disguised. She wondered if the girls would believe that she had run into a gate-post in the dark.
As she went to the door, Joe turned over and sat up, feeling the sides of his head. His hair was on end and his chin was black with stubble, but the brown skin was stretched so firmly over the prominent bones of his face that a hangover did not make him bloated and puffy. He looked rather appealingly gaunt and deep-eyed, like a starving Mediterranean poet.
‘Where are you going?’ he asked.
‘To work, of course.’
‘I told you you weren’t going back there.’
‘That was last night. You didn’t mean it. Look, I must go. I’m late already. I didn’t think you would want breakfast.’
‘God forbid.’ He made a face. ‘All right, you’ll have to go there, I suppose, to give in your notice, and work out whatever time you owe them. But that’s all. You’re through with it, understand? You’re through as a career girl. You can get down to being Mrs Joe Colonna.’
‘That’s fine,’ Virginia said. ‘And what will Mr and Mrs Colonna live on?’
‘Don’t worry. I’ve something in mind. Don’t think I have to be kept by you. What do you think I am – a pimp?’
‘It isn’t a question of keeping you. Whether you get a job or not – Joe, I can’t give up mine now! I’m beginning to get somewhere. It’s what I’ve worked for, done my training for. If I stay on and get some more experience, I’ll be able to get something better on a newspaper, or another magazine. It’s what I want. You can’t stop me doing it because of some stupid jealousy about Derek.’
‘It isn’t only Derek.’ He was sitting hunched in the bed, with his arms round his knees. ‘Though I hate his guts. I hate the whole set-up. I don’t like you being a journalist. You’re too damn independent. They call you Miss Martin. I know they do. I don’t like that.’
‘But don’t you see it’s best for both of us that I should get ahead?’
‘If anyone gets ahead in this family, it’s going to be me.’
‘Why not both of us? Why not me too?’
‘Don’t ask me why. It’s just the way I feel. Of course, if you don’t care about how I feel, go ahead and live your own life. Plenty of marriages have been successfully broken up that way.’
‘Don’t talk like that. It doesn’t make any difference to our marriage. If you would only be sensible –’ Virginia was going to argue, but then she