Free The Angel in the Corner by Monica Dickens

to the flat, of the visit turning into a miracle, with her and her father on the top of the world together. When it did not turn out like that, she would find herself doing all the things which irritated him.
    Harold Martin was an irritable man, disappointed with the way his life had gone, and with himself for not managing it better. Helen knew him as opinionated and intolerant. She would not have excused that even if she had known that his quickness to find the flaws in other people arose partly from his dislike of the flaws in himself.
    He was a tall, colourless man, with hair that receded from a thinning widow’s peak, and a loose-skinned face that did not smile enough. Virginia had often wished for a cosy father, with firm cheeks and a curving watch-chain, on to whose knee she could climb at any time. She never climbed on her father’s knee, except possibly as a baby, which she could not remember. His knees were not the kind you climbed on. She doubted whether her mother had ever climbed on to them. It would have been better if she had; but if Harold’s knees were not scaleable, neither was Helen the kind of woman who climbed on knees.
    Once, when Virginia had gone to the flat by the river, dressed in her best by Helen, to show that the female side of the family was prospering, her father was not there. He had forgotten about her. He had gone out, the housekeeper said, and she had taken Virginia down into her own basement flat and given her cocoa and shortbread.
    Helen had been furious when Virginia returned home, and had sworn never to let her go again. However, a few days later there was a stilted letter from Harold, apologizing briefly, and offering to take Virginia to the zoo. Virginia did not particularly like the zoo, but she recognized the wish to make amends and went, against her mother’s advice.
    It was a scorching, airless Sunday. The paths of the zoo were so crowded with heated parents and sticky children that you could hardly get near the animals, and the queue for the rides on the exhausted elephants was so long that Harold said they could not wait. The zoo smelled abominable, and most of the animals were sulking and panting at the back of their cages, so that whatever pleasure you had hoped to take in them was turned to pity.
    ‘Aren’t you enjoying it?’ Virginia’s father had asked. She looked up at him to see what she ought to say. He was so obviously suffering himself that she was honest, and said no.
    Their mutual relief at being able to leave brought them a little closer. It was the first time that Virginia could remember them feeling the same way about anything. He bought her an ice cream on the way out, and she spoiled their slightly improved relationship by spilling the melting ice cream down her dress. Both of them, as usual, were relieved when he put her into the taxi to go home.
    The next day, Virginia had been sick with a mild form of sunstroke, and her mother had grumbled for a long time about Harold. In the next holidays, he had gone away, and by the time the holidays after that came round, it was somehow tacitly assumed that Virginia would not visit her father any more. Helen did not write to arrange a visit, and Harold did not write to ask when Virginia was coming. It was considered to be a relief to all parties, and Virginia did not see her father again.
    It was only as the years went by without a father that Virginia began to remember a few good things about him. She remembered how he had played the piano, and how, occasionally at the flat, she would sit content for the brief while he consented to play, and watch the red stone in his signet ring catching the light from the lamp, although she was not interested in the kind of music he played.
    She remembered, long after she saw him for the last time, something that she had not noticed before. Much as he disliked her mother, and she felt sure that he did, he had never once said anything derogatory about her. Virginia was accustomed