She lay down on the bed without bothering to take off her dress, swallowed the tablet, and waited for the mercy of oblivion. After a while, her head ceased to ache. She felt more peaceful, but she was nowhere near sleep. She closed her eyes, but to keep them closed was an effort, when it should have been an effort to keep them open, if the pill was doing any good. She took another – Felix had said it was all right – and when she found herself still staring miserably at the opposite wall, she reached over for another tablet, then lay back again and let her thoughts wander, hoping that they would wander her away into unconsciousness.
Her thoughts were all of Jenny. All the time, it was only Jenny – coughing so pitifully, struggling for breath with those pinched cheeks and that anguished little cry, sleeping finally in damp exhaustion, with the thin, dark hair plastered on the veined skull. The picture of the sleeping baby was so vivid that Virginia almost got up and went into the next room to look into the crib.
But the crib was not there any more. She remembered Joe carrying it down the stairs. What had they done with it? They had given it to somebody’s sister, who was going to have a baby. There was always somebody’s sister. Betty’s sister, who had left all the tins and rags and paper in the flat at Weston House. … Tiny’s sister, watching the television. … Miss Sunderland’s sister, waiting in Kensington High Street … always somebody’s sister, to take away the crib. The crib had gone. She saw in her mind the place where it had stood on the pink-and-white rug, and without it, she could not recapture the picture of the sleeping baby. Other pictures were in the way, fleeting impressions that came and went in Virginia’s heavy head, wavering, unreal, punctuated by words that were as loud as if they were shouted, yet as fantastic as if they had never been spoken.
Mrs Batey’s face, affectionate, coarse, the pores like orange-peel. ‘They go quicker than they come.’ Who had said that? Was it Joe? Joe, standing at the side of the crib in that familiar position with his hands in his pockets and his chin thrust forward. ‘They go quicker than they come,’ he said, in Mrs Batey’s voice.
Why was Joe laughing? Why was he grinning like that, with his teeth so white and his eyes so gay? He looked like a faun. Now he was gone, spinning away in her spinning head that was spinning her down, down into the bed – what bed? What room? This wasn’t Weston House. The walls receded as she fell down into the bed, through the bed into the wheeling dreams of space, while the voices beat their echoes into her ears.
The echoes of Big Ben striking New Year’s Eve … bong … bong. … ‘I’m sorry,’ Felix said, as he took his mouth from hers. No, it was the doctor. His little moustache was brown and close-clipped, like a new doormat. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to take her away.’ He was holding Jenny. He had her wrapped up so that Virginia could not see her face. ‘Let me see! Let me see!’ she called out, but she could not hear her voice. The doctor could not hear. He carried Jenny away without turning round.
The stripes on his coat met exactly in the back seam as he went away, hiding Jenny with his broad back.
Where had he taken her? Virginia struggled to remember. Joe was holding her back to keep her from following. He was pulling at her shoulders. She must go quickly before it was too late. Let me go! She broke free and sat up. No one was holding her. She was alone in the room, shivering on the bed.
She threw off the blanket and put her feet down to the floor. Her legs were as unreal as if she had been in bed for months. Her mouth was dry and her head was light and empty. She went to the door with her hands out to feel where the door was. Down the stairs carefully, holding the rail with both hands, her feet dropping from step to step without feeling where she trod.
Where was she going? Out into the street. The air was cold on her bare arms. It stung her into purpose. She was going to get Jenny, who was out here somewhere, waiting to be found.
Virginia ran down the street with her hair flying, crossed through traffic, dreamily aware that cars were close. She ran into a man, staggered, pushed him out of the way and went on. Into the High Street, turn to the left. This was the way she always took Jenny in her pram. She must have gone home without her. How careless. Jenny would be crying, waiting in her pram, and it was cold. Which shop? Which shop had she been to? They all looked familiar, but uncannily familiar, like places glimpsed once in a dream.
She hurried desperately up the High Street with the wind whipping at her dress and her hands turning to ice. People looked at her, and a woman spoke to her, but Virginia ran on, leaving them far behind.
She stopped suddenly, and let out her breath with a gasp of relief. There was the pram, just as she knew it would be, outside the post office. No time to wheel it home. Too cold. She must get home. She must get Jenny home before she coughed again. With a little crooning cry of love, she picked up the baby and hurried home with it across the road, away from the crowd, into the quiet street and quickly through her own front door. Was it the right door? Yes, here was Lennie coming into the passage in his long apron, with his eyes full of wonder and his mouth agape.
Virginia went towards the fire and sat down. The baby was asleep. She hugged it to her, her arms relieved at last of the long ache of holding nothing. She laid her cheek on the woollen shawl which covered its tiny head, and was at peace.
Lennie was standing in front of her. ‘You see?’ Virginia smiled up at him. ‘I did find her. I told you I would.’
‘Where did you get that baby?’ Lennie … Lennie? Virginia frowned at him, narrowing her eyes to try to bring him into focus. It was not like Lennie to speak so sharply.
‘Where did you get that baby?’
Why couldn’t he leave her alone? ‘In the street,’ she said vaguely. She felt suddenly too tired to talk or move any more. ‘Please go away.’ She closed her eyes. She would sit here by the fire with the baby, just holding her like this until the heavy, clouded feeling left her and it was safe to go upstairs.
‘Mrs C. – what’s the matter? You’re not well.’ Why was Lennie’s voice so high and squeaky? Virginia opened her eyes, and saw that his narrow jaw was trembling and his eyes as round as marbles. He was holding out his hands. ‘Give me the baby,’ he said, in that queer, high voice. Then he swallowed and said quietly, soothing her as if she were an idiot: ‘Please let me hold the baby. I’ll mind her for a bit. You stay there and keep quiet, while I – oh, crumbs,’ he said. ‘Oh, crumbs.’
‘I do feel very tired,’ Virginia mumbled. She put her head against the hard, high back of the seat and scarcely felt it when Lennie took the baby from her arms. ‘Look after her, won’t you, Lennie?’ Her voice was thick and clumsy. She was not even sure if she had said the words right.
‘You bet, Mrs C.’ His face blurred and wavered in front of her. Was he leaning forward to look at her, or was she peering at him? He held Jenny nicely. Cosily, like a mother. She drifted away from him into sleep.
*
Joe was shaking her. She struggled out of sleep with a splitting headache, and blinked at him, feeling the seat with the palms of her hands. What was she doing here? She sat up slowly and winced. Her back and shoulders were stiff, and one of her legs was numb. She leaned forward to rub it. ‘I must have dozed off,’ she said. ‘What time is it?’
‘Five o’clock. I’ve just got back. How long have you been here?’
‘I don’t know. I went to sleep. I’m still not awake, I think.’
Joe pulled her to her feet. She stood limply in his arms, leaning against him, savouring his strength and the familiar smell of his skin. ‘Come up to bed,’ he said. ‘You’re fagged out. Come up and I’ll put you to bed. Lennie and I can manage without you tonight’
Lennie? As Joe helped her up the stairs, she saw a picture of Lennie holding a baby, his long apron hanging down under the bundle of baby as if he were a nurse. She sat down on the bed and looked at her hands. How extraordinary that her hands could remember so clearly the soft, warm feel of wool. A woollen shawl wrapped round a baby.
She lo
oked up at Joe. ‘I had a dream,’ she said. ‘I dreamed I found Jenny. I was holding her – then Lennie was. It was quite vivid.’
‘Forget it,’ he said briefly. He laid her down on the bed, and pulled the covers over her.
‘How can I?’ She lay on her back and looked up at him. ‘I’ve had dreams like that before, but never so real. It must have been the dope. I don’t even remember going downstairs.’
‘What dope?’
‘A doctor gave me some.’
The box was on the table. Joe put it in his pocket. ‘No more of that,’ he said, ‘if you’re going to sleep-walk all over the pub. I didn’t know you’d been to see a doctor.’
‘I haven’t. It was just that – oh, never mind.’ She turned her head to one side. ‘I want to go to sleep.’
Joe stood and looked at her for a moment. ‘Lucky devil,’ he said, ‘wallowing in bed, while I have to go down and work all evening. Women have it easy all the way.’
Virginia did not answer. She was falling into sleep. She was not sure whether Joe had said that, or whether she had dreamed it, but it sounded so exactly like Joe that he must have said it.
When she went downstairs much later to find something to eat, Lennie was in the kitchen, washing glasses. He turned from the sink and wiped his bony, freckled hands on his apron.
‘Feeling better, Mrs C.?’ he asked. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’ve been asleep, that’s all. I wasn’t ill.’
‘Weren’t you?’ He stared at her. ‘Yes, you were. You were ever so queer, Mrs C. Don’t you remember?’
‘Remember what? Did something happen, Lennie?’
‘Did something happen?’ He swallowed, opened his mouth for a moment while he sought for words, and then stumblingly, apologetically, he told her what she had done.
At first she could not believe it, and then she began to remember. So it was not a dream about the woollen shawl, and holding the baby. She remembered being in the street, and being so cold. ‘Did I really do that? It’s impossible. It’s the kind of thing crazy women do – not women like me. Lennie, how could I – Lennie!’ She clutched his arm. ‘Where is the baby? What did you do with the baby? We must take it to the police. The poor mother must be frantic. My God, what will they do to me? Will they put me in gaol?’
‘Don’t worry.’ Lennie cocked his head proudly on his stringy neck. ‘You won’t go to gaol. I fixed it up. I didn’t let you down, Mrs C. I guessed what must have happened, knowing how low in your mind you were. I saw in a film once where a girl did something like that. So I took the baby round to the Catholic church, and said I’d found it in a telephone box. I gave it to one of the priests there. He knows me. I’ve passed the time of day with him on the street. You know the way they’ll talk to anybody. He took the baby quite natural, just like he was going to christen it, or something. Didn’t ask no questions. He wasn’t even surprised. They’re used to things like that, you see.’
‘Does my husband know?’
‘Not him. I wouldn’t tell him,’ Lennie said scornfully. ‘No, this is just a secret between you and me. No one will ever know.’
‘Thank you,’ Virginia said. ‘I don’t know how to thank you.’
‘Don’t mention it, Mrs C.’ Lennie picked up a glass and began to polish it, holding it up to the light to see it shine back into his proudly shining eyes. ‘You done something pretty big for me and Nancy. Now at last I’ve been able to do something for you.’
Chapter 15
Since the death of the baby, Joe was drinking more heavily. He was morose, sometimes violent, brutally passionate at times, at others ignoring Virginia, and wanting only to be left alone.
He became unpredictable with the customers. They did not like that. Some of them had never liked him particularly, but now even the ones who liked him were growing irritated by never knowing whether they were going to find him sober. A landlord who drinks and is convivial is one thing. A landlord who drinks and may gratuitously insult you or your guests is quite another.
People began to stay away from the Olive Branch. Some of the regulars were missing for days on end, and when they did come in, they would eye Joe warily to see what kind of a mood he was in. Ella did not come any more, although her husband sometimes rolled cheerily in without her. This should have been a relief to Virginia, but it was not, because she thought she knew why Ella did not come. Joe stayed out all one night, and it was after that that there was no more Ella with her curtain of blonde hair and her long, sly eyes. She had got what she wanted. There was no need to come seeking it any more.
Desolate as she was in the loss of Jenny, Virginia now had to contend with her increasing anxiety about Joe. She had no idea what to do with him. When he was drunk, she could do nothing with him. She could not reason with him and she could not control him. He either laughed at her or swore at her. His drinking pushed him away from her into a separate life, whose only contact with her was to fight her or make love to her, either of which usually ended for her in pain or humiliation.
When he was sober, she could do nothing, because she dared not jeopardize whatever was normal in their relationship by giving him the chance to quarrel. She wanted to show him what was happening to their marriage, so that between them they could stop it before it was too late. She wanted to show him that he was losing customers, and that they would lose their chances of staying at the Olive Branch if he went on like this. She knew that he was not paying for all the drinks he took. He might be clever enough with the book-keeping to disguise it for a time, but sooner or later their employers would find out, and it would be the end. But if she ever tried to tell him these things, he would leap into a quarrel, and a quarrel had only one ending for Joe nowadays, No loving reconciliations or sweet repentance; only the sour and deceitful consolation of the whisky bottle.
Virginia could only wait and hope that time would bring him back to her. Each time they quarrelled, each time he was drunk or violent, she thought that she could not endure it any more. But she had to endure it. There was nothing else to do. Whatever Joe did, whatever he was, she was committed to him, and by something more than duty. There were times when she did not know whether she loved him any more, and yet this bond that held her to him was incomprehensible if it was not love. She had to stay with him. She had to endure this bad time, because she knew that somehow, some day it would get better. It was not possible to believe that it could go on like this.
Felix came to the Olive Branch again, as she had feared that he would. Joe was in the saloon bar with Virginia, and she had to introduce Felix. Joe grunted, and considered Felix for a moment, chewing his upper lip, then moved to the end of the bar to serve some people who were waiting.
‘Your husband doesn’t seem to like me,’ Felix said mildly, with an eyebrow raised.
‘Why shouldn’t he? You’re imagining things.’ It was a busy night, and Virginia had to talk to Felix in snatches, between pouring drinks and going out to the tables to take orders. Felix was alone. He leaned in the corner between the end of the bar and the wall and watched Virginia moving among the people in the room, greeting them, exchanging a few words, playing the part of landlord’s amiable wife that she had learned and practised since she and Joe came to the Olive Branch.
‘I thought I would find you looking better,’ Felix said when she came back, ‘but you don’t. You look worse. Didn’t the pills help?’
‘I couldn’t go on taking them. They – they didn’t agree with me.’
‘I’ll give you something else.’
‘No. I’m all right.’ Virginia glanced at Joe, and saw that he was looking at them.
‘I wish there was something I could do to help, Virginia.’
She was afraid of the tenderness in his voice. She said again: ‘I’m all right,’ but she wanted to say: ‘If you want to help, please go away. Go away and leave me alone, before you start another quarrel.’
Felix asked her a question, but she could not hear it, because someone with a
louder voice spoke to her. ‘I’m sorry, Felix,’ she said, with a touch of impatience. ‘I can’t talk to you tonight. We’re very busy.’ But Felix would not go away. He waited, drinking slowly, always watching her, and sometimes watching Joe, and Virginia thought he saw how roughly Joe pushed her out of the way when she knocked his arm, reaching for the same shelf.
When all the people were gone, and Virginia was wiping down the bar, Joe folded his arms and said: ‘Well, go on. Tell me about him.’
‘Who?’
‘The natty little chap who stayed in the corner all the time and gazed at you like an idiot.’
‘Oh, Felix.’ Virginia continued to polish, although the bar was spotless. ‘He’s a doctor I used to know.’
‘The one who gave you the sleeping pills, I suppose? Very cosy. Also the one you told me about ages ago, when you were still telling me things, the one who tried to make you. He’s still at his old game, I see.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Joe. He only came tonight to see if I was all right.’
‘Why shouldn’t you be all right? What’s wrong with you?’ Joe took her hands off the bar and held her wrists, tightly.
‘You’re hurting me. He knew I wasn’t sleeping well. Don’t be so violent about Felix. He was only trying to help me.’
‘Felix – my God, what a name. You don’t need help.’ Joe dropped her wrists, pushing them away. ‘You’re just neurotic. Sleeping pills! That’s a line I haven’t met before. If he comes round here again with his sleeping pills, I swear I’ll punch him in the nose, if I don’t shoot him first. Don’t forget I’ve got my gun in that drawer.’ It’s not loaded.’
‘How do you know? How does Felix know? I’d only have to point it at him and say Bang, bang, and the little twerp would pass out cold from fright.’
Felix was ill-advised enough to come again. He came at lunch-time, harmlessly, mildly. Except for a greeting and an inquiry after her health, he did not talk to Virginia, but Joe had been drinking since eleven o’clock, and he told Felix to get out of the Olive Branch and never come back if he knew what was good for him.
The Angel in the Corner Page 31