The Angel in the Corner - Monica Dickens [125]
Virginia took the baby from him. ‘Just when we had got her quiet,’ she said. ‘I wish you wouldn’t be so rough with her.’
‘If I can’t even hold my own kid,’ Joe said, ‘I’d better go downstairs and let this pet nursemaid of yours move in up here.’
‘Don’t talk like that.’ Virginia frowned at him. Lennie was looking from one to the other, fidgeting and embarrassed.
‘You’d better go down,’ Virginia told him. ‘Thanks for helping me.’
Lennie looked at the sobbing baby, and made a little hopeless gesture towards her, as if his hands longed to hold her again. She would often stop crying for him when she would not stop for Virginia.
‘Do what you’re told,’ Joe said curtly. ‘Get downstairs and stay there. I don’t want you up here again.’
‘Yes, Mr Colonna.’ Lennie did not look at him. ‘How about the milk then, Mrs C.?’ he asked. ‘You didn’t bring it up. Shall I –’
‘Get out, I told you!’ Joe looked as though he would hit him. ‘You’re working for me, not my wife. Now get downstairs and do your work, before you find yourself out of a job.’
Lennie took one last anxious look at Virginia and the baby, and scuttled out of the room.
‘You shouldn’t be so rough with him,’ Virginia said, as they heard the irregular thump of Lennie’s feet hurrying down the steep stairs. ‘You scare him when you’re like that.’
‘I’ll do more than scare him before I’m through,’ Joe said. ‘He drives me crazy always toadying round you. I won’t have him coming up here any more – understand?’
‘You’ve said that before,’ Virginia said, rocking the baby and looking at Joe calmly over the top of the soft, wispy hair, ‘but I can’t stop him coming up here. He’s been so good to me, and he does love Jenny.’
‘Let him have a baby of his own and love that, and leave mine alone,’ Joe said.
‘Oh, he will. He’s engaged to a girl called Nancy, didn’t you know that? They’re going to be married as soon as Nancy can pluck up the courage to tell her parents. Apparently they don’t like poor Lennie.’
‘Well, neither do I. I don’t trust that little weasel. He’s the only fly in the ointment around here, as far as I’m concerned.’
‘You would never have learned to run this place without him,’ Virginia said.
‘Who says I wouldn’t? Nothing to it. I can run this pub with one hand tied behind my back. I don’t need that snivelling cripple to tell me my business. It was different for the chap before. He wasn’t married, but you and I could do this place on our own. You could do the cleaning and the glasses, and you could manage the Public all right.’
‘But I couldn’t leave Jenny for so long.’ It was the first thing that Virginia thought of, but she knew, even as she said it, that it would annoy him.
‘Always the damn baby! Who are you married to – the baby or me? Listen, if I want you downstairs, you’ll come downstairs, and if I want to get rid of young Lennie, I’ll get rid of him. I’m going to speak to the chap from the brewery next time he comes.’
‘Joe – you couldn’t do that! Why, Lennie would die if he couldn’t work here. The Olive Branch is his life.’
‘Well, keep him downstairs then, or I swear I’ll get him fired.’
‘You couldn’t be so mean.’
‘I could. You’ve no idea how mean I could be to anyone who starts messing about with my wife.’
‘Messing about – how ridiculous. As if poor Lennie would ever think of anything like that.’
‘That’s what they all say. He’s just a poor, simple boy. He wouldn’t think of anything like that. And then one day you come home, and the poor simple boy’s pants are on the floor, and the poor simple boy is in bed with –’
‘Oh, stop it,’ Virginia said wearily. The baby was quiet now, and she went to the crib and laid her down. Instantly, Jenny began to cry again. ‘Why do you have to be like this?’ she asked, with her back to him, leaning over the crib. ‘We’re so happy here, and everything has turned out so well. We’ve got our chance at last. Why do you have to spoil it by picking quarrels about nothing?’
‘God knows.’ Virginia turned, and saw that his face was not angry any more, but a little sad. ‘It