The Angel in the Corner - Monica Dickens [131]
‘Oh –’ Ella nodded seriously, although you could never tell whether she was serious, or laughing at you. ‘Big he-man stuff. I see.’ She continued to gaze at him reflectively while he poured her a drink, and poured one for himself at her suggestion.
That drink had been the last of several he had had in the bar that evening. The sensation was wearing off. It was necessary to recapture it by going down to the bar and taking up where he had left off. He looked at the baby again. She seemed to be all right. He put his hand into the crib, and the tiny clammy hand closed weakly round his finger.
His Jenny. What was it Virginia had said? They sometimes go quicker than they come. Joe picked up the child with the blanket wrapped round her and carried her downstairs. In the saloon bar, he put two cushions on the high-backed settee by the fire, prodded and fed the fire into a blaze, and sat down at the other side of the fireplace with a bottle of whisky to muse and drink and watch over his tiny daughter. Jenny woke once and cried a little, and coughed feebly, as if her chest muscles were too tired to cough properly. Joe took a drop of whisky on his finger and put it in her mouth. She sucked, swallowed, opening her eyes in surprise, then moved her lips in and out like a querulous old woman, and fell asleep again.
The wooden pendulum clock on the wall behind the bar struck the half hour, and Joe tipped the end of the bottle into his glass, drank it, and stood up. He had not realized how late it was. He must get the baby upstairs before Virginia came back. She would find him dozing in a chair in the baby’s room. When she kissed him, as she always did when she left home or came back, she would know that he had been drinking – but so what? Jenny would be safely asleep in her crib, and if a man could not have a drink in his own home, things were, as Ella had implied, coming to a pretty pass.
He picked up the baby bundled in the blanket, and hurried to the door. How light and helpless she felt, sleeping like that in his arms. Perhaps there was something to be said for tiny babies after all. Like puppies, they were so hopelessly dependent that they made you feel – what was it he felt for Jenny? Could you love a creature like this who could not love you back? As he started up the stairs, he glanced down at the crumpled face, missed his step, stumbled, clutched at the stair-rail, and felt the baby slip from his arms.
Like a doll, she fell to the bottom step, rolled to the floor and lay in a bundle on the stone flags.
Cold with panic, Joe picked her up and looked at her. She did not look any different. Her eyes were still closed, and she was not crying. How much could a baby take, for God’s sake?
Not that much. Not being dropped down a staircase on to a stone floor. When Virginia came home and ran to the crib, the baby was dead.
Chapter 14
‘I Haven’t been here for months,’ the man in the dark grey overcoat was saying as he came into the bar. ‘There used to be an amusing chap who ran it, but he died. Now, I believe – Virginia!’
Virginia turned round with a bottle of brandy in her hand, and saw Felix standing with another man on the other side of the bar. Felix looked as if he had been hit in the stomach. It took a moment before he could recover enough to say: ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I work here.’ Virginia was surprised to see Felix, but she did not know whether she was pleased to see him or not. The last few weeks had exhausted all emotion. Tired and inert, half stupefied sometimes from lack of sleep, she was not capable of finding pleasure or displeasure in anything. ‘What can I get you to drink?’ she asked.
‘Never mind that for a moment. Tell me – oh, excuse me, Chris. You want a sherry, don’t you?’
While Virginia poured it, Felix introduced the other man, who was tubby and polished, with clean hands and a good haircut, like Felix. ‘Not Miss Martin,’ Virginia said. ‘Mrs Colonna. My husband and I run this place. Joe is in the other bar tonight. You must meet him, Felix.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Felix said quickly, sounding too eager