The Angel in the Corner - Monica Dickens [136]
She looked 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