The Complete Short Stories of Evelyn Waugh - Evelyn Waugh [143]
“All in good time, Jim, all in good time. Mr. Plant here would like one of your specials first just to give him an appetite, and I think rather than see an old pal drink alone, I’ll join him.”
Later, when we were very drunk, steaks appeared which neither of us remembered ordering. We ate them at the bar with, at Jim’s advice, great quantities of Worcester sauce. Our conversation, I think, was mainly about Appleby and the need of finding him. We rang up one or two people of that name, whom we found in the telephone book, but they disclaimed all knowledge of Jesuit treasure.
It must have been four o’clock in the afternoon when we left the Wimpole. Atwater was more drunk than I. Next day I remembered most of our conversation verbatim. In the mews I asked him: “Where are you living?”
“Digs. Awful hole. But it’s all right now I’ve got money—I can sleep on the embankment. Police won’t let you sleep on the embankment unless you’ve got money. Vagrancy. One law for the rich, one for the poor. Iniquitous system.”
“Why don’t you come and live with me. I’ve got a house in the country, plenty of room. Stay as long as you like. Die there.”
“Thanks, I will. Must go to the embankment first and pack.”
And we separated, for the time, he sauntering unsteadily along Wimpole Street, past the rows of brass plates, I driving in a taxi to my rooms in Ebury Street where I undressed, folded my clothes and went quietly to bed. I awoke, in the dark, hours later, in confusion as to where I was and how I had got there.
The telephone was ringing next door in my sitting room. It was Roger. He said that Lucy had had a son two hours ago; he had been ringing up relatives ever since; she was perfectly well; the first thing she had asked for when she came round from the chloroform was a cigarette. “I feel like going out and getting drunk,” said Roger. “Don’t you?”
“No,” I said. “No, I’m afraid not,” and returned to bed.
IV
When I got drunk I could sleep it off and wake in tolerable health; Roger could not; in the past we had often discussed this alcoholic insomnia of his and found no remedy for it except temperance; after telephoning to me he had gone out with Basil; he looked a wreck next morning.
“It’s extraordinary,” he said. “I’ve got absolutely no feeling about this baby at all. I kept telling myself all these last months that when I actually saw it, all manner of deep-rooted, atavistic emotions would come surging up. I was all set for a deep spiritual experience. They brought the thing in and showed it to me, I looked at it and waited—and nothing at all happened. It was just like the first time one takes hashish—or being ‘confirmed’ at school.”
“I knew a man who had five children,” I said. “He felt just as you do until the fifth. Then he was suddenly overcome with love; he bought a thermometer and kept taking its temperature when the nurse was out of the room. I daresay it’s a habit, like hashish.”
“I don’t feel as if I had anything to do with it. It’s as though they showed me Lucy’s appendix or a tooth they’d pulled out of her.”
“What’s it like? I mean, it isn’t a freak or anything?”
“No, I’ve been into that; two arms, two legs, one head, white—just a baby. Of course, you can’t tell for some time if it’s sane or not. I believe the first sign is that it can’t take hold of things with its hands. Did you know that Lucy’s grandmother was shut up?”
“I had no idea.”
“Yes. Lucy never saw her, of course. It’s why she’s anxious about Julia.”
“Is she anxious about Julia?”
“Who wouldn’t be?”
“How soon can you tell if they’re blind?”
“Not for weeks, I believe. I asked Sister Kemp. She said, ‘The very idea,’ and whisked the baby off as if I wanted to injure it, poor little brute. D’you know what Lucy calls Sister Kemp now?—Kempy.”
“It’s not possible.”
It was true. I went in to see her for five minutes and twice during that time she said “Kempy.” When we were alone for a minute I asked her why. “She asked me to,” said Lucy, “and she’s really very sweet.