Faith Fox

by Jane Gardam

  ‘Great Scot, anyone passing will be thinking it’s child abuse.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, nobody’s passing. Here we are. There we are. Now then, she’s taking the bottle. Look, she was ravenous again.’

  Faith’s furious rolling eyes fixed themselves on Toots as she sucked. She sucked and sucked and, as she sucked, one hand opened and closed, opened and closed, over Dolly’s finger. But she kept her gaze on Toots. When Dolly rearranged herself more comfortably in her chair, Faith still sucked and sucked, her gaze swivelling again towards the rosy Toots with his tufts of fluffy hair. The milk in the antique bottle went down and down, to the last drop, and she detached herself milkily and belched. She lay replete, still staring, staring, at Toots. She blinked.

  ‘She can’t take her eyes off you, Tom.’ Dolly was all composure, lifting the child to her shoulder, patting her back, rearranging a little blanket she’d made into a shawl. ‘There we are. Now I’ll put her down.’

  But as soon as Faith was in the cot she turned purple and began to bellow. As soon as Dolly lifted her out she stopped, and stared at Toots.

  ‘We can’t go on like this all night,’ said Dolly. ‘With my two I just put them down and let them cry and in five minutes they were asleep. Go to the phone, Toots, just see if we can get them. They’ll be frantic; they’ll be out all over the snow. They’ll be wild. That Nick!’

  But when Toots left the room Faith began to roar and he had to come back. Dolly laid Faith on the bed and went to phone them herself but there was still no reply. When she came back into the room again Toots was sitting with his chair drawn up near his bed where Faith lay, his eyes at Faith’s level, his head leaning against the quilt, and Faith had turned her face towards him. But Faith had gone to sleep.

  ‘There’ll be no bed for us, Dolly, tonight. I’ll just sit in this chair.’

  ‘Don’t be so silly. That’s bad training. You’ll go back in your bed and she in her cot.’

  Dolly looked young. She hurried about the room, reorganising small blankets. Shaking them. She picked up the tapestry eye and set it on the mantelpiece among the Christmas cards and brass candlesticks and the photograph of Andrew and Holly at their wedding, Holly looking regal in a great white hat.

  ‘It’s watching us,’ said Toots, ‘that eye, whatever it is. We’ve to keep a watch on that thing. You won’t see me sleeping tonight.’

  He did sleep at last. Faith slept, too. But Dolly sat up all night beside the cot. She set the reading lamp on the floor with a screen of books round it and moved back the electric fire into the hearth so that if she slept everything would be safe. She watched over Faith, who now slept so deep that her eyes almost disappeared, far away back in her head. She lay with a remote air, confident, proud, unconquerable. Sometimes her lips chewed, as if she dreamed of milk. Sometimes her eyes moved beneath the veined, tight lids. She lay closely wrapped, still as a small yule log inside Dolly’s old blankets, and when Dolly put a hand down inside the cot to see if she needed a hot-bottle or another cover she found her warm as an animal in straw, as fruit beneath a foreign sun.

  ‘Dolly? Hello?’

  ‘Shush. She’s just gone off again.’

  ‘We dreamed it.’

  ‘Be quiet. I’ll get you your tea.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Well, she’s here of course. Here in her bed on the floor.’

  ‘She cried all night?’

  ‘She did no such thing.’

  ‘You’re worn out?’

  ‘I am not worn out, so be quiet. A happy Christmas. I’ll pull back the curtains.’

  ‘I want to look at her again.’

  ‘All in good time.’

  ‘I couldn’t stand many nights like last night. I don’t know how we did it.’

  ‘Don’t be so soft. We were only awake an hour. She’s a wonderful baby.’

  ‘Why’s she looking at me like that?’

  ‘She’s not, she’s sleeping. Oh—yes she is, she’s awake. You’ve woken her.’

  ‘Goosie-goosie-gander.Cock-a-doodle-doo.Yacker-pusser. Tweet tweet. Here, Dolly, look at this.’

  Faith’s arrogant stare was softening. Her head was rearing up off its blanket. Her mouth was opening in the triangle again and suddenly a hoot came out from it. Then a crow. Then a crazy noise like whooping cough.

  ‘She’s laughing. I’ve made her laugh. By God, Dolly, it’s half past seven. We’ve not done badly.’

  ‘They’ll be down soon. It’ll be over soon,’ said Dolly, drinking tea.

  Faith made a noise like a new lamb, lair-lair-lair, and began to squirm about.

  ‘Just wait till I’ve finished my tea,’ Dolly said. ‘Which of them will it be, Toots? Which one will twig she mightn’t have been kidnapped? Which of them’ll think of us?’

  ‘They’ll be scouring after those foreigners. The one that comes down for her will be the one who knows. The one that understands her. The one to take her and keep her. You’ll see.’

  When the bell rang it was still dark. ‘Want to bet?’ said Toots.

  ‘Oh, I hope it isn’t Mrs. Middleditch,’ said Dolly.

  ‘No. It’ll be Thomasina.’

  And he called to her, as Dolly opened the door and he heard Holly’s mother’s voice: ‘Come on in, Apple Green. She’s all yours.’

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jane Gardam’s novels include The Flight of the Maidens, a New York Times Notable Book. She won the prestigious Whitbread Award for The Hollow Land and The Queen of the Tambourine, while God on the Rocks was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Old Filth was a finalist for the Orange Prize, The Man in the Wooden Hat was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and Last Friends was a finalist for the Folio Award. She lives in England near the sea.