Patrick was sat at the kitchen table, the now very crumpled sheets of that morning's newspaper spread out in front of him. A decanter of whiskey stood on the table beside his now empty plate, which moments before, had held a slightly burnt bacon sandwich. The blackened frying pan lay discarded, half submerged, in the sink and a smoky haze lingered throughout the house. He skimmed the day's headlines nonchalantly, and alternated between draws on the cigarette in his left hand and mouthfuls of whiskey from the glass in his right. He had had a horrendous day: a breech delivery, a multiple-casualty accident at the dockyard, and the most hectic ante-natal clinic he could remember. All he wanted was to come home, be handed his dinner, say goodnight to his children, and then fall into bed with his beautiful wife. As soon as he stepped through the door, the realisation that the evening was to be far from his dream hit him like a tonne of bricks.
"Hello Patrick!" Shelagh had said as he walked through the door, "I'm glad you're not too late, I'm just off out to meet the girls…" He had felt his face fall, "How could I have forgotten?" he thought. "…and Timothy is staying round at Jack's house, his mother said she'll take them both to school tomorrow. You'll be alright looking after her won't you? ..." she said gesticulating towards the Moses basket on the other side of the room, "…I've just given her a feed, but if she gets hungry, there's some milk in the fridge, right must dash."
And with that she kissed him on the cheek and disappeared out of the front door.
"This is all I need" Patrick thought, "a night of babysitting."
Although he loved his daughter, he was not entirely comfortable with carrying out her day-to-day care. He would help where he could, but he liked to know that Shelagh was there to take over. When Timothy was a baby, he was working such long hours that he barely saw his son awake for the first year of his life. He certainly was never alone with him long enough to have to think about feeding and changing nappies. He sighed at this thought, and then choked as he remembered the times after his wife died; the times when he was always alone with Timothy.
Sombre in his thoughts, Patrick walked across the sitting room to the Moses basket where his daughter lay, awake but quiet. He put one finger into the little girl's hand and raised a weary smile as she tightened her tiny fist around it.
"Well, Mummy has looked after you, hasn't she?" he sighed, "But it looks like Daddy has to look after himself."
And so he went to the kitchen, and realising that Shelagh had not cooked him anything, attempted to make something palatable for supper.
The bacon sandwich, although a little crispier than he intended, filled him up, but the newspaper had failed to distract him from his thoughts and three large whiskeys and half a dozen Henleys had failed to cheer him up. If anything, the tobacco and alcohol had made him feel even worse than before. He was angry: angry with the day that he'd had; at Shelagh for leaving him alone; at Mrs Rose for having a breech delivery; at Trixie for calling him; with the disregard for workers safety at the docks; at the number of women in Poplar getting pregnant.
"I mean," he blurted aloud, thumping his empty whiskey glass on the table, "why the hell do those stupid bitches want to get pregnant for anyway?"
His breath caught in his throat at the sound of the words which had just left his mouth. His bottom lip began to tremble and tears began to leak from his eyes, running slowly down his careworn, stubble covered cheeks. He put his head in his hands, and was soon shaking and weeping uncontrollably. The thought of Shelagh's reaction had she heard what he had just said terrified him. His breathing became laboured and shallow.
"What have I done? What am I doing? What's wrong with me?"
Terrible thoughts coursed through Patrick's mind, thoughts that he had suppressed for so many years. Terrible thoughts that he had hoped he would never feel angry and emotionally unstable enough to allow them to surface again. But here they were, erupting from the depths of his sub-conscious with devastating force. He needed to stop this, he needed help. He began to reach for the decanter but as his fingers neared its delicate cut glass neck, a sound from the sitting room made him stop. The baby was gurgling to herself in her Moses basket, kicking and wiggling to the extent that her tiny hands and feet were visible above the sides. A gentle warming sensation began to flicker amongst the darkness deep inside him. He knew what he needed right now.
Patrick put down his whiskey glass, dried his eyes on the back of his hand and walked over to the Moses basket. He picked his daughter up and then, kicking off his shoes, flopped down onto the sofa. Holding his daughter with one hand, he positioned a pair of cushions against the arm of the sofa with the other and rested his head on them. He stretched out so that he filled the three seats and then laid her on his chest, her head resting on his collar bone. He spread his hands across her body and kissed the top of her head, gently blowing her wispy golden hair.
"I need to tell you a story little one," he said, stroking her back, "I must apologise, it is not the nicest story in places, but I know you won't judge me. You're the only one I can tell."