We All Fall Down

by Peter Barry

  ‘I always find the good restaurants here are less formal than their counterparts in London.’

  She grinned at his gauche pomposity, and sat down. ‘I’m sure you’re right, Mr. Drysdale. Informality’s good, anyway. All for it. Means I can behave abominably.’

  He seized the seconds of silence that followed these opening remarks, savouring a second opportunity to convey his feelings of undying, possibly tragic, passion. He sat, arms folded, leaning forward, staring at her, almost too blatantly, almost rudely, the corners of his mouth stretched tight. We were lying in bed together a few weeks ago, he thought. We were naked. We made love, Penny. You can’t ignore these things. We have to talk about them. But she wouldn’t have bar of the messages being conveyed telepathically across the white tablecloth. ‘Guess who I received an email from this morning?’ she asked.

  ‘I have no idea.’ He didn’t wish to participate in such blatant diversions.

  ‘Wendy.’

  He frowned, then shrugged.

  ‘Wendy Hammond!’

  Appreciating, finally, that his lunch companion was intent on steering their conversation away from the events that occurred after Fiona’s funeral, he decided to surrender to the present, to make an effort to be polite and appear interested, no matter what subject she wished to talk about. ‘What’s she doing now?’ And so, in between ordering their food and wine, they discussed their colleagues in the UK, what was happening over there, as well as stories from their shared past. Hugh had lost touch with almost everyone he’d worked with in London, but was quickly caught up in all the gossip. Penny knew it all.

  When the waiter was pouring the wine, Penny asked him for a bottle of Highland Stream. It turned out he had almost every brand on the market except that one.

  ‘You don’t stock Highland Stream? How can you stand there and admit that? You’re not even embarrassed.’ She was staring up at him, smiling, pretending to find his confession hard to believe.

  The waiter, clutching the menus to his stomach, head pivoting in every direction, and looking very like someone on stage about to audition for a part, said, ‘I’m shamefaced, madam. It’s a dreadful state of affairs. Personally, I’ve never heard of Highland Stream, and I’m mortified by my ignorance. How can I endeavour to put things right for you?’ He closed his eyes and allowed his head to fall forward at the end of this little speech – perhaps in the hope of being rewarded with a round of applause.

  ‘To start with, you could order some in. It’s the best spring water on the market.’

  ‘And you wouldn’t have something to do with this company, by any chance, madam?’ He smiled slyly.

  She laughed. ‘Now whatever made you think that?’ After giving the waiter her card, along with instructions on how to order Highland Stream, she told him she’d make do with a glass of tap water. ‘I couldn’t possibly drink any of the others.’ He went away, grinning broadly, a new lightness in his step.

  Penny leant forward across the table, head raised, looking into his eyes. ‘You have no idea, absolutely no idea …’

  For the briefest of moments he thought she was about to talk about them, about how she was feeling, and to ask if he felt the same way. He wanted to take her hand. He needed to touch her. Talking was too difficult. He was no good at that, no good at this masculine flirtation thing, at putting on what they call a charm offensive. He needed something more basic than words.

  ‘This water thing is bigger than you could ever imagine. It’s amazing, Hugh. To start with, we’re talking mark-ups of sixty per cent.’

  He attempted to clamber down to reality. ‘You’re talking sixty per cent profit on a bottle of water? No way.’ He tried to sound interested. ‘And where does it come from?’

  ‘The water? The Snowy Mountains or somewhere – I think. Not sure to be honest. Who cares. I do know that it comes from miles beneath the surface, is filtered lovingly by Mother Nature, and is full of nutritional this and that – you know the kind of thing. All we have to do is pour it into bottles, distribute it and flog it off to the unsuspecting public. It’s difficult to keep up with the demand.’

  ‘Don’t you have to treat it first, filter it or something?’

  ‘Very basic. It’s pure enough already. Anyway, the general public likes all that natural garbage you get in spring water. That’s why they buy it in the first place. Convinces them they’re getting back to nature instead of imbibing chemicals and other contaminants with the municipal supply.’

  ‘Do you advertise?’

  ‘No need to. Stuff sells itself. Never thought I’d say that, but it’s true. I know it’s sacrilege, but it simply doesn’t require the skills of people like you and me. Being relatively small compared to the big boys, to the Mount Franklins of this world, has allowed us to create a bit of a niche market.’

  ‘And what do you do?’

  ‘I’m the marketing director.’

  ‘How on earth did you land a job like that from the UK?’

  ‘Company was set up by this fellow I met back home – an Aussie who came in and saw us at PCD. He told me later that he visited lots of agencies, and –’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘McLennan. Josh McLennan. Know him?’

  And Hugh did, or thought he did. He’d read something about him once, or heard something, but it escaped him there and then. ‘The name sounds familiar.’

  ‘Anyway, we kept in touch and a few months ago he offered me shares, a seat on the Board and the position of Marketing Director. Arranged visas, flights, everything, and I didn’t even have to fuck him – although it just so happens that I did. So maybe that’s what got me over the line.’

  ‘Penny!’ He winced.

  ‘I know, I know.’ She held her hands up to stop him going on, and possibly, also, because she realised she was wandering dangerously close to his preferred topic of conversation. ‘Can’t help myself. Anyway, I got in on the ground floor, and I’m enjoying the ride of my life on board this gravy train.’ She held up a finger in mock astonishment. ‘But can there be such a thing as a gravy train with water?’

  Penny Ross was from a decent, ordinary middle-class family, raised in one of the leafier suburbs on the fringes of London, and been educated by nuns. She had the slightly streetwise, tough veneer that’s essential to survival in the southeast of England, but in Penny’s case it was only a veneer. She also had a lot of front, which made her perfect for the world of advertising. Being an attractive woman helped her rise quickly in the sexist, male dominated agency world – or at least it didn’t hinder her. And although she didn’t boast a brilliant or scholastic mind, she was sharp, confident, eloquent and resilient. She made good use of her looks and intelligence, but probably no more so than if she’d been in any other business. It was how she behaved. It came naturally to her, so naturally, she was held in as high esteem by her female colleagues as she was by her male ones. The latter might desire her and fawn over her and treat her like one of the lads, but the former enjoyed her company, never seeming to be jealous or find her behaviour offensive. She didn’t sleep her way to the top – and wasn’t even at the top – but nor would she have resented anyone saying that she had: she’d have thrown her head back and laughed. That was possibly the essence of the woman: Penny didn’t take anything too seriously, certainly not herself. ‘You have to laugh’ was one of her favourite expressions. Hugh suspected that beneath the mocking, bantering surface there was a core of seriousness, a person who considered such questions as, why are we on this earth, is there a solution in the Middle East, and what will be the effects of global warming on the long term viability of the human race? But he had never seen it. There’d been a time when he’d wanted to take her aside, sit her down in a quiet spot, order her to stop laughing and talking for a moment, and ask her what she really thought, how she really felt, but he had never done so and now, probably, never would. He would have to remain content, like everyone else so far as he knew, admiring the surface.

  ‘Enou
gh about me, what are you up to?’ And while he answered, she concentrated on eating, trying to make serious inroads on her main course, to catch up with him. He told her about The Alpha Agency, and then got onto Russell’s request to pinch the research report off Bauer. He was interested in her opinion, even though the matter had now been resolved. He wanted to hear from someone who knew the business well.

  ‘I’d have tried to get the report for him, of course I would. ‘It’s the kind of thing most people wouldn’t think twice about.’

  ‘But what I don’t understand, what I have a problem with is, why should one company get for free something another company has paid for?’

  She leant forward across the table, and he couldn’t help looking down the front of her dress. He averted his eyes. ‘Go on, take another look if you want.’ ‘Sorry.’ He blushed. ‘How sweet,’ she said, grinning. ‘You’re such an innocent. But to go back to that report. It’s only a game, Hugh, you know that. Remember Rutherford?’ – someone they’d worked with in London. ‘How he used to say, “It’s only advertising, no one gets shot.” He was absolutely right. Don’t take it so seriously.’

  He was aware of feeling out of step with everyone else, and it made him feel uncomfortable. His life resembled a badly dubbed film, with nothing quite in sync.

  While their waiter was clearing the table, and Penny was back to talking about bottled water, Hugh had the opportunity to study her unobserved. He appreciated that she wasn’t just attractive, she was interesting – as well as outrageous and honest. Fleetingly, he found himself thinking that she was more real than Kate. He couldn’t see the flaws in her, the joins. She wasn’t pretending to be an artist, in fact there seemed to be no pretence about her at all. She was totally genuine. He told himself this was probably because he didn’t know her that well. He also told himself that it was despicable to compare her to his wife.

  When the waiter went off to get their orders for coffee, Penny sat back in her chair and scrutinised him in silence. ‘Have you been OK with Fiona, or are you still beating yourself up?’

  He grimaced. ‘I still think it was suicide. So, I’m not too happy that I didn’t appreciate what was going on, that I didn’t help her.’

  ‘You’re still blaming yourself?’

  He was aware of a desperate need to talk, of wanting – and he was ashamed to admit this – a shoulder to cry on. He gulped down the last of his wine. ‘I’m going to have another glass. And you?’ She shook her head. He beckoned the waiter, who approached their table as if he was still on stage, and ordered a wine.

  She said, ‘For what it’s worth, I don’t think it was suicide. It’s not Fiona. She wouldn’t take the easy way out.’

  ‘How I hate that expression. What’s easy about suicide?’

  She stared at him, surprised. ‘OK. But what I’m saying is, she wasn’t like that.’

  He looked out of the window. People were criss-crossing the plaza, many of them heading back to their offices after a hasty lunch. He felt tragic, and he thought what a shame it would be if she didn’t notice this. He turned back to her, slowly, determined to broach the subject that was weighing on him. He didn’t want to talk about Fiona any longer. What was the point? He took a mouthful of wine first. ‘More importantly, have you been OK about us?’

  ‘Us? Oh dear,’ she said. The waiter brought their coffees, and she turned to him, ‘I’ll change my mind. I think l need another glass of wine too.’ When he went off, she said, ‘There’s no avoiding this, I suppose. I should have realised.’ She sat opposite him, almost slumping in her seat, shaking her head as if it was all too much for her – too much for Penny, how unlikely was that!

  He pushed on. ‘I really like you, Penny.’ And he meant that, even though he appreciated the hopelessness of the situation. Was he going to leave Kate and Tim for this woman, or did he simply wish to risk his marriage by having an affair with her? It was hard to get his thoughts, let alone his feelings, in order. The one thing he had no doubt about was that he desired her.

  ‘And I like you, too.’ She smiled, a wistful smile, then took a sip from her new glass of wine. ‘I just get the feeling we’re talking different kinds of like here. Now what would make me think that?’

  He shrugged. ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘I don’t suppose I have to remind you that you’re a married man, Hugh?’ He shook his head. ‘No, I didn’t think so. But you may be surprised to hear that I’m not into married men. I usually try to steer well clear of them.’

  He was tempted to tell her there was a possibility Kate knew about them, but he suspected she’d laugh at his stupidity and naïveté, and he wasn’t willing to risk it. Quite unexpectedly, she reached across the table and took his hand. She could have been his big sister or his mother, transforming herself into a non-sexual being before his eyes. Her hands were not those of a lover. How did women manage that! He felt both anger and despair. ‘Hugh, don’t be upset when I say this, don’t react like every other man in the world, but what I value in you is what we had in London: a real, deep friendship. You’re one of the few people I’ve ever met who I can genuinely talk to. I don’t feel I have to put on an act. We think the same way, we laugh at the same things, we … I don’t want to lose that, Hugh. It’s too important to me. I can’t think how we lost touch when you came to Australia. It was stupid that we allowed that to happen. And I don’t want to lose you again. Our friendship is too important to me to spoil it with … with this. If we go there, I’d be frightened it would mean the end of our friendship, and I’m not willing to risk that.’

  ‘That’s bullshit, Penny, and you know it.’ But it was a feeble protest, and one that he didn’t truly believe, anyway. She didn’t honour it with a reply.

  They finished lunch virtually in silence. Hugh felt as if he was in mourning, and not just for Fiona. A couple of times Penny made an effort to jolly him along, and insisted on discussing her first impressions of Australia, which were generally favourable. At the moment, however – and she acknowledged that her feelings could well change – she couldn’t imagine settling in the country forever.

  Outside the restaurant, she hugged him. He tried to break free, but she clung to him even harder. ‘I’m not going to let you go until you forgive me.’ He laughed, although he didn’t want to. She forced it out of him. ‘I forgive you,’ he said. She took his head in her hands, pulling him down towards her, and kissed him on the forehead. ‘You’re a lovely man, and I’m a stupid woman.’ Then she turned and walked away.

  12

  It always struck him that there was something very English about the place. Possibly it was the air of privilege, the inescapable feeling that one should feel honoured to be in those environs, that the general populace, the hoi polloi, was excluded. Most of the locals looked as if they were members of a prestigious country club. The hair-dos of the women were elaborate – coiffured was probably the correct term – and their pastel coloured dresses were tucked and pleated, and more appropriate to the Sixties than today. Jewellery was very much on display and, in Hugh’s opinion, it was ostentatious. The men’s trousers were creased, even when they wore jeans, their shirts short-sleeved and their jumpers always worn across their shoulders, the sleeves crossed over their chests. Their hair, like that of their women folk, was elaborate, thick and luxuriant, and exacerbated Hugh’s feelings of baldness. Many successful advertising people lived in the town.

  Kate always defended the place. ‘I like Palm Beach. I’ve spent my summer holidays here since I was an ankle-biter. I feel at home.’ He didn’t. He felt like an impoverished interloper. There was too much money around for his liking.

  When he arrived mid-morning on the Saturday, and drove up the short dirt track hemmed in by tea trees and blackboys, he felt even more strongly that he didn’t belong. She came to the door and gave him a kiss on the cheek. He could have been a not-too-important friend for all the warmth it conveyed. She then, perhaps to emphasise that his visit was of no importance to her and that
she had no wish to be left alone with him for a second longer than necessary, turned her back on him and shouted ‘It’s your father, Timmy’ into the shadowed interior. His son’s welcome was more heartfelt. He ran screaming down the corridor and launched himself into the air several feet away from his father. When he landed in his arms, Hugh pretended to fall backwards onto the carpet from the impact, and this elicited even louder cries of pleasure and delight. His son lay on Hugh’s stomach, his arms locked around his father’s neck, his head on one side, suddenly silent, his breathing heavy, his contentment absolute. He might have lain there like that all day, until it was time for bed, if he’d been allowed to.

  ‘Do you want a cup of tea or coffee?’

  ‘Thank you. I’ll have a coffee,’ he said, still on his back on the floor.

  They were in the kitchen, Tim sitting on his father’s lap, drawing in a picture book, Kate busying herself with saucepans and food as if intent on finding so many things to do she wouldn’t feel obliged to sit down.

  ‘How’s it going down here?’

  ‘It’s fine.’ He noticed she didn’t say it with any conviction, and this pleased him.

  ‘It’s better than staying with Mum and Dad, that’s for sure. But they come down pretty often. Which reminds me …’ She opened her hands as if to show she wasn’t holding out any hope, ‘They’re threatening to come down tomorrow.’