We All Fall Down

by Rosemary Friedman

  The tea urn mirrored in its fat, silvery belly, for the greater part of the day, Louise, making her shorter and plumper than she really was. Its taps were turned and its handles pulled by the ivory, elegant hands with the perfect, almond-shaped nails always so much admired in the beauty salon where she was more accustomed to enquiring ‘Shampoo and set, madame?’ than ‘Drinking it here or taking it on the beach?’

  There was Victor, eighteen, ex-Public School, selling the buckets and spades. His twin sister Vanessa dreamily, romantically twirling the candy floss, equally well endowed with brains and beauty.

  And at the cash register, Dr Francis Gurney.

  The man responsible for the whole peculiar arrangement was, despite the entreaties of the sun, still asleep.

  Had anyone told Arthur Dexter, in the week before Willie Boothroyd died, that he would not only be living at Whitecliffs by the sea before the summer was out but that he would own and run, with sleeves rolled up, a beach café, he would have thought them more than a little mad.

  That ‘Le Casse-Croûte’ (the name was Vera’s which was all she would have to do with the project), a beach café, belonged to him, Arthur Dexter, and that he was personally responsible for running it, he had to repeat to himself, aloud and very often. Frequently in the morning, he would search unthinkingly in the wardrobe for his City suit, his sober waistcoat, and hope there would not be too much traffic on the way to town, and that he would be able to find somewhere to park the car. Then he would go to the window, and the great weight in his chest would lighten as he saw the dream was not a dream and that not half a mile away the sea roared comfortingly and that the air carried neither smoke, dirt nor petrol fumes but only spray, refreshing, from the sea. And there was more joy in that he hadn’t to go home today or tomorrow or after the weekend or at any time at all until if and when he was ready, and he would let the curtain fall with a sigh of contentment, for Arthur Dexter was happier than he had ever been.

  While Arthur slept Honey was busy in ‘Le Casse-Croûte’. In the gloom of the self-service bar she had already lit the still beneath the counter, in which the water would boil for the teas, and was now about to prepare the day’s first urnful of coffee on the gas-stove in the back kitchen. Into a large saucepan she emptied three quart bottles of milk, three quart bottles of water, filled from the tap, and six measures of powdered coffee. She waited impatiently for the mixture to boil and hoped it would not take too long. There was something she wanted to do before Vanessa arrived to help her with the heavy shutters. It was something to which she looked forward, and the reason why she never minded when it was her turn to open ‘Le Casse-Croûte’ in the mornings. When the coffee had boiled, properly hot although not very strong, Honey poured it carefully into the urn on the counter, mopped up the drips with the swab, which had been left in bleach from the night before, and left the saucepan, filled with cold water, in the sink. Slipping off her shoes she let herself out of the back door of the café. Opposite, in the Corporation Café whose shutters were already down, Honey saw the skinny Iris putting on her regulation white overall. Honey looked the other way, not wishing to waste her time. The promenade, cleanly swept, was cold beneath her bare feet. A man, newspaper clutched behind his back, stood by the deck-chairs contemplating the morning. There was no one else about. An anticipatory smile of pleasure on her very lovely face, Honey crossed the cool, damp sand, which marked the imprint of her toes behind her, and walked quickly towards the sea. Having reached the water she stopped. On the edge of the ocean which lapped about her ankles she stood quite still and held up her face, eyes closed, to the morning sun. For five long minutes while the breeze lifted her hair and wrapped the tight dress tighter round her body, Honey was a goddess. In her heart, in her blood she knew she was a nude, a stripper, a showgirl, blazed on by bright lights, living by night and sleeping by day, stared at, slobbered over and desired by a changing panorama of hot-eyed men. But for five minutes of every day that it was her turn to open ‘Le Casse-Croûte’, before the customers arrived and the day began, she was one with the clear, cold water at her feet, the wind and the morning light. She was untouched, virginal, pure. She was Honey DuPont, as she might have been had she not been born Doreen Maloney in a small, damp house where there were already too many little Maloneys.

  She walked back across the beach more slowly than she had come, avoiding her own footprints. A small girl in shorts ran down towards the water with a boat. The man with the newspaper had gone.

  Vanessa was looking anxiously out of the café door. “I wondered where you were.”

  Simply, expensively dressed, looking younger than eighteen, Vanessa’s eyes were kind. No longer a goddess, Honey said: “I went down to the sea.”

  There was a year only between them, but looking at her Honey felt, as she always did, that it was a year and a world. Not bothering to rub the sand from her feet she slipped on her shoes, conscious, beneath Vanessa’s well-bred gaze, of the corns on her feet.

  Seven

  “The Lord Chief Justice is late,” Honey said, putting sugar lumps from a brown paper carton into small bowls for one, two or three, on the counter.

  Vanessa, wrapping currant buns in small squares of cellophane paper, went red in the face, but Honey didn’t notice.

  There was plenty for the two girls to do. Together they had removed the heavy shutters from the self-service bar, the ice-cream window, the candy floss and the fancy-goods. It was nine o’clock, the water was boiling for the teas and the coffee was made. Officially ‘Le Casse-Croûte’ was open, but the work had only just begun.

  “Sometimes I wonder,” Honey, from whom words flowed like a quicksilver stream, went on, “if he goes to bed in his stiff collar.” This time she glanced down the length of the counter at Vanessa.

  She wished she could remember the time when the mere mention of a man had made her blush.

  “Do you think we shall need all the buns?” Vanessa said, her voice a little taut. “The clouds do seem to be clearing.”

  “I think it’ll settle. We don’t want to be caught out. I should finish those, then I’ll help you start the sandwiches. How old do you think he is?”

  “Who?”

  “The Lord Chief Justice.”

  “Howard? I don’t know. Getting on for forty, I suppose.”

  “He’ll never see that again, Vanessa. Of course, he’s not bad-looking, but he needs some of the stuffing taken out. I know the type.”

  “Do you mind awfully if we don’t discuss it?” Vanessa said politely.

  “Not a bit,” Honey said easily. “I never knew it was like that.”

  “It’s not like that. I just don’t like pulling people to pieces.” She wished she didn’t sound so prim.

  “Oh dear,” Honey said, “you want to mother him. That can be awfully dangerous.”

  She could see that it would be unwise to pursue the conversation. She opened up the record-player which stood near the cash register and started sorting through the pile of records.

  “‘Around the World’?” she said, “‘That’s my Baby’? ‘So Young’? ‘Rock me Daddy O’?”

  “I don’t mind,” Vanessa said, dealing with the last of the buns. “What about ‘I like your kind of Love’?”

  Honey said nothing, but finding the record put it on. Vanessa began to butter bread dreamily and Honey, less inhibited, danced close to an imaginary partner up and down the narrow space behind the counter.

  At the time when he was normally driving through the traffic to Southwark, Lambeth, Edmonton, Marylebone, Bloomsbury or Shoreditch, the ‘Lord Chief Justice’ or Howard Pennington-Dalby was walking smartly along the green sward that ran along the cliff top towards ‘Le Casse-Croûte’. To look at him one would believe that he was on his way to a county court or at least to his chambers, for even one hundred yards from where the sea rolled against the beach and beneath a midsummer sky which looked very little like rain he clung to his bowler hat, set correctly on his head, and his rolled umbre
lla whose ferrule made small holes in the grass as he walked. He had, however, as a concession to the seaside, exchanged his black jacket and striped trousers for a plain, dark grey flannel suit.

  How infinitely more pleasant this was, he thought, inhaling the sea air for four paces and letting it slowly out for four, than early morning in the Temple. How absolutely unbelievable that he, on an ordinary, working morning, should be hurrying to serve ice-creams in a beach café instead of unenthusiastically preparing to fight a possession action or an allegation of nuisance by somebody’s upstairs tenant. Of course, he had had dreams. That was partly why he had agreed to come to Whitecliffs at all. He was over forty and his dream was not materialising. He had to admit it, and he had to think about it. With his feet up on his desk in his musty room in chambers, a few uninteresting letters on his desk and a pile of old briefs, he had not been able to get the distance from which to face his problem objectively. Now, the length of a bay, beautiful in the morning light, away from his undemanding day’s work, he took out his dream and examined it.

  That it was the same as every other barrister’s dream, he knew. That he had come no nearer to realising it than most other barristers, he also knew. Whether the time had come to abandon it, he had come to Whitecliffs to decide.

  At twenty-one, with the stars still in his eyes, he had come down from Cambridge, eaten his dinners at the Temple, and been called to the Bar. He had bought a pupilage in good chambers, which he had been fortunate to get, and had opened his dream at page one. The first few chapters, he was sensible enough to realise, were only the beginning at which everyone must start; by the middle of the book, things, he hoped, should little by little become interesting. In the early days the dream seemed barely remote; the flat in town, the place in the country, the books, the wine, the yacht, the cigars, the food, the women, the silk dressing-gown, the valet, the first nights at the opera, the theatre; the illustrated papers: Mr Justice Pennington-Dalby at home; Mr Justice Pennington-Dalby embarks for the States; Mr Justice Pennington-Dalby rides to hounds. The knighthood, he had been prepared to admit, would come later, but he was not a greedy young man and did not expect everything to come at once. Neither was he lazy, and he had been prepared to work. And work he certainly had. He had kow-towed to solicitors he couldn’t stand the sight of, had worked disproportionately hard preparing advice on evidence for the few briefs he had, studied his successful superiors, and had become meticulous in his knowledge of the law. He had been at the Bar now for twenty years during which time he had changed chambers three times, received many more briefs than he used to, and become pedantic, pompous and stodgy. He was making a sufficient living to supply his own bachelor needs, but he appreciated that, at three-quarters of the way through the book, he was no nearer reaching his dream. The yacht, the country house and the fame had simply not materialised. He had a service flat in Twickenham and augmented his income by sessions at legal advice bureaux, evening class lectures to which nobody listened, and writing unimportant articles for even less important journals. He had enough to eat, a small car, took the occasional holiday abroad and spent most of his money on gramophone records. That was all. He had never married for he was waiting for his dream. He had a first-class brain, they had said at Cambridge, but so, he now had to admit, had many of the hundreds of other barristers who waited hungrily in equally dreary chambers for the daily share-out of briefs which was never enough to go round. At twenty-one Howard had known he could realise the world. At forty-three he had pulled in his vision. After forty, a man can see, if he wishes to look, what he is likely to achieve. Howard was not afraid of looking, and he did not particularly like what he saw. He had welcomed the invitation to Whitecliffs as a respite, during which he would try to discover how the dream had escaped and whether he would continue to pursue it.

  A few fathers in shorts and open-necked shirts walked by him on the green carrying the bread and newspapers they had been sent to fetch. They looked at Howard curiously. The children, skipping at their heels, did not give him a second glance.

  In the back kitchen of ‘Le Casse-Croûte’, Howard hung his hat and his umbrella behind the door. Taking off his jacket, he placed it carefully on the hanger he had provided for himself during the opening week, removed his cuff-links, which he tucked into his waistcoat pocket, tied his white apron neatly round his middle and went into the café.

  “Good morning, good morning,” he said, making for his ice-cream counter.

  “Good morning, Your Worship,” Honey said, cutting tomatoes and waggling her hips in time to a rhumba.

  Howard was not amused. “Good morning, Vanessa,” he said to Vanessa who was replenishing the stock of cigarettes on the shelves behind his counter.

  “Good morning, Howard.”

  Howard lifted the heavy black lid of the ice-box, and put his head into the steamy interior. “I have twenty-four sandwiches cut from yesterday,” he said seriously. “I shall have to replace the biscuits.” He put the ice-creams, whose wafers had gone soggy overnight, on his counter and took down a fresh packet of wafers.

  “Shall I help you?” Vanessa said. “I’ve filled you up with cigarettes.”

  “How kind,” Howard said. “How very, very kind.”

  By the time Arthur Dexter arrived at ‘Le Casse-Croûte’ the seaside day, upon which the sun had finally decided to shine brilliantly, was well under way. On the beach, brown-legged men in shorts and woolly caps with pom-poms on were pushing the pedaloes down to the water; fathers and mothers with sundry small infants had wandered back and forth a few times over the sand and stones and finally put down their deck-chairs and staked their claim to a few yards of the shore. The children, stripped to the first pair of dry trunks of the day, flew their kites, dug their castles, took their buckets and searched for shrimps in the water, filled the dog-bowl from the Corporation tap, nagged for an ice-cream, put up convincing arguments that it was time for a bathe. The fathers refused to dig castles or make boats, removed their shirts, tested with a handkerchief which way the wind was blowing and settled down behind the newspaper. The mothers, distributing their numerous bags and hold-alls which were packed tightly with dry swimming clothes, towels, beach robes, bottles of milk, chocolate biscuits, Elastoplast and their knitting, rubbed anti-sunburn cream into sandy shoulders and said no, it was too early for a bathe and be careful of the rocks and put your shoes on if you’re going on the promenade.

  Already ‘Le Casse-Croûte’ had served a few early teas and coffees, and Howard, leaning earnestly from his serving window, was deep in argument with some small child as to the respective merits of strawberry and vanilla.

  Arthur Dexter, happy because he was caring for his new baby, was in a good mood.

  “Morning everyone!” he called, rolling up his sleeves as he walked quickly hither and thither. “Let’s get cracking, eh! The sun’s going to shine all day and the tide’ll be up this afternoon; we’ll get them all on the promenade. Ring up the dairy, Vanessa, we’re a bit short of milk; Basil, carry the candy-floss machine out to the front for her before you start on the toffee-apples; don’t forget the rain-covers, just in case, see that they’re well out of sight, Van. Morning, Doctor Gurney, get the floats handed out, there’s a good chap; Victor, hurry with the ladder and get those picture postcards outside; they’re coming down to the beach like flies; where’s Charlie? — We need some cigarettes from the store and we’d better have the umbrella out today and we’re getting short on grease-proof. Honey, darling, get the ham from the deep-freeze and hold it for me while I cut it; watch your fridges, Howard, old man, I can hear the ice-cream van.”

  Basil, starting to melt the sugar for his toffee-apples in the back kitchen, found himself within an inch of Honey, who was holding the piece of frozen ham steady while Arthur sliced it in the old-fashioned machine. Having buttered the round marble slab on which he would put the coated apples to set, he opened a new crate of apples and started to insert the sticks.

  “What did you do last ni
ght, Basil?” Arthur said, and then to Honey, “Leave that one for the salads; it’s too thick for sandwiches.”

  Basil stirred the melted sugar and added a small amount of vinegar. “Nothing very much,” he said casually, “I went for a walk.”

  “Gets chilly here at night,” Arthur said, “even though it’s August. I suppose you went dancing, Honey-child?”

  Honey looked at him across the ham slicer. “Oh, no!” she said innocently, “as a matter of fact I went for a walk, too!” She felt Basil pinch her behind in warning. “And then I went to bed,” she said, “it does get chilly in the evenings.”

  “Basil!” Arthur said. “Are you sure that sugar isn’t burning?”

  At his fancy-goods window, from which he had a panoramic view of the entire beach, Victor laid out his stock: tins of bubbles for the children, fishing nets, kites, boats, flags, windmills, sunglasses, water-pistols, hairnets in small cellophane packets, brooches, toys, small books, games, and perhaps most important of all, buckets and spades. Every few moments he would stop and survey the changing pattern of the beach. When he was in the middle of preparing his tray of coloured brooches, pinning them securely to their cushion as a precaution against light-fingered customers, he suddenly stopped what he was doing. “Hey, Howard, come here a minute.”

  Howard stuck the chocolate flake into a ‘six-five special’ and handed it to a fat lady in sunglasses. When he had put the money in his till he moved over to Victor at the next window.

  “What is it?”

  Victor pointed to the beach. “Look! There. Between the two huts. Near the man in braces with the newspaper over his face.”

  Howard followed his pointing finger. “I can’t see anything.”

  “My God,” Victor said, “can’t you really? You’d better go back to your cornets.”

  “What is it anyway?” Howard moved back to his own counter.