We All Fall Down

by Rosemary Friedman

  “I bet they’ve damn well taken my car,” Howard said. “Teddy boys! You wait there and I’ll go and see if they’ve done any damage in the café.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Vanessa said. “Don’t leave me.” She sounded frightened, her evening shattered. Howard took her hand.

  They went in through the back door which was open. The kitchen was empty. In the moonlight everything appeared to be in order; the stacks of plates, of saucers, covered with tea-towels, ready for the morning.

  “They were probably after the food,” Vanessa whispered, “underneath the counter.”

  She trod softly behind Howard as he went through to the self-service counter, and felt him jerk her hand as he tripped over something in the gloom.

  “What was that?” she said.

  “Put the light on, Vanessa.” His voice was authoritative, harsh. She fumbled for the switch and turned on the light which was on the wall behind the counter. On the floor, face down in a pool of blood, lay a young man. Howard, kneeling down, turned him over gently, but even before he had done so they both recognised him.

  “My God!” Vanessa said, supporting herself against the counter. “It’s Victor!”

  Seventeen

  For a moment the walls of the café and the notices, ‘Trays For The Beach’ and ‘Sandwiches To Order’ seemed to swim away, then Howard said:

  “Give me some tea-towels, Van, lots; then dial nine, nine, nine and ask for the ambulance and police.”

  She could not control her hands which were shaking as she pulled a stack of clean tea-towels from where they were kept beneath the counter, and handed them to Howard. The nines on the telephone seemed to take an age on their return journey round the dial, and although it was only a minute it seemed like ten before the operator answered her call.

  When she had finished Howard said: “You wait at the back for the ambulance. There’s nothing much we can do,” but trying to master her trembling she said: “It’s my brother, Howard, my twin,” and kneeling in the blood on the other side of Victor she picked up his hand which lay limp and bleeding on the stone floor and bound it in a towel. She tried not to look at his face. His lips and one eye were bruised and swollen purple. From the other eye and from the hair that had been tow-coloured blood was streaming thickly down.

  “There were three of them,” Vanessa sobbed.

  “By the look of his hands he must have put up a pretty good fight,” Howard said.

  “Vic would. He never was afraid of anything.”

  The ambulance and two policemen from the local constabulary arrived together. Howard remained behind to talk to the police, and Vanessa rode with Victor in the ambulance to which a man and a woman in navy blue suits and peaked caps had transferred him gently, carefully, on a stretcher covered by red blankets.

  In the ambulance, as they swayed to and fro, the bell ringing, Vanessa said several times: “Vic, Vic,” but the swollen lips didn’t move.

  The woman attendant who was doing what she could with dressings and the already blood-soaked tea-towels, said: “He’s lost too much blood, dear,” and felt beneath the blankets for his wrist.

  Vanessa watched her face which was unmade-up and unmoved, as though it was her nightly habit to minister to boys of eighteen whose flesh was scored with razor slashes, and skin pulped by vicious fists.

  “Is he…all right?”

  “They’ll transfuse him as soon as we get in.” She rapped twice on the window where the driver was and Vanessa felt the speed increase, and couldn’t stop herself shivering. The woman unfolded another red blanket and put it round her shoulders. Vanessa smiled her thanks.

  At the hospital they wheeled Vic away on a trolley down a dark corridor, and showed Vanessa, the red blanket still round her shoulders, into a waiting-room. There were two cane chairs and a slippery leather couch. On a table the morning’s Daily Telegraph and the Isle of Thanet Gazette were tidily folded. There was a plant in a pot that needed water.

  Vanessa, wondering what she was supposed to do, sat on the edge of the slippery couch. A young nurse, whose cap was crooked, put her head round the door and said: “Are you the young lady…?” then glanced at Vanessa’s blood-stained skirt and said: “Oh, yes” and disappeared again. A few minutes later a bosomy Sister with a navy blue dress, frilled cuffs and a bonnet tied with strings, came in with a cup of tea.

  “Are you all right, dear?” she said, her voice belying her fierce appearance. She switched on one bar of the electric fire which was set into the wall, and gave Vanessa the tea.

  “They’ve taken your brother up to the theatre. Doctor Potts is up there now.”

  They never say anything, Vanessa thought. One always has to ask.

  “Will he be all right?”

  “I’m only from Casualty,” the Sister said. “I just came to see if you were all right. You must have had rather a shock. Doctor Potts will send a message down as soon as he’s had a look at your brother. Are you warm enough, dear?” She moved the Daily Telegraph an inch, then crackled out, her apron standing away from her skirt.

  When the door opened next it was Howard. Without thinking she ran towards him and, leaning against him, let the tears she had been holding back flow freely.

  His arms were round her holding her tightly, and she noticed that his usually immaculate stiff collar was spattered with Vic’s blood.

  “Don’t cry, my love,” Howard said. “Vanessa, please don’t cry. He’ll be all right. We have to be thankful we were around at the right moment.”

  Vanessa raised her head from his shoulder. “I never thought of that, of course. We might not have found him till the morning…and by then…for sure…oh Howard!”

  Howard dried her tears clumsily on his large breast pocket handkerchief, then led her to the couch.

  “What about Mummy and Daddy?” Vanessa said.

  “I rang Doctor Gurney from the café and explained. He said he’d go across and tell them. I thought it would be less of a shock like that. He said he’d bring them down here.”

  “What was Vic doing in the café?” Vanessa said, “at this time of night?”

  “That’s what we shall have to find out,” Howard said.

  “Have the police gone after those…those…thugs?”

  “They’re looking for my car. It might give them a clue.”

  “Poor Vic.” Vanessa, recalling the sight of his face, began to cry again. “We were having such a lovely evening.”

  Arthur and Vera arrived with Doctor Gurney; Vera was sobbing into a lace handkerchief. Arthur said: “See that they get the best surgeons, Gurney. We can get someone from London if there’s time. Tell them not to worry about the expense…”

  From the door of the waiting-room a young man in a white coat, with carroty hair, said quietly: “I’m Doctor Potts. I’ve just operated on your son. He had multiple lacerations on the face and body and had lost a considerable amount of blood, which we’ve replaced. It was lucky he wasn’t brought in any later.”

  “Will he be all right?” Vera said, her face swollen and plain from crying.

  Doctor Potts looked at his nails, then plunged his hands into his deep pockets and rocked back on his heels. He looked at Arthur and Vera.

  “I doubt if we shall be able to save his eye,” he said. “Mr Wells, our consultant ophthalmologist is coming to have a look at him in the morning. There’s nothing more we can do for him tonight.”

  “Can we see him?” Vera asked.

  Doctor Potts said: “I don’t advise it, Mrs Dexter. Perhaps your husband…”

  Vanessa said: “Don’t see him tonight, Mummy,” and looking at Doctor Potts in his white coat was reminded suddenly of Cliff. He did not look all that much older. In a few years Cliff would be doing the same job…

  Arthur was saying, “If you think we should move him to London, Doctor Potts, the Royal Masonic, if you like, I am a Freemason…”

  Doctor Potts said: “Your son has been nearly an hour in the theatre, Mr Dexter. He is
lucky to be alive.”

  “There’s no point in moving him,” Doctor Gurney said.

  “I don’t like the idea of these local hospitals,” Arthur said. Doctor Potts walked out of the room.

  “Where’s he gone?” Arthur said.

  Doctor Gurney said, “I expect he’s done a big job on Victor if he was up there for an hour. I don’t expect he was very impressed by the fact that all you could think of was moving him. He’s probably saved Victor’s life.”

  Arthur seemed to sag, and sat down on one of the cane chairs.

  “I only wanted to do the best for the boy,” he said, “I didn’t mean anything.”

  “I’ll go and square it with him,” Doctor Gurney said. “He’ll understand.”

  Arthur, his head in his hands, said wearily: “Tell me what happened, Howard.”

  They waited until Victor had come round from the anaesthetic, and Doctor Potts and Doctor Gurney were satisfied with his blood pressure before they left the hospital. It was two o’clock. At midnight a policemen had arrived to tell Howard they had found his car abandoned in a sidestreet in Merrydown. No incriminating evidence had been left behind except the smell of cheap perfume. They were holding the car for the fingerprint men in the morning.

  “Have you started looking for them yet?” Arthur asked the policeman, a smooth-faced youth who looked very new to his job.

  “Well, sir, we haven’t anything to go on just yet.”

  “Pennington-Dalby here has told you it was Teddy boys, hasn’t he? Round them up and question them. What are you waiting for? They can be in Timbuctoo by the morning.”

  “Round up all the Teddy boys, sir?” The policeman’s face was pink.

  “Of course.”

  “Have you ever been to Merrydown at night, sir?”

  “No.”

  “There are hundreds of them, sir. All got up the same. We’ve got to have something to go on, sir.”

  “You’re so slow,” Arthur said, standing up. “My son has been nearly sliced to pieces and is in danger of losing his sight, and you just stand there! Those boys are going to be found if I have to question every one of them myself.”

  “There’s nothing more we can do tonight,” Howard said. “Perhaps by the morning Victor will be well enough to tell us something.”

  “I’ve instructions to wait for the young man’s statement,” the policeman said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Arthur said, looking at him, “I must be getting very old.”

  In Arthur’s flat, to which they all went back in Doctor Gurney’s car, they found the lights on and Mary Gurney waiting for them. “I’ve got the kettle on,” she said. “I thought you’d like some tea. How’s Victor?”

  Her husband kissed her. “He’s round from the anaesthetic but they’ve given him morphia for the pain. They had to do a lot of sewing-up. He doesn’t yet know what’s going on.”

  Vera was crying again, and when Mrs Gurney brought in the tea in the breakfast cups she didn’t even notice. She didn’t notice either that she had put on odd shoes in her hurry to get out.

  “What I don’t understand,” Arthur said, “is what Victor was doing in the café at all. Why did he have the keys? It was Louise’s turn to open up.”

  “Perhaps he changed with her,” Vanessa said. “Although I don’t see why he should. Vic hates to get up early.”

  “We’d better ask Louise,” Arthur said.

  Howard said, “You can’t disturb her now. I’ll go down first thing in the morning. We shan’t be able to open up tomorrow anyway. The police want to investigate the café and want us all to stay here for questioning.”

  “What happens next?” Arthur said.

  “Well, the first thing they have to do is to find out who did it. Once they’ve done that the police can prosecute.”

  “I suppose you’ll appear for Victor?” Arthur said.

  Howard shook his head. “I couldn’t do that, I’m afraid, because I found him and saw the boys running off. I should certainly be called as a witness. I advise you to inform your solicitor in the morning, and when it’s necessary he’ll instruct counsel for you. Of course, you have to face the possibility that they won’t find out who did it. There are so many of these coshings and beatings-up these days, so many irresponsible hooligans, that it’s not very easy. Most of these boys carry flick knives and razors.”

  “It’s fantastic,” Arthur said. “Can’t anything be done?”

  “A lot of them are backward, come from broken, unsettled homes…”

  “But what did they have against Victor? He’s only a schoolboy.”

  “I don’t know,” Howard said, “unless it was something to do with the girl.”

  Vera said, “What girl?”

  “They had a girl with them. I told the police. A blonde girl. I wonder…?”

  “What?” Arthur said. “Have you thought of something?”

  “Only that a week or so ago, in the café, Victor asked me to look after his window for him while he went to…er…talk to some girl he’d seen on the beach. She was a blonde; I remember Victor saying so.”

  “Someone he knew?” Vera asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You mean he just went up and spoke to some strange girl?”

  “I wouldn’t be certain,” Howard said.

  “Did you know anything about this, Vanessa?” her mother asked.

  “Vic never told me anything about his girl friends until he was fed up with them. I didn’t know he had anyone down here.”

  “Of course, I may be wrong,” Howard said.

  Vera said, “I think you must be, Howard. I hardly think Victor would go and speak to some strange girl on the beach he didn’t even know. He went out with such nice girls in London. You remember that Anderson girl, Arthur, cousin of Sir William Anderson…?”

  “Do you realize what a mess he’ll look,” Arthur said, “and he may be blind in one eye! God knows what he went through, too, tonight, poor boy, and you sit there talking about some girl he went out with, which isn’t the slightest bit important.”

  Vera began to cry again. “There’s no need to shout at me, Arthur. How do you think I feel? It’s the sort of thing you read about in the newspapers. I can’t believe that it’s happened to us, to Victor.”

  “It’s my fault,” Arthur said. “We should never have come here. I must have been mad. What are we doing here anyway?”

  Doctor Gurney stood up. “I think you should go to bed,” he said to Arthur and Vera.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” Vera said.

  “I’ll go upstairs and get you something to take,” Doctor Gurney said, “something stronger than your pink tablets. I expect you’ll both need it.”

  “Could I have something, too?” Vanessa said. “I keep thinking of Vic lying on the floor…it was horrible!”

  “I think she needs it more than anyone,” Howard said. “It wasn’t very nice.”

  Vera said: “Poor darling, I was forgetting. I still don’t know how it was that you and Howard were at the café tonight anyway.”

  Howard’s eyes met Vanessa’s across the room.

  “We were on the beach,” Vanessa said.

  “At ten o’clock at night? What on earth were you on the beach for at that hour?”

  “We wanted some fresh air,” Howard told her.

  “But why in the café?” Vera said.

  “We weren’t in the café, mother,” Vanessa said, “not till afterwards when we saw the lights go on. We were down by the sea.”

  “But what an odd time to be down by the sea. You said you were going…”

  “I think Vanessa’s had enough for one night, Mrs Dexter,” Doctor Gurney said, and Vanessa looked at him gratefully. She didn’t think she would forget, not after a night’s sleep, not ever, the sight of Victor lying on the floor in his own blood. Not Victor who swanked and boasted and listened to Beethoven and jazz and didn’t care about anything much and who had been glad to come to Whitecli
ffs to look for what he called ‘local talent’. Perhaps she should tell them about that, although she hadn’t known what he had been up to. They never told each other. She hadn’t told Vic anything about Howard… Her parents and Doctor and Mrs Gurney had gone out into the hall. Howard was next to her chair. He said: “Are you all right?”

  “Yes. It was pretty horrid, wasn’t it?”

  “Try not to think about it. He’ll be all right.” He leaned to kiss her forehead.

  Vanessa, her face lifted up to his, said: “Howard…?” She wanted to know if he loved her or if he was being kind.

  “Yes?”

  “Nothing. It doesn’t matter.” She couldn’t very well ask.

  She went with him to the hall where the others were still talking. A bell rang shrilly.

  “It’s the front door,” Vera said. “Open it quickly, Arthur. Perhaps it’s the police… Victor?”

  They watched silently beneath the Venetian glass light as Arthur opened the front door. In the doorway stood a very pretty girl with auburn hair and violet eyes. The collar of her camel hair coat was turned up round her neck. She was carrying a white leather suitcase.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you,” she said, and her face looked tired although her lipstick was bright. “I wouldn’t have, only I saw the lights and guessed you must be having a party…”

  “It’s not a party,” Arthur said grimly. “What is it you want?”

  “I’m looking for Mr Benwell’s flat. I know this is the block but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten the number. I thought perhaps you could help me.”

  “There’s no Mr Benwell here. I’m sorry.”

  “This is Shore Court, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right. But there’s no Mr Benwell.”

  Perhaps you don’t know him. I’m sure…”

  “I own the place,” Arthur said, “I know everyone. You must excuse me. I’m not in the mood to…”

  Howard said: “Just a minute. Benwell? Isn’t that Basil’s name?”

  The girl smiled at him. She was very beautiful. “It’s Basil I’m looking for. I know he said Shore Court, it was on all his letters.”