“Really!” Vera said. “I must be going now. Will you tell Mummy I’ve gone?”
“All right. Did you come by car?”
“Taxi,” Vera said. “It’s waiting.”
They stood, unself-conscious in their fancy dress, waving at the door until her taxi was out of sight.
They sat in the bar of the club at a small glass-topped table. Honey drank whisky, and the men gave Arthur envious glances as they passed.
“Did you enjoy the show?” Honey said, giving him the full load of her blue eyes in enquiry.
She asked the question, Arthur thought, as though she had been playing principal boy in a pantomime.
He flushed. In actual fact he had enjoyed the show very much. Halfway through, when it had suddenly come to him that he was sitting in the semi-dark watching a dozen naked women pirouette to music in company with a lot of other pleasure-seeking business men when he should have been at home with Vera, he had felt thoroughly ashamed of himself. The downright provocativeness of the thing, and the fact that he had been enjoying it, had filled him with guilty feelings, and he had slunk further and further into his chair as the show progressed, in case he should be recognised in the half-light by anyone he knew.
“It was a very good show,” he said to Honey, not wishing to upset her. Actually the production itself had been tatty, and although fast-moving and noisy, amateurish. Even from where he had been sitting he had been able to see the glisten of sweat on the girls’ bodies and the marks where their knicker elastics had been. The show lacked polish.
“I think it’s good,” Honey said innocently. “We’ve a very good producer. We do three shows a day and we’re always packed.”
Arthur had the impression that Honey thought the audience came to see the talent in the show rather than the bodies of the show girls. There had been, it was true, one or two legitimate turns. A conjuror to whom the audience gave scant attention and minimal applause; a balancing act which received the same treatment. Honey herself had sung a few lines in an exceedingly wobbly voice, but, as she was walking round the stage dressed only in one or two feathers at the same time, her reception had been a great deal better.
“Do you always do…er…this sort of thing?” Arthur said.
“You mean nude?”
Arthur nodded.
“No. Actually it’s my first time. I was working over at the Ambassador Luncheon club, two shows a day, but I had a friend here and she got me in when one of the girls had an appendix. Mr Hamblin, our producer, liked my voice.”
Arthur wondered if she really thought she had been engaged because of her singing ability.
“I want to be a pop singer really,” Honey said, answering his unspoken question. “You know, on the radio.”
It all seemed so simple. Arthur could see that in her mind’s eye Honey was already a famous radio star pulling in the big money. He wanted to talk to her more. It was his first contact with a person of Honey’s kind, and he was fascinated. He was worried though about Vera, and knew he should be getting home.
“Look,” he said. “How do you think I can find those two young men? The ones that were in the pub. It’s awfully important.” And suddenly he realised how important it had become.
“They’ll probably go back there sometime,” Honey said. “I’ll look in when I pass for the six o’clock show if you like.”
“Would you really?”
“I have to go right by every night.”
“You see,” Arthur said, “I’m going to do as they said. I’m going to live at the seaside.”
“Retire, you mean?”
“I don’t know exactly, yet. I just want to get off the treadmill while I have a look round.”
“What shall I do if I find them?”
“I’ll give you my card. Will you ring me?”
Honey put the card in the purse in her make-up box. The conjuror in the show walked by their table towards the door with a blonde girl on his arm. He winked at Honey as they passed.
“My husband,” Honey said in explanation.
Arthur stared. “But shouldn’t you be…don’t you want…?” He pointed to the door.
“No, that’s all right,” Honey said, drinking the last of her whisky. “We have an arrangement.”
Arthur was flabbergasted. After thirty years of a world in which his main concern had been buying and marketing of various toys, and the everyday concerns of his conventional, if demanding, family, he had knocked a tiny peep-hole into a different continent. He was anxious to see more. Reluctantly he stood up.
“It’s been terribly good of you to spare the time, Miss DuPont,” he said. Honey lifted her lovely face. “Honey,” she said.
“You will get in touch… Honey?”
“Certainly. I’ll pop in every night and ring you when I find them.”
Arthur made his way to the door. Turning when he got there to wave goodbye to Honey he saw a man, who had been propping up the bar, walk towards her, glass in hand. Honey was smiling at him.
Vera was distraught.
“But, Arthur,” she said for the umpteenth time when he had eaten his dinner, “a striptease show! It’s absolutely disgusting, a man of your age. Suppose someone had seen you, or the children?”
Arthur sounded weary. “Oh, it wasn’t the show, Vera, I’ve already told you. I went because of this girl…”
“That’s even worse! You’ve made me feel positively ill, Arthur, I just don’t know what to do.”
“You’d better ring up Doctor Gurney then,” Arthur said unsympathetically, and picked up the evening paper.
“I have been to see him. About you,” Vera said, her voice hysterical, not caring now what she said.
“Mmm. What did he say?”
“He’s got no sense. When I told him you wanted to go and live at that potty Whitecliffs he said he wished he could do it! Did you know he had four children? His poor wife looks absolutely all in. One of them’s got whooping cough…”
“Vera!” Arthur shouted, standing up and letting the paper drop sheet by sheet to the floor.
Vera sat on the settee and closed her eyes in martyrdom.
“What is it now, Arthur? If it’s anything peculiar I don’t think I can stand it.”
“Whitecliffs!” Arthur said excitedly. “I’ve had the most wonderful idea. It came to me when you said about Doctor Gurney and how he’d go if he had the chance.”
“Well?” Vera’s voice was dull.
“We’ll take them all! Look, there are six flats in that block. One for us, one for Honey, one for Doctor Gurney, one for the man in the green jersey, one for the barrister, after all it was their idea…and you can find somebody else if you like for the sixth one.” He looked at Vera. She was sitting absolutely still, her mouth in a hard, straight line.
Vanessa Dexter walked incredibly slowly down the moon lit road towards her house hand in hand with Cliff Stafford. They walked in silence past three of the large houses, their shadows long and thin upon the pavement. When they were within sight of ‘The Yarrow’ Cliff said: “But do you have to go, Van? Can’t you stay with an aunt or something?”
Vanessa shook her head. “Daddy’s been carrying on all the evening. That’s why I rang you. He’s absolutely determined about this Whitecliffs idea, and Mummy says we have to do as he says. It’ll only be over the summer.”
“But, Van,” Cliff said miserably, “it’s only April.”
“I suppose it’ll take a while to get things fixed up.”
“What about your secretarial course?”
“Daddy says I can find something to do at Whitecliffs.”
“What about me?”
“Oh! Cliff,” Vanessa said, and stood still on the pavement, “that’s the trouble. You’ll come for weekends, won’t you, sometimes? It isn’t very far.”
“Van, you know that if I take whole days off I shall never pass my Anatomy. If I don’t pass this time I’ll get chucked out.”
They walked on. “I don’t know
if I can live without you,” Cliff said.
“I’ll write.”
“You’re a rotten letter writer. Look at that time you went to stay with your uncle in Manchester. I believe you’re quite glad to be going.”
Vanessa stopped again. “You don’t really believe that?”
“No.”
In the drive of ‘The Yarrow’ they stopped by the laurel bushes. Cliff kissed her and traced the outline of her face in the moonlight with a gentle finger.
“I’d better go in now,” Vanessa said reluctantly. “I said I was only going to post a letter.”
They kissed again.
“Good night,” Vanessa said.
“Good night,” Cliff said, “darling.”
Vanessa walked on air across the drive. It was the first time he had called her darling.
Upstairs she knocked on the door of Victor’s room. Through a noisy passage of a Beethoven Symphony she could not be heard. She opened the door. Victor was lying on the bed, his eyes closed, his shirt open at the neck. Across his stomach lay an American magazine; it was called ‘Moon’ and on the coloured cover was a fearsome-looking rocket.
“Vic?”
He opened his eyes. “Tum-te-tum. Te-tum-te-tum-te-tum,” he said, conducting in time to the music. “I love this bit; it’s the Liszt arrangement.”
Vanessa removed the pick-up from the record-player. “I want to talk to you.”
“What about?”
“This seaside business. Do you want to go?”
“Suits me,” Victor said. “I’ve nothing to do till Cambridge, and I seem to have used up nearly all the girls round here. I expect there’ll be some local talent.”
“It’s all very well for you,” Vanessa said.
“You mean Cliff?”
“Mm.”
“It’s only calf-love. You’ll get over it.”
“Don’t be so superior. Just because I don’t chop and change like you.”
“It wouldn’t hurt you if you did. You get to know what’s what. You’ve hardly been out with anyone except that boy with the pimples and Cliff.”
“I love Cliff.”
“You’ll get over it. Anyway he won’t be qualified for about a hundred years so what’s the use?”
“I don’t care.”
“The parents will.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Maybe. Turn the Beethoven on again, there’s a good girl. About halfway through, and for heaven’s sake put the head down gently.”
Vanessa left him with his music and went across to her own room.
“It isn’t fair,” she said to the pink and white striped curtains. “It jolly well isn’t fair.” She flung herself on to the bed and, taking the photo of Cliff from her bedside table, let the tears slide down on to her pillow.
Four
In a court of law, a semi-detached and a coffee-bar, three of the Dexters’ surprising new acquaintances announced their decisions on the question of giving up (although in Basil’s case it was an overstatement) their respective jobs and coming away from it all to Whitecliffs.
As far as black jacket and green jersey were concerned, Honey had done her work well. She had waited dutifully in the ‘Journeyman’ each night on the way to work, and at the end of the week had delivered them both, completely mystified, to Arthur. For herself Honey had already decided; it was not a decision that required a great deal of thought. Completely incapable of understanding the talk, of which she had heard so much in the past week, of life in general and treadmills in particular, Honey knew only that she was always game for a change. The only things that had worried her were that she would lose her job and her very adequate salary. Since Arthur had not only arranged with Mr Hamblin to give her her job back should she return, but also to provide all of them with free board and lodging until, as he put it, they had decided whether or not they were satisfied with their lives, there seemed no decision to make. Wherever there was new ground to be broken, Honey, with little more than an overnight bag, was always ready to break it.
For black jacket, or Howard Pennington-Dalby, barrister-at-law, the problem had entailed a great deal more thought. When he did finally speak his intention aloud, it surprised no one as much as himself. Whether he was influenced by the tedious morning, by his opposing counsel, or by the sun-filtered smog of Southwark, he would never know.
At five past ten on Monday morning, Howard Pennington-Dalby, in the inevitable black jacket and striped trousers, bowler hat set well over his nose, rolled umbrella over his arm and zippered bag in his hand, strode purposefully into the dank, mosaiced vestibule of Southwark County Court. He stopped before a fat pillar on which was hung a printed list attached to a grimy piece of cardboard.
“What a damned nuisance!” he said, after a moment.
An elderly man, similarly dressed but much thinner, his black jacket glistening rather at the elbows, said:
“What is it, Dalby? I’ve only just arrived.”
“Mornin’, Benson,” Howard said to his opposing counsel whom he had never cared for. “Look what they’ve done to us.”
Mr Benson took the spectacles from his top pocket and put them on his thin nose down which they immediately slipped.
He looked to where Howard was pointing.
‘Judge’s court postponed until twelve noon’ a hastily handwritten notice said.
He took off his glasses again.
“Well, well; that’s not very good, is it?”
“My dear fellow, look!” Howard said. “There’s one Application, twenty-four judgement summonses, and one possession action before us.”
Benson put on his glasses again and looked down the list.
“‘Harrow Motors/Buckingham; LCC/Twist; Greenboam/ Mutual Loan…’ What are you going to do?”
“Well, I haven’t the slightest intention of remaining in Southwark for the entire day,” Howard said. “I shall make an application for the registrar to hear us when his own list is finished.”
“Good idea,” Benson said, “good idea.” But Howard had already gone.
The registrar, red-faced because of his weekend’s golf and irritable because it was Monday morning, sat slumped in his chair. He had bags under his bright blue eyes, blonde moustache and eyebrows, and was in his middle forties.
At eleven thirty Howard stood up in the almost empty court whose oak pews were gleaming lightly in the sunlight, to open the case for Hemingway against Complex Securities Limited. At twelve thirty the registrar, listening to the arguments going back and forth concerning discount charges, bills of exchange, and interest per annum calculated on a day to day basis, drooped further in his chair and yawned. By one thirty, having ignored the constant references to the clock on the wall by counsel, solicitors, plaintiff, defendant and witnesses, he appeared to have sunk into a deep sleep. At ten to three he aroused himself sufficiently to wind up the case, finding for the Finance Company, and at three o’clock he bowed courteously to Howard who made a neat if pompous little speech of thanks to the ‘learned registrar’ for allowing them to be heard before him, and left the court.
In the counsel’s robing room, Mr Benson carefully removed his wig which had become dark grey with the years, and laid it in its black tin box.
“You’d think he’d have adjourned for lunch,” he grumbled. “I didn’t even bring my peppermints.”
Howard was sitting at the table putting in order the papers which had dealt with the case: back sheet, with seven giant pages; instructions (three pages); pleadings (five pages); correspondence (thirty-two pages); notices to produce and admit documents (eight pages); affidavit of documents, proof of evidence. He laid them neatly one inside the other and, folding them, tied the resulting bulky oblong in its length of pink tape.
“I’m rather glad he didn’t adjourn,” he said, “I have an urgent appointment in chambers at four.”
Benson, who had nothing to do for the rest of the day, glanced at him enviously. He removed his gown and straighten
ing his shiny jacket wished that he was half the age he was.
Outside in the car-lined street of Southwark, Howard found the defendant’s solicitor, a fussy little man with a drooping moustache, waiting for him.
“I’d like to congratulate you, Mr Dalby,” he said to Howard, “on the way you conducted your case.”
“We hadn’t a leg to stand on,” Howard said.
“That’s just it. You put up a jolly good show.”
“Kind of you,” Howard said. “Most kind.”
“Not at all. I wondered if we might send you a brief or two.”
Howard wondered exactly how foolish he was being and said: “I do appreciate it. I really do, but I’m taking a vacation, a long vacation. Until after the summer at least.”
“Going abroad?”
Howard looked up and down the dingy street in which the dirty buildings cut out much of the light. Already he could smell the clean sea air of Whitecliffs.
“As a matter of fact, no. I’m going to a little place called Whitecliffs. It’s on the south-east coast. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of it.”
“I haven’t,” the solicitor said. He drew himself up to his full height which wasn’t very great. “We handle some very big stuff, Mr Dalby.” The bait was tempting.
Howard could see the briefs arriving on his desk, marked one hundred guineas, two hundred guineas. The vision faded. He had been at the Bar too long. They were more likely to be marked two guineas only or three, that was if they materialised at all.
He put his bowler hat on his head. “Man does not live by bread alone,” he said courteously. “Good day to you, sir, and thank you.”
At four o’clock, still in his bowler hat, he was feeding the ducks in Regent’s Park, watched by a group of small children. He was embarrassed when he looked up to find Benson standing beside him.
Benson looked ostentatiously at his watch.
“What happened to our urgent appointment?” he said. “Or aren’t we as busy as we make out?”
Howard aimed a large crust far out into the water.
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