Have Mercy On Us All Read Online Free PDF

doesn’t it? There’s nothing wrong in getting advice, is there, Joss?”
    “The sign also says ‘Thirty minutes, 40 francs. Charges apply per quarter-hour.’ That’s pricey for a rip-off, Damascus. What does the old fogey know about keeping an even keel? He’s never even been on a boat.”
    “It’s not a rip-off, Joss. You want me to prove it? ‘Damascus,’ he says to me, ‘you’re not showing off your body for the sake of your business, you’re doing it for yourself. Let me give you some friendly advice: Put on a proper jacket, and trust yourself. You’ll be just as good-looking and you’ll look less of a twit.’ How about that, then, Joss?”
    “That’s fair enough, I grant you,” Joss agreed. “So why don’t you put on some sensible clothes?”
    “Because I do what I like doing. Only Lizbeth’s afraid I’ll catch my death, and so is Marie-Belle. In five days’ time I’ll pull myself together and get dressed.”
    “OK,” said Joss. “Because there’s real rough weather coming in from the west.”
    “Decambrais?”
    “What about Decambrais?”
    “He really gets up your nose, doesn’t he?”
    “Not quite, my friend. It’s me who gets on Decambrais’s nerves.”
    “That’s a pity,” Damascus said as he cleared away the coffee cups. “Because I’ve heard one of his rooms is free. Would have suited you down to the ground. It’s right next to where you work, it’s got central heating, you get your room cleaned and a square meal every evening.”
    “Bugger that,” said Joss.
    “Right. But you can’t take the room because you can’t stand the man.”
    “No, I can’t.”
    “Really stupid, that is.”
    “Extremely.”
    “Then there’s Lizbeth as well. That’s a very big plus.”
    “A huge plus.”
    “Right. But you can’t do it. Since you can’t bear the guy.”
    “Not quite. He can’t bear me.”
    “Comes to the same thing as far as the perch is concerned. You just can’t do it.”
    “No, I can’t.”
    “Things don’t always work out as they should. Are you sure you can’t?”
    Joss tightened his jaw. “I’m sure, Damascus. No point going on about it. End of story.”
    Joss left Rolaride to saunter into the Viking, the café over the road. Now the Bretons had never got on well with the Norse, they’d even spent a few centuries barging their boats into each other’s, but Joss knew full well that he could easily have been born the other side of St Malo Sound and been a Norman instead. Bertin the barman, a tall man with ginger hair, fair eyes and high cheekbones, had a supply of
calva
like no other. What it did to your insides was nobody’s business, save that far from hastening your path to the grave it injected an elixir of everlasting youth. The apples from which it was made were supposed to come from Bertin’s own orchard, and in those parts, apparently, the cattle lived to a hundred and were still full of beans when they died. So just think what the apples were like.
    “Rough patch this morning?” Bertin asked as he poured the precious liquid.
    “Not too bad, really. Just that sometimes things don’t work out as they should. Would you say that Decambrais just can’t bear the sight of me?”
    “No, I wouldn’t,” said the Norman, with the caution characteristic of his race. “I’d say he thinks you’re a rough customer.”
    “What’s the difference?”
    “Well, let’s say it could sort itself out, given time.”
    “Time, that’s all you ever talk about, you northerners. One word every five years, if you’re lucky. If we were all like you, things wouldn’t move very fast, you know.”
    “But maybe they’d move better.”
    “Time! But how much time, Bertin? Tell me that.”
    “Not long. Ten years, maybe.”
    “Well, that’s that, then.”
    “So it’s something urgent, is it? Are you in need of an ‘Even Keel’ session?”
    “Bugger that. I wanted his room.”
    “Better get a move on, then. I hear there’s already a candidate.