One Damn Thing After Another Read Online Free PDF

Everything in it too small: mean little windows that refuse to open, balconies too small to sit on, tunnel-like entries half underground. Living-space milked far beyond what is permitted, even by the tolerant municipal rules concerning hygiene. The windows, as grimy as the shutters, cut off much of what light there is: the curtains behind eat what is left. A nicely tepid breeding-ground for misery. The people who live here take immense pains over the expense and smartness of their cars.
    The two minutes Arlette wasted on the streetmap might as well have been two hours, for before she had found a place to park, she knew she had failed and it was too late. At seven-thirty to eight in the morning, these streets are animated – the only moment they ever are – by people going to work with the thin polish of jauntiness and fellowship upon them, given by the night’s sleep. The air is made a scrap less stagnant and sullen by the voices and the car doors slamming. Not today. The women were standing in groups on the pavement like an unmade bed, arms folded in resignation. Men climbed shamed and sick-faced into cars, their expressions saying no-business-of-mine. Children went to school with jerky stumbling walk, white and pinched hurried on their way with slaps. The fire-brigade’s red Peugeot was unneeded: the street stank of failure and bitterness. Their truck was long gone, and the ambulance, too.
    On the stairs, Arlette found a reporter she knew slightly. He had already finished his enquiry. What enquiry? Nobody knew the woman; hardly more was known about her. It rated four lines. He was only waiting for the fire-brigade officer, who was checking the gas mains because a jerry-built dump of this sort – bit of subsidence and you got a mains-pipe fracturing. The place was three years old, but cracks everywhere. Did you know anything about her, Madame Davidson, then? – because I’ve nothing worth printing.
    â€œNo. She’d written to me. I’m just back from holiday,”defensively. “I thought I’d look her up.” It should have been done yesterday, died upon her tongue.
    â€œTwo kids as well.” Same as a road accident. The lump-idiot that caused it has a few bruises. The dead children are in the other car.
    The technician with his clipboard was in a hurry now to get away, but stopped for the Press.
    â€œStraightforward. No doubt at all about the suicide. I’ve no use for these people who choose gas deaths. Couldn’t care less about the rest of the building – a spark could do it, like switching on a lamp. Bloody lucky the first man up, around five, was on the same landing and smelt it straight off. She’d made a poor job of blocking the draughts, and the concentration took longer to build up. By good luck, there was a window open on the landing above: weather still warm. In the winter it would have been a bomb. Fellow had the sense to ring us, and warn the tenants. They think of no one but themselves, those people. Why not go do it in the water and cause less trouble?”
    â€œPerhaps,” said Arlette, “she thought of the children.”
    â€œHuh?” Meaning huh!
    â€œThey’d have been asleep at least, and wouldn’t suffer. Would you throw children in the water? Or out of a window? Perhaps she thought of that.”
    â€œPossible, I suppose,” grudgingly.
    â€œLet’s give her that much credit,” said the journalist, writing.
    There was nothing Arlette could do. Sit in the car, say her remorse. Say a prayer that it was so: that the mother had said something kind and tucked them in. ‘Things will be better in the morning.’ And they were.
    It is at these moments that you are aware of being Catholic, and grateful for it. For these moments you light a candle, and say the prayer taught to small children born near the sea, whenever the wind blows. Bonne Mère, look after the sailors. Be by me, when my time comes.