One Damn Thing After Another Read Online Free PDF Page B

And the smooth-worn, sliding words of a formula pattered off by heart, paid out like a line: and may she and all the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace, amen: make a sincere act of contrition dear-child.
    She had left a ‘back in an hour’ word for Arthur, who had pottered off upon lawful occasions. But he’d left somebody – another middle-aged woman – in the ‘waiting-room’. “With you in just one moment,” said Arlette. She went hastily to drink a cup of stale coffee, recollect herself. A pest, when people turned up without appointments. But she was grateful now. Take her mind off the failure; there’d been too many. Force her to make more effort. Composed now, she recognized another face set to be composed in the face of failure.
    â€œI’m sorry to have kept you waiting. Please come in.”
    â€œI don’t know whether it’s of any use.”
    â€œIt’s always of use. If there’s nothing I can do it costs you nothing. But we’ll see, shall we?” A woman of the ‘working class’, of the poor, shabbily dressed, because she has always more important things than her back to spend money on. But a firm, self-reliant face.
    And with a filthy story, the kind one doesn’t want to hear, but has to: not, perhaps, as frequently nowadays, but still, sadly, often. Some people think the frequency is again increasing. The standards of police recruitment have been terribly low over these past ten years. No more than semi-literate, most of them. The instructor in elementary street duty was wondering why they did so poorly with a map until he tumbled to it – they had trouble with streets named in alphabetical order …
    Madame Solange Bartholdi. Forty-seven years old, widowed after an accident at work (building site) eight years ago. Two children (sons), now twenty-one and nineteen. (Difficult age-group, just coming to terms with manhood. And – mental arithmetic – thirteen, thus, and eleven, when they lost their father: another difficult agegroup.) Hard work, but she’d brought them up respectable. Address in Neudorf (stone’s throw from this morning: the sort of coincidence Arlette had learned to accept). The neighbourhood was ‘not too bad’. She did a morning shift as a cleaning-woman, a lunchtime shift as help-cook in a canteen. She didn’t complain: rough, certainly, but stable, steady work and not badly paid. She wanted to emphasize she’d never been a woman to bear a grudge against society.
    The boys had been her mainstay: affectionate, loyal, steady.Nothing wonderful at school, but the teachers would bear her out, gave no trouble and asked for none, weren’t workshy and had proper manners. Brought up to be polite; she’d always insisted on that. Same when they’d gone to work (apprenticeships in metal-working, and in armoured cement) – the bosses would say a word for her: good boys and no backchat. Of course boys give trouble – Mrs van der Valk would understand. Right, she’d had two herself. And hardship, the being poor, knitted a family together. It made one self-reliant. It was everything. She knew something about the subject; child of the Assistance Publique herself – that was her family. Hardship she had known all her days. Poverty on her bread, and thickly spread. Why complain? It was her lot; that’s what one got when the cards were dealt. Don’t ever envy anyone.
    Her man had family, back in Calabria. She’d not seen much of them, since losing him. Normal: they were poor, too, had their own troubles, enough without hers added. Been a good man. No drinking, no betting, and always jobs done around the house.
    Arlette felt a lot better. All right, so much for the background: one had to get that first, you understand? So, now for the story; what had happened?
    Told quickly enough, said Madame Bartholdi grimly: the police was what had happened.