Some Rain Must Fall Read Online Free PDF

As soon as the butane had done its work, she turned it off and sat inside the car again, balancing the hot pot of spaghetti on the gnarled steering wheel. She ate slowly and meditatively, with a fork, watching the sea-birds through the windscreen. Her car was parked well back from the edge, so she couldn’t actually see the sea.
SISTER JENNIFER
    murmured a prayer of thanks for what she had just received. It was one of her peculiarities, this: saying prayers of thanks after rather than before . So much could go wrong betweenbeing presented with an opportunity and actually being able to enjoy it; it therefore seemed pathetic to thank God for something that might yet be snatched away. Of course, the other sisters hadn’t seen it that way, but she was on her own now.
SISTER JENNIFER
    let the spaghetti settle in her stomach for a while and had a drink from her thermos, then took off her parka to see if doing without it was feasible. Unfortunately the food and drink hadn’t warmed her enough yet, and she felt instantly cold, so she put it back on. This was rather a shame, because the parka covered much of her nun’s habit and (more crucially) she couldn’t wear it and her veil as well. If anyone came, she must of course go to them directly, and there might not be time to organise her clothing for maximum effect. She could throw off the parka in an instant, but might have to leave the veil. Still, the crucifix on her breast would surely give the right message.
SISTER JENNIFER
    got out of her car to stretch her legs. They were long legs, after all. She walked back and forth along the deserted cliff-head, clasping her arms to her sides, her hands deep in her jacket pockets. Her fur-lined boots made no sound in the damp grass as she walked; her parka made a small rustling noise like a battery-operated toy. The sea and the sky made the sound peculiar to cliff edges, as if all the noise had first been sucked through a gap in the horizon and then regurgitated with something indefinable missing. The seagulls kept disappearing below her line of vision; she didn’t want to get too close to the edge in case of vertigo.

SISTER JENNIFER
    returned to her car, had another drink from her thermos and at last began to feel a little warmer. A layer or two of cloud had been blown away from the densely overcast sun, allowing more warmth to glow through its shroud. The parka could come off soon, quite soon. She wondered what time it was, noted that once again the dashboard dock had experienced a hiccup in its power supply and was flashing 00:00. The radio might tell her the time, if she was prepared to listen to its chatter and its pop music long enough. She tried it for a while, suffering, but was still none the wiser when a vehicle pulled up not far from hers at the cliff edge.
SISTER JENNIFER
    switched off the radio and removed her parka, revealing the big dark crucifix on her white breast. The new arrivals stepped out of their camper-van and inhaled ostentatiously: a man and a woman. Festooned with sunglasses, cameras and binoculars, they had evidently not come to commit an act of desperation, despite the fact this spot was nicknamed Suicide Point.
SISTER JENNIFER
    let the man and the woman walk to the edge and fiddle with their equipment. She tried to relax, but adrenalin had leaked into her system: her head was noisy with her own voice rehearsing the reasons why life was worth living. No pain was so great that God could not find room for it in his bottomless repository of sorrows. To have made the decision to die must mean that you have decided you can no longer carry the burden of life. And oh yes, there is no denying thatthe burden can grow too heavy. But, if you are ready to throw that burden off the edge of a cliff, to smash yourself to pulp on the rocks below, and be washed out to sea like garbage, what is there to stop you trying something different? No, no, not returning to the life you cannot bear, not shouldering the burden all over