One Damn Thing After Another (4 page)

“Shaved – no, cropped.”

“Sheared. Yes, quite. Tomorrow then. He's had breakfast, has he?”

She went into the kitchen and wrote down ‘Dogfood'. The beast gambolled about. His name was Dog, generally spoken as Hangdog. Sometimes, as now, Maddog, at others Saddog; when he felt amorous, Gaydog. He was supposed to be a Gun Dog, at which he was useless, though he pointed at things. But he was large enough, and made enough noise, to keep people respectful: as Watch Dog he bristled at every step, including Arlette's. He had been Arthur's idea, after a repulsive person had come up the stairs one day, and smeared blood all over their front door. He was, in fact, perfectly gentle and wouldn't hurt a fly. Wouldn't know how. As Talleyrand said of his wife, wins the first prize for imbecility. He was really like Joe Gargery: what larks, eh, old chap?

“What larks we have, Dog, hey?” Arthur came in and dumped numerous things on the table needful to supershepherds.

“Ah, yes, I met her in the supermarket. Wouldn't work today of course. Caught sight of me and went Yoohoo, hallo, old chap.”

“I'll do the strict minimum,” said Arlette, making faces at the kitchen floor.

Seven in the morning, drinking a cup of coffee. Obscurely, she felt a little stale, a little sour. Trying to rationalize this, she brought it home to a puritanical worry at a duty not performed: something of which she had said ‘I'll think about that tomorrow'. And now it was tomorrow.

A woman had asked for help and she'd done nothing about it. It had sounded so dreary. There was nothing to do, that was sure. Ninety per cent. Well, a strong probability. She realized that a dialogue was taking place between the fiend and her conscience.

Neudorf – that is no distance. You can be there in a few minutes. Very likely the woman works, and will already have left. Nonsense, it's not even seven-thirty and if she has, you can leave a note in her box.

Angry at being so unwilling, she threw on a jacket, took the car keys. The Lancia coughed and hawked, cleared its throat and spat several times in a bronchial, early-morning bad mood.

Strasbourg south of the river is – as in London – at once a drop in social standing, and the suburbs there, despite resolute efforts now and then to be bright and modern, are depressed and down at heel. Neudorf is the nearest, and the oldest, and least-planned; a hundred streets pell-mell in a heap, named with a thumping lack of originality after Alsace villages, so that it is never possible to recall which is which though they have much character, varying from one minute to the next. Some are rambling and villagey, with old cottages and truncated bits of lichened orchard, where peasant obstinacy has held the speculative builder at bay. Others are slums; lightless alleys smelling of drains, leprous blocks looking like Berlin before
they bombed it; worst of all when the sun shines. She lost two minutes looking it up on the streetmap.

A block too big for the ground it occupied; lowering down. 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.

“No. 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.

“Two 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.

“Straightforward. 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?”

“Perhaps,” said Arlette, “she thought of the children.”

“Huh?” Meaning huh!

“They'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.”

“Possible, I suppose,” grudgingly.

“Let'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. 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.

“I'm sorry to have kept you waiting. Please come in.”

“I don't know whether it's of any use.”

“It'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. Banging on the door first thing in the morning. Where were the boys?

The boys worked, and earned, and brought money in. They had the right to some freedom, and to enjoy themselves. They went out with their friends and the odd time, weekends and such, stayed out all night. She didn't ask. They were men now, and entitled to be treated as such. And didn't welcome Mum nosey-parkering, or playing the anxious old hen.

“It's all right,” grimly. “I'm not going to break down and cry. But these bloody police, sorry, but I've said it and I'm not about to go back on it, they just rang up and said ‘Your son is dead'. Like that. As though it was a dog run over. Can you imagine that?”

“One sec. First they came?”

“That's right. Pascal was in bed, so was I. Saturday, you
know; didn't have to get up that early. Where was Olivier? – did I know, did he know? Neither of us knew anything about it. And they knew, all the time. Roaming around, poking their noses in everything. Hour or so after, bop. Your son is dead – your number came up, you know.”

“Pascal is the younger?”

“No, the elder. Olivier was nineteen.” And now she could not stop her tears.

“This is abominable,” said Arlette.

Solange had thrown her coat on, rushed to the local police post. They said they knew nothing about it, try down town, that's right, the central headquarters. Pushed around there from pillar to post, nobody wants to know, oh yes, finally, here's a fellow willing to tell you.

Arlette who – one way or the other – had a fairly wide experience of the police, could of course see the other side. They'd behaved, alas, with a heavy-handed callousness and brutality that was simply inadmissible, but at the time they made the raid, they hadn't grasped that the boy was dead. It had happened in the country: a message from the gendarmerie in the middle of the night had been misunderstood or garbled. Once the urban police realized the boy was dead, and not wounded or captive, they'd make a clumsy cover-up.

The facts were that a group of boys had broken into a country house they thought empty. But the owner had been there – a weekend cottage. In a panic he had reached for his gun and fired into the night. The boy had been fatally wounded. Naturally, the others fled in terror. The gendarmes called to the scene had found the boy's identity papers and sent the urban police to rope in the rest of the band.

Solange had come to terms with this. It wasn't just stupid, she said bleakly, it was damn dishonest. There he'd asked for trouble, and got it. Excessively, yes. Unfairly, yes, but it was her experience that life was that way. She blamed herself more than him. She'd let the reins drop too soon. It was a crime, all right.

She took, in fact, a much more severe view than Arlette did. But there, it wasn't Arlette's son.

Her own two sons, aged seventeen and fifteen, had been run in for what the Amsterdam police called street hooliganism. Piet van der Valk, at that time a Chief Inspector, had been called round to the station: the boys were being let go after a talking-to. Intensely humiliated, he had lost his cool. He'd hit them both in the face, baff baff, in front of the station sergeant. It had taken a long time, for all concerned, to get over this episode.

The police had called the elder son down to headquarters and questioned him roughly. They hadn't perhaps beaten him up, but Arlette could guess that they'd roared and slapped him about. They simply didn't believe his tale (which he stuck to) that he knew nothing about his brother's friends, or their activities, or movements. She didn't think she believed it herself. It was loyalty, solidarity. Bastardly cops. They'd clapped him in the cell, kept him three weeks. The judge of instruction let him go then, for lack of evidence. Without apologies.