One Damn Thing After Another

by Nicolas Freeling

  “Here’s some grub,” said Arlette, “and what am I, apart from cook, and Imbecile of the Year?”

  “You stop pitying yourself and imagining things – and you meditate upon your sins. Because if we were pinched on this job … don’t worry, we won’t be.”

  “But I realize.”

  “I think you do, and that you won’t pull a gag like this in a hurry again – stop it now, girl. If you didn’t trust me, and I you, what would be the point of either of us existing?”

  “Yes – that more or less is what I was trying to make Friend understand. What people like Casabianca never will understand. Not being able to trust people is what made the Minister kill himself.”

  “If we’ve two hours to kill,” remarked Arthur lighting his pipe, “conversation will get more and more like that on the departure platform of the Gare de Lyon. We must give ourselves something to concentrate upon. Extremely banal though the suggestion is, mine is that we play cards.”

  Subleyras played cards the way one does when in the habit of night shifts. Arthur slowly, with a professional concentration of memory and observation, and the English love of a dotty gamble at rather long odds. Xavier – which nobody had expected – brilliantly; uncanny at guessing what card was in which hand.

  “Janey,” said Subleyras, disconcerted, “you ought to be in Las Vegas.”

  Arlette, who hated cards, relapsed into a female role of supplying drinks. She had to ransack her cupboards – there wasn’t any whisky left.

  Chapter 26

  ¡Que se las arregle!

  While the men were all away – Leathergating – Arlette was at last losing herself in an extremely intricate and beautiful piece by Bartók. She had established a bit of an alibi by taking Truedog on his DST act (Surveillance of the Territory) of the Observatory railings. She had to hang around a long time before meeting anyone on the same errand, because of being Belated, but met at last the gentleman in the Rue de l’Université, with the nice labrador whose manners put Dog (first growling then cringing against her leg) to such shame. She was getting hooked on Bartók when the telephone rang. It is supposed to be a harmless thing, the telephone.

  The wrench was dreadful. She put both hands to her stomach and pressed hard with her fingertips. Then she had to get up to stop the pick-up, with time to get frightened again. The phone in the silence was like a pneumatic drill.

  “Yes.”

  “Oh. I’ve been trying to get hold of you all day.” Rubbish: in a thin, complaining voice. Voice of that deadly cow, Estelle Laboisserie. Of all people … True, she had left her office phone on record, hadn’t lifted the tape, and heaven knew what was on it. But she loathed anybody who rang out of office time. Doctors have to answer phones, and successful criminal lawyers, and Ministers. But those are all awful people. She also hated people who interrupted music. And most she detested Estelle Laboisserie – skinny bitch – and Ghislaine – fat spotty bitch – and Thing who rang-up-from-Australia (also in the middle of the night): oh, the entire tribe. Alas, she had a promise to keep.

  Said “Hold the line,” breathed deeply through her nose, said, “Yes madame.”

  “All day,” repeated the whiney voice, that of a spoilt child.

  “I’ve been working all day. In fact I’m still working now. So what was it all about?”

  “But – as we agreed: the travel agency has everything fixed for you. Plane, hotel reservation, the tickets have to be picked up, the bookings have to be confirmed, we’ve gone to a great deal of trouble and very considerable expense and–”

  “Look, try and understand that it’s on this account that I still find myself at work past midnight.” A white lie, and a counterthrust too good to miss.

  “Well I didn’t know that …”

  “Listen, I’m waiting at this moment for an item of news which will clear up an affair and greatly relieve my mind.” True; true. “And I’ll ring you as early as may be in the morning to confirm. I hope I shan’t need to put the booking back.”

  “Oh … well then … as long as I know. As long as it’s settled, you see, we’re, we’ve been so anxious, getting worse day by day and we –”

  “I’ve said it already and can only repeat: I can’t give any guarantees. I’ll do my honest best by whatever means I can discover or invent – you’ll have to be content with that. Sorry if I appear edgy, but I’m very tired.”

  “If it’s a question of money –”

  “I have to be perfectly honest: I realize it’s a lot of money and you’re probably throwing it away. If you wish to withdraw, I shall understand. I’ll make no claim on you for such time as I have given.”

  “No, no – that’s not our attitude at all. Uh – er – hold the line.” Bangs and splutters, sounds of expostulation, and the voice of the girl Ghislaine.

  “Please, Mrs Davidson, please, please do go. I know my brother’s in awful trouble and we’re all quite sure you can help. Please don’t say no.”

  “My dear girl, I’m not saying no. I’ll go, and tomorrow if possible.”

  “Oh good, good, thank you – here’s my mother back.”

  “So you’ll ring me first thing? That’s agreed?”

  “Promised.”

  “Fine.”

  She’d gone and dished herself up now! Found herself shaking a little, as much with rage as anything. People … Wanted a drink and there wasn’t any whisky. Frigged about among bottles, found some Spanish brandy, by Arthur called Good Old Oval-Osborne.

  How did they ‘know’ the boy was in ‘awful trouble’? It sounded as though the Consulate in Buenos Aires was not letting its right hand know what its left hand was getting up to; characteristic governmental hypocrisy and effrontery, officially termed Diplomacy.

  Oh, que se las arreglan! Sort it out for yourselves! And put another exclamation-mark in front of that, a Spanish one upsidedown!

  But you’ve given your promise and can’t go back on it. You can’t break things off.

  Like Bartók: if interrupted it can’t go back and begin again. You are whole, and you keep your word, or you’re nothing: you’d be exactly the same as the men you despise, who break their word, are ashamed to say so, send their wives to make excuses for them.

  She poured herself some more Osborne: whatever shape this was, it wasn’t square, but watch it, girl, you’re getting sloshed. She put Bartok back on the shelf, hunted for other kinds of Percussion and Celeste; came up with the Benny Goodman Quartet, a death-defying act off the high edge of the clarinet’s register, exactly what was needed. Gene Krupa is far too noisy and emotional – compared to, oh, say Ray Bauduc, he was a lousy drummer. But by the time they reach ‘Avalon’ nothing matters any more, and we all go off the edge of the known world together. Avalon is the Island of the Blest. I wish, I wish that I were there …

  You can’t play the Benny Goodman Quartet at one in the morning, even in an old and solidly built house, without the sound well down, or you’d have the neighbours on your head; and she wasn’t that sloshed. She heard the car coming discreetly down the street and stopping on tiptoe outside. Feather-footed through the plashy fen passes the questing vole: too sloshed to know where that piece of deathless prose comes from. It did occur to her, though, that if she needed another alibi witness, then Estelle Laboisserie would have served some purpose.

  From Evelyn Waugh, said Arthur. Scoop and this is most appropriate. Not sloshed but about to get so. He and Xavier were like small boys whose football team has just scored, and who must dance.

  Charley was not exuberant, but not ashamed of himself.

  “Clean job,” he said. “No, nothing, thanks. I’ll get off home if I may. A funny thing; when I was on duty, and it could be tricky sometimes, Janine slept like a rose. And now I’m a civilian, she won’t sleep till I’m in. Call on me any time, but not for things like this.”

  “You call on me any time and for anything,” said Arlette going downstairs with him. “I’d like to meet Janine too. I’m glad you met Xavier.”<
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  “He’s a clever fellow. He’ll be quite invaluable. Goodnight.” She didn’t give him a kiss, even one of drunken bonhomie: not her style. But she would have liked to, as he sailed away unfazed as the Duke of Wellington after a damned close-run thing.

  Xavier, who had a sense of tact, left as well.

  “Must be up early in the morning. Busy a-forging things. Wasn’t of any great use, but glad to be, of whatever. Well – sleep tight.”

  Arthur was staring at the Osborne bottle, now at low tide.

  “All those bulls on hilltops,” he muttered. “Oh, there you are! You can give thanks, and your idiot boy with you, because both of you have saved your ass. Boy, was I frightened! I wouldn’t be a gangster for a million. But the scary stuff on movies, the Hitchcock thing … nothing happened at all. I think we could have loaded a furniture van and nobody would have blinked.”

  “But what did he do? Begin at the beginning.”

  “He said in the car, got to bust the front, so nobody would gather that the boy had been inside.”

  “Yes, I gathered that.”

  “But how to bust the front without setting alarms off was what I couldn’t gather – I mean the alarm was supposed to be on. I stood open-mouthed. Charley marches straight up to that box where they keep the transformer or the relay, or whatever it’s called. Don’t be dim – Electricité de France. Mostly a sort of concrete hut with a steel door and a terrifying warning about High Tension. Charley puts the crowbar in, the door went pop and he pulled the main switch: plunges the entire subsector into darkness. You see – no more juice: alarm kaput. E.D.F. have of course a technician on night duty, but he takes his time. Charley across the square, crowbar into the floor lock of the grille!”

  “But were there no people?”

  “I was so scared of the cops that I wanted to make a fake call, send them all out to some monstrous disaster out in the Wantzenau, but Charley wasn’t having that: immoral! People pass of course – Place Broglie, sort of public. So I was up one end with a nasty cough if anyone came pottering, and Xavier down on the corner with a sneezing fit. Only three people came, and as Charley predicted they hurried on past, because whatever you’re up to they don’t want their consciences disturbed. What he was most afraid of was a drunk, who might be volubly pally or else quarrelsome, and noisy either way, but we were spared that. He was inside the grille by then, and working on the glass door like an F.B.I. bagman. Only took three minutes all told, though it seemed like half an hour. Main police shop only a hundred metres away: I was steamed up. He went in alone.”

  “What did he do there?”

  “Nothing! – what was there to do? The cable on the switchboard inside was pulled already. That would look all right; in case, you see, the juice outside was turned back on quicker than expected. It did go on too: people must have been phoning right and left. And I imagine E.D.F. called the cops to say come and look where naughty vandals – autonomists probably or antinuclear demonstrators – have bust our good junction box – but we didn’t stop to see. Charley had bust the back – from the outside you can’t see or get any leverage, but inside it’s just a big padlock on a hasp – and we were away. Left the car across the river, not to get tangled in any one-way streets. And the crowbar which is an incriminating thing to be carrying about at night, he simply chucked in the river right under the windows of the Préfecture! Where I dare say there was a flap, with all their lights out. Ploop and the whole Place Broglie gone black,” laughing childishly, heartily. “Floodlights outside the Hotel de Ville and the Préfecture – all the Son et Lumière on the blink. Exactly like the lovely bit in the Wind in the Willows–pistol for the Rat, pistol for the Mole, pistol for the Badger!”

  “And now?”

  “Now – that man is a nasty sort of personage, and if we light a fire under him he has only himself to blame. Xavier wants to create a huge scandal: lot of crude retribution, but I see his point and yours too. Strike a blow for your Madame Bartholdi. Send letters of denunciation to the Palace of Justice, the Service des Douanes, the Fiscal Fraud Inspector. Even if the fellow destroys all invoices and stuff, there’ll be the panther skin to hang on him. If we’d had an aerosol we’d have written on the door; Compliments from the Friends of the Baby Seals, up your pipe signed Brigitte Bardot, who’ll be delighted.

  “Oh yes,” with drunken relish, “cat right in among pigeons and you’ll see feathers fly.”

  “You will. I won’t.”

  “You won’t? Why won’t you?”

  “Because,” said Arlette, “I’m off to Buenos Aires.”

  Chapter 27

  Me las arreglé

  “Oh God,” said Arthur, “more odtaa.”

  “But you hadn’t forgotten?”

  “No, no – but I was hoping it wouldn’t happen.”

  “So was I. Then while you were away, I got a greatly agitated phone call. And then I had time to think.”

  “You shouldn’t try to think when you’re in a distraught state; all wound up as you are.”

  “I’m no longer in the least wound up. This,” said Arlette, “had a very flattening, not to say sobering, effect.”

  “Which – your stupidities just past? Or the prospect of further stupidities still to come?”

  “Please,” with unusual meekness, “let’s go to bed now: I’m very tired.”

  It was one of Strasbourg’s worst mornings: dry but chilly, with a fusty dirty cover of grey cloud, no wind, a smell of chemicals: a gritty, sunken-eyed, alkaseltzerish sort of morning. Arthur’s face, freshly shaved, was tight and papery. Her own face simply didn’t bear looking at; her hair was limp and lifeless. Even the headline ‘A Daring Break-in’ on the regional page of the local newspaper failed to stir her: she just felt dull. She slipped out and made her telephone call. Arthur was still in sombre meditation when she came back, moving a spoon round and round in some cold coffee.

  “I’ve plenty of time to pack. But not for any train – midday plane to Paris and that dreary shuttle between two airports.”

  He drank the coffee and said, “Oh God, I put sugar in twice.”

  “My poor boy,” she said kissing his hair.

  He pulled himself together then, turned round and put his arms round her.

  “No – if you’ve got to, you’ve got to. It’s just that I can’t imagine what good it’s likely to do.”

  “None very likely – indeed almost certainly. But I have to try. I have made a mess of everything, all round.”

  “That’s not true, you know.”

  “One fails so much. God send something a little better. The irony is that these are people in whom I have no interest. I can’t even bring myself to feel much sympathy. Perhaps that’s just as well. I am more detached about it all.”

  “It’s not a very nice place, you know, to go to.”

  “I know nothing at all about it.”

  “That’s just it – you know nothing at all about it.”

  “Sabré,” said Arlette, “me las arreglar.” I will know how to sort it out. Se Débrouiller is the verb that gave the System D to France, and conjugating it, in all its tenses, was one of her gifts. Arthur held her by the hips and gave her a hug.

  “I’ve no doubt,” he said, “you will.”

  “It’s only for a few days. I count on three at most. Add travel time and expect me back then at the latest.”

  “I’ll drive you to the airport. What time’s your take-off?”

  “A big kiss.”

  “A big kiss. And make sure you eat properly. By the way, I stole your toothpaste.” Airport conversations are all the same.

  “I shall eat all the things you don’t like. Cauliflower! On second thoughts, no; I’d have to eat it five days running. Look after yourself, my girl.”

  “Last call for Paris please. Now boarding,” said the obnoxious loudspeaker girl.

  “There’s nothing you’ve forgotten?” asked Arthur with the special imbecility proper to these occasions.

 
“Any more Paris passengers?” screamed a stewardess with odious French shrillness.

  “Fuck you,” muttered Arthur, and with a memory of a long-ago comedian, “No not you, Mother, sit down. ’Bye.”

  Arlette dragged out desolately. Nothing in the world is nastier than airports.

  The early-morning Paris plane is squashed full of businessmen relatively subdued by the crack-of-dawn awakening; haggard and quiet and shuffling furtively through their papers which they know by heart already: all frightened of the day in front of them, of the sack, of a heart-attack, of forgetting their lines. The mid-morning plane is better: less of a crowd and they are all excessively jolly, drinking up a good appetite and looking forward to a company-paid lunch. It is the best time of day for the poor wretches. Surely the figures will show something better than that miserable one and a quarter per cent.

  Arlette did not share in the euphoria, but fell mercifully asleep, awakened only by a loud bump at Orly. Bus. Spectacularly vile view of Paris through dirty windows. Passengers all dead, poisoned by that toasted-cheese sandwich that is the Paris airport’s special gift to gastronomy.

  Roissy, now known as Charlie-Airport and it is not a change for the better, opens its maw and processes you. Treblinka railway-siding, with its gay paint, little trees, enthusiastic posters of happy families setting forth for happy hols, is nothing to it. Come on lads and lassies, Arbeit Macht Frei. Buy scarves, umbrellas, Scotch cameras and Japanese whisky. Arlette sat there and longed for someone to come and give her a fatal injection.

  But once – at last – aboard Aerolineas’ spanking treasure-loaded galleon, spirits rose. Nowhere else for them to go. De abajo, arriba, which is Spanish very roughly for up-up-and-away. There was no space in front or behind, but by God’s infinite mercy there was space to the side for the junk she had – very little – and the junk the girls brought – a great deal. She organized herself – se las arregló – and began to feel comfortable. She was not in the least an Experienced Traveller, but did know the basics of airlines, which are after all relatively simple: never eat the food; never try to call the girls; support it patiently when they come unbidden; never, never try to go to the lavatory. She got hold of a mask and some pillows, curled up and Slept. Missed, mercifully, breakfast in the middle of the afternoon, exciting views of Dakar, The Movie, virtually all of the aloft part.