Read Online The Death-Defying Pepper Roux by Geraldine McCaughrean - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Geraldine McCaughrean
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wheels—huge and remorseless as a dozen meat slicers—sliced the journey into wafer-thin petals of time that fell away into the dust, never to be recovered. Taking off his jacket in the hot carriage, he found a ragged tear in the sleeve—so either the saw or the meat slicer had caught him, after all. There was a matching bruise on his arm. It was time to change lives again; time to slice Pepper Salami so wafer thin that the light would shine through—time to slice him invisible.
FIVE
NEWSPEPPER
S omeone’s dead,” said Pepper, and immediately felt better.
“Fill in the form,” said the woman behind the counter of the Étoile Sud newspaper offices.
And so Pepper announced his own death, not so much for the benefit of any taxicab angels browsing through the paper, or even his aunt Mireille, but more to convince himself that le pauvre was indeed dead to the world. He was no longer Paul Roux and never would be again. Maybe you’ll leave me alone now, he found himself thinking.
The woman behind the counter saw him struggling to fit all his words onto the form. “That’ll cost you,” she said. “Words don’t come cheap.”
“
“What about the free press?” asked Pepper, who had heard of it and thought it meant you didn’t have to pay.
“Nothing’s free in this life. Put your head out the window and shout—there’s free speech. Us you pay for,” said the woman, snatching back the form and crumpling it up. “In here it costs two francs a line.” She had a face like a dishcloth being wrung out. Pepper thought she must spend too much time reading about tragedies in the newspaper.
When he grasped that it cost money to put a death notice in the newspaper, he asked for another form and rewrote his entry in as few words as possible, paying with one of the notes rolled up in his pocket.
ROUX, Paul
formerly of
Bois-sous-Clochet
Drowned at sea 11 July.
Sadly missed.
“The sea shall
give up her dead”
“Gone to Glory ’s cheaper,” said the woman, so he changed the quote, though it seemed a terrible lie. Hecrossed through Sadly missed as well. That probably wasn’t true either. Besides, he still had to pay for the announcement about Roche.
Presumably the shipping company would no longer be sending Roche’s wages to his widow, knowing full well the ship was on the ocean bed. So there was no longer any point in pretending he was alive. Roche’s wife needed to know she was a widow, and he had not plucked up the courage to notify her. Was it kind to let her read about her husband’s death in the paper? Well that depended on what she read, didn’t it?
Pepper could not say that Roche had gone down with the ship, because then she would start having the same dreams as Pepper: terrible, terrible dreams…. No, Claude Roche deceased must be all the things Claude Roche alive could have been if he had tried harder (and if he hadn’t been such a natural-born pig).
“Someone else died,” he said, and the woman pursed her lips but gave him a third form to fill in.
He wrote of the death of one Claude Roche of Aigues Mortes, a seaman who, having newly escaped a shipwreck, heroically sacrificed his life while on a visit to the Marseille zoo. Seeing a child fall into the lion pit, he had unhesitatingly thrown himself in too, as analternative meal for the lions. Lifting the child onto his shoulders, he had been able to pass her into the arms of her mother before the lions attacked. Pepper even afforded Roche a “Sadly missed” as well as a “Gone to Glory.” The notice cost a small fortune.
A door opened behind the woman, and noise burst through from the print rooms. Pepper glimpsed the presses—giant cylinders, windmill paddles wafting huge sheets of newsprint. A man entered in shirtsleeves and a beret; the woman’s eager smile and fluttering hands said that here was the editor.
The editor of L’Étoile Sud was no good at listening or at looking people in the face, but he gobbled up the written
FIVE
NEWSPEPPER
S omeone’s dead,” said Pepper, and immediately felt better.
“Fill in the form,” said the woman behind the counter of the Étoile Sud newspaper offices.
And so Pepper announced his own death, not so much for the benefit of any taxicab angels browsing through the paper, or even his aunt Mireille, but more to convince himself that le pauvre was indeed dead to the world. He was no longer Paul Roux and never would be again. Maybe you’ll leave me alone now, he found himself thinking.
The woman behind the counter saw him struggling to fit all his words onto the form. “That’ll cost you,” she said. “Words don’t come cheap.”
“
“What about the free press?” asked Pepper, who had heard of it and thought it meant you didn’t have to pay.
“Nothing’s free in this life. Put your head out the window and shout—there’s free speech. Us you pay for,” said the woman, snatching back the form and crumpling it up. “In here it costs two francs a line.” She had a face like a dishcloth being wrung out. Pepper thought she must spend too much time reading about tragedies in the newspaper.
When he grasped that it cost money to put a death notice in the newspaper, he asked for another form and rewrote his entry in as few words as possible, paying with one of the notes rolled up in his pocket.
ROUX, Paul
formerly of
Bois-sous-Clochet
Drowned at sea 11 July.
Sadly missed.
“The sea shall
give up her dead”
“Gone to Glory ’s cheaper,” said the woman, so he changed the quote, though it seemed a terrible lie. Hecrossed through Sadly missed as well. That probably wasn’t true either. Besides, he still had to pay for the announcement about Roche.
Presumably the shipping company would no longer be sending Roche’s wages to his widow, knowing full well the ship was on the ocean bed. So there was no longer any point in pretending he was alive. Roche’s wife needed to know she was a widow, and he had not plucked up the courage to notify her. Was it kind to let her read about her husband’s death in the paper? Well that depended on what she read, didn’t it?
Pepper could not say that Roche had gone down with the ship, because then she would start having the same dreams as Pepper: terrible, terrible dreams…. No, Claude Roche deceased must be all the things Claude Roche alive could have been if he had tried harder (and if he hadn’t been such a natural-born pig).
“Someone else died,” he said, and the woman pursed her lips but gave him a third form to fill in.
He wrote of the death of one Claude Roche of Aigues Mortes, a seaman who, having newly escaped a shipwreck, heroically sacrificed his life while on a visit to the Marseille zoo. Seeing a child fall into the lion pit, he had unhesitatingly thrown himself in too, as analternative meal for the lions. Lifting the child onto his shoulders, he had been able to pass her into the arms of her mother before the lions attacked. Pepper even afforded Roche a “Sadly missed” as well as a “Gone to Glory.” The notice cost a small fortune.
A door opened behind the woman, and noise burst through from the print rooms. Pepper glimpsed the presses—giant cylinders, windmill paddles wafting huge sheets of newsprint. A man entered in shirtsleeves and a beret; the woman’s eager smile and fluttering hands said that here was the editor.
The editor of L’Étoile Sud was no good at listening or at looking people in the face, but he gobbled up the written
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