The acrid stench of charred paper was in the air when I walked through our communal garden one evening last week. It was dark, but flames burst suddenly into life at the edge of a thicket of bushes, illuminating a man fanning them. I didn’t recognise him but, assuming him to be a resident of our block and, therefore, a neighbour, I addressed him in passing with a jocular, “Burning the evidence?” I think he realised that his activity might appear to be shifty, since he offered an explanation. “Gotta get rid of some old bank statements and I don’t have a shredder anymore,” he said. “Sorry about the smoke.” It seemed a feasible story – and he was using the barbecue hearth sensibly to contain the fire – so I left him to it.
I was on my way to meet up with some pals for an evening of jazz recordings. Our nascent jazz appreciation group had met a couple of times in each other’s homes but, with ambitions to grow, we had sought – and found – a public venue. I had approached the proprietor of a local establishment who, being an enthusiastic proponent of the arts, music and community, had recently created a unique café-bar with an adjoining gallery-cum-performance-room. True to his ethos, he offered us carte blanche, including use of his sound system, free of charge, on a Tuesday evening. He was as hopeful as us that by holding our sessions there, we could attract outsiders to join our group and, eventually, get musicians to come and perform.
The evening might have been reckoned a great success but for the dashed hope of swelling our number. Tuesday evenings are pretty quiet. In fact, apart from our group of seven, only two other people entered the premises all evening – a young couple who left after buying one drink. But the proprietor and his lady-friend stuck with us, playing Scrabble at a table nearby and getting up to serve us at the bar as and when required. At the beginning, however, there had been a moment of anxiety. I can’t say that it is universally true, of course, but my experience of jazz evenings in the company of retired, middle-class white males is that a great deal of red wine gets consumed. So, when I ordered a bottle at the bar, I was alarmed to be told that it was the only one remaining. The barmaid explained that there had been a good crowd in at the weekend and that they had almost drunk the place dry. New stock was due on Thursday. However, sensing my dismay, she cheerfully pledged to go out (to the local supermarket, I guessed) and get more. Which she did – along with dishes of nibbles which she brought to our table, gratis. Now that’s what I call a friendly, community-focused approach to commerce. We shall certainly reconvene there next time – after making more of an effort to publicise the event beforehand.
But the week wasn’t all about jazz. I also saw a couple of films, good examples of the excellence of French cinema. The premise of the first one, Incredible but True, really is incredible – as in beyond belief – so how could it also be true? Well, after a good deal of thought, I found a possible explanation for the title: the true part is the laughable plausibility of the reactions of the characters to the situation. Actually, the other film might just as well have had the same title, given its outcome. The Origin of Evil is a devilishly convoluted story of a crime in which the actions of the perpetrator seem innocent at first. As the plot is revealed, however, it becomes clear that what seems incredible is, in fact true: people really are capable of doing such evil.
It might be coincidental but, since then, I’ve been getting flashbacks to the bloke burning ‘evidence’ in the garden. His story seemed feasible but…
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