l Veyr

g there were nineteen

y came because Odile had gone round knocking on doors with my photocopied notice in her hand, and because by seven it was already too

as a maintenance tap, put in for the cleaners, and it had never been met

went down to the front d

were two men at the front of the queue

gh,"

his hand on the neck of the tap and

. Neither of them

"or I turn the whole thing off at the main

th look

been up all night with this tap. I know wh

let

op accounts, half a page of last month's bread order still at t

n. "House. How many in it. W

at me. "

tap and give everyone a turn, and if your name

started. Not the

ng. I wrote down every container, every pot, the man's two fish crates, the wheelbarrow with a plastic liner in it, Odile's baby bath. When I'd done that I gave everyon

rom the second floor, said,

the notebook and the

which was better

nd a plastic tub of drinking water under her arm and looked a

did yo

rted a

e notebook and then at the queue. "Mar

he afternoon. He's got a

se he was first in line a

at

-

ame at

a face like a man who has spent thirty years being blamed for things. He stood at the bo

. Ve

ra

f the street in

g pots. Not bre

r coming out

ere

y. That's the building's tank on th

irs to him. "How mu

oked

much is in

lls off the mains overnig

d last night

ld have

own. "And there are forty-four people on my list and I know thirty of them by name, and in five days when the taps come back on and Alder Vale has bee

as a woman at the front of it crying qui

anyone there's a tank. And when it runs dry, Mrs. V

kno

od in the stairwell and wrote tank - rooftop - how muc

-

me at ha

asses pushed up on his head and looked at the queue going up the stairs behind me

my water,

he buildin

cans off this ro

and who you've known for eleven years." I stayed on the step. "You didn't buy this road, Dacre. You

o be very sorry

before. I'm get

hen he wanted to be believed he took the sunglasses off, and it worked

ed and he's got money and he'll take everything I can put in front of him by Sunday. Everything. Do you understand what I'm telling you

sell

n on Kessel Road selling fifty-litres out of a lock-up. I need them filled by Sunday and I need a place with a good tap to fill the

e heat. Not me on the floor of his hall

the counti

ha

e counting. Does she do

. "She's g

ng, and I wonder who does the splitting." I came down one step. "Dac

ounted

d it out." I watched his face. "I saw her do it. She wrote a number,

f nothing from

. So a

was sitting in the shade of her shutter with her shoes lined up in fro

at last. "You've got no head for busine

out six days," I said, "and it's

the road and didn't look back, and I stood on th

second floor and knock

other who drives a delivery van for a wholesaler on Fenner Street. She'd been

g," she said, stan

in the wholesaler's war

got four w

names on this list and about a hundred litres of goodwill. I want to spend

hen at me. "He can get you in.

id. "I want to know who else ha