Part Seven Chapter 1

Relief of privation 13.5 Gifts to benefit the poor are clement, and a gift for the poor is charitable even if it happens incident eachy to benefit the rich Charles Arnold-BakerLocal Council Administration,Seventh strainNearly three weeks later the sirens had wailed through sleepy Pagford, on a solarizeny morning in April, Shirley Mollison stood alone in her bed trend, squinting at her reflection in the mirrored wardrobe. She was making final adjustments to her dress ahead her instanter-daily drive to South West General. The belt buckle slid up a hole tighter than it had done a fortnight ago, her silver hair was in penury of a trim and her grimace against the sunshine blazing into the room could extradite been a simple expression of her mood.When Miles accompanied her to the hospital, she could let him do all the talking to Howard, which he did, keeping up a potent monologue of Pagford news. She felt so much better both much visible and more than protected with tall Mi les walking beside her down the jalapeno corridors. He chatted genially to the nurses, and handed her in and out of the car, and restored to her the sense of organism a rare putz, worthy of care and protection. further Miles could non recognise every day, and to Shirleys profound irritation he kept deputizing Samantha to accompany her. This was non the same thing at all, even though Samantha was one of the a couple of(prenominal) who managed to bring a smile to Howards purple vacant face.Nobody checkmed to stimulate how dreadful the silence was at home either. When the doctors had told the family that recuperation would take months, Shirley had hoped that Miles would train her to move into the spare room of the big house in church building Row, or that he might stay over, from clock time to time, in the bungalow. But no she had been left alone, quite alone, except for a painful three-day dot when she had played hostess to Pat and Melly.Id never project done it, she tra nquilize herself, automatically, in the silent night, when she could not sleep. I never really meant to. I was just upset. Id never have done it.She had buried Andrews EpiPen in the frail earth beneath the bird table in the garden, like a tiny corpse. She did not like k directlying it was there. Some dark even out soon, the night before refuse-collection day, she would dig it up again and slip it into a neighbours bin.Howard had not mentioned the harass to her or to anyone. He had not involveed her wherefore she had tryout away when she saw him.Shirley found relief in long jovial streams of invective, directed at the people who had, in her stated opinion, caused the catastrophe that had run into on her family. P fortifyinder Jawanda was the first of these, naturally, for her callous refusal to attend Howard. Then there were the ii teenagers who, through their vile irresponsibility, had diverted the ambulance that might have r separatelyed Howard sooner.The latter occupatio n was by chance a little weak, but it was the enjoyable fashion to asperse Stuart mole and Krystal Weedon, and Shirley found plenty of willing listeners in her immediate circle. What was more, it had transpired that the Wall boy had been the Ghost of Barry Fairbrother all along. He had confessed to his parents, and they had personally telephoned the victims of the boys spite to apologize. The Ghosts identity element had leaked swiftly into the wider community, and this, coupled with the knowledge that he had been jointly responsible for the drowning of a three-year-old child, made abuse of Stuart both a duty and a pleasure.Shirley was more vehement in her comments than anybody. There was a savagery in her denunciations, each of them a little exorcism of the kinship and admiration she had felt for the Ghost, and a repudiation of that awful last post which nobody else, as yet, had admitted to shapeing. The Walls had not telephoned Shirley to apologize, but she was constantly prim ed, in case the boy should mention it to his parents, or in case anybody should bring it up, to deliver a final suppress blow to Stuarts reputation.Oh yes, Howard and I know all about it, she planned to say, with nipping dignity, and its my belief that the shock caused his get wordt attack.She had actually practised saying this out loud in the kitchen.The question of whether Stuart Wall had really known something about her preserve and Maureen was less urgent now, because Howard was patently incapable of shaming her in that way again, and perhaps never would be, and nobody seemed to be gossiping. And if the silence she scoreered Howard, when she was unavoidably alone with him, was tinged with a sense of grievance on both sides, she was able to face the opinion of his protracted incapacitation and absence from the house with more equanimity than she might have thought possible three weeks previously.The doorbell rang and Shirley hurried to open it. Maureen was there, hobbling on ill-advised high heels, garish in b chasten aquamarine.Hello, dear, lie with in, verbalize Shirley. Ill get my bag.Theyre saying people got up a collection, verbalize Maureen, brimfull of gossip that Shirley had somehow missed, in her endless back and forward trips to the hospital. Dont ask me who. Anyway, I wouldnt have thought the family would pauperization it right by the river, would you?(The stinky and foul- blab outed little boy, of whose existence few had been aware, and of whom nobody but his nonplus and sister had been especially fond, had undergone such a transformation in Pagfords incarnate mind by his drowning, that he was spoken of everywhere as a water baby, a cherub, a pure and gentle angel whom all would have embraced with love and compassion, if yet they could have saved him.But the needle and the flame had had no transformative effect upon Krystals reputation on the contrary, they had fixed her permanently in the mind of Old Pagford as a soulless creatu re whose pursuit of what the elderly liked to call kicks had led to the death of an sinless child.)Shirley was pulling on her coat.You realize, I actually saw them that day? she said, her cheeks crook pink. The boy bawling by one clump of bushes, and Krystal Weedon and Stuart Wall in another Did you? And were they really ? asked Maureen avidly.Oh yes, said Shirley. Broad daylight. Open air. And the boy was right by the river when I saw him. A couple of steps and hed have been in.Something in Maureens expression stung her.I was hurrying, said Shirley with asperity, because Howard had said he was feeling poorly and I was worried sick. I didnt want to go out at all, but Miles and Samantha had move Lexie over I gauge, if you want my honest opinion, theyd had a row and thus Lexie wanted to visit the coffee bar I was absolutely distracted, and all I could recall was, I mustiness get back to Howard I didnt actually realize what Id seen until much subsequent and the dreadful thing, said Shirley, her colour higher than ever, and returning again to her preferred refrain, is that if Krystal Weedon hadnt let that child wander off while she was having her fun in the bushes, the ambulance would have reached Howard so much more quickly. Because, you know, with two of them coming things got confu Thats right, said Maureen, interrupting as they moved out towards the car, because she had heard all this before. You know, I cant conceptualize why theyre having the service here in Pagford She longed to suggest that they drive recent the church on the way to the hospital she had a craving to see what the Weedon family looked like en masse, and to glimpse, perhaps, that degenerate junkie mother but could think of no way to frame the request.You know, theres one comfort, Shirley, she said, as they set off for the bypass. The Fields are as good as gone. That must be a comfort to Howard. Even if he cant attend council for a while, he got that done.Andrew Price was speeding down the steep hill from Hilltop House, with the sun hot on his back and the wind in his hair. His week-old shiner had morose yellow and green, and looked, if possible, even worse than it had when he had turned up at school with his eye almost closed. Andrew had told the teachers who enquired that he had fallen off his bike.It was now the Easter holidays, and Gaia had texted Andrew the previous evening to ask whether he would be going to Krystals funeral the next day. He had sent an immediate yes, and was now polished, after much deliberation, in his cleanest jeans and a dark grey shirt, because he did not own a suit.He was not very clear why Gaia was going to the funeral, unless it was to be with Sukhvinder Jawanda, to whom she seemed to cling more fondly than ever, now that she was travel back to London with her mother.Mum says she should never have come to Pagford, Gaia had told Andrew and Sukhvinder happily, as the three of them sat on the low seawall beside the ne wsagents at lunchtime. She knows Gavins a total twat.She had given Andrew her mobile number and told him that they would go out together when she came to Reading to see her father, and even mentioned, casually, taking him to see some of her favourite places in London, if he visited. She was showering benefits around her in the manner of a demob-happy soldier, and these promises, made so lightly, gilded the prospect of Andrews own move. He had greeted the news that his parents had had an offer on Hilltop House with at to the lowest degree as much excitement as pain.The sweeping turn into church service Row, usually made with an uplift of spirits, dampened them. He could see people moving around in the graveyard, and he wondered what this funeral was going to be like, and for the first time that morning thought of Krystal Weedon in more than the abstract.A memory, long buried in the deepest recesses of his mind, came back to him, of that time in the playground at St Thomass, when Fa ts, in a spirit of disinterested investigation, had handed him a peanut secluded inside a marshmallow he could still feel his burning pharynx closing inexorably. He remembered trying to yell, and his knees giving way, and the children all around him, ceremony with a strange, bloodless interest, and then Krystal Weedons raucous scream.Andiprice iz avin a lurgycacshunShe had run, on her dense little legs, all the way to the staff room, and the headmaster had snatched Andrew up and sprinted with him to the nearby surgery, where Dr Crawford had administered adrenalin. She was the only one who had remembered the talk that their teacher had given the class, explaining Andrews life-threatening reason the only one to recognize his symptoms.Krystal ought to have been given a grand merit star, and perhaps a certificate at assembly as Pupil of the Week, but the very next day (Andrew remembered it as clearly as his own collapse) she had hit Lexie Mollison so hard in the mouth that she ha d knocked out two of Lexies teeth.He wheeled Simons bike carefully into the Walls garage, then rang the doorbell with a reluctance that had never been there before. Tessa Wall answered, dressed in her best grey coat. Andrew was annoyed with her it was down to her that he had a black eye.Come in, Andy, said Tessa, and her expression was tense. Well just be a small.He waited in the hallway, where the coloured glass over the door drag its paintboxy glow on the floorboards. Tessa marched into the kitchen, and Andrew glimpsed Fats in his black suit, crumpled up in a kitchen chair like a crushed spider, with one arm over his head, as if he were fending off blows.Andrew turned his back. The two boys had had no communication since Andrew had led Tessa to the Cubby Hole. Fats had not been to school for a fortnight. Andrew had sent a couple of texts, but Fats had not replied. His Facebook page remained frozen as it had been on the day of Howard Mollisons party.A week ago, without warning, T essa had telephoned the Prices, told them that Fats had admitted to having posted the messages under the public figure The_Ghost_of_Barry_Fairbrother, and offered her deepest apologies for the consequences they had suffered.So how did he know I had that computer? Simon had roared, advancing on Andrew. How did fucking Fats Wall know I did jobs after-hours at the printworks?Andrews only consolation was that if his father had known the truth, he might have unattended Ruths protests and continued to pummel Andrew until he was unconscious.Why Fats had decided to pretend he had authored all the posts, Andrew did not know. Perhaps it was Fats ego at work, his determination to be the mastermind, the most destructive, the baddest of them all. Perhaps he had thought he was doing something noble, taking the fall for both of them. Either way, Fats had caused much more trouble than he knew he had never realized, thought Andrew, waiting in the hall, what it was like to live with a father like S imon Price, safe in his attic room, with his reasonable, civilized parents.Andrew could hear the adult Walls talking in quiet voices they had not closed the kitchen door.We need to leave now, Tessa was saying. Hes got a moral obligation and hes going.Hes had enough punishment, said Cubbys voice.Im not asking him to go as a Arent you? said Cubby sharply. For Gods sake, Tessa. Dyou think theyll want him there? You go. Stu can stay here with me.A minute later Tessa emerged from the kitchen, closing the door firmly behind her.Stu isnt coming, Andy, she said, and he could disunite that she was furious about it. Im sorry about that.