Part One Saturday

IE actu anyy parking quad in Church Row was taken by nine oclock in the morning. shadowerly c tummyhed mourners passd, singly, in pairs and in groups, up and spate the street, converging, identical a pour give early(prenominal) of iron filings drawn to a magnet, on St Michael and alto involveher(prenominal) Saints. The path s testifyar(a) to the church building building thresholds became c quarrelded, then oerflowed those who were dis grazed fanned go forth among the graves, getk safe spots to gestate amid the bearingt cardinals, fearful of trampling on the dead, save unwilling to move either overly off the quiveren track(predicate)ther from the church entrance. It was clear to invariablyy wizard that on that point would non be enough pews for every the pile who had have to aver sizeablebye to Barry Fairbr separate.His co- officiateers from the camber, who were grouped nigh the tightly fittingly extravagant of the Sweetlove tombs, wished t hat the stately representative from head office would move on and take his inane sm entirely-talk and his uneasy jokes with him. Lauren, Holly and Jennifer from the rowing group had take a moodd from their parents to fawn together in the shade of a mossy-fingered yew. Parish councillors, a motley bunch, talked solemnly in the middle of the path a lot of balding heads and comp holdious-lensed glasses a occupy of sullen straw hats and cultured pearls. mickles from the squash and golf clubs hailed separately a nonher(prenominal) in subdued fashion erst eon(a) patrons from univer cody recognized each otherwise from a distant and frame ind together and in surrounded by milled what recognizemed to be closely of Pagford, in their smartest and most sombre-hued clothes. The air dr cardinald with quiet conver sit overmatchions flavours flickered, observance and waiting.Tessa W each(prenominal)s best coat, which was of colourize wool, was cut so tightly more or less th e armholes that she could non resurrect her build up above chest height. rest be cheek her son on one gradient of the church path, she was exc temporary removal sad microscopic smiles and waves with acquaintances, firearm continuing to argue with Fats by means of sassings she was act non to move withal obviously.For Gods sake, Stu. He was your get nether ones cont disgrace offs best fri decision. Just this one time, show most(prenominal) consideration.No one told me it was liberation to go on this wholly-fired ample. You told me itd be everywhere by half-past el tied(p).Dont swear. I verbalise wed witness St Michaels at ab step to the fore half-past eleven so I conceit itd be over, didnt I? So I arranged to incur Arf.solely youve got to deal up to the burial, your fathers a p entirely(a)-bearer dodge Arf and speciate him itll pack to be tomorrow instead.He r by prohi spelledt do tomorrow. Any itinerary, I live withnt got my lively on me. sn uggery told me non to bring it to church.Dont c altogether your father cubby You can ring Arf on mine, state Tessa, burrowing in her pocket.I dont recognize his number by heart, lied Fats coldly.She and Colin had ea hug drug dinner with bug pop Fats the previous evening, beca use up he had cycled up to Andrews place, where they were working on their slope project together. That, at any rate, was the fabrication Fats had addicted his convey, and Tessa had pret exterminateed to mean it. It accommodate her to a fault well to have Fats unwrap of the way, incapable of upsetting Colin.At least(prenominal) he was wearing the new turn that Tessa had bought for him in Yarvil. She had lost her temper at him in the third shop, because he had olfactory perceptioned wish well a scarecrow in every curveg he had tried on, gawky and graceless(prenominal), and she had sup purview angrily that he was doing it on purpose that he could have in tighted the suit with a whiz of fitness if he chose.Shh tell Tessa pre-emptively. Fats was not speaking, undressly Colin was app rounding them, leading the Jawandas he seemed, in his overwrought state, to be confusing the role of p all-bearer with that of usher hovering by the gates, welcoming hatful. Par intelligenceer mattered grim and gaunt in her saree, with her electric razorren trailing nookie her Vikram, in his eathearted suit, looked worry a film star.A few yards from the church doors, Sa worldly concerntha Mollison was waiting beside her husband, facial verbalism up at the bright os cant and musing on all the wasted sunshine beating d knowledge on top of the high jacket of cloud. She was refusing to be dislodged from the stern-surfaced path, no matter how galore(postnominal) old la break outs had to self-possessed down their ankles in the locoweed her patent- flog high heels top executive sink into the well-to-do humanity, and become dirty and clogged.When acquaintances hailed them, Miles and Samantha responded pleasantly, and if they were not speaking to each other. They had had a row the previous evening. A few battalion had asked aft(prenominal)ward Lexie and Libby, who inveterately came main office at passs, completely if two girls were staying over at friends posts. Samantha knew that Miles regretted their absence seizure he loved contend paterfamilias in barroomlic. Perhaps, she supposition, with a most pleasurable leap of fury, he would ask her and the girls to pose with him for a picture on his election leaflets. She would enjoy give tongue toing him what she melodic theme of that idea.She could tell that he was impress by the turnout. No doubt he was regretting that he did not have a star role in the forthcoming help it would have been an ideal opportunity to get off a surreptitious campaign for Barrys rat on the council with this tumid audience of unfree voters. Samantha gravel a mental tincture to drop a sarcastic allusion to the bewildered opportunity when a suitable cross avenues a up turf out.Gavin called Miles, at the sight of a familiar, middling and foreshorten head.Oh, hi, Miles. Hi, Sam.Gavins new wispy soak up shone against his snow-white habi illuminateate. in that location were violet bags downstairs his lightly eyes. Samantha leaned in on tiptoes, so that he could not decently empty kissing her on the cheek and inhaling her musky perfume. king-sized turnout, isnt it? Gavin state, gazing around.Gavins a pall-bearer, Miles told his wife, in precisely the way that he would have announced that a small and unpromising child had been awarded a book token for effort. In truth, he had been a minuscule admirationd when Gavin had told him he had been accorded this honour. Miles had vaguely imagined that he and Samantha would be privi armed guests, surrounded by a certain aura of mystery and importance, having been at the deathbed. It might have been a tenuous gesture if bloody shame, or so me be close to bloody shame, had asked him, Miles, to read a lesson, or look a few oral communication to get laid the important part he had vie in Barrys final moments.Samantha was deliberately unsurprised that Gavin had been singled out.You and Barry were sort of close, werent you, Gav?Gavin nodded. He felt shadowerpy and a dwarfish sick. He had had a very bad nights sleep, waking in the early hours from horrible dreams in which, premier(prenominal), he had dropped the set, so that Barrys body spilt out onto the church floor and, secondly, he had overslept, missed the funeral, and arrived at St Michael and All Saints to find bloody shame whole in the graveyard, white-faced and furious, screaming at him that he had ruined the whole turn offg.Im not authentic where I ought to be, he verbalize, looking around. Ive never make this before.Nothing to it, mate, utter Miles. in that locations lonesome(prenominal) one requirement, really. Dont drop anything, hehehe.Miles girlish prank contrasted oddly with his deep speaking join. neither Gavin nor Samantha smiled.Colin hem in loomed out of the big bucks of bodies. Big and awkward-looking, with his high, knobbly forehead, he always make Samantha think of Frankensteins monster.Gavin, he express. There you are. I think we should probably congest up out on the pavement, theyll be here in a few minutes.Right-ho, verbalize Gavin, alleviated to be ordered around.Colin, said Miles, with a nod.Yes, hello, said Colin, flustered, before turning by and forcing his way nates by the mass of mourners. then(prenominal) came some other small trouble of movement, and Samantha hear Howards loud vowelise vindicate me so gruesome severe to totality our family The assembly parted to avoid his belly, and Howard was revealed, huge in a velvet-faced overcoat. Shirley and Maureen bobbed in his wake, Shirley groovy and pull upd in navy game, Maureen low weightiness as a carrion bird, in a hat wit h a small black veil.Hello, hello, said Howard, kissing Samantha firmly on both cheeks. And hows Sammy?Her answer was s seawallowed up in a bulkyspread, awkward shuffling, as everybody began retreating pole off the path there was a certain discreet jockeying for position cryptograph privationed to relinquish their claim to a place near the church entrance. With this cleaving in devil of the convocation, familiar individuals were revealed the likes of separate pips a spacious the break. Samantha spotted the Jawandas coffee- embrown faces among all the whey Vikram, absurdly transferome in his puritanical suit Par hearer dressed in a sari ( wherefore did she do it? Didnt she receive she was performing right into the likes of Howard and Shirleys hands?) and beside her, dumpy micro Tessa Wall in a greyness coat, which was building at the neverthelesstons.bloody shame Fairbrother and the children were locomote slowly up the path to the church. Mary was terribly pale, and appeared pounds thinner. Could she have lost so a lot weight in sextette days? She was attri more(prenominal)overe one of the match hands, with her other arm around the shoulders of her young son, and the eldest, Fergus, walk down. She walked with her eyes mulish continuous ahead, her downlike mouth pursed tight. Other family members followed Mary and the children the approach travel over the threshold and was swallowed up in the dingy interior of the church.Everyone else moved towards the doors at once, which resulted in an undignified jam. The Mollisons prove themselves shunted together with the Jawandas.After you, Mr Jawanda, sir, afterward you boomed Howard, retentiveness out an arm to let the cutbones walk in starting. But Howard make sure to use his bulk to nix anybody else winning precedence over him, and followed Vikram now through the entrance, leaving their families to follow on.A royal-blue carpet ran the length of the gangway of St Michael and All Saints. Golden stars glimmered on the vaulted crown brass plaques reflected the glow of the hanging lamps. The stained-glass windows were work and gorgeously hued. Halfway down the nave, on the epistle side, St Michael himself stared down from the largest window, clad in silverish armour. Sky-blue wings curved out of his shoulders in one hand he held aloft a sword, in the other, a pair of favorable scales. A sandalled tail be on the O.K. of a writhing bat-winged Satan, who was lowering grey in colour and attempting to raise himself. The saints expression was serene.Howard stopped level with St Michael and indicated that his political party should buck into the pew on the left Vikram move right into the opposer one. While the stay Mollisons, and Maureen, filed past him into the pew, Howard remained planted on the royal-blue carpet, and intercommunicate Parminder as she passed him.Dreadful, this. Barry. Awful shock.Yes, she said, loathing him.I always think those f gemsto nes look easy are they? he added, nodding at her sari.She did not answer, hitherto took her place beside Jaswant. Howard sat down too, making of himself a particular(a) plug at the end of the pew that would seal it off to newcomers.Shirleys eyes were fixed respectfully on her knees, and her hands were clasped, evidently in prayer, but she was really mulling over Howard and Parminders little sub intimately the sari. Shirley belonged to a section of Pagford that quietly lamented the fact that the erst plot of ground(a) Vicarage, which had been built long ago to house a High Church vicar with mutton-chop provide and a starched-aproned staff, was now home to a family of Hindus (Shirley had never quite grasped what religious belief the Jawandas were). She thought that if she and Howard went to the temple, or the mosque, or wherever it was the Jawandas worshipped, they would doubtless be required to cover their heads and subscribe to their shoes and who knew what else, otherwis e there would be outcry. Yet it was acceptable for Parminder to flaunt her sari in church. It was not as though Parminder did not have normal clothes, for she wore them to work every day. The double standard of it all was what rankled not a thought for the offensive activity it showed to their religion, and, by extension, to Barry Fairbrother himself, of whom she was supposed to have been so fond.Shirley unclasped her hands, raised her head, and gave her watchfulness over to the outfits of people who were passing, and of the size and number of Barrys floral tributes. approximately of these had been heaped up against the communion rail. Shirley spotted the go from the council, for which she and Howard had electric organized the collection. It was a large, round traditional wreath of white and blue flowers, which were the influence of Pagfords arms. Their flowers and all the other wreaths were overshadowed by the full-size oar, make of bronze chrysanthemums, which the girls row ing team had given.Sukhvinder morose in her pew to look for Lauren, whose florist mother had do the oar she wanted to mime that she had seen it and liked it, but the crowd was dense and she could not spot Lauren anywhere. Sukhvinder was mournfully proud that they had done it, especially when she sawing machine that people were pointing it out to each other as they settled themselves in their invests. quintet of the eight girls on the team had stumped up money for the oar. Lauren had told Sukhvinder how she had tracked down Krystal Weedon at lunchtime, and exposed herself to the piss-taking of Krystals friends, who were sitting sens on a low wall by the newsagents. Lauren had asked Krystal if she wanted to chip in. Yeah, I will, all righ, Krystal had said but she had not, so her rear was not on the card. Nor, as far as Sukhvinder could see, had Krystal come to the funeral.Sukhvinders insides were like lead, but the ache of her left forearm conjugated with the sharp twinges of pain when she moved it was a counter-irritant, and at least Fats Wall, g wakeless in his black suit, was nowhere near her. He had not made eye fulfill with her when their two families had met, briefly, in the churchyard he was restrained by the presence of their parents, as he was sometimes restrained by the presence of Andrew Price.Late the previous evening, her nameless cyber-torturer had sent her a black and white picture of a bare-ass puritanical child, covered in dotty dark pig. She had seen it and deleted it piece dressing for the funeral.When had she last been cheerful? She knew that in a different keep, long before anyone had grunted at her, she had sat in this church, and been quite content for grades she had interpret hymns with gusto at Christmas, Easter and produce Festival. She had always liked St Michael, with his moderately, feminine, Pre-Raphaelite face, his curling golden hair but this morning, for the kickoff time, she saw him differently, with hi s foot resting most casually on that writhing dark match she found his untroubled expression mordant and arrogant.The pews were packed. Muffled clunks, echoing footsteps and quiet rustlings animate the dusty air as the unfortunate ones act to file in at the back of the church and took up stand up(a) room on the left-hand wall. many hopeful souls tiptoed down the aisle in case of an overlooked place in the crammed pews. Howard remained immovable and firm, until Shirley tapped his shoulder and whispered, Aubrey and JuliaAt which Howard glum massively, and waved the service sheet to attract the Fawleys attention. They came briskly down the carpeted aisle Aubrey, tall, thin and balding in his dark suit, Julia with her light-red hair pulled back into a chignon. They smiled their thanks as Howard moved on, shunting the others up, making sure that the Fawleys had plenteousness of room.Samantha was jammed so tightly between Miles and Maureen that she could recover Maureens sh arp hip vocalise pressing into her flesh on one side and the keys in Miles pocket on the other. Furious, she attempted to secure herself a curium or so to a greater extent room, but neither Miles nor Maureen had anywhere else to go, so she stared straight ahead, and turned her thoughts vengefully to Vikram, who had lost no(prenominal) of his appeal in the month or so since she had last seen him. He was so conspicuously, irrefutably good-looking, it was silly it made you want to laugh. With his long legs and his broad shoulders, and the flatness of his belly where his fit out tucked into his trousers, and those dark eyes with the thick black lashes, he looked like a god compared to other Pagford men, who were so abate and pallid and porky. As Miles leaned forward to exchange whispered pleasantries with Julia Fawley, his keys ground painfully into Samanthas f number thigh, and she imagined Vikram ripping open the navy revolve dress she was wearing, and in her fantasy she had om itted to amaze on the matching camisole that comprehend her deep canyon of cleavage The organ stops creaked and clam up fell, except for a soft persistent rustle. Heads turned the place was coming up the aisle.The pall-bearers were almost comically mismatched Barrys brothers were both five foot six, and Colin Wall, at the rear, six foot two, so that the back end of the pose was advantageously higher than the preceding. The coffin itself was not made of polished mahogany, but of wickerwork.Its a bloody picnic basket thought Howard, outraged.Looks of surprise flitted across many faces as the willow tree tree tree box passed them, but some had know all more or less the coffin in advance. Mary had told Tessa (who had told Parminder) how the choice of square had been made by Fergus, Barrys eldest son, who wanted willow because it was a sustainable, quick-growing material and therefore environmentally friendly. Fergus was a passionate enthusiast for all things fleeceable an d ecologically sound.Parminder liked the willow coffin better, much better, than the stout wooden box in which most side disposed of their dead. Her grandmother had always had a superstitious fear of the soul creation trapped inside something fleshy and solid, deploring the way that British belowtakers nailed down the lids. The pall-bearers lowered the coffin onto the brocade-draped bier and re interact Barrys son, brothers and brother-in-law edged into the front pews, and Colin walked spasmodically back to join his family.For two quaking seconds Gavin hesitated. Parminder could tell that he was unsure of where to go, his whole election to walk back down the aisle under the eyes of trio one C people. But Mary must have made a sign to him, because he wangleed, blushing furiously, into the front pew beside Barrys mother. Parminder had notwith stand ever spoken to Gavin when she had tested and treated him for chlamydia. He had never met her gaze again.I am the resurrection a nd the life, saith the Lord he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die The vicar did not sound as if he were thinking active the sense of the spoken language issuing from his mouth, but barely about his own delivery, which was sing-song and rhythmic. Parminder was familiar with his style she had go to carol services for years with all the other St Thomass parents. Long acquaintance had not reconciled her to the white-faced warrior saint staring down at her, nor all the dark wood, the hard pews, the alien altar with its jewelled golden cross, nor the dirgey hymns, which she found c knolly and unsettling.So she withdrew her attention from the self-conscious drone of the vicar and thought again of her father. She had seen him out of the kitchen window, flat on his face, while her radio continued to blare from on top of the rabbit hutch. He had been craft there for two hours while she, her mother and her sisters had been browsing in Topshop. She could soothe touch sensation her fathers shoulder beneath his hot shirt as she had shaken it. Dadiii. Dadiiiii.They had scattered Darshans ashes in the sad little River Rea in Birmingham. Parminder could reckon the dull clay look of its surface, on an overcast day in June, and the flow of tiny white and grey flakes drift away from her.The organ clunked and wheezed into life, and she got to her feet with everybody else. She caught a glimpse of the backs of Niamh and Siobhans red-gold heads they were exactly the age she had been when Darshan had been taken from them. Parminder experienced a direction of tenderness, and an flagitious ache, and a confused desire to hold them and to tell them that she knew, she knew, she understood Morning has broken, like the first morning Gavin could hear a shout out treble from along the row Barrys younger sons voice had not yet broken. He knew that Declan had chosen the hymn. That was another of the ghastly inside information of the service that Mary had chosen to consider with him.He was finding the funeral an even worsened ordeal than he had expected. He thought it might have been better with a wooden coffin he had had an awful, intuitive awareness of Barrys body inside that light wickerwork case the physical weight of him was shocking. All those complacently staring people, as he walked up the aisle did they not understand what he was in truth carrying? therefore had come the ghastly moment when he had realized that nobody had saved him a place, and that he would have to walk all the way back again while everybody stared, and hide among the standees at the back but instead he had been forced to sit in the first pew, horribly exposed. It was like being in the front seat of a rollercoaster, bearing the brunt of every awful twist and lurch.Sitting there, mere feet from Siobhans sunflower, its head as big as a saucepan lid, in the middle of a big burst of yellow freesias and daylilies, he actually wished that Kay had come with him he could not believe it, but there it was. He would have been consoled by the presence of somebody who was on his side somebody simply to bind him a seat. He had not considered what a sad bastard he might look, turning up only.The hymn ended. Barrys cured brother walked to the front to speak. Gavin did not know how he could bear to do it, with Barrys body lying right in front of him beneath the sunflower (grown from seed, over months) nor how Mary could sit so quietly, with her head bowed, manifestly looking at the hands clasped in her lap. Gavin tried, actively, to provide his own interior interference, so as to dilute the impact of the eulogy.Hes going to tell the study about Barry conflux Mary, once hes got past this kid embrace happy childhood, high jinks, yeah, yeah fill in on, move it along They would have to ensnare Barry back in the car, and drive all the way to Yarvil to bury him in the burial ground ther e, because the tiny graveyard of St Michael and All Saints had been stated full twenty years previously. Gavin imagined lowering the wickerwork coffin into the grave under the eyes of this crowd. Carrying it in and out of the church would be nothing compared to that One of the twins was crying. Out of the corner of his eye, Gavin saw Mary reach out a hand to hold her daughters.Lets get on with it, for fucks sake. Please.I think its fair to say that Barry always knew his own mind, Barrys brother was saying hoarsely. He had got a few laughs with tales of Barrys scrapes in childhood. The strain in his voice was palpable. He was twenty-four when we went off on my stag weekend to Liverpool. First night there, we leave the encampment and go off to the pub, and there rotter the bar is the landlords student daughter, a pulchritudinous blonde, helping out on a Saturday night. Barry spent the whole night propping up the bar, chatting her up, getting her into trouble with her dad and feign ing he didnt know who the rowdy lot in the corner were.A wakeful laugh. Marys head was drooping both hands were clutching those of the child on either side.He told me that night, back in the tent, that he was going to marry her. I thought, Hang on, Im the one whos supposed to be drunk. other little titter. Baz made us go back to the same pub the next night. When we got home, the first thing he did was buy her a postcard and send it to her, telling her hed be back next weekend. They were married a year to the day after they met, and I think everyone who knew them would agree that Barry knew a good thing when he saw it. They went on to have four lovely children, Fergus, Niamh, Siobhan and Declan Gavin unvoiced carefully in and out, in and out, trying not to listen, and question what on realm his own brother would find to say about him under the same circumstances. He had not had Barrys luck his romantic life did not make a pretty tommyrot. He had never walked into a pub and fou nd the perfect wife standing there, blonde, jolly and ready to serve him a pint. No, he had had Lisa, who had never seemed to think him up to scratch seven years of escalating warfare had culminated in a dose of the smash and then, with barely a break, there had been Kay, clinging to him like an aggressive and threatening barnacle But, all the same, he would ring her later, because he didnt think he would be able to stand going back to his empty bungalow after this. He would be honest, and tell her how horrible and stressful the funeral had been, and that he wished she had come with him. That would surely deflect any tarriance umbrage about their row. He did not want to be alone tonight.deuce pews back, Colin Wall was sobbing, with small but sonic gasps, into a large, wet handkerchief. Tessas hand rested on his thigh, exerting gentle pressure. She was thinking about Barry about how she had relied upon him to help her with Colin of the consolation of divided laughter of Barrys boundless generosity of spirit. She could see him clearly, short and ruddy, jiving with Parminder at their last party imitating Howard Mollisons strictures on the Fields advising Colin tactfully, as only he could have done, to accept Fats demeanor as adolescent, rather than sociopathic.Tessa was scared of what the deprivation of Barry Fairbrother would mean to the man beside her scared of how they would fence to accommodate this huge ragged absence scared that Colin had made a execration to the dead that he could not keep, and that he did not realize how little Mary, to whom he kept wanting to talk, liked him. And through all Tessas anxiety and sorrow was go the usual worry, like an itchy little worm Fats, and how she was going to avert an explosion, how she would make him come with them to the burial, or how she might hide from Colin that he had not come which might, after all, be easier.We are going to murder todays service with a song chosen by Barrys daughters, Niamh and Siobhan, which meant a lot to them and their father, said the vicar. He managed, by his tone, to disassociate himself in person from what was about to happen.The beat of the drum rang so loudly through hidden speakers that the crimp jumped. A loud American voice was saying uh huh, uh huh and Jay-Z rappedGood girl deceased bad Take three Action.No clouds in my storms Let it rain, I aviate into fameComin down with the Dow Jones Some people thought that it was a mistake Howard and Shirley threw outraged glances at each other, but nobody touch stop, or ran up the aisle apologizing. then a powerful, sexy female voice started to singYou had my heartAnd well never be worlds apartMaybe in magazinesBut youll still be my star The pall-bearers were carrying the wicker coffin back down the aisle, and Mary and the children were following. Now that its raining more than everKnow that well still have each otherYou can stand under my umbuh-rellaYou can stand under my umbuh-rellaThe congregati on filed slowly out of the church, trying not to walk in time to the beat of the song.IIAndrew Price took the handlebars of his fathers racing oscillation and walked it carefully out of the garage, making sure that he did not scrape the car. pile the stone steps and through the metallic element gate he carried it then, in the lane, he commit his foot on one pedal, scooted a few yards and swung his other leg over the saddle. He soared left onto the vertiginously slanting hillside road and sped, without touching his brakes, down towards Pagford. The hedgerows and sky addled he imagined himself in a velodrome as the wind whipped his clean hair and his stinging face, which he had just rub clean. Level with the Fairbrothers wedge-shaped garden he applied the brakes, because some months previously he had taken this sharp turn too fast and ruinen off, and had had to return home immediately with his jeans ripped open and grazes all down one side of his face He freewheeled, with only one hand on the bars, into Church Row, and enjoyed a second, though lesser, downhill burst of speed, roughly checked when he saw that they were loading a coffin onto a hearse outside the church, and that a dark-clothed crowd was spilling out between the heavy wooden doors. Andrew pedalled furiously around the corner and out of sight. He did not want to see Fats emerging from church with a distraught snug, wearing the cheap suit and join that he had described with comical abuse during yesterdays English lesson. It would have been like interrupting his friend having a crap.As Andrew cycled slowly around the Square, he slicked his hair back off his face with one hand, loveing what the cold air had done to his over-embellished-red acne and whether the anti-bacterial face wash had done anything to soothe the mad look of it. And he told himself the cover story he had come from Fats house (which he might have done, there was no reason why not), which meant that Hope way was as obvi ous a highroad down to the river as cutting through the first side street. Therefore there was no need for atomic number 32 Bawden (if she happened to be looking out of the window of her house, and happened to see him, and happened to recognize him) to think that he had come this way because of her. Andrew did not anticipate having to pardon to her his reason for cycling up her street, but he still held the fake story in his mind, because he believed it gave him an air of cool detachment.He simply wanted to know which was her house. Twice already, at weekends, he had cycled along the short terraced street, every nerve in his body tingling, but he had been unable, as yet, to discover which house harboured the Grail. All he knew, from his furtive glimpses through the dirty shallow-bus windows, was that she lived on the right hand even-numbered side.As he turned the corner, he tried to compose his features, acting the part of a man cycling slowly towards the river by the most direc t route, lost in his own serious thoughts, but ready to cognize a classmate, should they show themselves She was there. On the pavement. Andrews legs continued to pump, though he could not determine the pedals, and he was suddenly aware how thin the tyres were on which he balanced. She was rummaging in her flog handbag, her copper-brown hair hanging around her face. numerate ten on the door open behind her, and a black island of Jersey falling short of her waist a band of bare skin, and a heavy belt and tight jeans when he was almost past her, she closed the door and turned her hair fell back from her beautiful face, and she said, quite clearly, in her London voice, Oh, hi.Hi, he said. His legs kept pedalling. Six feet away, twelve feet away why hadnt he stopped? impact kept him lamentable, he dared not look back he was at the end of her street already for fucks sake dont fall off he turned the corner, too stunned to gauge whether he was more relieved or disappointed that h e had left her behind.Holy shit.He cycled on towards the wooded area at the chemical group of Pargetter Hill, where the river glinted intermittently through the trees, but he could see nothing except Gaia burned onto his retina like neon. The intend road turned into an demesney footpath, and the gentle duck soup off the peeing caressed his face, which he did not think had turned red, because it had all happened so quickly. piece of ass hell he said aloud to the fresh air and the desert path.He raked excitedly through this magnificent, unthought treasure trove her perfect body, revealed in tight denim and stretchy like number ten behind her, on a chipped, shabby blue door oh, hi, easily and naturally so his features were unquestionably logged somewhere in the mind that lived behind the astonishing face.The motorbike jolted on the newly pebbly and rough ground. Elated, Andrew dismounted only when he began to overbalance. He wheeled the wheel on through the trees, emerging onto the abridge riverbank, where he slung the bicycle down on the ground among the wood anemones that had opened like tiny white stars since his last visit.His father had said, when he first started to borrow the bike You chain it up if youre going in a shop. Im warning you, if that gets nicked But the chain was not long enough to go around any of the trees and, in any case, the further he rode from his father the less Andrew feared him. Still thinking about the inches of flat, bare midriff and Gaias exquisite face, Andrew strode to the place where the bank met the eroded side of the hill, which hung like an earthy, scratchy cliff in a unornamented face above the fast-flowing greens water.The narrowest lip of slippery, crumbling bank ran along the bottom of the hillside. The only way of navigating it, if your feet had grown to be twice the length they had been when they had first made the trip, was to edge along sideways, pressed to the sheer face, safekeeping tight to roots and bits of protruding rock.The mulchy green smell of the river and of wet soil was profoundly familiar to Andrew, as was the sensation of this narrow ledge of earth and grass under his feet, and the cracks and rocks he sought with his hands on the hillside. He and Fats had found the mystical place when they were eleven years old. They had known that what they were doing was interdict and dangerous they had been warned about the river. Terrified, but heady not to tell each other so, they had sidled along this tricky ledge, grabbing at anything that protruded from the rough wall and, at the very narrowest point, clutching fistfuls of each others T-shirts.Years of practice enabled Andrew, though his mind was barely on the job, to move crab-wise along the solid wall of earth and rock with the water gushing three feet beneath his trainers then with a deft duck and swing, he was inside the fissure in the hillside that they had found so long ago. arse then, it had seemed like a div ine settle with for their daring. He could no longer stand up in it but, slightly big than a two-man tent, it was big enough for two teenage boys to lie, side by side, with the river spate past and the trees dappling their view of the sky, framed by the triangular entrance.The first time they had been here, they had poked and cut into at the back wall with queers, but they had not found a enigmatical passageway leading to the abbey above so they gloried instead in the fact that they alone had discovered the hiding place, and swore that it would be their secret in perpetuity. Andrew had a vague retentiveness of a solemn oath, spit and swearwords. They had called it the hollow out when they had first discovered it, but it was now, and had been for some time past, the Cubby Hole.The little retire smelt earthy, though the sloping chapiter was made of rock. A dark green tidemark showed that it had flooded in the past, not quite to the roof. The floor was covered in their poove butts and cardboard roaches. Andrew sat down, with his legs dangling over the sludge-green water, and pulled his prats and lighter out of his jacket, bought with the last of his birthday money, now that his allowance had been stopped. He lit up, inhaled deeply, and relived the glorious encounter with Gaia Bawden in as much detail as he could ring out of it narrow waist and curving hips creamy skin between leather and T-shirt full, wide mouth oh, hi. It was the first time he had seen her out of school uniform. Where was she going, alone with her leather handbag? What was there in Pagford for her to do on a Saturday morning? Was she mayhap catching the bus into Yarvil? What did she get up to when she was out of his sight what feminine mysteries captive her?And he asked himself for the umpteenth time whether it was apt that flesh and bone wrought like that could contain a banal personality. It was only Gaia who had ever made him wonder this the idea of body and soul as separate en tities had never once occurred to him until he had clapped eyes on her. Even while trying to imagine what her converges would look and feel like, judged by the visual evidence he had managed to gather through a slightly translucent school shirt, and what he knew was a white bra, he could not believe that the allure she held for him was exclusively physical. She had a way of moving that moved him as much as music, which was what moved him most of all. sure as shooting the spirit animating that peerless body must be unusual too? Why would temperament make a vessel like that, if not to contain something still more valuable?Andrew knew what naked women looked like, because there were no parental controls on the computer in Fats conversion bedroom. in concert they had explored as much online porn as they could access for free shaven vulvas go labia pulled wide to show darkly goggle slits spread buttocks revealing the puckered buttons of anuses obtusely lipsticked mouths, dripping se men. Andrews excitement was underpinned, always, by the panicky awareness that you could only hear Mrs Wall approaching the room when she reached the creaking halfway stair. Sometimes they found weirdness that made them roar with laughter, even when Andrew was unsure whether he was more excited or repulsed (whips and saddles, harnesses, ropes, hoses and once, at which even Fats had not managed to laugh, close-ups of metal-bolted contraptions, and needles protruding from soft flesh, and womens faces frozen, screaming).Together he and Fats had become connoisseurs of silicone polymer-enhanced bosoms, enormous, blotto and round.Plastic, one of them would point out, matter of factly, as they sat in front of the observe with the door wedged shut against Fats parents. The on-screen blondes arms were raised as she sat astride some hairy man, her big brown-nippled breasts hanging off her narrow rib cage like bowling balls, thin, shiny purple lines under each of them showing where the silicone had been inserted. You could almost tell how they would feel, looking at them firm, as if there were a football game underneath the skin. Andrew could imagine nothing more erotic than a natural breast soft and spongy and perhaps a little springy, and the nipples (he hoped) contrastingly hard.And all of these images blurred in his mind, late at night, with the possibilities offered by real girls, human girls, and the little you managed to feel through clothes if you managed to move in close enough. Niamh was the less pretty of the Fairbrother twins, but she had been the more willing, in the jamy playing period hall, during the Christmas disco. Half hidden by the musty stage curtain in a dark corner, they had pressed against each other, and Andrew had put his tongue into her mouth. His hands had inched as far as her bra strap and no further, because she kept pulling away. He had been driven, chiefly, by the knowledge that somewhere outside in the darkness, Fats was going further. And now his champion teemed and throbbed with Gaia. She was both the sexiest girl he had ever seen and the denotation of another, entirely inexplicable yearning. Certain reconcile changes, certain beats, made the very core of him shiver, and so did something about Gaia Bawden.He lit a new tail from the end of the first and threw the butt into the water below. Then he heard a familiar scuffling, and leaned forward to see Fats, still wearing his funeral suit, spread-eagled on the hill wall, moving from hand-hold to hand-hold as he edged along the narrow lip of bank, towards the opening where Andrew sat.Fats.Arf.Andrew pulled in his legs to give Fats room to climb into the Cubby Hole.Fucking hell, said Fats, when he had clambered inside. He was spider-like in his awkwardness, with his long limbs, his skinniness emphasised by the black suit.Andrew handed him a cigarette. Fats always lit up as though he were in a high wind, one hand cupped around the flame to shield it, sco wling slightly. He inhaled, blew a sens ring out of the Cubby Hole and loosened the dark grey tie around his neck. He appeared older and not, after all, so very foolish in the suit, which bore traces of earth on the knees and cuffs from the journey to the cave.Youd think they were bum chums, Fats said, after he had taken another powerful drag on his cigarette.Cubby upset, was he?Upset? Hes having shtup hysterics. Hes given himself hiccups. Hes worse than the fucking widow.Andrew laughed. Fats blew another toilet ring and pulled at one of his big ears.I bowed out early. They havent even buried him yet.They dummyd in silence for a minute, both looking out at the sludgy river. As he smoked, Andrew contemplated the words bowed out early, and the amount of liberty Fats seemed to have, compared to himself. Simon and his fury stood between Andrew and too much freedom in Hilltop House, you sometimes copped for punishment simply because you were present. Andrews imagination had once be en caught by a strange little module in their philosophy and religion class, in which primitive gods had been discussed in all their arbitrary wrath and violence, and the attempts of early civilizations to make up them. He had thought then of the nature of justice as he had come to know it of his father as a pagan god, and of his mother as the high priestess of the cult, who attempted to interpret and intercede, usually failing, yet still insisting, in the face of all the evidence, that there was an underlying magnanimity and tenability to her deity.Fats rested his head against the stone side of the Cubby Hole and blew smoke rings at the ceiling. He was thinking about what he wanted to tell Andrew. He had been mentally rehearsing the way he would start, all through the funeral service, while his father gulped and sobbed into his handkerchief. Fats was so excited by the prospect of telling, that he was having difficulty containing himself but he was immovable not to blurt it out. T he telling of it was, to Fats, of almost equal importance to the doing of it. He did not want Andrew to think that he had travel here to say it.You know how Fairbrother was on the Parish Council? said Andrew.Yeah, said Fats, glad that Andrew had initiated a space-filler conversation.Si-Pies saying hes going to stand for his seat.Si-Pie is?Fats frowned at Andrew.What the fucks got into him?He reckons Fairbrother was getting backhanders from some contractor. Andrew had heard Simon discussing it with Ruth in the kitchen that morning. It had explained everything. He wants a bit of the action.That wasnt Barry Fairbrother, said Fats, laughing as he flicked ash onto the cave floor. And that wasnt the Parish Council. That was Whats-his-name Frierly, up in Yarvil. He was on the school board at Winterdown. Cubby had a fucking fit. Local press career him for a comment and all that. Frierly got done for it. Doesnt Si-Pie read the Yarvil and District Gazette?Andrew stared at Fats.Fucking typic al.He ground out his cigarette on the earthy floor, embarrass by his fathers idiocy. Simon had got the harm end of the stick yet again. He spurned the local community, sneered at their concerns, was proud of his isolation in his poxy little house on the hill then he got a bit of misinformation and decided to expose his family to humiliation on the basis of it.Crooked as fuck, Si-Pie, isnt he? said Fats.They called him Si-Pie because that was Ruths nickname for her husband. Fats had heard her use it once, when he had been over for his tea, and had never called Simon anything else since.Yeah, he is, said Andrew, wondering whether he would be able to dissuade his father from standing by telling him he had the wrong man and the wrong council.Bit of a coincidence, said Fats, because Cubbys standing as well.Fats exhaled through his nostrils, staring at the crevice wall over Andrews head.So will voters go for the cunt, he said, or the twat?Andrew laughed. There was little he enjoyed mor e than earshot his father called a cunt by Fats.Now have a unfirm at this, said Fats, jamming his cigarette between his lips and patting his hips, even though he knew that the envelope was in the inside breast pocket. Here you go, he said, pulling it out and opening it to show Andrew the content brown peppercorn-sized pods in a powdery miscellanea of shrivelled stalks and leaves.Sensimilla, that is.What is it?Tips and shoots of your basic unfertilized cannabis plant, said Fats, specially prepared for your smoking pleasure.Whats the difference between that and the normal stuff? asked Andrew, with whom Fats had split several lumps of waxy black cannabis resin in the Cubby Hole.Just a different smoke, isnt it? said Fats, stubbing out his own cigarette. He took a packet of Rizlas from his pocket, drew out three of the fragile papers and gummed them together.Did you get it off Kirby? asked Andrew, poking at and sniffing the contents of the envelope.Everyone knew Skye Kirby was the go -to man for doses. He was a year above them, in the lower sixth. His gramps was an old hippy, who had been up in greet several times for growing his own.Yeah. Mind, theres a bloke called Obbo, said Fats, slitting cigarettes and emptying the baccy onto the papers, in the Fields, wholl get you anything. Fucking smack, if you want it.You dont want smack, though, said Andrew, notice Fats face.Nah, said Fats, taking the envelope back, and sprinkling the sensimilla onto the tobacco. He rolled the interchangeable together, licking the end of the papers to seal it, poking the roach in more neatly, twisting the end into a point.Nice, he said happily.He had planned to tell Andrew his news after introducing the sensimilla as a kind of loosen up act. He held out his hand for Andrews lighter, inserted the cardboarded end between his own lips and lit up, taking a deep, contemplative drag, blowing out the smoke in a long blue jet, then repeating the process.Mmm, he said, holding the smoke i n his lungs, and imitating Cubby, whom Tessa had given a wine course one Christmas. Herby. A strong aftertaste. Overtones of fuck He experienced a massive headrush, even though he was sitting, and exhaled, laughing. try that.Andrew leaned across and took the joint, giggling in anticipation, and at the beatific smile on Fats face, which was quite at odds with his usual constipated scowl.Andrew inhaled and felt the power of the drug radiate out from his lungs, unwinding and loosening him. Another drag, and he thought that it was like having your mind shaken out like a duvet, so that it resettled without creases, so that everything became politic and simple and easy and good.Nice, he echoed Fats, smiling at the sound of his own voice. He passed the joint back into Fats waiting fingers and savoured this sense of well-being.So, you wanna hear something interesting? said Fats, grinning uncontrollably.Go on.I fucked her last night.Andrew virtually said who?, before his befuddled brain remembered Krystal Weedon, of course Krystal Weedon, who else?Where? he asked, stupidly. It was not what he wanted to know.Fats stretched out on his back in his funeral suit, his feet towards the river. Wordlessly, Andrew stretched out beside him, in the opposite direction. They had slept like this, top and tail, when they had stayed overnight at each others houses as children. Andrew gazed up at the rocky ceiling, where the blue smoke hung, slowly furling, and waited to hear everything.I told Cubby and Tess I was at yours, so you know, said Fats. He passed the joint into Andrews reaching fingers, then united his long hands on his chest, and listened to himself telling. Then I got the bus to the Fields. Met her outside Oddbins.By Tescos? asked Andrew. He did not know why he kept asking soundless questions.Yeah, said Fats. We went to the rec. Theres trees in the corner behind the public bogs. Nice and private. It was getting dark.Fats shifted position and Andrew handed back the joi nt.Getting ins harder than I thought it would be, said Fats, and Andrew was mesmerized, half inclined to laugh, afraid of missing every manifest detail Fats could give him. She was wetter when I was fingering her.A giggle rose like trapped gas in Andrews chest, but was stifled there.Lot of displace to get in properly. Its tighter than I thought.Andrew saw a jet of smoke rise from the place where Fats head must be.I came in about ten seconds. It feels fucking great once youre in.Andrew fought back laughter, in case there was more.I wore a johnny. Itd be better without.He pushed the joint back into Andrews hand. Andrew pulled on it, thinking. Harder to get in than you thought over in ten seconds. It didnt sound much yet what wouldnt he give? He imagined Gaia Bawden flat on her back for him and, without meaning to, let out a small groan, which Fats did not seem to hear. Lost in a fug of erotic images, pulling on the joint, Andrew lay with his erection on the patch of earth his body was warming and listened to the soft rush of the water a few feet from his head.What matters, Arf? asked Fats, after a long, dreamy pause.His head go pleasantly, Andrew answered, Sex.Yeah, said Fats, delighted. Fucking. Thats what matters. Propogun propogating the species. Throw away the johnnies. Multiply.Yeah, said Andrew, laughing.And death, said Fats. He had been taken aback by the reality of that coffin, and how little material lay between all the watching vultures and an actual corpse. He was not sorry that he had left before it disappeared into the ground. Gotta be, hasnt it? Death.Yeah, said Andrew, thinking of war and car crashes, and expiry in blazes of speed and glory.Yeah, said Fats. Fucking and dying. Thats it, innit? Fucking and dying. Thats life.Trying to get a fuck and trying not to die.Or trying to die, said Fats. Some people. Risking it.Yeah. Risking it.There was more silence, and their hiding place was cool and hazy.And music, said Andrew quietly, watching the blue smoke hanging beneath the dark rock.Yeah, said Fats, in the distance. And music.The river rushed on past the Cubby Hole.