Part Five Chapter IV

IVA misty blue sky stretched like a dome everyplace Pagford and the Fields. Dawn light shone upon the old stone war memorial in the Square, on the cracked concrete faades of Foley Road, and turned the white walls of Hilltop House wan gold. As Ruth Price climbed into her car ready for another long shift at the hospital, she looked down at the River Orr, shining like a money ribbon in the distance, and felt how completely unjust it was that somebody else would soon have her house and her view.A mile below, in church building Row, Samantha Mollison was still laborious asleep in the spare bedroom. There was no lock on the door, only if she had barricaded it with an armchair before collapsing, semi-dressed, onto the bed. The beginnings of a vicious headache disturbed her slumber, and the secede of sunshine that had penetrated the gap in the curtains fell like a laser beam across the corner of one eye. She twitched a little, in the depths of her dry-mouthed, anxious half-sleep, and h er dreams were punishable and strange.Downstairs, among the clean, bright surfaces of the kitchen, Miles sat bolt upright and alone with an untouched mug of tea in front of him, staring at the fridge, and stumbling again, in his minds eye, upon his drunken wife locked in the embrace of a sixteen-year-old schoolboy.Howard Mollison was sleeping soundly and happily in his double bed. The patterned curtains dappled him with pink petals and protected him from a rude awakening, but his rattling wheezing snores had roused his wife. Shirley was eating toast and drinking coffee in the kitchen, wearing her glasses and her candlewick dressing gown. She visualized Maureen swaying arm in arm with her maintain in the village hall and experienced a concentrated loathing that took the taste from every mouthful.In the Smithy, a few miles outside Pagford, Gavin Hughes soaped himself under a hot shower and wondered why he had never had the courage of other men, and how they managed to make the righ t choices among almost infinite alternatives. There was a yearning indoors him for a life he had glimpsed but never tasted, yet he was afraid. Choice was dangerous you had to forgo all other possibilities when you chose.Kay Bawden was lying awake and worn in bed in Hope Street, listening to the early morning quiet of Pagford and watching germanium, who was asleep beside her in the double bed, pale and drained in the early daylight. There was a bucket next to Gaia on the floor, placed there by Kay, who had half carried her miss from bathroom to bedroom in the early hours, after holding her hair out of the toilet for an hour. wherefore did you make us come here? Gaia had wailed, as she choked and retched all over the bowl. Get off me. Get off. I fuck I hate you.Kay watched the sleeping face and recalled the beautiful little baby who had slept beside her, sixteen years ago. She remembered the rupture that Gaia had shed when Kay had split up with Steve, her live-in partner of eigh t years. Steve had attended Gaias parents evenings and taught her to ride a bicycle. Kay remembered the fantasy she had nurtured (with hindsight, as silly as four-year-old Gaias wish for a unicorn) that she would settle down with Gavin and give Gaia, at last, a permanent stepfather, and a beautiful house in the country. How desperate she had been for a storybook ending, and a life to which Gaia would always want to return because her daughters departure was hurtling towards Kay like a meteorite, and she fore byword the loss of Gaia as a calamity that would shatter her world.Kay reached out a submit beneath the duvet and held Gaias. The feel of the warm flesh that she had accidentally brought into the world made Kay start to weep, quietly, but so violently that the mattress shook.And at the bottom of Church Row, Parminder Jawanda slipped a coat on over her nightdress and took her coffee into the back garden. Sitting in the chilly sunlight on a wooden bench, she saw that it was promi sing to be a beautiful day, but there seemed to be a blockage between her eyes and her heart. The heavy weight on her titty deadened everything.The news that Miles Mollison had won Barrys seat on the Parish Council had not been a surprise, but on seeing Shirleys neat little announcement on the website, she had cognize another flicker of that madness that had overtaken her at the last meeting a desire to attack, superseded almost at once by stifling hopelessness. Im going to de-escalate from the council, she told Vikram. Whats the point?But you like it, he had said.She had liked it when Barry had been there too. It was easy to conjure him up this morning, when everything was quiet and still. A little, ginger-bearded man she had been taller than him by half a head. She had never felt the slightest physical attraction towards him. What was love, after all? image Parminder, as a gentle breeze ruffled the tall hedge of leyland cypresses that enfold the Jawandas big back lawn. Was it love when somebody filled a space in your life that yawned inside you, once they had gone?I did love laughing, thought Parminder. I really miss laughing.And it was the memory of laughter that, at last, made the tears flow from her eyes. They trickled down her nose and into her coffee, where they made little bullet holes, fleetly erased. She was crying because she never seemed to laugh any more, and also because the previous evening, while they had been listening to the jubilant distant thump of the disco in the church hall, Vikram had said, Why dont we visit Amritsar this summer?The Golden Temple, the holiest shrine of the religion to which he was indifferent. She had known at once what Vikram was doing. Time lay slack and empty on her reach as never before in her life. Neither of them knew what the GMC would decide to do with her, once it had considered her ethical breach towards Howard Mollison.Mandeep says its a big tourist trap, she had replied, dismissing Amritsar at a strok e.Sukhvinder had crossed the lawn without Parminder noticing. She was dressed in jeans and a baggy sweatshirt. Parminder hastily wiped her face and squinted at Sukhvinder, who had her back to the sun.I dont want to go to work today.Parminder responded at once, in the same spirit of automatic contradiction that had made her turn down Amritsar. Youve made a commitment, Sukhvinder.I dont feel well.You mean youre tired. Youre the one who wanted this job. forthwith you fulfil your obligations.But Youre going to work, snapped Parminder, and she might have been pronouncing sentence. Youre not giving the Mollisons another reason to complain.After Sukhvinder walked back to the house Parminder felt guilty. She almost called her daughter back, but instead she made a mental note that she must try and find time to sit down with her and talk to her without arguing.