'Part Two Chapter VI\r'

'VI\r\n‘The fuck have you make to your face? Come off the bike once to a greater extent? asked Fats.\r\n‘No, tell Andrew. ‘Si-Pie shoot d avouch me. I was trying to communicate the stupid cunt hed got it wrong intimately Fairbrother.\r\nHe and his find had been in the woodshed, filling the baskets that sat on either facial expression of the wood-burner in the sitting room. Simon had hit Andrew around the judgement with a log, knocking him into the cat sleep of wood, grazing his acne-c everywhereed cheek.\r\nDyou think you know more about what goes on than I do, you spotty little sea dog? If I hear youve breathed a phrase of what goes on in this house â€\r\nI havent â€\r\nIll prat skin you alive, dyou hear me? How do you know Fairbrother wasnt on the fiddle withal, eh? And the other fucker was the only one soundless enough to get caught?\r\nAnd then, whether out of pride or defiance, or because his fantasies of simplified money had taken too s trong a hold on his sight to become dislodged by facts, Simon had sent in his application forms. Humiliation, for which the whole family would surely pay, was a certainty.\r\nSabotage. Andrew brooded on the word. He valued to bring his father crashing down from the senior high school to which his dreams of easy money had raised him, and he wanted to do it, if at each(prenominal) possible (for he preferred glory without death), in such a way that Simon would never know whose pieceoeuvrings had brought his am numberions to rubble.\r\nHe confided in nobody, not even Fats. He told Fats more or less everything, moreover the few omissions were the vast gainics, the ones that occupied nearly whole his interior space. It was one thing to sit in Fats room with hard-ons and look up ‘girl-on-girl action on the meshing: quite another to confess how obsessively he pondered ways of engaging germanium Bawden in conversation. Likewise, it was easy to sit in the Cubby Hole and s rak e his father a cunt, but never would he have told how Simons rages turned his hands cold and his comport queasy.\r\nBut then came the hour that changed everything. It started with null more than a yearning for nicotine and beauty. The rain had passed off at last, and the pale spring sun shone brightly on the fish-scale dirt on the school- heap windows as it jerked and lurched through the define streets of Pagford. Andrew was sitting near the sand, unable to see atomic number 32, who was hemmed in at the face by Sukhvinder and the fatherless Fairbrother girls, freshly returned to school. He had interdictely seen germanium on the whole daylighttime and faced a barren evening with only stale Facebook pictures to console him.\r\nAs the busbar approached wish Street, it struck Andrew that neither of his p atomic number 18nts was at home to mark his absence. Three cig arttes that Fats had given him re postured in his inside hammock; and atomic number 32 was getting up, bel ongings tightly to the bar on the back of the seat, readying herself to descend, still public lecture to Sukhvinder Jawanda.\r\nWhy not? Why not?\r\nSo he got up too, swung his stand over his articulatio humeri, and when the bus stopped walked briskly up the aisle later the two girls as they got out.\r\n‘See you at home, he threw out to a startled Paul as he passed.\r\nHe reached the sunny pavement and the bus rumbled off. Lighting up, he watched Gaia and Sukhvinder over the top of his cupped hands. They were not heading towards Gaias house in promise Street, but ambling up towards the even up. Smoking and scowling about in unconscious imitation of the just about unself-conscious soul he k bran- brisk †Fats †Andrew followed them, his eyeball feasting on Gaias copper-brown copper as it bounced on her shoulder blades, the swing of her fence in as her hips swayed beneath it.\r\nThe two girls slowed down as they approached the fledge, advancing towards Mollis on and Lowe, which had the most impressive fa;ade of them completely: blue and gold lettering across the front and four hanging baskets. Andrew hung back. The girls paused to examine a bantam white sign pasted to the window of the new cafe, then disappeared into the delicatessen.\r\nAndrew walked once around the Square, past the dumb Canon and the George Hotel, and stopped at the sign. It was a hand-lettered publicizing for weekend staff.\r\nHyperconscious of his acne, which was particularly virulent at the moment, he knocked out the end of his cigarette, put the long stooge back into his pocket and followed Gaia and Sukhvinder inside.\r\nThe girls were standing beside a little table piled high with boxed oatcakes and crackers, notice the enormous man in the deerstalker behind the foreknow talking to an elderly guest. Gaia looked around when the buzzer over the door tinkled.\r\n‘Hi, Andrew said, his mouth dry.\r\n‘Hi, she replied.\r\nBlinded by his own daring, Andrew walked nearer, and the school bag over his shoulder bumped into the revolving stand of guides to Pagford and Traditional West Country Cooking. He seized the stand and steadied it, then hastily take down his bag.\r\n‘You after a job? Gaia asked him quietly, in her miraculous London accent.\r\n‘Yeah, he said. ‘You?\r\nShe nodded.\r\n‘Flag it up on the suggestion page, Eddie, Howard was booming at the node. ‘ home it on the website, and Ill get it on the agenda for you. Pagford Parish Council †all one word †dot co, dot UK, slash, proffer Page. Or follow the link. Pagford … He reiterated slowly, as the man pulled out paper and a pen with a quivering hand ‘… Parish …\r\nHowards eyes flicked over the 3some teenagers waiting quietly beside the savoury biscuits. They were wearing the half-hearted supply of Winterdown, which permitted so much laxity and variation that it was notwithstanding a uniform at all (unlike that of St Annes, which comprised a neat tartan skirt and a blazer). For all that, the white girl was stunning; a precision-cut diamond set off by the plain Jawanda daughter, whose bid Howard did not know, and a mouse-haired boy with violently erupted skin.\r\nThe customer creaked out of the shop, the bell tinkled.\r\n‘Can I booster you? Howard asked, his eyes on Gaia.\r\n‘Yeah, she said, moving forwards. ‘Um. About the jobs. She pointed at the small sign in the window.\r\n‘Ah, yes, said Howard, beaming. His new weekend waiter had let him down a few days previously; thrown over the cafe for Yarvil and a supermarket job. ‘Yes, yes. Fancy waitressing, do you? Were fling minimum wage †nine to half-past five, Saturdays †twelve to half-past five, sunlights. theory two weeks from today; training provided. How old are you, my love?\r\nShe was perfect, perfect, just now what he had been imagining: fresh-faced and curvy; he could just imagine he r in a figure-hugging downhearted dress with a lace-edged white apron. He would memorise her to use the till, and show her around the stockroom; on that point would be a bit of banter, and perhaps a little bonus on days when the outcome were up.\r\nHoward sidled out from behind the call and, ignoring Sukhvinder and Andrew, took Gaia by the upper arm, and led her through the arch in the dividing wall. There were no tables and chairs there yet, but the counter had been installed and so had a tiled black and cream mural on the wall behind it, which showed the Square in Yesteryear. Crinolined women and men in top hats swarmed everywhere; a brougham carriage had drawn up alfresco a clearly marked Mollison and Lowe, and beside it was the little cafe, The pig Kettle. The artist had improvised an ornamental pump or else of the war memorial.\r\nAndrew and Sukhvinder were left behind, awkward and vaguely antipathetic to each other.\r\n ‘Yes? Can I help you?\r\nA stooping woman with a jet-black intumescent had emerged from out of a back room. Andrew and Sukhvinder muttered that they were waiting, and then Howard and Gaia reappeared in the archway. When he saw Maureen, Howard dropped Gaias arm, which he had been holding absent- thinkeredly while he explained to her what a waitresss duties would be.\r\n‘I aptitude have found us some more help for the Kettle, Mo, he said.\r\n‘Oh, yes? said Maureen, switching her thirsty(p) gaze to Gaia. ‘Have you got experience?\r\nBut Howard boomed over her, apprisal Gaia all about the delicatessen and how he liked to think it was a bit of a Pagford institution, a bit of a landmark.\r\n‘xxxv years, its been, said Howard, with a majestic disdain of his own mural. ‘The young ladys new to town, Mo, he added.\r\n‘And you two are after jobs as well, are you? Maureen asked Sukhvinder and Andrew.\r\nSukhvinder shook her head; Andrew made an equivocal movement with his shoulders; but Gaia sai d, with her eyes on the girl, ‘Go on. You said you faculty.\r\nHoward considered Sukhvinder, who would most certainly not appear to advantage in a tight black dress and frilled apron; but his fertile and flexible mind was firing in all directions. A cheering to her father †something of a hold over her amaze †an unasked favour granted; there were matters beyond the purely aesthetic that ought, perhaps, to be considered here.\r\n‘Well, if we get the concern were expecting, we could probably do with two, he said, scratching his chins with his eyes on Sukhvinder, who had blushed unattractively.\r\n‘I dont … she said, but Gaia urged her.\r\n‘Go on. Together.\r\nSukhvinder was flushed, and her eyes were watering.\r\n‘I …\r\n‘Go on, whispered Gaia.\r\n‘I … all right.\r\n‘Well give you a trial, then, Miss Jawanda, said Howard.\r\nDoused in fear, Sukhvinder could hardly breathe. What would her mother opine?\r\n ‘And I suppose youre wanting to be potboy, are you? Howard boomed at Andrew.\r\nPotboy?\r\n‘Its heavy lifting we need, my friend, said Howard, while Andrew blinked at him nonplussed: he had only read the bighearted type at the top of the sign. ‘Pallets into the stockroom, crates of milk up from the cellar and rubbish bagged up at the back. priggish manual labour. Do you think you can insure that?\r\n‘Yeah, said Andrew. Would he be there when Gaia was there? That was all that mattered.\r\n‘Well need you early. Eight oclock, probably. Well asseverate eight till three, and see how it goes. Trial dot of two weeks.\r\n‘Yeah, fine, said Andrew.\r\n‘Whats your name?\r\nWhen Howard heard it, he raised his eyebrows.\r\n‘Is your father Simon? Simon Price?\r\n‘Yeah.\r\nAndrew was unnerved. Nobody knew who his father was, usually.\r\nHoward told the two girls to come back on Sunday afternoon, when the till was to be delivered, and he wo uld be at liberty to instruct them; then, though he showed an magnetic dip to keep Gaia in conversation, a customer entered, and the teenagers took their chance to slip outside.\r\nAndrew could think of nothing to assign once they found themselves on the other side of the tinkling glass door; but to begin with he could marshal his thoughts, Gaia threw him a offhanded ‘bye, and walked away with Sukhvinder. Andrew lit up the second of Fats three fags (this was no time for a half-smoked stub), which gave him an excuse to detain stationary while he watched her walk away into the lengthening shadows.\r\n‘Why do they call him â€Å" minor”, that boy? Gaia asked Sukhvinder, once they were out of earshot of Andrew.\r\n‘Hes allergic, said Sukhvinder. She was horrified at the prospect of telling Parminder what she had done. Her voice sounded like somebody elses. ‘He nearly died at St Thomass; somebody gave him one hidden in a marshmallow.\r\n‘Oh, said Gaia. ‘I thought it competency be because he had a tiny dick.\r\nShe laughed, and so did Sukhvinder, forcing herself, as though jokes about penises were all she heard, day in, day out.\r\nAndrew saw them both glance back at him as they laughed, and knew that they were talking about him. The giggling might be a hopeful sign; he knew that much about girls, anyway. Grinning at nothing but the cooling air, he walked off, school bag over his shoulder, cigarette in his hand, across the Square towards Church Row, and thence to forty minutes of centre climbing up out of town to eyebrow House.\r\nThe hedgerows were ghostly pale with white blossom in the dusk, blackthorn blooming on either side of him, celandine fringing the lane with tiny, glossy heart-shaped leaves. The feeling of the flowers, the deep pleasure of the cigarette and the promise of weekends with Gaia; everything blended together into a glorious symphony of elation and beauty as Andrew puffed up the hill. The next time Simon said ‘got a job, pizza pie Face? he would be able to say ‘yes. He was going to be Gaia Bawdens weekend workmate.\r\nAnd, to cap it all, he knew at last exactly how he might plunge an anonymous sticker straight between his fathers shoulder blades.\r\n'