waistband of his jeans.
Samantha drank Howard’s wine and stared out at the sky above the black privet hedge, which was a delicate shade of rose pink; the precise shade her nipples had been before they had been darkened and distended by pregnancy and breast-feeding. She imagined herself nineteen to Jake’s twenty-one, slender-waisted again, taut curves in the right places, and a strong flat stomach of her own, fitting comfortably into her white, size ten shorts. She vividly recalled how it felt to sit on a young man’s lap in those shorts, with the heat and roughness of sun- warmed denim under her bare thighs, and big hands around her lithe waist. She imagined Jake’s breath on her neck; she imagined turning to look into the blue eyes, close to the high cheekbones and that firm, carved mouth…
‘…at the church hall, and we’re getting it catered by Bucknoles,’ said Howard. ‘We’ve invited everyone: Aubrey and Julia – everyone. With luck it will be a double celebration, you on the council, me, another year young…’
Samantha felt tipsy and randy. When were they going to eat? She realized that Shirley had left the room, hopefully to put food on the table.
The telephone rang at Samantha’s elbow, and she jumped. Before any of them could move, Shirley had bustled back in. She had one hand in a flowery oven glove, and picked up the receiver with the other.
‘Double-two-five-nine?’ sang Shirley on a rising inflection. ‘Oh… hello, Ruth, dear!’
Howard, Miles and Maureen became rigidly attentive. Shirley turned to look at her husband with intensity, as if she were transmitting Ruth’s voice through her eyes into her husband’s mind.
‘Yes,’ fluted Shirley. ‘Yes…’
Samantha, sitting closest to the receiver, could hear the other woman’s voice but not make out the words.
‘Oh, really…?’
Maureen’s mouth was hanging open again; she was like an ancient baby bird, or perhaps a pterodactyl, hungering for regurgitated news.
‘Yes, dear, I see… oh, that shouldn’t be a problem… no, no, I’ll explain to Howard. No, no trouble at all.’
Shirley’s small hazel eyes had not wavered from Howard’s big, popping blue ones.
‘Ruth, dear,’ said Shirley, ‘Ruth, I don’t want to worry you, but have you been on the council website today?… Well… it’s not very nice, but I think you ought to know… somebody’s posted something nasty about Simon… well, I think you’d better read it for yourself, I wouldn’t want to… all right, dear. All right. See you Wednesday, I hope. Yes. Bye bye.’
Shirley replaced the receiver.
‘She didn’t know,’ Miles stated.
Shirley shook her head.
‘Why was she calling?’
‘Her son,’ Shirley told Howard. ‘Your new potboy. He’s got a peanut allergy.’
‘Very handy, in a delicatessen,’ said Howard.
‘She wanted to ask whether you could store a needleful of adrenalin in the fridge for him, just in case,’ said Shirley.
Maureen sniffed.
‘They’ve all got allergies these days, children.’
Shirley’s ungloved hand was still clutching the receiver. She was subconsciously hoping to feel tremors down the line from Hilltop House.
V
Ruth stood alone in her lamp-lit sitting room, continuing to grip the telephone she had just replaced in its cradle.
Hilltop House was small and compact. It was always easy to tell the location of each of the four Prices, because voices, footfalls and the sounds of doors opening and shutting carried so effectively in the old house. Ruth knew that her husband was still in the shower, because she could hear the hot water boiler under the stairs hissing and clanking. She had waited for Simon to turn on the water before telephoning Shirley, worried that he might think that even her request about the EpiPen was fraternizing with the enemy.
The family PC was set up in a corner of the sitting room, where Simon could keep an eye on it, and make sure nobody was running up large bills behind his back. Ruth relinquished her grip on the phone and hurried to the keyboard.
It seemed to take a very long time to bring up the Pagford Council website. Ruth pushed her reading glasses up her nose with a trembling hand as she scanned the various pages. At last she found the message board. Her husband’s name blazed out at her, in ghastly black and white: Simon Price Unfit to Stand for Council
She double-clicked the title, brought up the full paragraph and read it. Everything around her seemed to reel and spin.
‘Oh God,’ she whispered.
The boiler had stopped clanking. Simon would be putting on the pyjamas he had warmed on the radiator. He had already drawn the sitting-room curtains, turned on the side lamps and lit the wood-burner, so that he could come down and stretch out on the sofa to watch the news.
Ruth knew that she would have to tell him. Not doing so, letting him find out for himself, was simply not an option; she would have been incapable of keeping it to herself. She felt terrified and guilty, though she did not know why.
She heard him jogging down the stairs and then he appeared at the door in his blue brushed-cotton pyjamas.
‘Si,’ she whispered.
‘What’s the matter?’ he said, immediately irritated. He knew that something had happened; that his luxurious programme of sofa, fire and news was about to be disarranged.
She pointed at the computer monitor, one hand pressed foolishly over her mouth, like a little girl. Her terror infected him. He strode to the PC and scowled down at the screen. He was not a quick reader. He read every word, every line, painstakingly, carefully.
When he had finished, he remained quite still, passing for review, in his mind, all the likely grasses. He thought of the gum-chewing forklift driver, whom he had left stranded in the Fields when they had picked up the new computer. He thought of Jim and Tommy, who did the cash-in-hand jobs on the sly with him. Someone from work must have talked. Rage and fear collided inside him and set off a combustive reaction.
He strode to the foot of the stairs and shouted, ‘You two! Get down here NOW!’
Ruth still had her hand over her mouth. He had a sadistic urge to slap her hand away, to tell her to fucking pull herself together, it was he who was in the shit.
Andrew entered the room first with Paul behind him. Andrew saw the arms of Pagford Parish Council onscreen, and his mother with her hand over her mouth. Walking barefoot across the old carpet, he had the sensation that he was plummeting through the air in a broken lift.
‘Someone,’ said Simon, glaring at his sons, ‘has talked about things I’ve mentioned inside this house.’
Paul had brought his chemistry exercise book downstairs with him; he was holding it like a hymnal. Andrew kept his gaze fixed on his father, trying to project an expression of mingled confusion and curiosity.
‘Who’s told other people we’ve got a stolen computer?’ asked Simon.
‘I haven’t,’ said Andrew.
Paul stared at his father blankly, trying to process the question. Andrew willed his brother to speak. Why did he have to be so slow?
‘Well?’ Simon snarled at Paul.
‘I don’t think I—’
