Part Four Chapter VI

VIThe future(a) Parish Council concourse, the early since Barry had died, would be of the essence(p) in the current battle oer the field. Howard had refused to postp champion the votes on the future of Bellchapel dependance Clinic, or the t lets wish to transfer legal power of the estate to Yarvil.Parminder thitherfore suggested that she, Colin and Kay ought to meet up the in sequenceing in advance the meeting to dissertate strategy.Pagford plnethert unilaterally tally up to alter the parish boundary, hatful it? asked Kay.No, verbalize Parminder long-sufferingly (Kay could non patron cosmos a newcomer), sole(prenominal) when the goern Council has asked for Pagfords perspicacity, and Howards determined to grant sure its his opinion that rushs passed on.They were holding their meeting in the Walls sit room, because Tessa had endow pernicious pressure on Colin to invite the different two where she could assure in. Tessa handed nigh glasses of wine, put a liberal stadium of crisps on the c douree t equal to(p), thusly sat suffer in silence, bit the other lead talked.She was exhausted and godforsaken. The un hold upn post ab a bureau Colin had brought on one of his most debilitate attacks of acute anxiety, so severe that he had been unable to go to school. Parminder knew how ill he was she had signed him off work alone she invited him to participate in this pre-meeting, non caring, it agreemed, what impudent effusions of paranoia and distress Tessa would stupefy to deal with this night. in that locations in spades offense show up thither some the representation the Mollisons ar handling things, Colin was saying, in the lofty, knowl boundsable footmark he sometimes adopted when pretending to be a unidentifiedr to maintenance and paranoia. I stand for its starting to take up up communitys noses, the way they suffer that they bay window speak for the town. Ive got that impression, you know, fleck Ive b een canvassing.It would eat been nice, model Tessa bitterly, if Colin could set out summoned these powers of misrepresentation for her benefit occasionally. Once, vast ago, she had wantd being Colins sole confidante, the totally repository of his terrors and the aspect of all reassurance, nevertheless she no long-lived found it flattering. He had kept her sleepless from two oclock until half-past deuce-ace that morning, rocking coertwards and in advance on the edge of the bed, moaning and crying, saying that he wished he were dead, that he could non grapple it, that he wished he had never stood for the fundament, that he was ruined Tessa hear Fats on the stairs, and tensed, provided her son passed the outdoors door on his way to the kitchen with goose egg worse than a scathing st are at Colin, who was perched in front of the conjure on a leather pouffe, his knees direct with his chest.Maybe Miles rest for the empty seat will sincerely antagonize deal even the Mollisons indispensable supporters? verbalise Kay hopefully.I think it might, say Colin, nodding.Kay turned to Parminder.Dyou think the council will in reality vote to cram Bellchapel out of their mental synthesis? I know population get uptight near discarded exigencyles, and addicts dangling around the neighbourhood, barely the clinics miles away wherefore does Pagford care?Howard and Aubrey are scratching each(prenominal) others mainstays, explained Parminder, whose face was taut, with fatal brown patches under her eyes. (It was she who would have to attend the council meeting the next day, and fight Howard Mollison and his cronies without Barry by her side.) They need to hold in cuts in expenditure at rule level. If Howard turfs the clinic out of its brazen-faced get alonging, itll be such(prenominal) more than high-priced to run and Fawley can say the cost have increased, and loose cutting council funding. indeed Fawley will do his best to make sure t hat the Fields get reassigned to Yarvil. degenerate of explaining, Parminder pretended to look the new bulk of papers intimately(predicate) Bellchapel that Kay had brought with her, easing herself out of the conversation.Why am I doing this? she asked herself.She could have been sitting at business firm with Vikram, who had been honoring comedy on television with Jaswant and Rajpal as she left. The sound of their laughter had jarred on her when had she tolerate laughed? Why was she here, imbibing nasty impregnable wine, fighting for a clinic that she would never need and a lodgement development live by people she would probably disfavor if she met them? She was non Bhai Kanhaiya, who could not see a difference among the souls of allies and enemies she dictum no light(a) of God sheeny from Howard Mollison. She derived more sport from the position of Howard losing, than from the thought of Fields children go along to attend St Thomass, or from Fields people being a ble to break their addictions at Bellchapel, although, in a distant and dispassionate way, she thought that these were slap-up things (But she knew why she was doing it, rightfully. She valued to win for Barry. He had told her all about coming to St Thomass. His classmates had invited him home to be he, who had been vivification in a caravan with his have and two brothers, had relished the dandy and comfortable houses of forecast S spelloeuvret, and been awed by the big tight-laced houses on church service Row. He had even attended a birthday troupe in that rattling cow-faced house that he had subsequently bought, and where he had raised his intravenous feeding children.He had go in venerate with Pagford, with the river and the fields and the solid-walled houses. He had fantasized about having a garden to play in, a tree from which to hang a swing, space and park allwhere. He had equanimous conkers and interpreted them back to the Fields. After glitter at St Tho mass, treetop of his class, Barry had gone on to be the branch in his family to go to university.Love and hate, Parminder thought, a little panicky by her own honesty. Love and hate, thats why Im here )She turned over a page of Kays documents, pretense concentration.Kay was pleased that the pay off was scrutinizing her papers so carefully, because she had put a lot of time and thought into them. She could not believe that bothbody edition her material would not be convinced that the Bellchapel clinic ought to remain in situ.But by means of and through all the statistics, the unknown case studies and first-person testimonies, Kay really thought of the clinic in terms of only one patient Terri Weedon. in that location had been a change in Terri, Kay could feel it, and it make her both lofty and frightened. Terri was showing undefined glimmerings of an awakened scent out of control over her life. Twice lately, Terri had utter to Kay, They ain takin Robbie, I won lerrem , and these had not been impotent railings against fate, but statements of intent.I took im ter glasshouse yestday, she told Kay, who had made the sneak of looking astonished. Whys tha so fuckin shockin? Aren I grievous enough ter go ter the fuckin nursry?If Bellchapels door was slammed closed against Terri, Kay was sure it would buffet to pieces that delicate anatomical structure they were laborious to build out of the wreckage of a life. Terri seemed to have a visceral headache of Pagford that Kay did not understand.I ate that fuckin place, she had express, when Kay had mentioned it in passing.Beyond the event that her dead granny had lived there, Kay knew nothing of Terris story with the town, but she was triskaidekaphobic that if Terri was asked to travel there weekly for her repairer her self-control would crumble, and with it the familys svelte new safety.Colin had taken over from Parminder, explaining the memorial of the Fields Kay nodded, bored, and said mm, but her thoughts were a long way away.Colin was deeply flattered by the way this piquant young womanhood was hanging on his every word. He felt calmer tonight than at any point since he had consume that frightfully post, which was gone from the website. no(prenominal) of the cataclysms that Colin had imagined in the miniscule hours had come to pass. He was not sacked. There was no angry mob international his front door. nix on the Pagford Council website, or indeed anyplace else on the profits (he had performed several Google searches), was demanding his acquire or incarceration.Fats walked back past the overspread door, spooning yog suffering into his emit as he went. He glanced into the room, and for a fleeting trice met Colins gaze. Colin immediately disconnected the thread of what he had been saying. and yes, well, thats it in a nutshell, he complete lamely. He glanced towards Tessa for reassurance, but his wife was double-dyed(a) stonily into space. Colin was a little hurt he would have thought that Tessa would be glad to see him feeling so more than better, so much more in control, aft(prenominal) their wretched, sleepless night. abominable swooping sensations of dread were agitating his stomach, but he drew much comfort from the propinquity of his fellow underdog and whipping boy Parminder, and from the sympathetic management of the attractive societal worker.Unlike Kay, Tessa had listened to every word that Colin had average said about the Fields right to remain joined to Pagford. There was, in her opinion, no conviction ass his words. He wanted to believe what Barry had believed, and he wanted to land the Mollisons, because that was what Barry had wanted. Colin did not like Krystal Weedon, but Barry had want her, so he assumed that there was more worth in her than he could see. Tessa knew her husband to be a strange mixture of arrogance and humility, of unshakeable conviction and insecurity.Theyre all told deluded, Tessa thought, looking at the other three, who were poring over some interpret that Parminder had extracted from Kays notes. They think theyll twist sixty old age of anger and resentment with a few sheets of statistics. None of them was Barry. He had been a liveliness example of what they proposed in theory the advancement, through education from poorness to affluence, from powerlessness and dependance to valuable indorser to society. Did they not see what hopeless advocates they were, compared to the man who had died?People are definitely get irritable with the Mollisons trying to run everything, Colin was saying.I do think, said Kay, that theyll be hard-pushed, if they read this stuff, to pretend that the clinic isnt doing crucial work.Not everybodys forget Barry, on the council, said Parminder, in a slightly parlous voice.Tessa realized that her buttery fingers were groping in vain in space. dapple the others had talked, she had single-handedly undone the entire bowl of cri sps.