the business we’re expecting, we could probably do with two,’ he said, scratching his chins with his eyes on Sukhvinder, who had blushed unattractively.
‘I don’t…’ she said, but Gaia urged her.
‘Go on. Together.’
Sukhvinder was flushed, and her eyes were watering.
‘I…’
‘Go on,’ whispered Gaia.
‘I… all right.’
‘We’ll give you a trial, then, Miss Jawanda,’ said Howard.
Doused in fear, Sukhvinder could hardly breathe. What would her mother say?
‘And I suppose you’re wanting to be potboy, are you?’ Howard boomed at Andrew.
Potboy?
‘It’s heavy lifting we need, my friend,’ said Howard, while Andrew blinked at him nonplussed: he had only read the large 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. Proper manual labour. Do you think you can handle that?’
‘Yeah,’ said Andrew. Would he be there when Gaia was there? That was all that mattered.
‘We’ll need you early. Eight o’clock, probably. We’ll say eight till three, and see how it goes. Trial period of two weeks.’
‘Yeah, fine,’ said Andrew.
‘What’s your name?’
When Howard heard it, he raised his eyebrows.
‘Is your father Simon? Simon Price?’
‘Yeah.’
Andrew was unnerved. Nobody knew who his father was, usually.
Howard told the two girls to come back on Sunday afternoon, when the till was to be delivered, and he would be at liberty to instruct them; then, though he showed an inclination to keep Gaia in conversation, a customer entered, and the teenagers took their chance to slip outside.
Andrew could think of nothing to say once they found themselves on the other side of the tinkling glass door; but before he could marshal his thoughts, Gaia threw him a careless ‘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 remain stationary while he watched her walk away into the lengthening shadows.
‘Why do they call him “Peanut”, that boy?’ Gaia asked Sukhvinder, once they were out of earshot of Andrew.
‘He’s allergic,’ said Sukhvinder. She was horrified at the prospect of telling Parminder what she had done. Her voice sounded like somebody else’s. ‘He nearly died at St Thomas’s; somebody gave him one hidden in a marshmallow.’
‘Oh,’ said Gaia. ‘I thought it might be because he had a tiny dick.’
She laughed, and so did Sukhvinder, forcing herself, as though jokes about penises were all she heard, day in, day out.
Andrew 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 steep climbing up out of town to Hilltop House.
The 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 smell 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 Face?’ he would be able to say ‘yes’. He was going to be Gaia Bawden’s weekend workmate.
And, to cap it all, he knew at last exactly how he might plunge an anonymous dagger straight between his father’s shoulder blades.
VII
Once the first impulse of spite had worn off, Samantha bitterly regretted inviting Gavin and Kay to dinner. She spent Friday morning joking with her assistant about the dreadful evening she was bound to have, but her mood plummeted once she had left Carly in charge of Over the Shoulder Boulder Holders (a name that had made Howard laugh so hard the first time he had heard it that it had brought on an asthma attack, and which made Shirley scowl whenever it was spoken in her presence). Driving back to Pagford ahead of the rush hour, so that she could shop for ingredients and start cooking, Samantha tried to cheer herself up by thinking of nasty questions to ask Gavin. Perhaps she might wonder aloud why Kay had not moved in with him: that would be a good one.
Walking home from the Square with bulging Mollison and Lowe carrier bags in each hand, she came across Mary Fairbrother beside the cash-point machine in the wall of