to return to bed.
But there was no sound from either the kitchen or the bathroom. Shirley was worried that, by taking the river road home, she had missed him. He must have got dressed and set off for work; he might already be with Maureen in the back room, discussing Shirley; planning, perhaps, to divorce her and marry Maureen instead, now that the game was up, and pretence was ended.
She half ran into the sitting room, intending to telephone the Copper Kettle. Howard was lying on the carpet in his pyjamas.
His face was purple and his eyes were popping. A faint wheezing noise came from his lips. One hand was clutching feebly at his chest. His pyjama top had ridden up. Shirley could see the very patch of scabbed raw skin where she had planned to plunge the needle.
Howard's eyes met hers in mute appeal.
Shirley stared at him, terrified, then darted out of the room. At first she hid the EpiPen in the biscuit barrel; then she retrieved it and shoved it down the back of the cookery books.
She ran back into the sitting room, seized the telephone receiver and dialled 999.
'Pagford? This is for Orrbank Cottage, is it? There's one on the way.'
'Oh, thank you, thank God,' said Shirley, and she had almost hung up when she realized what she had said and screamed, 'no, no, not Orrbank Cottage ...'
But the operator had gone and she had to dial again. She was panicking so much that she dropped the receiver. On the carpet beside her, Howard's wheezing was becoming fainter and fainter.
'Not Orrbank Cottage,' she shouted. 'Thirty-six Evertree Crescent, Pagford - my husband's having a heart attack ...'
Part Five Chapter XV
XV
In Church Row, Miles Mollison came tearing out of his house in bedroom slippers and sprinted down the steep sloping pavement to the Old Vicarage on the corner. He banged on the thick oak door with his left hand, while trying to dial his wife's number with his right.
'Yes?' said Parminder, opening the door.
'My dad,' gasped Miles '... another heart attack ... Mum's called an ambulance ... will you come? Please, will you come?'
Parminder made a swift move back into the house, mentally seizing her doctor's bag, but checked.
'I can't. I'm suspended from work, Miles. I can't.'
'You're joking ... please ... the ambulance won't be here for - '
'I can't, Miles,' she said.
He turned and ran away from her through the open gate. Ahead, he saw Samantha, walking up their garden path. He called to her, his voice breaking, and she turned in surprise. At first, she thought that his panic was on her account.
'Dad ... collapsed ... there's an ambulance coming ... bloody Parminder Jawanda won't come ...'
'My God,' said Samantha. 'Oh my God.'
They dashed to the car and drove up the road, Miles in his slippers, Samantha in the clogs that had blistered her feet.
'Miles, listen, there's a siren - it's here already ...'
But when they turned into Evertree Crescent, there was nothing there, and the siren was already gone.
On a lawn a mile away, Sukhvinder Jawanda was vomiting river water beneath a willow tree, while an old lady pressed blankets around her that were already as sodden as Sukhvinder's clothes. A short distance away, the dog-walker who had dragged Sukhvinder from the river by her hair and her sweatshirt was bent over a small, limp body.
Sukhvinder had thought she felt Robbie struggling in her arms, but had that been the cruel tug of the river, trying to rip him from her? She was a strong swimmer, but the Orr had dragged her under, pulled her helplessly wherever it chose. She had been swept around the bend, and it had thrown her in towards land, and she had managed a scream, and seen the man with his dog, running towards her along the bank ...
'No good,' said the man, who had worked on Robbie's little body for twenty minutes. 'He's gone.'
Sukhvinder wailed, and slumped to the cold wet ground, shaking furiously as the sound of the siren reached them, too late.
Back in Evertree Crescent, the paramedics were having enormous difficulty getting Howard onto the stretcher; Miles and Samantha had to help.
'We'll follow in the car, you go with Dad,' Miles shouted at Shirley, who seemed bewildered, and unwilling to get into the ambulance.
Maureen, who had just shown her last customer out of the Copper Kettle, stood on the doorstep, listening.
'Lots of sirens,' she said over her shoulder to an exhausted Andrew, who was mopping tables. 'Something must