Colin screamed and raged, and Tessa had to blink the tears out of her eyes as she took the turning to Pagford and drove through the Square, past Mollison and Lowe, the war memorial and the Black Canon; she turned left at St Michael and All Saints into Church Row, and, at last, into the driveway of their house, by which time Colin had shouted himself into squeaky hoarseness and Tessa's cheeks were glazed and salty. When they all got out, Fats, whose expression had not altered a whit during his father's long diatribe, let himself in through the front door with his own key, and proceeded upstairs at a leisurely pace without looking back.
Colin threw his briefcase down in the dark hall and rounded on Tessa. The only illumination came from the stained-glass panel over the front door, which cast strange colours over his agitated, domed and balding head, half bloody, half ghostly blue.
'D'you see?' he cried, waving his long arms, 'D'you see what I'm dealing with?'
'Yes,' she said, taking a handful of tissues from the box on the hall table and mopping her face, blowing her nose. 'Yes, I do.'
'Not a thought in his head for what we're going through!' said Colin, and he started to sob, big whooping dry sobs, like a child with croup. Tessa hurried forward and put her arms around Colin's chest, a little above his waist, for, short and stout as she was, that was the highest bit she could reach. He stooped, clinging to her; she could feel his trembling, and the heaving of his rib cage under his coat.
After a few minutes, she gently disengaged herself, led him into the kitchen and made him a pot of tea.
'I'm going to take a casserole up to Mary's,' said Tessa, after she had sat for a while, stroking his hand. 'She's got half the family there. We'll get an early night, once I'm back.'
He nodded and sniffed, and she kissed him on the side of his head before heading out to the freezer. When she came back, carrying the heavy, icy dish, he was sitting at the table, cradling his mug in his big hands, his eyes closed.
Tessa set down the casserole, wrapped in a polythene bag, on the tiles beside the front door. She pulled on the lumpy green cardigan she often wore instead of a jacket, but did not put on her shoes. Instead, she tiptoed upstairs to the landing and then, taking less trouble to be quiet, up the second flight to the loft conversion.
A swift burst of rat-like activity greeted her approach to the door. She knocked, giving Fats time to hide whatever it was he had been looking at online, or, perhaps, the cigarettes he did not know she knew about.
'Yeah?'
She pushed open the door. Her son was crouching stagily over his school bag.
'Did you have to play truant today, of all days?'
Fats straightened up, long and stringy; he towered over his mother.
'I was there. I came in late. Bennett didn't notice. He's useless.'
'Stuart, please. Please.'
She wanted to shout at the kids at work, sometimes, too. She wanted to scream, You must accept the reality of other people. You think that reality is up for negotiation, that we think it's whatever you say it is. You must accept that we are as real as you are; you must accept that you are not God.
'Your father's very upset, Stu. Because of Barry. Can't you understand that?'
'Yes,' said Fats.
'I mean, it's like Arf dying would be to you.'
He did not respond, nor did his expression alter much, yet she sensed his disdain, his amusement.
'I know you think you and Arf are very different orders of being to the likes of your father and Barry - '
'No,' said Fats, but only, she knew, in the hope of ending the conversation.
'I'm going to take some food over to Mary's house. I am begging you, Stuart, not to do anything else to upset your father while I'm gone. Please, Stu.'
'Fine,' he said, with half a laugh, half a shrug. She felt his attention swooping, swallow-like, back to his own concerns, even before she had closed the door.
VI
The spiteful wind blew away the low-hanging cloud of late afternoon and, at sunset, died out. Three houses along from the Walls', Samantha Mollison sat facing her lamp-lit reflection in the dressing-table mirror, and found the silence and the stillness depressing.
It had been a disappointing couple of days. She had sold virtually