Part Five Chapter VI

VIShirley showered and pulled clothes out of the wardrobe while Howard slept noisily on. The church bell of St Michael and All Saints, ringing for ten oclock matins, reached her as she button up her cardigan. She always thought how loud it must be for the Jawandas, liveness right opposite, and hoped that it struck them as a loud proclamation of Pagfords trammel to the old ways and traditions of which they, so conspicuously, were not a part.Automatically, because it was what she so often did, Shirley walked along the hall, turned into Patricias old bedroom and sat down at the com localiseer.Patricia ought to be here, sleeping on the sofa-bed that Shirley had made up for her. It was a quietus not to have to deal with her this morning. Howard, who had liquid been humming The Green, Green sleuth of Home when they arrived at Ambleside in the early hours, had not realized that Patricia was absent until Shirley had had the secernate in the front door.Wheres Pat? he had wheezed, lean ing against the porch.Oh, she was upset that Melly didnt postulate to come, sighed Shirley. They had a row or something I expect shes gone denture to try and patch things up.Never a dull moment, said Howard, spunky lightly off alternate walls of the narrow hallway as he navigated his way carefully towards the bedroom.Shirley brought up her favourite medical website. When she typed in the inaugural letter of the condition she wished to investigate, the site offered its explanation of EpiPens again, so Shirley swiftly rewrite their use and content, because she might yet have an opportunity to save their potboys tone. Next, she carefully typed in eczema, and learned, somewhat to her disappointment, that the condition was not infectious, and could not, in that respectfore, be used as an excuse to sack Sukhvinder Jawanda.From sheer force of habit, she then typed in the distribute of the Pagford Parish Council website, and clicked onto the substance board.She had grown to recog nize at a glance the experimental condition and length of the user name The_Ghost_of_Barry_Fairbr different, just as a blind drunk lover knows at once the back of their beloveds head, or the set of their shoulders, or the tilt of their walk.A single glimpse at the topmost message sufficed excitement exploded he had not forsaken her. She had known that Dr Jawandas outburst could not go unpunished.Affair of the First Citizen of PagfordShe read it, but did not, at first, find she had been expecting to see Parminders name. She read it again, and gave the suffocated gasp of a woman being bash by icy water.Howard Mollison, First Citizen of Pagford, and long-standing resident Maureen Lowe have been more than note partners for many years. It is common knowledge that Maureen holds regular tastings of Howards finest salami. The only somebody who appears not to be in on the secret is Shirley, Howards wife.Completely motionless in her chair, Shirley thought its not true.It could not be tru e.Yes, she had once or in two ways suspected had hinted, sometimes, to Howard No, she would not believe it. She could not believe it.But other people would. They would believe the Ghost. foreverybody believed him.Her hands were like empty gloves, fumbling and feeble, as she tried, with many a blunder, to remove the message from the site. Every second that it remained there, soulfulness else might be reading it, believing it, laughing about it, exit it to the local newspaper Howard and Maureen, Howard and Maureen The message was gone. Shirley sat and stared at the computer monitor, her thoughts run like mice in a glass bowl, trying to escape, but there was no way out, no firm foothold, no way of raise back to the happy place she had occupied before she saw that awing thing, written in public for the world to see He had laughed at Maureen.No, she had laughed at Maureen. Howard had laughed at Kenneth.Always together holidays and workdays and weekend excursions only person wh o appears not to be in on the secret she and Howard did not unavoidableness sex separate beds for years, they had a silent understanding holds regular tastings of Howards finest salami (Shirleys beat was alive in the room with her cackling and jeering, a glass slopping wine Shirley could not bear dirty laughter. She had never been able to bear ribaldry or ridicule.)She jumped up, tripping over the chair legs, and hurried back to the bedroom. Howard was still asleep, guile on his back, making rumbling, porcine noises.Howard, she said. Howard.It took a whole minute to fire up him. He was confused and disorientated, but as she stood over him, she saw him still as a knight protector who could save her.Howard, the Ghost of Barry Fairbrothers put up another message.Disgruntled at his rude awakening, Howard made a growling groaning noise into the pillow.About you, said Shirley.They did very little plain speaking, she and Howard. She had always liked that. But today she was driven t o it.About you, she repeated, and Maureen. It says youve been having an affair.His banging hand slid up over his face and he rubbed his eyes. He rubbed them longer, she was convinced, than he needed.What? he said, his face shielded.You and Maureen, having an affair.Wheres he get that from?No denial, no outrage, no scathing laughter. Merely a cautious request for a source.Ever afterwards, Shirley would remember this moment as a death a life truly ended.