Part Three Chapter VII

7Up in the little white house that sit high above the town, Simon Price fuss and brooded. Days passed. The accusatory post had vanished from the message boards, but Simon remained paralysed. To withdraw his candidacy might seem manage an admission of guilt. The police had not come knocking about the com swaner Simon half regretted throwing it off the doddery bridge now. On the new(prenominal) hand, he could not decide whether he had imagined a knowing grinning from the man behind the till when he handed over his credit card in the garage at the foot of the hill. There was a lot of talk about redundancies at work, and Simon was still terrified of the contents of that post coming to the bosses ears, that they might save themselves redundancy pay by sacking himself, Jim and Tommy.Andrew watched and waited, losing look forward to every day. He had tried to show the world what his convey was, and the world, it seemed, had merely shrugged. Andrew had imagined that someone from th e printworks or the council would turn up up and tell Simon firmly, no that he was not fit to set himself up in competition with other people, that he was unsuitable and sub-standard, and must not disgrace himself or his family. Yet no amour had happened, except that Simon stop talking about the council or making telephone calls in the hope of garnering votes, and the leaflets that he had had printed out of hours at work sat untouched in a box in the porch.Then, without warning or fanfare, came victory. capitulum down the dark stairs in search of food on Friday evening, Andrew hear Simon talking bang on the telephone in the sitting room, and paused to listen. withdraw my candidacy, he was saying. Yes. Well, my personal circumstances have changed. Yes. Yes. Yeah, thats right. OK. thank you.Andrew heard Simon replace the receiver.Well, thats that, his father said to his mother. Im well out of it, if thats the kind of shit theyre throwing around.He heard his mother return some muffl ed, approving rejoinder, and before Andrew had time to move, Simon had emerged into the hall below, drawn breath into his lungs and squall the first syllable of Andrews name, before realizing that his son was right in front of him.What are you doing?Simons face was half in shadow, lit only by the light escaping the sitting room.I requisiteed a drink, Andrew lied his father did not like the boys helping themselves to food. You start work with Mollison this weekend, dont you?Yeah.Right, well, you listen to me. I want eachthing you can tick on that bastard, dyou hear me? All the dirt you can get. And on his son, if you hear anything.All right, said Andrew.And Ill put it up on the fucking website for them, said Simon, and he walked back into the sitting room. Barry Fairbrothers fucking ghost.As he scavenged an assortment of food that might not be missed, skimming off slices here, handfuls there, a jubilant resound ran through Andrews mind I stopped you, you bastard. I stopped you.H e had done exactly what he had set out to do Simon had no idea who had brought his ambitions to dust. The silly sod was even demanding Andrews help in getting his revenge a complete about-turn, because when Andrew had first told his parents that he had a job at the delicatessen, Simon had been furious.You ridiculous little tit. What about your fucking allergy?I thought Id try not eating any of the nuts, said Andrew.Dont get smart with me, Pizza Face. What if you eat one accidentally, like at St Thomass? Dyou think we want to go through that crap again?But Ruth had supported Andrew, telling Simon that Andrew was old sufficiency to take care, to know better. When Simon had left the room, she had tried to tell Andrew that Simon was only worried about him.The only thing hes worried about is that hed have to miss bloody Match of the Day to take me to hospital.Andrew returned to his bedroom, where he sat shovelling food into his mouth with one hand and texting Fats with the other.He thou ght that it was all over, finished, done with. Andrew had never unless had reason to observe the first tiny bubble of fermenting yeast, in which was contained an inevitable, alchemical transformation.