Part Five IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, or "Rolo in the Hay!"
Click to viewIV. It's the morning after Howard Mollison's big 65th Birthday Party. For some stupid reason, Rowling sees fit to perform an inventory on all the characters. So this section is literally just "Here's what they're all doing/thinking this morning."
Even if this were justified, why now? Sure, the events of the previous day were somewhat important. Miles Mollison won the election for Barry Fairbrother's council seat. Everyone got really drunk at Howard's party. Simon Price published an anonymous message revealing Howard's infidelity. Samantha's long awaited concert trip... didn't actually pan out. Uh... Terri Weedon found out the rehab clinic is doomed. I can't think of anything else. But this "calm before the storm" moment doesn't really add up. Unless Pagford is about to be invaded or something. Don't hold your breath.
Ruth Price: Gets up for work, takes a last look at the view from her house, feels indignant that her family will have to move and give up the view to someone else. Ruth's husband beats her, so it's kind of surreal that anything else would bother her. But I guess that's the human condition.
Samantha Mollison: Still asleep, so good job, Rowling. We really needed to see this. Samantha went home and barricaded herself in the guest bedroom. This is probably because she's drunk, hates her husband, and got caught making out with a sixteen year old boy.
Stuart "Fats" Wall: Still awake, having resolved the night before to pull an all-nighter. His mouth is "slightly numb and tingly" from non-stop smoking. I didn't know smoking did that to you. Fatigue aside, he doesn't feel any better than he did before. Apperently he's been wrought with unhappiness and unease, and he thought crashing Howard's party and helping himself to champagne would fix that.
Colin "Cubby" Wall: Wakes up in a cold sweat, having dreamed that he poisoned Barry Fairbrother. Instead of dismissing this as a dream, he begins to seriously contemplate the possibility that he murdered Barry without remembering it.
Tessa Wall: Takes her morning insulin shot. She knows Fats has come home, because she can smell the cigarette smoke from his room. I know he came home because Rowling already provided this information two paragraphs ago. Tessa has nothing else to add to this, except that she wonders how her family has come to this. "Come"? Lady, it's been like this for the entire book. Nothing has changed, except that you were diagnosed with diabetes.
Howard Mollison: Sleepin' like a baby. Yeah, like a big ol' snorin' baby. No, really, he's fat and his snoring woke up his wife.
Shirley Mollison: Having toast and coffee for breakfast. Rowling makes me crave toast. I don't understand it. It's not like she uses the word "toast" in any special way, but something about her characters having toast makes me want some. I'm specifically thinking of a breakfast scene in Goblet of Fire that made me ask for a toaster for Christmas that year. I needed a toaster because I think I got rid of the one I had before because I never used it. Then I got this one, which I still use, but not nearly as much as I thought I would. Rowling makes me think toast is something minimalist and cool to eat for breakfast. She takes me back to my childhood when I would crave toast with the butter melted enough to soak into the bread, but I couldn't articulate this desire to my mom, so I'd just eat it as it came, knowing that every so often the butter would melt to my ideal condition. She reminds me of the anime cliche of a character running late for school, so she has a slice of toast in her mouth because she didn't have the time or presence of mind to eat anything more complicated for breakfast. She reminds me of Pastor Toastman, civilian identity of Powdered Toast Man, clacking away at his typewriter in the service of the Lord. Anyway, Shirley can't enjoy the toast because she's consumed with hatred for Maureen, Howard's business partner.
Gavin Hughes: In the shower, wondering why he lacks the courage to act decisively like other men. I guess this is where he and I part ways. I started out wanting to sympathize with Gavin Hughes, but he lacks resolve. He spent the whole book wanting out of his relationship with Kay, and now that he's rid of her he's still worried about it biting him in the ass somehow. Any other man would balance any regret with satisfaction. His decision may backfire in some way, but at least it's done. At least he can worry about something new from here on. But Gav wants to live in the past, present, and future all at once, and this gets him nowhere.
Kay Bawden: Up all night helping her daughter Gaia, who got sick from all the booze she drank at the party. Gaia spent like an hour throwing up, pausing only to chew out Kay for wasting their time by moving to Pagford on for a doomed relationship with Gavin.
Parminder Jawanda: Sipping coffee in the backyard. She's depressed because Miles won the election, and now she wants to resign from the Parish Council. Her husband is skeptical because she loved it so much, but maybe she only enjoyed councillorinating because of Barry. Vikram suggested they take a trip to The Golden Temple, the holiest shrine of the Sikh religion. She rejected this out of hand, but now regrets her answer, because Vikram was trying to be kind to her, and because it demonstrates the nasty attitude she's had for most of the book.
Sukhvinder Jawanda: Doesn't want to go to work today, presumably because she worked all last night. Parminder tells her she has to do it, and I'm like fuck you, lady. Your daughter's like sixteen or something, and if she doesn't feel like working on only four hours' sleep that's her decision. Maybe Howard should have considered the schedule before he offered to let minors serve alcohol at a party. Nevertheless, Sukhvinder goes back in the house, and Parminder feels guilty for her harsh tone. "[S]he made a mental note that she must try and find time to sit down with her and talk to her without arguing." What, you mean like right now, maybe? Instead of sending her to work?
MEANWHILE... ABOVE PAGFORD...
MR. DOLT RODLOVER: There you are. I was wondering if you would show yourself... Wondering if you had made the same realization that I did...
HARRY: How did you do it? And why Vegeta?
MR. DOLT RODLOVER: It's simple, really. I'm afraid, Harry Potter. Afraid of death. Afraid that I won't be clever enough or powerful enough to prevent it. And so I tore my soul apart, hoping at least one of the pieces would survive. But that wasn't my only plan. Oh, no. Did you know I copied my mind into a robot body?
HARRY: Gasp!
MR. DOLT RODLOVER: Oh, you don't have to worry about it. It won't activate for another four years or so. By which time I'll link up with it and it won't be a problem. I'm just saying that I didn't leave anything off the table. This particular contingency plan was a favorite of mine, however. I realized it when Vegeta kept appearing in the thick of our conflict. Didn't it seem odd that such a strange being should constantly be underfoot? Some sort of pyjama-clad Muggle who keeps yammering in nonsequitors. Like he's a pastiche of a fictional character transplanted into our own world.
HARRY: Wait, is this about prophecies, or "a mother's true love"? I usually zone out for that stuff.
MR. DOLT RODLOVER: Dammit, pay attention! The point is he never stayed dead! The Silver Surfer shot him in the ass once, and he died! Then he just came back like a year later, as if nothing was wrong. Then he blew himself up for some stupid reason, fuck if I know. Then he comes back again no worse for wear.
HARRY: So? I mourned my dead owl more than George Weasley. None of this crap makes any sense.
MR. DOLT RODLOVER: What the--? Fred's the one who died. How do you not remember that? There's a mnemonic practically built into his murder. "Dead Fred". He's your own brother-in-law, you insensitive lout.
HARRY: Well excuse me. How do you remember? It was one of your guys who killed him.
MR. DOLT RODLOVER: Because I pleasured myself over his grave, for your information. It's an arcane ritual I use to... Oh, never mind. The point is Vegeta caught my interest because he can die and come back for seemingly no apparent reason. Death is meaningless to him. And why? Because he's meta.
HARRY: Metal? Yeah, he used to go on about that.
MR. DOLT RODLOVER: No, meta. As in metaphysical. As in an abstraction from another concept. He's not really part of our world, but a tired joke pencilled in by an outside observer. Like Tom Bombadil, or the narrator from Winnie the Pooh.
HARRY: Like Vic Fontaine from Star Trek!
MR. DOLT RODLOVER: Sure, why not? These are all fictional constructs that interact with, but don't precisely fit into, the world of the characters. They can't die because they don't technically live in the first place. Now, if you remember from your seventh-year arithmancy coursework, the human mind can be encoded into metaphysical--
HARRY: Dude, I skipped Year Seven because you took over the government and put a bounty on my head.
MR. DOLT RODLOVER: Oh yeah.
HARRY: Besides, I would have skipped most of the classes anyway to make out with my lady-friend, if you know what I mean. Cha-ching!
MR. DOLT RODLOVER: Be honest, this is kind of fun, you and me shooting the breeze again like this.
HARRY: Yeah, it's kind of nice.
V. Krystal Weedon eats a banana. Apparently she's never had one before? I'm having trouble with that idea. She spent the night at her friend's place, but they've got plans this morning, so she's gotta go but here's a banana in case you get hungry. That's how it happened, I guess.
Krystal returns home and finds her mom passed out in the armchair. She checks to make sure she's not dead, because this sort of thing has happened before in Krystal's life, but she's alive. Then she realizes Robbie's not with her, so she calls for him, then finds him in her own bedroom, naked. That alone wouldn't be such a big deal maybe, except that Obbo is also in the room with him, and he's at least bare-chested. That's about as far as Rowling explains the situation, and that's quite all right with me.
Obbo says hi like he hadn't raped Krystal less than a week ago, and Krystal panics, grabs Robbie, dresses him, and heads downstairs. She asks Robbie if Obbo did "somethin' to yer", but he just answers "M'ungry."
Krystal demands that Terri explain Obbo's presence, but then she notices the stash Obbo convinced Terri to keep in the house for him. Against Terri's protests, Krystal opens the bag to find hashish bricks wrapped in plastic. This alone would put Terri in jail, but then Krystal also spots Terri's hype kit in her armchair, and she realizes that Terri's been using, too. She hears Obbo upstairs, so she grabs Robbie and leaves. Didn't we do this before? I mean, the situation is obviously more dire, but we've done this before.
MEANWHILE...
HARRY: So, bottom line it for me? You infected Vegeta with your own consciousness or something? And now you can't die because you're made out of html? Like... the green html from "The Matrix"?
MR. DOLT RODLOVER: Er... yeah, go with that. Basically what we were doing the last time, only now I'm a Super Dumbass on top of that.
HARRY: Wait, so am I meta? Because I'm supposed to be a Dumbass from the Planet Dumbass, too. Something like that. I forget how it works. Also, Vegeta adopted Ginny one year, so I think you're my dad now.
MR. DOLT RODLOVER: Shockingly enough, I'm actually glad you asked that. Here's the deal: You weren't meta. Not entirely anyway. But that was before. We're in The Casual Vacancy now. So we're both fully meta.
HARRY: What the hell is a casual vacancy?
MR. DOLT RODLOVER: You don't want to know. All that matters is that you and I are what Vegeta was to us. If I'm right, it means I've rid myself of mortality, and I'm free to rule the world forever. There's just one thing I gotta do, and then I'll know for sure.
HARRY: What's that?
MR. DOLT RODLOVER: I'm gonna have to kill your ass.
VI. Shirley checks the Pagford Parish Council website, hoping to catch another message from "The_Ghost_of_Barry_Fairbrother". For those of you just joining us, Andrew Price invented the username as part of an anonymous smear campaign against his abusive father. Afterwards, Sukhvinder and Fats each appropriated the name to post similar diatribes against their own parents.
Last night, at Howard's party, Patricia Mollison put in a brief appearance, but left in disgust, mainly because Shirley snubbed Pat's significant other in the invitation. Patricia's a lesbian, specifically a cool lesbian, kind of like Sailor Uranus but probably not as good looking. She drives a BMW and makes twice as much money as her brother the lawyer, and she doesn't mince words like all the other dipshits in this book. Shirley can't bring herself to hate her daughter, but she's clearly relieved that she left the party early and therefore didn't spend the night.
I guess the dynamic here is that Shirley is in deep denial about how she pisses people off. No one in the family seems to object to Patricia being gay, but Shirley makes these passive-agressive slights, like putting "Patricia and guest" on the invitation. This puts "guest" in a foul mood, which puts Patricial in a foul mood, and Shirley just interprets this to mean that Patricia is ill-tempered by default. Miles seemed closer to Patricia, but he took Shirley's side in the matter, so she got mad at him, too. When Howard asks where she went, Shirley just explains that Patricia and her partner got into a fight, so she's probably gone back to patch things up. She omits the fact that she caused said fight, but I'm not sure Shirley even fully realizes her own role in this.
Also notable is that Howard didn't even notice she had gone until he was at the door to his place. We don't even know if he spoke with her at the party. Kind of sucks is all. Of course, this is the same shitty attitude Parminder has shown to Sukhvinder all book long, and yet Howard is the nominal villain of the piece. Go figure.
Anyway, before she left town, Patricia told Andrew Price that she once caught her father getting a blowjob from Maureen. Hours later, Andrew passed this on to his father, because he blames the Mollisons for "The Ghost" discrediting him and costing him his job. This is particularly ironic, since Simon has no one to blame but himself, but Shirley's the one who moderates the website, and she could have acted against "The Ghost" a lot quicker if she'd cared to. Instead, Shirley likes "The Ghost", because so far the character has only skewered people she saw as outsiders and political enemies.
Okay, so we're all caught up? Good. Shirley logs in and whoops! There's a message from "The Ghost", but it says Howard gets blowjobs from Maureen. Just to twist the knife, "The Ghost" adds that Howard's dumb wife is probably the only one in town who didn't know. Uh-oh!
As you might have guessed, Shirley's first reaction is denial. She'd suspected in the past, probably because Howard Mollison isn't exactly subtle. This is a grown man who overeats as a point of pride, who throws birthday parties for himself well into his sixties, who wears a deerstalker decorated with fishing lures while he works, who takes such pride in being the almost-mayor of Pagford that he wears a gold medallion on a chain just in case anyone forgot he's the almost-mayor of Pagford. This is not a master of discretion.
Besides, Maureen practically lives with the Mollisons. She spends all day working alongside Howard, and half the scenes they're in, they're either together or calling one another on the phone. Shirley has even wondered to herself why Maureen is always around, which virtually breaks the fourth wall. And yet she never lets herself make the obvious conclusion, because in her world bad things only happen to people she hates.
Nevertheless, on some level, she must believe it, because it makes so much sense, and because she quickly takes the message down, fearing that everyone else will see it and believe it.
Finally, she wakes Howard up to confront him. She tells him what "The Ghost" said, and instead of denial or outrage, he asks "Where'd he get that from?" Shirley takes this for a tacit admission. I'll go a step further by suggesting that Howard knows exactly where "The Ghost" got it from. After all, Patricia walked in on him in the act, and she was in town the night before. It wasn't like Patricia watched them going at it unseen. Maureen paid her off to keep quiet about it, so it stands to reason Howard must have been aware of the situation.
MEANWHILE...
HARRY: Kill me? You keep trying to do that, and it never helps. Seriously, why not just wait for me to die of natural causes? It'd save you a lot of trouble.
MR. DOLT RODLOVER: No, it's different this time. If I'm right, I'm already invincible, but if you're the same as me, then we're both invincible, which means we're in a stalemate. I have to kill you to make sure that I can.
HARRY: What if you can't?
MR. DOLT RODLOVER: Then this is all going to be really awkward...
VII. Krystal decides her only choice now is to make for Pagford and link up with Fats. Home is no longer an option. Obbo's there and her mother has ruined her last chance to keep the family together. She could stay with friends, but not without giving up Robbie. So she falls back on her desperate plan to get pregnant by Fats Wall, figuring that Fats' parents will offer her financial support, while the local government will set her up in her own home.
I have no idea how realistic this plan is. I mean, it's obviously desperate and full of holes. It might take time to conceive a child, and what do you do until then? And do social services actually work this way? Terri has her own place, so maybe that's how it works. But I have a hard time believing Krystal can just provide a urine sample and move into a new place tomorrow. And would they automatically give her custody of Robbie? Terri's blown it, but she's blown it before, and something tells me the same government that gave her a second and third chance won't act so swiftly to take her kid away. Even if they do take him, what's to say they'll let Krystal have him?
Anyway, assuming the basic premise is sound, Krystal seems to think her best course of action is to knock boots with Fats until everything gets better. With the last remaining power on her mother's cell phone, she leaves a voice mail for Fats.
Meanwhile, Fats is listening to his parents, eating toast (!) as Tessa tries to talk down Colin from his OCD-induced fear that he accidentally poisoned Barry Fairbrother the last time he cooked dinner for him. Krystal calls again, and Fats accepts her invitation to hang out. He still feels tired and lousy, but it's either Krystal or listening to his mother deconstruct his dad's paranoia. I guess I'd feel lousy myself, if those were my options.
VIII. Samantha finally gets up because she has to pee. Miles confronts her, explaining that he sent their daughter to his parents' place just so he could settle things. Ugh...
This is typical Rowling all over. Spend 300 pages setting up an argument, then pay it off so late into the story that it barely matters anymore. They have virtually the same fight they had before. Samantha feels trapped and resentful, and Miles is too embarrassed by her conduct to sympathize. We're supposed to think that her fondling a sixteen-year-old boy is the tipping point, but it doesn't seem to enter into the equation very much. The only slight change here is that for once Samantha feels ashamed of how she's been acting. Defensively, she blurts out that she wrote that anonymous letter to Miles' dad, complaining that Miles was unfit for public office. For some reason, that's the big reveal that shocks and disturbs Miles, as if molesting a schoolboy somehow pales in comparison. Just to put this in perspective, Howard was the only one who ever read the letter, he shredded it immediately because he thought it was a crank, and the only reason Miles knew about it was because Howard happened to mention it to him. Miles was upset about the letter, but he won the election anyway. The letter was so unimportant that I forgot Samantha even wrote it.
Also, Samantha reveals she didn't vote for Miles either. Oooohhhhhh! Sick burn. She puts on a pair of clogs and leaves the house in a huff.
MEANWHILE
MR. DOLT RODLOVER: I think I still have the advantage. I'm a gonzo powerful dark wizard, and I have all the powers of an Ascended Super Dumbass. That trumps that Super Dumbass 3 thing you used to do. This is kind of weird, actually. I can't remember how long it's been since I fought someone hand-to-hand. This should be a real... what do the kids call it?... oh, yes, a "donny-brook".
HARRY: Wait, hand-to-hand? You want to have a fistfight?
MR. DOLT RODLOVER: Yeah. I don't even know where my wand is these days. If I figured this right, I won't even need it.
HARRY: So I can just punch you in the face and snakes won't come flying out of your nostrils, and my hand won't turn into a snake and try to kill me.
MR. DOLT RODLOVER: Right. Totally on the level.
HARRY: And if I kick you in the nuts, you won't explode in to a pile of snakes, then re-form into a giant snake monster and shoot venom at me.
MR. DOLT RODLOVER: Pretty sure I can't do that anymore.
HARRY: And you can't summon an army of snakes to attack me like Aquaman-but-with-snakes.
MR. DOLT RODLOVER: Look, I like snakes. Get over it.
HARRY: I just wanted to make sure... before I used my ultimate form...
MR. DOLT RODLOVER: Wait, what?
HARRY: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH--!
IX. On the bus, Krystal fantasizes about motherhood. The government would probably put her in a run-down house in the Fields, but all she's worried about is having locks on the doors and no heroin. Living in the Fields means that Robbie can go to school in Pagford just like she did. She's pretty hopeful that the Walls will give her enough money for a washing machine. Okay we get it, you're poor.
Fats regrets the meeting at once. I guess the issue here is that this time they're in Pagford, and he's meeting her in the vicinity of Howard and Maureen's cafe, where his friend Andrew might see. And Krystal brought her dirty baby brother along, which cramps his style. And she hits him up for money, because she literally can't afford to buy food for the tyke. "Fats made another mental adjustment to what gritty and authentic life meant." Okay, so I'm rapidly getting the impression that Fats equates "authentic" with "poor". Maybe this was Rowling's design all along, but my initial reaction was that he was trying to achieve some sort of ideal sincerity, and he only identified with the residents of the Fields because they were more direct and too desperate to be phony. I understood he was slumming, but I thought it was only part of his half-assed quest for enlightenment, not an end unto itself. So Fats' mental note is something like: "Authenticity means kids eat potato chips and Rolos for breakfast."
It also means doing it in proximity to a three-year-old, because that's what Krystal wants to do right now. Fats is repulsed by this. He considers taking her to the Cubby Hole, a private sanctum known only to himself and Andrew. Now that their friendship is dashed, he sees no reason to keep it a secret from Krystal.
They get to talking, and Fats mentions Gaia Bawden, who lives in town. Krystal briefly considers seeking help from Gaia's mother Kay, but rejects the idea. Kay's not their social worker anymore, and there may or may not be a rule against bugging social workers at home. Besides, she didn't fully trust Kay to come up with a solution that would keep Krystal and Robbie together.
Krystal suggests a stretch of the riverbank near a bridge for their coitus, while Robbie sits on a nearby bench. She simultaneously believes that she can keep Robbie close enough to keep an eye on, and make sure he doesn't see her. Fats isn't wild about the idea, but mainly out of self-consciousness rather than the fact that it's a stupid fucking idea.
Krystal reassures him: "'E won' bother. 'E's got 'is Rolos. 'E won' even know." Even she doesn't buy this, since Robbie has watched their mother get it on in the past, and he's imitated sexual behavior at day-care. Fats finally decides that it would be "inauthentic" not to endanger a child while having outdoor sex in the middle of town, so he reluctantly agrees. Krystal offers Robbie the entire pack of Rolos in exchange for sitting quietly by himself. Seriously, what's Rowling have against Rolos candy? This is like the exact opposite of good publicity.
Robbie agrees to her terms because he's a toddler and he likes candy. He stuffs his face "happily" while the couple take cover in the bushes down the bank.
ROLOS. A WHOLE ROLL OF SMILES.
Krystal hopes to herself that Fats won't make a lot of noise about doing her without a condom. Right, because he's been so responsible up to now...
MEANWHILE
MR. DOLT RODLOVER: No! What the hell are you doing?
HARRY: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
MR. DOLT RODLOVER: You... you're changing! Slowly... but surely!
HARRY: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH--*!
MR. DOLT RODLOVER: Wh-what are you?!
HARRY: SUPRISE SUPRISE I SUPAR DUMBASS 4 NOW! AAAAAHHHHH!
NEXT: Take a wild guess.