Part Four I, II, III, IV, V or "Pale Imitiations!"
MEANWHILE, IN THE DAMN WOODS SOMEWHERE...
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BARRY'S GHOST: So you see... your only chance for peace in the life is to make peace with the dead. I'm a ghost! BooooOOOOooooo!
CM PUNK (in horse form): You're?! "You are only chance?" Learn some damn grammar!
BARRY'S GHOST: WooooOOOOoooo... I used the correct woooorrrdd. "Your" and "you're" are homonyms, so it makes no sense for you to criticize my usage of them in speech.
CM PUNK: I'm sorry, I tend to lash out at other people to avoid dealing with my own emotions.
BARRY'S GHOST: Also soooomme people make tyyyyyypographical errors, which may appear to be lapses in grammar. Not everything is a reseaaaaarch paper you knoooooow.
CM PUNK: So what's in this for you, Worm Food? You said you want to help me, but why?
BARRY'S GHOST: Dark times have befallen Pagford, the town I loved in life. Only I, with my affable ways and unerring compassion, can set matters right once more. Our quest is the same. For by raising the dead of your past, so too may I contact the living.
CM PUNK: What, you want to talk to your wife and kids?
BARRY'S GHOST: Who? Oh, no. I want to dictate a follow-up piece to my op-ed for the paper. BooooOOOOoooo. And, time permitting, I want to see if I can patch things up between Colin and his son.
CM PUNK: Okay, one: that's stupid, all right? Two: how the hell are you gonna do any of that?
BARRY'S GHOST: That is why we have come to these spoooOOOooky woods! That which we seeeeEEEEEeeekk is here...
CM PUNK: All I see are trees. And wolves. Oh crap, wolves! And the Creeper!
BARRY'S GHOST: And the Funhouse Robot! R-r-r-ruuuuuuun!
LATER, IN THE ACTUAL BOOK
So now we come to "Part Four". I keep saying this, but I really don't understand the way this book is split up into sections. What made Parts Three and Four so different that they needed to be separated? What criteria is there for putting in the Roman numerals? Well, I'm never gonna figure it out this way. Let's move one.
This time the quote from Local Council Administration, 7th ed., is about "Lunacy". In particular, "idiots" are permanently barred from voting, but someone with an "unsound mind" can vote in between bouts of insanity. At least that's how I'm reading this. Hey, don't look at me, ask "Charles Arnold-Baker", whoever the hell he is.
I. Samantha Mollison's here to waste space and not advance the plot at all. Seriously, the only significant thing that's happened to Samantha since Barry's death was that she began to retreat into an infatuation for her daughter's favorite band. Call it a mid-life crisis, I don't know. I'm pretty sure she also retreats into booze, but I'm pretty sure she was doing that all along. Sam's problem is that she's bored with her husband and his family, but she really doesn't have anything better going for herself. Time was, she could retreat into her lingerie store, but business has been... a-heh... well you might say business has been a real bust lately. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Did you see what I did there? Because busts are...! Well you know what I mean.
Anyway, for the purposes of this review, her daughter's favorite band is Motorhead. Rowling won't identify the band, and frankly it ought to be Motorhead, so I say it is. Samantha is all hot and bothered by the lead singer, and by now she's bought all their DVDs and she's learned the words to their songs. Then she found out that Motorhead is playing Wembley Stadium in "a fortnight's time." You did that on purpose, Rowling.
So now Samantha's big idea is to see the band live, using her daughter as a pretext. She'll buy the tickets, surprise her kid, and go with her on a big trip to London under the guise of a parental escort. And... yeah, that's about it. If she's plotting to find a way backstage to jump Lemmy's bones, we're not getting any of those details yet. Seriously, her master plan is to buy a ticket to a rock show, and... attend it. With her teenage daughter. Scandalous.
Well, on with stuff that actually sort of matters. Miles, her husband, is all stressed out because there's been another anonymous message from "The_Ghost_of_Barry_Fairbrother." Andrew Price wrote the first one to shame his father out of running for Parish Council, but this time Sukhvinder Jawanda has gotten in on the act to embarrass her overbearing mother, who already has a seat on the Council. Miles is stressed about this for a number of reasons:
1) He's running for Parish Council himself, and he doesn't need this kind of anonymous mudslinging on his mind.
2) While "The Ghost" hasn't posted anything about him so far, his father did receive an anonymous print letter objecting to his candidacy. The letter never left his dad's office, and it made no allegations against him, but it just goes to show that someone out there isn't fond of him, and might use the website to air grievances.
3) His mother Shirley Mollison runs the Pagford Parish Council website, where "The Ghost" has been posting messages. Shirley's been reluctant to deal with the security breaches on the site, but as the administrator, she may be liable for defamatory content.
4) His wife (Samantha) doesn't really give a crap about any of this. Rather, she kind of enjoys watching Miles squrim, although he may not have clued into that.
To Samantha's point, unless Miles has something to hide, he probably has nothing to worry about. Indeed, she'd find him more interesting if he did have a skeleton in the closet, but as it is, he's a small town lawyer running in a local election in a political body headed by his influential father. I was going to write "wealthy and powerful", but Howard Mollison runs a friggin' deli. Hell, he only co-owns the establishment. As much as his enemies try to make him out to be Lex Luthor, he's really nowhere close.
Over to Howard Mollison. Miles has been trying to call him since he found the new Ghost message, but Howard's been busy talking to his wife Shirley. Shirley isn't worried so much about the second hacking incident. No, her main concern is that Parminder Jawanda called to chew her out for allowing this sort of thing to happen again. Shirley left the message up for another forty-five minutes as an F.U. to Parminder, but it doesn't really matter much anymore.
Howard had originally suspected Parminder or one of her allies of posting the first message, the one that got Simon Price to drop out of the race. But that theory's out the window. Maureen stupidly suggests that it must be "someone who knows the Prices and the Jawandas", which would narrow it down to everyone in the book so far. Of course, this is a blind alley anyway, since it assumes that "The Ghost" is a single person.
What else is in the news? Oh, hey! That article Barry Fairbrother wrote right before he died? It finally appeared in the newspaper. I had assumed it was a big deal, since Rowling was putting it off for so long. I started to think she was saving it for the end of the book, where it would be presented in its entirety, and everyone would read it and remember what a Swell Guy Barry is, and how he's nothing at all like "The Ghost". Instead, it appears to have been published about two-thirds of the way in, and the Mollisons are too engrossed in "The Ghost" to worry about the real Barry's posthumous words. They each dismiss the pro-Fields article as unimpressive. I can't tell if they're downplaying the thing to hide their concern, or if it really doesn't matter after all this time everyone worried about it. Thanks for wasting more time, Rowling.
Miles finally gets through to Howard and they briefly discuss the Ghost one more time. I'll give credit here, at least this isn't like in Part Three, where Rowling had multiple characters react to the first message in real time. Here, the Mollisons have all seen the message well before the scene begins, and they're already discussing it amongst themselves. Of course, the flipside here is that having the Ghost come up a second time around is basically a rehash of the same idea. The only new development here is that no one suspects Parminder of posting the first message. Miles explains that Shirley is legally responsible for the website's content, and Howard takes this seriously.
While all this is going on, Gavin Hughes drives by the deli in his car. Howard's so busy chatting that he doesn't notice. I'm not sure he should notice, since it's apparently a coincidence. He's on his way to console Mary Fairbrother, who has reacted to the second Ghost Message about the same way she did to the first. Her son Fergus speculates that it was a different person this time, but Mary is in no mood to examine the situation. Gavin suggests that Howard Mollison might be behind it, but she has a hard time believing that. The cruel thing is that no one's even trying to hurt Mary or her family. They've just been using Barry as a symbol, never considering that he has a family who might be senstivie to this sort of thing.
Fergus has the newspaper with his dad's article in it, but Mary tells him to throw it out. She's still upset that he wrote the article on their wedding anniversary/day he died. Fergus surreptitiously ignores her request, and Gavin is just happy to be alone with Mary without the newspaper in the room to remind him of Barry.
Now that I think about it, is this Gavin's problem with women in general? I ask because Kay's divorced, and as far as I know her husband is still out there somewhere. If a newspaper gives Gavin this much trouble, maybe he's even more put off by answering machine messages and photographs of a live human being. Maybe he started out with a sincere interest in Kay, and the mere existence of her ex-husband is distracting him too much to maintain the relationship.
BARRY'S GHOST: Quick! Let's hide in this hollow log!
CM PUNK: Right behind you! Phew! Do you see 'em?
BARRY'S GHOST: Noooooo.... do you?
CREEPER: Rarrrrrgghhh!
CM PUNK: That's a relief. Wait a minute...
CREEPER: Rarrrrrggghhh!
BARRY'S GHOST: Y-y-yiiiiikes!
II. Parminder's pissed about the new Ghost Message, big surprise. We finally find out what it is: Sukhvinder wrote that her mom was secretly in love with Barry the whole time, and consequently she voted with him on all Parish Council business. With Barry out of the picture "she will be useless as a councillor, because she has lost her brain." That last part's hard to argue, since she's been out-to-lunch this whole book so far.
The ironic thing is that Sukhvinder was just guessing about this. Even Parminder doesn't believe the allegation, and yet she's so defensive about it that it distracts her all morning. With the day off, she makes a trip to the... I don't know, the social services building. They're having a hearing about Robbie Weedon's welfare, and she decided to be there in person instead of just filing a report. She barely remembers the drive to the building, and she doesn't pay very close attention to the conversation at the meeting. When Cath Weedon's death comes up, she gets stressed about that, because there's rumors that Parminder may have caused it.
The meeting itself is window dressing. The people involved just rehash everything we already knew about the Weedons' situation. Terri will lose custody of her son unless she stays off the dope, Krystal's been shouldering the burden of actually raising Robbie, Catherine is dead, which makes things more difficult than they already were, etc. They'd probably have a different outlook if they knew Terri's drug dealer raped Krystal in her own home the night before, but as it is, they're fairly optimistic about the situation.
Kay Bawden thanks Parminder for showing up, and offers to meet with her later about the political battle over the Addiction Clinic, but Parminder barely pays any attention to this. Finally, Parminder admits to herself that maybe she really did love Barry after all. So like I said, the allegation is pretty weak. Is Parminder simply that dishonest about her feelings? Or is she letting The Ghost get to her? Or maybe Sukhvinder is more perceptive than anyone gives her credit for?
ELSEWHERE...
WOLVES: Bark bark bark bark bark!
CM PUNK: Dammit, wolves, you may have paid for your ticket, and that gives you the right to chase after me, but I am pissed off right now, and if you've got any guts, come over here and I'll kick your ass!
BARRY'S GHOST: Wait, there's a rope bridge over there! We can escaaaaape!
CM PUNK: Over their?! What the hell are you saying?
BARRY'S GHOST: Don't worry, I'll cross it first to make sure it's safe!
CM PUNK: Wait, you're a ghost! Aren't you weightless? Why do you even need a bridge?
BARRY'S GHOST: Come on! Hurry!
CM PUNK: All right, I'll just trot right out to the middle and... OHSHITI'MFALLINGIT'SNOTSAFEATALL!
BARRY'S GHOST: NoooooooooOOOOOoooooooo!
CM PUNK: My only regret is not drinking more Pepsiiiiiiiiiiiiiii*
BARRY'S GHOST: NnnnnnnnnnoooOOOOoooooooooo! H-how can I carry on... (choke) alone!
MOVING ON...
III. Simon Price loses his job. His words: "It was take redundancy or we'll sack you." I think that means they laid him off? Whatever. He's sure it's because of the fallout of the Ghost's message, but I doubt he was ever a model employee to begin with.
I'm not really getting a reaction from Andrew Price on this. He posted the original Ghost Message to discredit his father, but did he mean for him to lose his job over it? Is this more than he bargained for, or does it play into his hands? We don't know. Really, he's more worried about the new Ghost Message, the one he didn't write. He can only suspect his friend "Fats" Wall, since Fats watched him post the original message. Fats wanted to imitate the stunt then and there, so it follows that he would eventually try it out for himself. The only question is why he would go after Parminder Jawanda. The only possible explanation is that it ties into his bullying of Sukhvinder Jawanda, and that bothers him...
Anyway, Andrew still has a job working part-time at the Mollison Deli, so he gets up the next morning for his first day. Mostly, he's excited because he'll be working alongside his latest crush, Gaia Bawden, but otherwise I don't see what the fuss is about. For that matter, Gaia has no regard for him whatsoever, so even that's a false hope.
We shift to Howard for no good reason, and learn the Secret Origin of His Enormous Gut. His dad died when he was young, and his mom and grandmother compensated by feeding him too much. Somewhere along the way, he came to see being fat as part of his identity, an indication of his masculinity. So that's why he took it so personally when Parminder suggested he lose weight. She might as well have asked him to chop off his balls. But he's sixty-four, asthmatic, and he's got high-blood pressure, plus he's already had bypass surgery. If I were him and they literally told me to chop off my balls, I'd at least give it due consideration. Actually, I guess I'd put my affairs in order. The point is he's not being realistic about this. He can either be a jolly fat guy or he can live past seventy. No one can make him see that, but I suspect it's because no one has put it to him so bluntly.
Anyway, Howard very gruffly sends Andrew down to the basement to restock supplies. This is important because he's too fat to go up and down the steps himself, and his partner Maureen isn't getting any younger herself. Howard's all-business with Andrew, but he's got a different business in mind with his waitresses, Sukhvinder and Gaia. Well, just Gaia, really. He gives them waitress outfits because he's either really excited to be opening a cafe, or he thinks Gaia would look hot in a waitress outfit. Maureen wears one, too, even though that's kind of silly for a woman her age. Well, that's the impression I'm supposed to get, apparently. I can't see any of these people, and Howard wears a deerstalker covered in fishing lures, so it's not like Maureen is the goofiest-looking person on the staff.
As I've pointed out before, it's ambiguous whether Howard is some kind of perv when it comes to Gaia Bawden, or if he's just counting on her looks to reel in young customers. He needs the help, or he wouldn't have hired Sukhvinder, but something tells me the waitress outfits wouldn't have been introduced if Gaia looked more like Sukhvinder. They go to the bathroom to change, and Sukhvinder is horrified to realize that the uniforms have short sleeves. Sukhvinder cuts herself at night, and she has to reveal this secret to Gaia at the very least. Gaia improvises a plan, lending Sukhvinder her long-sleeved shirt to wear under the uniform, and then telling Mollison that she has a bad case of eczema. Fortunately, Howard isn't as worried about how she looks, as long as Gaia fills out her own uniform.
During all of this, Andrew accidentally walks in on them while Gaia is down to her underwear, but this doesn't seem to go anywhere. Well, I'm sure it meant a lot to Andrew, but still. The "Copper Kettle" opens and the first coffee is free, so they're busy the whole day. Andrew only gets to see Gaia a couple more times the rest of his shift.
The Mollison family shows up for lunch, and Howard comes out to greet them. He mentions having his next birthday in the new cafe, except it's too small. Turns out his birthday falls on the 29th, which just happens to be the same day as the Motorhead concert in London. Samantha explains that she'll be taking her daughter Libby to get their brains rocked out. Miles protests that the election is the day before, and I guess he expected his wife would be there for him. I don't see why he'd want her, seeing as she's always half-drunk and constantly belittling the local political scene. Seriously, at least if she's in London the whole time, people won't think she's passed out on the couch at home.
Maureen asks Sukhvinder about her mother, and she starts to tear up even as she says everything is fine. I thought that was gonna lead somewhere, but I guess not.
Rowling actually uses the words "fizzy drink", which is a British term for soda. I find it odd that I've read seven-and-a-half of her books and this is the first time I've encountered the term in her work. Oh well.
Gaia and Andrew take a break outside, and she asks him directly why Fats is such a giant shithead to Sukhvinder. Andrew explains that he's not a racist, but that's about as far as he understands it. At this point, Andrew would promise to kick Fats' ass if she asked him to. I kind of hope it comes to that. Actually, if anybody kicked Fats' ass, I'd see that as a positive. But it'd have a certain sparkle to it if his only friend turned on him.
Sukhvinder comes out to join them and Gaia suggests that Fats may have posted the latest Ghost Message. Andrew was thinking the same thing, but he points out that "The Ghost" targeted his own father. That satisfies the girls, although it looks like he's not trying to deflect suspicion so much as he's trying to get on Gaia's good side. All he really knows about her is that she sympathizes with Sukhvinder, so he's pointing out that the same thing has happened to him recently. Gaia exclaims, "Bloody hell. People round here are effing mental." Can't disagree.
IV. Over to Colin Wall, who's become even more paranoid now that "The Ghost" has gone after Parminder Jawanda. He passes by the new cafe, too terrified of Howard Mollison to get very close to it, but the point is that he knows Andrew Price is working there. Fats told his parents that he was hanging out with Andrew, so that was a lie. He goes home and heads for Fats' room, where he finds his stash of weed. Tessa tries to smooth things over, but Colin insists on waiting in the room to confront Fats when he returns.
Tess begins to argue with Colin, but it's less about how to discipline their son and more about how Colin is too self-absorbed, and how Tessa is too lenient. Small wonder that Fats is so distant from them both. Maybe he acts out just to get their attention, I don't know. Anyway, he returns home just in time to hear Colin say "I didn't want him at all!" He finds them both in his room, and he freely admits that he was out with Krystal Weedon. His parents want to know if he's having sex with her, but they're too bashful to come out and ask. When Fats is a little too direct in admitting it, Colin loses his shit and punches him in the face. Yaaaaaayyyyyy! I... think?
Fats loses his cool a little and accuses both of his parents of being hypocrites. Tessa finally gets properly upset with Fats, but she leaves the room instead of following through. Fats is surprised to find that the episode has actually upset him, even though he never cared if Colin wanted him or not. Something about him actually saying the words out loud...
He flashes back to a time when Barry Fairbrother invited Colin and Fats to play soccer with him and his own son. Presumably, this was an effort by Barry to get Colin and Fats to bond a little, but just when it slightly started to work, Fats got self-conscious and kicked the ball into Colin's face. The flashback doesn't really reveal anything important. I suppose it's just a demonstration that they at least tried to be family at one time. Now, Colin has struck Fats and said he never wanted him, and Fats finds himself actually hurt by this.
He considers the "authentic" thing to do would have been to punch his dad back, but the moment has passed, and besides, there's better ways to get revenge, or so he believes. Fats boots up his computer and logs into the Parish Council website as "Betty Rossiter". By now, Shirley Mollison has (finally) removed the defunct account of Barry Fairbrother, but she still hasn't addressed the security gap that allowed Andrew and Sukhvinder to access Barry's account in the first place. So it's a simple matter for Fats to hack into someone else's account and change the username to "The_Ghost_Of_Barry_Fairbrother", and boom, we're back in business. I don't know who Betty Rossiter is. She might be another dead user that Shirley never bothered to clear out. There's probably no shortage of them.
So we're doing this again? On the one hand, I'm intrigued by how Andrew Price's scheme has snowballed with all these copycats, and they're collectively doing more damage than any one of them could have done individually. But I find it a little ridiculous that all three of them have pulled the exact same stunt with the exact same level of competency. Sukhvinder is dyslexic, but Rowling made the allowance that she can read and write code a lot more easily than prose; the hardest part for Sukhvinder was composing the message itself. Fats has been cyber-bullying Sukhvinder the whole time, so I suppose this isn't much of a stretch for him. Hell, people suspected him of the last Ghost Message and here he is writing the next one.
Hopefully, this is it. There can't be any more children in the book who could/would pull this off. Krystal Weedon has a gripe with her mom, but everyone calls Terri Weedon a "whore" on a regular basis anyway. Samantha Mollison's kids are virtual non-entities. Besides, she's taking her oldest daughter to see Motorhead, so what's she got to gripe about? Gaia Bawden has an axe to grind with her mom, but Kay's not on the Parish Council. Gavin is childless, and probably not regretting it much. Barry's kids are offended by the entire concept. I guess that leaves Miles Mollison, but he's a little too old for this sort of thing.
Of course, Andrew, Sukhvinder, or Fats could always go back and do this again. Nah, we've only got a hundred pages to go. Surely this is it.
MEANWHILE, AT THE MUSTACHE CLUB...
SGT. SLAUGHTER: Ten-HUUUUT! This tribunal will come to order. Let the record show that the subject of this hearing stands accused of willful defiance of the code of the mustache club. If found guilty, he shall be expelled from our proud organization, and sent home in a ditty bag. An itty-bitty ditty bag.
DR. MINDBENDER: Why would you shave off your mustache? Are you mental?
VEGETA: It made me look too Italian. And you know what they say about Italians.
DR. MINDBENDER: Would you stop being so verdammt racist all the time! I'm a monocle-wearing German mad scientist, and even I'm offended. What's gotten into you, Vegeta? I agreed to defend you at your Mustache Club Court Martial, but you have to help me!
VEGETA: Stop calling me that...
SGT. SLAUGHTER: Vegeta, you are charged with willingly and knowingly shaving off your mustache, as well as refusing to pay your dues for last month. How do you plead?
VEGETA: That is no longer my name, your honor.
SGT. SLAUGHTER: Is that right? Well, let's get the record straight, you little puke! What's your name, fatbody?
VEGETA: You may address me as "Rodlover", sir. Mr. Dolt Rodlover.
V. Back to Shirley Mollison. Miles has communicated to her that she could be held responsible for these anonymous slander posts, but she simply cannot accept this. She's proud of Miles' law degree, but she knows he must be wrong this time. That's basically Shirley in a nutshell. She's proud of herself for running the website, but she denies any responsibility for it.
Besides, since "The Ghost" has been targeting her family's political enemies so far, she rather fancies the guy, and lately she's been keeping a close eye on the board in case he posts again. She feels like Commissioner Gordon, and "The Ghost" is like her Batman, an anonymous crusader who has come to her venue to support her agenda. So when the new post appears, she finds it in short order. And I guess since it goes after Colin Wall, it only supports her image of "The Ghost" as a secret anti-Fielder.
Parminder Jawanda has also been monitoring the board closely, and she calls Tessa as soon as she realizes the latest post is about Colin. Tessa rushes to stop him before he can see it himself, but it's too late.
This one is titled "Fantasies of a Deputy Headmaster", and reveals that Colin lives in constant fear that one of his students will accuse him of molestation. So great is his fear that he has taken time off from his job just to calm his nerves. "The Ghost" speculates that Colin may have actually fondled a student at one time, or at the very least, he'd like to do so.
Okay, so it's like I thought last time. Colin's not really a pedophile, he's just extremely worried about being percieved as one. So once again, "The Ghost" doesn't have a lot of actual dirt. I'm starting to see the dramatic purpose of targeting Simon Price first. Simon actually had a crime or two to expose. And so far he's the only one who's actually suffered any consequences. The point here isn't that Parminder or Colin are as bad as Price. The point is that they saw what happened to him, and they're afraid they're just as bad.
Anyway, Colin seems rather calm, considering what just happened. Turns out he's got OCD, and the specific issue is that he's afraid to walk through crowded hallways at school, because if he accidentally brushes up against a student, he might accidentally do a "bad touch" without realizing it, and he won't find out until the student notifies the authorities. It's not very realistic, but there is a certain logic to it, and that's what makes it so difficult for him to ignore. And his obsession with this takes the problem even further, so that he fears working with underage students might somehow transform him into a pedophile.
So then, Colin immediately suspects Fionna Shawcross, his immediate superior at the school. This is because he felt the need to explain his OCD to her when he took time off to deal with it. That doesn't really hold water. If she's his boss, and she had a problem with him, she could just fire him or take some other, more direct action against him. Tessa, on the other hand, immediately suspects Fats, and she's right. But Colin is too emotionally distraught for her to share this theory.
Meanwhile, Simon Price sees the newest message from "The Ghost" and decides he got off easy. Ruth tries to call Shirley to let her know, but her phone is busy because she's trying to call Howard. I feel like this keeps happening in this book. Everyone's trying to call everyone else at the same time. I wish Rowling would knock it off.
Shirley finally reaches Howard, and reports the latest message to him. After all, Howard was interested in the last two, but this time he's more upset that she hasn't taken it down already. By now, it's begun to dawn on Howard that this is more damaging to him than anyone else. Each individual message targets a different person, but collectively they point to a failure of Shirley to maintain the website, which implies that Howard is behind the whole thing. He very angrily tells Shirley to get the message removed, and she becomes outraged. "[T]hey never raised their voices to each other." Hopefully this won't be the last time...
NEXT: A spirited debate!