The Casual Vacancy

‘I expect it was one of his brothers,’ said Shirley dismissively. ‘They’re all alike.’

But Maureen croaked over Shirley, drowning her out.

‘I thought I saw Ken, the evening after he died. Clear as day, standing in the garden, looking up at me through the kitchen window. In the middle of his roses.’

Nobody responded; they had heard the story before. A minute passed, full of nothing but soft slurps, then Maureen spoke again with her raven’s caw.

‘Gavin’s quite friendly with the Fairbrothers, isn’t he, Miles? Doesn’t he play squash with Barry? Didn’t he, I should say.’

‘Yeah, Barry thrashed him once a week. Gavin must be a lousy player; Barry had ten years on him.’

Near identical expressions of complacent amusement touched the candlelit faces of the three women around the table. If nothing else, they had in common a slightly perverse interest in Miles’ stringy young business partner. In Maureen’s case, this was merely a manifestation of her inexhaustible appetite for all the gossip of Pagford, and the goings-on of a young bachelor were prime meat. Shirley took a particular pleasure in hearing all about Gavin’s inferiorities and insecurities, because these threw into delicious contrast the achievements and self- assertion of the twin gods of her life, Howard and Miles. But in the case of Samantha, Gavin’s passivity and caution awoke a feline cruelty; she had a powerful desire to see him slapped awake, pulled into line or otherwise mauled by a feminine surrogate. She bullied him a little in person whenever they met, taking pleasure in the conviction that he found her overwhelming, hard to handle.

‘So how are things going, these days,’ asked Maureen, ‘with his lady friend from London?’

‘She’s not in London any more, Mo. She’s moved into Hope Street,’ said Miles. ‘And if you ask me, he’s regretting he ever went near her. You know Gavin. Born with cold feet.’

Miles had been a few years above Gavin at school, and there was forever a trace of the sixth-form prefect in the way he spoke about his business partner.

‘Dark girl? Very short hair?’

‘That’s her,’ said Miles. ‘Social worker. Flat shoes.’

‘Then we’ve had her in the deli, haven’t we, How?’ said Maureen excitedly. ‘I wouldn’t have had her down as much of a cook, though, not by the look of her.’

Roast loin of pork followed the soup. With the connivance of Howard, Samantha was sliding gently towards contented drunkenness, but something in her was making forlorn protests, like a man swept out to sea. She attempted to drown it in more wine.

A pause rolled out across the table like a fresh tablecloth, pristine and expectant, and this time everybody seemed to know that it was for Howard to set out the new topic. He ate for a while, big mouthfuls washed down with wine, apparently oblivious to their eyes upon him. Finally, having cleared half his plate, he dabbed at his mouth with his napkin and spoke.

‘Yes, it will be interesting to see what happens on council now.’ He was forced to pause to suppress a powerful burp; for a moment he looked as if he might be sick. He thumped his chest. ‘Pardon me. Yes. It’ll be very interesting indeed. With Fairbrother gone’ – business-like, Howard reverted to the form of the name he habitually used – ‘I can’t see his article for the paper coming off. Unless Bends-Your-Ear takes it on, obviously,’ he added.

Howard had dubbed Parminder Jawanda ‘Bends-Your-Ear Bhutto’ after her first attendance as a parish councillor. It was a popular joke among the anti-Fielders.

‘The look on her face,’ said Maureen, addressing Shirley. ‘The look on her face, when we told her. Well… I always thought… you know…’

Samantha pricked up her ears, but Maureen’s insinuation was surely laughable. Parminder was married to the most gorgeous man in Pagford: Vikram, tall and well made, with an aquiline nose, eyes fringed with thick black lashes, and a lazy, knowing smile. For years, Samantha had tossed back her hair and laughed more often than necessary whenever she paused in the street to pass the time of day with Vikram, who had the same kind of body Miles had had before he had given up rugby and become soft and paunchy.

Samantha had heard somewhere, not long after they had become her neighbours, that Vikram and Parminder had had an arranged marriage. She had found this idea unspeakably erotic. Imagine being ordered to marry Vikram, having to do it; she had wrought a little fantasy in which she was veiled and shown into a room, a virgin condemned to her fate… Imagine looking up, and knowing you were getting that… Not to mention the additional frisson of his job: that much responsibility would have given a much uglier man sex appeal…

(Vikram had performed Howard’s quadruple bypass, seven years previously. In consequence, Vikram could not enter Mollison and Lowe without being subjected to a barrage of jocular banter.

‘To the head of the queue, please, Mr Jawanda! Move aside, please, ladies – no, Mr Jawanda, I insist – this man saved my life, patched up the old ticker – what will it be, Mr Jawanda, sir?’

Howard always insisted that Vikram take free samples and a little extra of everything he bought. In consequence, Samantha suspected, of these antics, Vikram almost never entered the delicatessen any more.)

She had lost the thread of the conversation, but it did not matter. The others were still droning on about something that Barry Fairbrother had written to the local paper.

‘…was going to have to talk to him about it,’ boomed Howard. ‘It was a very underhand way of doing things. Well, well, that’s water under the bridge now.

‘What we should be thinking about is who’s going to replace Fairbrother. We shouldn’t underestimate Bends-Your-Ear, however upset she might be. That would be a great mistake. She’s probably trying to rustle up somebody already, so we ought to be thinking about a decent replacement ourselves. Sooner rather than later. Simple matter of good governance.’

‘What will that mean, exactly?’ Miles asked. ‘An election?’

‘Possibly,’ said Howard, with a judicious air, ‘but I doubt it. It’s only a casual vacancy. If there isn’t enough interest in an election – though, as I say, we must not underestimate Bends-Your-Ear – but if she can’t raise nine people to propose a public vote, it’ll be a simple question of co-opting a new councillor. In that case, we’d need nine members’ votes to get the co-option ratified. Nine’s the quorum. Three years of Fairbrother’s term of office left to run. Worth it. Could swing the whole thing, putting one of our side in, instead of Fairbrother.’

Howard drummed his thick fingers against the bowl of his wine glass, looking at his son across the table. Both Shirley and Maureen were watching Miles too, and Miles, Samantha thought, was looking back at his father like a big fat Labrador, quivering in expectation of a treat.

A beat later than she would have done if she had been sober, Samantha realized what this was all about, and why a strangely celebratory air hung over the table. Her intoxication had been liberating, but all of a sudden it was restrictive, for she was not sure that her tongue would be wholly biddable after more than a bottle of wine and a long stretch of silence. She therefore thought the words, rather than speaking them aloud.

You’d better bloody well tell them you’ll need to discuss it with me first, Miles.

VII

Tessa Wall had not meant to stay long at Mary’s – she was never comfortable about leaving her husband and Fats alone in the house together – but somehow her visit had stretched to a couple of hours. The Fairbrothers’ house was overflowing with camp beds and sleeping bags; their extended family had closed in around the gaping vacuum left by death, but no amount of noise and activity could mask the chasm into which Barry had vanished.

Alone with her thoughts for the first time since their friend had died, Tessa retraced her steps down Church Row in the darkness, her feet aching, her cardigan inadequate protection against the cold. The only noise was the clicking of the wooden beads around her neck, and the dim sounds of television sets in the houses she was passing.

Quite suddenly, Tessa thought: I wonder whether Barry knew.