The Casual Vacancy (50 page)

“Oh…that’s so kind. But my friend,” said Samantha, with a strange ringing in her ears, “is expecting us, you see…”

“But if you still wanted to go and visit your friend…all I’m saying is there’s really no need for you to attend, is there, if somebody else is with the girls?…And Harriet’s absolutely desperate — really desperate — I wasn’t going to get involved, but now it’s putting a strain on their friendship…”

Then, on a less gushing note, “We’d buy the ticket from you, of course.”

There was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.

“Oh,” said Samantha. “Yes. I just thought it might be nice to go with her —”

“They’d much prefer to be with each other,” said Harriet’s mother firmly. “And you won’t have to crouch down and hide among all the little teenyboppers, ha ha — it’s all right for my sister, she’s only five foot two.”

III

To Gavin’s disappointment, it seemed that he would have to attend Howard Mollison’s birthday party after all. If Mary, a client of the firm and the widow of his best friend, had asked him to stay for dinner, he would have considered himself more than justified in skipping it…but Mary had not asked him to stay. She had family visiting, and she had been oddly flustered when he had turned up.

She doesn’t want them to know,
he thought, taking comfort in her self-consciousness as she ushered him toward the door.

He drove back to the Smithy, replaying his conversation with Kay in his mind.

I thought he was your best friend. He’s only been dead a few weeks!

Yeah, and I was looking after her for Barry,
he retorted in his head,
which is
what he’d have wanted. Neither of us expected this to happen. Barry’s dead. It can’t hurt him now.

Alone in the Smithy he looked out a clean suit for the party, because the invitation said “formal,” and tried to imagine gossipy little Pagford relishing the story of Gavin and Mary.

So what?
he thought, staggered by his own bravery.
Is she supposed to be alone forever? It happens. I was looking after her.

And in spite of his reluctance to attend a party that was sure to be dull and exhausting, he was buoyed inside by a little bubble of excitement and happiness.

Up in Hilltop House, Andrew Price was styling his hair with his mother’s blow-dryer. He had never looked forward to a disco or a party as much as he had longed for tonight. He, Gaia and Sukhvinder were being paid by Howard to serve food and drinks at the party. Howard had hired him a uniform for the occasion: a white shirt, black trousers and a bow tie. He would be working alongside Gaia, not as potboy but as a waiter.

But there was more to his anticipation than this. Gaia had split up with the legendary Marco de Luca. He had found her crying about it in the backyard of the Copper Kettle that afternoon, when he had gone outside for a smoke.

“His loss,” Andrew had said, trying to keep the delight out of his voice.

And she had sniffed and said, “Cheers, Andy.”

“You little poofter,” said Simon, when Andrew finally turned off the dryer. He had been waiting to say it for several minutes, standing on the dark landing, staring through the gap in the door, which was ajar, watching Andrew preen himself in the mirror. Andrew jumped, then laughed. His good humor discomposed Simon.

“Look at you,” he jeered, as Andrew passed him on the landing in his shirt and bow tie. “With your dicky bow. You look a twat.”

And you’re unemployed, and I did it to you, dickhead.

Andrew’s feelings about what he had done to his father changed almost hourly. Sometimes the guilt would bear down on him, tainting everything, but then it would melt away, leaving him glorying in his secret triumph. Tonight, the thought of it gave extra heat to the excitement burning beneath Andrew’s thin white shirt, an additional tingle to the gooseflesh caused by the rush of evening air as he sped, on Simon’s racing bike, down the hill into town. He was excited, full of hope. Gaia was available and vulnerable. Her father lived in Reading.

Shirley Mollison was standing in a party dress outside the church hall when he cycled up, tying giant gold helium balloons in the shapes of fives and sixes to the railings.

“Hello, Andrew,” she trilled. “Bike away from the entrance, please.”

He wheeled it along to the corner, passing a brand-new, racing green BMW convertible parked feet away. He walked around the car on his way inside, taking in the luxurious inner fittings.

“And here’s Andy!”

Andrew saw at once that his boss’s good humor and excitement were equal to his own. Howard was striding down the hall, wearing an immense velvet dinner jacket; he resembled a conjurer. There were only five or six other people dotted around: the party would not start for twenty minutes. Blue, white and gold balloons had been fastened up everywhere. There was a massive trestle table largely covered in plates draped with tea towels, and at the top of the hall a middle-aged DJ setting up his equipment.

“Go help Maureen, Andy, will you?”

She was laying out glasses at one end of the long table, caught gaudily in a stream of light from an overhead lamp.

“Don’t you look handsome!” she croaked as he approached.

She was wearing a scant, stretchy shiny dress that revealed every contour of the bony body to which unexpected little rolls and pads of flesh still clung, exposed by the unforgiving fabric. From somewhere out of sight came a small “hi”; Gaia was crouching over a box of plates on the floor.

“Glasses out of boxes, please, Andy,” said Maureen, “and set them up here, where we’re having the bar.”

He did as he was told. As he unpacked the box, a woman he had never seen before approached, carrying several bottles of champagne.

“These should go in the fridge, if there is one.”

She had Howard’s straight nose, Howard’s big blue eyes and Howard’s curly fair hair, but whereas his features were womanish, softened by fat, his daughter — she had to be his daughter — was unpretty yet striking, with low brows, big eyes and a cleft chin. She was wearing trousers and an open-necked silk shirt. After dumping the bottles onto the table she turned away. Her demeanor, and something about the quality of her clothing, made Andrew sure that she was the owner of the BMW outside.

“That’s Patricia,” whispered Gaia in his ear, and his skin tingled again as though she carried an electric charge. “Howard’s daughter.”

“Yeah, I thought so,” he said, but he was much more interested to see that Gaia was unscrewing the cap of a bottle of vodka and pouring out a measure. As he watched, she drank it straight off with a little shudder. She had barely replaced the top when Maureen reappeared beside them with an ice bucket.

“Bloody old slapper,” said Gaia, as Maureen walked away, and Andrew smelled the spirits on her breath. “
Look
at the state of her.”

He laughed, turned and stopped abruptly, because Shirley was right beside them, smiling her pussycat smile.

“Has Miss Jawanda not arrived yet?” she asked.

“She’s on her way, she just texted me,” said Gaia.

But Shirley did not really care where Sukhvinder was. She had overheard Andrew and Gaia’s little exchange about Maureen, and it had completely restored the good mood that had been dented by Maureen’s evident delight in her own
toilette
. It was difficult to satisfactorily puncture self-esteem so obtuse, so deluded, but as Shirley walked away from the teenagers toward the DJ, she planned what she would say to Howard the next time she saw him alone.

I’m afraid the young ones were, well, laughing at Maureen…it’s such a pity she wore that dress…I hate seeing her make a fool of herself.

There was plenty to be pleased about, Shirley reminded herself, for she needed a little bolstering tonight. She and Howard and Miles were all going to be on the council together; it would be marvelous, simply marvelous.

She checked that the DJ knew that Howard’s favorite song was “The Green, Green Grass of Home,” Tom Jones’ version, and looked around for more little jobs to do: but instead her gaze fell upon the reason that her happiness, tonight, had not quite that perfect quality she had anticipated.

Patricia was standing alone, staring up at the Pagford coat of arms on the wall, and making no effort to talk to anybody. Shirley wished that Patricia would wear a skirt sometimes; but at least she had arrived alone. Shirley had been afraid that the BMW might contain another person, and that absence was something gained.

You weren’t supposed to dislike your own child; you were supposed to like them no matter what, even if they were not what you wanted, even if they turned out to be the kind of person that you would have crossed the street to avoid had you not been related. Howard took a large view of the whole matter; he even joked about it, in a mild way, beyond Patricia’s hearing. Shirley could not rise to those heights of detachment. She felt compelled to join Patricia, in the vague, unconscious hope that she might dilute the strangeness she was afraid everyone else would smell by her own exemplary dress and behavior.

“Do you want a drink, darling?”

“Not yet,” said Patricia, still staring up at the Pagford arms. “I had a heavy night last night. Probably still over the limit. We were out drinking with Melly’s office pals.”

Shirley smiled vaguely up at the crest above them.

“Melly’s fine, thanks for asking,” said Patricia.

“Oh, good,” said Shirley.

“I liked the invitation,” said Patricia. “Pat and
guest.
”

“I’m sorry, darling, but that’s just what you put, you know, when people aren’t married —”

“Ah, that’s what it says in
Debrett’s,
does it? Well, Melly didn’t want to come if she wasn’t even named on the invitation, so we had a massive row, and here I am, alone. Result, eh?”

Patricia stalked away toward the drinks, leaving Shirley a little shaken behind her. Patricia’s rages had been frightening even as a child.

“You’re late, Miss Jawanda,” she called, recovering her composure as a flustered Sukhvinder came hurrying toward her. In Shirley’s opinion, the girl was demonstrating a kind of insolence turning up at all, after what her mother had said to Howard, here, in this very hall. She watched her hurry to join Andrew and Gaia, and thought that she would tell Howard that they ought to let Sukhvinder go. She was tardy, and there was probably a hygiene issue with the eczema she was hiding under the long-sleeved black T-shirt; Shirley made a mental note to check whether it was contagious, on her favorite medical website.

Guests began to arrive promptly at eight o’clock. Howard told Gaia to come and stand beside him and collect coats, because he wanted everyone to see him ordering her around by name, in that little black dress and frilly apron. But there were soon too many coats for her to carry alone, so he summoned Andrew to help.

“Nick a bottle,” Gaia ordered Andrew, as they hung coats three and four deep in the tiny cloakroom, “and hide it in the kitchen. We can take it in turns to go and have some.”

“OK,” said Andrew, elated.

“Gavin!” cried Howard, as his son’s partner came through the door alone at half past eight.

“Kay not with you, Gavin?” asked Shirley swiftly (Maureen was changing into sparkly stilettos behind the trestle table, so there was very little time to steal a march on her).

“No, she couldn’t make it, unfortunately,” said Gavin; then, to his horror, he came face-to-face with Gaia, who was waiting to take his coat.

“Mum could have made it,” said Gaia, in a clear, carrying voice, as she glared at him. “But Gavin’s dumped her, haven’t you, Gav?”

Howard clapped Gavin on the shoulder, pretending he had not heard, and boomed, “Great to see you, go get yourself a drink.”

Shirley’s expression remained impassive, but the thrill of the moment did not subside quickly, and she was a little dazed and dreamy, greeting the next few guests. When Maureen tottered over in her awful dress to join the greeting party, Shirley took immense pleasure in telling her quietly: “We’ve had a
very
awkward little scene.
Very
awkward. Gavin and Gaia’s mother…oh, dear…if we’d known…”

“What? What’s happened?”

But Shirley shook her head, savoring the exquisite pleasure of Maureen’s frustrated curiosity, and opened her arms wide as Miles, Samantha and Lexie entered the hall.

“Here he is! Parish Councillor Miles Mollison!”

Samantha watched Shirley hugging Miles as though from a great distance. She had moved so abruptly from happiness and anticipation to shock and disappointment that her thoughts had become white noise, against which she had to fight to take in the exterior world.

(Miles had said: “That’s great! You can come to Dad’s party, you were only just saying —”

“Yes,” she had replied, “I know. It is great, isn’t it?”

But when he had seen her dressed in the jeans and band T-shirt she had been visualizing herself in for over a week, he had been perplexed.

“It’s formal.”

“Miles, it’s the church hall in Pagford.”

“I know, but the invitation —”

“I’m wearing this.”)

“Hello, Sammy,” said Howard. “Look at you. You needn’t have dressed up.”

But his embrace was as lascivious as ever, and he patted her tightly jeaned backside.

Samantha gave Shirley a cold tight smile and walked past her towards the drinks. A nasty voice inside her head was asking:
but
what did you think was going to happen at the concert, anyway? What was the point? What were you after?

Nothing. A bit of fun.

The dream of strong young arms and laughter, which was to have had some kind of catharsis tonight; her own thin waist encircled again, and the sharp taste of the new, the unexplored; her fantasy had lost wings, it was plummeting back to earth…

I only wanted to look.

“Looking good, Sammy.”

“Cheers, Pat.”

She had not met her sister-in-law for over a year.

I like you more than anyone else in this family, Pat.

Miles had caught up with her; he kissed his sister.

“How are you? How’s Mel? Isn’t she here?”