The Casual Vacancy (55 page)

“Yeah, in Hope Street,” said Fats.

He knew, because Andrew had let it slip, where she lived. Andrew had never said that he liked her, but Fats had watched him watching Gaia almost constantly in the few classes they shared. He had noticed Andrew’s extreme self-consciousness around her, and whenever she was mentioned.

Krystal, though, was thinking about Gaia’s mother: the only social worker she had ever liked, the only one who had got through to her mother. She lived in Hope Street, the same as Nana Cath. She was probably there right now. What if…

But Kay had left them. Mattie was their social worker again. Anyway, you weren’t supposed to bother them at home. Shane Tully had once followed his social worker to her house, and he’d got a restraining order for his pains. But then, Shane had earlier tried to heave a brick through the woman’s car window…

And, Krystal reasoned, squinting as the road turned, and the river dazzled her eyes with thousands of blinding white spots of light, Kay was still the keeper of folders, the scorekeeper and the judge. She had seemed all right, but none of her solutions would keep Krystal and Robbie together…

“We could go down there,” she suggested to Fats, pointing at the overgrown stretch of bank, a little way along from the bridge. “An’ Robbie could wait up there, on the bench.”

She would be able to keep an eye on him from there, she thought, and she would make sure he didn’t see anything. Not that it was anything he had not seen before, in the days that Terri brought strangers home…

But, exhausted as he was, Fats was revolted. He could not do it in the grass, under the eye of a small boy.

“Nah,” he said, trying to sound offhand.

“’E won’ bother,” said Krystal. “’E’s got ’is Rolos. ’E won’ even know,” she said, although she thought that was a lie. Robbie knew too much. There had been trouble at nursery when he’d mimicked doing it doggy-style on another child.

Krystal’s mother, Fats remembered, was a prostitute. He hated the idea of what she was suggesting, but was that not inauthenticity?

“Whassamatter?” Krystal asked him aggressively.

“Nothing,” he said.

Dane Tully would do it. Pikey Pritchard would do it. Cubby, not in a million years.

Krystal walked Robbie to the bench. Fats bent to peer over the back of it, down to the overgrown patch of weeds and bushes, and thought that the kid might not see anything, but that he would be as quick as he could, in any case.

“’Ere y’are,” Krystal told Robbie, pulling out the long tube of Rolos while he reached for them excitedly. “Yeh can ’ave all of ’em if yeh jus’ sit ’ere fer a minute, all righ’? Yeh jus’ sit ’ere, Robbie, an’ I’ll be in them bushes. D’yeh understand, Robbie?”

“Yeah,” he said happily, his cheeks already full of chocolate and toffee.

Krystal slipped and slid down the bank toward the patch of undergrowth, hoping that Fats was not going to make any difficulties about doing it without a condom.

X

Gavin was wearing sunglasses against the glare of the morning sun, but that was no disguise: Samantha Mollison was sure to recognize his car. When he caught sight of her, striding along the pavement alone with her hands in her pockets and her head down, Gavin made a sharp left turn, and instead of continuing along the road to Mary’s, crossed the old stone bridge, and parked up a side lane on the other side of the river.

He did not want Samantha to see him parking outside Mary’s house. It did not matter on workdays, when he wore a suit and carried a briefcase; it had not mattered before he had admitted to himself what he felt about Mary, but it mattered now. In any case, the morning was glorious and a walk bought him time.

Still keeping my options open,
he thought, as he crossed the bridge on foot. There was a small boy sitting by himself on a bench, eating sweets, below him.
I don’t have to say anything…I’ll play it by ear…

But his palms were wet. The thought of Gaia telling the Fairbrother twins that he was in love with their mother had haunted him all through a restless night.

Mary seemed pleased to see him.

“Where’s your car?” she asked, peering over his shoulder.

“Parked it down by the river,” he said. “Lovely morning. I fancied a walk, and then it occurred to me that I could mow the lawn if you —”

“Oh, Graham did it for me,” she said, “but that’s so sweet of you. Come in and have a coffee.”

She chatted as she moved around the kitchen. She was wearing old cutoff jeans and a T-shirt; they showed how thin she was, but her hair was shiny again, the way he usually thought of it. He could see the twin girls, lying out on the freshly mown lawn on a blanket, both with headphones in, listening to their iPods.

“How are you?” Mary asked, sitting down beside him.

He could not think why she sounded so concerned; then he remembered that he had found time to tell her, yesterday, during his brief visit, that he and Kay had split up.

“I’m OK,” he said. “Probably for the best.”

She smiled and patted his arm.

“I heard last night,” he said, his mouth a little dry, “That you might be moving.”

“News travels fast in Pagford,” she said. “It’s just an idea. Theresa wants me to move back to Liverpool.”

“And how do the kids feel about that?”

“Well, I’d wait for the girls and Fergus to do their exams in June. Declan’s not so much of a problem. I mean, none of us wants to leave…”

She melted into tears in front of him, but he was so happy that he reached out to touch her delicate wrist.

“Of course you don’t…”

“…Barry’s grave.”

“Ah,” said Gavin, his happiness snuffed out like a candle.

Mary wiped her streaming eyes on the back of her hand. Gavin found her a little morbid. His family cremated their dead. Barry’s burial had only been the second he had ever attended, and he had hated everything about it. Gavin saw a grave purely as a marker for the place where a corpse was decomposing; a nasty thought, yet people took it into their heads to visit and bring flowers, as though it might yet recover.

She had got up to get tissues. Outside on the lawn, the twins had switched to sharing a set of headphones, their heads bobbing up and down in time to the same song.

“So Miles got Barry’s seat,” she said. “I could hear the celebrations all the way up here last night.”

“Well, it was Howard’s…yeah, that’s right,” said Gavin.

“And Pagford’s nearly rid of the Fields,” she said.

“Yeah, looks like it.”

“And now Miles is on the council, it’ll be easier to close Bellchapel,” she said.

Gavin always had to remind himself what Bellchapel was; he had no interest in these issues at all.

“Yeah, I suppose so.”

“So everything Barry wanted is finished,” she said.

Her tears had dried up, and the patches of high angry color had returned to her cheeks.

“I know,” he said. “It’s really sad.”

“I don’t know,” she said, still flushed and angry. “Why should Pagford pick up the bills for the Fields? Barry only ever saw one side of it. He thought everyone in the Fields was like him. He thought Krystal Weedon was like him, but she wasn’t. It never occurred to him that people in the Fields might be happy where they are.”

“Yeah,” said Gavin, overjoyed that she disagreed with Barry, and feeling as if the shadow of his grave had lifted from between them, “I know what you mean. From all I’ve heard about Krystal Weedon —”

“She got more of his time and his attention than his own daughters,” said Mary. “And she never even gave a penny for his wreath. The girls told me. The whole rowing team chipped in, except Krystal. And she didn’t come to his funeral, even, after all he’d done for her.”

“Yeah, well, that shows —”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t stop thinking about it all,” she said frenetically. “I can’t stop thinking that he’d still want me to worry about bloody Krystal Weedon. I can’t get past it. All the last day of his life, and he had a headache and he didn’t do anything about it, writing that bloody article!”

“I know,” said Gavin. “I know. I think,” he said, with a sense of putting his foot tentatively on an old rope bridge, “it’s a bloke thing. Miles is the same. Samantha didn’t want him to stand for the council, but he went ahead anyway. You know, some men really like a bit of power —”

“Barry wasn’t in it for power,” said Mary, and Gavin hastily retreated.

“No, no, Barry wasn’t. He was in it for —”

“He couldn’t help himself,” she said. “He thought everyone was like him, that if you gave them a hand they’d start bettering themselves.”

“Yeah,” said Gavin, “but the point is, there are other people who could use a hand — people at home…”

“Well, exactly!” said Mary, dissolving yet again into tears.

“Mary,” said Gavin, leaving his chair, moving to her side (on the rope bridge now, with a sense of mingled panic and anticipation), “look…it’s really early…I mean, it’s far too soon…but you’ll meet someone else.”

“At forty,” sobbed Mary, “with four children…”

“Plenty of men,” he began, but that was no good; he would rather she did not think she had too many options. “The right man,” he corrected himself, “won’t care that you’ve got kids. Anyway, they’re such nice kids…anyone would be glad to take them on.”

“Oh, Gavin, you’re so sweet,” she said, dabbing her eyes again.

He put his arm around her, and she did not shrug it off. They stood without speaking while she blew her nose, and then he felt her tense to move away, and he said, “Mary…”

“What?”

“I’ve got to — Mary, I think I’m in love with you.”

He knew for a few seconds the glorious pride of the skydiver who pushes off firm floor into limitless space.

Then she pulled away.

“Gavin. I —”

“I’m sorry,” he said, observing with alarm her repulsed expression. “I wanted you to hear it from me. I told Kay that’s why I wanted to split up, and I was scared you’d hear it from someone else. I wouldn’t have said anything for months. Years,” he added, trying to bring back her smile and the mood in which she found him sweet.

But Mary was shaking her head, arms folded over her thin chest.

“Gavin, I never, ever —”

“Forget I said anything,” he said foolishly. “Let’s just forget it.”

“I thought you understood,” she said.

He gathered that he should have known that she was encased in the invisible armor of grief, and that it ought to have protected her.

“I do understand,” he lied. “I wouldn’t have told you, only —”

“Barry always said you fancied me,” said Mary.

“I didn’t,” he said frantically.

“Gavin, I think you’re such a nice man,” she said breathlessly. “But I don’t — I mean, even if —”

“No,” he said loudly, trying to drown her out. “I understand. Listen, I’m going to go.”

“There’s no need…”

But he almost hated her now. He had heard what she was trying to say:
even if I weren’t grieving for my husband, I wouldn’t want you.

His visit had been so brief that when Mary, slightly shaky, poured away his coffee it was still hot.

XI

Howard had told Shirley that he did not feel well, that he thought he had better stay in bed and rest, and that the Copper Kettle could run without him for an afternoon.

“I’ll call Mo,” he said.

“No, I’ll call her,” said Shirley sharply.

As she closed the bedroom door on him, Shirley thought,
He’s using his heart
.

He had said, “Don’t be silly, Shirl,” and then, “It’s rubbish, bloody rubbish,” and she had not pressed him. Years of genteel avoidance of grisly topics (Shirley had been literally struck dumb when twenty-three-year-old Patricia had said: “I’m gay, Mum.”) seemed to have muzzled something inside her.

The doorbell rang. Lexie said, “Dad told me to come round here. He and Mum have got something to do. Where’s Grandad?”

“In bed,” said Shirley. “He overdid it a bit last night.”

“It was a good party, wasn’t it?” said Lexie.

“Yes, lovely,” said Shirley, with a tempest building inside her.

After a while, her granddaughter’s prattling wore Shirley down.

“Let’s have lunch at the café,” she suggested. “Howard,” she called through the closed bedroom door, “I’m taking Lexie for lunch at the Copper Kettle.”

He sounded worried, and she was glad. She was not afraid of Maureen. She would look Maureen right in the face…

But it occurred to Shirley, as she walked, that Howard might have telephoned Maureen the moment she had left the bungalow. She was so stupid…somehow, she had thought that, in calling Maureen herself about Howard’s illness, she had stopped them communicating…she was forgetting…

The familiar, well-loved streets seemed different, strange. She had taken a regular inventory of the window she presented to this lovely little world: wife and mother, hospital volunteer, secretary to the Parish Council, First Citizeness; and Pagford had been her mirror, reflecting, in its polite respect, her value and her worth. But the Ghost had taken a rubber stamp and smeared across the pristine surface of her life a revelation that would nullify it all: “her husband was sleeping with his business partner, and she never knew…”

It would be all that anyone said, when she was mentioned; all that they ever remembered about her.

She pushed open the door of the café; the bell tinkled, and Lexie said, “There’s Peanut Price.”

“Howard all right?” croaked Maureen.

“Just tired,” said Shirley, moving smoothly to a table and sitting down, her heart beating so fast that she wondered whether she might have a coronary herself.

“Tell him neither of the girls has turned up,” said Maureen crossly, lingering by their table, “and neither of them bothered to call in either. It’s lucky we’re not busy.”

Lexie went to the counter to talk to Andrew, who had been put on waiter duty. Conscious of her unusual solitude, as she sat alone at the table, Shirley remembered Mary Fairbrother, erect and gaunt at Barry’s funeral, widowhood draped around her like a queen’s train; the pity, the admiration. In losing her husband, Mary had become the silent passive recipient of admiration, whereas she, shackled to a man who had betrayed her, was cloaked in grubbiness, a target of derision…