The Casual Vacancy

Parminder had told her, in the early days of their friendship, defensive and annoyed at something she had seen in Tessa’s face. ‘Nobody
makes
you marry, you know.’
    But she had spoken, at other times, of the immense pressure from her mother to take a husband.
    ‘All Sikh parents want their kids married. It’s an obsession,’ Parminder said bitterly.)
    Colin saw his plate snatched away without regret. The nausea churning in his stomach was even worse than when he and Tessa had arrived. He might have been encased in a thick glass bubble, so separate did he feel from his three dining companions. It was a sensation with which he was only too familiar, that of walking in a giant sphere of worry, enclosed by it, watching his own terrors roll by, obscuring the outside world.
    Tessa was no help: she was being deliberately cool and unsympathetic about his campaign for Barry’s seat. The whole point of this supper was so that Colin could consult Parminder on the little leaflets he had produced, advertising his candidacy. Tessa was refusing to get involved, blocking discussion of the fear that was slowly engulfing him. She was refusing him an outlet.
    Trying to emulate her coolness, pretending that he was not, after all, caving under self-imposed pressure, he had not told her about the telephone call from the
Yarvil and District Gazette
that he had received at school that day. The journalist on the end of the line had wanted to talk about Krystal Weedon.
    Had he touched her?
    Colin had told the woman that the school could not possibly discuss a pupil and that Krystal must be approached through her parents.
    ‘I’ve already talked to Krystal,’ said the voice on the end of the line. ‘I only wanted to get your—’
    But he had put the receiver down, and terror had blotted out everything.
    Why did they want to talk about Krystal? Why had they called him? Had he done something? Had he touched her? Had she complained?
    The psychologist had taught him not to try and confirm or disprove the content of such thoughts. He was supposed to acknowledge their existence, then carry on as normal, but it was like trying not to scratch the worst itch you had ever known. The publicunveiling of Simon Price’s dirty secrets on the council website had stunned him: the terror of exposure, which had dominated so much of Colin’s life, now wore a face, its features those of an ageing cherub, with a demonic brain seething beneath a deerstalker on tight grey curls, behind bulging inquisitive eyes. He kept remembering Barry’s tales of the delicatessen owner’s formidable strategic brain, and of the intricate web of alliances that bound the sixteen members of Pagford Parish Council.
    Colin had often imagined how he would find out that the game was up: a guarded article in the paper; faces turned away from him when he entered Mollison and Lowe’s; the headmistress calling him into her office for a quiet word. He had visualized his downfall a thousand times: his shame exposed and hung around his neck like a leper’s bell, so that no concealment would be possible, ever again. He would be sacked. He might end up in prison.
    ‘Colin,’ Tessa prompted quietly; Vikram was offering him wine.
    She knew what was going on inside that big domed forehead; not the specifics, but the theme of his anxiety had been constant for years. She knew that Colin could not help it; it was the way he was made. Many years before, she had read, and recognized as true, the words of W. B. Yeats: ‘A pity beyond all telling is hid at the heart of love.’ She had smiled over the poem, and stroked the page, because she had known both that she loved Colin, and that compassion formed a huge part of her love.
    Sometimes, though, her patience wore thin. Sometimes
she
wanted a little concern and reassurance too. Colin had erupted into a predictable panic when she had told him that she had received a firm diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes, but once she had convinced him that she was not in imminent danger of dying, she had been taken aback by how quickly he dropped the subject, how completely he reimmersed himself in his election plans.
    (That morning, at breakfast, she had tested her blood sugar with the glucometer for the first time, then taken out the prefilled needle and inserted it into her own belly. It had hurt much more than when deft Parminder did it.
    Fats had seized his cereal bowl and swung round in his chair awayfrom her, sloshing milk over the table, the