The Casual Vacancy

ought to have taken Sukhvinder to the office and reported her attempted flight; instead, she took Sukhvinder upstairs to the guidance room, with its Nepalese wall-hanging and the posters for ChildLine. Sukhvinder had never been there before.
    Tessa spoke, and left inviting little pauses, then spoke again, and Sukhvinder sat with sweaty palms, her gaze fixed on her shoes. Tessa knew her mother – Tessa would tell Parminder that she had tried to truant – but if she explained why? Would Tessa, could Tessa, intercede? Not with her son; she could not control Fats, that was common knowledge. But with Krystal? Krystal came to guidance …
    How bad would the beating be, if she told? But there would be a beating even if she did not tell. Krystal had been ready to set her whole gang on her …
    ‘… anything happened, Sukhvinder?’
    She nodded. Tessa said encouragingly, ‘Can you tell me what it was?’
    So Sukhvinder told.
    She was sure she could read, in the minute contraction of Tessa’s brow as she listened, something other than sympathy for herself. Perhaps Tessa was thinking about how Parminder might react to the news that her treatment of Mrs Catherine Weedon was being screamed about in the street. Sukhvinder had not forgotten to worry about that as she had sat in the bathroom cubicle, wishing for death. Or perhaps Tessa’s look of unease was reluctance to tackle Krystal Weedon; doubtless Krystal was her favourite too, as she had been Mr Fairbrother’s.
    A fierce, stinging sense of injustice burst through Sukhvinder’s misery, her fear and her self-loathing; it swept aside that tangle of worries and terrors that encased her daily; she thought of Krystal and her mates, waiting to charge; she thought of Fats, whispering poisonous words from behind her in every maths lesson, and of the message that she had wiped off her Facebook page the previous evening:
    Les-bian-ism n. Sexual orientation of women to women. Also called Sapphism. A native or inhabitant of Lesbos.
    ‘I don’t know how she knows,’ said Sukhvinder, with the blood thrumming in her ears.
    ‘Knows …?’ asked Tessa, her expression still troubled.
    ‘That there’s been a complaint about Mum and her great-gran. Krystal and her mum don’t talk to the rest of the family. Maybe,’ said Sukhvinder, ‘Fats told her?’
    ‘Fats?’ Tessa repeated uncomprehendingly.
    ‘You know, because they’re seeing each other,’ said Sukhvinder. ‘Him and Krystal? Going out together? So maybe he told her.’
    It gave her some bitter satisfaction to see every vestige of professional calm drain from Tessa’s face.

IX
    Kay Bawden never wanted to set foot in Miles and Samantha’s house again. She could not forgive them for witnessing Gavin’s parade of indifference, nor could she forget Miles’ patronizing laughter, his attitude to Bellchapel, or the sneery way that he and Samantha had spoken about Krystal Weedon.
    In spite of Gavin’s apology and his tepid assurances of affection, Kay could not stop picturing him nose to nose with Mary on the sofa; jumping up to help her with the plates; walking her home in the dark. When Gavin told her, a few days later, that he had had dinner at Mary’s house, she had to fight down an angry response, because he had never eaten more than toast at her house in Hope Street.
    She might not be allowed to say anything bad about The Widow, about whom Gavin spoke as though she were the Holy Mother, but the Mollisons were different.
    ‘I can’t say I like Miles very much.’
    ‘He’s not exactly my best mate.’
    ‘If you ask me, it’ll be a catastrophe for the addiction clinic if he gets elected.’
    ‘I doubt it’ll make any difference.’
    Gavin’s apathy, his indifference to other people’s pain, always infuriated Kay.
    ‘Isn’t there anyone who’ll stick up for Bellchapel?’
    ‘Colin Wall, I suppose,’ said Gavin.
    So, at eight o’clock on Monday evening, Kay walked up the Walls’ drive and rang their doorbell. From the front step, she could make out Samantha Mollison’s red Ford Fiesta, parked in the drive three houses along. The sight added a little extra zest to her desire for a fight.
    The Walls’ door was opened by a short plain dumpy woman in a tie-dyed skirt.
    ‘Hello,’ said Kay. ‘My name’s Kay Bawden, and I was wondering whether I could speak to Colin Wall?’
    For a split second, Tessa simply stared at the attractive young woman on the doorstep whom she had never seen before. The