The Casual Vacancy

he had climbed onto something outside, because, with a noise of scraping and a heavy object falling over, more and more of him emerged through the window until he landed heavily on the draining board, knocking several glasses to the ground, where they shattered.
    Sukhvinder walked straight out of the kitchen. Andrew knew immediately that he did not want Fats there. Only Gaia seemed unperturbed. Still giggling, she said, ‘There’s a door, you know.’
    ‘No shit?’ said Fats. ‘Where’s the drink?’
    ‘This is ours,’ said Gaia, cradling the vodka in her arms. ‘Andy nicked it. You’ll have to get your own.’
    ‘Not a problem,’ said Fats coolly, and he walked through the doors into the hall.
    ‘Need the loo …’ mumbled Gaia, and she stowed the vodka bottle back under the sink, and left the kitchen too.
    Andrew followed. Sukhvinder had returned to the bar area, Gaia was disappearing into the bathroom, and Fats was leaning againstthe trestle table with a beer in one hand and a sandwich in the other.
    ‘Didn’t think you’d want to come to this,’ said Andrew.
    ‘I was invited, mate,’ said Fats. ‘It was on the invitation. Whole Wall family.’
    ‘Does Cubby know you’re here?’
    ‘Dunno,’ said Fats. ‘He’s in hiding. Didn’t get ol’ Barry’s seat after all. The whole social fabric’ll collapse now Cubby’s not holding it together. Fucking hell, that’s horrible,’ he added, spitting out a mouthful of sandwich. ‘Wanna fag?’
    The hall was so noisy, and the guests so raucously drunk, that nobody seemed to care where Andrew went any more. When they got outside, they found Patricia Mollison, alone beside her sports car, looking up at the clear starry sky, smoking.
    ‘You can have one of these,’ she said, offering her packet, ‘if you want.’
    After she had lit their cigarettes, she stood at her ease with one hand balled deep in her pocket. There was something about her that Andrew found intimidating; he could not even bring himself to glance at Fats, to gauge his reaction.
    ‘I’m Pat,’ she told them, after a little while. ‘Howard and Shirley’s daughter.’
    ‘Hi,’ said Andrew. ‘’M Andrew.’
    ‘Stuart,’ said Fats.
    She did not seem to need to prolong conversation. Andrew felt it as a kind of compliment and tried to emulate her indifference. The silence was broken by footsteps and the sound of muffled girls’ voices.
    Gaia was dragging Sukhvinder outside by the hand. She was laughing, and Andrew could tell that the full effect of the vodka was still intensifying inside her.
    ‘You,’ said Gaia, to Fats, ‘are really horrible to Sukhvinder.’
    ‘Stop it,’ said Sukhvinder, tugging against Gaia’s hand. ‘I’m serious – let me—’
    ‘He is!’ said Gaia breathlessly. ‘You are! Do you put stuff on her Facebook?’
    ‘
Stop it!
’ shouted Sukhvinder. She wrenched herself free and plunged back inside the party.
    ‘You
are
horrible to her,’ said Gaia, grabbing onto the railings for support. ‘Calling her a lesbian and stuff …’
    ‘Nothing wrong with being a lesbian,’ said Patricia, her eyes narrowed through the smoke she was inhaling. ‘But then, I would say that.’
    Andrew saw Fats look at Pat sideways.
    ‘I never said there was anything wrong with it. It’s only jokes,’ he said.
    Gaia slid down the rails to sit on the chilly pavement, her head in her arms.
    ‘You all right?’ Andrew asked. If Fats had not been there, he would have sat down too.
    ‘Pissed,’ she muttered.
    ‘Might do better to stick your fingers down your throat,’ suggested Patricia, looking down at her dispassionately.
    ‘Nice car,’ Fats said, eyeing the BMW.
    ‘Yeah,’ said Patricia. ‘New. I make double what my brother makes,’ she said, ‘but Miles is the Christ Child. Miles the Messiah … Parish Councillor Mollison the Second … of Pagford. Do you like Pagford?’ she asked Fats, while Andrew watched Gaia breathing deeply, her head between her knees.
    ‘No,’ said Fats. ‘It’s a shithole.’
    ‘Yeah, well … I couldn’t wait to leave, personally. Did you know Barry Fairbrother?’
    ‘A bit,’ said Fats.
    Something in his voice made Andrew worried.
    ‘He was my reading mentor at St Thomas’s,’ said Patricia, with her eyes still on the end of the street. ‘Lovely bloke. I would have come back for the funeral, but Melly and I were in Zermatt. What’s all this stuff my mother’s been gloating about … this Barry’s Ghost