The Casual Vacancy

None of them said a word, not even Robbie, who seemed fearful of Fats. At last, when Krystal had handed her brother the crisps, she said to Fats, ‘Where’ll we go?’
    Surely, he thought, she could not mean that they were going to shag. Not with the boy there. He had had some idea of taking her to the Cubby Hole: it was private, and it would be a final desecration of his and Andrew’s friendship; he owed nothing to anyone, any more. But he baulked at the idea of fucking in front of a three-year-old.
    ‘’E’ll be all right,’ said Krystal. ‘’E’s got chocolates now. No, later,’she said to Robbie, who was whining for the Rolos still in her hand. ‘When you’ve ’ad the crisps.’
    They walked off down the road in the direction of the old stone bridge.
    ‘’E’ll be all right,’ Krystal repeated. ‘’E does as ’e’s told. Dontcha?’ she said loudly to Robbie.
    ‘Wan’ chocolates,’ he said.
    ‘Yeah, in a minute.’
    She could tell that Fats needed cajoling today. She had known, on the bus, that bringing Robbie, however necessary, would be difficult.
    ‘Whatcha bin up ter?’ she asked.
    ‘Party last night,’ said Fats.
    ‘Yeah? Who wuz there?’
    He yawned widely, and she had to wait for an answer.
    ‘Arf Price. Sukhvinder Jawanda. Gaia Bawden.’
    ‘Does she live in Pagford?’ asked Krystal sharply.
    ‘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 score-keeper 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 towards 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