The Casual Vacancy

daughter.
    ‘Mattie says here that your mother has been helping with Robbie and Krystal; is that still the case?’
    Robbie flung his hard, compact little body against the pile of boxes, which swayed.
    ‘Be careful, Robbie,’ said Kay, and Terri said, ‘Leave ’em,’ with the closest thing to alertness Kay had heard in her dead voice.
    Robbie returned to beating the boxes with his fists, for the pleasure, apparently, of listening to the hollow drumbeat.
    ‘Terri, is your mother still helping to look after Robbie?’
    ‘Not m’mother, gran.’
    ‘Robbie’s gran?’
    ‘
My
gran, innit. She dun … she ain’t well.’
    Kay glanced over at Robbie again, her pen at the ready. He was not underweight; she knew that from the feel and look of him, half-naked, as she had wiped his backside. His T-shirt was dirty, but hishair, when she had bent over him, had smelled surprisingly of shampoo. There were no bruises on his milk-white arms and legs, but there was the sodden, bagging nappy; he was three and a half.
    ‘M’ungry,’ he shouted, giving the box a final, futile whack. ‘M’ungry.’
    ‘You c’n’ave a biscuit,’ slurred Terri, but not moving. Robbie’s yells turned to noisy sobs and screams. Terri made no attempt to leave her chair. It was impossible to talk over the din.
    ‘Shall I get him one?’ shouted Kay.
    ‘Yeah.’
    Robbie ran past Kay into the kitchen. It was almost as dirty as the bathroom. Other than the fridge, cooker and washing machine, there were no gadgets; the counters carried only dirty plates, another overflowing ashtray, carrier bags, mouldy bread. The lino was tacky and stuck to the soles of Kay’s shoes. Rubbish had overflowed the bin, on top of which sat a pizza box, precariously balanced.
    ‘’N there,’ said Robbie, jabbing a finger at the wall unit without looking at Kay. ‘’N there.’
    More food than Kay had expected was stacked in the cupboard: tins, a packet of biscuits, a jar of instant coffee. She took two biscuits from the packet and handed them to him; he snatched them and ran away again, back to his mother.
    ‘So, do you like going to the nursery, Robbie?’ she asked him, as he sat scoffing the biscuits on the floor.
    He did not answer.
    ‘Yeah, ’e likes it,’ said Terri, slightly more awake. ‘Don’ you, Robbie? ’E likes it.’
    ‘When was he last there, Terri?’
    ‘Las’ time. Yesterday.’
    ‘Yesterday was Monday, he couldn’t have been there then,’ said Kay, making notes. ‘That isn’t one of the days he goes.’
    ‘Wha’?’
    ‘I’m asking about nursery. Robbie’s supposed to be there today. I need to know when he was last there.’
    ‘I told you, din’ I? Las’ time.’
    Her eyes were more fully open than Kay had yet seen them. Thetimbre of her voice was still flat, but antagonism was struggling to the surface.
    ‘Are you a dyke?’ she asked.
    ‘No,’ said Kay, still writing.
    ‘You look like a dyke,’ said Terri.
    Kay continued to write.
    ‘Juice,’ Robbie shouted, chocolate smeared over his chin.
    This time Kay did not move. After another long pause, Terri lurched out of her chair and wove her way into the hall. Kay leaned forward and shifted the loose lid of the biscuit tin Terri had displaced when she sat down. Inside was a syringe, a bit of grubby cotton wool, a rusty-looking spoon and a dusty polythene bag. Kay snapped the lid back on firmly, while Robbie watched her. Terri returned, after some distant clattering, carrying a cup of juice, which she shoved at the little boy.
    ‘There,’ she said, more to Kay than to her son, and she sat back down again. She missed the seat and collided with the arm of the chair on her first attempt; Kay heard the bone collide with wood, but Terri seemed to feel no pain. She settled herself back into the sagging cushions and surveyed the social worker with bleary indifference.
    Kay had read the file from cover to cover. She knew that nearly everything of value in Terri Weedon’s life had been sucked into the black hole of her addiction; that it had cost her two children; that she barely clung to two more; that she prostituted herself to pay for heroin; that she had been involved in every sort of petty crime; and that she was currently attempting rehab for the umpteenth time.
    But not to feel, not to care …
Right now
, Kay thought,
she’s happier than I am
.

III
    At the start of the second post-lunch period, Stuart ‘Fats’ Wall walked out of school. His experiment in