The Casual Vacancy

Krystal’s stomach. She tried not to think any more about Mr Fairbrother as she moved around the house, cleaning inexpertly but doggedly, while her mother sat in the kitchen, smoking and staring out of the back window.
    Shortly before midday, a woman pulled up outside the house in an old blue Vauxhall. Krystal caught sight of her from Robbie’s bedroom window. The visitor had very short dark hair and was wearingblack trousers, a beaded, ethnic sort of necklace, and carrying a large tote bag over her shoulder that seemed to be full of files.
    Krystal ran downstairs.
    ‘I think it’s ’er,’ she called to Terri, who was in the kitchen. ‘The social.’
    The woman knocked and Krystal opened the door.
    ‘Hello, I’m Kay; I’m covering for Mattie? You must be Krystal.’
    ‘Yeah,’ said Krystal, not bothering to return Kay’s smile. She showed her into the sitting room and saw her take in its new, ramshackle tidiness: the emptied ashtray, and most of the stuff that had been lying around was crammed onto the broken shelves. The carpet was still filthy, because the Hoover did not work, and the towel and the zinc ointment were lying on the floor, with one of Robbie’s matchbox cars perched on top of the plastic tub. Krystal had tried to distract Robbie with the car while she scraped his bottom clean.
    ‘Robbie’s at nursery,’ Krystal told Kay. ‘I’ve took ’im. I’ve put ’im back in pants. She keeps puttin’ ’im back in pull-ups. I’ve told ’er not to. I put cream on his bum. It’ll be all right, it’s on’y nappy rash.’
    Kay smiled at her again. Krystal peered around the doorway and shouted, ‘
Mum!
’
    Terri joined them from the kitchen. She was wearing a dirty old sweatshirt and jeans, and looked better for being more covered up.
    ‘Hello, Terri,’ said Kay.
    ‘All righ’?’ said Terri, taking a deep drag from her cigarette.
    ‘Siddown,’ Krystal instructed her mother, who obeyed, curling up in the same chair as before. ‘D’yer wanna cup of tea or summat?’ Krystal asked Kay.
    ‘That’d be great,’ said Kay, sitting down and opening her folder. ‘Thanks.’
    Krystal hurried out of the room. She was listening carefully, trying to make out what Kay was saying to her mother.
    ‘You probably weren’t expecting to see me again this soon, Terri,’ she heard Kay say (she had a strange accent: it sounded like a London one, like the posh new bitch at school half the boys had stiffies for), ‘but I was quite concerned about Robbie yesterday. He’s back at nursery today, Krystal says?’
    ‘Yeah,’ said Terri. ‘She took ’im. She come back this morning.’
    ‘She’s come back? Where has she been?’
    ‘I jus’ bin at a – jus’ slep’ over at a friend’s,’ said Krystal, hurrying back to the sitting room to speak for herself.
    ‘Yeah, bu’ she come back this morning,’ said Terri.
    Krystal went back to the kettle. It made such a racket as it came to the boil that she could not make out any of what her mother and the social worker were saying to each other. She sloshed milk into the mugs with the teabags, trying to be as quick as possible, then carried the three red-hot mugs through to the sitting room in time to hear Kay say, ‘… spoke to Mrs Harper at the nursery yesterday—’
    ‘Tha’ bitch,’ said Terri.
    ‘There y’are,’ Krystal told Kay, setting the teas on the floor and turning one of the mugs so that its handle faced her.
    ‘Thanks very much,’ Kay said. ‘Terri, Mrs Harper told me that Robbie has been absent a lot over the last three months. He hasn’t had a full week for a while, has he?’
    ‘Wha’?’ said Terri. ‘No, ’e ain’. Yeah, ’e ’as. ’E only jus’ mist yesterday. An’ when ’e had his sore throat.’
    ‘When was that?’
    ‘Wha’? Monf ’go … monf’na ’alf … ’bout.’
    Krystal sat down on the arm of her mother’s chair. She glared down at Kay from her position of height, energetically chewing gum, her arms folded like her mother’s. Kay had a thick open folder on her lap. Krystal hated folders. All the stuff they wrote about you, and kept, and used against you afterwards.
    ‘I takes Robbie to the nurs’ry,’ she said. ‘On my way to school.’
    ‘Well, according to Mrs Harper, Robbie’s attendance has fallen off quite a bit,’ said Kay, looking down the notes she had made of her conversation with the nursery manager. ‘The thing is, Terri, you did commit to keeping Robbie in pre-school