The Casual Vacancy

Paki bitch!’
    She tottered towards the exit, spindle-shanked, unsteady on her slippered feet, her breath rattling, swearing as loudly as her beleaguered lungs would permit. The door swung shut behind her. The receptionist exchanged another look with Tessa. They heard Parminder’s surgery door close again.
    It was five minutes before Parminder reappeared. The receptionist stared ostentatiously at her screen.
    ‘Mrs Wall,’ said Parminder, with another tight non-smile.
    ‘What was that about?’ Tessa asked, when she had taken a seat at the end of Parminder’s desk.
    ‘Mrs Weedon’s new pills are upsetting her stomach,’ said Parminder calmly. ‘So we’re doing your bloods today, aren’t we?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Tessa, both intimidated and hurt by Parminder’s cold professional demeanour. ‘How are you doing, Minda?’
    ‘Me?’ said Parminder. ‘I’m fine. Why?’
    ‘Well … Barry … I know what he meant to you and what you meant to him.’
    Tears welled in Parminder’s eyes and she tried to blink them away, but too late; Tessa had seen them.
    ‘Minda,’ she said, laying her plump hand on Parminder’s thin one, but Parminder whipped it away as if Tessa had stung her; then, betrayed by her own reflex, she began to cry in earnest, unable to hide in the tiny room, though she had turned her back as nearly as she could in her swivel chair.
    ‘I felt sick when I realized I hadn’t phoned you,’ Tessa said, over Parminder’s furious attempts to quell her own sobs. ‘I wanted to curl up and die. I meant to call,’ she lied, ‘but we hadn’t slept, we spent almost the whole night at the hospital, then we had to go straight out to work. Colin broke down at assembly when he announced it, then he caused a bloody awful scene with Krystal Weedon in front of everyone. And then Stuart decided to play truant. And Mary’s falling apart … but I’m so sorry, Minda, I should’ve called.’
    ‘… iculous,’ said Parminder thickly, her face hidden behind atissue she had pulled out from her sleeve. ‘… Mary … most important …’
    ‘You would have been one of the very first people Barry called,’ said Tessa sadly, and, to her horror, she burst into tears too.
    ‘Minda, I’m so sorry,’ she sobbed, ‘but I was having to deal with Colin and all the rest of them.’
    ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Parminder, gulping as she dabbed at her thin face. ‘We’re being silly.’
    No, we’re not. Oh, let go for once, Parminder …
    But the doctor squared her thin shoulders, blew her nose and sat up straight again.
    ‘Did Vikram tell you?’ asked Tessa timidly, tweaking a handful of tissues from the box on Parminder’s desk.
    ‘No,’ said Parminder. ‘Howard Mollison. In the deli.’
    ‘Oh God, Minda, I’m so sorry.’
    ‘Don’t be silly. It’s fine.’
    Crying had made Parminder feel slightly better; friendlier towards Tessa, who was wiping her own plain, kind face. This was a relief, for now that Barry was gone, Tessa was Parminder’s only real friend in Pagford. (She always said ‘in Pagford’ to herself, pretending that somewhere beyond the little town she had a hundred loyal friends. She never quite admitted to herself that these consisted only of the memories of her gang of school mates back in Birmingham, from whom the tide of life had long since separated her; and the medical colleagues with whom she had studied and trained, who still sent Christmas cards, but who never came to see her, and whom she never visited.)
    ‘How’s Colin?’
    Tessa moaned.
    ‘Oh, Minda … Oh God. He says he’s going to run for Barry’s seat on the Parish Council.’
    The pronounced vertical furrow between Parminder’s thick, dark brows deepened.
    ‘Can you imagine Colin running for election?’ Tessa asked, her sodden tissues crumpled tightly in her fist. ‘Coping with the likes of Aubrey Fawley and Howard Mollison? Trying to fill Barry’s shoes,telling himself he’s got to win the battle for Barry – all the responsibility—’
    ‘Colin copes with a lot of responsibility at work,’ said Parminder.
    ‘Barely,’ said Tessa, without thinking. She felt instantly disloyal and started to cry again. It was so strange; she had entered the surgery thinking that she would offer comfort to Parminder, but instead here she was, pouring out her own troubles instead. ‘You know what Colin’s like, he takes everything to heart so much, he takes everything so
personally
…’
    ‘He copes very well,