The Casual Vacancy

in a powdery mix of shrivelled stalks and leaves.
    ‘Sensimilla, that is.’
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘Tips and shoots of your basic unfertilized marijuana plant,’ said Fats, ‘specially prepared for your smoking pleasure.’
    ‘What’s the difference between that and the normal stuff?’ asked Andrew, with whom Fats had split several lumps of waxy black cannabis resin in the Cubby Hole.
    ‘Just a different smoke, isn’t it?’ said Fats, stubbing out his own cigarette. He took a packet of Rizlas from his pocket, drew out three of the fragile papers and gummed them together.
    ‘Did you get it off Kirby?’ asked Andrew, poking at and sniffing the contents of the envelope.
    Everyone knew Skye Kirby was the go-to man for drugs. He was a year above them, in the lower sixth. His grandfather was an old hippy, who had been up in court several times for growing his own.
    ‘Yeah. Mind, there’s a bloke called Obbo,’ said Fats, slitting cigarettes and emptying the tobacco onto the papers, ‘in the Fields, who’ll get you anything. Fucking smack, if you want it.’
    ‘You don’t want smack, though,’ said Andrew, watching Fats’ face.
    ‘Nah,’ said Fats, taking the envelope back, and sprinkling the sensimilla onto the tobacco. He rolled the joint together, licking the end of the papers to seal it, poking the roach in more neatly, twisting the end into a point.
    ‘Nice,’ he said happily.
    He had planned to tell Andrew his news after introducing the sensimilla as a kind of warm-up act. He held out his hand for Andrew’s lighter, inserted the cardboarded end between his own lips and lit up, taking a deep, contemplative drag, blowing out the smoke in a long blue jet, then repeating the process.
    ‘Mmm,’ he said, holding the smoke in his lungs, and imitating Cubby, whom Tessa had given a wine course one Christmas. ‘Herby. A strong aftertaste. Overtones of … fuck …’
    He experienced a massive headrush, even though he was sitting, and exhaled, laughing.
    ‘… try that.’
    Andrew leaned across and took the joint, giggling in anticipation, and at the beatific smile on Fats’ face, which was quite at odds with his usual constipated scowl.
    Andrew inhaled and felt the power of the drug radiate out from his lungs, unwinding and loosening him. Another drag, and he thought that it was like having your mind shaken out like a duvet, so that it resettled without creases, so that everything became smooth and simple and easy and good.
    ‘Nice,’ he echoed Fats, smiling at the sound of his own voice. He passed the joint back into Fat’s waiting fingers and savoured this sense of well-being.
    ‘So, you wanna hear something interesting?’ said Fats, grinning uncontrollably.
    ‘Go on.’
    ‘I fucked her last night.’
    Andrew nearly said ‘who?’, before his befuddled brain remembered: Krystal Weedon, of course; Krystal Weedon, who else?
    ‘Where?’ he asked, stupidly. It was not what he wanted to know.
    Fats stretched out on his back in his funeral suit, his feet towards the river. Wordlessly, Andrew stretched out beside him, in the opposite direction. They had slept like this, ‘top and tail’, when they had stayed overnight at each other’s houses as children. Andrew gazed up at the rocky ceiling, where the blue smoke hung, slowly furling, and waited to hear everything.
    ‘I told Cubby and Tess I was at yours, so you know,’ said Fats. He passed the joint into Andrew’s reaching fingers, then linked his long hands on his chest, and listened to himself telling. ‘Then I got the bus to the Fields. Met her outside Oddbins.’
    ‘By Tesco’s?’ asked Andrew. He did not know why he kept asking dumb questions.
    ‘Yeah,’ said Fats. ‘We went to the rec. There’s trees in the corner behind the public bogs. Nice and private. It was getting dark.’
    Fats shifted position and Andrew handed back the joint.
    ‘Getting in’s harder than I thought it would be,’ said Fats, and Andrew was mesmerized, half inclined to laugh, afraid of missing every unvarnished detail Fats could give him. ‘She was wetter when I was fingering her.’
    A giggle rose like trapped gas in Andrew’s chest, but was stifled there.
    ‘Lot of pushing to get in properly. It’s tighter than I thought.’
    Andrew saw a jet of smoke rise from the place where Fats’ head must be.
    ‘I came in about ten seconds. It feels fucking great once you’re in.’
    Andrew fought back laughter, in case there was more.
    ‘I wore a