The Casual Vacancy

days previously; thrown over the café for Yarvil and a supermarket job. ‘Yes, yes. Fancy waitressing, do you? We’re offering minimum wage – nine to half-past five, Saturdays – twelve to half-past five, Sundays. Opening two weeks from today; training provided. How old are you, my love?’
    She was perfect,
perfect
, exactly what he had been imagining: fresh-faced and curvy; he could just imagine her in a figure-hugging black dress with a lace-edged white apron. He would teach her to use the till, and show her around the stockroom; there would be a bit of banter, and perhaps a little bonus on days when the takings were up.
    Howard sidled out from behind the counter and, ignoring Sukhvinder and Andrew, took Gaia by the upper arm, and led her through the arch in the dividing wall. There were no tables and chairs there yet, but the counter had been installed and so had a tiled black and cream mural on the wall behind it, which showed the Square in Yesteryear. Crinolined women and men in top hats swarmed everywhere; a brougham carriage had drawn up outside a clearly marked Mollison and Lowe, and beside it was the little café,
The Copper Kettle.
The artist had improvised an ornamental pump instead of the war memorial.
    Andrew and Sukhvinder were left behind, awkward and vaguely antagonistic to each other.
    ‘Yes? Can I help you?’
    A stooping woman with a jet-black bouffant had emerged from out of a back room. Andrew and Sukhvinder muttered that they were waiting, and then Howard and Gaia reappeared in the archway. When he saw Maureen, Howard dropped Gaia’s arm, which he had been holding absent-mindedly while he explained to her what a waitress’s duties would be.
    ‘I might have found us some more help for the Kettle, Mo,’ he said.
    ‘Oh, yes?’ said Maureen, switching her hungry gaze to Gaia. ‘Have you got experience?’
    But Howard boomed over her, telling Gaia all about the delicatessen and how he liked to think it was a bit of a Pagford institution, a bit of a landmark.
    ‘Thirty-five years, it’s been,’ said Howard, with a majestic disdain of his own mural. ‘The young lady’s new to town, Mo,’ he added.
    ‘And you two are after jobs as well, are you?’ Maureen asked Sukhvinder and Andrew.
    Sukhvinder shook her head; Andrew made an equivocal movement with his shoulders; but Gaia said, with her eyes on the girl, ‘Go on. You said you might.’
    Howard considered Sukhvinder, who would most certainly not appear to advantage in a tight black dress and frilly apron; but his fertile and flexible mind was firing in all directions. A compliment toher father – something of a hold over her mother – an unasked favour granted; there were matters beyond the purely aesthetic that ought, perhaps, to be considered here.
    ‘Well, if we get the business we’re expecting, we could probably do with two,’ he said, scratching his chins with his eyes on Sukhvinder, who had blushed unattractively.
    ‘I don’t …’ she said, but Gaia urged her.
    ‘Go on. Together.’
    Sukhvinder was flushed, and her eyes were watering.
    ‘I …’
    ‘Go on,’ whispered Gaia.
    ‘I … all right.’
    ‘We’ll give you a trial, then, Miss Jawanda,’ said Howard.
    Doused in fear, Sukhvinder could hardly breathe. What would her mother say?
    ‘And I suppose you’re wanting to be potboy, are you?’ Howard boomed at Andrew.
    Potboy?
    ‘It’s heavy lifting we need, my friend,’ said Howard, while Andrew blinked at him nonplussed: he had only read the large type at the top of the sign. ‘Pallets into the stockroom, crates of milk up from the cellar and rubbish bagged up at the back. Proper manual labour. Do you think you can handle that?’
    ‘Yeah,’ said Andrew. Would he be there when Gaia was there? That was all that mattered.
    ‘We’ll need you early. Eight o’clock, probably. We’ll say eight till three, and see how it goes. Trial period of two weeks.’
    ‘Yeah, fine,’ said Andrew.
    ‘What’s your name?’
    When Howard heard it, he raised his eyebrows.
    ‘Is your father Simon? Simon Price?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    Andrew was unnerved. Nobody knew who his father was, usually.
    Howard told the two girls to come back on Sunday afternoon, when the till was to be delivered, and he would be at liberty toinstruct them; then, though he showed an inclination to keep Gaia in conversation, a customer entered, and the teenagers took their chance to slip outside.
    Andrew could think of nothing to say once they