The Casual Vacancy

found themselves on the other side of the tinkling glass door; but before he could marshal his thoughts, Gaia threw him a careless ‘bye’, and walked away with Sukhvinder. Andrew lit up the second of Fats’ three fags (this was no time for a half-smoked stub), which gave him an excuse to remain stationary while he watched her walk away into the lengthening shadows.
    ‘Why do they call him “Peanut”, that boy?’ Gaia asked Sukhvinder, once they were out of earshot of Andrew.
    ‘He’s allergic,’ said Sukhvinder. She was horrified at the prospect of telling Parminder what she had done. Her voice sounded like somebody else’s. ‘He nearly died at St Thomas’s; somebody gave him one hidden in a marshmallow.’
    ‘Oh,’ said Gaia. ‘I thought it might be because he had a tiny dick.’
    She laughed, and so did Sukhvinder, forcing herself, as though jokes about penises were all she heard, day in, day out.
    Andrew saw them both glance back at him as they laughed, and knew that they were talking about him. The giggling might be a hopeful sign; he knew that much about girls, anyway. Grinning at nothing but the cooling air, he walked off, school bag over his shoulder, cigarette in his hand, across the Square towards Church Row, and thence to forty minutes of steep climbing up out of town to Hilltop House.
    The hedgerows were ghostly pale with white blossom in the dusk, blackthorn blooming on either side of him, celandine fringing the lane with tiny, glossy heart-shaped leaves. The smell of the flowers, the deep pleasure of the cigarette and the promise of weekends with Gaia; everything blended together into a glorious symphony of elation and beauty as Andrew puffed up the hill. The next time Simon said ‘got a job, Pizza Face?’ he would be able to say ‘yes’. He was going to be Gaia Bawden’s weekend workmate.
    And, to cap it all, he knew at last exactly how he might plunge an anonymous dagger straight between his father’s shoulder blades.

VII
    Once the first impulse of spite had worn off, Samantha bitterly regretted inviting Gavin and Kay to dinner. She spent Friday morning joking with her assistant about the dreadful evening she was bound to have, but her mood plummeted once she had left Carly in charge of Over the Shoulder Boulder Holders (a name that had made Howard laugh so hard the first time he had heard it that it had brought on an asthma attack, and which made Shirley scowl whenever it was spoken in her presence). Driving back to Pagford ahead of the rush hour, so that she could shop for ingredients and start cooking, Samantha tried to cheer herself up by thinking of nasty questions to ask Gavin. Perhaps she might wonder aloud why Kay had not moved in with him: that would be a good one.
    Walking home from the Square with bulging Mollison and Lowe carrier bags in each hand, she came across Mary Fairbrother beside the cash-point machine in the wall of Barry’s bank.
    ‘Mary, hi … how are you?’
    Mary was thin and pale, with grey patches around her eyes. Their conversation was stilted and strange. They had not spoken since the journey in the ambulance, barring brief, awkward condolences at the funeral.
    ‘I’ve been meaning to drop in,’ Mary said, ‘you were so kind – and I wanted to thank Miles—’
    ‘No need,’ Samantha said awkwardly.
    ‘Oh, but I’d like—’
    ‘Oh, but then, please do—’
    After Mary had walked away, Samantha had the awful feeling that she might have given the impression that that evening would be a perfect time for Mary to come round.
    Once home, she dropped the bags in the hall and telephoned Miles at work to tell him what she had done, but he displayed an infuriating equanimity about the prospect of adding a newly widowed woman to their foursome.
    ‘I can’t see what the problem is, really,’ he said. ‘Nice for Mary to get out.’
    ‘But I didn’t say we were having Gavin and Kay over—’
    ‘Mary likes Gav,’ said Miles. ‘I wouldn’t worry about it.’
    He was, Samantha thought, being deliberately obtuse, no doubt in retaliation for her refusal to go to Sweetlove House. After she had hung up, she wondered whether to call Mary to tell her not to come that evening, but she was afraid of sounding rude, and settled for hoping that Mary would find herself unequal to calling in after all.
    Stalking into the sitting room, she put on Libby’s boy band DVD at full volume so that she would be able to hear it in the kitchen, then carried the