J. Rowling - The Casual Vacancy

‘Never a dull moment,’ said Howard, bouncing lightly off alternate walls of the narrow hallway as he navigated his way carefully towards the bedroom.

Shirley brought up her favourite medical website. When she typed in the first letter of the condition she wished to investigate, the site offered its explanation of EpiPens again, so Shirley swiftly revised their use and content, because she might yet have an opportunity to save their potboy’s life. Next, she carefully typed in ‘eczema’, and learned, somewhat to her disappointment, that the condition was not infectious, and could not, therefore, be used as an excuse to sack Sukhvinder Jawanda.

From sheer force of habit, she then typed in the address of the Pagford Parish Council website, and clicked onto the message board.

She had grown to recognize at a glance the shape and length of the user name The_Ghost_of_Barry_Fairbrother, just as a besotted lover knows at once the back of their beloved’s head, or the set of their shoulders, or the tilt of their walk.

A single glimpse at the topmost message sufficed: excitement exploded; he had not forsaken her. She had known that Dr Jawanda’s outburst could not go unpunished.

She read it, but did not, at first, understand: she had been expecting to see Parminder’s name. She read it again, and gave the suffocated gasp of a woman being hit by icy water.

Howard Mollison, First Citizen of Pagford, and long-standing resident Maureen Lowe have been more than business partners for many years. It is common knowledge that Maureen holds regular tastings of Howard’s finest salami. The only person who appears not to be in on the secret is Shirley, Howard’s wife.

Completely motionless in her chair, Shirley thought: it’s not true.

It could not be true.

Yes, she had once or twice suspected… had hinted, sometimes, to Howard…

No, she would not believe it. She could not believe it.

But other people would. They would believe the Ghost. Everybody believed him.

Her hands were like empty gloves, fumbling and feeble, as she tried, with many a blunder, to remove the message from the site. Every second that it remained there, somebody else might be reading it, believing it, laughing about it, passing it to the local newspaper… Howard and Maureen, Howard and Maureen…

The message was gone. Shirley sat and stared at the computer monitor, her thoughts scurrying like mice in a glass bowl, trying to escape, but there was no way out, no firm foothold, no way of climbing back to the happy place she had occupied before she saw that dreadful thing, written in public for the world to see…

He had laughed at Maureen.

No, she had laughed at Maureen. Howard had laughed at Kenneth.

Always together: holidays and workdays and weekend excursions…

…only person who appears not to be in on the secret…

…she and Howard did not need sex: separate beds for years, they had a silent understanding…

…holds regular tastings of Howard’s finest salami…

(Shirley’s mother was alive in the room with her: cackling and jeering, a glass slopping wine… Shirley could not bear dirty laughter. She had never been able to bear ribaldry or ridicule.)

She jumped up, tripping over the chair legs, and hurried back to the bedroom. Howard was still asleep, lying on his back, making rumbling, porcine noises.

‘Howard,’ she said. ‘ Howard .’

It took a whole minute to rouse him. He was confused and disorientated, but as she stood over him, she saw him still as a knight protector who could save her.

‘Howard, the Ghost of Barry Fairbrother’s put up another message.’

Disgruntled at his rude awakening, Howard made a growling groaning noise into the pillow.

‘About you,’ said Shirley.

They did very little plain speaking, she and Howard. She had always liked that. But today she was driven to it.

‘About you,’ she repeated, ‘and Maureen. It says you’ve been – having an affair.’

His big hand slid up over his face and he rubbed his eyes. He rubbed them longer, she was convinced, than he needed.

‘What?’ he said, his face shielded.

‘You and Maureen, having an affair.’

‘Where’s he get that from?’

No denial, no outrage, no scathing laughter. Merely a cautious request for a source.

Ever afterwards, Shirley would remember this moment as a death; a life truly ended.

‘Fuckin’ shurrup, Robbie! Shurrup!’

Krystal had dragged Robbie to a bus stop several streets away, so that neither Obbo nor Terri could find them. She was not sure she had enough money for the fare, but she was determined to get to Pagford. Nana Cath was gone, Mr Fairbrother was gone, but Fats Wall was there, and she needed to make a baby.

‘Why wuz ’e in the room with yeh?’ Krystal shouted at Robbie, who grizzled and did not answer.

There was only a tiny amount of battery power left on Terri’s mobile phone. Krystal called Fats’ number, but it went to voicemail.

In Church Row, Fats was busy eating toast and listening to his parents having one of their familiar, bizarre conversations in the study across the hall. It was a welcome distraction from his own thoughts. The mobile in his pocket vibrated but he did not answer it. There was nobody he wanted to talk to. It would not be Andrew. Not after last night.

‘Colin, you know what you’re supposed to do,’ his mother was saying. She sounded exhausted. ‘Please, Colin—’

‘We had dinner with them on Saturday night. The night before he died. I cooked. What if—’

‘Colin, you didn’t put anything in the food – for God’s sake, now I’m doing it – I’m not supposed to do this, Colin, you know I’m not supposed to get into it. This is your OCD talking.’

‘But I might’ve, Tess, I suddenly thought, what if I put something—’

‘Then why are we alive, you, me and Mary? They did a post-mortem, Colin!’

‘Nobody told us the details. Mary never told us. I think that’s why she doesn’t want to talk to me any more. She suspects.’

‘Colin, for Christ’s sake—’

Tessa’s voice became an urgent whisper, too quiet to hear. Fats’ mobile vibrated again. He pulled it out of his pocket. Krystal’s number. He answered.

‘Hiya,’ said Krystal, over what sounded like a kid shouting. ‘D’you wanna meet up?’

‘Dunno,’ yawned Fats. He had been intending to go to bed.

‘I’m comin’ into Pagford on the bus. We could hook up.’

Last night he had pressed Gaia Bawden into the railings outside the town hall, until she had pulled away from him and thrown up. Then she had started to berate him again, so he had left her there and walked home.

‘I dunno,’ he said. He felt so tired, so miserable.

‘Go on,’ she said.

From the study, he heard Colin. ‘You say that, but would it show up? What if I—’

‘Colin, we shouldn’t be going into this – you’re not supposed to take these ideas seriously.’

‘How can you say that to me? How can I not take it seriously? If I’m responsible—’

‘Yeah, all right,’ said Fats to Krystal. ‘I’ll meet you in twenty, front of the pub in the Square.’

Samantha was driven from the spare room at last by her urgent need to pee. She drank cold water from the tap in the bathroom until she felt sick, gulped down two paracetamol from the cabinet over the sink, then took a shower.

She dressed without looking at herself in the mirror. Through everything she did, she was alert for some noise that would indicate the whereabouts of Miles, but the house seemed to be silent. Perhaps, she thought, he had taken Lexie out somewhere, away from her drunken, lecherous, cradle-snatching mother…