The Casual Vacancy (39 page)

“I’m going to have to call your mum, Sukhvinder, it’s what we always do, but I’m going to explain to her why you did it.”

Sukhvinder had felt almost warm toward Tessa, even though she was Fats Wall’s mother. Frightened though she was of her mother’s reaction, a tiny little glow of hope had kindled inside her at the thought of Tessa interceding for her. Would the realization of Sukhvinder’s desperation lead, at last, to some crack in her mother’s implacable disapproval, her disappointment, her endless stone-faced criticism?

When the front door opened at last, she heard her mother speaking Punjabi.

“Oh, not the bloody farm again,” groaned Jaswant, who had cocked an ear to the door.

The Jawandas owned a patch of ancestral land in the Punjab, which Parminder, the oldest, had inherited from their father in the absence of sons. The farm occupied a place in the family consciousness that Jaswant and Sukhvinder had sometimes discussed. To their slightly amused astonishment, a few of their older relatives seemed to live in the expectation that the whole family would move back there one day. Parminder’s father had sent money back to the farm all his life. It was tenanted and worked by second cousins, who seemed surly and embittered. The farm caused regular arguments among her mother’s family.

“Nani’s gone off on one again,” interpreted Jaswant, as Parminder’s muffled voice penetrated the door.

Parminder had taught her first-born some Punjabi, and Jaz had picked up a lot more from their cousins. Sukhvinder’s dyslexia had been too severe to enable her to learn two languages and the attempt had been abandoned.

“…Harpreet still wants to sell off that bit for the road…”

Sukhvinder heard Parminder kicking off her shoes. She wished that her mother had not been bothered about the farm tonight of all nights; it never put her into a good mood; and when Parminder pushed open the kitchen door and she saw her mother’s tight mask-like face, her courage failed her completely.

Parminder acknowledged Jaswant and Rajpal with a slight wave of her hand, but she pointed at Sukhvinder and then toward a kitchen chair, indicating that she was to sit down and wait for the call to end.

Jaswant and Rajpal drifted back upstairs. Sukhvinder waited beneath the wall of photographs, in which her relative inadequacy was displayed for the world to see, pinned to her chair by her mother’s silent command. On and on went the call, until at long last Parminder said good-bye and cut the connection.

When she turned to look at her daughter Sukhvinder knew, instantly, before a word was spoken, that she had been wrong to hope.

“So,” said Parminder. “I had a call from Tessa while I was at work. I expect you know what it was about.”

Sukhvinder nodded. Her mouth seemed to be full of cotton wool.

Parminder’s rage crashed over her like a tidal wave, dragging Sukhvinder with it, so that she was unable to find her feet or right herself.

“Why?
Why?
Is this copying the London girl, again — are you trying to impress her? Jaz and Raj never behave like this, never — why do you? What’s wrong with you? Are you proud of being lazy and sloppy? Do you think it’s cool to act like a delinquent? How do you think I felt when Tessa told me? Called at work — I’ve never been so ashamed — I’m disgusted by you, do you hear me? Do we not give you enough? Do we not help you enough?
What is wrong with you, Sukhvinder?
”

In desperation, Sukhvinder tried to break through her mother’s tirade, and mentioned the name Krystal Weedon —

“Krystal Weedon!” shouted Parminder. “That stupid girl! Why are you paying attention to anything she says? Did you tell her I tried to keep her damn grandmother alive? Did you tell her that?”

“I — no —”

“If you’re going to care about what the likes of Krystal Weedon says, there’s no hope for you! Perhaps that’s your natural level, is it, Sukhvinder? You want to play truant and work in a café and waste all your opportunities for education, because that’s easier? Is that what being in a team with Krystal Weedon taught you — to sink to her level?”

Sukhvinder thought of Krystal and her gang, raring to go on the opposite curb, waiting for a break in the cars. What would it take to make her mother understand? An hour ago she had had the tiniest fantasy that she might confide in her mother, at last, about Fats Wall…

“Get out of my sight! Go! I’ll speak to your father when he comes in — go!”

Sukhvinder walked upstairs. Jaswant called from her bedroom: “What was all that shouting about?”

Sukhvinder did not answer. She proceeded to her own room, where she closed the door and sat down on the edge of her bed.

What’s wrong with you, Sukhvinder?

You disgust me.

Are you proud of being lazy and sloppy?

What had she expected? Warm encircling arms and comfort? When had she ever been hugged and held by Parminder? There was more comfort to be had from the razor blade hidden in her stuffed rabbit; but the desire, mounting to a need, to cut and bleed, could not be satisfied by daylight, with the family awake and her father on his way.

The dark lake of desperation and pain that lived in Sukhvinder and yearned for release was in flames, as if it had been fuel all along.

Let her see how it feels.

She got up, crossed her bedroom in a few strides, and dropping into the chair by her desk, pounded at the keyboard of her computer.

Sukhvinder had been just as interested as Andrew Price when that stupid supply teacher had tried to impress them with his cool in computing. Unlike Andrew and a couple of the other boys, Sukhvinder had not plied the teacher with questions about the hacking; she had merely gone home quietly and looked it all up online. Nearly every modern website was proof against a classic SQL injection, but when Sukhvinder had heard her mother discussing the anonymous attack on the Pagford Parish Council website, it had occurred to Sukhvinder that the security on that feeble old site was probably minimal.

Sukhvinder always found it much easier to type than to write, and computer code easier to read than long strings of words. It did not take very long for her to retrieve a site that gave explicit instructions for the simplest form of SQL injection. Then she brought up the Parish Council website.

It took her five minutes to hack the site, and then only because she had transcribed the code wrong the first time. To her astonishment, she discovered that whoever was administering the site had not removed the user details of The_Ghost_of_Barry_Fairbrother from the database, but merely deleted the post. It would be child’s play, therefore, to post in the same name.

It took Sukhvinder much longer to compose the message than it had to hack into the site. She had carried the secret accusation with her for months, ever since New Year’s Eve, when she had noticed with wonder her mother’s face, at ten to midnight, from the corner of the party where she was hiding. She typed slowly. Autocorrect helped with her spelling.

She was not afraid that Parminder would check her computer history; her mother knew so little about her, and about what went on in this bedroom, that she would never suspect her lazy, stupid, sloppy daughter.

Sukhvinder pressed the mouse like a trigger.

XI

Krystal did not take Robbie to nursery on Tuesday morning, but dressed him for Nana Cath’s funeral instead. As she pulled up his least ripped trousers, which were a good two inches too short in the leg, she tried to explain to him who Nana Cath had been, but she might as well have saved her breath. Robbie had no memory of Nana Cath; he had no idea what Nana meant; no concept of any relative other than mother and sister. In spite of her shifting hints and stories, Krystal knew that Terri had no idea who his father was.

Krystal heard her mother’s footsteps on the stairs.

“Leave it,” she snapped at Robbie, who had reached for an empty beer can lying beneath Terri’s usual armchair. “C’m’ere.”

She pulled Robbie by the hand into the hall. Terri was still wearing the pajama bottoms and dirty T-shirt in which she had spent the night, and her feet were bare.

“Why intcha changed?” demanded Krystal.

“I ain’t goin’,” said Terri, pushing past her son and daughter into the kitchen. “Changed me mind.”

“Why?”

“I don’ wanna,” said Terri. She was lighting a cigarette off the ring of the cooker. “Don’ fuckin’ ’ave to.”

Krystal was still holding Robbie’s hand, as he tugged and swung.

“They’re all goin’,” said Krystal. “Cheryl an’ Shane an’ all.”

“So?” said Terri aggressively.

Krystal had been afraid that her mother would pull out at the last minute. The funeral would bring her face-to-face with Danielle, the sister who pretended that Terri did not exist, not to mention all the other relatives who had disowned them. Anne-Marie might be there. Krystal had been holding on to that hope, like a torch in the darkness, through the nights she had sobbed for Nana Cath and Mr. Fairbrother.

“You gotta go,” said Krystal.

“No, I ain’.”

“It’s Nana Cath, innit,” said Krystal.

“So?” said Terri, again.

“She done loads fer us,” said Krystal.

“No, she ain’,” snapped Terri.

“She did,” said Krystal, her face hot and her hand clutching Robbie’s.

“Fer you, maybe,” said Terri. “She done fuck-all for me. Go an’ fuckin’ bawl all over ’er fuckin’ grave if yeh want. I’m waitin’ in.”

“Wha’ for?” said Krystal.

“My bus’ness, innit.”

The old familiar shadow fell.

“Obbo’s comin’ round, is ’e?”

“My bus’ness,” repeated Terri, with pathetic dignity.

“Come to the funeral,” said Krystal loudly.

“You go.”

“Don’ go fuckin’ usin’,” said Krystal, her voice an octave higher.

“I ain’,” said Terri, but she turned away, looking out of the dirty back window over the patch of overgrown litter-strewn grass they called the back garden.

Robbie tugged his hand out of Krystal’s and disappeared into the sitting room. With her fists deep in her trackie pockets, shoulders squared, Krystal tried to decide what to do. She wanted to cry at the thought of not going to the funeral, but her distress was edged with relief that she would not have to face the battery of hostile eyes she had sometimes met at Nana Cath’s. She was angry with Terri, and yet felt strangely on her side.
You don’t even know who the father is, do yeh, yer whore?
She wanted to meet Anne-Marie, but was scared.

“All righ’, then, I’ll stay an’ all.”

“You don’ ’ave ter. Go, if yeh wan’. I don’ fuckin’ care.”

But Krystal, certain that Obbo would appear, stayed. Obbo had been away for more than a week, for some nefarious purpose of his own. Krystal wished that he had died, that he would never come back.

For something to do, she began to tidy the house, while smoking one of the roll-ups Fats Wall had given her. She didn’t like them, but she liked that he had given them to her. She had been keeping them in Nikki’s plastic jewelry box, along with Tessa’s watch.

She had thought that she might not see Fats anymore, after their shag in the cemetery, because he had been almost silent afterwards and left her with barely a good-bye, but they had since met up on the rec. She could tell that he had enjoyed this time more than the last; they had not been stoned, and he had lasted longer. He lay beside her in the grass beneath the bushes, smoking, and when she had told him about Nana Cath dying, he had told her that Sukhvinder Jawanda’s mother had given Nana Cath the wrong drugs or something; he was not clear exactly what had happened.

Krystal had been horrified. So Nana Cath need not have died; she might still have been in the neat little house on Hope Street, there in case Krystal needed her, offering a refuge with a comfortable clean-sheeted bed, the tiny kitchen full of food and mismatched china, and the little TV in the corner of the sitting room:
I don’ wanna watch no filth, Krystal, turn that off.

Krystal had liked Sukhvinder, but Sukhvinder’s mother had killed Nana Cath. You did not differentiate between members of an enemy tribe. It had been Krystal’s avowed intention to pulverize Sukhvinder; but then Tessa Wall had intervened. Krystal could not remember the details of what Tessa had told her; but it seemed that Fats had got the story wrong or, at least, not exactly right. She had given Tessa a grudging promise not to go after Sukhvinder, but such promises could only ever be stopgaps in Krystal’s frantic ever-changing world.

“Put it down!” Krystal shouted at Robbie, because he was trying to prise the lid off the biscuit tin where Terri kept her works.

Krystal snatched the tin from him and held it in her hands like a living creature, something that would fight to stay alive, whose destruction would have tremendous consequences. There was a scratched picture on the lid: a carriage with luggage piled high on the roof, drawn through the snow by four chestnut horses, a coachman in a top hat carrying a bugle. She carried the tin upstairs with her, while Terri sat in the kitchen smoking, and hid it in her bedroom. Robbie trailed after her.

“Wanna go play park.”

She sometimes took him and pushed him on the swings and the roundabout.

“Not today, Robbie.”

He whined until she shouted at him to shut up.

Later, when it was dark — after Krystal had made Robbie his tea of spaghetti hoops and given him a bath; when the funeral was long since over — Obbo rapped on the front door. Krystal saw him from Robbie’s bedroom window and tried to get there first, but Terri beat her to it.

“All righ’, Ter?” he said, over the threshold before anyone had invited him in. “’Eard you was lookin’ fer me las’ week.”

Although she had told him to stay put, Robbie had followed Krystal downstairs. She could smell his shampooed hair over the smell of fags and stale sweat that clung to Obbo in his ancient leather jacket. Obbo had had a few; when he leered at her, she smelled the beer fumes.

“All righ’, Obbo?” said Terri, with the note in her voice Krystal never heard otherwise. It was conciliating, accommodating; it conceded that he had rights in their house. “Where you bin, then?”

“Bristol,” he said. “How’s you, Ter?”