The Casual Vacancy

wasn’t going to get involved, but now it’s putting a strain on their friendship …’
    Then, on a less gushing note, ‘We’d buy the ticket from you, of course.’
    There was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.
    ‘Oh,’ said Samantha. ‘Yes. I just thought it might be nice to go with her—’
    ‘They’d much prefer to be with each other,’ said Harriet’s mother firmly. ‘And you won’t have to crouch down and hide among all the little teenyboppers, ha ha – it’s all right for my sister, she’s only five foot two.’

III
    To Gavin’s disappointment, it seemed that he would have to attend Howard Mollison’s birthday party after all. If Mary, a client of the firm and the widow of his best friend, had asked him to stay for dinner, he would have considered himself more than justified in skipping it … but Mary had not asked him to stay. She had family visiting, and she had been oddly flustered when he had turned up.
    She doesn’t want them to know
, he thought, taking comfort in her self-consciousness as she ushered him towards the door.
    He drove back to the Smithy, replaying his conversation with Kay in his mind.
    I thought he was your best friend. He’s only been dead a few weeks!
    Yeah, and I was looking after her for Barry
, he retorted in his head,
which is what he’d have wanted. Neither of us expected this to happen. Barry’s dead. It can’t hurt him now.
    Alone in the Smithy he looked out a clean suit for the party, because the invitation said ‘formal’, and tried to imagine gossipy little Pagford relishing the story of Gavin and Mary.
    So what?
he thought, staggered by his own bravery.
Is she supposed to be alone for ever? It happens. I was looking after her.
    And in spite of his reluctance to attend a party that was sure to be dull and exhausting, he was buoyed inside by a little bubble of excitement and happiness.
    Up in Hilltop House, Andrew Price was styling his hair with his mother’s blow-drier. He had never looked forward to a disco or a party as much as he had longed for tonight. He, Gaia and Sukhvinder were being paid by Howard to serve food and drinks at the party. Howard had hired him a uniform for the occasion: a white shirt, black trousers and a bow tie. He would be working alongside Gaia, not as potboy but as a waiter.
    But there was more to his anticipation than this. Gaia had split up with the legendary Marco de Luca. He had found her crying about it in the back yard of the Copper Kettle that afternoon, when he had gone outside for a smoke.
    ‘His loss,’ Andrew had said, trying to keep the delight out of his voice.
    And she had sniffed and said, ‘Cheers, Andy.’
    ‘You little poofter,’ said Simon, when Andrew finally turned off the drier. He had been waiting to say it for several minutes, standing on the dark landing, staring through the gap in the door, which was ajar, watching Andrew preen himself in the mirror. Andrew jumped, then laughed. His good humour discomposed Simon.
    ‘Look at you,’ he jeered, as Andrew passed him on the landing in his shirt and bow tie. ‘With your dicky-bow. You look a twat.’
    And you’re unemployed, and I did it to you, dickhead.
    Andrew’s feelings about what he had done to his father changed almost hourly. Sometimes the guilt would bear down on him, tainting everything, but then it would melt away, leaving him glorying in his secret triumph. Tonight, the thought of it gave extra heat to the excitement burning beneath Andrew’s thin white shirt, an additional tingle to the goose-flesh caused by the rush of evening air as he sped, on Simon’s racing bike, down the hill into town. He was excited, full of hope. Gaia was available and vulnerable. Her father lived in Reading.
    Shirley Mollison was standing in a party dress outside the church hall when he cycled up, tying giant gold helium balloons in the shapes of fives and sixes to the railings.
    ‘Hello, Andrew,’ she trilled. ‘Bike away from the entrance, please.’
    He wheeled it along to the corner, passing a brand-new, racing green BMW convertible parked feet away. He walked around the car on his way inside, taking in the luxurious inner fittings.
    ‘And here’s Andy!’
    Andrew saw at once that his boss’s good humour and excitement were equal to his own. Howard was striding down the hall, wearing an immense velvet dinner jacket; he resembled a conjuror. There were only five or six other people dotted around: the party would not start for twenty minutes.