The Casual Vacancy

Miles?’ askedSamantha. She had, at last, reached that delicious point of intoxication where her tongue became wicked and she became disengaged from fear of consequences, eager to provoke and to irritate, seeking nothing but her own amusement. ‘The truth is that Old Aubrey Fawley, who used to own all those lovely stone quoits, or whatever Miles was telling you about, did a deal behind everyone’s backs—’
    ‘That’s not fair, Sam,’ said Miles, but she talked over him again.
    ‘—he flogged off the land where the Fields are built, pocketed, I don’t know, must have been a quarter of a mill or so—’
    ‘Don’t talk rubbish, Sam, back in the fifties?’
    ‘—but then, once he realized everyone was pissed off with him, he pretended he hadn’t known it would cause trouble. Upper-class twit. And a drunk,’ added Samantha.
    ‘
Simply
not true, I’m afraid,’ Miles said firmly. ‘To fully understand the problem, Kay, you need to appreciate a bit of local history.’
    Samantha, holding her chin in her hand, pretended to slide her elbow off the table in boredom. Though she could not like Samantha, Kay laughed, and Gavin and Mary broke off their quiet conversation.
    ‘We’re talking about the Fields,’ said Kay, in a tone intended to remind Gavin that she was there; that he ought to be giving her moral support.
    Miles, Samantha and Gavin realized simultaneously that the Fields was a most tactless subject to raise in front of Mary, when they had been such a bone of contention between Barry and Howard.
    ‘Apparently they’re a bit of a sore subject locally,’ said Kay, wanting to force Gavin to express a view, to rope him in.
    ‘Mmm,’ he replied, and turning back to Mary, he said, ‘So how’s Declan’s football coming on?’
    Kay experienced a powerful stab of fury: Mary might be recently bereaved, but Gavin’s solicitousness seemed unnecessarily pointed. She had imagined this evening quite differently: a foursome in which Gavin would have to acknowledge that they really were a couple; yet nobody looking on would imagine that they enjoyed a closer relationship than acquaintanceship. Also, the food was horrible. Kay put her knife and fork together with three-quarters of her helpinguntouched – an act that was not lost on Samantha – and addressed Miles again.
    ‘Did you grow up in Pagford?’
    ‘Afraid so,’ said Miles, smiling complacently. ‘Born in the old Kelland Hospital along the road. They closed it in the eighties.’
    ‘And you?—’ Kay asked Samantha, who cut across her.
    ‘God, no. I’m here by accident.’
    ‘Sorry, I don’t know what you do, Samantha?’ asked Kay.
    ‘I’ve got my own busi—’
    ‘She sells outsize bras,’ said Miles.
    Samantha got up abruptly and went to fetch another bottle of wine. When she returned to the table, Miles was telling Kay the humorous anecdote, doubtless intended to illustrate how everyone knew everyone in Pagford, of how he had been pulled over in the car one night by a policeman who turned out to be a friend he had known since primary school. The blow-by-blow re-enactment of the banter between himself and Steve Edwards was tediously familiar to Samantha. As she moved around the table replenishing all the glasses, she watched Kay’s austere expression; evidently, Kay did not find drink-driving a laughing matter.
    ‘… so Steve’s holding out the breathalyser, and I’m about to blow in it, and out of nowhere we both start cracking up. His partner’s got no idea what the hell’s going on; he’s like this’ – Miles mimed a man turning his head from side to side in astonishment – ‘and Steve’s bent double, pissing himself, because all we can think of is the last time he was holding something steady for me to blow into, which was nigh on twenty years ago, and—’
    ‘It was a blow-up doll,’ said Samantha, unsmiling, dropping back into her seat beside Miles. ‘Miles and Steve put it in their friend Ian’s parents’ bed, during Ian’s eighteenth-birthday party. Anyway, in the end Miles was fined a grand and got three points on his licence, because it was the second time he’d been caught over the limit. So that was hysterically funny.’
    Miles’ grin remained foolishly in place, like a limp balloon forgotten after a party. A stiff little chill seemed to blow through the temporarily silent room. Though Miles struck her as an almightybore, Kay was on his side: he was the only one at the table who seemed