salmon fillets she had been baking out of the oven. Gaia’s music was so loud that she could feel it vibrating through the tray, which she slammed down on the hob.
‘Gaia!’ she screamed, making Gavin jump as she strode past him to the foot of the stairs. ‘GAIA! Turn it down! I mean it! TURN IT DOWN!’
The volume diminished by perhaps a decibel. Kay marched back into the kitchen, fuming. The row with Gaia, before Gavin arrived, had been one of their worst ever. Gaia had stated her intention of telephoning her father and asking to move in with him.
‘Well, good luck with that!’ Kay had shouted.
But perhaps Brendan would say yes. He had left her when Gaia was only a month old. Brendan was married now, with three other children. He had a huge house and a good job. What if he said yes?
Gavin was glad that he did not have to talk as they ate; the thumping music filled the silence, and he could think about Mary in peace. He would tell her tomorrow that the insurance company was making conciliatory noises, and receive her gratitude and admiration…
He had almost cleared his plate when he realized that Kay had not eaten a single mouthful. She was staring at him across the table, and her expression alarmed him. Perhaps he had somehow revealed his inner thoughts…
Gaia’s music came to an abrupt halt overhead. The throbbing quiet was dreadful to Gavin; he wished that Gaia would put something else on, quickly.
‘You don’t even try,’ Kay said miserably. ‘You don’t even pretend to care, Gavin.’
He attempted to take the easy way out.
‘Kay, I’ve had a long day,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry if I’m not up to the minutiae of local politics the second I walk—’
‘I’m not talking about local politics,’ she said. ‘You sit there looking as if you’d rather be anywhere else — it’s — it’s offensive. What do you want, Gavin?’
He saw Mary’s kitchen, and her sweet face.
‘I have to beg to see you,’ Kay said, ‘and when you come round here you couldn’t make it clearer that you don’t want to come.’
She wanted him to say ‘that’s not true’. The last point at which a denial might have counted slunk past. They were sliding, at increasing speed, towards that crisis which Gavin both urgently desired and dreaded.
‘Tell me what you want,’ she said wearily. ‘Just tell me.’
Both could feel the relationship crumbling to pieces beneath the weight of everything that Gavin refused to say. It was with a sense of putting them both out of their misery that he reached for words that he had not intended to speak aloud, perhaps ever, but which, in some way, seemed to excuse both of them.
‘I didn’t want this to happen,’ Gavin said earnestly. ‘I didn’t mean it to. Kay, I’m really sorry, but I think I’m in love with Mary Fairbrother.’
He saw from her expression that she had not been prepared for this.
‘Mary Fairbrother?’ she repeated.
‘I think,’ he said (and there was a bittersweet pleasure in talking about it, even though he knew he was wounding her; he had not been able to say it to anyone else), ‘it’s been there for a long time. I never acknowledged — I mean, when Barry was alive I’d never have—’
‘I thought he was your best friend,’ whispered Kay.
‘He was.’
‘He’s only been dead a few weeks!’
Gavin did not like hearing that.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’m trying to be honest with you. I’m trying to be fair.’
‘You’re trying to be fair?’
He had always imagined it ending in a blaze of fury, but she simply watched him putting on his coat with tears in her eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and walked out of her house for the last time.
On the pavement, he experienced a rush of elation, and hurried to his car. He would be able to tell Mary about the insurance company tonight, after all.
Part Five
Privilege
7.32 A person who has made a defamatory statement may claim privilege for it if he can show that he made it without malice and in pursuit of a public duty.
Charles Arnold-Baker
Local Council Administration,
Seventh Edition
I
Terri Weedon was used to people leaving her. The first and greatest departure had been her mother’s, who had never said goodbye, but had simply walked out one day with a suitcase while Terri was at school.
There had been lots of social workers and care workers after she ran away at fourteen, and some of them had been nice enough, but they all left at the