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 helping untouched - 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 almighty bore, Kay was on his side: he was the only one at the table who seemed remotely inclined to ease her passage into Pagford social life.
'I must say, the Fields are pretty rough,' she said, reverting to the subject with which Miles seemed most comfortable, and still ignorant that it was in any way inauspicious within Mary's vicinity. 'I've worked in the inner cities; I didn't expect to see that kind of deprivation in a rural area, but it's not all that different from London. Less of an ethnic mix, of course.'
'Oh, yes, we've got our share of addicts and wasters,' said Miles. 'I think that's about all I can manage, Sam,' he added, pushing his plate away from him with a sizeable amount of food still on it.
Samantha started to clear the table; Mary got up to help.
'No, no, it's fine, Mary, you relax,' Samantha said. To Kay's annoyance, Gavin jumped up too, chivalrously insisting on Mary's sitting back down, but Mary insisted too.
'That was lovely, Sam,' said Mary, in the kitchen, as they scraped most of the food into the bin.
'No, it wasn't, it was horrible,' said Samantha, who was only appreciating how drunk she was now that she was on her feet. 'What do you think of Kay?'
'I don't know. She's not what I expected,' said Mary.
'She's exactly what I expected,' said Samantha, taking out plates for pudding. 'She's another Lisa, if you ask me.'
'Oh, no, don't say that,' said Mary. 'He deserves someone nice this time.'
This was a most novel point of view to Samantha, who was of the opinion that Gavin's wetness merited constant punishment.
They returned to the dining room to find an