bearing gifts: Samantha carrying a tray of cups, followed by Mary holding the cafetiere, and Miles, with Kay’s chocolates. Kay saw the flamboyant gold ribbon on the box and remembered how optimistic she had been about tonight when she had bought them. She turned her face away, trying to hide her anger, frantic with the desire to shout at Gavin, and also with a sudden, shocking urge to cry.
‘It’s been so nice,’ she heard Mary say, in a thick voice that suggested she, too, might have been crying, ‘but I won’t stay for coffee, I don’t want to be late back; Declan’s a bit… a bit unsettled at the moment. Thanks so much, Sam, Miles, it’s been good to, you know… well, get out for a bit.’
‘I’ll walk you up the—’ Miles began, but Gavin was talking firmly over him.
‘You stay here, Miles; I’ll see Mary back. I’ll walk you up the road, Mary. It’ll only take five minutes. It’s dark up the top there.’
Kay was barely breathing; all her being was concentrated in loathing of complacent Miles, tarty Samantha and fragile, drooping Mary, but most of all of Gavin himself.
‘Oh, yes,’ she heard herself saying, as everybody seemed to look towards her for permission, ‘yep, you see Mary home, Gav.’
She heard the front door close and Gavin had gone. Miles was pouring Kay’s coffee. She watched the stream of hot black liquid fall, and felt suddenly, painfully alive to what she had risked in overthrowing her life for the man walking away into the night with another woman.
VIII
Colin Wall saw Gavin and Mary pass under his study window. He recognized Mary’s silhouette at once, but had to squint to identify the stringy man at her side, before they moved out of the aureole cast by the street light. Crouching, half-raised out of his computer chair, Colin gaped after the figures as they disappeared into the darkness.
He was shocked to his core, having taken it for granted that Mary was in a kind of purdah; that she was receiving only women in the sanctuary of her own home, among them Tessa, who was still visiting every other day. Never had it occurred to him that Mary might be socializing after dark, least of all with a single man. He felt personally betrayed; as though Mary, on some spiritual level, was cuckolding him.
Had Mary permitted Gavin to see Barry’s body? Was Gavin spending evenings sitting in Barry’s favourite seat by the fire? Were Gavin and Mary… could they possibly be…? Such things happened, after all, every day. Perhaps… perhaps even before Barry’s death…?
Colin was perennially appalled by the threadbare state of other people’s morals. He tried to insulate himself against shocks by pushing himself to imagine the worst: by conjuring awful visions of depravity and betrayal, rather than waiting for the truth to rip like a shell through his innocent delusions. Life, for Colin, was one long brace against pain and disappointment, and everybody apart from his wife was an enemy until they had proven otherwise.
He was half inclined to rush downstairs to tell Tessa what he had just seen, because she might be able to give him an innocuous explanation of Mary’s night-time stroll, and to reassure him that his best friend’s widow had been, and was still, faithful to her husband. Nonetheless, he resisted the urge, because he was angry with Tessa.
Why was she showing such a determined lack of interest in his forthcoming candidacy for the council? Did she not realize how tight a stranglehold his anxiety had gained over him ever since he had sent in his application form? Even though he had expected to feel this way, the pain was not diminished by anticipation, any more than being hit by a train would be less devastating for seeing it approaching down the track; Colin merely suffered twice: in the expectation and in its realization.
His nightmarish new fantasies swirled around the Mollisons and the ways in which they were likely to attack him. Counter-arguments, explanations and extenuations ran constantly through his mind. He saw himself already besieged, fighting for his reputation. The edge of paranoia always apparent in Colin’s dealings with the world was becoming more pronounced; and meanwhile, Tessa was pretending to be oblivious, doing absolutely nothing to help alleviate the dreadful, crushing strain.
He knew that she did not think he ought to be standing. Perhaps she too was terrified that Howard Mollison would slit open the bulging gut of their past, and spill its ghastly secrets for all the Pagford vultures to pick over.
Colin had already made a few telephone calls to those whom Barry had counted on for support. He had been surprised and heartened that not one of them had challenged his credentials or interrogated him on the issues. Without exception, they had expressed their profound sorrow at the loss of Barry and their intense dislike of Howard Mollison, or ‘tha’ great smug basturd’, as one of the blunter voters had called him. ‘Tryin’ ter crowbar in ’is son. ’E could ’ardly stop hisself grinnin’ when ’e ’eard Barry was dead.’ Colin, who had compiled a list of pro- Fields talking points, had not needed to refer to the paper once. So far, his main appeal as a candidate seemed to be that he was Barry’s friend, and that he was not called Mollison.
His miniature black and white face was smiling at him out of the computer monitor. He had been sitting here all evening, trying to compose his election pamphlet, for which he had decided to use the same photograph as was featured on the Winterdown website: full face, with a slightly anodyne grin, his forehead steep and shiny. The image had in its favour the fact that it had already been submitted to the public gaze, and had not brought down ridicule or ruin upon him: a powerful recommendation. But beneath the photograph, where the personal information ought to have been, were only one or two tentative sentences. Colin had spent most of the last two hours composing and then deleting words; at one point he had managed to complete an entire paragraph, only to destroy it, backspace by backspace, with a nervous, jabbing forefinger.
Unable to bear the indecision and solitude, he jumped up and went downstairs. Tessa was lying on the sofa in the sitting room, apparently dozing, with the television on in the background.
‘How’s it going?’ she asked sleepily, opening her eyes.
‘Mary’s just gone by. Walking up the street with Gavin Hughes.’
‘Oh,’ said Tessa. ‘She said something about going over to Miles and Samantha’s, earlier. Gavin must have been there. He’s probably walking her home.’
Colin was appalled. Mary visiting Miles, the man who sought to fill her husband’s shoes, who stood in opposition to all that Barry had fought for?
‘What on earth was she doing at the Mollisons’?’
‘They went with her to the hospital, you know that,’ said Tessa, sitting up with a small groan and stretching her short legs. ‘She hasn’t spoken to them properly since. She wanted to thank them. Have you finished your pamphlet?’
‘I’m nearly there. Listen, with the information – I mean, as far as the personal information goes – past posts, do you think? Or limit it to Winterdown?’
‘I don’t think you need say more than where you work now. But why don’t you ask Minda? She…’ Tessa yawned ‘… she’s done it herself.’
‘Yes,’ said Colin. He waited, standing over her, but she did not offer to help, or even to read what he had written so far. ‘Yes, that’s a good idea,’ he said, more loudly. ‘I’ll get Minda to look over it.’
She grunted, massaging her ankles, and he left the room, full of wounded pride. His wife could not possibly realize what a state he was in, how little sleep he was getting, or how his stomach was gnawing itself from within.
Tessa had only pretended to be asleep. Mary and Gavin’s footsteps had woken her ten minutes previously.
Tessa barely knew Gavin; he was fifteen years younger than her and Colin, but the main barrier towards intimacy had always been Colin’s tendency to be jealous of Barry’s other friendships.
‘He’s been amazing about the insurance,’ Mary had told Tessa on the telephone earlier. ‘He’s on the phone to them every day, from what I can gather, and he keeps telling me not to worry about fees. Oh God, Tessa, if they don’t pay out…’
‘Gavin will sort it out for you,’ said Tessa. ‘I’m sure he will.’
