The Casual Vacancy полностью

‘Pagford’s full of working-class people, Kay; the difference is, most of them work. D’you know what proportion of the Fields lives off benefits? Responsibility, you say: what happened to personal responsibility? We’ve had them through the local school for years: kids who haven’t got a single worker in the family; the concept of earning a living is completely foreign to them; generations of non-workers, and we’re expected to subsidize them—’

‘So your solution is to shunt off the problem onto Yarvil,’ said Kay, ‘not to engage with any of the underlying—’

‘Mississippi mud pie?’ called Samantha.

Gavin and Mary took slices with thanks; Kay, to Samantha’s fury, simply held out her plate as though Samantha were a waitress, her attention all on Miles.

‘…the addiction clinic, which is absolutely crucial, and which certain people are apparently lobbying to close—’

‘Oh, well, if you’re talking about Bellchapel,’ said Miles, shaking his head and smirking, ‘I hope you’ve mugged up on what the success rates are, Kay. Pathetic, frankly, absolutely pathetic. I’ve seen the figures, I was going through them this morning, and I won’t lie to you, the sooner they close—’

‘And the figures you’re talking about are…?’

‘Success rates, Kay, exactly what I said: the number of people who have actually stopped using drugs, gone clean—’

‘I’m sorry, but that’s a very naive point of view; if you’re going to judge success purely—’

‘But how on earth else are we supposed to judge an addiction clinic’s success?’ demanded Miles, incredulous. ‘As far as I can tell, all they do at Bellchapel is dole out methadone, which half of their clients use alongside heroin anyway.’

‘The whole problem of addiction is immensely complicated,’ said Kay, ‘and it’s naive and simplistic to put the problem purely in terms of users and non…’

But Miles was shaking his head, smiling; Kay, who had been enjoying her verbal duel with this self-satisfied lawyer, was suddenly angry.

‘Well, I can give you a very concrete example of what Bellchapel’s doing: one family I’m working with — mother, teenage daughter and small son — if the mother wasn’t on methadone, she’d be on the streets trying to pay for her habit; the kids are immeasurably better off—’

‘They’d be better off away from their mother, by the sound of it,’ said Miles.

‘And where exactly would you propose they go?’

‘A decent foster home would be a good start,’ said Miles.

‘Do you know how many foster homes there are, against how many kids needing them?’ asked Kay.

‘The best solution would have been to have them adopted at birth—’

‘Fabulous. I’ll hop in my time machine,’ retorted Kay.

‘Well, we know a couple who were desperate to adopt,’ said Samantha, unexpectedly throwing her weight behind Miles. She would not forgive Kay for the rude outstretched plate; the woman was bolshy and patronizing, exactly like Lisa, who had monopolized every get-together with her political views and her job in family law, despising Samantha for owning a bra shop. ‘Adam and Janice,’ she reminded Miles in parenthesis, who nodded; ‘and they couldn’t get a baby for love nor money, could they?’

‘Yes, a baby,’ said Kay, rolling her eyes, ‘everybody wants a baby. Robbie’s nearly four. He’s not potty-trained, he’s developmentally behind for his age and he’s almost certainly had inappropriate exposure to sexual behaviour. Would your friends like to adopt him?’

‘But the point is, if he’d been taken from his mother at birth—’

‘She was off the drugs when he was born, and making good progress,’ said Kay. ‘She loved him and wanted to keep him, and she was meeting his needs at the time. She’d already raised Krystal, with some family support—’

‘Krystal!’ shrieked Samantha. ‘Oh my God, are we talking about the Weedons?’

Kay was horrified that she had used names; it had never mattered in London, but everyone truly did know everyone in Pagford, it seemed.

‘I shouldn’t have—’

But Miles and Samantha were laughing, and Mary looked tense. Kay, who had not touched her pie, and had managed very little of the first course, realized that she had drunk too much; she had been sipping wine steadily out of nerves, and now she had committed a prime indiscretion. Still, it was too late to undo that; anger overrode every other consideration.

‘Krystal Weedon is no advert for that woman’s mothering skills,’ said Miles.

‘Krystal’s trying her damnedest to hold her family together,’ said Kay. ‘She loves her little brother very much; she’s terrified he’ll be taken away—’

‘I wouldn’t trust Krystal Weedon to look after a boiling egg,’ said Miles, and Samantha laughed again. ‘Oh, look, it’s to her credit she loves her brother, but he isn’t a cuddly toy—’

‘Yes, I know that,’ snapped Kay, remembering Robbie’s shitty, crusted bottom, ‘but he’s still loved.’

‘Krystal bullied our daughter Lexie,’ said Samantha, ‘so we’ve seen a different side of her to the one I’m sure she shows you.’