Blondy has just moved back to England

Erica texts, asks me what I'm doing. "Going down the pub with you. What else?" In the pub, she and Hubby are synthetically brightened. A fortysomething blonde wanders over to our table and makes an apologetic gesture. "No, no, park yourself here," I say.

Erica passes it to me with the usual clumsy attempt at sleight of hand that we all do; I go to the loo, and then come downstairs and chat to Blondy about our respective daughters, and schools. Unconsciously, I take a pint from the other side of the table. "Er... that's my partner's." Partner. So neutral, settled, unexciting. I apologise.

A man who could only be English--bald, fat, with a logoed T shirt pushed out to cover inadequately a beetling stomach--walks over and gives me a suspicious look; no attempt at conversation and there are no introductions, so I carry on talking to Blondy. We get on to the fact that daughters of both of us want to be actresses. Baldy breaks his silence to chime in with a pessimistic assessment of the likelihood of either child finding a place at stage school. Clearly, socially incompetent men who look like a sack of porridge in a football top are experts on the allocation of places for acting training in the Northwest. I have lost count of the times that a Lancaster man seems to take no other delight in speech than to dispel any optimism that threatens his customary and preferred state of immiseration.

Blondy and Baldy go off somewhere. Erica, Hubby and I get more and more sweary, lifted with a refresher. A friend who is finding it very diffcult to cope a couple of years after the death of his longstanding girlfriend joins us, and I'm aware of my selfishness about not really including him, a silent challenge to him to join in sufficiently forcefully. I can't tax Erica's hospitality any more so I say I'm going home to fetch my own provisions to share.

Half an hour later, Erica and hubby and my bereaved friend are nowhere to be seen. Instead, Blondy is still there, with a friend, and Slightly Coarse Man has turned up. Her friend takes against me almost immediately. "He's posh," she says to Slightly Coarse Man. "I prefer you," and we rearrange ourselves so that the two more compatible couples are together.

While Rude Friend is in the loo, Blondy alludes to herself and Baldy "having had words" but the sudden drop in her volume suggests I ought not to pursue the matter. "How's your night been?" she asks. "Yeah not bad--we're a bit, you know, speeded up." "Why, have you got some ----?" "No, not that. The poor man's version." She's confused. "What?" I spell it out. "Can I have some?" We conduct another hamfisted legerdemain. Blondy is drunk, telling me over and over again that one should never regret anything, as everything's a learning experience and that she's been living in Majorca for ten years.

As with many a poor drinker, the solipsism unleashed by alcohol is expressed in a self-regarding question. "What did you think of me, when you first met me?" "Chatty, friendly, short attention span. Thought you might be from Bury; your accent." She seemed happy enough with that, because we must never regret anything, as we can always learn from everything. She's only just moved back to England as she's been living in Majorca for ten years.

Blondy's friend starts talking about marriage. I say I don't understand it and how it seems a reckless thing to do and say to someone, although it's sometimes worth it for a good party; which, like almost everything I have said all night, she doesn't like. I try mollifying it, something she doesn't deserve, saying "Well, perhaps if you really believe it at that time, well, yes," and it thaws a little at the end.

Blondy thanks me profusely as though I'm a social worker. "You've really helped me, you really have." A big sigh and she changes direction suddenly. "All I want is a relationship--a close relationship, with trust." Oh fucking hell, we're not going to have tears now are we? I've really helped her, she's very grateful to me. I really have helped her, really. She doesn't know many people here because she's been living in Majorca for ten years.

They say they're going, which commences the protracted farewells of the drunk, every sleeve, every bag strap, every flappable thing, a puzzle. Blondy kisses me on the lips, turns in frustration at the intractability of her coat; she kisses me again. I go to Rude Friend and kiss her cooly on the cheek.

We watch them leave, look at each other, and sigh. "They'd be fucking hard work, them two," says Slightly Coarse Man.

At home, an email exchange with Trina is like a purifying draught. It starts when I ask her for some help with a couple of words I didn't know from a poem by Herrick, ("trasy" and "to mich") before she raises the game to a deliberately sesquipedalian pitch, serving some difficult backhands: "callipygean" defeats me, but I can see it coming in handy.

Locals! University Challenge, BBC2, 8.00 tonight. Lancaster v Pembroke College, Cambridge