When he gets out, he swings the door shut with more force than it needs and walks without hurry up the ramp, raising one hand in a quick, snappy wave that I am to take as my signal to go. At the top of the ramp, his hands deep in his jacket pockets, his gelled hair parting the wind like the bow of a boat, he turns past the community noticeboard – forever a blank to him, a place for pointless adulting – and, as a customer pushes the door open from inside, he ducks past and into the Merc.

‘I can leave them with you so that you can read through them,’ I tell Ellen as I set the sales agreements down on the kitchen counter. ‘And you’re welcome to seek independent advice.’

‘I know my way around a contract,’ she says in her teacher voice, patting her hair, searching for glasses. ‘I’ll read it now.’

‘I’m sorry, I . . .’ They were realtor lines, straight from the course. ‘It’s the law that I tell you those things.’

She pauses in her patting – she’s down to her pockets now – and raises her hands in a waist-high gesture that’s designed to put the brakes on my explanation. ‘No, I’m sorry. It’s your job. You’re not giving me the old-lady treatment.’ She finds her glasses further along the kitchen counter, next to a bowl of apples, and puts them on. ‘You weren’t even – what’s it called – mansplaining, were you?’

‘I try to save that for my partner’s son. He gets plenty of it.’ Partner’s son. It’s a habit I’ve fallen into – the best way I’ve found to put it – but I still come close to tripping on it every time.

She smiles. ‘Oh, I think you can call that teaching. No-one should complain about that.’ She picks up the sales agreement and starts to read.

‘You’ll see the promotional-package options on page three,’ I tell her before she gets too far in. Another necessary step in the process. ‘There are some boxes to check there. Choices to make. There are quite a few things you could sign up for, but I think the basic package would do a good job for this place. Basic plus Glacier City Gazette, since we’re in Girdwood. It’s a good solid property.’

I’m playing the role of a real-estate agent again, saying real-estate agent things. She gives me a look too many students have been on the end of over the years. Good solid property. I have just told her her home is nothing special.

Once she’s sure I’ve clocked the look, she puts on a thin smile, adjusts her glasses and says, ‘I’m sure you’re right. No sense giving it the mansion treatment, since the mansion people won’t be turning up to buy it.’