When Gumbo had driven away, Pearly stood for a while. The nearest street light was too distant to show the glass fragments clearly. He’d tidy up tomorrow. The houses seemed crouched in the darkness, relinquishing the sharp postures of the day. Pearly breathed in deeply. There were fine scents on the night air, scents of plants in the surge of spring growth, and as a country boy, Pearly relished them all, stood silent and tried to identify individual sources, but they were mingled with the false smells of the town that obscured the clean country palate. There was lavender, though, close at hand in his own garden, and, more distant, the background tang of macrocarpa that was as much a part of his boyhood as the smell of his own sweat.

‘So, Pearly,’ he said quietly to himself as was his habit. ‘Mayor again, eh.’ He hadn’t done too badly had he? A three-term mayor with his own business as well. He closed his eyes in the dark to better assess the scents of night and at the same time thought of talking with Deidre Utterspan earlier in the evening, asking her how she felt about Philip quitting the race. She responding with a wifely mixture of relief and support, having no idea that beside her stood the author of the letter that was the true cause of Philip’s decision. Pearly wondered if she were still seeing the other guy or whether that fierce pleasure had been relinquished in confession to her husband. Lust was part of a man’s character, but less predictable in a woman. To discover it within this intelligent woman of unexceptional appearance gave her interest and mystery for Pearly.

‘We’re not giving up on our opposition to fluoridation,’ she’d said to Pearly at the party. ‘Philip’s still got causes to champion. We’re both opposed to forcing chemicals on people and denying them the right to assisted dying when justified by the circumstances.’ She had very little bust, but her face was attractive: smooth cheeks and wide, dark eyes. Pearly supposed that a woman didn’t need to be voluptuous to seek a lover.

‘Euthanasia’s an issue for central government, not something for us,’ Pearly told her. ‘And look, quite frankly, Deidre, urban water treatment’s a done deal, and fluoridation is the norm throughout just about the whole country.’

‘Doesn’t make it right,’ she’d said. Pearly had wanted to ask her what she’d said to Philip to persuade him to relinquish his candidacy, but instead had continued friendly debate concerning death and additives to the water supply.