As Pearly sat in the farmhouse living room, with the nor’wester giving voice outside and burnishing the azure sky, with the shrubs and trees in uncomfortable flurry, he talked of Sir Andrew Nisse, whom he made seem a closer school friend than in fact he’d been. It wasn’t done consciously, just a natural inclination to have the glow of Andrew’s achievements add a little colour to his own. Pearly wondered what it would be like to make a name for yourself overseas and then come home to a Kiwi town. And when Andrew did come home he would find Pearly at the head of things, just the same as when he left. Sometimes Pearly himself was impressed by all he’d managed to accomplish.

Apart from the olives in the salad, the lunch they ate could have been prepared by Pearly’s mother fifty years before: the pink, cold mutton carved from the bone, the dark, homemade chutney, the sliced eggs, the beetroot and peas. Apple crumble to follow with vanilla ice cream. Natalie, too, came from a farming family. Pearly congratulated her and meant it. ‘Does Richie still have sausages, bacon and eggs for breakfast?’ he asked.

‘Mostly,’ she said. ‘These days sometimes he gets it himself.’

‘It’s a wonder he’s not as fat as a pig.’

‘I’ve done half a day’s work before breakfast,’ said Richie. ‘We don’t all sleep in till eight and then babysit a desk.’

‘Matt eats the most,’ said Natalie. ‘I’d forgotten the way young guys can eat. It’s nothing for him to have three or four scones at morning and afternoon tea and then be piling his plate at mealtime.’ Matt took it as a compliment and smiled.

‘Well, I’m going to have another helping of pudding right now,’ he said, ‘and then I’m going to yard up the ewes.’

The two brothers went outside with Matt. They were in good clothes and didn’t follow him as he went up the track with the dogs, but stood together in the shearing-shed doorway, sheltered from the wind. Pearly understood that Richie became uncomfortable if he sat too long inside the house during daylight and needed the ease of some time on his land. ‘You’re lucky to have him back,’ said Pearly as they watched Matt secure the pipe-and-netting gate, head away past the windbreak pines with his hand to his cap.

‘We’re hoping he’ll stay. He’s quite keen on the Galloway girl, Mandy. Really nice girl. What happens there could be the clincher, I reckon.’