The school hall wasn’t big enough to cope with the opening function of the 125th — a ‘conversazione’, as Hugh Porteous loftily termed it — so it was held in the town hall. Pearly, naturally, was to give a welcome and whatever information was necessary concerning events to follow. He came early to ensure all was going as it should and stood talking with Warwick Jardine and Nancy Lowe by tables laden with platters of assorted finger-food — salmon, asparagus, olives, selected breads and crackers, ham-and-mushroom vol-au-vents, fruit kebabs. Ranks of wine bottles stood at attention on trestle tables, and not far away, next to the registration team’s racks of the neat, plastic-covered name tags in colour-coded groups to indicate the decades, Porteous and his helpers supervised the distribution of gift bags.

Most of the early arrivals were from out of town, men with no wish to wait longer alone in their motel and hotel rooms. Some had already recognised former classmates, others stood clasping the handouts and looking about with anticipatory smiles for someone they remembered, however tenuous the friendship had been in former years.

‘We had a rush of last-minute enrolments, of course,’ Pearly said. ‘People who’d changed address or hadn’t seen the advertising. There’s a guy coming who claims he was a rally bodyguard for Donald Trump and also someone who was in a multinational refugee assistance team at the battle for Mosul.’

‘Our boys are everywhere,’ said Warwick. ‘I hate to think of all the bullshit stories over this weekend. Sorry, Nancy.’

‘How interesting it would be,’ she said, ‘to check all the names against the school records and see what patterns emerge. I suppose it’s the achievers who come back, those with something to talk about that reflects well on themselves, those who want to measure themselves against old classmates to see if the pecking order’s still the same and who they’ve outstripped.’

Pearly thought there would also be those whose school days marked the peak of their involvement and ease with life and who would come unconsciously seeking to recover that satisfaction, but before he could say anything he noticed Gumbo signalling to him from the door to the side rooms. Pearly excused himself and went through the rapidly swelling crowd to meet him. ‘Phone,’ said Gumbo, pointing to the open door of an office two down the corridor.

‘Hello, Pearly here.’ It was a large old-fashioned phone with a dog-eared phone book beside it and also one green high-heeled shoe.

‘How’s it all going, shithead?’

‘Who’s this?’ But Pearly had recognised the phantom caller.

‘You’ll be speechifying, won’t you, Pearly. Rabbiting on about the good old days when you thought you were shit-hot. And nothing’s changed, has it?’

‘Why don’t you come along and find out,’ said Pearly. It was a distinctive voice but one that he still couldn’t connect to anyone he knew.