Pearly and Andrew talked a while about other classmates, some who were at the function, others present only in memory. Talked of some of their teachers, too, who so readily became caricatures in retrospect. The past was their only sure connection. Even in that they hadn’t been close, and their lives could hardly be more different since leaving school. More guys began leaving the hall, and Andrew said it was time he was going. He was going to take his mother to visit friends in the morning. ‘Do thank Helen again,’ he said. ‘I really enjoyed the evening at your place. You’re a lucky man, Pearly.’

They walked together to Andrew’s rental car then Pearly went on to the Falcon. Overall he was pleased with the opening event. The shouting guy had been right about the drinks, though. There should have been more, and they should have been easier to get at. Pearly would’ve drunk more himself had he not been driving. ‘Note for the future, Pearly,’ said Pearly. ‘Better access to the grog.’ He stood by the open door of his car for a short while, looking at the stage set silhouettes of the BNZ and Farmers buildings against the starry sky but thinking of Snoz Gazler laughing behind him on the Suzuki, competing on the training runs, compiling a list of all the girls he thought would do it. Pearly hadn’t seen him for years, and now he was unwell. Pearly decided to call him; tell him of the evening’s success and how much he’d been missed. ‘That’s what I’ll do all right,’ said Pearly, and, pleased with the decision, he got into the car to drive home. He began to calculate how many of his seventh-form classmates he’d met during the night.

Only after his mother’s death did Pearly realise how little he knew of her apart from her affiliation to himself: that quiet, unstinting love that he’d taken so much for granted. She’d lived to be seventy-nine. Pearly had spent eighteen of those years with her in the family, the first few of which he had no recollection. Most of her life was spent without him, yet he’d rarely shown interest in any of her ambitions, hopes or fears that didn’t concern himself. The only role Pearly had recognised for her was that of mother, and he’d come to feel regret, even shame, for that selfish disregard. He wished that he had asked her about her own childhood, her regrets and successes, a summation of her individual experience of life. She’d never expressed major disappointment to him but told Helen that she’d always wanted a daughter, and she took particular delight in her granddaughters. She told Helen also that she wished she’d had the opportunity to go to university. ‘Just a farmer’s wife, that’s me,’ she’d said.