‘What good would it do?’

‘It doesn’t matter what good it would do. It’s what I want if you’re really sorry.’

Pearly looked away, over the Utterspans’ lawn, the concrete path, the rose bed, the coloured junk mail tonguing from the letter box. Everything was motionless and brittle. ‘Jesus,’ he said, ‘that’s a tough ask.’

‘But it’s what I want, Pearly. Have you got the guts for it?’ She turned and went back into the house, leaving the door open. Her final question surprised him with its colloquial directness.

He walked back to the street, making a face of discomfort as he went that Deidre wouldn’t see even if she were watching from a window. The visit hadn’t revealed to him whether she still had a lover or if any change had occurred in her marriage, but Pearly no longer had curiosity about any of that. His confession had been more difficult, and given less relief, than he’d hoped. ‘Jesus, Pearly, that wasn’t good at all,’ he said. He didn’t look back until he reached his car, and when he did the Utterspans’ front door was closed. Maybe in time there would be reprisals. Pearly didn’t know her well enough to gauge the likelihood of that, but if so, punishment would be deserved. Could he tell Helen about the whole mess, and what comfort to Deidre could that possibly be?

When he was at the council chambers Pearly decided that he would tell Helen about it all, but as he was driving home he changed his mind. It would serve no purpose for Deidre, or himself. During the evening meal he reopened the argument with himself — did he have the guts for it, she’d said. How would she know that such a challenge would bear so powerfully on him, and later, while his wife stacked the dishwasher, he sat with both hands resting on the table and made his confession.

Helen left the dishwasher door open, turned towards him as he spoke, trailed a striped cloth through her fingers. ‘What a mean, underhand thing to do,’ she said when he’d finished. She came and sat down opposite him. ‘It’s so mean, so selfish, so calculating.’

‘I wish I hadn’t done it, of course.’

‘But you’ve got what you wanted out of it. You’re mayor again. I reckon you would’ve been anyway without picking on Deidre.’

‘Who knows,’ said Pearly. ‘Going there today and apologising was all I could think of to do.’

‘You could resign.’

‘How would that help? Philip’s already said he doesn’t want the job now.’

‘Does he know about it all? The affair and the letter?’

‘No.’

‘So why tell me now?’