Pearly went quickly through the highlights, and the low concerning Gumbo’s accident, and Snoz professed interest, amusement and commiseration at appropriate times, but there was an underlying weariness and detachment in his voice. All he had to offer from his own life was that he was trying to sell the motel and wasn’t having much luck. ‘You should come and do it for me,’ he said. ‘You’ve got the knack. We’re sick of being tied to the place. Sick of cleaning up after other people.’

As Pearly was giving him a description of the formal dinner, Snoz broke in suddenly. ‘I don’t suppose you know who’s on our old place now?’

‘I do, as it happens,’ said Pearly. ‘Folk called McIndoe. I think they came from Marlborough. Richie says they’re okay people.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘They’ve built a new house on it.’

‘Uh-huh,’ said Snoz. He wasn’t interested in the new people, just in the farm as he’d known it, and Pearly couldn’t transport him there. He was stranded in the present and in Northland, separated from health and the elusive past.

‘Gumbo and I were remembering when we all sneaked into the girls’ hostel, and you came a hell of a cropper as we were running off.’

‘Nearly killed myself,’ grumbled Snoz proudly. ‘We were all mad bastards then.’

‘We were. Mad bastards, weren’t we.’

Pearly visited other mythologised exploits from their friendship, but the conversation didn’t offer the full pleasure he’d expected. It wasn’t really Snoz he talked to. Not his Snoz of youthful companionship. Snoz was gone: even as he lay breathing heavily on a mid-afternoon bed in the Northland heat, he was gone — the whip-cool, laughing and audacious Snoz of time past — and Pearly grieved for him.

TWENTY-TWO

‘It won’t do, Pearly,’ Pearly said. He was in the shower and knew Helen wouldn’t hear him talking to himself. The water accentuated the hair of his chest and legs, and he thought idly, briefly, of Puff, his second-year varsity flatmate and the hairiest guy he’d ever seen. Self-sufficient Puff with his books and Southland girlfriend in his room. A damn good player, though. Naked in the changing room he was a handsome ape, and others of the team joked that he combed his arms and legs. But Pearly’s admonition had nothing to do with any of that recollection. He’d slept poorly because of the whole business with Deidre Utterspan, and he knew something more had to be done. He needed to sort it out for himself before talking again to Helen or anybody else, and the best place to do that was the farm, the most reassuring and natural context in which to make decisions.