The house, closed up for some time, had a fustiness within it, and Pearly opened a living-room window and they sat in the worn armchairs and continued talking. The wind had died in the night, the sun was bright on a still world and the digger, though audible, was out of sight. Charlotte was more relaxed than at his office the previous day, and pleased to find the house better than she had expected. She thanked him again, asked how he managed to run a business while also fulfilling his duties as mayor. Pearly enjoyed talking with her. She wasn’t smartly dressed, or beautiful, but she was womanly: she was shapely, intelligent and bore her travail with dignity. Pearly tried to imagine what it must be like to have your marriage fail after many years, to be grateful for a rented place as a temporary home, to have a sense of your life as free fall and a son to answer to for failure. Pearly was accustomed to success in life, but he wasn’t unaware of how quickly life can turn the tables, and his most fiercely held sporting ambitions had been thwarted. It’s not only those who have conspicuous failure in their lives who are conscious of regret.

‘I know it must be a tough time for you,’ he said. ‘I don’t expect you to talk about it, but remember that people are willing to give a hand. I’ll keep an eye out for any place that might suit you once you’re sure about things and your financial situation is sorted. At least now you won’t have to worry about a place in the short term.’

‘It’s a hell of a relief, actually.’ Charlotte said it with surprising emphasis. ‘Divorce is a state of shock. I never really understood that before. A quake right down to the foundation of things.’ She paused, and then changed the subject to what was happening in the section, and she and Pearly sat in the sunlight through the window, and he told her of Clifford’s plans, some of his own odd experiences in real estate, asked her what work she did. Afterwards he went out with her to her car, and when she left he came back to the workmen and told the digger driver that the house could be locked up again, that his business was over. He thought of Charlotte’s small and aging car, her job as a florist, her husband’s moderate income as an insurance assessor. He knew instinctively the price bracket into which her choice of home must fall.