He knew also, however, that it wasn’t the value of a property that determines the happiness of those that live there, and while he drove to the council chambers to meet a deputation from the Main Street Business Association, and when seated before the expanse of his office window awaiting its arrival, it was a house in Powys Street that occupied his thoughts. Helen and he had rented it when they married, and a year later taken out a mortgage to enable its purchase. A three-bedroomed villa with a verandah of bowed corrugated iron, suspect weatherboards and birds that got beneath the eaves to nest. A single toilet by the bath, tall, free-standing wardrobes, small windows and dark, half-wainscotting in the hall. An ordinary house grown old, and in which Pearly had spent the happiest years of his life. The place in which his marriage proved a success, the place in which Kevin and Leanne were born and passed their infancy, the place in which he was conscious of being in his physical prime and in which he experienced the satisfaction of proving himself a success in business. Subsequent homes were more impressive, but he remembered none with greater affection. All that surrounds us in times of happiness is permanently caught in the glowing chiaroscuro of that contentment. Pearly’s profession was houses, and he’d developed a feeling for those that were happy places, although he couldn’t identify the specific indicators. There was an aura quite independent of the standard of the fittings, the level of taste displayed, the car on the drive or the quality of the linen.

Often when he was in that part of town he would park briefly outside the house in Powys Street just to prompt the memories. Subsequent owners had made changes, but for Pearly it always assumed the form he knew, was just as it had been, and by association he revived in himself the vigour and happiness he’d possessed there.