Occasionally Helen had mentioned returning to work before, but Pearly hadn’t thought it something significantly on her mind. He hoped she didn’t feel that Alison’s presence was necessary for him to take it seriously. She’d been a successful nurse, well qualified in a profession that Pearly respected. She’d carried on after their marriage, even after the children came, until Rawleigh and Gates produced an income that made her salary unnecessary. ‘If you want to, you should go for it,’ he said. ‘Definitely you should.’

‘I have been thinking about it more lately, but I should’ve done something years ago. I’m lazy. I’m too old now.’

‘Crap,’ said Alison. ‘More than three thousand New Zealand nurses are over sixty-five. You’re not even sixty-three yet. Otago Polytechnic offers a competence assessment programme. It’s the closest, but there’s others. There’s no reason not to do it, is there, Pearly?’

‘None at all. We did talk about a longish overseas trip, but it’s all about priority.’

‘I’m going to keep you up to it, and you too, Pearly,’ said Alison. ‘She’ll need support. There’ll be times you’ll have to do without her.’ Alison was energised by the prospect of Helen’s re-entry into the profession. After the meal was over and they were sitting in the living room with the dusk gradually obliterating the garden view, she continued to talk about it: the nature of the registration process, the increasing responsibility for patient care allowed to nurses, the availability of short-term, part-time and shared positions. Normally during such a visit Pearly would go to his study after the meal and leave them to it, but he stayed on as a sign of the importance he placed on the discussion, although his thoughts wandered to his own day — the futile business deputation, the check on Rob Prendergast still not accomplished, most of all the satisfaction of being able to secure a place for Charlotte Miller and receive her gratitude. His damaged knee was aching a little. Pearly was accustomed to that, but it was a persistent reminder of achievement denied him. The dodgy knee had put an end to his hopes of playing rugby at higher than provincial level. Semilunar cartilages had been removed, and degeneration had followed. Pearly never saw them, but imagined small, flat ivory moons. Perhaps he should have asked to have them as a souvenir, as his dead partner Earl Rawleigh had kept his gallstones in a glass vial.

‘Are you really keen?’ asked Pearly when Alison had gone, and they were having a quick tidy-up in the kitchen. ‘It’s not just her with a bee in her bonnet?’

‘She did go on about it, didn’t she, but I am serious, though if you stand for a third term maybe it would be too hectic, both of us working.’