Tennyson Street was in a so-so area of the town. Pearly knew every suburb and the influence on valuations of each. No. 58 wasn’t a jewel. He parked in the street and remained in the car for a time, making a first assessment, as a prospective buyer would. It was his practice when first viewing a house he hoped to sell. Pearly knew the importance of street appeal. A conventional family home in green Summerhill stone with an inappropriate glass addition at the front entrance that Pearly would call a conservatory when advertising the place. On his walk to the door, he noted that the lawn had been recently mowed, leaving a ruff of twitch and oxalis at the border with the neglected garden, above which pairs of white butterflies cavorted and bumblebees droned.

After pressing the bell button on the conservatory door, Pearly stood looking through the glass to the original front entrance, from which the Swifts, true to name, emerged almost immediately, having been watching from a window. Mrs Swift stood in the doorway; her husband advanced the few paces through the fierce heat of the glass addition to greet Pearly. ‘Mr Mayor,’ he said effusively, with just the merest suggestion of underlying sarcasm. He proffered his hand in a comradely way. ‘Eddie Swift,’ he said, and then as they moved through the heat, ‘my wife, Sharon.’

They were such ordinary people that when he wrote up the meeting and decisions that afternoon, Pearly could scarcely remember what they looked like, just Eddie’s laughter used as a form of punctuation, and his wife’s habit of putting her hand to her throat whenever she began to speak. Ordinary, humdrum people preoccupied with their ordinary, humdrum concerns. And in any case Pearly’s attention had been on the house, and it was that professional scrutiny which remained clear to him in retrospect. The larger than expected living-cum-dining room with a glaring fleur-de-lis wallpaper, the one bathroom with a blue toilet seat and humidity stains on the ceiling above the shower, the family photographs lining the narrow passage, the yellowed venetians in the bedrooms, and the new heat pump close to the kitchen door. ‘New heat pump — top of the range,’ Eddie had said as Pearly tried to reduce his client’s hopes of considerable capital gain. ‘Yeah, I intend to have a real go at the section before any open home,’ Eddie said as he farewelled Pearly at the gate.

Pearly had mentioned the garden and the neglected shrubs at the side of the garage. ‘First impressions, you know. A good tidy-up doesn’t need to cost much at all, but it can reap rewards.’ Yet he had no great hopes of Eddie Swift. The place would be given just a lick and a promise.