He said as much to Helen that evening as they sat on the patio beneath a green-and-white umbrella and ate passionfruit cheesecake. ‘At some stage there’s been a wall knocked out to make the living areas open-plan,’ he said. ‘The best feature of the place, actually.’

‘I think someone in Leanne’s netball team lived in Tennyson Street,’ said Helen. ‘I picked someone up there. But that’s years ago.’

From the patio Pearly looked over the drive to the front gate. The surface had been recently resealed, and flanking its dark, smooth surface on the north side were evenly spaced and sized bay trees, and on the other a neat lawn and then Helen’s flower garden. No one could say that they were a lazy couple, and Pearly held that both as mayor and real estate agent he had a certain standard to maintain. The Falcon, though, outside the garage. ‘Oh, yeah,’ he said abruptly, ‘some knucklehead scratched the car this morning at the show. Opened a door on it, I suppose.’

‘How bad?’

‘It won’t need panel beating, just a little paint job.’

‘What a nuisance,’ said Helen. She knew how fastidious he was about his car, about all his belongings. Pearly liked things in order, in place and fit for the purpose. It was a reaction to the rather haphazard husbandry of both his parents, and evidence of his belief life should not be permitted free rein.

‘And the sideshows didn’t stop for my speech this morning either. Same thing last year. At least it’s been a beaut day and people turned up in droves. Selwyn and the committee are really chuffed.’

‘That’s good,’ said Helen. ‘Show days have gone in a lot of towns now, which is a pity.’

They sat in companionable silence for a while with just the occasional shuffle of Pearly’s chair as he leant to wave midges from the food. He could see the small Pratt daughters bouncing on a trampoline next door: they appeared waist-high above the photinia hedge, most often singly, less often together, in effortless levitation. They didn’t shout. They made no sound at all, just rose above the red-tipped foliage and fell again, sometimes languidly pushing wayward hair from their faces, occasionally glancing dispassionately towards the patio.

‘Oh, Esther Hall rang,’ said Helen. ‘I meant to say. I said you’d get back to her this evening.’ Esther was the local MP, with whom Pearly was on good terms. She was careful in public to maintain neutrality in the mayoral contests, but was known to be benign towards Pearly. They worked together for the good of the region and their own advancement with mutual tolerance, and only one or two serious scraps over political territory.