A surreptitious glance at his watch showed Pearly it wasn’t yet four o’clock: Gumbo would be with him for at least another half-hour. Pearly got more Heineken for them both and moved the conversation on from the reunion to Gumbo’s participation in the model aeroplane club. It was his only formal interaction with society outside his job as far as Pearly knew. ‘Drones,’ said Gumbo. ‘It’s all about drones these days. That’s okay, but nobody builds their own machines much now. People pay the big bikkies for drones.’

‘We’ve been considering regulations about them on public land,’ said Pearly. ‘I’m not opposed on principle to reasonable use, but there’s issues of privacy, and safety as well.’

‘It’s fantastic what they can do and all. I’m not knocking them, but it’s a different club now. People with money to spend. We used to help each other build our own planes, but that’s mostly gone now. A lot more young, techie people.’

There was a great deal about drones that Pearly didn’t know, and Gumbo was willing to tell him. Pearly didn’t mind; it passed the time, and he would be better informed when the matter was discussed in council. It was one of his strengths: the ability to retain a great deal of assorted material that sooner or later proved of relevance in discussion.

Gumbo knew when his time was up, and as they walked out to his ute, he saw Helen in the garden and went off over the lawn to say goodbye to her. He called her his favourite lady. Pearly waited in the sun by the driver’s door. It was obvious that Gumbo rarely had a passenger, for the footwell was a depository: no drones, but dog-eared magazines, work gloves, blue overalls, an empty Fanta bottle and two plastic containers of Roundup. Yet his house was very different. Pearly had been there often and recalled it as he stood amid the law and order of his own grounds. A utilitarian home but no piles of unwashed dishes on the bench, no feel of grit between the lino and Pearly’s shoes, no torn and stained net curtains or smell of a male den. A plain, bare, clean place in which Gumbo lived by himself. Gumbo had no dress sense, but he possessed self-respect.

‘If there’s anything I can do to help with the 125th, just let me know,’ said Gumbo when he was about to go.