‘You’ll feel better after a drink. It won’t be a late night. Most of those women will be even older than you.’

‘Maybe it will hose off,’ said Pearly.

‘Alison’s coming tonight,’ said Helen. ‘We’re going to talk over some nursing stuff. She thinks there might be some work coming up at the hospital.’

‘Is that what you want? I thought you were after a charge nurse sort of thing in a private practice?’

‘How long do I wait, though?’

She followed him into his study, eager to impart news she knew would please him. ‘Leanne’s sent a long email with photos from their Irish trip. They’re great. And she’s passed yet another exam. I can’t keep up with them.’ Neither could Pearly. There seemed no end of specialist qualifications for medical people, but Pearly delighted in his daughter’s success. After reading the message he gave Helen a hug as the closest substitute for Leanne herself, and in mutual pleasure.

‘She’s a cracker, isn’t she,’ he said. ‘There’s no holding her back.’ His voice had a quaver of emotion. The achievement made his day, and after the meal and a Heineken he sent his daughter a congratulatory email, and then set off quite happily to meet the League of Mothers and give their Somalian enterprise his blessing and a substantial donation. ‘Member of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists,’ he said as he drove. His daughter’s accomplishments were as much a satisfaction to him as his own.

When Pearly was in the fourth form his father hired a carpenter to put a roof over the pens closest to the shearing shed. It was to provide shade as much as it was to protect from welcome rain at an inconvenient time. The carpenter was tubby and had a gap between his top front teeth. He was also friendly and funny, and Pearly enjoyed hanging around to watch him work. His name was Ewan. He had a Morris Oxford and a trailer and an apron thing with pockets made of pale leather to hold tools. Quite often he worked on Saturday mornings, and on one of those mornings he exposed himself to Pearly.

Usually Richie hung about with Pearly to watch Ewan on the job as well, but that morning there was just Pearly and the carpenter. They brought in some timber from the trailer, and then Ewan went into one of the small flap-door pens from which shearers dragged the sheep. Pearly sat on the long concrete step in the sun. ‘Pearly,’ said Ewan in a soft voice.

‘Yeah?’

‘Come in here.’