‘You know, Pat,’ Esther said, ‘I don’t think you realise how important the Green vote is becoming. Conservation, ecology, global warming, fossil fuels, tussock lands, 1080. These things are mainstream now.’

‘I’m a farm boy, remember. I know about the environment and caring for the land. Jesus, all these johnny-come-latelies, as if they’ve invented conservation.’

‘Of course you know. It’s just that the new generation of voters is heavily into these things. I suppose it’s really myself I’m reminding.’

‘That’s okay. Anyway, it’s mostly townies in the mayoral election.’ Pearly wasn’t offended. He recognised, however, that her advice was also a warning. Probably her people had run an informal poll and told her not to commit to either candidate.

‘She’s only one vote after all,’ Helen said when they discussed the call afterwards, but they both knew that was true only in an ingenuous sense. ‘And at least she’s honest.’ She was. In an occupation notorious for dissembling and deviousness, Esther was surprisingly straightforward. Perhaps for that reason she hadn’t attained cabinet rank. Anyway, MP support or not, Pearly would give a good account of himself.

A phone call from Sanderson of Montgomery Street interrupted their discussion. Pearly had found a buyer for the place weeks before, but the possession date was still a few days off. ‘I’ve been trying to get through for a while,’ Sanderson said accusingly, as if Pearly had been on the line purely to frustrate him. Sanderson wanted to know if he could somehow stay on for several more weeks as the completion of their new home was behind schedule, and Pearly told him that was possible only with the agreement of the purchasers.

‘That’s who you should be ringing,’ he said. ‘That’s your best bet.’ It was pretty obvious, but Pearly didn’t show any irritation at being contacted after office hours with such little cause. In business it was best to remain civil whatever one’s private opinion. Down the track the Sandersons might sell the new place, and repeat business was at the core of Rawleigh and Gates’s success. ‘Let me know how you get on,’ Pearly said.

Temptation came that night before sleep. As a consequence of the Sanderson call, Pearly remembered his visit there and seeing Deidre Utterspan next door. Even in a provincial town few regarded infidelity with moral outrage: it had become too commonplace, too much a cliché in any depiction of modern marriage. Still, it sullied reputations and reduced social effectiveness — even of the innocent partners. What of Philip’s mayoral prospects if his wife’s conduct were known, the devil asked?

Pearly didn’t kid himself that he would have any puritanical reason for disclosing the adultery — it would be to secure his own success — on the other hand nor could Utterspan expect the community to accept a mayor in such a marriage.