MORROW, Daisy (Mrs), suddenly, at her residence,
Showground Road, Sarsaparilla.

There was nothing more you could put. It wasn’t fair on Les, a public servant, to rake up relationships. And the Mrs – well, everyone had got into the habit when Daise started going with Cunningham. It seemed sort of natural as things dragged on and on. Don’t work yourself up, Myrt, Daise used to say; Jack will when his wife dies. But it was Jack Cunningham who died first. Daise said: It’s the way it happened, that’s all.

‘Do you think Ossie will come?’ Councillor Hogben asked his wife slower than she liked.

‘I hadn’t thought about it,’ she said.

Which meant she had. She had, in fact, woken in the night, and lain there cold and stiff, as her mind’s eye focused on Ossie’s runny nose.

Mrs Hogben rushed at a drawer which somebody – never herself – had left hanging out. She was a thin woman, but wiry.

‘Meg?’ she called. ‘Did you polish your shoes?’

Les Hogben laughed behind his closed mouth. He always did when he thought of Daise’s parting folly: to take up with that old scabby deadbeat Ossie from down at the showground. But who cared?

No one, unless her family.

Mrs Hogben dreaded the possibility of Ossie, a Roman Catholic for extra value, standing beside Daise’s grave, even if nobody, even if only Mr Brickle saw.

Whenever the thought of Ossie Coogan crossed Councillor Hogben’s mind he would twist the knife in his sister-in-law.

Perhaps, now, he was glad she had died. A small woman, smaller than his wife, Daise Morrow was large by nature. Whenever she dropped in she was all around the place. Yarn her head off if she got the chance. It got so as Les Hogben could not stand hearing her laugh. Pressed against her in the hall once. He had forgotten that, or almost. How Daise laughed then. I’m not so short of men I’d pick me own brother-in-law. Had he pressed? Not all that much, not intentional, anyway. So the incident had been allowed to fade, dim as the brown-linoleum hall, in Councillor Hogben’s mind.

‘There’s the phone, Leslie.’

It was his wife.

‘I’m too upset,’ she said, ‘to answer.’

And began to cry.

Easing his crutch Councillor Hogben went into the hall.

It was good old Horrie Last.

‘Yairs ... yairs ...’ said Mr Hogben, speaking into the telephone which his wife kept swabbed with Breath-o’-Pine. ‘Yairs ... Eleven, Horrie ... from Barranugli ... from Jackson’s Personal... Yairs, that’s decent of you, Horrie.’

‘Horrie Last,’ Councillor Hogben reported to his wife, ‘is gunna put in an appearance.’

If no one else, a second councillor for Daise, Myrtle Hogben was consoled.

What could you do? Horrie Last put down the phone. He and Les had stuck together. Teamed up to catch the more progressive vote. Hogben and Last had developed the shire. Les had built Horrie’s home. Lasts had sold Hogbens theirs. If certain people were spreading the rumour that Last and Hogben had caused a contraction of the Green Belt, the certain people to realize the term itself implied flexibility.