“It was a fine day for a car show,” she says idly. “But the real one is tomorrow.”

I thought about racing the woman I’d met earlier and nodded just as slackly. The air about her was the same as the ones now bidding one another ‘good wealth’ or however they said goodbye, the same air but she had none of the trappings. She seemed to have worked out my thoughts. “The new exchange threw some of us out of our seats,” she explained, looking at them fondly and wistfully. “You’ll note I’m on the periphery, here.” The tiniest missed spot in the paintwork shown out to me at that moment like a blazing sign. She’d had her car painted, too, like the others - simply to attend on the periphery as a ‘once-been!’ Strange culture.