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Summer of the
Seventeenth Doll
R AY L AW L E R
CURRENCY PRESS
SYDNEY
The Doll_internals_FIN.indd 3 4/12/2012 12:36:28 PM

CURRENCY PLAYS
First published in 1957
by Angus & Robertson Pty Ltd.
This fifth edition first published in 2012
by Currency Press Pty Ltd,
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Reprinted 2012 (three times)
Copyright © Ray Lawler, 1957, 2012.
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National Library of Australia CIP data
Author: Lawler, Ray, 1921–
Title: Summer of the seventeenth doll / Ray Lawler.
Edition: 5th ed.
ISBN: 9780868199672 (pbk.)
Subjects: Australian drama—20th century.
Dewey Number: A822.3
Typeset by Dean Nottle for Currency Press.
Printed by Ligare Book Printers, Riverwood, NSW.
Cover design by Katy Wall for Currency Press.
Front cover shows Susie Porter as Olive in the 2011 Belvoir production at the
Belvoir St Theatre, Sydney. Pages ii–iii shows Susie Porter as Olive and Steve
Le Marquand as Roo in the 2011 Belvoir production at the Belvoir St Theatre,
Sydney. (Photos: Heidrun Löhr.)

Contents
The Doll revisited: a truer realisation

Ray Lawler vii
Summer of the Seventeenth Doll

Act One 1
Act Two 39
Act Three 77
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To John Sumner,
who directed the original production
from Australia to London and New York

The Doll revisited: a truer realisation
Again and again, with particular plays, I find myself drawn back to
working on them in an attempt to—what? Do justice to some inner
vision of the play that seems beyond my ability to realise it, I suppose.
Certainly that has been the case with Summer of the Seventeenth
Doll, and this publication of a final draft offers a chance to trace the
development of the original work into life as the third play in a trilogy.
Directed with enthusiasm and inventive flair by John Sumner at the
Union Theatre in 1955, the first production of what was swiftly dubbed
The Doll gave us little time for workshopping. We had a rehearsal
schedule of only two weeks, and apart from playing the role of Barney,
I was heavily involved in preparing the Christmas revue that was to
follow The Doll in our season of fortnightly repertory. Weighing the
merits of what I had written as a playwright was my last consideration
at a very hectic time. A confusion that continued—and indeed grew—
when the success of the Melbourne season took us almost immediately
on to Sydney, then to an Australian wide tour with the Elizabethan
Theatre Trust, this in turn leading to a London season presented by
Laurence Olivier, and finally to a Broadway opening with the Theatre
Guild in New York. It was a giddy whirlwind, in no time the year was
1958, and I was still playing Barney. The opening of the play and its
failure in New York hit me far more as a member of the acting team
than as a playwright. No use as a writer to tell myself that it was all
because the Americans didn’t understand our accent, our humour and
our slang, what I missed were the laughs and the immediate warmth of
audience response. It was only after the company disbanded, and I had
taken myself off to a quiet family life in Denmark, that I was able to
get the entire Doll experience into any sort of perspective: to consider
the play again as a play, and to remember how it came to me as an idea,
and what I had in mind when writing it.
The time was the late 1940s. I had returned to Melbourne, after
a year of fortnightly change vaudeville shows under Will Mahoney’s
management at the old Cremorne theatre in Brisbane. Brisbane then was
still recovering from the wild and raunchy lifestyle of its World War II

viii RAY LAWLER
years—Melbourne seemed very staid and buttoned up by comparison. I

felt a stirring, a sense of opposites—the North as an invading life force,
perhaps—raw and vigorous and living for the day, coming into mating
conflict with a South of cooler values and considered expectations? A
union that was bound to lead to unhappiness for both parties, but one
with worthwhile qualities that seemed to deserve a better outcome?
This having-it-both-ways thinking was pretty well set aside in the
process of writing the play, but it did persist with a speech in the first
production when the young Bubba, about to repeat the mistake of the
older generation at the time of crisis in the lay-off, makes her winning
claim to happiness with the statement: ‘I’ll have what you had, but I’ll
have it differently.’ Various actresses played this scene during our run,
all of them convincingly, but I always listened to it with a shameful
awareness that it was a cheat—there was no way in which such a
situation could guarantee happiness. Anyway this was the first line I
blotted out in Denmark, going on to make some small adjustments to
the Bubba-Johnnie Dowd scene generally. I then remembered other
moments on stage when I felt the writing of the play had been less true
and effective than it could have been, and I made minor alterations
to encompass those. All very much from an objective point of view,
changes I told myself that I may well have made if the initial rehearsal
period had been for four or five weeks, and I had not been involved
with the play as an actor.
The next revisions were of a different order. I was now living in
Ireland, revivals of The Doll in Australia kept me thinking of the play,
and occasionally of certain criticisms that had been made at the time of
the original production. If the year of the seventeenth summer was 1953,
what had happened to the annual lay-off seasons during World War II?
And why so much talk of Nancy, when the character never appears in
person? I had vaguely sorted out a background history of the previous
sixteen summers when writing The Doll, but only as a lead up to the
climatic events of the seventeenth year—oh yes, and I once mentioned
to John Sumner in an idle moment in New York the possibility of
setting down the first summer as a companion piece to the seventeenth.
Now in Ireland it suddenly struck me that the previous years did have
their own validity and interest. I wrote to John asking his opinion of
a Doll Trilogy, three plays spanning the story from beginning to end.

SUMMER OF THE SEVENTEENTH DOLL ix
He replied immediately, liking the notion, and supported it from that

time on—in fact, if it hadn’t been for John Sumner’s encouragement,
the project never would have happened.
I was aware from the outset that The Doll had to be the final play,
and I was working to a pre-determined end. Which made things easier
in one way, I knew where I was going, but it also meant that each
of the other plays had to be a valid signpost to what lay ahead, as
well as having its own merit as a piece of entertainment. Fortunately
the seventeen years of the relationships split into three fairly equal
sections: 1937 as the start of the story, 1945 marking a midway point,
and 1953 being the year of The Doll. What is more, these were very
different decades in Australian history: in 1937 the country was still
in the grips of the Great Depression; in 1945 we were celebrating, in
a rather exhausted fashion, having fought and won our way through
World War II; in 1953 we had opened our gates to a flood of refugees
we dubbed New Australians, who were to transform much of our
way of life. Their arrival coincided with the passing of some older
Australian ways of life, the sort lived by men such as Roo and Barney,
itinerant works travelling the country and making their living from the
land—cutting cane by hand, for instance.
All this, and the transforming effect of the character of Nancy on
aspects of the story—her relationship with Barney was much stronger
than I had anticipated—had to be justified by what already existed in
the narrative line of The Doll. I found I had no wish to change the shape
of events, what emotionally and physically happened to the characters,
but I had learned so much about them in the course of writing the first
two plays that the reason why it happens as it does seemed clear to me
for the first time ever. This led to final text and stage amendments in all
three plays, adjustments I believe are not changes at all, merely a truer
realisation of what I was trying to say when I sat down to write the play
sixty years ago.
The world of The Doll

The world of itinerant canecutters in Australia is now a thing of the
past. Together with the sort of hotel that catered for male drinkers only
in the public bars, and relegated women to a side entrance marked

x RAY LAWLER
Ladies Parlour. Also city boarding houses catering for lodgers on a

weekly basis, with a tariff including all meals and domestic services of
a kind that might be loosely classed as home comforts.
Obviously The Doll can be understood without any detailed
knowledge of the above areas of activity. But because these helped to
shape my original awareness of the characters and their story, I would
like to set down certain aspects in grateful acknowledgment, and the
hope these might be of interest for their own sake.
C anecutting
Normally a team of itinerant canecutters would come together at
the beginning of the season, around the end of April. These would
consist of nine or ten men, usually young single males or older
drifters, assembled by a recognised leader known as a ganger, with the
understanding that the team would stay together for the seven-month
season. Travelling by truck from cane farm to cane farm, living in
barracks on the premises, and cutting the harvest by hand, at piece-
work rates or at an agreed sum for the overall crop. The success of
a full season could depend very much on the quality and organising
ability of the ganger. He would need to fulfill many functions, be able
to bargain with cane farmers on his team’s behalf, making sure that
the working conditions and pay rates were satisfactory, and that the
barracks supplied for living quarters were of a reasonable standard.
On the team level, he would need to ensure that the hard-working men
were well fed—a cook usually travelled as a member of the team—that
they were kept as fit and well as possible, and that the morale of the
team wasn’t undermined by the loneliness and circumstances of their
nomadic life. Once a man was known for these qualities, he would
become a top ganger, able to attract the cream of experienced workers,
knowing that they could rely on him for decent living conditions, and
the best monetary return for the season’s back-breaking slog.
I saw Roo as a man with a great pride in being a top ganger, relishing
his ability to cope with all the demands of the job and enable his team
to make a success of every season. It is a post that demands both
authority and a sense of responsibility, and yet gives him the freedom
to order life on his own terms. Elements, on the other hand, that make
it difficult for him to shape a life away from the cane fields.

SUMMER OF THE SEVENTEENTH DOLL xi
O live as a barmaid
Olive’s employment in the male chauvinistic pub life would have been
both a refuge and a protection. The morality of the times, particularly
in the 1930s, had a much stricter sense of what was acceptable in
terms of public relationships, a Housewives’ Union mentality that
saw marriage as the only real union between a man and woman. Olive
would have been aware of the disapproving attitude of the majority
of women in her neighbourhood towards the lay-off, and would have
been even more aware of discrimination if her daily employment had
taken her among other females in the workplace. But the totally male
clientele of the public bar created a swaggering masculine atmosphere
in which rumours of a barmaid’s racy lifestyle would have a jovial
acceptance, even be the subject of a certain amount of knowing and
good-natured banter across the bar. This would be a help in easing any
sense of community rejection on Olive’s part, and also play its part in
confirming her fierce belief in the lay-off as an alternative to what she
regards as the humdrum round of workaday married life.
T he boarding house
Emma’s Carlton boarding house is the sort of suburban

establishment that offers full board on a weekly basis, and its
success in 1937, the first year of the lay-off, would depend on its
reputation for respectability and service: qualities likely to attract
the sort of steady lodger looking for a home away from home,
who could be relied on to settle in for a comfortably long stay and
promptly pay board on time. It was a highly competitive field in
the Great Depression days of the 1930s, and any loss of reputation
would soon see a boarding house depending on short-term lodgers,
and shady characters likely to fly by night, leaving unpaid bills.
Emma’s fall from grace as the proprietor of a well-run boarding
house is inevitable once she accepts the lay-off situation, and the
relationships of those involved. But it is also a loss on a much
more personal level; once she abandons her strongly held notions
of suburban morality, she loses what she believes to be a proper
future for her daughter. Life after that is a matter of compromise,
making the best of a bad job—which, for all her love of Olive and

xii RAY LAWLER
innate respect for Roo, is how she eventually regards the seventeen-
year course of their relationship.
T he D olls
The souvenir dolls appearing in the plays—kewpies with a decorative
ruffled skirt, attached to cane walking sticks—are no longer a popular
carnival novelty. The modern version, when seen, usually features a
smallish doll of no particular style, with a wisp of coloured net for a
skirt, and a meagre feather or two for decoration. These are a far cry
from the glittering prize specimens of the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s.
Canecutting is now done by machinery, pub life is enjoyed by both

sexes, and lovers coming together to live in an open sexual relationship
for five months every year wouldn’t raise an eyebrow in today’s
Australia. In retrospect, perhaps the key to all three plays is the moment
in the last scene of The Doll when Emma tells Roo that his world has
been lost by time.
Ray Lawler
Elwood, 2012

Summer of the Seventeenth Doll was first produced by the Union
Theatre Repertory Company at the Union Theatre, Melbourne, on
28 November 1955, with the following cast:
PEARL Roma Johnston
BUBBA Fenella Maguire
OLIVE June Jago
BARNEY Ray Lawler
EMMA Carmel Dunn
ROO Noel Ferrier
JOHNNIE Malcolm Billings
Director, John Sumner
Set Designer, Anne Fraser
Ray Lawler wishes to acknowledge the Emeritus Award granted

to him by the Literature Board of the Australia Council, which was
a great help in developing Summer of the Seventeenth Doll into
The Doll Trilogy.

CHARACTERS
BUBBA RYAN, 22
PEARL CUNNINGHAM, early 40s, a widow
OLIVE LEECH,39
EMMA LEECH, approaching 70
BARNEY IBBOT, 40
ROO WEBBER, 41
JOHNNIE DOWD, 25

SETTING
The Leech house in Carlton, Melbourne. A Victorian two-storied
dwelling with verandahs of the period, featuring decorative lacy
ironwork.
There is a sitting room on the ground floor, with an archway that
gives access to a hall containing a flight of stairs, together with a
passage that leads in one direction to the kitchen and in the other
to the street door. A window in the sitting room overlooks the front
verandah, and there are also French windows leading out to a largely
unseen side verandah, heavily laden with shrubs in pots, along with
hanging ferns and plant baskets.
The setting in 1953 reflects Olive’s taste rather than Emma’s, and
marks the passing of household power from mother to daughter.
Most of the solid pieces of furniture have been retained (among them
Emma’s piano and a chaise longue), but the dominant decorative
features are the souvenirs from past summers. Most notable of these
are sixteen kewpie dolls on walking sticks scattered around the
room, stuck behind pictures on the wall, flowering in twos and threes
from vases, and clustered in a pattern over the mantelshelf. They are
accompanied by a collection of colourful mementos that feature a
number of brilliantly-plumaged, stuffed North Queensland birds,
as well as coral pieces and shells from the Great Barrier Reef, and
picture frames backed with black velvet to which cling crowds of
shimmering-winged tropical butterflies. A string of Christmas cards
is looped from the mantelshelf, and a festive decorative centrepiece
hangs from the overhead light bracket. The riot of colour disguises
the fact that the house interior has not been renovated in recent years.
The house garden has been allowed to become a wilderness and,
together with the overgrown ferns and shrubs on the side verandah,
enshroud the house in a tangle of plant life. The overall effect is not
one of gloom, however, but of a glowing interior protected from the
drab outside world by a shifting curtain of light-filtered greenery.

ACT ONE
SCENE ONE
It is five o’clock on a warm Sunday afternoon in early December 1953.
The sitting room table has been set for a celebration meal.
BUBBA is busily tying wide blue ribbons to a couple of red-and-white
striped candy walking sticks. At the same time, she is chatting with shy
but determined authority to PEARL CUNNINGHAM, who is sitting nearby,
smoking and ostensibly leafing her way through a fashion magazine.
PEARL is a widow in her early forties, driven back to earning a living
by the one job she knows well, that of barmaid. Given the choice, she
would prefer something of a more classy nature—head saleswoman in a
dress salon, for instance. The pub game, she feels, is rather crude. She
is wearing what she refers to as her good black, with a double string of
pearls. Very discreet.
BUBBA: So—I was the only one went to the wedding. Autumn it was and
the boys were away, though of course, when Olive wrote up and told
them, they sent down money for a present. But I was the one who had
to buy it and take it along. Olive wouldn’t have anythin’ to do with it.
Wouldn’t even help me pick anythin’ out.
PEARL: [a fishing expedition] The—boys—didn’t mind her getting
married, then?
BUBBA: [frowning a little] Bound to. ’Specially Barney—must’ve been
a shock to him—but like I say, they wouldn’t do anythin’ to stand in
her way. That’s how they are, see. Olive was the one really kicked
up a fuss. Wouldn’t believe, even up to the Saturday afternoon, that
Nance’d go through with it.
PEARL: Seems to me this Nancy had her head screwed on the right way.
BUBBA: [caught, forgetting the candy sticks for a moment] She got tired
of the waitin’, I think. Olive doesn’t mind it, she just looks forward
to the next time, but it used to get on Nance’s nerves a bit. And of
course, she reads a lot, and this feller, this Harry Allaway—he runs a
bookshop, and he’d bring books into the pub for her. I s’pose that’s
how he got around her, really. I don’t reckon Barney’s ever read a
book in his life.

2 SUMMER OF THE SEVENTEENTH DOLL
PEARL: Mmm. [Turning a page] Well, I’m fond of a good book myself,
now and then.
BUBBA: [tolerantly assured] You won’t need any till after April. Even
Nancy, she only used to read in the winter time.
OLIVE’s voice is heard calling urgently from upstairs.
OLIVE: [off] Bubba?!
BUBBA: [moving to the archway] Here!
OLIVE: [off] Those earrings of mine with the green stones?
BUBBA: Haven’t seen them.
OLIVE: [off] Ooh, I’ll bet the old girl’s taken a loan of them.
She knew
I wanted to—no, it’s alright. Here they are. Couldn’t see ’em for
looking.
BUBBA moves back into the room, smiling at PEARL with a half-
apologetic explanation.
BUBBA: Olive always gets a little rattled. Nance and me, we used to
have to joke her out of it. And she’s prob’ly worrying a bit today on
your account—
PEARL: [sharply] Why should she be worried my account? All I’m here
for is a visit—and if Olive’s told you anythin’ else—
BUBBA: [hastily] Oh, she hasn’t. She’d hardly said a word.
PEARL: In that case, then, there’s no need for insinuations.
BUBBA: I wasn’t—
PEARL: Yes, you were. Very cheap and underhanded. What you said
about not needing any books till after April was bad enough.
BUBBA: I was talking of the lay-off. I’ll bet Olive never said there was
anythin’ cheap and underhanded about the—
PEARL: Never mind what Olive said. Strikes me you know too much of
this place for your own good.
BUBBA: I’ve lived next door all my life. Why shouldn’t I—?
PEARL: I’m not going to argue. You just shouldn’t, that’s all.
Her tone is final enough to silence BUBBA, and it is in this hostile
pause that OLIVE comes swiftly downstairs.
OLIVE: Hang on to your hats and mittens, kids, here I come again.
She moves into the sitting room with a determined and excited
gaiety, wearing a crisp green-and-white summer dress that she
displays with a brash self-mockery.

ACT ONE 3
What d’you think this time? Snazzy enough? Mightn’t knock your
eye out, but it’s nice and cool, and it’s the sort of thing Roo likes.
Fresh and green, and not too got-up—
She postures for their comments, and BUBBA, still a little unsettled
by her spat with PEARL, volunteers automatic approval.
BUBBA: Yes, it’s lovely.
OLIVE: Pearl?
PEARL: Ye-es. Not me, but it suits you.
OLIVE: Well, have to do, anyway. Haven’t time to change again. Now,
what else is there? I know—nice cold bottle of beer.
BUBBA: [quickly] I’ll get it.
OLIVE: [after her departing figure] Would you, love? Top lot in the fridge.
Ooh, she’s a good kid, that.
PEARL: Yes. I’d say she knows more than her prayers, just the same.
OLIVE: Bubba? Don’t be silly. Only a baby.
PEARL: Not too much of a baby. If Vera spoke to me the way she does,
I’d put her back across my knee. And it’s more than talk, it’s the way
she acts—
OLIVE: Oh, c’mon.
PEARL: Far too much at home.
OLIVE: Well, what d’you expect? She’s been runnin’ in and out here ever
since she could walk—Roo and Barney, she treats ’em like they was
uncles.
Deliberately making light of PEARL’s reservations with a head-
shaking laugh.
God, you’re a wag. Talk about Cautious Kate.
PEARL: How?
OLIVE: Look at them suitcases by the stairs. You’d think someone was
gettin’ ready for a moonlight flit.
PEARL: Only common sense. I’ve taken my overnighter up, and I’m not
takin’ anything else until I’m certain.
OLIVE: Wouldn’t have asked you, y’know, if I hadn’t thought it worth
your while.
PEARL: I’ll find that out for myself, if you don’t mind.
OLIVE: Your decision. Said so from the start, no-one’s tryin’ to talk you
into anything. Just don’t take too long mullin’ it over, that’s all.

OLIVE dismisses these foolish quibbles for a survey of the table,

and PEARL feels the need to make amends.
PEARL: Where’s that photograph you said you’d show me?
OLIVE: Oh, yes.
She collects a framed photograph from somewhere and takes it to
PEARL.
You can see him much better in this one. Those others, he was always
clownin’ around.
They study the photograph together.
It’s the four of us at Luna Park, the year before last. Roo, me, Barn—
and Nance is on the end there.
PEARL: She looks drunk.
OLIVE: She was, a bit. Right after that was taken, she got sick on the
Ocean Wave.
PEARL: I know the type.
OLIVE: No, you don’t. Wasn’t like that really. Nance was… [a hundred
memories] … she was a real good sport. Barney, he was pretty mad
about her.
PEARL: ’S obvious. The way he’s holding her. Bit intimate, isn’t it? Even
for Luna Park.
OLIVE: Look, Pearl, you’d better make up your mind. [She takes the
photograph away to replace it.] These are a couple of canecutters
from the tropics. Not two professors from the university.
PEARL: He’ll never lay hands on me like that in public, just the same.
OLIVE: Wouldn’t be too sure. He gets away with murder, Barney.
PEARL: I’ll believe that when I see it. Didn’t seem to stop her goin’ off
and gettin’ married.
OLIVE: [a touch of steel] She made a mistake.
PEARL: Who says?
OLIVE: I say. Marriage is different. And Nancy knew it.
PEARL: I’ll guarantee she made herself cheap. A woman keeps her self-
respect, any man will toe the line.
OLIVE: Wouldn’t bank on that, Pearl. Not with Barney.
PEARL: Oh, I’m not anticipatin’ anything. But from what you’ve said,
it’s time some decent woman took this feller in hand. Never heard
of anyone with more reasons to toe the line in all my life.
OLIVE: Maybe I shouldn’t have told you?

ACT ONE 5
Helen Thomson as Pearl in the 2011 Belvoir production at the Belvoir St

Theatre, Sydney. (Photo: Heidrun Löhr)
PEARL: Don’t you worry, I’d have found out. I’m a mother myself—a
thing like that, you couldn’t fool me.
OLIVE: Prob’ly tell you himself, anyway. Doesn’t make any secret of it.
BUBBA enters hurriedly, with a glass in each hand and a bottle
of beer tucked under her arm.
BUBBA: Ooh, this beer is co–old—
OLIVE moves to relieve her of the bottle and glasses.
And we forgot the salad dressing.
OLIVE: Sugar.
BUBBA: ’S alright, I mixed some up in the little blue jug. Wasn’t any
vinegar, though, I took a bottle from your mother’s cupboard.
OLIVE: She’ll love that. What about your walkin’ sticks?
BUBBA: All done. Bows and everything. [She moves to collect the candy
sticks.] Only got to put them up—
PEARL: What are they in aid of ?
OLIVE: Tell her, Bub.
BUBBA: [lamely] Nothin’, really—just a bit of a joke. One’s for Roo,
and one’s for Barney.

OLIVE puts the bottle and glasses aside and takes over the
narrative. Generally from a wish to involve PEARL in the ritual of
the lay-off, but there’s also an element of defiance, daring PEARL
to sit in judgement.
OLIVE: Started off the first year they came down here. She was only a
little scrap of a thing—how old were you, Bub?
BUBBA: [positioning the sticks on the mantelshelf] Five.
OLIVE: She was always in and out the house, and when Roo brought me
the first lot of presents and she saw the doll among ’em, she howled
her eyes out. She wanted a doll on a walkin’ stick too, she said. So
out the two of them go—after eight o’clock at night it was—tryin’ to
bang up a shop to get her one. But all they could find were these lolly
walkin’ sticks, and in the end that’s what they brought her back, tied
up with coloured ribbons. Well, she was as happy as Larry, didn’t
miss the doll a bit. So after that it got to be a habit, every year the
boys’d bring her down these candy-striped things, all tied up with—
BUBBA: Till I was fifteen.
OLIVE: Oh yes, this is funny—listen. Didn’t seem to wake up she was
gettin’ far too old for lolly walkin’ sticks and hair ribbons—kept on
bringin’ ’em down, bringin’ ’em down—so in the end, Nancy put
her up to a dodge. The year after the war, when she was fifteen, and
they arrived with their bundles of presents, there she had a walkin’
stick for each of them—gussied up with blue ribbons, and sittin’ on
the mantelpiece. Taught ’em a lesson alright. Ever since then, when
they’ve brought me down a doll and things, they’ve always brought
her gloves, or scent, or—somethin’ she’d appreciate.
A faint pause. PEARL is unimpressed with the story and makes
little attempt to hide it.
PEARL: I see.
BUBBA: [a trifle shamefaced] I said it was only a bit of a joke.
OLIVE: Makes them laugh, though. Every time.
BUBBA: Anythin’ else you want me to do, Ol?
OLIVE: No, thanks, love. But you’re goin’ to stay and see them in?
BUBBA: No, no, no. I’ve got to change, and everythin’.
OLIVE: [understanding her reservation] Well—just as you please.
She walks BUBBA to the French windows, adjusting the collar of
her dress as they go, a fond accustomed patronage.

ACT ONE 7
Wouldn’t care to come and eat with us?

BUBBA: Better not. I’ll drop in after.
OLIVE: Right you are. But don’t leave it too long now. They’ll be looking
for you.
BUBBA: Yes.
BUBBA hugs OLIVE briefly and goes. OLIVE glances up at the
sunset sky.
OLIVE: That mother of mine should be home by now. Community singin’
must have been out hours ago.
PEARL: [consulting her wristwatch] It is gettin’ on.
OLIVE: Wouldn’t mind bettin’ she’s gone down to the terminal to meet
them. She’ll get a fiver each out of them ’fore they know where they
are.
PEARL: Your mother?
OLIVE: It’s the old boardin’ house thing. She shakes ’em down for all
they’re worth the whole time that they’re here. [She moves back into
the room.] They know what she’s up to, of course, but they don’t
mind. ’Fact, I think Roo likes it. Sort of game between them— [She
pauses, with a tender smile, before the framed photograph.] Good
old Roo. Got the best-lookin’ mouth in the world, I reckon.
PEARL starts to inspect her appearance at the mantelshelf mirror.
PEARL: Certainly seems a better proposition than the other one.
OLIVE: [hastily] Oh, you can’t compare them. Different types. Roo’s the
big man of the two, but it’s Barney makes you laugh. And like I say,
it’s Barney that the women go for.
PEARL: Pity about the height, just the same. I don’t know why it is I
always seem to get caught up with little men—even Wallie, he was
shorter than me. The day we got married, I had to wear low heels.
OLIVE: Barney’s not all that short. Average, I’d say.
PEARL: Yes. Well—more to it than height, of course. How do you think
my hair looks?
OLIVE: Great. Looks great. I thought when you arrived.
PEARL: Cut’s alright. But nobody can tell me that new girl at Renee’s
knows a thing about my colouring—what’s the Barney stand for,
anyway?
OLIVE: Barney’s bull, I think. His right name’s Arthur.
PEARL: Barney’s—?

OLIVE: [running on] You know how it is with fellers like these. Always
have the silliest nicknames. Roo—you can imagine what I thought
the Roo stood for when we first met. Laughed his head off when I
told him. Short, of course, for his real name—Reuben. Wouldn’t it
kill you? Reuben.
PEARL: ’S out the Bible, Reuben.
OLIVE: Yes. I keep telling my mother. Doesn’t make the slightest
difference—
A car horn is heard from the street and OLIVE moves swiftly to
the front window.
Ooh, me beads—that’s not them, is it? No. Car up the road. Nearly
died. [With an assessing look at the room] Not that there’s much more
to do. I know—ashtrays.
She sets off for the kitchen and can be heard after a second or
two breaking out into the half-remembered lyric of some old music
hall song. Left to herself, a still discontented and uncertain PEARL
moves to pick up the framed photograph. She takes it away to the
better light by the French windows, where she subjects it to a close
scrutiny. OLIVE re-enters with a handful of small ashtrays, talking
as she comes.
Hey, did you hear that Charlie in the saloon bar last night? All the
time we were cleanin’ up, he kept on whistling ‘Old Black Magic’.
[Placing the ashtrays] Says he always knows when Roo and Barn are
on the way. I start wearing shoes behind the bar, instead of slippers—
She becomes aware of PEARL’s concentration on the photograph.
What’s the matter?
PEARL: Nothing. Just having another look.
OLIVE: [with a half laugh] Better watch out. Or you’ll start hatin’
everything before they even get here.
PEARL: [still absorbed] No, I won’t. Same time, I’m not letting myself
in for any nasty mess, either.
OLIVE: [staring] Mess? What makes you think I’d be havin’ anything to
do with it, if there was any—?
PEARL: Doesn’t matter for you. You don’t have a daughter to think of.
Vera’s just at that age, I’ve got to be careful. Cottons on to me doin’
anything wrong, she could break out the same way.

ACT ONE 9
OLIVE: [in quick hostility] Now look, that’s one thing I’m not goin’ to
stand for.
She whips the photograph away from a surprised PEARL.
Right from the word go.
PEARL: What?
OLIVE: You know what. That respectable wife and mother stunt. Don’t
you try and put that over on me.
PEARL: I didn’t say a word—
OLIVE: You said ‘wrong’, didn’t you? And ‘nasty mess’? That’s enough.
I’ve told you over and over again what this lay-off is, yet every time
you open your mouth, you make it sound like somethin’—low and
dirty. Well, if that’s the way you look at it, you don’t have to stay,
y’know—you can pack your bags and clear out ’fore they even get
here.
PEARL: Just because I don’t think it’s altogether—
OLIVE: Just because of that.
PEARL: Nobody would say it was a decent way of living—
OLIVE: Wouldn’t they? I would. I’ve seen every sort of set-up you can
mention, and I’ve never come across anythin’ more decent in my life.
Decency—it depends on the people. And don’t you say it doesn’t.
PEARL: I meant decent like marriage. That’s different, you said yourself
it was—
OLIVE: [with a slight shudder] ’S different, right enough. Compared to
all the marriages I know, what I got is— [groping with her depth of
feeling] —five months of heaven every year. And it’s the same for
them—seven months they spend up there killin’ themselves in the
cane season, and then they come down here to live a little. That’s
what the lay-off is—not just playin’ around and spendin’ a lot of
money, but a time for livin’. You think I haven’t sized it up against
what all those married women have? I laugh every time that they
look down their noses at me. Even waitin’ for Roo to come back is
more excitin’ than their little lot. [She takes the photograph to thump
it down in its usual position.] So you make up your mind—you’re
either goin’ to be polite to them and hang on till you get to know
Barney well enough to decide, or you can make a move right now.
She moves to the bottle of beer, wrenches off the cap, and starts to
pour a glass, as PEARL defends herself with an aggrieved dignity.

PEARL: Well, I don’t know what it’ll be like living here, if you can’t even
pass an opinion—
OLIVE snorts, but PEARL persists.
Seems to me these fellers take things far too much for granted.
OLIVE: Here—sit down and shut up, if you can’t talk sense.
She thrusts a glass of beer on PEARL and returns to pour one for
herself.
PEARL: You said yourself, they hardly ever write you from the time they
go ’way till the time they come back.
OLIVE: They don’t have to write me. I know where they are. Workin’ their
way through up North.
PEARL: ’Least, they could let you know how they’re gettin’ on.
OLIVE: Cuttin’ cane—what can they say about that? Roo’s one of the top
gangers—runs his own team—but even down here, you never get him
yappin’ ’bout his season’s tally. That’s all his part of it.
PEARL: Well, it beats me how you stand it. I know with Wallie, I used to
worry all the time. Even if he was late comin’ home from work, I used
to worry.
OLIVE: With these you don’t have to. These are—
PEARL: —men. You keep tellin’ me.
OLIVE: Not the sort that we see rollin’ home to their wives every night—
PEARL: Never knew that there was any difference.
OLIVE: Well, you wouldn’t, would you? [Remembering with a defiant
pride] Nancy used to say it was how they’d walk into the pub as if
they owned it—even just in the way they walked, you could spot it. All
around would be the regulars, soft city blokes havin’ their drinks and
their little arguments, and then in would come Roo and Barney. They
wouldn’t say anythin’—didn’t have to—there’d just be the two of them
walkin’ in, with a wait for a second or two, and quiet. After that, without
a word, the regulars’d stand aside to let ’em through—as if they were a
couple of kings. She always said they made the rest of the fellers in the
bar look like a bunch of skinned rabbits. [Softly] Poor old Nance.
PEARL: She got what she wanted, didn’t she?
OLIVE: [hungrily] I’d like to ask her. Right now, with them expected
any minute, and her sittin’ chained up to that—book bloke—I’d like
to ask her if she thinks it’s worth it. And I’ll bet that’s one question
she wouldn’t be able to laugh her way out of.

ACT ONE 11
OLIVE drinks deeply, watched by a not entirely convinced PEARL.

PEARL: [at length] Well—you know her, I don’t. I’m sorry if I put you
out.
OLIVE: Ah, my fault for flyin’ off the handle. It’s just that for a moment
there, you sounded like my mother. She’s fond of Roo, y’know, but
every now and then—and always when you least expect it—
PEARL: I know. Had an aunt like that. Saved things up for family funerals.
[Impulsively] Look, I don’t know I can go through with it, Vera and
everythin’. But I promise I’ll do what you say—be polite to them
when they arrive, and wait to see what happens.
OLIVE: That’s it—all it needs—you’re here on a visit, and you’re bein’
introduced to someone. Let’s have another drink on it.
She picks up the bottle with the intention of replenishing their
glasses.
PEARL: I’ll stay with this, I think. Can’t rush beer. I get a little—gassy.
OLIVE: Oh, c’mon. We’ll have to get rid of the bottle. Otherwise they’ll
think we started off without them—
PEARL: Well—
She offers her barely-touched glass and, in the act of topping it up,
OLIVE is caught by some sound from the street. She pauses, with
her head turned towards the front window.
What is it?
OLIVE: Ssshh.
A car horn is heard blaring in approach, and OLIVE responds with
a fierce joy.
Too late—it’s them. They’re here!
OLIVE rushes off to shove her empty glass and the beer bottle out
of sight somewhere. PEARL, meanwhile, rises to her feet in a near
panic, very conscious of the full glass she is holding.
PEARL: What’ll I do with this?
OLIVE: Drink it, of course.
She snatches a small paper bag from the sideboard, transfers
something from it to her mouth and thrusts the bag on PEARL,
frantically gulping at her beer.

Peppermints.
Outside the house, a taxi has arrived with a raucous ‘Om Tiddly
Om Pom’ on its horn, as OLIVE takes a last hurried look around
the room and moves to open the front door. We hear a lusty hail
from the street and voices raised in hectic argument.
ROO: [off] Hey—the house?! Wake up in there—!
BARNEY: [off] This is it, Emma—
EMMA: [off] Don’t you lay a hand on me.
BARNEY: [off] —always wanted to carry you over the threshold.
EMMA: [off] Barney—put me down. You put me down, you silly—
Barney!
OLIVE reaches the front verandah as BARNEY comes into view,
carrying EMMA over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. EMMA is
beating at his back in a protest that is half affronted pride and half
covert enjoyment.
BARNEY: [greeting OLIVE] Hey, missus, where’s your trash heap? Got
some old sugar gone dry—
OLIVE stands aside, laughing, to allow them access to the house,
and then moves to the edge of the verandah in a state of mounting
joy. ROO appears, heavily laden with items of luggage, which he
lets slide from him to take OLIVE in his arms. They kiss long and
passionately, to a parting blast on its horn from the taxi. Meanwhile,
inside the house, PEARL—unable to cope with her beer—has
hidden the glass and peppermints behind a vase, and hurriedly
mopped at her mouth with a lace-edged handkerchief. She then
watches, with a restrained apprehension that she hopes looks like
amusement, as BARNEY pauses with the struggling EMMA at the
archway entrance to the sitting room. BARNEY registers PEARL
with a pretended surprise and admonishes EMMA.
Hey now, stop all this, you wicked old thing. Ought to have more
sense. Playin’ up like that in front of visitors—
EMMA: Visitors—her? She’s the one I told you about—
BARNEY: [depositing EMMA on the chaise longue] Give the place a bad
name.
EMMA: —down there at the terminal.
BARNEY: Didn’t hear a word you said. Bit deaf from the plane.

ACT ONE 13
Susie Porter as Olive and Steve Le Marquand as Roo in the 2011 Belvoir
production at the Belvoir St Theatre, Sydney. (Photo: Heidrun Löhr)
He moves down to PEARL, watched with cynical scorn by EMMA.

Almost seventy now, EMMA’s awareness of events is as keen as ever,
but she is reconciled these days to her place in the back seat, and
her tidiness and rectitude have become slipshod with the years.
Sorry—just got in from Queensland. Olive’s given you the nod, has
she? I’m Barney.
PEARL: [breathlessly] Yes. She did mention—I’m Mrs Cunningham.
How d’you do?
She offers her hand awkwardly, and BARNEY takes it, not shaking
it, but holding it gently as though to assess its weight.
BARNEY: [grinning] Feelin’ better every minute. How’s yourself?
Conscious of his continued grasp, PEARL dabs at her throat with
the lace-edged wisp of handkerchief.
PEARL: Oh, y’ know—a bit hot.
EMMA bursts into a derisive snort of laughter, and dismisses them
both by rising to head off towards the kitchen. BARNEY releases
PEARL to call after her.

BARNEY: Ah, I can see I’m gunna have to take you in hand. They been
lettin’ you run wild. [Handsomely, to PEARL] Sorry about that.
OLIVE: Sorry about what?
OLIVE arrives in the sitting room, followed by ROO, both of them
carrying items of luggage.
BARNEY: Emma. It’s the community singin’, I think. All those swingin’
choruses—
He moves to embrace OLIVE as she sets the luggage aside.
And how about you, eh? Not down at Swanston Street to see us in?
OLIVE: Things to do. Place doesn’t just prepare itself, y’know. [A glance
towards PEARL] You two have met, have you?
BARNEY: Us two? Bet your life. ’Least, we got as far as Barney and
Mrs Cunningham.
OLIVE: Pearl. It’s—
PEARL: [flummoxed] —Pearl. Of course. I didn’t mean to—goodness.
BARNEY: Pearl—might have known. Funny how their names fit some
people, isn’t it?
OLIVE: Roo—where’s Roo? Come on—leave all that till after.
ROO has been shedding luggage and putting it in order during the
above, and OLIVE links his arm to bring him proudly and lovingly
forward to PEARL’s notice.
Want you to meet a friend of mine. Pearl Cunningham—Roo Webber.
PEARL: How d’you do?
ROO: [pushing back his hat with a nod] Pleased to meet you.
Mrs Cunningham, is it?
OLIVE: Yes. [Understanding his reservation] Pearl’s a widow.
ROO: Aah—
ROO and PEARL shake hands, as BARNEY registers the candy
walking sticks, and grabs one from the mantelshelf with deliberate
high spirits.
BARNEY: Hey, look at this, will you? Where is she? Where’s that Bubba?
OLIVE: Home.
BARNEY: [heading for the French windows] What’s she doin’ at home?
Ought to be in here—
OLIVE: She’s coming in after—

ACT ONE 15
BARNEY: [yelling from the side verandah] Buubbaa—what are you hidin’
for?! Scared someone’s goin’ to tan your hide with a fancy walkin’
stick?!
BUBBA: [off, a laughing reply from the distance] Take a bigger man than
you, Mister Ibbot!
ROO joins BARNEY on the side verandah as OLIVE guides PEARL
soothingly to one side.
OLIVE: Don’t worry. They’ll calm down in a minute or so—
ROO: [an overlapping yell to BUBBA] What about me, then?!
laughs in the distance.
BUBBA
How’re you goin’, Bub?!
BUBBA: [off] Fine—I’m fine!
OLIVE: [approaching the French windows] Cut it out, you two. It’s
Sunday. Come inside—you’ll see her after.
She takes BARNEY’s arm to draw him back into the room, as ROO
calls in farewell.
ROO: Don’t you be too long comin’ in now!
BUBBA: [off] I won’t!
BARNEY slips an affectionate arm around OLIVE and kisses her
cheek.
BARNEY: And how’s the world’s best barmaid these days?
OLIVE: You mean me? Or Pearl?
BARNEY: Pearl? Don’t tell me Pearl’s a—
OLIVE: Same pub—same bar.
BARNEY: [genially, but with a slight edge] Well—really does make it
seem like old times.
He releases OLIVE and moves to replace the candy walking
stick, as EMMA makes a furious re-entrance, complaining as she
comes.
EMMA: Who’s been at my cupboard? Takin’ things that don’t belong to
them? S’pose you thought I wouldn’t notice—
ROO: ’Lo, hullo—what’s bitin’ Emma?
EMMA: Vinegar, that’s what bitin’ me. Who’s been at my good wine
vinegar?
OLIVE: A tiny skerrick to put in a salad dressing—

EMMA: A whole half bottle, that’s how much a skerrick it was. That’s my
private cupboard, and I’ve told you—I don’t want you goin’ anywhere
near it.
OLIVE: Makes us quits, then. I told you I didn’t want you goin’ anywhere
near the airways.
EMMA: Community singin’ was out early, or it wouldn’t have crossed me
mind—and you should be glad I did go. Or these larrikins wouldn’t
even be here—
BARNEY: [covering] Hold your horses, Emma. Don’t know what you’re
talkin’ about—
EMMA: Don’t I just?
ROO: All that fuss about a bit of vinegar. Got enough to buy a new bottle,
didn’t you?
EMMA: Two quid. Two paltry single notes, a fortune. [To her daughter]
I’m tellin’ you for the last time—you touch my cupboard again, and
I’m off down to Russell Street—
BARNEY, ROO & OLIVE: [a united chorus] —just as fast as me legs can
carry me.
EMMA: Be laughin’ the other side of your faces, once the johns get after
you.
EMMA leaves, BARNEY calling as she goes.
BARNEY: What d’you need vinegar for, anyway, you wicked old thing?
Sour enough now!
There is a general laugh, even PEARL venturing mild appreciation,
before ROO indicates the luggage.
ROO: Better start to get this lot upstairs, I s’pose.
OLIVE: Just your own, then. Barney’s got some things to see to.
BARNEY: I do?
OLIVE: Telegram, for a start.
She fetches an envelope from the mantelshelf and gives it to BARNEY.
Came on Friday.
BARNEY: [covering] Aaah—be from Makarandi, prob’ly. Wishin’ me a
happy holiday.
OLIVE: Somethin’ like that.
ROO has collected the luggage and carries it away upstairs, as
OLIVE moves to PEARL.

ACT ONE 17
Pearl, I wonder if you’d mind rescuin’ that salad dressing? The old
girl’s just as likely to pour it down the gully trap—
PEARL: [thankfully] Yes, of course. A little blue jug.
PEARL makes a grateful escape and OLIVE turns back to BARNEY
who has opened the telegram, to stare at it in silence. He eventually
reads her the message.
BARNEY: ‘Up there, Cazaly. Lots of love. Nance.’
OLIVE: [bitterly] ’Least, she might’ve said that she was sorry. Hope it
hasn’t put you out.
He does not respond.
Well, her decision, she made up her mind. It’s over, Barney.
BARNEY. You reckon?
OLIVE: I swore the day she married, I’d never have the two of you again
in this house ever.
BARNEY: And just to make sure, you invited Pearl along?
OLIVE: Far as you’re concerned, Pearl’s here to keep me company.
And don’t imagine she’s that keen on anythin’ more. She’s got a
daughter, Vera—kid of eighteen living with relations—Pearl’s
pretty much the straightlaced mother. ’Fact, she’s got her bags piled
up under the stairs, and you make any sort of wrong move, she’ll be
out of here before you even—
BARNEY: Oh—one of them, is she?
OLIVE: No, she’s not. She’s a very decent sort, once you get to know
her.
BARNEY: If I do.
OLIVE: Up to you. But just remember, Nancy’s gone for good.
Clearly considering that an awkward subject has been dealt
with, OLIVE turns to collect her empty glass and the opened
bottle of beer, intending to take these off to the kitchen.
BARNEY: [a little nettled] Okay. But reckon you ought to know—
you’ve got a bit of a battle ahead of you too. What Emma said just
now about the terminal was true.
eyes him in passing, questioning him.
OLIVE
When you weren’t there to meet us, Roo was talking about goin’ off
to some place in North Melbourne.

OLIVE: [dismissively] Oh, go on. Lots of times I haven’t been down to

meet you. Saturdays—
BARNEY: Isn’t that. It’s havin’ to face you with no money in his pocket.
OLIVE: Roo?
BARNEY: Hard to credit, start of the lay-off, but—he’s broke.
OLIVE: Barney, if this is one of your stupid jokes—
BARNEY: Think I’d joke about a thing like that? Hasn’t got a bean. I had
to buy his plane ticket down—
Touched with sudden dread, OLIVE shoves the bottle and glass
aside and moves swiftly for the stairs.
No, don’t go runnin’ up to him—he’s chock-a-block. Better hear it
all from me.
OLIVE: [returning to ask] What happened?
BARNEY: Been a bloody awful season. First start off, Roo strained his
back—oh, nothin’ serious. Happens lots of fellers cuttin’ cane—
better now, in any case. But what it meant is that he had to push
himself to make his tally. A tough man on the job, Roo—got no
time for anyone who can’t keep up the pace. Reason why, this year,
he dropped old Tony Moreno. Must have heard us talk of Tony,
real character, been with the team for ages. But Roo thought he
was gettin’ too old for the job, and he dropped Tony—took on in
his place a young bloke we had heard a lot about, name of Johnnie
Dowd—
OLIVE: [rejecting the detail] I don’t want to hear about some—
BARNEY: Listen to me, willya? He’s been brought up on the canefields,
this young Dowd, he knew all the ropes, and pretty soon the boys
were calling him a champion young ganger in the making. More to
get Roo’s goat than anythin’, they didn’t like old Tony Moreno bein’
dumped like that. What Roo should’ve done, of course, was take no
notice, ’stead he put himself to work by this young Dowd. Show the
kid and everybody else just who was top dog—
OLIVE: Should have stopped him—
BARNEY: Me? Even with a busted back, I thought that Roo would romp
it in. But he was fast, this kid, with both the cuttin’ and the loadin’,
and pretty soon it got to be a running fight between ’em. Kept it up
for weeks, with the boys eggin’ them on from the side lines. Till one
afternoon, about two months ago—Roo’s back, I reckon, just gave

ACT ONE 19
up on him, and he collapsed down on his knees. Never saw anything

like that, he just— Anyway, him and Dowd were cuttin’ side by side,
and when the young bloke looked back and he saw Roo on his knees,
he starts to laugh. Well, that was it. Roo went for him there and then,
and it was on, a real fight, cane knives and the lot—
OLIVE: Oh, God.
BARNEY: Took six of us to separate them, could have been murder, I
reckon. Even so, when it was over—afterwards—Roo could have
made things right. If he’s just laughed, y’know, and shook hands,
made a joke of it. Instead, he packed his bag and walked out on the
team that night, without a by-your-leave to anyone.
is mute with the account, and BARNEY sets himself to
OLIVE
reveal his own shameful role in the proceedings.
I didn’t see him after that, Roo, till I picked him up in Brisbane a
couple of days ago.
OLIVE: [shocked] You didn’t go off with him? When he walked out?
BARNEY shakes an averted head.
Why not?
BARNEY: [genuinely upset] I dunno. Him bein’ in the wrong, I reckon.
Coz he was, y’know. He was in the bloody wrong—
OLIVE: Wrong or not, he was your mate.
BARNEY: I know, I know. But he was wrong—
OLIVE: You should’ve walked out with him.
BARNEY: And I would have—but it threw me. All the years the two of
us have knocked around, I’ve never seen him in the wrong before.
I needed time to nut it out—
OLIVE: [No time for sympathy] All right, all right—you stayed with the
team and let him go—what then?
BARNEY: Nothin’. That was it. End of the season, I asked around, and
picked him up in Brisbane. Friday mornin’ last. He’d been on the
booze for weeks, by the look of it. Spending all his cash and lettin’
things just go to hell. Didn’t want to talk about it much—and of
course, I had to make it all worse, tellin’ him the boys had made
young Dowd ganger in his place.
Unperceived by either of them, ROO starts to come downstairs,
as BARNEY defends himself against OLIVE’s accusing stare.

Well, someone had to take the job on. And the kid did pretty well
—got to give him credit. Made a very smart fist of it.
ROO: [at the archway] Yeah. And have you told her about the big booze-
up he threw to celebrate, end of the season? Big thank-you to all of
you?
ROO moves into the room, and BARNEY avoids his eye.
BARNEY: [ashamedly] Bein’ sarcastic won’t get you anywhere.
ROO: Blabber gutsin’ doesn’t take you far, either.
OLIVE: It’s my fault, I asked him. [To BARNEY] Better get your bags
upstairs.
BARNEY picks up his belongings.
Oh—you’re in the little back room, end of the passage.
BARNEY: [wryly] Is it as bad as that?
He carries his bags upstairs, and only then does ROO break a
tensely embarrassed pause.
ROO: If I know him when he opens his big trap, I shouldn’t think he’s
left me much to tell.
OLIVE: [tightly] One or two things. Where it was that you were thinkin’
of going to in North Melbourne, f’r instance.
ROO: Who the hell cares about that?
OLIVE: Me, for one. I’d like to know what’s around there that you can’t
get here?
ROO: Got a sort of cousin. Bloke named Artie Wallace.
OLIVE: Well, that’s lovely, that is. After seventeen years, first time you
need help, that’s who you go to—bloke named Artie Wallace in
North Melbourne.
ROO: Olive, I am broke. Don’t you understand? I am flat, stony, stinkin’
broke.
OLIVE: Oh, yes. And I’d care a lot about that, wouldn’t I? That’s how
I’ve always met you here—standin’ on the front verandah, wantin’
to know how much money you’ve got in your—
She turns away, fighting back sudden gasping tears. Reduced to a
state of humble entreaty, ROO comes from behind to take her in his
arms, drawing her to him with the ease of long familiarity.
ROO: Ol, I wasn’t thinkin’. C’mon, hon. You know I didn’t mean that.
OLIVE: Should be kicked. If you need cash—

ACT ONE 21
ROO: I wasn’t after cash. I thought this Wallace might be able to put me
onto some sort of a job.
OLIVE: [twisting in his arms to face him] A job?
ROO: Show me how to raise the wind down here.
OLIVE: What’s wrong with me? I’m workin’, ain’t I? You can lay off, way
you always do, and—
ROO: I won’t bludge on you—look, let’s forget it. I’ll work somethin’
out. All that matters now is that I’m here, on the spot. The rest of it is
nothin’—you pleased to see me?
OLIVE: [huskily, through her tears] If you hadn’t have come, I would’ve
gone lookin’ for you with a razor.
They share a long kiss, from which ROO emerges a little shaken.
ROO: Know what we both need, don’t you? A nice long beer to cool us
down.
OLIVE draws away giggling, her spirits already on an upsurge.
OLIVE: We were in the middle of crackin’ a bottle ’fore you got here.
She holds up the bottle in evidence and ROO joins in her laughter.
ROO: Well—what a pair of jump-the-gunners. [He moves to yell upstairs,
intent on fostering a party.] Hey, you up there! Come on down! Looks
like we got time to make up—!
He turns back to the sitting room, where OLIVE is switching on the
wireless.
That’s the ticket—yeah—and Mrs What’shername, and Emma—
OLIVE: [moving for the hallway] Isn’t Mrs What’shername, it’s— [Calling
towards the kitchen] Pearl—bring in some fresh bottles, will you?!
PEARL: [off, from the kitchen] Right you are!
BARNEY hastens downstairs with an armful of wrapped presents,
carrying the seventeenth doll. He slips by OLIVE to enter the
sitting room and pass the doll to ROO, who shoves it behind his
back. OLIVE, unaware of this, is engaged in a verbal tussle with
EMMA, against light orchestral music building from the wireless.
OLIVE: And we need glasses—tell my mother.
EMMA: [off] Don’t need tellin’—people orderin’ me around in my own
kitchen—
OLIVE: Order? It’s an invitation—

EMMA: [off] And I don’t need invitations in my own house, either.

Laughing, OLIVE turns back to the sitting room.
ROO: Neck or nothin’ time, I reckon. [Holding the doll aloft, with a grin]
Here you are—the seventeenth.
PEARL arrives in the hallway with glasses and bottles of beer, with
BARNEY a witness on the sidelines, as ROO tosses the doll. OLIVE
catches it in mid-air with a cry of sheer happiness, and fiercely
cradles it to her as the wireless music reaches a triumphant
flourish.
SCENE TWO
The following morning.

The sitting room has a stale, after-the-party look. Used items of crockery
from last night’s meal still clutter the table, the floor has a scattering of
crumpled wrapping paper, and there is an overturned chair somewhere.
EMMA comes from the kitchen with a small floor rug that she takes
out onto the front verandah to hang over the wrought-iron rail. She
looks at the sky, senses the air, and calls back through the open street
door.
EMMA: Better take your coat with you, Olly. Looks like rain.
OLIVE: [off, from the kitchen] A day like today?! You’re mad!
EMMA: Alright, then. Don’t be told.
She moves out into the front garden to return with two bottles
of milk and a morning newspaper. She re-enters the house to
encounter ROO, in shirt and trousers, descending the stairs. She
thrusts the newspaper at him.
Here—there’s goin’ to be a cool change.
ROO: Them weather blokes don’t know nothin’.
EMMA: ’S not the weather blokes says so, it’s me.
ROO: [grinning] Ah. That’s different.
EMMA takes the bottles of milk off to the kitchen. ROO enters the
sitting room to register its frowstiness, puts the newspaper aside,
and crosses to open the French windows. He stands for a moment
breathing the fresh air and scratching his belly in the morning

ACT ONE 23
sunlight, before moving out of sight to return carrying clinking

empty beer bottles, as OLIVE comes into the room from the direction
of the kitchen. She is dressed for work in a light summer frock and
has just finished breakfast.
OLIVE: Roo?
ROO: That silly Barney. Tossing these out in the yard. [Putting the bottles
aside] Larrikin stuff.
OLIVE: [hugging him] Pearl didn’t like it, either.
ROO: Or the fuss he made outside her bedroom door last night, I wouldn’t
think. [He collects the newspaper.] No chance them two are gunna hit
it off, y’know.
OLIVE: Thought it might help take his mind up. Someone bein’ here when
he arrived?
ROO dismisses this with a shake of his head, as he rights the
overturned chair, and OLIVE shelves the possibility as well.
Well—long as he knows that Nancy’s out o’ the runnin’. That’s the
main thing.
ROO sits on the chair, unfolding the paper, and OLIVE rubs a loving
hand against his bristling cheek.
If you’d stayed in bed a minute longer, I’d have brought your break
fast up.
ROO: You know I don’t like eatin’ in bed.
OLIVE: Wouldn’t hurt for once. [Massaging his neck] How’s your back?
Barney told me how you strained it.
ROO eyes her in sharp question.
’Least, not how you did it, how it slowed you down so much. Made
it hard for you to show that young bloke who was top man on the
team, and that?
ROO: Trust Barney.
OLIVE: You saw a doctor about it, I hope? Didn’t just—
ROO: Better ask him. He’s got all the news and views.
OLIVE: [a playful slap] Righto. No-one’s goin’ to make an invalid of
you. Know you hate bein’ sick.
She leaves him to pick up the seventeenth doll. She appraises it
tenderly.

Ah look—prettier than ever. First thing I told Pearl about when we

got talkin’ of the lay-off. Not that she really cottoned on. Imagines
these and the stuff from up North, coral ’n’ the shells ’n’ butterflies,
they’re all some sort of a hobby. [A spurt of laughter as she moves
around, trying the position of the doll against various backgrounds.]
Like I was collectin’ stamps, y’know, or picture postcards. [Pausing
in question with the kewpie] Where’ll I put her?
ROO: Maybe ought to start on upstairs. Gettin’ a bit crowded down below.
OLIVE: Kittens. Belongs right here with the others. [She places the doll
in a nearby vase, and arranges it approvingly.] There—beautiful.
[Looking around with a sigh of relief and satisfaction] All falls into
place when you arrive.
She realises ROO is watching her and in swift accord she moves to
slip her arms around his neck and voice her feelings on a deeper
level.
Does, y’know. Things that go on in between just seem plain silly.
ROO: [relaxing] Yeah. Lots of gettin’ steamed up over nothin’.
Cheek to cheek, they share a healing second from memories of
recent events, before OLIVE straightens up briskly.
OLIVE: What d’you think you’ll do today?
ROO: Not sure yet.
OLIVE: Drop into the pub?
ROO: [resuming his reading] Might.
OLIVE: Well, don’t put yourself out, will you? [Affectionately tugging
at his hair] Chance for you to go and book some seats—there’s
some good shows I’ve been holdin’ off on.
EMMA appears from the kitchen with an empty tray.
EMMA: Anyone want breakfast, have to come and get it. I’m not goin’ to
keep it hot all mornin’.
OLIVE: Better give Barney a yell.
EMMA: I’m not yellin’ for anyone. I got enough to do. [Putting the tray
on the table] Look at this place, will you? ’Course, it doesn’t matter
to you lot. Make a mess of things, and then go off to loll around
them pubs of yours.
OLIVE: You don’t have to touch it if you don’t want to. I’ll do it all tonight.
EMMA: Yeah. I’ll bet you will.

ACT ONE 25
EMMA collects the dishes onto the tray, as OLIVE gives her attention
again to ROO.
OLIVE: What about the shows, then? The tickets, and that?
ROO: [still reading] Leave it for a day or two, uh? Settle in, and see what
comes up?
OLIVE: [with a trace of restraint] Righto. But you’ve got to book ahead,
y’know, you want decent seats.
OLIVE leaves the room to run upstairs, from where she can be
heard calling: ‘Barney—breakfast’. EMMA shifts a sidelong glance
in ROO’s direction.
EMMA: That why I only got a couple of quid at the airways, then?
ROO: Why?
EMMA: Because you’re broke.
ROO: Nothin’ much gets past you, does it?
EMMA: Can’t afford to let it. Not in this house. Flat, stony, stinkin’
broke—must say I’m surprised. All that big-note swagger went on
other times.
ROO: [equably] Lay off, Emma. I’ll make it up to you.
EMMA: Heard that one before as well.
ROO: This place— [consulting the paper] —Lyman Paint Company,
Weston Street—that anywhere near here?
EMMA: Round the corner, ’bout three blocks down.
ROO: [with a satisfied grunt] Ah—
EMMA: How about that Barney? Is he broke, too?
ROO: Shouldn’t think so. Worked a full season. Ought to have his usual
packet.
EMMA: Just as well. Wouldn’t think of helpin’ him out.
ROO: [with a twinkle] Were you thinkin’ of helping me?
EMMA: I might. Only a loan, you understand.
ROO: How much did you have in mind? A fiver?
EMMA: Smart Alec, aren’t you? What d’you say to fifty?
ROO: Quid? You got—?
EMMA: I got that, and more. I got—well, never mind. But I could let you
have a decent packet, if you’re interested at all.
ROO: Well, how’s your tinny form? What have you been up to—soakin’
Olive?
EMMA: What I get from Olive hardly pays for my community singin’.

This is cash from what you might say are investments.

ROO: Know what that means. Every sly grog joint and SP bookie in
Carlton.
EMMA: Where it’s comin’ from is my concern. All you got to think
about is whether you want to borrow it.
BUBBA appears at the French windows, dressed for the street, and
EMMA adroitly switches the subject.
Hullo? You’re an early bird. Don’t tell me you’ve come to help me
clean up?
BUBBA: No. I’m off to work. Only dropped in for a minute.
EMMA: Thought it was too good to be true. Same as usual—everythin’
left to the old girl.
EMMA takes her laden tray and sets off for the kitchen, and ROO
grins at BUBBA.
ROO: Never misses a trick, does she? Come on in, Bub—how are you?
Didn’t get much of a chance to talk last night.
BUBBA: No. I didn’t stay long, I— [Nervously] Look, I’ve got something
here for Barney.
ROO: Not up yet.
BUBBA: Maybe you could pass them on, then? I don’t want Olive to see them.
[Producing an envelope] They’re some snaps I took of Nancy’s wedding.
ROO: Oh. [Accepting the envelope] What was it like?
BUBBA: Alright. Not big, y’know. Mainly people he knew. I think I was
the only one Nance invited. But she looked very pretty. A deep sort
of blue, it was.
ROO: [extracting the snaps from the envelope] Did you cry?
BUBBA: ’Course I did. Buckets. So did she.
ROO: [inspecting the photographs] I’ll tell you somethin’—I think
Barney did as well. He went away on his own a whole afternoon—
somethin’ I’ve never known him do before. Whenever he’s been in
trouble, he’s always wanted someone standin’ by, holdin’ his hand.
This time he didn’t even want me near him.
BUBBA: [disturbed] I knew he’d feel like that, I told Olive. Roo, why
didn’t he come down? Four letters we wrote him—
ROO: Well—reckon underneath he didn’t believe she’d ever go through
with it. And then suddenly it was all too late—not sure he’ll want to
see these snaps, y’know.

ACT ONE 27
BUBBA: Wasn’t goin’ to show them to him. But he asked last night where
Nance is living now. Like her bein’ married didn’t matter. Think
he ought to know—she means it, Roo. Didn’t do it, just to score a
wedding ring.
ROO: Righto. Pass these on. [He replaces the snaps in the envelope and
lifts the conversation to a lighter level.] And what’s the word with
you, uh? Next thing we know, you’ll be poppin’ off as well, I s’pose?
BUBBA: Married—me? Go on—
ROO: Wouldn’t be surprised. Gettin’ prettier by the minute. How about
that Mac feller was chasin’ you around?
BUBBA: Douggie? Haven’t seen him since June or July—golly. I been
out with half a dozen since then.
ROO: Yeah? Better watch it. Could grow up to be your uncle Barney all
over again.
BUBBA: Could grow up? I’m twenty-two now. How much more d’you
reckon I’ve got to—?
ROO: Oh, c’mon. Only kiddin’. Know it’s a long time since we bought
you lolly walkin’ sticks. Ribbons for your hair. Long time.
BUBBA: Yes. [Nerving herself] Roo, about the lay-off?
ROO: What about it?
BUBBA: It’s still goin’ to be the same, isn’t it? I mean, you’ll keep to
all the usual—Selby at Christmas, and the rest of it—you won’t go
changin’ things around?
ROO: ’Course we won’t, you little dill. Why should we?
BUBBA: I don’t know. I thought, Nancy gone and that, you might feel—
ROO: Never. What the hell—the rest of us are still here, ain’t we? ’Course
it’ll be the same.
BUBBA hugs him with impulsive relief, as EMMA returns with her
tray.
EMMA: Calling in for just a minute, thought you said? Any more of this,
I don’t reckon Woolworths’ll be openin’ up today at all.
BUBBA: As if they’d miss me. [Moving to the French windows] Drop in
and see us if you’ve got the time, Roo. I’m on the perfumes.
ROO: Yeah. Just about my style, ain’t it?
BUBBA laughs and goes. EMMA uses her tray to collect empty
bottles and stray glasses.
EMMA: You’d be in to see her soon enough if it was beer she was servin’,

I bet. [Sternly] What about that money? Do you want it, or don’t you?
ROO: Reckon I better not, Emma. Start takin’ oscar from women, you
don’t know where you’ll end up.
EMMA: Can’t kid me. It’s not enough, is it?
ROO: Well—last a while, I s’pose. But layin’ off, you go through a lot,
y’know.
EMMA: Not a lot of mine, you don’t. I’m prepared to stake you till you’re
on your feet again, but that’s as far as it goes.
ROO: I’ll give it a miss, but thanks anyway. You’re a real pal, Emma.
Surprised you’d trust me with a red cent.
EMMA: [snorting] Get away. Trusted you with Olly all these years,
haven’t I?
ROO: Never been quite sure. Have you?
EMMA: Ever since that first day, when she finally got around to introducin’
you, standin’ in the hall. You pushed back your hat, and grinned at me.
I summed you up right there and then. A packet of trouble, but he’s
honest.
ROO: Trouble, anyway.
EMMA: Could have been worse. Seventeen years—under the lap and
nothin’ more than come and go—but at least you’ve always turned up.
ROO: Even stony broke.
EMMA: Even stony broke. You don’t want to borrow money, what are you
goin’ to do?
ROO: Plain enough. I’ll get a job the next few months.
EMMA: [startled] In the city?
ROO: Tide me over till we go up North again.
EMMA: Well, talk about throwin’ bombshells! I can’t wait for this to get
around—
She heads off towards the kitchen with her laden tray, meeting
BARNEY as he makes his way down the stairs.
And you—you want breakfast, better hurry up and get it.
BARNEY: Hurry? After sleepin’ on that old camp stretcher? I can hardly
move a muscle—
EMMA is out of range, and BARNEY moves on into the sitting
room. He is wearing a shirt that he obviously has been to bed in,
a baggy-kneed pair of trousers sagging under his paunch, and a
sloppy pair of slippers.

ACT ONE 29
’S true, y’know. That little back room up there’s no joke. I’m goin’
to tell Olive.
ROO: Think she’s got the word already. All that fuss you made about it
last night.
BARNEY: [lowering himself into a chair at the table] Oh? Y’heard, did
you?
ROO: Couldn’t help it. Lammin’ away at that poor woman’s door.
BARNEY: What d’you mean, lammin’? Just tapped light with me
fingernails.
ROO: Well, whatever it was, she didn’t like it.
BARNEY: Too bad. Knows what she can do. Silliest notion in the world,
even introducin’ us.
ROO: Olive thought it might help break the ice, that’s all.
He drops the envelope onto the table in front of BARNEY.
Here—
BARNEY: What’s this?
ROO: Bubba brought them in. They’re some snaps she took of Nancy’s
wedding. You’re not to show Olive.
ROO returns to his reading. BARNEY, aware that he is being put
to a test, picks up the envelope to eye the first of the snaps.
BARNEY: [unemotionally] Must’ve been ravin’ mad.
He shoves the photographs into his shirt pocket and asks, with a
fair assumption of carelessness:
Anythin’ in the paper?
ROO: Usual stuff. All down South.
BARNEY: Saves readin’, I s’pose. [Stretching himself] What’s the drum,
then? How we goin’ to fill in the day?
ROO: [folding the paper] Well, I don’t know about you. But I’m goin’
looking for work.
BARNEY is jolted into startled attention.
BARNEY: In the lay-off? Cut it out, will you—a joke’s a bloody joke—
ROO: I told you on the plane comin’ down. I’m gunna get a job.
BARNEY: Yeah, I know. But I thought once you got here—had a word
with Olive—
ROO: You leave Olive out of it.

BARNEY: Well, me, then. I got money.

ROO: I don’t want your money. I can still earn me own. [Bitingly] Even
if I have got a busted back.
BARNEY: [stung] It’s all that lousy rotten pride of yours, ain’t it? You’re
mad at me because I didn’t walk out with you up North?
ROO: I’m not mad at anythin’.
BARNEY: Yes, you are. By God, you are. Mad at me, and twice as mad
at young Dowd. Got a snout on that kid, first time that you saw him
workin’—
ROO: Drop it, will ya?
BARNEY: Knew what a mistake you’d made. Turning off old Tony
Moreno—
ROO: Drop it, or I’ll bash your face in.
His tone is sufficient to halt BARNEY.
BARNEY: [after a pause] Righto. You go out and get yourself a job. See
if I care. I’ll find some way to amuse meself—
He turns away, and ROO shoves the folded paper under his arm,
as OLIVE comes down the stairs, full of her own concerns.
OLIVE: Barney, look, it’s time that me and Pearl left for the pub— [She
moves into the sitting room, to pause at the sight of the two men.]
What is it?
ROO: Nothin’. Just sorting out the day.
ROO leaves to go upstairs. A slightly puzzled OLIVE dismisses any
misgivings to concentrate on BARNEY and the matter in hand.
OLIVE: Should be trying to settle Pearl. Look, she wants to ring a taxi
truck, pick up her belongings. ’Cause of all that silly fuss outside her
bedroom door last night—you listenin’ to me?
BARNEY: What?
OLIVE: Pearl. She wants to pack her bag, and go.
BARNEY: Who cares? Let her.
OLIVE: Not like that, I won’t. Goin’ off, thinkin’ she’s been made a fool
of—
BARNEY: Never should have asked her here.
OLIVE: Alright, but I did. And the least that you can do is to apologise—
what’s the matter with you, anyway?
BARNEY: [sullenly] Roo’s goin’ out to get himself a job.

ACT ONE 31
OLIVE: No.
BARNEY: What he calls sortin’ out the day.
OLIVE: But I told him last night—no, he mustn’t.
OLIVE hastens from the room to run upstairs, calling as she goes,
and passing a descending PEARL on the way.
Roo—Roo?!
PEARL is a trifle confused at being passed by, but she continues
down the stairs to pause at the archway entrance to the sitting
room. BARNEY is intent on his own thoughts, and PEARL is forced
to claim his attention.
PEARL: Barney—
BARNEY: Oh. ’Lo, Pearl.
PEARL: Olive thought we ought to have a—few words.
BARNEY: Yeah. She mentioned.
PEARL: I wonder if you’d mind shuttin’ the window?
BARNEY looks at her vaguely, before understanding that this is a
request for privacy.
BARNEY: Oh.
He rouses himself to shut the French windows and PEARL ventures
into the room.
PEARL: The thing is, I’ve decided—
BARNEY: Olive told me. And she said before you go, I should apologise.
Seems like I kicked up a fuss outside your bedroom door last night.
PEARL: You don’t remember?
BARNEY: Sorry, no, I don’t. All the beer I put away, I s’pose. Prob’ly
thought it was someone else’s room.
PEARL: It was my name you kept calling out.
BARNEY: Was it?
PEARL: ‘Pearlie’, you kept saying. ‘Open up them Pearly Gates.’
BARNEY: Whaddya know? Must’ve made more of an impression on me
than I was aware of.
PEARL: That I couldn’t say. But it was a very nasty thing to do.
BARNEY: Yeah. Bound to have you all upset. Not surprised you want to
shift out.
He moves to shake her firmly by the hand.

Still—nice to have met you. Maybe the two of us can have a drink
down at the pub some time.
BARNEY releases her hand and turns away, the situation for
him is at an end. PEARL, however, has come downstairs to
justify her position and is not prepared to be robbed of a moral
statement.
PEARL: Well now, more to it than that, of course. Wouldn’t want you to
think I’m judging you on just last night. There’s somethin’ else that
Olive didn’t tell me when she asked me if I’d like to be a—friend
of yours.
BARNEY: [not interested] Oh, yeah?
PEARL: Something that she didn’t mention till last week. By which time
I’d agreed to stay, and be—well, introduced.
BARNEY: Somethin’ she kept back, uh?
PEARL: Wouldn’t say she kept it back. She said it wasn’t that important.
And with you, I don’t suppose it is. But till last week, I didn’t know
that you had any—family obligations.
BARNEY: But I haven’t. [Realising] Oh, you mean my kids?
PEARL nods stiffly.
Sorry. Thought you meant a wife. Yes, kids I got alright. In three states.
PEARL: [swallowing] There you are, then. Like I say, I didn’t know until
last week. If I had, I wouldn’t have agreed to come and stay at all—
anyway, long as you understand. It wasn’t just the yelling and the
bangin’ at my bedroom door last night.
She makes a move to leave. BARNEY, his self-esteem pricked by
this summary dismissal, is prompted into checking her departure.
BARNEY: Hey now, you hang on yourself—when you talk of ‘under
stand’? Not sure that I do. What was it that Olive said about me
havin’ kids? Did she tell you I paid maintenance?
PEARL: Maintenance?
BARNEY: On every one of them? That I’m still payin’ for the youngest
girl—
PEARL: Maintenance. [An outburst] D’you imagine that’s the only claim
they’ve got on you? When I think of what their mothers must’ve gone
through—I’m a mother myself—honestly. You’re nothing but a plain
no-hoper.

ACT ONE 33
BARNEY: Not where women are concerned. Don’t you believe it. Ever
since I was a kid—had me threshin’ round like an excited eel in a
fish basket.
PEARL: Don’t you go making jokes about it.
BARNEY: Jokes? Isn’t any joke for me, I’m tellin’ you. I’m what they
call—susceptible.
His pride in the word raises PEARL’s indignation even higher.
PEARL: And that gives you the right to run around and have kids any
place you want to?
BARNEY: Of course it doesn’t, no. But other blokes with my condition got
a way out. They can marry, settle down. Always been a reason why I
never could.
PEARL: With children in three states? I’d like to hear of any reason that
big.
BARNEY: Well, easy enough to tell you. Very easy. You sit down a minute.
He nods to a chair and PEARL seats herself. BARNEY is on his
mettle here, but it is his chauvinistic urge to overcome a criticising
female, rather than any interest in PEARL.
My two eldest boys were born in the same town, and they are pretty
much the same age. Which means, you understand, their mothers was
in trouble at the same time.
As PEARL opens her mouth:
Oh yes, I’m to blame for that, and I’m not sayin’ otherwise. But when
it happened, I was nothin’ but a silly kid. Eighteen years of age, I was.
PEARL: Old enough to face up to your responsibilities.
BARNEY: Maybe it is, but hardly old enough to sort out which of them
I was to marry. You just think of it: two good decent girls in a little
country town, and you can only make it right for one of them. Nearly
went off me head. Whichever one of them I married, I thought it’d
be a rotten insult to the other. And it would have been—both of
them said so.
PEARL: You could have done something.
BARNEY: What?
is stumped for a ready answer.
PEARL
Anyway, I didn’t have time. My old man found out about it, and he
kicked me out. Gave me a quid and a blanket, nearly twelve o’clock

Helen Thomson as Pearl and Dan Wyllie as Barney in the 2011 Belvoir
at night. Little place called Makarandi, up in New South Wales. Well,

I knew I had to make some money fast, so I set off for Queensland
and the canefields.
PEARL: What you mean is, you run out on the girls.
BARNEY: I was doin’ the best I could for everyone. Put me age up to
twenty-one, and I worked like a Trojan. Paid all their medical bills,
and maintenance on both sons, but I left it up to the girls which one I
was to marry. You decide, I said. [With long remembered relish] Well,
they’re sittin’ up there in that little one-horse town in New South
Wales still arguin’ about it. And I’m as far off marriage as ever I was,
’cause if there’s one thing I do believe in, it’s first come, first served.
PEARL: [fighting a losing battle] That’s all very well, but it doesn’t excuse
your—other mistakes. While you were waitin’, you should have
behaved yourself.
BARNEY: Pearlie, those eldest boys of mine are old enough to vote now.
PEARL: Even so, it’s criminal, real criminal. That’s the only word for it.
BARNEY: Crim’nal, my eye. You’re talkin’ like I’ve got a string of ruined

ACT ONE 35
women behind me. I haven’t. Even that first pair up in Makarandi.

I guarantee if I went back there now and tried to settle things by
marryin’ one of them, they’d join together and cut me throat. No,
tell you straight, if there’s anyone left out in the cold as a result of
what I’ve done, it’s no-one but meself.
PEARL: Nothin’ more than you deserve. Not that you have been much
out in the cold, if all the tales are true.
BARNEY: Yeah, well—must admit, I have been lucky.
PEARL: Lucky?
BARNEY: What else? I mean, look— [His instinct for wooing is
operating almost mechanically here, a natural follow-on to what
has become his justification as a bachelor routine.] Average woman
hears a thing or two about a bloke like me, and she won’t even
look at him. What makes me lucky is that travellin’ round, cutting
cane, it does give me a chance to meet up with a different sort
occasionally. Somebody who’s more a—well—a woman of the
world. Understands a feller might have done a bit of chasin’ round,
not because he’s after all the loving he can get, but because he’s
gotta lot of lovin’ he can give. Way of thinking that your average
woman never can appreciate.
PEARL: [astonished] Shouldn’t think she would. I shouldn’t think that
any woman—
BARNEY: Oh, not any woman. Why it is that I been lucky.
PEARL: Never heard such—chases round, not because he’s what?
BARNEY: After all the lovin’ he can get—
PEARL: —but because he’s—no, I don’t believe it. I will not accept that.
BARNEY: No, of course you won’t. How could you? Takes a woman in a
hundred. Needs to—aaah—needs to have so many things.
PEARL: What things?
BARNEY: Well, experience, for a start. So she can spot this feller from the
mob. Then she’s got to be able to take him for what he is, not try to
tie him down too much. On top of that—’n’ no matter how you look
at it, this is the decider—the one thing that she’s really gotta have—
OLIVE, dressed for the street and carrying a handbag, descends
the stairs, and BARNEY switches off the blarney.
Well, no point rabbittin’ on ’bout that. Here’s Olive.
OLIVE: You’ll have to hurry, Pearl. Or we’ll be late.

PEARL: Oh—yes. Yes, of course. [Rising] Just run up and get my things.
She hesitates, before a decided summing-up rider at BARNEY.
Can’t fool me. I’ve been around. Wasn’t born yesterday, y’know.
PEARL heads away upstairs, and BARNEY voices his dismissal.
BARNEY: Sooner she gets out of here, the better. [On to important matters]
How about Roo? You talk to him?
OLIVE: [shaking her head] Wouldn’t listen to a word.
BARNEY: What d’you mean? He’s goin’ out to get a job?
OLIVE: Till he goes up North, he says.
BARNEY: It’s all that lousy rotten pride of his—what the hell’s he up to? I
got money. Other times down here, when I’ve run dry, he’s kicked me
on. Why can’t he just—?
OLIVE: [snapping, drained of argument] I don’t know. All that lousy
rotten pride of his, I s’pose.
OLIVE moves out onto the front verandah, leaving the street door
open behind her, as ROO comes down the stairs, with a jacket
over one shoulder, carrying the folded newspaper. He calls
towards the front verandah.
ROO: Olive?
OLIVE: What?
ROO: I’ll walk you and Pearl down to the tram.
OLIVE: [shortly] Well, I’m ready.
ROO addresses BARNEY in the sitting room.
ROO: Hurroo. I might be back later, and I might not.
BARNEY: Up to you. Told you before. You do what you want.
He slams himself down on his seat by the table, and tugs the packet
of photographs from his shirt pocket.
I’ll find some way to amuse meself.
He starts to spread the snapshots before him on the table in a
defiant appraisal. ROO accepts this with a shake of the head, and
moves out to join OLIVE on the front verandah. She avoids his
immediate company by moving a step or two away, and they wait,
apart and in silence. Left to himself, BARNEY finds his survey
of the photographs to be a bitter and disgruntled one, as PEARL
comes down the stairs. She is wearing a hat, carrying a handbag,

ACT ONE 37
and pulling on a pair of gloves. She pauses at the archway, to

make her bid.
PEARL: I’ll be off, then.
BARNEY: Yeah, I know. Olive’s waitin’.
PEARL: I was thinking, if you haven’t anything to do today—you might
care to take my bags upstairs.
BARNEYswivels on his chair in startled wonder.
Don’t jump to no conclusions now—
BARNEY: What about the taxi truck? You were gunna—
PEARL: Doesn’t mean I’ve changed my mind at all.
BARNEY: [half rising] But you told Olive—
PEARL: Let’s just say I’m prepared to visit for a while.
OLIVE: [an irritated call from the verandah] Peeaarl!
PEARL: Coming. [A parting smirk at BARNEY] See you tonight.
She hurries out onto the verandah. BARNEY, hoist with his own
petard, collapses back into his chair in a state of frustrated anger
and dismay.
Ready, are we? Let’s go, then.
She links an assertively companionable arm with OLIVE.
Handy, Ol, being so close to the trams and everything.
They set off towards the street, with ROO moving to close the street
door as EMMA emerges from the direction of the kitchen with a tea
towel, drawn by the sounds of departure.
EMMA: You lot goin’ off? Without a word? [She moves to confront ROO
at the street door.] What about that breakfast I been waitin’ round
to cook?
ROO: [on his way] Don’t feel like any breakfast.
EMMA: [following on to the verandah] After I been—who else is goin’ to
eat steak this hour of the day?
ROO: [out of sight, with a slam of the garden gate] Give it to Barney.
EMMA: Throw it over next door to the dog, that’s what I ought to do. No
consideration, any of you.
She shakes her head after them in fuming disapproval, and re-
enters the house, closing the street door. Meanwhile, within the
room, BARNEY has dismissed further thoughts of the intrusive

PEARL and returned his attention to a bleak study of Nancy’s

wedding snapshots. EMMA, on her way to the kitchen, pauses in
the archway, to direct her unspent animosity at him.
And you as well, you lazy good for nothin’. Don’t imagine you are
going to sit around here, gettin’ in people’s way all morning—
BARNEY ignores her, concentrating on the snapshots. EMMA,
unaccustomed to such a lack of spirits on his part, pauses in
query, and then shifts down to find the cause of his preoccupation.
She stands behind him eyeing the snapshots over his shoulder,
before identifying the subject and her married status with a dry
and distinct irrevocability.
Mrs Harry Allaway.
It is a statement beyond BARNEY’s ability to contradict, and EMMA
delivers a piece of gruff advice that is not without awareness of his
emotional attachment.
You got any sense, you’ll take those bags upstairs, the way that silly
Pearl has asked you.
She moves from the room and BARNEY sits with his scattering
of photographs and many unbidden memories as the lights fade.
END OF ACT ONE

ACT TWO
SCENE ONE
Late on New Year’s Eve. A hot, velvety summer night, the French
windows and the front door of the Leech house stand wide open in
the hope of catching any stray breeze. Throughout this scene, at
appropriate intervals, the various sounds of New Year’s Eve revels are
distantly audible. At present we are aware of these in the lost, long
drawn-out cries of children engaged in some street lamp activity.
Within the house, in the sweat-reflecting lighting of the sitting room,
ROO and OLIVE are seated at the table, playing a spaced-out game
of cards that has little interest for either of them. OLIVE, languidly
shuffling the cards, is wearing an old house dress and slippers; ROO,
although scrubbed and showered after a heavy day’s work, has on a
nondescript shirt and drab, worn trousers. He is sitting sideways to
the table, his legs stretched out and his feet propped up on one of the
chairs. BARNEY is lying full-length on the chaise longue, finishing
off the writing of a letter with laborious concentration. He is dressed
in crumpled holiday clothes that have seen him through a long day’s
drinking, and he has come through this indulgence to a state of gritty
sobriety and restless boredom.
PEARL is comfortably ensconced in a chair, busy with a piece of
knitting. She is wearing a bright print frock with a dominant note of
red in its colouring—her identification with life on the spree. Unlike
the others in the room, she is relaxed and very much at ease. Indeed,
PEARL has blossomed, from the tentative, suspicious attitude she had
earlier, she has graduated to an assurance that is a little offensive in
its complacency. She pauses at the end of a line of knitting, to smile at
the faint calls of the children’s neighbourhood game.
PEARL: Hear those kids? We used to play that. ‘Charlie Over the Water’
it’s called. You must know it, Ol? Don’t suppose you boys do—no,
more a city game. Needs a good back street… Ah, listen, there they
go: ‘Charlie over the water, Charlie over the sea, Charlie broke the
teapot, and blamed it on to me’… Funny, isn’t it? Things that you

remember? Thirteen years of age, the boys were always pickin’ me

to go out in the middle, ‘Charlie Over the Water’. I used to think
because I was a decent runner, and whoever’s in the middle got to
do a lot of chasin’ around. But then somebody spoiled it for me—
girl named Cissie Lonigan. Said the boys picked me because I was
developin’ early, and they liked to have me running up and down
so they could watch me jiggle. Don’t know whether I was madder
at the boys or Cissie Lonigan. [Securing her knitting] There, need
more wool. [Looking around] All very quiet? [She stretches herself,
to address BARNEY.] How’s that letter going? Put in what I said
’bout having her trained for dressmakin’?
BARNEY: Give over, will you? Reckon I was mad.
PEARL: Got a daughter, then you ought to take an interest. ‘Dear Dot,
here’s the usual, hope you’re both well.’ Hardly call that having a
family.
BARNEY: [shoving the letter into an envelope] I don’t have a family, what
I got is— [A sudden vicious slap at his bare arm] Oh, those bloody
mossies. Never stop.
ROO: It’s them ferns on the verandah. Full of ’em.
OLIVE: [activating the card game] I call trumps.
BARNEY rises and tosses his letter aside, seeking some diversion.
BARNEY: No no, look—forget the cards. Let’s get away out of it, uh? Go
down the beach, or somewhere?
PEARL: Not the beach, anywhere but the—too late to be goin’ out now,
anyway. After eleven o’clock.
BARNEY: New Year’s Eve? How late’s that? Even the nippers are still
runnin’ the streets.
OLIVE: All very well for you. You haven’t done a day’s work. Spades.
BARNEY: Not as though any of us are gunna sleep, a night like this.
[Scratching his mosquito-bitten arm] Might as well be down there as
stewin’ here, gettin’ eaten alive.
PEARL: Never known such a gad-about. Honestly. Always wanting to be
goin’ out somewhere.
BARNEY: Isn’t only me. What about Olive?
OLIVE: I’m playing cards.
BARNEY: [approaching the table] Other times it used to be you dragged
us down to the beach on hot summer nights. [Leaning on the back of

ACT TWO 41
her chair, distracting her from the game] What about that midnight
when we hired the old bloke with the cab to take us all down to
Altona? Landed home half past seven in the mornin’. Didn’t worry
about havin’ to work all day then.
PEARL: Oh, don’t go on, Barney. Can’t you see no-one wants to go out?
Roo is tired.
ROO: [jerked out of his lethargy] Me? I’m not tired. Who said I was—?
[He tosses his cards on the table and removes his feet from the chair,
to sit bolt upright.] I’ll go anywhere you want me.
OLIVE: [sharply, in his defence] Not a matter of being tired. Just not in
the mood. If it wasn’t New Year’s Eve, I’d be in bed right now.
BARNEY: Okay, okay. But we’re gunna have to do somethin’ till twelve
o’clock. Can’t just sit around.
PEARL: I know. [Picking up her knitting] You can let me try this sleeve
on you.
BARNEY: Oh, Gawd.
PEARL: Give me some idea—
BARNEY: Won’t, y’know. He’s three inches taller than me, and bigger—
PEARL: Doesn’t matter. Helps to get a feeling.
BARNEY: Boy. Talk about—
He slouches over to PEARL and she places the knitting against his
wrist.
PEARL: Hold it there. Now bend your elbow.
OLIVE: [gathering the cards from the abandoned game] Who’s it for?
PEARL: The eldest. Lennie.
BARNEY: One of the eldest. [Eyeing the measuring process] Not even
long enough for me yet.
PEARL: Well, ’least I know.
PEARL sits to start unfastening a new hank of wool.
BARNEY: Kiddin’ therewon’t be some ructions in Makarandi once that
turns up.
PEARL: Why should there be? Soon as I finish this, I’ll start on one for
Arthur.
BARNEY: Arthur—Chippa, they call him.
BUBBA’s voice is heard calling from the side garden.
BUBBA: [off] Anybody in?!

BARNEY: [reviving] In alright.

BARNEY moves for the French windows, and enthusiastically
greets an approaching BUBBA.
Well—here’s someone goin’ out to celebrate, anyway.
BUBBA: [off]I said I’d show Olive my dress.
BUBBA appears at the French windows, wearing a simple but
attractive evening gown.
OLIVE: Come on in, darl. Wondered where you’d got to—well, now.
OLIVE rises from the table, she too, glad of the interruption, as
BUBBA enters the sitting room.
Isn’t that something?
BARNEY: Yeah. Row for the shore, boys.
BUBBA: That’s enough, Barney. [To OLIVE] What about the hemline?
Auntie Dee thinks that it’s—
OLIVE: Hasn’t caught up with a hemline since before the war, your auntie
Dee. [She takes charge, moving around to view the dress from various
angles.] No, it’s fine—hemline, colour, everything. Just right.
PEARL: [graciously condescending] Where is it you’re going, Bubba?
Ball, is it?
BUBBA: No, no. Only a dance. One of those social club affairs. Some of
the girls from work asked me.
ROO: Left it a bit late, haven’t you?
BUBBA: Not much point in going early. Be no fun till nearly midnight—
’fact, I’m not sure that I want to go at all. Dances on New Year’s Eve
get pretty silly, and when it’s so hot, and everythin’—
Making a hopeful bid, as OLIVE checks the hooks and eyes at the
back of her dress, and slightly adjusts a shoulder strap:
Feel I’d just as soon stay home and play cards.
OLIVE: Wearin’ somethin’ like that? Don’t be silly. ’Sides, what about the
others? Won’t they be waiting for you?
ROO: You’ll enjoy yourself once you get there.
BARNEY: Yeah. And who knows, maybe tonight’s the night.
BUBBA: [laughing] I’ll be lucky. It’s one of those places where the girls
come with their brothers, and they drink a lot of fruit cup—
OLIVE has stepped back to view the dress in a wistful abstraction.

ACT TWO 43
BUBBA, aware of this, takes in the settled attitudes of the others,

to ask uncertainly:
Aren’t you goin’ out anywhere at all?
BARNEY: Us lot—naah. We’re havin’ one of them sensational at-home
parties.
BUBBA: [impulsively] You could have gone to the Morris’s, y’know. I bet
they wouldn’t have minded a scrap.
BARNEY: [eagerly] That’s what I been sayin’.
BUBBA: Even now, if you hurried—
OLIVE: [cutting her short] Bubba, once and for all, we are not goin’ to
the Morris’s.
BUBBA: Oh—sorry.
OLIVE returns to her seat at the table, PEARL pausing in her wool
winding, aware of an atmosphere.
ROO:[rescuing BUBBA] You’d better hop off, kid. Or you’ll miss the
countdown.
BUBBA: Yes. [Awkwardly] Well, I’ll wish you a Happy New Year
tomorrow, then.
BARNEY kisses her and accompanies her to the French windows.
BARNEY: Yeah, but you’re not leavin’ that dance till sun-up. You hear
me?
BUBBA: I’ll try. ’Night, everyone.
ROO: ’Night, Bub.
OLIVE: ’Bye, love.
BUBBA leaves, and OLIVE passes the pack of cards she has
assembled to ROO.
PEARL: [far too casually] Who are the Morrises, then?
ROO: [starting to shuffle the cards] It’s a place we used to go to for New
Year’s Eve parties.
PEARL: Oh? Nobody’s mentioned that one before? Why aren’t we going
this year?
OLIVE: [snapping] ’Cause the Morrises are cousins of Nancy’s, that’s
why.
Conscious of her gaffe, and hurt by the decided snub, PEARL
returns to winding the new skein into a ball. BARNEY, with a

twinge of compassion and keen to steer the conversation into

less explosive areas, moves to join her.
BARNEY: Here—let me give you a hand with that wool.
He sits nearby and slips the skein over his outstretched hands, to
allow PEARL easier winding.
Funny thing, y’know. All the women I’ve knocked around with,
there’s never been one of them ever knitted anything for me. Now
why d’you reckon that is?
OLIVE: [gathering up the hand dealt by ROO] Didn’t have time,
prob’ly.
BARNEY: Cheeky. No—got a theory. Some fellers bring out the knittin’
in women, and some don’t. It’s a sort of backhand compliment.
PEARL: Don’t know you can count on that. [With a trace of malice] After
all, who wants to knit a sweater for an eagle?
BARNEY: A what?
PEARL: Oh, nothin’. Just something Olive said once.
BARNEY: Eagles? What’s it got to do with eagles?
PEARL: Can I tell ’em, Olive?
OLIVE: I don’t remember callin’ him no—
PEARL: Yes, you did. The two of them. After that fat feller from the Herald
had been tellin’ us about them birds that fly from place to place?
OLIVE: Oh—don’t have to bring that up.
BARNEY: Yes, she does. Sounds interestin’—
OLIVE: Yapping in the bar, that’s all.
BARNEY: [out for fun] Gotta hear this. C’mon, Pearl—what did she say?
PEARL: [nothing loath, busy winding wool] Well, it was at the start of
things. When Olive first was telling me about you comin’ down
here every year. And I was trying to figure out what made it all so
special—why she felt the way she did, y’know. Then one day this
big fat feller walked into the bar. Journalist he is, real ear-basher,
always carryin’ on, and this time he got tellin’ us about these birds
that fly from place to place. Spend a season here, a season there, sort
of thing. Well, me, I couldn’t care less what they did, but Olive, she
got real wrapped up in it. After a while, she turned to me and said—
OLIVE: When he’d gone—I didn’t say it in front of him.
PEARL: When he’d gone, then. She turned to me and said— [pausing in
the wool winding] —what was it? Oh, yes. ‘That’s what they remind

ACT TWO 45
me of’, she said. ‘Two eagles flyin’ down out of the sun, and comin’
South every year for the matin’ season.’
PEARL goes into a smother of mirth and resumes her wool winding.
The other three are not amused.
OLIVE: [after a second] It might sound silly when you put it like that. But
it fitted in with what he’d been saying.
PEARL: [gurgling] Yes—but eagles. [To the men] Honestly, she boosted
you two up so much before you came, I didn’t know what to expect.
OLIVE: It wasn’t as bad as that.
PEARL: Oh, yes it was, Ol—I don’t think you realised. The way you went
on about everythin’—sounded just as if when they arrived, the whole
town was goin’ to go up like a balloon.
OLIVE: When did I say—?
PEARL: It was the way you talked all the time. Look what you said about
them Sunday night boat trips up the river? Beautiful, you said.
OLIVE: Well, was it my fault it rained?
PEARL: No, but even if it hadn’t—that terrible old boat—
OLIVE: You didn’t give it a fair go.
PEARL: [on her mettle] Alright, then—what about Christmas at that
weekend place at Selby? Can’t say I didn’t give that a fair go.
ROO: [staring] And what was wrong with Selby?
PEARL: Oh, it wasn’t bad. But the way she cracked it up, I expected a
palace.
ROO: [truculently] You wouldn’t find a better little place than that this
side of Sydney.
PEARL: Oh, get away with you. It hasn’t even got electricity.
OLIVE: [slapping down her cards and rising angrily] Look, what are you
tryin’ to do? Make out I’m a liar, or somethin’?
PEARL: I didn’t say a liar—
OLIVE: Then don’t say anythin’. ’Cause that’s very much what it sounds
like.
PEARL: Only pointing out the way things look to people. If somebody
can’t pass an opinion—
OLIVE: You pass too many damned opinions. That’s your trouble.
ROO: [soothingly] Easy now. Forget it. C’mon, Ol, pick up your hand.
OLIVE: No. No, I’m sick of cards. This waitin’ up for twelve o’clock is
just plain silly. Think I’ll go to bed.

She makes a move for the stairs, galvanising BARNEY into action
as he heads her off.
BARNEY: Oh, you can’t, you can’t. Hell. Bad enough not goin’ out—look,
tell you what we’ll do. We’ll make it a party. We’ll get Emma in, and
have a sing-song—
ROO: She won’t play. You know what she said last time.
BARNEY: She’ll play. [He strides out to the front verandah, to yell]
Emma—what are you doin’ out there?!
EMMA: [off, from the darkness] Gettin’ a sea breeze off the gutter. What
d’you think?
BARNEY: Want to earn ten bob?
EMMA: [off] How?
BARNEY: Playin’ the piano while we have a sing-song.
EMMA: [off] No.
BARNEY: [determinedly, after a glance back at the others] I’ll make it a quid.
EMMA: [off] Who picks the tunes?
BARNEY: You can. Anythin’ you want to—
OLIVE: [sharply] Don’t tell her that.
BARNEY: Ssshh. Emma?
EMMA: [off] Righto. But I warn you now—no jokes and silly capers—
messin’ around.
BARNEY returns happily to the sitting room.
BARNEY: Nothin’ to it.
OLIVE: Know what we’re in for, don’t you? New Year’s Eve—
Hogmanay—she’ll go all Scottish. Start off with ‘Annie Laurie’,
and finish up with ‘Auld Lang Syne’.
BARNEY: Doesn’t matter. Gets too slow, we can always pep it up a bit.
ROO: With Emma? I’ll bet you don’t.
OLIVE: I’ll bet you don’t, either.
EMMA enters the house, clutching a cushion that she puts aside,
to stand blinking in the light of the hallway.
EMMA: Who’s goin’ to pay the money?
BARNEY: I am. But you got to do the job first. No walkin’ out in the
middle of it.
EMMA: Only time I walk out on singin’ is when some clown doesn’t take
it seriously. [Moving to the piano] And you know what that means.

ACT TWO 47
BARNEY: Goin’ to take it seriously this time.

EMMA: You’d better. [She removes her rings, to place them on the
piano top.] Right, then. On your feet, the lot of you. No good
lollin’ around.
ROO rises, but PEARL objects, nursing her knitting.
PEARL: Do I have to join in?
EMMA: Well, it’s community singin’, isn’t it?
PEARL leaves her knitting and rises with a bad grace, as EMMA
seats herself at the piano, raising the flap and massaging her
fingers.
We’ll start off with ‘Annie Laurie’.
OLIVE: [to BARNEY] There. What did I tell you?
EMMA: What d’you mean—what did you tell him?
OLIVE: Nothing. I just said you’d start off with ‘Annie Laurie’, that’s all.
EMMA: New Year’s Eve? Hogmanay? What else would I start off with?
OLIVE: Nobody’s kickin’ about it. Just said you would.
EMMA: ‘Annie’ is me Scottish fav’rite.
OLIVE: [crossly] Alright, then. Just play the bloody thing.
EMMA gives her a wrathful look and launches into a short
introduction. The others gather around the piano and EMMA
leads them into the song.
ALL: [singing]
Maxwellton’s braes are—
They have made a ragged beginning and EMMA breaks off
autocratically.
EMMA: Righto—righto—that’s the note to come in on— [She strikes it
a few times for emphasis.] Try again—’n’ this time all together—
She leads them in again and this time the result is a better one.
ALL: [singing]
Maxwellton’s braes are bonny,
Where early falls the dew,
And it’s there that Annie Laurie
Gave me her promise true.
Gave me her promise true,
That ne’er forgot shall—

EMMA breaks off playing with a further objection.

EMMA: Wait—wait a minute, hang on—someone’s singin’ a bit flat.
Listen—
She accompanies herself, singing in a surprisingly true voice.
That ne’er forgot shall be…
See? Take it through again now.
ALL: [singing as she plays]
That ne’er forgot shall—
EMMA: [breaking off] No no, it’s still wrong. Sounds like a woman’s voice.
EMMA looks accusingly at PEARL.
OLIVE: [irritably] Well, what’s it matter? Get on with it.
EMMA: Flat?
OLIVE: Nobody minds a note or two—
EMMA: What d’you mean—nobody minds? Me on one note, you on
another?
BARNEY: Look, we’re not after a singin’ lesson, Emma. All we want’s
a bit of fun.
EMMA: There—what I mean. Messin’ around, and you won’t take it
seriously.
OLIVE: How do you know it isn’t you that’s wrong?
EMMA: Me? [Affronted] I never sung a wrong note in my life.
OLIVE: Who says?
EMMA: I say. Ask ’em at the community—Mister Munro, the conductor—
think he’d get me to sing a solo every year on my birthday if I sung
it flat?
OLIVE: [beyond patience] Does it for a laugh, prob’ly.
EMMA: [incensed] That’s a low-down rotten thing to say. I’ll get him
round here—
ROO: Whoa there, whoa there, take it easy. Only pullin’ your leg.
EMMA: Might have known. No place to go on a night like this, and you
get the old girl in to poke a little mullock?
BARNEY: [hammering a note] You was asked in to play the piano.
EMMA: Yeah. One of them financial promises.
She slams down the keyboard flap, narrowly missing BARNEY’s
fingers, and grabs her rings from the piano top.

ACT TWO 49
Well, I wouldn’t listen to what you call singin’ for all the tea in China.
She leaves the room, to hustle away upstairs.
You can keep your lousy fiddlie, and a Happy New Year to the lot of
you.
EMMA’s departure leaves a surprised and slightly ashamed silence,
broken eventually by PEARL.
PEARL: Well—I suppose you could say that’s one of the shortest
community singin’ sessions on record.
OLIVE: Ah, she gets worse all the time.
ROO: [to OLIVE, a rare reproof] Shouldn’t have said that.
OLIVE: What?
ROO: Them only gettin’ her to sing for a joke.
OLIVE: Well, who does she think she is—Nellie Melba?
ROO: No. But her singin’, that’s one thing she’s proud of.
OLIVE: [firing up] Look, she treads on my toes, and she doesn’t say
she’s sorry. Emma’s got to learn to knuckle down a bit.
ROO: [angrily] Righto, be that way, then. Sorry I spoke.
ROO strides away to the open French windows, and BARNEY makes
another desperate attempt to retrieve the situation.
BARNEY: Well—’least it’s livened us all up. Got everybody on their
feet— [An appeal to OLIVE] Look, before Pearlie gets back to her
knittin’, how about we open up a few bottles?
OLIVE: [recklessly, aware of being in the wrong] Yeah, what the hell, why
not? It’s New Year’s Eve, ain’t it? Come on, Pearl, we’ll make some
sandwiches.
PEARL: I don’t mind. Anythin’. As long as we don’t go down to that
beach.
She follows OLIVE off towards the kitchen. BARNEY concentrates
on ROO, setting himself to bridge a communication gap between
them.
BARNEY: Emma. Never thought I’d see the day when she’d turn down a
quid for anythin’.
ROO: She’s always been fussy about singin’.
BARNEY: Yeah, but why get so het-up about it? Knew we was only on
for a bit of fun.

ROO does not bother to answer and BARNEY makes another

conversational bid.
How’s the paint business these days?
ROO: ’S survivin’.
ROO moves away to pick up his tobacco pouch and starts rolling
a cigarette.
BARNEY: [with a half laugh] I was thinkin’ this mornin’—won’t be long
before I’m down there with you, the way the money’s runnin’ out.
ROO eyes him, and BARNEY shrugs.
Well, you know me. No-one round to put the brakes on, I just let it rip.
ROO: Yeah. Well—better not count on gettin’ in at Lyman’s. It’s a pretty
small place.
BARNEY: Oh, don’t mean that I’m broke already. [Mooching around]
Still hang on for a month or two. ’Sides, a joint like that, not sure I’d
be interested—
No reply from ROO, and BARNEY suddenly nerves himself to come
clean.
Ah, bloody hell. Look, no use dodgin’ it any longer. Gotta tell you.
Some of the boys are down.
ROO: [stiffening] What boys?
BARNEY: The gang—Bluey, Freddie Waye, O’Brien—got the shock of
me life. Walked into Young and Jackson’s the other afternoon, and
there they were. Cocked up in the bar. Talked it over up North, and
decided to come down South for the fruit pickin’. And, of course,
they’ve never been to Melbourne before, so they’ve taken time off
for a booze-up, get to know the town.
ROO: And just by accident, you bump into them, Young and Jackson’s?
BARNEY: I been drinkin’ there a lot lately, you not around—what’s the
matter? Reckon I met ’em by appointment, or somethin’?
ROO: Wouldn’t be surprised.
BARNEY: Gawd, how’s your form? Just by chance, I walked into the
joint—
ROO: —and there they were, cocked up in the bar. Righto. What did they
have to say?
BARNEY: Well, they wanted to know about you, of course. Made it pretty
awkward. Had to tell ’em you was workin’, but I didn’t say just where.

ACT TWO 51
ROO: I’ll bet you didn’t.

BARNEY: Didn’t—didn’t think you’d want me to—’struth. Don’t you
believe anythin’ I tell you?
ROO: Not much. I been listenin’ to you shovellin’ it out for a long time,
don’t forget. What else?
BARNEY: Aahh, don’t feel like tellin’ you now—wanted to know if we’d
go out with ’em on the tear sometime. Show ’em the town, and all
that.
ROO: Uh-huh. And how about young Dowd?
BARNEY: Johnnie? Yeah, well—Johnnie’s come down with ’em, but
he’s—
ROO: Ain’t no buts about it. No.
BARNEY: [losing his temper] S’help me, how long you goin’ to keep
this up? He don’t hold no grudges, he’d like to see you. He told me.
ROO: Ask about my back, maybe?
BARNEY: Wants us all to have a get-together. Seein’ that we’ve met up
here down South—what am I s’posed to tell ’em? You won’t bother
stepping out with them? Puts me in a fine spot, doesn’t it?
ROO: How the hell does it affect you? You wanna go with them, you go.
BARNEY: [fiercely] You know I wouldn’t without you—
turns his head to look at BARNEY directly, and the latter
ROO
wilts with the memory of his betrayal. A pause between the two
of them, then BARNEY, at last, makes a sober and much needed
acknowledgement.
Righto. I was wrong. I didn’t walk out with you up North. But that
was the only time I ever slipped. I’ve stood by you other times,
haven’t I?
ROO: [away from him] Other times I didn’t need you. That was once I
did.
BARNEY: Okay. Doesn’t change the rest of it. Twenty years of knockin’
around together. If I’m out of line, the least that I deserve, I reckon,
is a chance to make it up.
It is both a plea and an apology, and ROO relents.
ROO: Well—what is it you want to do?
BARNEY comes at once to join him, the immediate and
enthusiastic planner.

BARNEY: Help you back on top with the boys. They’re goin’ up the
Murray for the grapes, and it’s a chance in a million. Johnnie’s
organised the trip, but you could take it away from him tomorrow.
All we got to do is tell the mob that we’ll go with ’em, Johnnie will
be out and you’ll be back in charge. I bet you only got to say the
word—
ROO: Say the word on what? We go with them? Up the Murray?
BARNEY: For the grapes—why not? Answers everything. You workin’
in that paint dump and me with my money runnin’ out—makes it
right for both of us.
ROO: And what about Olive? Olive and Pearl? We walk out and leave
’em? Dump them flat? That the notion?
BARNEY: Not dump ’em, no—tell ’em the truth. Lay-off’s in a mess.
Nobody could say it’s been much fun this time, you workin’, and
Nancy’s gone.
ROO: I forgot. That’s your style, ain’t it? Once the fun goes—
BARNEY: Isn’t only me. All of us—even them. They’re not enjoyin’ it any
more than we are.
ROO: Who says they’re not?
BARNEY: Oh, maybe Pearlie thinks it’s alright. But then, she doesn’t
know what it was like before.
ROO: And Olive?
BARNEY: Well, you could ask her, couldn’t you? Tell her what it means
to you, see what she says—
ROO: You selfish little bastard. Now you listen to me—we come down
here five months of the year, December to April. That leaves another
seven months still hangin’—what d’you suppose that Olive does in
that time? Runs around, goes on the loose? No, she doesn’t. Waits
here, Olive, for us to come back again—’cause she reckons our five
months down South is worth the rest of the year put together. And if
I find you tryin’ to put a kink in that—if I hear you mention Murray
River and the grapes to her—I’ll kick you so far that they’ll have to
feed you with a shanghai.
It is a flat rejection.
BARNEY: [sorely, fighting for composure] What happens when me money
runs out, then?
ROO: Get yourself a job somewhere.

ACT TWO 53
BARNEY: Like in a paint factory? Pigs, I will.

ROO: Well, up to you.
OLIVE’s voice is heard calling in approach.
OLIVE: [off] Gettin’ on for twelve.
ROO: [to BARNEY, a covert warning] You remember now.
OLIVE appears, carrying a tray with glasses, a plate of food and
two bottles.
OLIVE: [gaily] Beer, and corn beef sandwiches. [She takes the tray to the
table.] Pearl is working on some special savouries. So be sure you
ooh and aah like mad. [She places the tray on the table, to concentrate
squarely on ROO and BARNEY.] Look, I nipped in to say I’m sorry—
being such a misery guts all evenin’. Can’t think what got into me.
ROO: [shrugging] ’S the heat.
OLIVE: No, it’s not. It’s bein’ stupid, moonin’ over things don’t really
matter. Well, not any more. Mum always told me as a kid, cry on
New Year’s Day, you’ll cry the whole year through. I’m not goin’ to
let that happen, our lot. I’ve made up my mind—from here on in—
She takes hold of BARNEY and draws him towards ROO.
—everything with us is on the up and up.
BARNEY: [grumpily] What’s this? Count your blessings time?
OLIVE: Before they start the sirens—why not?
She slips an arm around both men’s waists, to unite them as a trio.
I want you to know—I’m the only girl in town who doesn’t have
to make a New Year’s resolution. Who’s got everything she wants
right here.
She hugs them both, and BARNEY, his eye on ROO, surrenders to
the moment.
BARNEY: Aarh—what the hell. Drink to that as much as anythin’, I
reckon. Where’s that beer?
He moves away to open a bottle of beer on the tray, while ROO
gathers OLIVE into his arms to hold her in a silent, healing
embrace.
PEARL: [off, heralding her approach] Savouries.
OLIVE: [to PEARL] Told them you’d been busy.

PEARL enters, carrying a loaded tray.

PEARL: Anyone interested in savouries?
BARNEY: Ooh—aah.
PEARL: Don’t expect too much. I had to make do with the stuff out in
the kitchen. Liverwurst and sardines mainly.
ROO: [to OLIVE] How about your mother? [Moving to yell upstairs]
Emma?!
OLIVE: Be in bed by now.
ROO: Can’t miss out on all the fun. [Running upstairs] I’ll bring her down.
OLIVE: [calling after him] Won’t, y’know! She’ll never come!
BARNEY: And be no fun for anyone if she does. [Passing a glass of beer]
Here, Pearlie. Get your pale hands round this.
PEARL: Ought to be champagne, of course. One thing Wallie did insist on,
New Year’s Eve. Didn’t make a fuss at other times, but New Year’s
Eve, it had to be champagne.
She is interrupted by an exploding burst of colour in the night sky.
BARNEY: Hang on. That’ll be the countdown—
OLIVE: Fireworks at the Exhibition. [Calling urgently] Hurry, Roo!
They’re starting—
BARNEY: Look at those rockets, will you? Get the lights off.
He and OLIVE hasten around, turning off house lights in the room
and passage, with OLIVE giving voice to an overflow of enthusiasm.
OLIVE: Y’know, I’m glad we didn’t go out now. Don’t need parties at
the Morris’s. Don’t need anythin’ but what we’ve got.
The house lights are off, and she joins BARNEY as he hands glasses
to the two of them.
Our lot here, and a few drinks to happy days.
BARNEY: [in delighted confirmation] That’s it. Happy Days and— [an
unbidden memory of earlier occasions] —Glamorous Nights.
PEARL, who has started to drink on his initial toast of ‘Happy
Days’, gives a whoop of mirth, choking on her swallow and
spraying beer in all directions.
PEARL: [lurchingaway as she tries to get some control of herself] Oh,
you fool—that’s terrible. Don’t do that, Barney, say those things—
OLIVE: What things?

ACT TWO 55
PEARL: Didn’t you hear him? Happy days all very well, but glamorous
nights—us lot? Glamorous? I mean, look at us—
No time for more, because from the distance comes the sound
of sirens, mounting to a growing furore with the nearer noise of
whistles and hooters adding to the general din.
Meaning little to PEARL, snorting and still trying to catch her
breath, mop the liquor from her face and dress, and get herself
in some sort of order.
OLIVE and BARNEY, however, stare at her in startled wonder, as
a drunken male voice in the distance is heard greeting the future
with a shout above the uproar: ‘H-A-A-P-P-Y N-E-E-W Y-E-
E-E-A-R!’
We lose them in the glow of the fireworks and the lights fading
away on the outside world’s celebratory uproar.
SCENE TWO
A week or so later. It is six-thirty in the evening, and the outside world

is lit with a sunset flush that gradually takes on a deep blood tinge—a
Russell Drysdale red—as the scene progresses. The French windows
are closed, but the setting sun is still strong enough to suffuse the room
with its glow.
ROO, wearing a singlet and painter’s white bib-and-brace overalls,
liberally bespattered with various coloured paints, is lying stretched out
on the chaise longue. He is asleep, with an open newspaper resting on his
chest, a man caught up by tiredness after a long, hot day of incompatible
work.
EMMA comes from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron.
EMMA: Ought to get out of them workin’ things. Have a shower, and
clean up. ’Fore those others—
She realises that he is asleep and pauses resentfully. Then some
concern for his state and her instinctive sympathy for ROO sets
her to taking care of him. She moves cautiously in to ease the
newspaper from his grasp, fold it, and set it aside. Going quietly
to the end of the chaise longue, she gently undoes the laces of

his heavy working boots. She draws one off to place it on the
floor and is removing the other when she becomes aware of a car
approaching the house. We hear a taxi pull up outside, with an
opening of car doors, and a confused mumble of voices. EMMA,
clutching ROO’s second boot, crosses to the front window to
check on proceedings, and male voices outside rise to an audible
dispute.
BARNEY: [off] No-one gets their bowels in a knot, I’ll settle the whole
thing, two minutes flat—!
JOHNNIE: [off] What’s the diff?! I got the money here—!
A car door slamming and PEARL’s voice raised in querulous
protest: ‘Barney!’ causes EMMA to hurry for the street door,
jettisoning ROO’s boot somewhere on the way.
BARNEY: [off]’S my cab—
JOHNNIE: [off] Mine, I whistled it. Here, sport—
BARNEY: [off, overlapping] No no—give him back his quid—
OLIVE moves into view to mount the verandah, calling back crossly
as she comes:
OLIVE: Oh, stop your arguin’! Doesn’t matter who pays, just pay!
EMMA meets OLIVE at the street door, to hiss:
EMMA: Have to kick up all that row? Tell ’em to be quiet—Roo’s asleep.
OLIVE: Asleep? How can he be—?
EMMA: Sat down to read the paper ’fore he had his shower, and he dozed
off.
OLIVE: Ah, no. Shouldn’t have let him.
She hastens past EMMA into the house, and a fresh burst of arguing
from the street takes EMMA out on to the verandah.
EMMA: Enough of all that silly nonsense.
BARNEY: [off, calling] Emma—you can settle this lot!
EMMA: [moving for the street] Comin’ home in such a state—cut it out
now.
The fuss outside subsides somewhat as OLIVE, having dropped her
hat and bag aside, moves into the sitting room.
OLIVE: Roo—Roo—wake up. Come on.

ACT TWO 57
She shakes him into consciousness.

Wake up.
ROO: [blinking] Whasser matter?
OLIVE: We’re home from the pub. You’ve been asleep.
ROO: Aahh. [Sitting up, dazedly] Must’ve dozed off.
OLIVE: Yes. Look, Barney’s full of booze, and he’s brought someone
here to see you. Says he’s a mate of yours from up North.
ROO: Of mine?
OLIVE: Picked us up at the pub, the two of them, and run us home by
taxi. They’re arguin’ in front over who’s goin’ to pay the driver.
ROO moves quickly to the window and peers out. He turns back
in fury.
ROO: I’ll break Barney’s bloody neck.
OLIVE: [tightly] Who is it?
ROO: Dowd—young Dowd. I’ll murder him—
OLIVE: I had a feeling—
A short burst of male laughter is heard from the street, and
BARNEY’s voice crowing:
BARNEY: [off] Trust you to find a way out—what a shrewdie!
OLIVE: [swiftly, to ROO] Look, you don’t have to see this feller. I’ll stop
him coming in.
ROO: Are you mad? He’s on the doorstep.
ROO grabs his boot that is by the chaise longue and sits to drag
it on.
OLIVE: Taxi’s still there. I can stop him comin’ in, make some excuse—
ROO: And have him think I’m dodgin’ him?
The taxi is heard to start off and drive away from the house with
a parting toot of its horn, and a goodbye cheer from the men.
M’ boot? Where’s me other boot? I haven’t even got me—
He and OLIVE start a frantic hunt for the missing boot.
No shower, nothin’—still in these things. Look at the cut of me—
OLIVE: Can’t be helped. Here—here’s your boot.
She picks it up from where EMMA has left it and throws it to him.
But before ROO can put it on, they are interrupted by a rumpus
on the verandah.

EMMA: Get away from me, you drunken sot—

BARNEY: Don’t mean that, you know you don’t—
EMMA backs into view, trying angrily to pull away from BARNEY,
who has hold of her apron, the strap of which has come undone
at the back and is held by the bib attachment at the neck. JOHNNIE
DOWD has a grip on BARNEY from behind and is trying to control
him, but not very seriously. PEARL is following in the rear.
Just tryin’ to lead a bloke on—
He makes a lunge for EMMA and she retreats backwards into the
house.
PEARL: [squealing] Barney.
JOHNNIE: [whooping, as he hangs onto BARNEY’s coat] A for the artful
words that he uses, B for the blush as she gently refuses—
EMMA: [who can recognise a bawdy doggerel] You keep a civil tongue
in your head. I don’t know you—
BARNEY: Easy fix that. Both of us. We’ll—
He drags EMMA towards him.
OLIVE: [sharply] Cut it out before you do some damage—Barney!
PEARL: [indignantly, as she moves in to help restrain BARNEY] Can’t
do a thing with him. ’S awful—
BARNEY: You keep out of it!
BARNEY rips his arm brutally from PEARL’s grasp, and this action
swings JOHNNIE and him into the archway, where they become
aware of ROO’s presence in the sitting room. BARNEY stops
immediately, and there is a momentary stillness before JOHNNIE—a
big, boyish, friendly-looking fellow of twenty-five, obviously riding
the crests of such waves as pride of body and unbroken spirits—
breaks the pause.
JOHNNIE: ’Lo, Roo.
ROO: ’Lo.
JOHNNIE: Looks like you been paintin’ the town?
ROO: Yeah.
BARNEY: [coming to life] Lissen, me and Johnnie—
BARNEY starts to jerk forward, but JOHNNIE reaches a restraining
arm to push him back towards PEARL. Then JOHNNIE moves into
the sitting room, his watchful eyes on ROO.

ACT TWO 59
Steve Le Marquand as Roo and T.J. Power as Johnnie in the 2011 Belvoir
JOHNNIE: Bein’ all this way down South, and never even bumpin’ into
one another—seemed kind of silly. [He pauses, within measurable
distance of ROO.] Thought I’d drop in, and shake hands. [Still watchful,
he extends his hand.] You shake hands, Roo?
For a second it seems as if the issue is open to doubt; but
ROO, trapped and humiliated on his own home ground, is at a
disadvantage. Reluctantly he changes the boot he is holding to his
left hand, to briefly shake hands with JOHNNIE, an action that is
greeted with a shout of elation from BARNEY.
BARNEY: There y’are. Told you that was all it needed.
He expresses his relief by sloppily kissing PEARL, who pushes him
away with a cry of disgust and runs away upstairs. EMMA follows
her lead and escapes towards the kitchen.
EMMA: [as she goes] Drunk as Chloe.
BARNEY: [undeterred, to JOHNNIE] Get the two of you together—
JOHNNIE: Just shut up a minute.
BARNEY: Face to face, and—

JOHNNIE: Shut up, will you?

BARNEY lapses obediently, and JOHNNIE offers further amends to
ROO.
Couple of things I want to clear up. First, I’m sorry that I laughed that
day.
ROO: [mumbling] Forget it.
JOHNNIE: No, we won’t. Shouldn’t have done it. Just that for a moment
you looked pretty funny, down on your knees like that.
ROO: [stupidly] I slipped.
JOHNNIE: Yeah. Well—shouldn’t have laughed. Wanted you to
know.
ROO gives a bare nod in acknowledgment and sets about dodging
the issue by awkwardly pulling on his boot, while JOHNNIE
continues:
The other thing’s a message from the boys. They’d like to see you—
celebrate our bein’ down here. How about it? Tonight we’re goin’ to
the wrestling, got a couple of extra seats—
BARNEY: —ringside. The Stadium.
ROO concentrates helplessly on his boot, moving his head as
though to evade a tightening noose.
ROO: Dunno ’bout that.
JOHNNIE: Why not?
OLIVE: [cutting in, intuitively supporting ROO] ’Cause we’ve made other
arrangements, of course.
BARNEY: Since when?
OLIVE: Never you mind. We have.
JOHNNIE: [peaceably, after a shrewdglance at OLIVE] Righto. Doesn’t
have to be the Stadium. How about tomorrow afternoon? We’ll take
you to the races—
ROO: Well—
JOHNNIE: A day out with the boys. Do you the world of good.
OLIVE: Sat’day afternoons, Roo drops into the pub—
ROO: No, Olive.
She falls silent and ROO, his boot in place, accedes.
Okay. The races, tomorrow afternoon.

ACT TWO 61
JOHNNIE: Champion. Now, where’ll we meet? Ought to have a few drinks

’fore we hit the course, I reckon.
ROO: Up to you. Anywhere you like. You fix it up with Barney.
[He gestures an indication of his paint-spattered clothes.] Got to get
out of these, and have a shower.
JOHNNIE: Sure, sure. Don’t mind me. You go ahead.
ROO moves for the stairs and JOHNNIE makes a last unwise bid at
a friendly comment.
Looks like we caught you straight home from work?
ROO: [pausing stiffly] Yeah.
ROO goes away upstairs, and OLIVE moves to pick up her hat and
bag.
OLIVE: [coldly] Are you goin’ to eat with us, Mister—?
JOHNNIE: Dowd. Johnnie Dowd’s the name. I told this drunk he didn’t
introduce us. No, got to meet the boys, some joint called the London.
OLIVE: Just as well. Otherwise the drunk’d be more in my mother’s black
books that he is now.
She follows ROO upstairs and BARNEY clasps his hands over his
head in a delighted boxer’s gesture of triumph.
BARNEY: You see—easy as winkin’. I said it’d work—
JOHNNIE: Only just.
BARNEY: What d’you mean, only just? Shook hands, didn’t he?
JOHNNIE: Like I was prickly pear.
BARNEY: Doesn’t matter. He shakes hands, he’ll stand by it. And once
we get to the races tomorrow—
JOHNNIE: [bluntly] It’ll be Roo and the boys, all the way. And I’ll be
back to bein’ just the kid again—don’t fool me, y’know. Don’t fool
me a minute.
BARNEY: Yeah, well—true you got some things to work out, and you’ll
never do it with as bunch of fellers breathin’ down your necks, so—
how about this? ’Stead of a mob at the races tomorrow, we’ll make
it just the three of us. You, me and him? Whaddya say?
JOHNNIE: [shaking his head] He’d shut up like a clam on both of us.
BARNEY: The women, then? Pearl and Olive? [Excitedly] We’ll take them
as well. Women along, it’ll be a breeze—
JOHNNIE: A breeze for you. But where do I come in?

BARNEY: That’s alright—easy. Set you up with one as well.

JOHNNIE: Not anythin’ as old as them, you won’t. Still got me own teeth,
remember.
BARNEY: Let’s see—let’s see? Somethin’ young, and—got it. [Snapping
his fingers] I know what’s for you. [He lurches into the hall, to call
upstairs:] Pearlie?! Pearl?!
PEARL: [off, from above] What is it now?!
BARNEY: Come down here a minute. Want to ask you somethin’. [He
returns to the sitting room.] Just cracked on to the very thing. Piece
about eighteen. Young enough for you?
JOHNNIE: What’s she like?
BARNEY: Only seen her photo, but she looks terrific. Real blonde.
JOHNNIE: You reckon she’d come?
BARNEY: Why wouldn’t she?
JOHNNIE: I dunno. [Awkwardly] These young sheilas down South—bit
on the la-di-da side, ain’t they?
BARNEY: All in the approach, way you treat ’em. Same as anywhere—
PEARLdescends the stairs.
Pearlie—just in time—don’t know I introduced you, did I? This young
feller’s Johnnie Dowd. He’s a mate of ours from up North.
PEARL: I know. [Moving past BARNEY into the sitting room] Olive’s been
tellin’ me.
BARNEY: Uh-huh. And did she fill you in, the rest of it? Roo and me are
goin’ to the races tomorrow with the boys.
PEARL: She mentioned somethin’.
BARNEY: Good. Well now, Johnnie here has come up with a better idea.
[Beaming at JOHNNIE’s surprise] ’Stead of goin’ to the races with a
crowd of fellers—gettin’ full, and makin’ monkeys of ourselves—
Johnnie thinks it would nicer if the three of us took you and Olive.
Made it a little family party?
PEARL: Ol and me’ll be working. At the pub.
BARNEY: That’s alright. We’ll ring, tell ’em Emma’s had a nasty accident.
A day out at the races. Couldn’t ask for anythin’ better. You and me—
Roo and Olive—and Johnnie here.
PEARL: [all unsuspecting] On his own?
BARNEY: [the perfect opening] Well, now—that’s what I wanted to talk
to you about. Shouldn’t say it in front of him, but for a young feller,

ACT TWO 63
this one here is pretty fussy where his women are concerned. A bit
on the shy side, see—
JOHNNIE: Cut it out, will ya.
BARNEY: Nothin’ wrong with that. Good thing, at your age. [To PEARL]
Still, you’ll understand—stranger in town ’n’ all that—don’t want to
land him with just anyone for company. So I was wonderin’ if you’d
like to bring that girlie of yours along tomorrow? What’s her name?
PEARL: [startled] Vera?
BARNEY: Vera, yeah. Time you introduced us anyway, don’t you reckon?
PEARL: No. No, I couldn’t—
BARNEY: Give her a day out.
PEARL makes a sudden move for the stairs but BARNEY blocks her
way.
Where you goin’?
PEARL: I don’t want to talk about it. Even listen. Vera’s only eighteen.
BARNEY: Didn’t you ever go to the races when you was eighteen?
PEARL: Not the same thing. Vera’s livin’ with my sister. I won’t have her
goin’ places where she’ll end up in bad company.
BARNEY: [crowing] Bad company? She’s bein’ asked to go out with you,
her own mother—
PEARL: [fighting back] All a blind. I know the score. There’s others goin’,
too.
BARNEY: But you’ll be there, to keep an eye on her? What’s the matter?
Don’t you trust yourself to look after her?
JOHNNIE, who has been an uncomfortable witness to the exchange,
now intervenes.
JOHNNIE: Barney, reckon we ought to leave it how it was. The fellers on
the team.
BARNEY: [turning ugly] There—you hear that? [Jabbing PEARL with his
forefinger] The very first chance we get to make a splash, and you’re
gunna mess it up.
PEARL: [retreating, in a mounting panic] Why should I let Vera go out
with the likes of him? I don’t know who he is—
BARNEY: I told you, he’s a mate of mine. And she’s not only goin’ out
with him, she’s goin’ out with all of us.
JOHNNIE: [worried] Forget it. Barney. Look, we’ll make it just the
blokes.

BARNEY: Not on your sweet life, we won’t. Promised you a family party,
and I— [A flash of inspiration] Family party—’course. Why didn’t
I—you wait here a minute.
BARNEY makes a swift dash out through the French windows.
JOHNNIE: Barney—
JOHNNIE follows as far as the verandah before giving up the
pursuit. He turns back, acutely discomforted, to PEARL.
Where’s he off to now?
PEARL: [working up to a crying jag] How should I know? He can go to
hell for all I care.
JOHNNIE: Look, missus, you don’t want your daughter goin’ out with
me—
PEARL: Who does he think he is?
JOHNNIE: —you don’t have to worry.
PEARL: Tryin’ on a trick like that.
JOHNNIE: I’m no cradle snatcher, honest.
PEARL: Girl that age. Hasn’t got the least idea—
JOHNNIE: Sure that Barney wasn’t tryin’ to put one over. All he aimed to
do—
PEARL: Don’t you tell me. I know what he aimed to do. Proposition me
for my own daughter.
JOHNNIE: I didn’t hear nothin’ ’bout no proposition.
PEARL: That’s what you say. Bad as he is. Tarred with the same brush,
the lot of you.
PEARL runs away upstairs, in a flood of tears. JOHNNIE gives a
frustrated exclamation and moves to call urgently at the French
windows.
JOHNNIE: Barney?! Come on in, will ya?!
As if in answer, we hear BUBBA’s approaching voice:
BUBBA: [off] I warn you, Barney, if this is one of your drunken jokes—
BARNEY: [off] Drunk, my eye. Little surprise for you—
BARNEY appears at the French windows, dragging into view a
humorously resisting BUBBA.
JOHNNIE: Barney, you got trouble here. That woman Pearl—gone all
snaky—

ACT TWO 65
BARNEY: Never mind her. Big mistake—

JOHNNIE: Say that again.
BARNEY: [presenting his captive] Here’s the one you’ve gotta meet.
Somebody I should’ve thought of right away, smack bang off the
bat. This here’s Bubba Ryan.
JOHNNIE: [perfunctorily] How’re you?
BARNEY: Oh, she’s fine. Couldn’t be better. Fine and dandy—ain’t you,
kid?
JOHNNIE: Think you ought to have a word with her, that Pearl.
BARNEY: Forget her. Let me introduce you—see this feller, Bub? Know
where he comes from?
BUBBA, still humouring him, shakes her head, and BARNEY
proceeds exultantly.
Way up North where the sugar grows. Born and bred there, grew up
on the canefields, knows the game backwards. And he’s one of the
best—
BUBBA regards JOHNNIE with fresh interest, as he cuts BARNEY
short in some embarrassment.
JOHNNIE: Ease up, will you? You don’t have to lay it on. [Offering his
hand] Dowd’s the name, miss. Johnnie Dowd.
BARNEY: See—says it like it could be Joe Blow.
BUBBA: [shaking hands, a little shy] How d’you do?
BARNEY: Natural as they make ’em. Tell you now— [close to BUBBA’s
ear] —the sort of young bloke any girl’d love to have take her to
the races.
BUBBA: Races?
BARNEY: [rushing on] Tomorrow afternoon. Roo and Olive, Pearl and
me, and you and Johnnie. What d’you say?
BUBBA: [confused] I don’t know—
BARNEY: Can’t have heard me, what I said—the races. Where else can
you go to Sat’day afternoon?
BUBBA: Well—
BARNEY: There you are. A chance to get out, make some whoopee, enjoy
ourselves—c’mon.
BUBBA: Alright. If you really want me—
BARNEY: ’Course we want you. ’Struth— [Triumphantly] Easy as pie.
Everythin’ settled.

JOHNNIE: Not for me it ain’t.

BARNEY: Uh? What’s your worry?
JOHNNIE: I don’t like my barrow bein’ pushed so hard—
BARNEY: [crowing satirically] Talk about a boy from up the bush—
JOHNNIE: That’s enough. You wait outside.
The last is an order, an unmistakable but unconscious echo of
ROO. BARNEY shrugs his shoulders and moves unsteadily out
through the French windows. JOHNNIE, not so sure of his ground
now, addresses himself to BUBBA.
What I mean—I know this Barney, how he rushes people, and the
things that he puts over. I want you to have a chance. You don’t like
the idea of goin’ to the races with me, you tell me now.
BUBBA waits for further enlightenment.
You don’t have to worry, what he’ll say. I’ll fix that.
BUBBA: But I’d like to go to the races.
JOHNNIE: Looked to me like you was holdin’ back a bit?
BUBBA: It was the surprise, that’s all. Roo and Barney, they’ve never
brought anyone from up North here before.
JOHNNIE: I know. Sat pretty tight on this place, haven’t they? You belong
here, do you?
BUBBA: No, no. I’m from next door.
JOHNNIE: Oh. Makes it a bigger hide than ever, then.
BUBBA: What?
JOHNNIE: Him askin’ you to go out with me.
BUBBA: Not really. Sort of second home to me in here.
JOHNNIE: That so?
BUBBA nods, bright-eyed and agreeable. JOHNNIE, unable to place
her in the scheme of things, gives his attention to the room instead.
Funny. I’ve imagined this place pretty often. House that Roo and
Barney come to for the lay-off—heard about it ever since I can
remember. [Really taking in his surroundings for the first time]
Parties, and the fun, and all the goin’s-on. Reckon you could say it’s
almost famous up North.
BUBBA: Things that Barney said?
JOHNNIE: And bits ’n’ pieces that the boys picked up. Or made up, by
the looks of it— [Moving around, with a snort of laughter] Just

ACT TWO 67
struck me. None of the boys ever seen the place. When I go back
tonight, they’ll want to know the details. Never believe me when I
tell them this.
BUBBA: [uneasily] Used to be a boarding house, of course. In the old
days.
JOHNNIE: I mean, we got good-time places up North. Really look like
good-time places. Fancy cushions, mirrors everywhere, scent on
all the lampshades—joint like this, it’s more a joke. I mean, these
things. [He flips a nearby arrangement of dolls.] What are they in
aid of ?
BUBBA: [reluctantly] Roo gives one to Olive every year. Sort of—
souvenir, I s’pose.
JOHNNIE: [in coarse amusement] That the best he can do?
BUBBA stiffens with a frown, but he persists.
Oh, c’mon. All pretty silly, don’t you reckon? Kids’ stuff.
BUBBA: Is, I s’pose. [Her resentment rising.] If what you’re after is a
good time place, with scented lampshades, and a lot of mirrors and
some fancy cushions. But seems to me that’s pretty much like kids’
stuff, too.
JOHNNIE: [startled] Hey, what gives? Have I said somethin’?
BUBBA: Anyone who’s been around’d know the difference, I’d have
thought—this place and a brothel.
JOHNNIE: You mad at me all of a sudden?
BUBBA: I know that Barney said a boy from up the bush. But even boys
from up the bush can have a little nous—
JOHNNIE: [roused in turn] Oh now, hang on, hang on—whoa there—
I’m not goin’ to let you get away with that. That boy from up the
bush lark. Takin’ it a bit too far—how old are you, for God’s sake?
Nineteen … twenty?
BUBBA: [defiantly] Twenty-two.
JOHNNIE: And yet they call you by a silly name like Bubba? And they
drag you in from next door, and they tell you that you’re goin’ to the
races with a feller that you’ve never seen before? And you say okay,
if you want me—if you want me? Nothin’ very grown up about all
that, I woulda thought—
His words have got through to her. BUBBA shifts away abruptly,
and JOHNNIE makes belated amends.

Aah, hell—sorry, but that young ’un stuff gets on my quince. Get
enough from Barney and the boys. Anything to do with Roo, they
never let up—still, got no right to take it out on you. Shootin’ off
my big fat mouth.
BUBBA looks at him. Then makes her own amends.
BUBBA: No. My fault too. Getting so upset. Just I know these people—
how they are. Even a name like Bubba—may be silly, but it’s what
they’ve always called me.
JOHNNIE: Yeh. And they don’t see no need for changes. Just like
Barney and the gang. Way for them, I’ll always be the kid, and
young Dowd—
Their gaze holds in a brief awareness of their mutual youthful
insecurity, before JOHNNIE recovers to say abruptly.
Anyway, you don’t want to go to the races with me, that’s okay. I’ll
fix it up right now?
BUBBA: Well, wouldn’t want to go if anyone thought that I was bein’
forced into it.
JOHNNIE: [accepting a negative] Righto—see that. Fair enough.
BUBBA: But if we agree it’s my decision—that I’m going of my own
accord?
JOHNNIE: Then what? [A dawning grin] You’ll go? You will go?
She nods, and he responds with enthusiasm.
Hey, that’s champion. That’s bottlin’. I’ll let him know. [He moves
to yell out the French windows.] Barney? [Turning back to BUBBA.]
But wait on now—let’s get this straight. What’s your name?
BUBBA: Name?
JOHNNIE: Not that Bubba thing. Your real name?
BUBBA: Oh—it’s Kathie. Kathie.
JOHNNIE: Kathie? Fine. Well, that’s what I’ll call you? Uh?
She responds with a nod and a radiant smile, as BARNEY appears
at the French windows.
BARNEY: Everythin’ settled?
JOHNNIE: Yeah. [Brisk, no nonsense] You make the arrangements. We’ll
rely on you.
BARNEY: ’Course.
JOHNNIE: What’s the time? I told the boys I’d meet them, half past seven.

ACT TWO 69
BARNEY: Need to move, then. Don’t want ’em gettin’ into mischief. But
you’ll have to say goodbye to him first. [He moves to yell upstairs.]
Roo—Johnnie’s got to go now! [Returning to clap JOHNNIE on the
shoulder] You leave it to me. I’ll fix it all up here, and let you know
the wheres and when.
JOHNNIE: Right. And you’ll tell Kathie?
BARNEY: Kath—?
He follows the line of JOHNNIE’s gaze, and realises.
Oh, yes. Yeah. ’Course I will.
comes downstairs, freshly showered and changed, with a
ROO
towel hanging over his shoulder.
Johnnie’s leavin’, Roo. Got to go now.
ROO: I heard you.
JOHNNIE: Hooray, Roo. I’ll see you tomorrow then, uh?
ROO: Yeah.
JOHNNIE: Any messages you want to give the boys?
ROO: Tell ’em to keep their hand on their sugar money, uh?
There is a general slightly forced half laugh, and BARNEY starts
to shepherd JOHNNIE away.
BARNEY: C’mon. See you to the corner.
They go from the house, BARNEY giving travel tips as they leave.
There’s a taxi rank, or you can take a tram. Get you down the city in
’bout ten minutes—
BARNEY has left the street door open, and BUBBA follows to the
arch to stand looking after them. A move that brings her to ROO’s
attention for the first time.
ROO: ’Lo, Bub. What are you doin’ here?
BUBBA: Barney brought me in.
ROO: To meet him?
BUBBA: Yes. [Sensing his displeasure] ’S okay. I didn’t mind.
She moves out on to the front verandah in order to follow
JOHNNIE’s progress down the street. ROO is left querying this
latest development, as OLIVE makes her way downstairs.
OLIVE: Has he gone?

ROO: Barney’s seein’ him to the corner. Made quite a picnic of it. Got
Bubba in to meet him, too.
OLIVE: Bubba—no? Sorry, love.
This last to BUBBA on the verandah, as OLIVE moves to join ROO
in the sitting room.
Didn’t seem such a bad sort of kid, really.
ROO: Dowd? I’m not blamin’ him. This is Barney’s doin’. He’s the one
hatched this up.
OLIVE: Well—wasn’t too much trouble. [She fetches a tablecloth from
the sideboard.] Let’s forget it, uh?
ROO: [with suppressed anger] Olive, you dunno what this is all about.
He brought Dowd here in the lay-off, right into the house. Bad
enough if it had been the others, any of ’em—but Dowd—
OLIVE: Alright, you know best. Do me a favour though, take it easy,
will you? I’ve already got Emma bangin’ around in the kitchen, and
Pearl bawlin’ her eyes out upstairs. That’s enough to handle.
ROO: What’s the matter with Pearl?
OLIVE: [spreading the tablecloth] Oh, you can’t make head or tail of it.
Somethin’ about Barney asking her to take her daughter to the races
tomorrow.
BUBBA has returned from the front verandah, in time to hear this
last remark.
BUBBA: He didn’t ask her. He asked me.
OLIVE: To go to the races?
nods and OLIVE laughs.
BUBBA
Ah, kittens. It’s all fellers. Barney wouldn’t ask you to go to the races
with a crowd of fellers. He’s havin’ a loan of you.
BUBBA: He isn’t. And it’s not all fellers. It’s just us—us and Johnnie.
ROO: Us—and Johnnie?
OLIVE shoots a glance at ROO.
Did he tell you that?
BUBBA: Of course. When he brought me in—
ROO: The two of them, they had it all arranged?
BUBBA: Well, Barney asked me first. But Johnnie, afterwards—
ROO: Thick as thieves. [To OLIVE, seething] Now, d’you see? Worked it
out between them. Bloody bosom pals, the pair of them. Well, that’s

ACT TWO 71
the finish. [Throwing his towel aside, he strides to the open door and
bellows towards the street.] Barney!
OLIVE: [upset and temporising] Still could be a joke. Or Bub could have
it all mixed up—
ROO: No, she hasn’t. I know what the game is now. You two, you get out
of it. Down the back some place—
He starts to hustle them towards the kitchen.
BUBBA: Oh, no. Please—
OLIVE: I don’t want no fightin’, d’you hear? Argue if you have to, but no
fightin’—
ROO: Wait out in the kitchen, will you?
It is an order, not a request, and they go. BARNEY, meanwhile,
has weaved his way into view on the front verandah. He pauses at
the sound of ROO’s angry voice, and makes a placating bid as the
latter confronts him at the street door.
BARNEY: Now easy on, Roo, I’m a bit full.
ROO: Don’t you try and put that drunk stunt over on me.
He reaches forward to grab BARNEY by the lapels of his jacket.
I know you needed booze for what you’ve done, but I know just
how much you’ve had.
ROO hawks BARNEY by main force into the hallway and gives him
a powerful shove that sends him reeling into the sitting room.
I know.
BARNEY staggers, recovers his balance, and—aware now that
he must justify his actions—drops any pretence of drunkenness
as a cover.
BARNEY: Okay. So I brought Dowd to see you.
ROO: You brought Dowd to see me—lookin’ like a clown. Like some
stupid got-up parrot, a galah—
BARNEY: What’s it matter? Hell—he’s seen you in the fields, nearly
naked, black as pitch—
ROO: And so was he. Sloggin’ it out under the sun, the pair of us. You
sayin’ that’s the same as this—labourer in a factory? Rollin’ round
them drums of stinkin’ paint?
BARNEY: Hoppin’ mad—’s no use talkin’ to you.

ROO: Well, you’re gunna talk. Not them lies, and dodges, and them—
lies of yours—for once we’ll have it on the mat, fair dinkum.
BARNEY: [rounding on him] Righto then. Here it is. You got such a blind
set on young Dowd, ought to get yourself looked at before it’s all
too bloody late.
ROO: Keep it comin’—
BARNEY: And I’m not the only one that says so. Ask the boys. They
weren’t too pleased when you walked out on them, y’know. They
weren’t pleased at all. And you don’t pick your guts up pretty soon—
ROO: —I’m gunna find young Dowd is ganger for next season?
BARNEY: Happen, it could happen. Easy.
ROO: Right. So now’s the time for you to take out some insurance—curry
favour with the new boss? Things like draggin’ Bubba in, and making
her available?
BARNEY: Oh, that?
ROO: That, alright.
BARNEY: Isn’t what you’re thinking. Just a—
ROO: I’ve seen you pull some swifties with a lot of women. Get your way
no matter what—but Bubba? Put her up there on the choppin’ block?
You’d do that to young Bub?
BARNEY: Isn’t Bub. Nothin’ to do with Bub. I set it up for you—
ROO: Liar. Always were, but now you’ve made yourself a first-class
bludgin’ pimp as well.
Stung by the insult, BARNEY charges him with a roar. ROO closes
with him whole-heartedly, and after an initial noisy grappling,
swings BARNEY out on to the side verandah. A confused melee
of crashing pot plants, swaying hanging fern baskets, and the
occasional glimpse of a staggering body ensues, the undoubted
violence of the encounter being suggested rather than seen.
Meanwhile, the sound of the fight brings OLIVE running from the
kitchen, followed by EMMA and BUBBA, with PEARL hastening
downstairs a second or two later.
OLIVE: [as she comes] What is it? What are you up to—I said no fighting—
EMMA: Don’t go near them, Olive. Keep away.
OLIVE: [heading for the French windows] You want to murder one
another?
EMMA: Only make it worse, you interfere—

ACT TWO 73
OLIVE: Stop it. Let him go, Roo—

OLIVE plunges out of sight to join the conflict on the verandah.
EMMA: Knew that it’d come to this—
OLIVE: [off] You’re chokin’ him to death, for God’s sake! Stop it—Roo!
The screaming of ROO’s name by the unseen OLIVE brings the
fracas on the verandah to an end, and the women onstage wait
for a tense second before OLIVE appears, assisting BARNEY,
who is bleeding from the mouth, and obviously has had the worst
of the fight.
EMMA: Very nice—a fine exhibition. Everybody happy now, are they?
Lucky I didn’t go straight for the police—
EMMA takes BARNEY from OLIVE and steers him to a chair, where
she hands him the towel discarded by ROO, which he uses to
staunch his bleeding mouth. OLIVE, meanwhile, turns back to ROO,
who has come into sight at the French windows, shirt badly torn
and breathing heavily, but unmarked.
OLIVE: [tremblingly] Any more of that, and I tell you, the two of you will
sleep out in the gutter for the night. Fellers your age, ought to have
more sense—what d’you think you’re up to, anyway?
ROO: [his eyes on BARNEY] This is no business of yours, Olive.
OLIVE: Isn’t it? I’m s’posed to sit out in the back while you kick each
other to pieces, I s’pose? And why? All because you had one rotten
season up North.
ROO: Ain’t that at all.
BARNEY: Is. It is—
He brushes aside EMMA’s ministrations and rises, swaying, to his
feet.
Why don’t you be a man and admit it?
OLIVE: Who wants him to be a stupid man, admit it? Doesn’t matter.
BARNEY: Does. Would he have walked out on his own team, if it hadn’t
mattered? [Baiting ROO] C’mon. You want me to be fair dinkum, let’s
see you square off as well. The tale I pitched to Olive ’bout your
troubles up North—didn’t hear no contradictions, that one? Oh, no.
Swallow what you want to. When it suits you—
ROO: True enough. I should have nailed it right there on the spot. Well,
better late than flamin’ never—

Dan Wyllie as Barney and Steve Le Marquand as Roo in the 2011 Belvoir
He strides towards BARNEY.

Let’s be havin’ it.
OLIVE: No.
OLIVE tries to come between them, but ROO sends her away with
a rough shove. PEARL squeals in alarm and EMMA scurries to
safety as ROO grapples with BARNEY.
ROO: All that bull about my busted back—
BARNEY yelps with pain as ROO twists his arm behind him.
BARNEY: Aahh—
ROO: Slowin’ me down all through the season—
BARNEY: Cut it out, will you?
ROO: Tell ’em.
He faces BARNEY towards OLIVE and exerts further pressure on
the arm, forcing BARNEY to his knees.
It’s your lie—you tell ’em.
BARNEY: [gasping] Didn’t happen—didn’t have no busted back.

ACT TWO 75
ROO: Hear that? No strain, nothin’. I walked out up North because

young Dowd, he did a better job than me. And I just wasn’t man
enough to take it. Wasn’t even man enough to put you right on this
one’s cover-up.
He shoves BARNEY forcibly from him and the latter slips to the
floor, grabbing his arm and wailing his regrets.
BARNEY: Fool—you bloody fool. Think I would’ve told them?
ROO: Well, about time they knew what they was dealin’ with, anyway. A
couple of lousy no-hopers.
BARNEY’s head jerks around, and ROO pursues the thought further.
Yeah—you—the great lover that’s never had a knock-back. Is it any
wonder you end up a pimp? Makin’ way for other blokes to do what
you can’t manage now yourself.
BARNEY: Got it all wrong.
ROO: Have I? Not according to the women, I ain’t. How about those two
waitresses at the Greek cafe?
BARNEY: I never went near ’em—
ROO: You did. They told me. And laughed fit to kill ’emselves. Fine
performance in the cot that must have been.
BARNEY: [trying to twist aside to escape] They lied about it.
ROO: Yeah? And Mrs Kelly lied when she threw you out of bed at the
Royal pub, I s’pose?
He grabs BARNEY and drags him to his feet.
’N’ the cook at Adam’s, she was lyin’, and the little New Australian
woman, and Skinny Linton’s missus?
He is shaking BARNEY to force an admission.
All of them lyin’, and you’re still the best there is? Like hell you are.
BARNEY: [tearing himself free] ’S enough, Roo.
ROO: And Nancy—after seventeen years, you couldn’t even hold Nancy.
BARNEY: You rotten—dirty rotten—
Angry beyond measure, BARNEY seizes the nearest heavy object
to hand. It is a vase holding several of the carnival dolls, and
BARNEY swings this at ROO’s head. The big man tears it from his
hands and throws it away into the centre of the room, smashing
the vase and spilling the dolls. OLIVE gives a strangled cry and

makes a movement towards the shattered vase, but pauses to hold

ROO’s gaze, with the scattered souvenirs between them. There is
a shocked silence, then BUBBA turns and runs from the house.
END OF ACT TWO

ACT THREE
Time: the following morning. The room has been cleared of its tropical
mementos and dolls to a tidiness that gives it a stark and naked look,
revealing the years of neglect. A large suitcase stands by the stairs, as a
firm statement of imminent departure. PEARL, fully dressed for the street
in black, is waiting by the front window, ostensibly on the lookout for a
taxi, but actually staring into space in a sad reverie. OLIVE, wearing a
housecoat and slippers, comes from the kitchen, carrying a cup and saucer.
OLIVE: Thought you might like a cup of tea?
PEARL: No, thank you. The taxi should be here any minute.
OLIVE: Half past eight. [Flatly] Get it down, it won’t kill you.
PEARL accepts the tea, and OLIVE wanders away, masking an
immense inner dreariness with a matter-of-fact calm.
When’ll you pick up the rest of your things?
PEARL: There’s a taxi truck ordered for Monday.
OLIVE: I’ll tell Emma, she’ll be home. [Surveying her surroundings] Hate
the colour of this room—get it painted white, I think.
PEARL: Knew you were cleanin’ the place up. I heard you after I’d gone
to bed.
OLIVE: Didn’t mean to. I started off tryin’ to fix up what they’d broken.
After that, couldn’t seem to stop. [With a mirthless laugh] Emma
always says tryin’ to shift heavy furniture on your own is a sign you’re
crooked on the world. Wonder what spring-cleanin’ at two o’clock in
the mornin’ means?
PEARL,
sipping her tea, makes no reply.
Just you don’t want to go to bed, I s’pose.
PEARL: Awful night. Barney going off, not coming back at all. Where do
you think he went?
OLIVE: Can’t tell. The way he slammed out of here, could’ve been headin’
straight for Cairns. But if I know him, he won’t have gone far. He’ll
be back before the day’s out.
PEARL: If you know him— [Turning from the window] Somehow, Olive,
I don’t think you’ve got the least idea.

OLIVE: Barney?
PEARL: Barney—any of it. Haven’t got the least idea.
OLIVE: G’wan. After seventeen years—
PEARL: All the time you talk of years. How long you’ve been doin’ this—
how long you’ve been goin’ there—and what’s it prove? Nothing.
There’s not one thing I’ve found here been anythin’ like the stuff you
told me.
OLIVE: [tiredly] Oh, Pearl.
PEARL: No oh Pearl about it. Last night when I couldn’t sleep, I figured
out what’s the matter with you. You’re blind to everythin’ outside
this house and the lay-off season.
OLIVE: I’m blind to what I want to be.
PEARL: Alright. But the least you can do is to see what you’ve got as it
really is. Take a look at this place now you’ve pulled down all the
decorations. What’s so wonderful about it? It’s an ordinary, tatty little
room that’s a hell of a lot the worse for wear. And if you’d only take a
grown-up look at the rest of it, that’s exactly what you’d find as well.
OLIVE: [steely-voiced] Now look, I’m goin’ to say this just once.
Everythin’ I told you about Roo and Barney and their time down
here was gospel true—I swear it—for every year up until now. And
if it hasn’t been true for this year, maybe you’re the last one should
be squealin’ about it.
PEARL: Oh, of course. [Nodding] You’re blamin’ me, aren’t you? Because
I was here instead of Nancy?
OLIVE: If we have to point the finger—yes.
BARNEY arrives on the front verandah and moves for the street
door, fumbling for his house key.
PEARL: I’m wasting my breath, then. If you can’t see further than that,
I’m just wasting my breath.
Unable find his key, BARNEY knocks at the street door.
OLIVE: Be your taxi. [A checking glance at the front window] No, it’s not.
It’s Barney.
OLIVE starts a move for the door, but PEARL stops her in a panic.
PEARL: You’re not goin’ to let him in?
OLIVE: Why not?
PEARL: With me all ready to go? He’ll try to talk me round.
OLIVE: Barney?

ACT THREE 79
PEARL: I couldn’t stand it.

OLIVE: Keep your powder dry. [With a shade of relish] We’ll see who
knows him best, you or me.
She continues on to the street door, whilst PEARL hastily ditches
the cup of tea, grabs up her handbag and gloves, and heads for a
far corner of the room. OLIVE opens the door with a dryly ironic
greeting.
Well—wherever it was, they certainly threw you out early.
BARNEY: Yeah.
OLIVE admits BARNEY into the house and shuts the street door. He
is wearing his clothes from the previous day and looks frowsty and
unkempt.
OLIVE: You’re just in time to say goodbye to Pearl.
BARNEY: Off, is she? Kind of thought she would be.
He becomes aware of PEARL in the sitting room, and nods in
recognition.
’Morning, Pearl.
PEARL bridles, but ignores him, and OLIVE enjoys her covert
triumph.
OLIVE: Wouldn’t want to spoil anything. ’Sides, I haven’t had my
breakfast. In the kitchen, if you need me.
OLIVE leaves.
BARNEY: [indicating the suitcase] Looks heavy. Should’ve waited. I’d
have carried it downstairs for you.
PEARL: [an outburst] I don’t want you doin’ anything for me—I don’t
even want you talkin’ to me. Causing all that trouble, and then goin’
off and stayin’ out all night—where have you been to?
BARNEY: Oh now, steady on. That’s the question for a missus—and
you’re practically out the door already.
Furious at herself for the slip, PEARL shoves the handbag under
her arm and stretches her black gloves with a snap, causing
BARNEY to register her ensemble.
Boy, I’ll bet that’s the most respectable get-up in the whole of your
wardrobe?

He mooches into the sitting room as PEARL dons her gloves.

I don’t mind you walkin’ out on me, luvvie, but d’you have to look as
though you’re leavin’ a corpse?
PEARL: [tugging at her gloves] Might have known you’d hate me gettin’
back to what you call respectable.
BARNEY: Pearlie, I’ll let you into a little secret. Far as I’m concerned,
you’ve never been anythin’ else.
PEARL: Alright. My mistake, coming here. Hoping, maybe, I could
find a little comfort and security for myself—yes, even more.
Thinking if I shut my eyes tight enough, there might be some
chance I could marry you—but not after last night. And it
wasn’t finding out that you’re the great has-been with women.
Discovered that already for myself, and it was more of a relief
than anything—no. It was what you wanted me to do with
Vera.
BARNEY: She was bein’ invited out. An afternoon at the races—
PEARL: Yeah, and I know the sort of runnin’ that goes on, your lot. Well, it
isn’t goin’ to happen to my daughter. She’s invited to the races, won’t
be any two-way bets about it.
BARNEY: Fine, Pearlie, that’s fine. You shoot through and be the strictest
motherin’ barmaid in the business. I won’t try and stop you.
Their wrangle rests for a moment, but PEARL is unable to resist
a last bid.
PEARL: There’s just one thing I’d like to know. That very first morning,
when you talked to me into stayin’ here—
She is interrupted by a blaring car horn from the street.
BARNEY: That’ll be your taxi. [He calls though the window.] Righto,
sport. Be with you in a minute. [Turning back to PEARL.] You were
saying?
PEARL: There’s a particular thing a woman needs to have, you said. If
she was going to get along with somebody like you. Ending up like
this, I can’t help wondering—what it was?
BARNEY: Aah, now. Far too late to be askin’ a question like that. And
you wouldn’t like the answer, if I told you.
Despite herself, PEARL takes this as a rebuff, and BARNEY
attempts a weary amend.

ACT THREE 81
Oh, don’t let it get you down. Only met one woman in my life who
ever had it, anyway.
PEARL: Her?
BARNEY: Her. And she went off and got herself married months ago.
The taxi horn sounds again, on a more impatient note.
I’ll take your bag out.
He collects the suitcase as OLIVE comes from the kitchen.
OLIVE: That the taxi?
BARNEY: Yep.
BARNEY opens the front door and carries the suitcase out to the
street. OLIVE and PEARL hold an awkward regard.
OLIVE: [reservedly] Well—see you Monday then, will I?
PEARL: Yes. And you’ll tell Clintie—
OLIVE: —you’ve got a headache, and you won’t be in today. I know.
PEARL joins her and they move together to the front verandah,
where PEARL hesitates, seeking words for an appropriate leave-
taking.
PEARL: I’m sorry, Olive. Nobody’s fault. Off on the wrong foot from the
start—all of us, I think.
PEARL gives the unresponsive OLIVE a clumsy hug and hurries
away across the verandah towards the street. OLIVE stands at the
open doorway, watching her departure, as ROO comes down the
stairs.
ROO: [gruffly] That Pearl goin’?
OLIVE nods.
She need a hand?
OLIVE: Barney’s seein’ her off.
ROO: Oh. He’s back, is he?
OLIVE: I said so, didn’t I?
The taxi is heard to start off and drive away. OLIVE waves a brief
farewell and turns back into the house, leaving the front door
open for BARNEY. Meanwhile, ROO has entered the sitting room,
to pause in shock at the sight of its stripped state. OLIVE appears
at the archway.
ROO: All the—you’ve taken down all the stuff?

Robyn Nevin as Emma in the 2011 Belvoir production at the Belvoir St

Theatre, Sydney. (Photo: Heidrun Löhr)
OLIVE: Last night. [She moves into the room, dismissing his bewildered
reproach with some irritation.] Oh, I wasn’t spitin’ you. I took things
down to dust, and half of them, they fell to pieces. Some of the dolls
were moth-eaten, and the butterflies, you couldn’t touch ’em. Coral
and the shells were alright, but they looked so silly on their own, I
couldn’t put them back.
ROO: I’ll get you other ones. A whole new lot—
OLIVE: No, you won’t. Plenty to waste your time on beside that.
ROO: Always said you liked the look of them.
OLIVE: I used to like a lot of things I ain’t seen much of lately. A joke
and a bit of a laugh, for instance. If I can do without them, I won’t
miss a few bloomin’ decorations.
ROO: Olive, that stoush had been brewin’ for a long time. You saw
yourself what Barney did to me—
OLIVE: [challenging him] What? He got full, and brought home some
young feller you don’t like. That’s all I saw.
ROO: Nobody—nobody else in the gang would’ve—ah, what’s the use?
[He tries again, in a struggling attempt to explain himself.] Another
season, I’d have tackled Dowd my own way. Here, last night, I had

ACT THREE 83
no option. Shakin’ hands with him, he had the grip on me. Felt like
everythin’, my fingers, my whole hand—
He flexes his fingers in lieu of words, and OLIVE cuts through to
what she sees as the realities.
OLIVE: Righto. So it means a lot to all of you up North. But why the hell
couldn’t you have left it up there? It’s got nothin’ to do with our time
down here, has it? Did you have to smash that up as well?
ROO: [sensing the tears behind her impatience] Didn’t mean to. But
with Bubba comin’ into it, and—honest, Ol. Just seemed to happen.
OLIVE: It happened alright.
She moves for the stairs, to encounter EMMA in the hallway.
And what do you want? Can’t you hear enough from the kitchen?
EMMA: [indignantly] I wasn’t listenin’. Came up here to get that cup and
saucer.
OLIVE: [on her way upstairs] I’ll bet.
EMMA: Oh. [She shakes her head and moves into the sitting room,
ostensibly looking for the crockery left by Pearl.] Wind up with a
very nasty tongue on her, that Olive, if she doesn’t watch out. Bad
enough to have to trail around pickin’ up after her. When she makes
an insult of it— [With a shrewd glance at the glum ROO] Oh, come
on. You’re not goin’ to let her get you down, are you?
ROO: So you was listenin’?
EMMA: ’Course I was. Only way I can protect meself. And a morning
like this—the lot of you squabblin’ at last, instead of all that pals
together, thick-and-thin stuff went on other times—wouldn’t miss it
for the world. [She relaxes enjoyably, the crockery forgotten.] Only
thing I’m sorry for is Nancy isn’t here. But she knew which way the
wind was blowin’, that one.
ROO: Nancy got married.
EMMA: Nancy got out while the goin’ was good, that’s what Nancy did.
ROO: You think you know all about it, don’t you?
EMMA: Ought to. I been round here long enough. I know things I bet
you lot don’t even remember. How you ever got together in the first
place.
ROO: The aquarium.
EMMA: One silly Sunday afternoon. You and Barney fresh down from
the North. Pretendin’ you were lost. In all them dark caves.

ROO: Were lost. Had to ask our way out.

EMMA: Lucky for you, there were these two girls. On the spot to tell
you. Then as you said thanks and walked off, one of them made a
sly crack.
ROO: That’s right. It was Nancy.
EMMA: You weren’t meant to hear, of course, but you turned round and
laughed—
ROO: Well—it was funny. Somethin’ about us—me and Barney—bein’
out of our depths?
EMMA: Thousands of fish all swimmin’ in their tanks, and you were the
only two out of water. [She laughs, and shakes her head in reminiscent
memory.] Real wag. I liked Nance.
ROO: Reckon we all did.
EMMA: Shrewd, though.
ROO: I never noticed her shrewd.
EMMA: Oh, she was, she was. Buy and sell Olive any day.
ROO: Maybe. [In sudden resolve] Okay, Emma. You’ve got all the
answers, you’re the great authority—whose fault was it? Mine or
Barney’s?
EMMA: What fault?
ROO: Oh, don’t just mean the blue last night. But what went on
before, and—I mean, who’s to blame for messin’ up the whole
thing?
EMMA: You’re kiddin’, aren’t you?
ROO: No, fair dinkum. Got me all boxed up. I want to know.
EMMA: Well, I’ll be blowed. [Looking at him in astonishment] How long
did you think these lay-off seasons were goin’ to last? They’re not for
keeps, y’know, they’re just—seasons.
ROO: Righto, yeah. But whose fault was it that we came a cropper?
EMMA: Nobody’s fault, you melon.
ROO: Must be somebody’s.
EMMA: [exasperated] Why must it? All that’s happened is you’ve gone
as far as you can go. You, Barney, Olive—you’re too old for it
anymore.
ROO: Old?
EMMA: For what it is you’re up to—that’s it. Old.
ROO: Nobody tells me I’m old. I’m as good a man now as ever I
was.

ACT THREE 85
EMMA: Are you? Then who the hell was that young feller Barney brought
here last night? A mirage, or somethin’?
ROO: I ain’t old. Old? Look at me, for God’s sake. Old is what you are,
and— [groping wildly for a name] —Tony Moreno.
He pauses in shock at the identification, and from this moment on
ROO is fighting a growing doubt of himself.
EMMA: Didn’t mean you was up for the pension. But you’re not seventeen
anymore, either. [Watching him curiously] Strikes me you don’t know
what’s hit you, do you?
ROO: All I know is someone made a mess of things. And in my book,
that was Barney.
EMMA: More to do with it than you, I s’pose. But then Barney, he’s been
slippin’ longer.
ROO: [strongly] I ain’t slipped. Never you say that. What I had was one
lousy season.
EMMA: So far, that’s the first.
ROO: You reckon there could be another bad as that?
EMMA: One way and another. Don’t you?
ROO: [on a rising note] You think I can’t earn a livin’ anymore?
EMMA: ’Course you can. But that’s not what we’re talkin’ about, is it?
turns away, unable to answer her.
ROO
Should’ve twigged when Barney told that lie about your busted back.
ROO: Lyin’ comes as natural to him as skitin’.
EMMA: Not always it didn’t. When he was star turn in the bedroom, all he
did was brag about it, Barney. Now he lies. Same thing, your account.
Might be an old fossil round the place, but I can still nut that one out.
ROO is silent, and EMMA collects Pearl’s cup and saucer.
Two of a kind, you and Barney, always have been. Only the time he
spent chasin’ women, you put in bein’ kingpin of the North. Well,
that’s all very fine, and a lot of fun while it lasts, but last is one thing
it just don’t do. There’s a time for sowin’, and a time for reapin’—
and that goes for a whole lot more than cane cuttin’.
She moves to leave the room and ROO stays her with a tired gesture,
the beginnings of acceptance.
ROO: Hold on, Emma—I dunno. [Drawing a deep breath] Maybe you’re
talkin’ sense.

EMMA: I am. And if you’d had half an eye between you, you’d have seen
what you were headin’ for long ago.
ROO: No-one stopped to look, I reckon.
EMMA: Nancy did.
ROO: Did, I s’pose. What about Olive?
EMMA: Olive? Olive’s a fool. I’ll show you somethin’.
She puts the cup and saucer on the sideboard and rummages in
the cupboard underneath to drag out the seventeenth doll. She
exhibits it with bitterness.
You see this? Middle of the night, Olive sat here on the floor, huggin’
this and howling. A grown-up woman, howlin’ over a silly old kewpie
doll. That’s Olive for you.
EMMA tosses the doll on the table, takes up the cup and saucer and
goes off towards the kitchen. ROO, heavy with thought, picks up the
kewpie doll and abstractedly smoothes its fuzzy skirts. Then his
attention is taken by an agitated argument rapidly approaching
the side verandah.
BARNEY: [off] —’S what we agreed. Me and Johnnie.
BUBBA: [off] Not agreed. You lied to him.
BARNEY: [off] Had to put him off, didn’t I?
BUBBAappears at the French windows, pursued by BARNEY,
who seizes her arm to expostulate with her.
No use goin’ in to Olive—
BUBBA: [struggling] Let me go.
BARNEY: —she knows nothin’.
ROO: [putting the doll aside on the piano top] What’s the trouble?
ROO’s inquiry distracts BARNEY sufficiently for a distraught
BUBBA to pull herself free and hasten into the room.
BUBBA: This afternoon, the races—Barney came to tell me everythin’ is off.
BARNEY: Didn’t. I said I’m goin’, and the boys are goin’—
BUBBA: But I’m not.
BARNEY: —fixed it up at the Stadium last night.
BUBBA: Told Johnnie that I’d changed my mind. [To ROO] ’S how he
fixed it. Said I didn’t want to go out with some pushy larrikin.
BARNEY: Nobody mentioned larrikin. Told him that you’d thought it
over, and you’d decided otherwise.

ACT THREE 87
Yael Stone as Bubba in the 2011 Belvoir production at the Belvoir St Theatre,
Sydney. (Photo: Heidrun Löhr)
BUBBA: Well, now I’m going down to tell him that I haven’t. Where’s he
stayin’?
BARNEY: Bubba, he’s got half a dozen fellers with him.
ROO: True, Bub. There’s a bunch of them from up North—
BARNEY: [heatedly] You butt out of it. ’S me who got her into this—the
lousy pimp, remember?
ROO accepts the overruling, and BARNEY comes from the French
windows to address himself decisively to BUBBA.
Now you listen. What you met here last night was a young bloke full
of booze and swagger. By this mornin’ he’s forgotten half of what he
said to you. Not even remember who you are—what you look like.

BUBBA: Don’t believe that.

BARNEY: Okay. But would you risk finding out? Go down there in front
of all them blokes, and have him goggle at you, bleary-eyed? Make a
fool of you, with all those others, crackin’ jokes and grinnin’ at you?
BUBBA: Yes.
BARNEY: [amazed] Well, what the hell is so important about goin’ to the
races?
BUBBA: He asked me.
BARNEY: Even if he—
BUBBA: Asked me. Sent you out of the room, and asked me. And he
didn’t call me Bub or—kid. He wanted to know my real name, and
that is what he called me.
BARNEY: [all at sea] So help me, Bob—you’re serious? Think because
he’s someone from the canefields—this is just a young buck on the
make. Out for fun and everythin’ that he can—
ROO: Now you hang on. Can’t say that. [Stronger] You’ve put the boot
in far enough.
BARNEY, aware that the argument has got beyond him, surrenders
it to ROO with some relief, and the latter holds out a hand to BUBBA.
Come on over, Bub. You sit down a minute.
BUBBA: I won’t let you talk me out of it, Roo.
ROO: Fair enough. But let’s be sure you know what’s on the table.
Her underlying trust of ROO enables him to draw her down to sit
beside him on the chaise longue, and he studies her face with intent.
We’ve spoilt it for you, haven’t we? A long time?
BUBBA: Not spoilt. Just that nothing else is any good, that’s all.
ROO: Even after last night?
BUBBA: Last night wasn’t the lay-off.
ROO: ’S what it came to. Take a look, Bub. Take a good look round—
He indicates the stripped state of the bare room, but she averts her
head, aware of the sight and denying it insistently.
BUBBA: I know, I know. But rows and arguments you’ve had before.
Doesn’t change the rest of it.
ROO: Makes it pretty dicey, though. You any idea of the odds? They’re
stacked against you all the way. Young Dowd bein’ what you think—
and even if he is—
BUBBA: [passionately] I can’t be sure. D’you suppose I don’t know that?
Isn’t guarantees I’m asking. All I want’s one chance of comin’ close

ACT THREE 89
to—I dunno—whatever it is that I’ve been watching all these years.

It is a cry from the heart. ROO considers her for a wryly tender
second, and then accedes with a nod.
ROO: Okay. Buckley’s, but it’s up to you. If that’s the way you want it.
[To BARNEY] Tell her where he’s staying.
BARNEY: [ungraciously] The Coffee Palace.
As BUBBA hugs ROO:
And he’s goin’ away Monday.
ROO: Never mind that.
BUBBA rises.
But you take care now. Don’t go down, and make a show of yourself
in front of all those other fellers. Ring Dowd up, and arrange to meet
him somewhere.
BUBBA: Yes.
ROO: Tell him that you can’t get any sense out of Barney.
BUBBA: I will. I’ll—
She becomes aware, with some contrition, of a scowling BARNEY.
You mad at me? Messin’ up your day?
BARNEY: [relenting] Aaah, what’s a day. I can still meet up with the rest
of them. [Kissing her cheek] All the best, kid.
BUBBA goes to the French windows, where she pauses, conscious
of the loving dependence she is leaving behind her.
BUBBA: Whatever happens—
ROO: We know. We’re your family. Sugar uncles down from Queensland.
G’wan—scat now.
BUBBA goes in swift release.
BARNEY: [harshly] He don’t treat her right, I’ll kick his guts out.
ROO: Yeah.
ROO sits and gives himself to rolling a cigarette, a process
he follows through with a slow and absorbed care. BARNEY,
meanwhile, takes advantage of this brief period of agreement to
plunge in and settle other matters.
BARNEY: Look, we might as well get this straight while we’re at it. The
crowd are pullin’ out on Monday, up the Murray for the grapes. I’ve
made up my mind—I’m goin’ with ’em.

ROO: With young Dowd.

BARNEY: There’s a mob of us.
ROO: You’re goin’ with young Dowd.
BARNEY: Righto. He’s the ganger, so I’m goin’ with young Dowd. And
after last night, don’t expect no ‘sorry, mate’. Poison to each other
now. Best thing is to split up, get away from one another.
ROO: Whatever you like. Don’t much care.
BARNEY: [shocked at this easy acceptance] Fixes that, then. Make a
change for both of us. [The inevitable concessions] Once the season’s
on again up North, of course, different matter. We can get together,
talk things over, maybe give it another burl? What d’you say?
ROO: Only one thing wrong with that. [In slow deliberation] I’m not
goin’ back for the season.
BARNEY: You’re not? Where you goin’, then?
ROO: Nowhere. I’m stayin’ here.
BARNEY: [thunderstruck] For the winter? Stay down South here for the
winter?
ROO: It won’t be so bad.
BARNEY: Bad, my foot. You’re talkin’ winter—June, July—you’ll freeze
to death.
ROO: Locals don’t.
BARNEY: ’S different. They was born here. You’ve lived in the sun your
whole life.
ROO: Time I made a change, then.
BARNEY: But why—why should you? Not only the sun, there’s all the
rest of it—the gang? What happens with the—?
disposes of any responsibility with a shrug, and BARNEY
ROO
stares at him, baffled.
Well, now you really got me beat. Dunno what to make of you—
honest. Like you’re cuttin’ off your nose to spite your face, but you
don’t sound mad about it? [A final bid] This is nothin’ on account of
Bubba, is it? Me the pimp, and that?
ROO: Nothin’ on account of Bubba. And maybe I was wrong about the
pimp bit, anyway.
The oblique apology both disarms and unsettles BARNEY and
it is followed by a pause between them, reserved on ROO’s part,
confusedly concerned on BARNEY’s. It is during this silence that

ACT THREE 91
OLIVE comes downstairs, dressed for the street and carrying her
hat and bag. She arrives at the archway to appraise their presence
with a satirical eye.
OLIVE: Well, the two great bruisers. You can bear to be together in the
same room again, can you?
BARNEY: We was workin’ out the damage.
OLIVE: Shouldn’t take you long. An old cracked vase, and a few tatty
decorations—hardly worth your while, really.
BARNEY: We was takin’ it a bit further than that.
OLIVE: How? All that you had left to break, I would’ve thought. Rest
went months ago.
ROO: [in half-shamed remonstrance] Olive—
OLIVE: Olive, nothin’.
She moves into the room to set down her hat and bag, her very
presence a disturbance to the men’s new-found accord.
BARNEY: [resentfully] The Sat’day mornin’ sulks, eh?
OLIVE: That surprise you?
BARNEY: Not much, I s’pose. But don’t you get it in your head you’re the
only one losin’ out over this bust-up. There’s Roo and me too, y’ know.
OLIVE: Oh, yes? And what have you lost—Pearl?
BARNEY: [indignantly] I didn’t mind Pearl—got along pretty well,
considerin’. If I hadn’t been goin’ away on Monday, could have easily—
ROO: Barney.
BARNEY cuts short, and OLIVE’s eyes dart to ROO as he continues
with a curt dismissal.
You’ve got some packin’ to do, haven’t you?
BARNEY glares, offended, before striding from the room to run
upstairs.
OLIVE: [savouring the discovery] Monday? Oh, no wonder then, you
were looking over the damage—
ROO: Olive, I want to talk to you.
OLIVE: I’ll bet. Settlin’-up time already, is it? Well, make me an offer.
Vase, decorations, and everythin’ else you’ve smashed—how much?
ROO: Got the wrong idea—
OLIVE: This is where I collect, ain’t it? In cold hard cash, Roo—
seventeen summers—what are they worth?

ROO: [topping her] Will you stop your bitchin’ long enough for me to
tell you somethin’? Barney’s the one that’s goin’ away on Monday,
not me. I’m stayin’ right here.
This quietens her.
Talkin’ money that way. It’s rotten.
OLIVE: I forgot. You’re the sort who like to pay off with a swanky
present. Not to leave the money on the mantelpiece, underneath the
clock.
ROO: [shocked] Now look, Olive, that’s enough. I know you’ve had a bad
spin, and I know you’re all on edge, but we’ve never been as low and
cheap as that, ever.
OLIVE: Well, we are now. Low and cheap’s just how I feel.
ROO: Because of me?
OLIVE: You, Barney, the whole damn lay-off. Even Pearl—the way she
looked at me this mornin’ when she told me I didn’t know what
livin’ was.
ROO: That’s a fine thing to let worry you. The way Pearl looks.
OLIVE: You didn’t see her. And it’s more than lookin’—it’s havin’
another woman walking round, knowin’ your inside and sorry for
you, ’cause she thinks you’ve never been within cooee of the real
thing. That’s what—what hurts—
Her control gives way and she starts to cry, trying vainly to fight
back the tears. ROO responds to her struggle with infinite love
and pity.
ROO: Oh, hon.
He moves to comfort her, an act of sympathy that completes her
downfall.
OLIVE: It was all true. Everythin’ I told her was true, and—she didn’t see
any of it—
ROO: Honey, not your fault. You did your best—
OLIVE: But if she could have seen—just somethin’—so she’d know—
ROO: Maybe she did.
OLIVE: No. No, she didn’t. It was all different.
She collapses against him, shaking with sobs, and he soothes her
with great compassion.

ACT THREE 93
ROO: Well, that old Pearlie. She couldn’t tell, anyway. ’S not her cup of
tea—never was. Come on now, stop your cryin’. What we’ll do—
we’ll forget she ever came here—
He sits with OLIVE, cradling her protectively in his arms.
’S all over. All that silly part of it is over—you don’t have to worry
anymore. ’S over—ssh, now—ssh.
Under his ministrations, she gradually calms to lie unquestiongly
in his embrace, the two of them as close as they have ever been in
their lives. Then OLIVE seeks to gain control of herself, although
still racked by an occasional deep catch of breath.
OLIVE: Ooh. Oh, I can’t believe it—
He kisses her hair, and she struggles to sit up.
Ought to have a—a hankie somewhere.
She finds one in her sleeve to mop her eyes and ROO watches her
with teasing warmth.
ROO: Got to say, I never knew any cryin’ woman look worse than you do.
OLIVE: No. And I was goin’ to be so—cool and hoity-toity. [She sniffs
and sensibly mops up further, before embarking on a remorseful
confession.] Roo, those butterflies—they did fall to pieces when I
touched ’em.
ROO: I believe you.
OLIVE: But some of the other things—the dolls and that—I could’ve
put ’em back. But I was mad at you, and I wouldn’t.
ROO: Doesn’t matter.
OLIVE: Yes, it does. I’ll do it tonight. The coral, and—I might be able to
get the butterflies fixed up a bit.
ROO: [softly] Y’know, a man’s a fool to treat you as a woman. You’re
nothin’ but a kid ’bout twelve years old.
OLIVE: Try tellin’ that to the mob at the six o’clock swill.
ROO: ’S true, just the same.
They kiss gently.
Have you really got to go to the pub today?
OLIVE: Yes. I ought to.
ROO: Take the day off, and we’ll go for a picnic somewhere. Just the two
of us?
OLIVE: I’d like to. [Rousing herself] But there’s Pearl away already, and I
said I’d sling a line to Clintie for her. Ooh—I know what I must look

like, just the same. [She rises to fetch her handbag and then move to
the mantelpiece mirror, with a bright alternative suggestion.] Why
don’t you and Barney come down to the pub for the afternoon?
ROO: He’s goin’ to the races with the boys.
OLIVE: Oh. [Inspecting her face in the mirror] Talk about the ‘Wreck of
the Hesperus’— [She opens her handbag and fishes for cosmetics to
mend the damage.] Is it the boys he’s nickin’ off with on Monday?
ROO: Yeah. Up the Murray for the grapes.
OLIVE: [getting compact and lipstick from her bag] It’ll be funny without
Barney around. Couldn’t you get him to stay?
ROO: He needs a job. And he won’t take one in the city.
OLIVE: Well, I don’t blame him for that.
She realises, too late, that this is a mistake and, shoving her
handbag under her arm, she somewhat nervously starts to repair
her ravaged appearance.
Would you like to go off with him? Up the Murray, and that?
ROO: No.
OLIVE: ’Cause if you would—I mean, I wouldn’t mind it. Just this once.
ROO: [rising] Are you tryin’ to get rid of me?
OLIVE: [watching his image in the mirror] No, but other times you’ve
always left together, you and Barney. Doesn’t seem right.
ROO: We’ve talked it over. He’s goin’ off, and I’m stayin’ here.
OLIVE: [suspending her making-up] Well—how will you meet up together
for the season, then?
ROO: Say we don’t? Barney’ll get along. He’s a good right hand. Him
and this young Dowd—looks as though they could team up together.
OLIVE: [turning to stare at him] But you, Roo—what’ll happen to you?
ROO: Nothin’. I’m not goin’ back, Ol.
He moves towards her.
Not for this season, or any other.
He draws her away from the mirror, taking the handbag and
lipstick from her unresisting grasp.
Let me get rid of these for a minute—
He puts her belongings aside.
OLIVE: You’re not going back?

ACT THREE 95
ROO: Look— [tenderly, taking her stiffened body in his arms] —seventeen
years in comin’. Pretty late, I know—and what I’m offerin’ you is not
much chop, but—I want to marry you, Ol.
There is a frozen second before she answers, backing slowly away
from him and shaking her head in rejection.
OLIVE: No.
ROO: Olive—
OLIVE: You can’t get out of it like that. [With rising intensity] I won’t
let you—
ROO: Olive? What the hell’s wrong?
OLIVE: You’ve got to go back. It’s the only chance we’ve got—
ROO: Stop that screamin’, will you?
OLIVE: You think I’ll let it all end up in marriage? Every day—a paint
factory? You think I’ll marry you?!
ROO: [appalled, shouting back] What else can we do?! You gone mad,
or somethin’?! First you tell me that I’ve made you low, and now
look—you dunno what you want!
OLIVE: I do. I want what I had before!
She rushes to attack him physically, beating savagely at his chest
with her fists.
You give it back to me—give me back what you’ve taken!
ROO: [grabbing her wrists] ’S gone. Can’t you understand? Nothin’ left
to give you—all that stuff is gone—
OLIVE: [struggling with him] I won’t let you, let you do it. Kill you first—
ROO: Kill me, then.
He throws her from him so that she falls to the floor, and he lashes
her with words that hurt him as much as her.
But there’s no more flyin’ down out of the sun—no more eagles.
OLIVEtries to twist away from him, but ROO goes to his knees
beside her on the floor, striking at it with his hand.
This is the dust we’re in. And we’re gunna walk through it like
everyone else, rest of our nothin’ lives.
She gives a rasping cry, doubling over on herself as though
cradling some inner pain; grief stricken, almost an animal in
her sense of loss. ROO stays watching her, gasping for breath, as

EMMA moves swiftly into view from the direction of the kitchen,
and BARNEY is heard calling apprehensively from upstairs.
BARNEY: [off] What the hell is goin’ on down there—?!
BARNEY comes tumbling hastily downstairs, half dressed in a
change of clothing and carrying his jacket. EMMA, meanwhile,
has come to crouch beside OLIVE.
EMMA: Olive—
ROO: [rising and backing away, choked] Give it back to me, she says.
As if I’d taken it away from her—me.
EMMA: Don’t look like that—just tell me, Olive? What’s the matter—
tell me?
OLIVE shakes her head dumbly and draws away from her mother
to rise, swaying, to her feet. She stares at ROO for an unbelieving
moment and then, obeying some blind compulsion to get away,
she gropes forward to pick up her gaping handbag, and with this
hanging uselessly from her hand, she starts to stumble from the
house. Her actions are unknowing, her hair is tumbled about
her face and her progress is that of a drunk woman. On the
front verandah she steadies herself for a moment against a post,
clinging for support before relinquishing her grip to plunge off
the verandah and wander away out of sight. When she has gone,
EMMA drags herself to her feet.
EMMA: [with low, grim determination] There’s nothin’ you can do for her
now. ’Cept to clear out, and never come back again. The lay-offs in
this house are finished—for all of you.
She turns and makes her way towards the kitchen, suddenly a
worn-out, shambling, old woman. BARNEY watches her go and
then gives his attention to an immobile ROO, coming to a decision.
BARNEY: [quietly, but with tremendous purpose] To hell with Dowd.
To hell with all the boys. They can pick grapes, or do anythin’ they
want to, I won’t even get in touch with ’em. We’ll go off on our
own, Roo. Make a fresh start. Plenty of places we can go to—that
bloke up in Warwick, he always said he’d take us on, any time we
gave the word.
ROO moves towards the front window, to stare after the departed
OLIVE. BARNEY tosses his jacket aside, building the bid.

ACT THREE 97
Or even—look, we don’t have to go to any place we’ve ever been

before, even. How about that? We’ve been goin’ to the same places,
doin’ the same thing for so long, we’ve run ourselves into the ground.
Yeah—and there’s a whole bloody country out there—wide open
before us.
ROO’s gaze is now focused on the seventeenth doll on top of the
piano.
There’s all the West—we can hit Perth, and then work our way right
up to Broome there. Or even—
ROO takes up the doll. BARNEY carries on, his voice rising in a
desperate attempt to stave off the fury he senses is to come.
Look, Roo, this is even better. That Rum Jungle you hear so much
about. There’s a packet in it, they reckon. I bet fellers like us could
really clean up there—and we wouldn’t have to give a Continental
for—
He breaks off as ROO, in a baffled insensate rage, starts to beat
the doll down on the piano, smashing it again and again, and
then tearing at its fabric until it is nothing but a litter of split
cane, shredded material and broken celluloid. Only when it is
in this state does it drop from his hands, and only now does the
tremendous energy sustaining him through this last effort start
to drain away. Strength ebbing from him, he slowly subsides to
sag down on the piano stool. Something breaks deep within him,
but there is no outward sign, he is too inarticulate for the release
of tears. After a pause, BARNEY, with a wisdom that transcends
his usual shallow self, moves in to place a hand on his shoulder
and say quietly.
Come on, Roo—c’mon, boy.
BARNEY moves to collect his jacket, sling it over his back, and
stand waiting. ROO comes from his stunned state to stare at
the tinsel mess around him with a helpless loss and anguish.
He looks for a lead from BARNEY, who can offer nothing but
a jerk of his head, an indication of the open front door. ROO
lurches, swaying, to his feet, and with BARNEY as a shepherding
companion, they leave the house.
THE END

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This “one stop” resource includes:

• Costume/set design sketches and photos from key
productions, drawn from the archives of the Melbourne
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of Australia, Opera Australia, Sydney Theatre Company,
National Archives, QPAC and Melbourne University
• Interviews with actors—Steve Le Marquand, Susie Porter,
Travis McMahon, Sandy Gore, Bruce Myles—on how they
approached their roles
• Interview with director Neil Armfield
• Interview with John McCallum (academic and theatre critic
for The Australian) on the play’s significance
• Interviews—audio and video—with Ray Lawler
• A copy of the playscript with audio annotations pulled from
the interviews listed above
• Academic analysis of the play’s cultural positioning—both
artistic and socio-historical

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Summer of the

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The Doll revisited: a truer realisation

Summer of the Seventeenth Doll

The book has been printed on paper certified by the

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years—Melbourne seemed very staid and buttoned up by comparison. I

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He replied immediately, liking the notion, and supported it from that

The world of The Doll

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Ladies Parlour. Also city boarding houses catering for lodgers on a

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Emma’s Carlton boarding house is the sort of suburban

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Canecutting is now done by machinery, pub life is enjoyed by both

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Ray Lawler wishes to acknowledge the Emeritus Award granted

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OLIVE dismisses these foolish quibbles for a survey of the table,

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Helen Thomson as Pearl in the 2011 Belvoir production at the Belvoir St

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Wouldn’t care to come and eat with us?

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OLIVE drinks deeply, watched by a not entirely convinced PEARL.

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He moves down to PEARL, watched with cynical scorn by EMMA.

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OLIVE: [dismissively] Oh, go on. Lots of times I haven’t been down to

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up on him, and he collapsed down on his knees. Never saw anything

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EMMA: [off] And I don’t need invitations in my own house, either.

The following morning.

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sunlight, before moving out of sight to return carrying clinking

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Ah look—prettier than ever. First thing I told Pearl about when we

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This is cash from what you might say are investments.

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