BUBBA: But you wouldn’t want me to grow up flat and ugly?

OLIVE: You—what’s ugly about you?

ROO: You’re just fine the way you are.

BUBBA: [eyeing her front doubtfully] Well—

OLIVE: Moira Doherty.

NANCY enters with a tray holding a small enamel bowl of antiseptic lotion, and accessories.

BARNEY: Ought to have some real worries. Feet and ears droppin’ off.

NANCY: Alright, buster. Treatment coming up.

BUBBA: You want me to give a hand, Nance?

NANCY: No, doesn’t matter.

Setting down the tray, and tucking a towel around BARNEY’s neck:

It’s imagination, most of it.

BARNEY: There’s sympathy for you.

NANCY: ’Sides, what about your project? Hygiene?

BUBBA: [wrinkling her nose] Aah—

NANCY: You’d work on it tonight, you said.

BARNEY: Helpin’ you to treat me itches and me tinea is hygiene, ain’t it?

NANCY: Not the sort of thing the convent had in mind.

She dips a piece of lint into the lotion, pushes BARNEY’s head forward, and starts dabbing at an area behind his ear.

BUBBA: [after a hesitation] Yeh, well—maybe I should go home and look at it.

OLIVE: C’mon— [rising] —I’ll walk you in.

BUBBA: I can manage. Got me torch.

NANCY: [automatically] My torch.

OLIVE: I want a word with your aunties, anyway. [Joining BUBBA in a move of encouraging support] There’s a good show on at the Tivoli. Thought I’d ask them if they’d let us take you sometime.

BUBBA: Mean it? That’d be great. Golly, thanks, Ol.

She hugs OLIVE, her spirits restored, and starts a swift round of farewells.

’Bye, Nance. ’Bye, Barn. ’Bye, Roo. [Calling] ’Bye ’bye, Mrs Leech.

BARNEY: ’Bye, kid.

ROO: See you tomorrow.

OLIVE and BUBBA move out through the French windows.

NANCY: Remember now.

BUBBA: I know. Project.

OLIVE closes the windows behind them.

BARNEY: Boy, you don’t let up much, do you?

NANCY: [switching to the other ear] I said I’d keep an eye on her lessons.

BARNEY: More than lessons. How about the torch bit—my torch? Everybody says me this, me that.

NANCY: Her aunties don’t. And neither do the nuns at school. Bub’s a bright kid. Time she started looking to her future.

BARNEY: Not the only one doin’ that. You know your trouble, don’t you? Never satisfied.

NANCY: Could be. But I’ll tell you this.

She puts the lotion aside, to rinse and dry her hands at the small table.

I’m tired of playing Florence Nightingale.

BARNEY: Tired of lots of things, I reckon—what about the new stuff for me ankles?

NANCY: You go out and get it.

She moves for the wall cupboard.

I need somethin’ for me stummick.

BARNEY: And I’m a wake-up there as well.