He swings his feet down from the chaise longue and starts to hobble out towards the kitchen, as NANCY takes a glass and bottle of whisky from the cupboard.

Isn’t just the way that people talk, y’know, that sets a bad example.

He goes. ROO is watching NANCY as she pours herself a drink.

ROO: What’s the beef with him?

NANCY: Apart from thinking no-one loves him? Right now he’s hoppin’ mad because I’ve told him that I’m tired of life on the instalment plan.

She turns with her glass to meet ROO’s inquiring gaze, and decides this is the moment to brazen matters out.

Well, what else can you call it? Ol and me, all through the war, we’ve been waiting here for soldiers to come down on leave. Now, when you get your discharge, we’ll be waiting round for canecutters to come down here for the lay-off.

ROO: Oh, c’mon. All the difference in the world—

NANCY: I know. That’s what I keep telling myself. But give or take a uniform, it’s still the same old waiting game. Before we get caught up in that again, I’d like the four of us to sit down and to have a good long talk together. Nut out what we’re after.

ROO: [astonished] What’s to nut out? Get things back to normal. What we had before the war. Pretty good, I reckon.

NANCY: Oh yes, it was great. Before the war it was terrific. Just I’m not sure that we’re the same four people anymore.

As he stares, more surprised than ever:

You think you’re the same Roo—

ROO: [starting to bristle] ’Course I am. What’s so different about me?

NANCY: Five years taking orders. For a bloke who used to run his own team through the canefields.

ROO: Steady on now, that was my choice. Army brass had their way, they’d have sent me off to Officers’ School, lined me up for a commission half a dozen times—wasn’t interested.

NANCY: Because of Barney.

ROO: [pugnaciously] Two of us are mates, for God’s sake. Knocked around for years. Be a war—

NANCY: —you’d see it through together. Yes, I know the way it goes, I’ve heard all that from Olive. The natural thing to do. Just as waiting here for you and Barney to come home on leave’s the natural thing for us two. Only difference there is that the natural part of it for Ol is all tied up with summer and the lay-off, and when you arrive, it isn’t leave at all. What you are doing, both of you, is blowing in as usual from the canefields—

As he exclaims:

Oh, of course, there is a war, going on there somewhere, and, of course. it makes a difference. We don’t have the time we had before, and everything’s a greater rush, but that just makes the fuss and the excitement so much more—