OLIVE: No no, don’t think you’re too popular in there this morning. Aunties have you tagged as some sort of a fire bug.

She leads him to the boxes left by Bubba.

Made Bubba bring back all the stuff you brought her down before the war. Look at it. Honestly, you wouldn’t believe—

Marvelling, as she picks up a collection of tropical butterflies on a black velvet frame:

—way she’s kept this stuff.

ROO: Right. Well, you run in and put ’em straight. Then we’ll go out on the town.

A swift kiss and he slaps her bottom.

Be as quick as you can.

OLIVE: Back in no time.

OLIVE goes off through the French windows, spirits restored and on the rise. ROO starts an immediate search of the large envelope she has given him, in quest of particular items.

EMMA returns from the kitchen to resume her cleaning up. She pulls the cloth from the table and starts to fold it.

EMMA: I been lookin’ at the discharge clothes of yours that’s hanging in the washhouse. Don’t know whether you’ll ever get the blood stains out them shirts—

ROO: Yes, Ol was tellin’ me. We’re goin’ shopping.

He has found the items he needs from the envelope.

Look, there’s a sort of fur cape some of the girls are wearin’ nowadays—Ol mentioned it to Nance the other night. Comes down around here—

He gestures clumsily at three-quarter length.

—and the fur is longish—black and white—

EMMA: Silver fox?

ROO: That’s it. Where d’you go, to get a thing like that?

EMMA: [abandoning the tablecloth] Silver fox cape?

ROO: Gunna make it a surprise. Ol thinks that we’re goin’ out to get some shirts and stuff for me. What I want to do is steer her into the proper place, and spring it on her suddenly—like it was an accident.

EMMA: Accident? Silver fox cape? You any notion what they cost, them capes? Silver foxes cost the earth.

ROO: [holding up a document] I got money.

EMMA: One month’s re-establishment leave pay?

ROO: And gratuity? [Another document, his army pay book] Five years’ service. What about that?

EMMA: You wouldn’t?

ROO: Real packet.

EMMA: [strenuously] Oh yes, it’s a packet right enough. Money that the guv’ment put aside for you all through the war so you’ll have somethin’ when you come out of the army—

ROO: Okay. So I’m out.

EMMA: S’posed to be a nest egg. Savings that you put into the bank against a rainy day. Invest in some sort of a business—

ROO: Me?

EMMA: If you’ve any sense at all in that thick head of yours—now you just listen to me.

EMMA sets herself to get through to him.