You not comin’ in?

EMMA: [shelling peas] Waitin’ on the postman.

ROO: Thought you’d want to see her face?

EMMA: Good enough for foxes, they’ll be good enough for Olive.

ROO: [refusing to be dampened] Please yourself. Well—wish me luck.

ROO move off into the house, calling as he comes:

Olive?

He enters the living room, with a slightly hearty greeting:

Never guess what we been up to. Me and Barney, we went into town.

OLIVE: [a casual glance] I wondered.

ROO: Thought we’d take a look around—catch up with the shoppin’ you was on about.

He tosses his hat aside, and sets down his parcel.

Not my game, I tell you. And Barney wasn’t much help, either. [Approaching her] Hey, all our stuff from up North?

OLIVE: Shells and stuff that Bub brought in. [Remotely indicating the items] Not sure what to do with it?

ROO: Why not shove it up round here? On the mantelpiece and that? Bub can see it then when she comes back—

OLIVE questions this possibility with a look, but he overrides any doubts.

Coz she will, y’know, she will be back. Them aunties can’t stay mad forever—kid’ll be runnin’ in and out, ’fore you know it.

He firmly claims her attention by lifting the box of souvenirs from the table and setting it aside.

Anyway, want to tell you about our shoppin’ lark. What we had in mind was shirts and stuff—

He moves to collects his own wrapped parcel.

—but then I saw this in a shop window. Barney reckoned I was mad, and he went off to do some shoppin’ of his own. Still looked good to me, but, so I walked into the shop, like I knew what I was doin’, and I took a chance—

He brings his parcel forward, as an offering to OLIVE, but is interrupted at this point by a postman’s double whistle from the street.

OLIVE registers the whistle, and on the verandah EMMA rises abruptly from her pea-shelling and heads out of sight towards the gate, clutching the empty pea pods in her apron. Within the room, ROO seeks to dismiss the interruption.

’S nothin’. It’s the postie.

OLIVE: Yes.

ROO: Your mum’s out there.

OLIVE: I know.

She starts a move for the front window.

They’ve promised her a word about the telephone—

ROO: Well, on the spot. Hardly goin’ to miss it.

OLIVE: Just that she’s been worried—

EMMA moves back into view, awkwardly tearing open a letter, while still hanging onto her apron-load of empty pea pods. OLIVE, watching her through the front window, is reassured.

Could be it. Has got somethin’. [Turning back to ROO] What was that about the shopping?

But the interruption and OLIVE’s overall lack of interest has robbed ROO of pride and confidence in his purchase, and he shrugs the question away.