NANCY laughs softly.

Without even tellin’ me—givin’ me a chance at all—

She rises to move for the cupboard.

You start drinkin’ now, I’ll hit you with the bottle.

NANCY: I was getting it for you.

He sits heavily at the table. She fetches a bottle and glass, puts the glass in front of him, and pours a shot. BARNEY takes a much-needed drink.

BARNEY: [afterwards, sullenly] I reckon I’d a right to know.

NANCY: You won’t remember, but I did try once to tell you.

BARNEY: Things like that, you don’t just try. You come right out and say it.

NANCY: S’pose I should’ve done just that. Come right out, and hollered pregnant.

Despite himself, BARNEY flinches at the word. NANCY puts the whisky bottle on the table and sits beside him. Throughout the following sequence, although strongly aware of each other and what is being said, there is little eye contact.

But times like that, a girl needs some encouragement. It was the end of the lay-off—only the second year you’d been down here—I was scared I’d kill the summer stone dead with a word. The easiest way to lead up to my little problem, I thought, was to talk about your other bits of trouble in that line. So one night—very crafty—when the others had gone up to bed, I steered the conversation round to May and Norma, and those two mistakes of yours in Makarandi. [She laughs, partly with genuine amusement.] Well, even now I don’t know whether it was guilty conscience, or you’d just been waitin’ for the chance to get it off your chest—but straight out of the blue, you told me of the butcher’s wife in Cooktown, and the baby daughter she was passin’ off there as her husband’s—’long as you dropped in to see her now and then.

BARNEY makes a defensive gesture with the whisky glass and she continues with a further gurgle of laughter.

After that, you really opened up—likely mood? It was a flood. You went on to tell me how these women up and down the country kept on makin’ passes at you coz you’d been the father of two illegitimate sons at eighteen—which had somehow given them the notion you were quite a ram, and they were keen to put you through your paces. What a battle it was, havin’ to live up to this—horny reputation—and the sort of claims it made on you.

BARNEY joins in the laughter, from sheer embarrassment, and NANCY builds it with him.

And then you really topped my night. Told me just how different I was. Stymied me for good and all by numbering on your fingers what it was that made me stand out from the rest. On your fingers, numberin’ them off—one, I had the nous to realise you weren’t just a ram, but someone with a loving nature that amounted to a bloody gift. Two, I was experienced enough to know that this would put you on the spot with women, so I wouldn’t want to tie you down. And three, I had this sense of humour—