A Town like Alice

to him; he could not know how very willing she was to adapt herself to his Queensland life. Perhaps, too, her money stood between them. She did not think that so sincere and genuine a man would have any scruples about marrying a girl with money, but it might well make him shy of her. She had a feeling that there was a difference between herself, a strange, wealthy, English girl, and an Australian girl from Cairns. If Joe Harman had been so much interested in a girl from Cairns, Jean thought, she would have been in bed with him by then; whereas she herself had not even been kissed.
    She lay awake for a long time.
    Things were no better the next day. They bathed in the cool of the morning in that marvellous translucent sea; they walked out upon the reef at low tide to see the coloured coral; they paddled about in a glass-bottomed boat to see the coloured fishes, and a good six inches separated them all the time. By teatime they were finding that they had exhausted their light conversation; the restraint was heavy upon both of them, and there were long awkward pauses when neither of them seemed to know what to say.
    In the evening light they decided to walk round the island on the beach. She left him at the door of her hut, and said, "Give me a couple of minutes, Joe. I don't want to go around the beach in this frock." She pulled one of the curtains for privacy; as she changed she thought that they had only one more day, and so much to settle that they had not started on. She would get nowhere without taking a bit of a risk, and it was worth it for Joe.
    In the half light he turned as she came out of the hut, and he was back in the Malay scene of six years ago. She was wearing the same old faded cotton sarong or one very like it, held up in a roll under her arms; her brown shoulders and her brown arms were bare. She was barefooted, and her hair hung down in a long plait, tied at the end with a bit of string, as it had been in Malaya. She was no longer the strange English girl with money; she was Mrs Boong again, the Mrs Boong he had remembered all those years. She came to him rather shyly and put both hands on his shoulders, and said, "Is this better, Joe?"
    She could never remember very clearly what happened in the next five minutes. She was standing locked in his arms as he kissed her face and her neck and her shoulders hungrily while his hands fondled her body; in the tumult of feelings that swept over her she knew that this man wanted her as nobody had ever wanted her before. She stood unresisting in his arms; it never entered her head to struggle or to try to get away. But presently, when she had breath to speak, she said, "Oh, Joe! They'll see us from the house!"
    The next thing that she realized was that they were in her bedroom hut. She never knew how they got there, but thinking of it afterwards she came to the conclusion that he must have picked her up and carried her. And now a new confusion came to her. A sarong held up by a tight roll above the breasts will stay in place all day if given proper usage but it does not stand up very well to energetic man-handling; she could feel that it was getting loose and falling, and she had no other garment on at all.
    Standing in his arms still unresisting, smothered by his kisses, she thought, this is it. And then she thought, It had to happen sometime, and I'm glad it's Joe. And then she thought, It's not his fault, I brought this on myself. And then she thought, I must sit down or something, or I'll be stark-naked, and at that she escaped backwards from his arms and sat down on the bed.
    He followed her down, laughing, and her eyes laughed back at him as she tried to hold her sarong up with her hand to hide her bosom. Then she was in his arms again and he was hindering her. And then he said quite simply, "Do you mind?"
    She reached her right arm round his shoulders, and said quietly, "Dear Joe. Not if you've got to. If you can wait till we're married, I'd much rather, but whatever you do now, I'll love you just the same."
    He looked down into her eyes. "Say that again."
    She drew his head down to her and kissed him. "Dear Joe. Of course I'm in love with you. What do you think I came to Australia for?"
    "Will you marry me?"
    "Of course I'll marry you." She looked up at him with fondness and with laughter in her eyes. "Anyone looking at us now would say we were married already."
    He grinned; he was holding her more gently now. "I don't know what you must think of