A Town like Alice

He took her hand and squeezed it. "I do want to try and start this business before we get married, Joe," she said. She smiled at him. "You know, you're a pretty energetic lover. I don't believe you'll waste much time starting a family."
    He grinned, "I won't go quicker than you want to."
    "I want to have them, too." She pulled his head down to her and kissed him. "But that means I'll only have six months for business after we get married, and then I'll have to begin thinking of other things. Joe, when do you start mustering?"
    "After the wet," he said. "It was March this year because of the late season, but normally we'd start mustering about the middle of February."
    "How long does the muster go on for?"
    "About three weeks or a month. After that there's the branding of the calves, and driving the stock down to Julia Creek."
    "Could we get married after the mustering, Joe? Say early in April?"
    "Of course."
    She said thoughtfully, "That would mean that I'd have nearly a year from now, to get it to the stage when I could leave the business for a month or two while we start your family. I think that's fair enough. If it couldn't run without me for a month by then the whole thing wouldn't be much good, and we'd better pack it up."
    He said, "I'll be around, of course."
    She laughed. "Handing out ice-creams and selling lipsticks to young girls. I won't ask you to do that, Joe."
    He thought about this programme. "Jim could drive the steers alone down to Julia Creek," he said, "while we're getting married. I'd send Bourneville and some of the other boongs with him. Then we could drive down in the utility and catch him up about the time he got there, and put them on the train. Have it as a kind of honeymoon."
    She smiled. "I like your idea of a honeymoon." He grinned. "Is there anything to do in Julia Creek, Joe, except drink beer?"
    "Oh my word," he said. "There's plenty to do in Julia Creek."
    "What is there to do there?"
    "Put fifteen hundred cattle into railway trucks." He grinned at her. "There's not many English girls get a chance of a honeymoon like that," he said.
    They went and changed for lunch, and over lunch he said, "About this tanning and dressing the alligator skins. I'd give that away." He was very much against attempting to do that in Willstown; it was messy work, unsuitable for girls, and no men were available to do it. He told her that there was a tannery in Cairns who could dress any skins she sent them. "A joker called Gordon runs it," he said. "He was over in the Gulf country last year. We could go and see him tomorrow afternoon if you like."
    "Would he have any white kid basils, do you think?"
    "Might do. If not he'll probably get them."
    With his knowledge of station management he was a great help to her with suggestions for the workshop. "I'd make it good and big, while you're at it," he said. "It's the transport of the wood to Willstown that's going to cost the money." He thought for a minute. "There's three of you new girls coming in to live in Willstown, if all goes right," he said. "You and this Rose Sawyer and this Aggie Topp. Why don't you make your workshop building a bit bigger and have three bed-sitting-rooms at the end, walled off from the rest of it and with a separate entrance? Then you wouldn't have to live in the hotel and you'd be all comfortable by yourselves. Then if the business grows up you can pull down the wall and throw it all into one." This seemed to her to be a very good idea indeed.
    They got a paper and pencil after lunch and jotted down a few essential things to do in Cairns when they got back there, and orders to be placed. Then they retired to their own huts and slept in the heat of the day. She was roused by Joe calling her outside her hut. "Come on and bathe," he was saying. "It's nearly five o'clock."
    She pulled the sheet over quickly. "I won't be a minute. Have you been looking in?"
    "I wouldn't do a thing like that."
    "I wish I could believe you." She pulled the curtain across and put on her bathing dress, and joined him on the beach. And lying with him in the warm blue and silvery water on the sand, she said, "Joe, do you want us to be engaged, with a ring and everything?"
    "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"
    She shook her head. "Not unless it would prevent you worrying. I'll marry you early in April, Joe-that's dinkum." He smiled. "But for the present, I believe we'd get on better if we weren't officially engaged." She turned to him. "You see, when we get back to