A Town like Alice

boots with a very thin sole, and they were playing cards upon the ground, intent upon their game. She realized that she was looking at her first ringers.
    She studied them with interest; that was how Joe Harman would have looked before he joined the army. She resisted an absurd temptation to go up to one of them and ask if they knew anything about him.
    The bus started at dawn next day, and drove on southwards down the tarmac road, past Milners Lagoon and Newcastle Waters and Muckety Bore to Tennant Creek. As they went the vegetation grew sparser and the sun grew hotter, till by the time they stopped at Tennant Creek for a meal and a rest the country had become pure sand desert. They went on after an hour, driving at fifty to fifty-five miles an hour down tyre scorching road past tiny places of two or three houses dignified with a name, Wauchope and Barrow Creek and Aileron. Toward evening they found themselves running towards the Macdonnell Ranges, lines of bare red hills against the pale blue sky, and at about dusk they ran slowly into Alice Springs and drew up at the Talbot Arms Hotel.
    Jean went into the hotel and got a room opening on to a balcony, the hotel being a bungalow-type building with a single storey, like practically every other building in Alice Springs. Tea was served immediately after they arrived, and she had already learned that in Australian country hotels unless you are punctual for your meals you will get nothing. She changed her dress and strolled out in the town after tea, walking very slowly down the broad suburban roads, examining the town.
    She found it as Joe Harman had described it to her, a pleasant place with plenty of young people in it. In spite of its tropical surroundings and the bungalow nature of the houses there was a faint suggestion of an English suburb in Alice Springs which made her feel at home. There were the houses standing each in a small garden fenced around or bordered by a hedge for privacy; the streets were laid out in the way of English streets with shade trees planted along the kerbs. Shutting her eyes to the Macdonnell Ranges, she could almost imagine she was back in Bassett as a child. She could now see well what everybody meant by saying Alice was a bonza place. She knew that she could build a happy life for herself in this town, living in one of these suburban houses, with two or three children, perhaps.
    She found her way back to the main street and strolled up it looking at the shops. It was quite true; this town had everything a reasonable girl could want-a hairdressing saloon, a good dress shop or two, two picture houses… She turned into the milk bar at about nine o'clock and bought herself an ice-cream soda. If this was the outback, she thought, there were a great many worse places.
    Next morning, after breakfast, she went and found the manageress, a Mrs Driver, in the hotel office. She said, "I want to try and get in touch with a second cousin of mine, who hasn't written home for ten years." She told her story about being on her way from London to Adelaide to stay with her sister. "I told my uncle that I'd come this way and stop in Alice Springs and try and find out something about Joe."
    Mrs Driver was interested. "What's his name?"
    "Joe Harman."
    "Joe Harman! Worked out at Wollara?"
    "That's right," Jean said. "Do you know if he's there still?"
    The woman shook her head. "He used to come in here a lot just after the war, but he was only here about six months. I only came here in the war; I don't know about before that. He was a prisoner of the Japs, he was. They treated him terribly. Came back with scars on his hands where they'd put nails right through, crucified him, or something."
    Jean expressed surprise and horror. "Do you know where he is now?"
    "I don't know, I'm sure. Maybe one of the boys would know."
    Old Art Foster, the general handyman who had lived in Alice Springs for thirty years said, "Joe Harman? He went back to Queensland where he come from. He was at Wollara for about six months after the war, and then he got a job as station manager at some place up in the Gulf country."
    Jean asked, "You don't know his address?"
    "I don't. Tommy Duveen would know it, out at Wollara."
    "Does he come into town much?"
    "Aye, he was in town on Friday. He comes about once every three or four weeks."
    Jean asked innocently, "I suppose Joe Harman took his family with him when he went to Queensland. They aren't living here still, are they?"
    The old man