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‘It will be deducted from your salary. On that money subject, I gathered from the conversation that the young lady ’

‘My stepsister.’

His eyes glinted. ‘If you say so ... is waiting for a remittance from you.’

‘Yes,’ she nodded.

‘You are aware, I trust, Brown, that you won’t be paid for a month yet?’

‘A month ?’ Her voice failed her.

‘Yes, a month. It’s the practice on these stations to hold on to a month’s salary both to safeguard the employer and benefit the employee.’

‘I—I don’t think she’ll wait that long.'

‘Your stepsister?’ he demanded.

‘Yes.’

‘I see.’

There was silence for a while.

‘What did you do to her to make her so antagonistic?’ the man asked presently. ‘Come clean, Brown, you can open up and talk to me, it’s between men.’

‘Nothing,’ she muttered.

‘Nothing. Well’ ... humorously ... T expect that’s as good an answer as any.’

‘Sir?’

‘Pretty, is she?' he asked.

‘Very.’

‘And wasted on you.'

‘Sir, she
is
my stepsister.'

‘Stick to your story, Brown,' Roper smiled, ‘but don’t try to stop me seeing her side to all this.'

‘What do you mean?' asked Georgina.

‘There's no greater wrath than a woman spurned. I think the right word is fury, not wrath, but you get the idea. I think, too, we’ll have to put all this to rights, Brown, and pay the girl up here.
You
may not appreciate her, but I can assure you a lot of our female-hungry men will.'

‘Including yourself?'—Now why had she said that?

He shrugged. ‘Could happen. I’ve been out of circulation long enough, I believe, so I may emerge from my shell and mingle again. Tell me what you think, Brown. Do you think I’d have any appeal? To this—stepsister, I mean? No, don’t answer without giving it fair thought.
Look
at me, Brown. Really look at me.—Well, what do you think?'

‘I don’t think,’ she said numbly.

‘You don’t think I’d appeal to her?'

‘No ... I mean ...'

‘Too rough, perhaps, too raw and crude, she’d prefer your more genteel and gentle type?’ His voice hardened.

‘But she doesn’t. You heard her.' Georgina knew she was getting into dangerous waters.

‘Yes, I heard her.' His voice was dry, and Georgina would have liked to have looked up at him again, tried to pick his thoughts, but she didn’t dare.

He was taking something from his pocket. It was a wallet, and he was flicking out some notes.

‘For this time only,’ he said, and pushed them across.

‘This is too much! ’

‘You don’t have to send it all,’ he pointed out.

‘I mean it’s too much wages.’

‘It’s the set man’s rate,’ he informed her. He closed the wallet and put it back in his pocket.

‘Thank you, Mr Roper,’ she said in a small voice.

He shrugged that away, but still did not leave, although he had said it was her free day.

‘Mrs Willmott is worried about you, George,’ he said abruptly.

‘I’m all right,’ she answered, ‘I was a bit exhausted yesterday, but I’m all right now.’

‘She’s worried about you in a different way; she’s worried that you’re becoming what I am, at least what I was, for I’ve decided to pull out of it and take up life once more.’

‘Sir?’ she looked inquiringly at him.

‘I’m talking about women,’ Roper said coolly. ‘Wine and song with them if you like, but women. You certainly shrink away when there’s a prospect of women, don’t you, George?’

Actually, thought Georgina, I shrink away~ when the prospect is men.

‘Mrs Willmott gathered all this,’ Roper continued, ‘when you showed such distaste for speaking to the young lady over the phone.’

‘Joanne is my '

‘Yes, you’ve told us that. Well, son, Willy doesn’t like it, and when Mrs Wilmott doesn’t like something she sets about fixing it.’

‘Fixing ?’ she faltered.

‘We’re having a party, a barn-dance, as soon as I get back, Brown. There are some very pretty girls up top, and one of them must be your type.' At last the big; man did rise.

‘I’ll see you when I return,’ he nodded, and went out.

After he had gone Georgina sat for a long, long time. A party with girls, she was thinking. Girls whom you were expected to talk with, compliment, ask to dance! Well, that brought a definite full stop to everything, she knew, that meant the absolute end. She couldn’t pretend, not in a thing like that. However, she wasn’t going to worry about it
yet
—she would be gone before Larry Roper returned and the party was put on. With the big boss away it would be easy to leave. She would simply bike up to the Brydens’— Craig should be on his rounds again quite soon and be able to take her back to Sydney—and that would close the chapter of Roper’s.

Only ... and Georgina squeezed out another cup of coffee from the pot and drank it cold without even noticing ...she didn’t want the chapter closed. This was her country and she hated to go. There was something else, another reason, but Georgina refused even to consider that.

She decided to wait a while before she finally took off. Roper had said he would be gone for a few weeks, so she would be quite safe. Also she did not know the Brydens; they might be Craig’s lessees, but that did not mean they had to be cordial to her. Quite feasibly they could resent her—tenants usually disliked their landlords and a friend of the landlord could be equally unpopular. Georgina decided to leave her escape once more until the day before Roper’s return. Only this time she
meant
to escape.

Meanwhile she got through some work on the book and some work for the boss. She sent away a postal order to Joanne, promising to send more when she had earned it. She gave Joanne an account of the place guaranteed, she thought, to put Joanne right off. No diversions here, she told her stepsister. Nothing to look at, no life at all. Just scenery. (Joanne was indifferent to scenery, especially the western variety.) Most of all and a fact that should influence Joanne, there were no men. The last was not true, yet in her own case these days she might have been speaking the truth. For after Larry Roper had left Georgina had not seen a man until she went up the second week for some supplies. Then she saw a crowd of them.

‘You should have been up before, George, the bread must have been uneatable,’ grumbled Willy. ‘Besides, we needed you. We need all our hands. I was just about to send down for you.’

‘What’s happened, Mrs Willmott?'

‘It’s what’s going to happen. The party, of course. Mr Roper said he intended to speak about it to you.’ Mrs Willmott looked archly at Georgina and Georgina tried not to understand what she was being arch about and not to flush.
A girl for George.
It was written very plainly in Willy’s kind brown eyes.

‘It all takes a lot of preparation,’ went on Mrs Willmott, ‘it’s not like just opening up your house to guests. The house is always ready, but a barn isn’t. A barn has to be emptied, cleaned up and decorated. Now there’ ... with a beam ... ‘is where you can come in.’

‘Me?’

Mrs Willmott looked uncomfortable. ‘Forgive me for saying it, George, but you’re not—well, quite like the others. You’re more the—well, the artistic type. Their idea of decoration, the men’s, is some streamers and balloons, and there they stop. But I think you could do it beautifully, George.’

‘When is the party?’ Georgina asked.

‘Saturday.’

‘Is Mr Roper coming?’

‘Unfortunately he’ll miss it, he won’t be home until the following week.’

‘I see.’

‘Please, George,’ appealed Mrs Willmott, ‘do add an artistic touch. I know you’d sooner Mr Roper saw what you can do, that’s only natural, but I’m sure he would be pleased when we told him all about it. We could even leave the decorations up for him to see. And think, George, how proud you’ll be when all the girls admire the effect. You’ll be oh, dear!’ Mrs Willmott giggled. ‘I was almost going to say the belle of the ball, she confessed. You'll be the
beau
, George. Every girl will be clamouring to dance with you.’

‘And Mr Roper won’t be here?’ Georgina persisted.

‘Unfortunately no,’ Mrs Willmott said regretfully a second time, ‘but that won’t worry the girls,’ she added brightly, ‘not with a young man around. You must know how young things are, being young yourself.’

‘And he won’t be back?’

‘No.’ It was quite definite.

‘I’ll do it, Mrs Willmott,’ Georgina said. Why not? she thought. Why not make this my final contribution to Roper’s, my swan song, and do a really good job, for I know I can. Also, she thought, I have no fears now about the party night. Where I wouldn’t have been able to face up to Larry Roper and say No, I won’t go, I could face up to Mrs Willmott and the men—say I simply won’t be coming. Say I have a fever, a sprained ankle, anything but the truth. The truth that as soon as I’ve decorated the barn for the dance, and the dance is on, noisily on, I’ll be leaving Roper’s before Roper returns.
This time for sure.

‘Yes, I’ll do it, Mrs Willmott,’ she said again.

‘Thank you, George.’ The woman smiled.

Georgina really enjoyed herself fixing the barn for the party, and she knew it progressed well, for the men praised it lavishly every time they passed.

‘Had you been a stockie,’ Mrs Willmott said once, ‘they would have tagged you Georgina for making it pretty like this.’ She giggled. ‘They’re a rough, tough, goodhearted lot, but they can be outspoken. But you being a geologist, George, they put you in a different category, they respect your brain and don’t look for brawn or muscle.

Just as well, thought Georgina.

Nothing was a trouble to her; she hung the streamers, paper lanterns and balloons that the men seemed to think were necessary because a party wasn’t a party without them, but she went out on the bike as well and found a lot of things you didn’t expect to find in this nowhere land. Trailing vines ... no one knew their names, so she called them flood vines, just like Craig’s flood flowers ... some native ti, armfuls of desert daisies and Salvation Jane. She even went as far as the gibber and looked for suitable stones, round smooth stones with a warm colouring. These she placed at the base of a contrived waterfall that she persuaded the station electrician to fix up, so that at a press of a button the water would splash down. She had put red paper round all the electric globes to add a pink glamour, but round the ‘waterfall’ she put a greenish blue. The effect was wonderful. Even Georgina herself had to stand and admire.

The night before the party she packed all her things, just as she had previously. For the first time she recalled the note to Larry Roper that had blown away. She hadn’t thought of it since. This time, she told herself, she would fasten it on.

She did not sit on the doorstep that night and say goodbye to her beloved west—she refused to permit nostalgia. She had to go and that was that. It was out of her hands. She might not have this opportunity again, with all the station hands over at the barn and no one to see her leave, to stop her.

She put the finishing touches to the barn on Saturday morning. She ‘dewed’ the flowers from a watering can and tried the waterfall to make sure it played. Finally she looked around her with satisfaction.

But just as it always is, there was a flaw. One of the big balloons, and it
would
be a prominent one, had decided to deflate. Sighing, Georgina fetched the big ladder and climbed up to inflate the balloon again.

She was fastening it back when she felt eyes on her. It was a feeling, she thought, not just a sense of someone watching. She did not let the scrutiny put her out, for she was very high and had to use caution; she finished the fastening, then looked down.

‘Oh, no!' She was so dismayed she said it aloud.

It was Roper.

He was standing at the barn door and he was regarding the scene ... and her. That his face clearly showed his approval might have pleased Georgina if she had not thought at once:

‘Now how do I get out of a party ... a party with girls ... one of them supposedly my type?'

She began to descend, and because he was still watching she tried to make it jaunty, as a young athletic man would descend not a mere cautious girl. Two rungs down she slipped, but she righted herself at once. But the near-accident had alerted Larry Roper, and he ran forward— right into a screen that Georgina had concealed a little too subtly with vines.

The next minute he and the screen were on the floor.

It made enough row to bring Mrs Willmott and a few of the men to the scene. While they fussed, spoke of possible concussion and finally decided to carry the boss to bed, Georgina resumed her cautious descent once more. But once down, she sought out Mrs Willmott and found her in the homestead ringing up for the Flying Doctor. Mrs Willmott never took chances.

‘He might only be winded, Mrs Willmott,' Georgina said.

‘Perhaps, but we can’t take the risk. Go into Mr Roper’s bedroom and send the men out, George; they mean well, but they’re clumsy big brutes and talk too loudly. You’re gentler—oh’ ... an afterthought... ‘undress him, George.’

Georgina, who had turned to do what Mrs Willmott had asked, stopped short.

‘Do—what?' she blurted.

‘Undress him. Get him into his pyjamas, poor dear, ready for the doctor.’

‘Yes,’ said Georgina, ‘I thought that was what you said.’

She went along the corridor to what was evidently the boss’s room; a brown and tan room, apart from rows of books quite bare, even monkish. She said, and she hoped her voice didn’t tremble: ‘I’ll take over if you like.’

The men did like. Sickrooms were not their forte. They left at once, and as soon as they reached the door Georgina could hear them thankfully lighting up. She turned and looked at the patient.

He was very pale and a lump was growing out of his temple even as she gazed at him.