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‘This is terrible!’ Georgina was annoyed with herself. ‘I’m left to watch you and you’ve been watching me.’

‘On the contrary, I only gave you a quick glance, then I got myself up and went out to make a cuppa. Oh no, Brown, why should I want to look at a young feller?’ A pause. ‘I asked you about sugar.’

She flushed. ‘One, thanks. How do you feel?’

‘Completely recovered.’

‘Yet the Flying Doctor said ’

‘Yes, I know, but the doctor’s not infallible. I’m back to where I was, so I go on as I would have. Doesn’t that make sense?’

‘Perhaps, but ’

‘So what I intended to do and planned to do, is what I’ll do now. I have a few loose ends to attend to—you always have ends when you’ve been away for a while. That will take me up to Wednesday, after which you and I leave on a safari.’

‘A what?’ she gasped.

‘An expedition ... exploration ... call it what you will. In short, we’re on the hunt. We’re taking rations and sleeping bags and head for—well, HI give you the latitudes and longitudes when we’re on the track, though incidentally it won’t be a track.’

‘It won’t?’ Georgina asked feebly.

‘Where we’ll be going, probably no man has been before.’

‘You mean it will be beyond Roper’s?’

‘Of course,’ Roper said impatiently. ‘We’re after the big stuff now, Brown, not just the stuff we know is here in our backyard, but the stuff not enclosed within boundary fences, even fences the size of Roper’s. Well’—glaring at Georgina —‘you might show some enthusiasm, man.’

She was dismayed. ‘Oh, I want to see it, of course, but ’

‘Yes, Brown?’

‘But—my work here?’

‘You mean your studies?’ he demanded.

‘No, I can do those on the way. I really meant my work for you.’

‘Stupid boy, this work will be for me. We’ll be looking, George, only the looking will be much more intense than it ever was before.’ He studied her. ‘Have you been on a safari?’

‘Only in a caravan,’ she confessed.

‘This one will be in a four-wheel drive jeep and no caravan, no cover, not even a groundsheet. We’ll need every inch of space for tools.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Georgina said it slowly, and at once he set his eyes on her.

‘You sound only half-hearted, and half-heartedness is something I haven’t found in you before. Look, George, you’d better hit the hay and we’ll talk about it later.'

‘Yes, sir,’ she repeated.

Roper was at the window now, looking out at the morning that with every second was gathering gold and losing grey.

‘Bit of a difference, isn’t it?’ he mused.

‘A difference? Oh, you mean the difference between night and day.’

‘No, I meant a difference between a safari out there’ ... he pointed ... ‘to music and paper roses in here last night.’ A pause. ‘ “I’ll be loving you” was what they were playing, wasn’t it, Brown?’

‘I’m not up in songs, Mr Roper.'

‘
Wasn't it
, Brown?’ he insisted.

‘Well—yes.’

He nodded. ‘I’ve always liked that thing. Called
Always
, isn’t it? You know I’m all for always. Are you?’

‘What, sir?’ she said, bewildered.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Brown, get out and put your head down. I’ll contact you later.’

‘Yes, Mr Roper.’

Georgina went out of the room, out of the homestead and down the track to the hut. There she put her head down as directed and closed her eyes, but it was a long time before sleep came in spite of her weariness.
Always
, she was hearing the Mighty Roper saying,
I'm all for always. Are you? Yes
,
Mr Roper
,
I am
, Georgina could have answered. For instance I want to be here always, I want

Suddenly Georgina was sitting up in the narrow bed. Oh, no, I don’t, she protested. I can’t! I won’t! and yet—and yet

I do.

At daylight a few mornings later the jeep pulled up. Roper did not get out, he only blew the horn, something he could do here because there was no one else to hear. Georgina came out of the hut and went across to him.

‘What do I bring?’ she asked.

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing? But '

He frowned. ‘You’ll be living in the clothes you wear, Brown, and if that offends you, then you can find a wurlie and wash them, and go around as nature intended you to go until they dry.’

‘Oh, I’m not complaining, sir, I just wanted to know,’ Georgina said hastily. These present clothes, she knew, were going to last the distance, however long.

‘All I’ve allowed us is a billy, a frying pan, two mugs, two plates and two sleeping bags,’ went on Roper. ‘I would have halved that, except I didn’t know how you’d feel about sharing my plate, but I knew I wouldn’t like sharing your bag. Now if you were only Georgia, not George ’ he grinned.

‘Georgina,’ Georgina said automatically.

‘Come again?’ He looked across at her.

‘Generally the female version of George is Georgina. I mean it’s a more usual form.’

‘Is it now?’ He was still looking at her.

Georgina got in to the jeep, an almost empty jeep now, but it would be a different story when they came back with their rock samples. They set off.

It was wonderful to be able to plunge into the scrub and not worry about the absence of any road. The four-wheel drive permitted this, and the flat terrain, though it challenged them often with its sudden ditches, its sudden magnetic anthills and its sudden rock outcrops, never actually halted them, only demanded that they detour. And such confusing detours they were that often they seemed to go round in circles.

‘I don’t know how you can find your way,’ said Georgina at last.

‘I wouldn’t think of trying it without my friend.’ Roper nodded to a compass hooked on the control panel. ‘We are now ’ He consulted it and gave Georgina the bearing.

Around noon Georgina glimpsed blackbutt trees and drew Roper’s attention to them. They went cross-country to the blackbutt stand, finding nearby gossan in the form of light brown silica.

‘Got your magnet, Brown?’ Roper asked.

‘Yes, sir.’ Georgina withdrew it, and at once felt a pull.

She looked excitedly up at Roper, but he did not respond to her find at once: he stood looking at her instead. Her cheeks, had she known it, were carnation pink and her tan eyes danced.

‘Anyone ever tell you you’d make a pretty girl, George?’ There was an odd note in his voice.

Georgina dropped the magnet and turned away. She heard him pick it up, give a grunt of satisfaction at the same reaction that she had felt, then she heard him say:

‘Sorry, George, and all that. You can’t help how you look any more than I can help the way I express myself.’

‘But that
can
be helped, Mr Roper.’ Georgina was still annoyed.

‘And your looks can’t?’ he interpreted. ‘No, I didn’t say that, boy, it just slipped out. Forget it, George. How about nosh?’

Georgina prepared the meal, and she tried to do it as a man might, without any small detail.

They ate sitting on the ground. It was very dry here. That was the way of the Wet; some comers were inundated, some were almost parched.

‘Did you bring much water?’ Georgina asked. She had noticed that the demijohn she had used for the billy was not very deep.

‘Only that.' He nodded to the container. ‘I know all the holes around, and I also know my survival procedure. Finally I know how to rob an upside-down river.’

‘A what?’

‘Australian Inside rivers flow underneath the ground, not on top as respectable streams do. It’s crazy land out here, magic but crazy. After a Wet has gone, even in a dry part like this you needn’t parch. Look.’ He had taken up a stick and he pushed it in the ground, then withdrew it. It was dry.

He probed again, deeper. The stick came out wet.

‘There’s water there,’ he said.

There were so many geological signs around them they did not leave there, in fact only the setting sun and the advisability of eating while they could still see halted their explorations.

They boiled up another billy, ate more brisket on homestead bread—time enough for damper when the bread ran out—and at once got into their bags just as they were.

‘You’re not bad at roughing it, Brown, considering your upbringing.’ Roper’s voice came across the darkness to Georgina.

‘My upbringing?’ she echoed.

‘Home nurturing.’ Roper yawned. ‘No rise and shine. No long rows of cold showers and boys yelling at the first chilly drops.’

‘No, Mr Roper,’ she agreed.

‘Still, it makes for a kind of bond, I believe, comrades in nakedness. A pity you missed it.’

If you say so, said Georgina under her breath. Aloud she said: ‘I guess so, sir.’

‘But you can still catch up. Toughen up.’

When?
Georgina shivered. Not on this exploration, she hoped!

His next words calmed her.

‘But I’m afraid we have our plates full right now. That intrusive was pretty definite, wasn’t it?’

‘I thought so, sir.’

They talked eagerly for several hours on intrusives and belts and the ever-enthralling ‘signs’, for they were both of a kind at least in that, then quietly, not even noticing his voice becoming fainter to her, Georgina slipped off to sleep.

She awoke to find him bending over her, and for a moment she was very acutely—and femininely—alarmed.

‘George,’ he said softly.

‘Yes, Mr Roper?’

‘Have you seen the Lights?’

‘The Lights?’ She was still drowsy.

‘It’s not given to every traveller to see the Min-Min Lights, and you’re going to see them now. Here, let me give you a pull out.’

But Georgina was up on her feet before he could touch her.

He gave her no quizzical look, for his eyes were on the Lights, and he directed her gaze to where he gazed; in his absorption he did not even seem to notice how she shrank nervously from his indicative touch. Then, with a catch at her heart, Georgina saw what he wanted her to see.

‘They’re called the Min-Min Lights, George, and there’s no explanation for them; in fact mostly they’re simply not believed. Those who haven’t seen them just can’t credit them, either that or they come forward with some practical reason that can’t be proved, reasons like satellites, or the sky taking up a reflection from elsewhere and transferring it here.'

‘A kind of night mirage?' she asked.

‘Yes. Even the ones who
are
given the opportunity are so astounded at the sight that they begin to wonder whether they did witness the miracle.’

‘And what about you, Mr Roper?’

‘These are my third Min-Min Lights, so I know they’re true, but still the magic has never diminished. No man, be he geologist, scientist or explorer, has, or can, explain the Min-Min. But why explain? You don’t pull a dower to pieces to see how the petals fit in.'

She had never heard him like this, and as she looked on the mysterious golden glow in the navy plush sky, she felt a magic, too; a wonder, a joy. Yet somewhere there was a regret, unacknowledged at first, then reluctantly but compulsively admitted. I wish, Georgina thought, this could have been under different circumstances. I wish I was Georgina, not George.

‘See, they’re gone.’

Roper’s voice broke into her thoughts, and Georgina knew wryly it was just as well. Just as well, too, that the Lights were over. She must watch herself, Georgina decided as she got back into her sleeping bag. She must remember that she was George Brown.

It was a good week. There were no tricky moments, nothing to send Georgina hurrying into the scrub no examine a rock for a sign. Clothes were no difficulty, because they simply and unhygienically stayed on.

‘When we get back,’ said Roper, ‘we wallow. Wallow for hours. Bags I first go at the bath.’

‘I have my own shower,’ she pointed out.

‘Which you don’t use,’ he reminded her drily. ‘I told you the tap was turned off.’

‘I still bath,’ Georgina protested, ‘in a basin.’

‘Make it a very big basin this time, son; you deserve it, you’ve worked well and done a good job. So good that I’ll let you go first after all.’

‘First?’

‘In the bath. Unless’ ... he grinned ... ‘we’ll have a communal one. The Japanese recommend it.’

‘They soap first and then soak,’ she returned.

‘Well?’

‘I want to do it the other way round.’ She was going red, she could feel she was going red, and men didn’t.

‘Well, we’ll see,’ he nodded, ‘but I won’t drop you off at the hut, I’ll take you up to the house.’

That was on the final day of the safari, an expedition that had turned out better than Georgina could have hoped.

She found herself humming as they bumped back to Roper’s, Larry occasionally asking for a compass reading, for he had taught her how to do it. She had never sung before when she was with him; she knew her speaking voice was convincingly husky, but one never knew when it was a song instead, yet somehow she still had to sing.

‘Nice voice, George.’ Larry negotiated the jeep round a rock outcrop. ‘More tenor than anything else, I’d say, but then that’s you, isn’t it?’

'I have a deep speaking voice,’ she objected.

‘Yet overall you’re tenor. To put it more to the point you’re not what I call a tough guy.’

‘You never asked for one.’

‘I never asked for a few things that I got,’ he returned.

Georgina almost said: ‘Like what, Mr Roper?’ but that would have been unwise; she might have been
told.
She did not think Roper had any inkling; after this last smooth, congenial week he couldn’t have any inkling, yet sometimes he said rather peculiar things ...

They were in the home territory again now and had no need for the compass. They skirted the hut and made straight for the homestead. As they came within sight of it, Georgina saw that there was someone on the verandah, and that the person was a female and not Mrs Willmott. Not in a slim flame-coloured dress. Larry had seen her, too.