The river is Down by Lucy Walker Page A

that ought to have been brown-all-over, only she wasn't. She's all clean and beautiful, like last time she was here. She'd changed her clothes before she went up to Nick's place. They were having a drink—'
    'Jinx!' Mary said crossly. 'You talk too much. Up now, and help Cindie set the table. You know where the pepper and salt are kept.'
    Jinx began slowly to sidle from his chair and move towards a cupboard by the wall. It was Myrtle who took up the tale.
    'All the same this one's pretty too,' Myrtle said, after consideration, meaning Cindie. 'She doesn't laugh the same way as Miss Erica does, but Nick smiles when Miss Erica talks to him. Up at his place they're sitting down in those chairs that rock, Mummy. You know the ones Nick lets us sit in sometimes. And they're having a drink with ice in it. The ice tinkles on the glasses. Nick gave me and Jinx some Coke, but he forgot to put any ice in it. He didn't forget for Miss Erica.'
    'You see what I mean?' Mary said with exasperation to
    Cindie. 'There's nothing for anybody to do in this place but talk about every little thing that goes on in one house or another. Even the kids catch the talk-epidemic--'
    'Miss Erica was the one doing the talking,' Myrtle objected, tossing her head a little. 'That's the wrong pepper and salt, Jinx. That's the Sunday set. We have the blue pots on week-days. Mummy, Miss Erica was asking Nick why Cindie Brown was here, and I don't think she liked Cindie Brown being here. She said she hadn't heard of anyone called Cindie Brown coming through from the coast. Most times she hears, on the radio, about everyone coming.'
    'She heard all right,' Mary said succinctly, forgetting the children in her irritation. 'She'd have heard the radio call from Jim Vernon over at Baanya like we all did.'
    'She must have known,' Cindie said gently. 'Because after Nick rescued me he spoke to her on the radio from the utility. Perhaps she thought I was someone else, or something—'
    'Yes,' said Myrtle. 'I heard that talk over at the canteen. Nick just said it was a girl called Cindie Something, like you said, Cindie. But your name is Brown, not Something, isn't it?'
    'Names don't matter much, Myrtle,' Cindie parried. 'It's what people are that matters.'
    'What are you Cindie?'
    'Well, she's not Miss Erica Alexander, that's for sure,' their mother put in impatiently as she lifted potatoes from a saucepan on to the array of plates set out on the table.
    'She doesn't look like her either,' Jinx added, now putting the blue pepper and salt pots on the table. 'If Miss Erica hadn't been there, Nick wouldn't have forgotten to put ice in our Coke. You know what, Cindie? Nick never lets us drink Coke out of a bottle, like everyone else does. He's a bit funny in some ways '
    'Funny be blowed!' Mary said flatly. 'He's teaching you manners, that's what. How to sit up and drink nicely out of a glass, for instance.'
    'Did he teach Miss Erica?'
    'Oh!' Mary cried, almost in exasperation. 'Will you stop talking about Miss Erica! She came over the neck between the claypans from the outcamp by the lower ranges. She came down the road in a bulldozer. She's had a shower and changed her clothes, and right now is visiting Nick—drinking out of a glass that tinkles with ice, and sitting in the
    rocking-chair. Now we've had the lot! The total bulletin! Let's get on with dinner '
    The dinner now being served on to the plates looked good and smelled good. The children gazed at it longingly, waiting for their mother and Cindie to sit down and begin. Plainly, hunger had made them forget Miss Erica, rocking-chair, and ice that tinkled in a glass.
    Later, after helping Mary wash up and tidy away, Cindie pleaded that she had had quite a day for a newcomer to the thousand-miler. Would Mary mind if she went to bed early again?
    'That's the right place for you,' Mary said. 'You look flagged, Cindie. If you stay here long we'll have to toughen you up. It's a rugged life up here in the north. The climate's