Illywhacker

I asked her if the shop was hers. I was surprised to hear her say yes, because it was a shop for dying in, and she did not look like the dying sort. Then she told me about her dead husband and I understood.

When I finished the lemonade, I ordered a strawberry spider. I told her she didn't belong there. I came straight out with it and although she did not look up – she had her arm deep into the ice-cream tub, scratching around to get enough into the scoop to make my spider – I could tell she was pleased to hear me say it.

"No," she said. "I deserve a ruddy big palace, and silk sheets and a little black boy to do the housework and rub my back." She dropped the scoop of ice-cream into the glass, ladled on the strawberry and splashed in the lemonade. The spider frothed up pink inside the glass and spilled down the sides. She had bright red nail polish on and her nails looked pretty holding that frothing pink glass.

"You do," I said.

If I'd been stuck with the shop I would have opened the place out a bit, like one of those Queensland fruit stalls, or even like a Sydney milk bar where all you have at the front is a sliding door, and once it is open you are truly open. You smell the ocean and the dust. You'd be alive, not half dead.

The truth does no harm on occasions. I told her what was on my mind. I gave her a bit of a sketch. I used a piece of wrapping paper which she was kind enough to tear off a loaf of bread.

She leaned across the counter. She had that smell of a woman fresh from the hairdresser. "That's all very good," she said, "but you're forgetting the westerly."

"Your shop faces east."

"That's so," she said, but she did not lean back, or start wiping down the counter. She ran her finger over the plan, as if it were a road map. "So you're a handyman, are you?"

She looked up and we considered each other a moment.

"I was looking for a place to board," I said. "Give me a room and my keep and I'll do the job for you. It'd be a pleasure. You could have oranges in racks right down the wall…"

I could see the choice of oranges, or perhaps the numbers I suggested, puzzled her.

"And sea shells," I said, "in glass cases, for the tourists. The main thing though is the light. It's that mongrel wall that makes the shop so miserable."

"What about materials?"

"Don't worry. I'll supply them."

"You'd have to have a permit from the council."

"You like to dance?" I asked her.

"Don't mind."

"There's a dance down at Port tonight."

"Oh yes."

"You want to go?"

She pursed her lips and looked at me. "How would we get there?"

"I got a bike."

She laughed. I laughed too. Any mug could see we were not discussing bicycles.

"You're going to double-dink me," she said. I always liked women with lines around their eyes. "Put me in my ball gown on your bar."

"I'll double-dink you," I said. "It'd be a pleasure."

"You think you're capable?"

"More than."

I was too, and by three o'clock we'd made a mess of her clean sheets and I was lying on my back with her hair in my nose, thinking how much nicer the room would be if we could lift the roof like the hatch on a ferret box.

Shirl was a good woman. She had a great appetite for life and would have a go at anything. We went rabbit shooting, fishing at night, swimming, dancing. We won a silver cup for mixed doubles at Taree. She liked to play the piano and sing.

She wasn't much of a cook but neither was I. We ate meat pies and baked beans and fried eggs. She used to fart in her sleep.

I got a job at Bobby Nelson's garage, working the pumps when he was away driving the school bus. This gave me enough cash to buy materials and I soon had the front of the shop pulled out and I put a big steel RSJ right across the front of it. Then I built the sliding doors myself, modelling them on the ones at Nelson's garage. This was more expensive than I thought, but Shirl made up the difference. I felt happy ripping open that bloody coffin of a shop. I rigged up a clever canvas canopy to go out the front for the summer mornings, and we started to buy in fruits and vegetables and I would stack these out there.

I put signs up and down the highway, "shirl the girl for FRUIT amp; VEG", "SHIRL THE GIRL FOR ICE COLD DRINKS", "SHIRL THE GIRL FOR A CUPPA TEA".

Naturally it wasn't long before she wanted to marry me. I was not averse to the idea at all, although there were a couple of previous arrangements I would have to sort out, and I think I went as far as to write off for my old wedding certificates. I was under the impression, I think, that they might have lost the old ones, but this was not so.

But the impediment to marriage was nothing technical. It was a dog.

If the dog had been there on my first day, I would not have spent my money buying lemonades and spiders. I would have doffed my hat and off up the road. But little Rooney (that's right, and yes, named after Mickey) was in the care of the vet at the time, suffering from mange, being shaved and painted with some violet-coloured tincture.