March 6, 1976 AD
The Agricultural Show
After more than a year of daily conversations on the commuter bus, Greg Lahey finally asked Pip Lahey out, and they spent a Saturday together at the New Norfolk Agricultural Show. It was their first date, it was conducted in full view of half the town, and by evening both families had heard about it from someone other than Greg or Pip.
Greg Lahey and Pip Lahey went on their first date at the New Norfolk Agricultural Show. They had been talking on the early bus into Hobart almost every weekday for more than thirteen months by then, long enough for the question of how they were related to have been answered (third cousins once removed, worked out over several mornings and settled by Pip's mother) and for most of the regular passengers to have drawn their own conclusions. Greg had taken all that time to ask. Pip, who had begun to wonder whether he ever would, had mentioned the show twice in the preceding week before he did.
He collected her from 19 Hobart Road a little after ten. Patrick Lahey answered the door and kept him talking about the mill longer than either young person thought necessary. Jane watched from the kitchen and said nothing until they had gone.
They spent the day on the showground. Greg was drawn to the machinery lines, where he explained the workings of hay balers and irrigation pumps in more detail than Pip had asked for. Pip steered them through the pavilions, where she was more interested in the people than the exhibits: an elderly farmer standing guard over his prize-winning preserves, a small boy who won a stuffed toy at the ring-toss and would not let go of it, a mother with four children and no help keeping them all in sight. Somewhere between the sheep pens and the cake tent they began holding hands.
New Norfolk was a small town and the show was its biggest day. Before noon they had been seen by Greg's sister Linda, then fourteen, who was at the show with friends and made no effort to be discreet. They were seen again by two of Pip's former teachers, the woman who ran the newsagency, and one of the mill foremen who worked under Patrick. A light shower in the mid-afternoon sent most of the crowd under cover and the two of them into the back of the poultry shed, where they stayed until it passed.
Greg walked her home at dusk. By then the Boyer Road household had heard the news from Linda and the Hobart Road household from the newsagent, and neither family was surprised. They were both on the early bus again on Monday morning, sitting in the same seats as before.
