Paddy suggests that the city might be responsible for the change in their fortunes, and Martin moves into a sustained aria which recalls the Saturday night dances of their rural youth. There follows a loving, gentle communion which effectively translates into visual terms what has up to now been communicated in dialogue. The stage direction reads

        MARTIN begins humming and tapping his foot. Gradually PADDY falls into a jig. It isn’t             rowdy: a quiet little dance of memory, almost inside the head. It fades to nothing. (p. 37)

The reflective mood evoked—‘Oh, those days! The bloody drought!’–leads Aggie to a comic and characteristically wry account of how loneliness led her to lose herself in the city, and to seek street directions from a priest in a confessional. Her aria reinforces Kenna’s characterisation of her: she is a less sentimental, less expansive person than her brothers-in-law. The sequence closes with a subtle underlining of the play’s basic concern with dislocation and the passage of time:

        PADDY: ... In a way, all these years, it’s been like an exile.
        MARTIN: Oh, they were grand old days when we were young before ... (He pauses. They             all lose themselves in reverie for a moment.) (p. 38)

A close reading of this scene reveals not only the skill with which the playwright has woven these yarns and arias into the fabric of the play, but also the dramatic purposes they have been made to serve: they act to advance the plot, to develop the characters and to bring into focus the play’s themes. The two arias in Act II work to amplify what has been established earlier: Aggie’s warning to Paddy about Monica develops the impression of this character initiated in the salmon anecdote, and Paddy’s affectionate recollection of Martin’s first love is used to highlight the lack of either love or charity in the Christian Monica’s attitude to her late husband. Again, these reflections move beyond interpolation into the dynamic of the play.

The second strand, which involved Joe Cassidy and Jack Shannon, explores the problems of reconciling the demands of religion with the natural impulses of life, compounded by the problems of dealing with a ‘hard’ God.21 Here the process traced in the major skein is reinforced, but these characters are young, and the play seems to assert that for them the conflicts encountered are even more destructive. They appear to be on an even more direct collision course with the demands of their faith and the requirements of the confessional.

Like the characters in the major skein, the boys seem dislocated. Joe, it appears, is estranged from any close family life, and has turned to the Catholic Youth Organisation as a preferable substitute for lonely nights spent in picture theatres. Joe makes the first advances of friendship to Jack Shannon, who has just made a return visit to the house in which his mother died three months earlier, shattering the family unit. Joe, eager for companionship, is a sympathetic listener to the stories that Jack’s aunt prefers not to hear:

        My aunt won’t let me talk about it. She says it’s a closed book. (p. 11)

This suppression of the realities of life which cannot be accounted for in terms of an idealised loving God echoes many of the attitudes expressed in the major strand, and is also demonstrated in Joe’s shock and disapproval when Jack admits that he derives pleasure from discussing his sexual encounter with the girl in the bush at Parramatta. Joe recites the teaching of his faith (‘You’re not supposed to do that to people until you are married’ (p. 18)) and is genuinely embarrassed and confused by the physical advances which Jack makes towards him. The holiday at Woy Woy, represented in the third interlude with the boys (pp. 39-42), marks the turning point in their relationship. Joe sees no harm in the closeness that has developed between them, but Jack undergoes a mounting sense of guilt. He has awakened Joe’s latent sexuality, and is alarmed by the emotions which have been aroused within himself, and by the apparent depth of Joe’s affection for him:

        We’re going to stay away from each other from now on. I might have started it all but                 now I’m knocking it off. I’m not going to turn into anything I don’t want to be. (p. 40)

To Joe their closeness is still just a game, but Jack is more conscious of the strictures of their religion, and he attaches a superstitious significance to a sudden storm in which he and Joe are caught.

        JACK: ...Look. All of a sudden the storm’s passed over. There isn’t a wave on the bay now.
        JOE: Isn’t that strange? It came out of nowhere and it’s cleared up in a moment.
        JACK: (troubled) You don’t think it was like... a warning, do you?
        JOE: What for?
        JACK: Like a punishment.
        (Joe is still silent)
        (Quietly). For what has happened last night, stupid. (p. 39)

Jack’s cavalier attitude to the requirements of the confessions in the earlier stages of their relationship gives way to a zeal which he uses as a weapon against Joe in order to assuage his guilt and fear:

             JACK: (half to himself) When I told [the priest] what I felt that night I thought he was                 going to jump out of the confessional. He said I wasn’t ever to go near you again. That I             was to positively avoid you. Next time I suppose I’ll have to confess that I’ve asked you                 over here today. (p. 62)

To Joe, for whom the deepening relationship has meant security and affection without guilt, this reversal is totally bewildering. His inability to reconcile the demands of his faith and his need to give and to receive love begin to confound him.

        JACK: What do you want from me? Do you want me to lose my soul?
        JOE: I’m not afraid of losing my soul. One of us has to be wrong.
        JACK: This isn’t just something between you and I. I’ve got to take notice of the priest or I         can’t get absolution. Come on. You’re so clever, you tell me what I’m supposed to do about         that.
        JOE: (lowering his head again) I don’t know. (pp. 62-3)

In their final meeting, which takes place on Jack’s initiative, Jack is calm and serene, clearly absolved of the guilt which he has formally revealed both physically and emotionally. Joe’s desperate pleas for Jack to stay amount to more than mere moral blackmail. They constitute a deep rejection of the demands of the faith which has ultimately proven to be an inadequate refuge for the lonely, alienated boy.

        JOE: Just wait a bit, Jack. Listen, I want to tell you something. If you do go away without          me I’m finished with the Church.
         JACK: You wouldn’t do such a thing.
        JOE: I swear I would. Because it was the Church that said we shouldn’t see each other                 again. (p. 70)