by Karen Wood
‘Only if you promise to come to the ball with me.’
‘Not a chance.’
Jake disappeared from the window and she heard him make his way outside. ‘Check all the seals,’ he said, pushing her aside and feeling his way up a thick hose. He twisted one of the threads with his fingers. ‘This was loose.’ He tightened it up and stood to face her.
Holly stared open-mouthed at her older brother. She’d never seen him dressed up. He wore a dark navy suit and a crisp white shirt that set off his smooth skin. It wasn’t the fact that he looked quite dashing in the suit that shocked her, but how grown-up he seemed. He almost looked like a man. For the first time, she noticed her brother had stubble on his chin. When had he started shaving?
Without warning, Jake grabbed her by the hands and started dancing her around the yard. She laughed while he sang a waltzing tune and swirled her around between the weed-infested patch of bromeliads and spiky succulents that had taken over the tiny yard around the hut. They ducked as they whirled past the corner of the crooked Hill’s Hoist. Then she squealed when a crack in the cement path began slithering onto the grass.
She threw herself at Jake, climbing onto him and wrapping her limbs around him like a koala. ‘Snake!’
Jake reeled backwards, nearly falling over. ‘Bloody hell, Holly.’
‘It went under the house,’ she said, clinging even tighter to his neck. Damn it, she needed gumboots!
Jake peeled her off limb by limb. ‘I’ll get a shovel,’ he said.
‘No, don’t kill it.’
‘What do you want me to do with it, then?’
‘I don’t know.’ She hesitated. ‘Catch it? Put it in a bag and take it away?’ She began flapping her hands. She made a shuddering sound as she thought of all the gaps in the floorboards that a snake could easily squeeze through. ‘Get it away from the house.’
Jake scoffed. ‘Yeah right.’
‘I’m not going back inside until that snake’s gone,’ she said. ‘There’ll be no dinner unless you get rid of it.’
‘Only if you come to the ball with me.’
‘What?’
‘You heard me.’
Holly glared at him, incredulous. ‘That’s blackmail!’
‘And that’s a black snake,’ he said, pointing to where they’d last seen it slithering under the house.
‘It wasn’t black, it was brown.’
‘That’s worse!’ said Jake, raising his voice to a higher pitch of disbelieving. Then he froze. ‘I just saw it crawl up one of the stumps.’
‘Okay, okay,’ she said. ‘Just catch it.’
Jake grinned. ‘So, you’ll go to the ball?’
‘Yes. But don’t hurt it. If you hurt it, I’m not going.’
That night Eva was restless, using the back of the couch as a gymnast’s beam to practise backwards walkovers.
‘For heaven’s sake, Eva,’ Dad erupted, slamming the magazine he was reading onto the coffee table. ‘Get off there before you wreck the joint.’ He stood up. ’Bed, now.’
When she whimpered he bellowed louder than all Kaydon’s cattle put together. ‘NOW!’
The phone rang and Dad pounced on it. By the way his voice softened, Holly could tell it was Mum. He took it outside where he could talk to her in private. A few minutes later he returned.
‘Mum wants to talk to you.’
Holly sat on a stool, the phone clamped to her ear. A confusing conversation followed with words and terms she didn’t understand, like frozen section analysis, surgical staging and lots of maybes and we don’t know yets.
‘I have elevated CA 125 levels and I need an exploratory laparotomy,’ her mum said.
Holly wished she would just speak in plain English. All the medical terminology made everything sound so scary. ‘Does that mean you have cancer?’ she whispered into the phone.
‘We don’t know yet,’ her mum said again. ‘How’s Eva? Is she behaving?’
‘Yes.’ No!
‘Is she brushing her hair and her teeth?’
‘Yes.’ No!
‘Is she driving you crazy?’
‘YES!’ That was a double yes.
‘Make sure she gets to bed by eight o’clock and she won’t be so ratty the next day,’ her mum advised.
Holly didn’t care about Eva’s bedtime. ‘Are you having an operation?’
There was a pause on the other end. ‘A small one, just to have a look,’ Mum answered. ‘But I’m sending Brandon home. He’s catching the train tomorrow. There’s no point him being here when he could be helping Dad with the building.’ Then she started giving instructions for the next week’s meals. ‘There are some tinned tomatoes in the pantry . . .’
Holly tuned out. She didn’t want to talk about domestic drudgery. She wanted to talk about the satin dress that lay scrunched in the bottom of the Salvos bag. She wanted to ask her mum how to put makeup on without looking like a clown and how to do her hair. She had listened tensely while Jake banged about under the house. When she heard his victorious whoop, her heart sank. She was going to the ball.
Holly passed the phone on to Eva and went to the bedroom. She pulled the dress out of the bag again.
Holy crap, her mum would freak if she saw her poured into that thing. It was sleek and shiny and held together by little more than silver dental floss.
‘Do you like it?’ Jake appeared in the doorway.
‘It’s . . . a bit revealing,’ said Holly.
‘I couldn’t believe it when I found it in an op shop. It’s made from pure silk satin. When you move the fabric, the colours shimmer from dark to light. It will look great on you.’ He sighed. ‘It’s incredible what some people throw away.’
Holly stared at Jake and briefly wondered why she was she discussing this with her brother and not her mother. ‘Maybe they grew out of it,’ she suggested.
‘Try it on now; we need to make sure it fits,’ her brother urged.
‘I will, later.’
‘Now,’ said Jake. ‘There won’t be much time to alter it if we need to. I’ll wait outside.’
The dress slipped over Holly’s body like a second skin. The lining was cool and silky and hugged her all over. She ran her hands over her tummy and hips. ‘It seems okay.’
Jake came back in and ran his eyes over her. ‘It’s more than okay, Holly-girl. Where’s a mirror?’
‘We don’t have one.’
Jake flung the curtains open to use the window glass again and she was caught off guard by the girl who stared back at her. She looked . . . pretty good.
Jake clapped his hands together. ‘Hair and makeup and you’ll be the belle!’
At ten o’clock that night Holly tucked Eva into the top bunk of the camp beds. Somehow Eva had managed to get Marley up there too and the shaggy dog curled into her arms with her head on the pillow.
‘Is Mummy going to be okay?’ Eva stared at her with big green eyes.
‘Of course she is,’ said Holly, ignoring the sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. ‘She just needs to have some more tests and then they’ll give her some medicine to make her better.’
‘Are you sure she’ll get better?’
Holly was tongue-tied; such a simple question, with such a complicated answer.
‘We can’t be totally sure, but I think she will be. What do you reckon?’
‘I think she’ll be fine,’ said Eva, patting Holly’s hand.
Holly reached up and gave her little sister a hug. Eva’s arms wrapped around her neck and squeezed until Holly found it hard to breathe. ‘Love you.’
‘Love you to the stars and back,’ Holly whispered.
As she crawled into the lower bunk an hour later she saw the dress hanging on the doorhandle.
She gave a defeated sigh. As long as she kept to the shadows and didn’t make a spectacle of herself, then surely she would be fine.
16
Kaydon stood at the mirror and flipped one end of his bow tie over the other. He hadn’
t found time to get a red one. He finished tying it and pulled on his dinner jacket. After three long, hot days on the ’dozer pushing scrub in the back paddocks, it felt weird to be dressed in this stiff gear. With luck Chrissy wouldn’t be too worried about the tie. Black still went with red, right?
He buttoned his shirt cuffs and then stood combing his fingers through his hair, leaving it damp and messy. He quickly brushed his teeth, then grabbed his wallet and walked out to the kitchen. It was abuzz with voices and laughter.
Mum’s mates had taken over the kitchen. Auntie Bev, with an apron tied around her waists, arranged food onto platters and pulled trays of goodies out of the oven. The entire house smelled of buttery pastry and frying onions.
The lounge room was also full of people. Some he recognised as mum’s fundraising committee friends, others were neighbours and livestock agents and old schoolteachers. Dad, Aaron and Uncle Maurie sat on the lounge closest to the fireplace, drinking beer and talking to Hugh Parker. Chrissy must be here somewhere too. He glanced out the window and saw her on the front lawn, drinking champagne with her mother.
She wore a red flowing dress with shoestring shoulder-straps. Her hair was swept up and she wore dangly, sparkling earrings. She looked amazing. From her animated gestures he could see that she was totally in her element.
Kaydon felt a sudden rush of apprehension. Girls like that didn’t just hang out with the boys and drink beer. She was a princess, not the type to give away kisses easily. Suddenly he wished he could just sit in a quiet corner with a few friends, sneak a couple of beers and watch from the sidelines.
But tonight he had to bring his A-game, or Dan would have him in a balaclava by midnight. For the first time in his life he felt grateful that his mother had made him go to all those dancing lessons.
Beyond Chrissy, he could see the marquee set up on the polocrosse field. Utes and four-wheel drives were filling the grassy space beside it. Stepping out of them were blokes wearing black tie on top and stubby shorts and thongs from the waist down, girls in flowing gowns and work boots, a reed-thin bloke wearing a top hat arm-in-arm with a hairy-chested fella in a pink tutu. Others wore jeans and a T-shirt with a screenprinted black tie on the front.
‘Shall we head over?’ His mother appeared behind him in an emerald-green dress.
Chrissy came towards them. ‘Kay-don! Why are you in here?’
‘What do you mean?’ He reached over and stole a vol-au-vent from a passing tray.
‘We’re supposed to be over at the marquee having pre-dinner drinks.’
‘Sorry.’ He smiled and tried to be conciliatory. ‘You’re here now. Want a pastry thingy?’
‘No, I want you to find my corsage and put it on my wrist. Where is your boutonniere?’
Kaydon stopped chewing. Was she kidding? He looked at her glancing about the room. Nope. She wasn’t kidding. She was going to be a high-maintenance date.
‘Mum put them on the sideboard in the hallway,’ he said. ‘Want me to get them?’
‘Thank you,’ she said in a composed voice.
Moments later, Chrissy pinned the boutonniere to his lapel. ‘White roses, perfect.’
‘Hey, babe!’ Aaron called across the room.
Stacey stood in the doorway in a short black dress and gumboots, a case of beer on her shoulder. ‘You know your boyfriend’s got you well trained when not only do you buy him a slab of beer, but also make sure it’s the first thing out of the car so it doesn’t go warm and flat.’
Aaron loped across the room in a few easy strides. ‘Definitely a top girlfriend,’ he smiled, planting a long kiss on her mouth.
Kaydon watched them and wondered how the heck he was ever going to do that to Chrissy. He’d been nuts to make this bet. Maybe he’d ask Aaron for some pointers later.
Chrissy barely disguised her disgust. ‘I can’t wait to go and live in civilisation.’
As the room emptied and people began to file out the front door towards the marquee, Bron pulled Kaydon aside. ‘Where’s your wallet?’
He pulled it out and his mother inserted a thick wad of notes. ‘Two hundred dollars. Why don’t you have a bid on the first dance?’ She tilted her head towards Chrissy. ‘Put all those expensive ballroom dance lessons to good use.’ She gave him a wink.
He made his way back to Chrissy, who stood with her parents. ‘Ready?’
‘I’m so nervous, can you tell? The photographer from The Land newspaper is here. This is how models get discovered, especially out in the bush. I really need to stand out.’
‘All you need to do is stay sober and behave and you’ll stand out,’ he grinned. He took her arm. ‘Let’s go.’
He was about to lead her to the marquee when her father called him back. ‘Wait a minute, Kaydon.’ Hugh Parker pulled his wallet from his back pocket. ‘How much does the first dance usually go for?’ He flipped the wallet open and Kaydon couldn’t help noticing an unusually fat wad of cash.
‘Ummm . . .’
‘Well?’ Mr Parker fingered the notes. He raised his eyebrows questioningly.
Kaydon shrugged, uncertain. ‘A few hundred?’
‘What? Like three, four hundred? How many hundred?’
‘It’s different every time.’
Mr Parker counted out five one-hundred-dollar notes and passed them to Kaydon. ‘If it goes higher than that, just keep bidding. I’ll fix it up.’ He pointed a finger at Chrissy, who was standing by the entrance to the drinks area with her mother. ‘See that girl?’
Kaydon nodded.
‘She’s beautiful, isn’t she?’
‘Very,’ agreed Kaydon.
‘She’s the most beautiful girl here tonight, don’t you think?’
Kaydon stalled. Mr Parker raised his eyebrows another notch.
‘Yes. Of course.’
Hugh Parker pointed to the notes in Kaydon’s hand. ‘Make sure you take good care of her. See she gets the first dance.’
17
Holly stood staring at the dress with a knot of dread in her belly. The day had gone too fast. Jake had finished singing waltzing tunes in the tiny shower cubicle and was walking through the hut, dripping, with naught but a towel around his scrawny hips.
‘Don’t you need, like, at least six hours to get ready?’ he said, as he padded past his way back to the caravan.
Holly had washed her hair, coiled it with a curling iron and draped it over one shoulder. Nail polish wasn’t a problem; she had every colour, glitter finishes and decorations. She decided on silver and applied a quick coat. Then she slipped into the dress.
Jake had thought of everything. There was a white clutch purse in the bottom of the Salvos bag, some makeup, fake pearl drop earrings, a corsage of lilac flowers made from the same fabric as the dress, and a matching flower thingy for Jake. But no shoes.
He appeared at the door of the hut in his suit holding another black plastic bag. ‘Shoes, ta-dah!’
Holly pulled them from the bag. They matched the dress exactly. She pulled them on as the truck engine started.
‘Come on, we’ll be late,’ said Jake, scooting past.
Her father sat with the engine running. ‘Hurry up. I have to drop you off and then go and get Brandon from the train station.’
‘Have you got the tickets?’ she asked.
Jake pulled them from his top pocket.
‘Let’s get this over and done with, then,’ she said, trying to ignore the sensation in her chest. The last thing she needed was to have a freakout in front of a bunch of strangers. She snatched the tickets from Jake and began fanning herself with them.
‘It’s all good, Holly-girl,’ Jake laughed.
Holly climbed into the back seat and while Dad drove over the paddock towards the gate she wriggled her toes inside the shoes. They were too big, but nothing a few tissues stuffed into the toes wouldn’t fix. By the time she had them sorted, they were halfway there and Holly felt queasy, as if she was on an unstoppable rollercoaster that was slowly making its way
up a very large hill.
At Rockleigh the marquee dazzled with millions of tiny blue lights. It was a magical sight.
Holly clutched her purse tightly, tingles of nerves running through her.
Jake also didn’t move. He and Dad sat staring at the scene before them.
‘Big shebang,’ Dad commented.
‘Fancy,’ said Jake. ‘I thought it would be more like a school dance.’
‘Too late to run scared now,’ said Holly.
‘I’ll pick you up at twelve,’ said Dad. ‘Don’t be late or my truck might turn into a pumpkin.’
‘Might be an improvement,’ said Jake.
‘Don’t be cheeky. Get out.’
Jake stepped out and opened Holly’s door for her.
Wow, she was here. By the time Dad’s truck disappeared down the driveway, the world felt in flux around her. A crowd gathered in the buttery evening light, watching the sun set. The air swelled heavily with anticipation.
‘So, what do we do first?’ said Jake, stuffing his hands into his pockets and surveying the scene.
‘Have a pre-dinner drink,’ said Holly, reading the golden card. ‘That’s what the ticket says to do. Pre-dinner drinks will be served at dusk.’
‘Looks pretty dusky to me,’ said Jake.
And then she saw him.
Kaydon; he seemed to magically materialise from the crowd. He wore a tuxedo jacket with faded jeans and boots. His hair was tousled and messy.
A girl in a flowing red dress glided towards him and hooked her arm through his.
The hummingbird in her tummy croaked and dived to the bottom of her second-hand shoes.
18
Kaydon walked into the drinks area with Chrissy on his arm.
‘Why didn’t you find a red bow tie?’ she asked, frowning.
‘Didn’t get a chance to go into town,’ he said, casting his eyes towards the party and looking for Dan.
‘A black shirt would have looked better with the tux too. White’s so traditional. You could belong to anyone in that.’