Rain Dance Page 9

  ‘I’ve been working out in the scrub,’ he said. ‘Haven’t really had a chance to think about it.’

  ‘Kay-don.’ She stopped.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Could you put a bit more effort into this? I really need a gentleman by my side tonight.’

  More effort? He was probably the only guy here with a real bow tie, even if it was black. And his mum had bought a corsage for her. What was she on about? ‘Maybe you should have gone with someone else,’ he muttered.

  From the look on Chrissy’s face, he guessed that was the wrong answer.

  ‘You are so rude,’ she said through gritted teeth.

  ‘I’m rude?’ She was the one complaining about his outfit.

  ‘This is a really important night for me,’ she said. ‘I told you that. If you weren’t going to help me out, then you should have let me partner up with someone else.’

  ‘I didn’t realise this was a business arrangement,’ he said.

  Then the thought struck him – maybe if she felt sorry for him, she might kiss him. He let his face fall into a hurt expression. Or maybe, if this was a business arrangement . . . ‘How ’bout we make a deal?’

  ‘What sort of a deal?’

  ‘I’ll be the perfect date, introduce you to as many people as I can, dance with you in front of the photographer . . .’ He stalled. ‘And you kiss me at the end of the night.’

  She looked at him as if he’d grown a second head.

  He gave her a sheepish shrug. ‘I kinda made a bet with someone.’

  ‘You’re real smooth with the ladies, Kaydon,’ she said in an icy voice. Her eyes narrowed. ‘Fine,’ she finally said. ‘But no tongues. And you’d better be a damn good dancer.’

  ‘Oh, I can dance,’ he assured her.

  There were hundreds of people mingling in the pinky-orange evening. Laughter rang out in intermittent bursts, and crows called in long disapproving squarks in the background. Slow country music wafted through the air, and waiters went around with food platters and trays of champagne and pink punch.

  Dan jumped out of nowhere and dead-armed him. ‘So, did you bring your old man’s keys with you?’ He whispered when Chrissy was distracted. ‘No way are you going to win that bet.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ he answered, feeling supremely confident. What could go wrong? Then he stalled.

  He barely recognised her at first.

  She looked small and fragile in the swarming mass of music and voices. And she wore a shimmering lavender dress that showed off every curve.

  ‘Hi, I’m Chrissy,’ said Chrissy in an annoyed voice.

  ‘Sorry.’ Kaydon pulled himself back to the moment. ‘This is Dan; friend from school.’

  Chrissy looked over Dan’s outrageous camo-print suit with a black shirt and bow tie. He smiled broadly and offered a hand to her. ‘Hey, Chrissy.’

  ‘Who wants a drink?’ Kaydon asked.

  ‘Could you get me a punch, please?’ said Chrissy.

  ‘I’m good,’ said Dan, waving his nearly full plastic glass of beer.

  Kaydon headed to the closest roaming waiter, and took a glass of punch and a beer for himself. The guy in the pink tutu and steel-capped boots burst suddenly into a ballet dance, making Kaydon leap out of the way to save his drinks.

  As he turned away, he bumped into Holly Harvey. Literally. ‘Whoa!’

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, stepping away. Then she laughed nervously. ‘Good save.’

  ‘Nice shoes.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘I’ll be taking them off soon. Unless the black snakes come out at night?’

  He grinned. ‘Should be right.’ Without thinking, he held out the glass of punch. ‘Want a drink?’

  She peered at a spiky crimson thing that streamed with tiny bubbles at the bottom of the glass. ‘What is that?’ she asked, without taking the drink. ‘It looks like a sea creature.’

  ‘It’s a flower,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry; no sea critters were harmed in the making of this drink.’

  She still eyed it warily. ‘Does it taste like a sea creature?’

  He suppressed a smile. ‘No.’ Then he passed her the drink. ‘It’s punch. Non-alcoholic, and that thing’s a hibiscus.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said, taking a sip. She flicked her eyebrows up. ‘Nice.’

  He took a slurp of beer. ‘I thought you said you weren’t coming.’

  ‘I wasn’t.’

  ‘What changed?’

  Her face dropped.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘This was kind of sprung on me.’

  He smiled. ‘It gets sprung on me every year. You’re here now,’ he said, wanting to take her by the hand and look after her. ‘Why don’t you come and meet some people?’ He thumbed over his shoulder to Dan and Chrissy.

  He watched Holly’s eyes run warily over Chrissy. ‘Oh no, it’s okay.’ She turned and pointed to where a boy stood at the bar. ‘Jake is over there. I’d better wait for him.’

  ‘Do you know which table you’re on?’

  Bewilderment passed over her face.

  ‘It’s on a poster.’ He waved her over to a map of seating arrangements that was perched on an easel at the entrance to the marquee. ‘You’re with me. With us,’ he quickly corrected. ‘Table nine.’

  He pointed to the table where his friends, Matthew and Henry, were both vying for Chrissy’s attention. Angel Whitley had her nose buried in a hanky and Chloe Tremonti was pulling a small flask from her pocket and tipping something into her punch. Aaron was throwing peanuts in the air and catching them in his mouth. Stacey had her hand wrapped around a stubby and was trying and failing to do the same. ‘With them.’

  ‘Are they your friends?’

  ‘Yeah, schoolfriends mostly, some from polocrosse and just from around . . . you know.’

  Holly laughed suddenly. ‘I’ve never been to anything like this before. I’m freaked!’

  ‘They’re usually fun, that’s if you don’t get hauled up in front of everyone to do something embarrassing in the name of charity.’

  Her eyes grew large. ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like bum coins and shot glasses.’

  Her face crossed with horror and intrigue.

  Dan appeared from nowhere with a bunch of balloons in his hand. ‘Kaydon won it last year. He put seventeen coins up his crack and set a new Australian record.’

  ‘All in the name of charity,’ Kaydon added quickly. ‘And I was fully clothed, I promise.’

  ‘Got a coin, I’ll show you,’ Dan offered.

  ‘No need,’ said Kaydon. He gave his friend a shove.

  Behind a bunch of people he saw Mrs Tremonti raise a glass of punch to him. ‘Don’t you forget my dance,’ she sang out.

  ‘Looking forward to it, Mrs T,’ he called back. ‘How about a rock ’n roll number?’

  She gave him a thumbs up and got back to talking with her friends.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Kaydon saw Chrissy gliding towards them. ‘I’d better go,’ he said quickly. ‘See you at dinner.’

  He had left his run too late.

  ‘It’s time to take our seats,’ said Chrissy, snaking her arm through his while her eyes dismantled Holly. ‘Have we met?’

  ‘This is Holly,’ said Kaydon. ‘She’s just moved here from the coast. Holly, this is Chrissy, her dad is my dad’s new business partner.’

  ‘And your date for the evening,’ Chrissy emphasised. She turned to Holly again. ‘Did you go to grammar school?’

  Holly shook her head. ‘No.’ The smile and the laugh were gone. She finished the last of her drink and passed the empty glass back to Kaydon. ‘Thanks.’

  Awkward!

  Chrissy looked at the empty punch glass in Kaydon’s hand and then her eyes flicked back to Holly. ‘Weren’t you going to get me a drink?’ she asked without looking at him.

  ‘There’ll be drinks at the table,’ said Kaydon.

  Chrissy’s face tightened. ‘Then let’s head over, shall we?’ She
took his arm, then stopped and turned back to Holly. ‘That’s a nice dress,’ she said. ‘It looks tailor-made. Where did you get it?’

  Holly looked suddenly uncomfortable. ‘From a shop,’ she answered vaguely.

  ‘No, no,’ said Chrissy and her eyes suddenly sparkled with mischief. ‘That dress did not come off the rack. The shoes are the same fabric and it’s a real silk stain. Did you get it at an op shop?’ To Kaydon’s horror, she reached out and took Holly’s wrist. ‘Nice corsage too.’

  Holly ripped her arm away as if she’d been scorched.

  Chrissy suddenly erupted with laughter. ‘Oh. My. God. You did! I knew I recognised it! You even wore the matching corsage. That was my formal dress from two years ago and we gave it to the Salvos.’ She ran her eyes up and down Holly until Kaydon flinched with embarrassment. ‘How much did you get it for? It cost my parents a fortune to have it made for me.’

  Holly looked like a deer stuck in headlights with nowhere to run, or hide. Then she inhaled sharply and stalked off, in shoes that Kaydon noticed slipped off the back of her heels with every step.

  ‘Can you believe that?’ said Chrissy, still glowing with amusement. ‘What a small world. I loved that dress.’

  ‘Real small world,’ said Kaydon in a flat voice.

  19

  Holly fought the urge to rip the stupid dress from her shoulders and stomp it into the polocrosse field. But that would leave her semi-naked, which would be the only thing more humiliating than her current predicament. It would also leave Jake in the lurch, looking for her. Where had he got to? She slunk in behind a crowd of teenagers and tried to look inconspicuous.

  Holly noticed the girls all wore cowboy boots with their dresses and she suddenly wished she’d worn gumboots.

  ‘Steer wouldn’t fit in the crush so we had to cut his horns off first,’ a girl with frizzy blonde hair was saying. ‘It spurted blood and got me in the eye as I was tagging its ear.’

  De-horning! That’s so cruel! Someone should expose that on YouTube. Holly was appalled.

  ‘Mate, that’s nothing. I got growth promotant slammed into my finger with a needle! That steer reckoned I was going to have the needle and not him!’

  ‘Lucky it was pellet and not a liquid, or you coulda been in a bit of trouble. You might have grown all sorts of wrong things!’

  Her friends all erupted with laughter.

  Feedlot workers; jabbing cattle with hormones. Ugh! Get. Me. Out. Of. Here!

  Holly was still hiding when a woman in green who must be Kaydon’s mother began calling everyone in to the marquee. ‘Can you all come and be seated now?’ she called out. She rang a small bell.

  ‘Holly!’ Jake appeared from nowhere holding two white sticks with flaps of blue and green rubber hanging off the end. ‘I won a CD voucher and a free facial,’ he said, holding two tiny scrolled-up pieces of paper.

  ‘Good for you.’

  ‘Who was the glamazon in red?’ Jake asked as they were swept into the big white tent.

  ‘Her name’s Chrissy,’ said Holly, trying not to sound sour.

  ‘She looks scary,’ he said. ‘I was kind of hoping you and the cowboy son would hit it off. You so need to get kissed, Holly.’

  Holly rolled her eyes. ‘You have a thing about cowboys,’ she said.

  ‘I do.’ Jake finished the glass of beer in his hand and walked away.

  Holly watched him walk to the closest tray of drinks and take another one, leaving her to absorb his words. Had he just said what she thought he’d said? Yes, he had. Jake liked boys. And now he had his back to her. For the first time in her life she felt a chasm between herself and her brother.

  The only thing that surprised her was how unsurprised she was. It seemed totally right. Suddenly she was terrified for him. If that was the case, he was at the wrong hunting ground. The tables inside the marquee were covered in hats, and the hats belonged to big, burly, traditionally minded men from the land. She guessed that tolerance could be somewhat limited in this tent.

  Holly walked to Jake and took him by the arm. ‘Be careful,’ she pleaded.

  He patted her hand.

  Ten minutes later Holly sat at the table of twelve doing her best to ignore everyone while she ate her entrée.

  The lights were dimmed and a giant screen suddenly projected a series of evocative photos of thirsty cattle and parched land as the MC stepped up to the microphone.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, thanks for coming tonight,’ he began. ‘As you know, farmers are battling the worst drought this country has seen in a hundred years. They’ve tackled high temperatures and fires and it’s struck at the heart of Queensland cattle country, with farmers now at breaking point and some even taking their own lives.’

  A respectful silence fell over the marquee.

  ‘One of these farmers has travelled from Long-reach down to Gunnedah tonight to share her story with you. I hope you’ll make Charlie Goldsworth welcome.’

  There was loud applause and a girl who Holly guessed was in her early twenties took the microphone. After introducing herself, she unfolded a piece of paper and began reading from it.

  ‘Thank you for having me here. You cannot know the hardship, and the terrible choices that must be made on a farm in drought unless you have been there yourself.

  ‘I am only one person, a farmer’s daughter. There is also the grazier who is so broke he cannot afford to buy hay to keep his five-year-old daughter’s pony from starving; the sheep farmer who has to make a choice to either buy more drench for his dying sheep, or put food in his children’s mouths; and the man with a hundred dollars left to his name who must decide if he will buy one more bale of hay for his favourite cows, or a carton of bullets to put them all down.

  ‘It’s no wonder so many of these hurting, broken men turn the rifle on themselves after the grisly job is done.’

  The girl’s voice became choked and she paused while she pulled herself together. She turned to the projector and pointed a small remote at it. A photo of a struggling lamb came up.

  ‘If all I can do is share photos of how the drought breaks our hearts every day, then see these pictures.

  ‘A baby lamb pulled from a bog hole, the only survivor out of seven sheep and fifteen kangaroos. He died after three days of love and care in the house yard.

  ‘A calf called Geoff was pulled from a dam, where he was stuck beside the dead body of his mother. Born malnourished, he looked more like a prisoner of war than a two-week-old baby. We lost him three weeks later.

  ‘A much-loved old cow struggles to stand. On the first day she stood by herself, on day two I had to help her up, on the third day my little brother dragged her body away.

  ‘Our pet cow comes to my father for food in the paddock, and he rubs her neck and says, “I’m so sorry, girl, I cannot feed you today.”

  ‘There is emotional damage occurring in the bush today. Thank you for being here tonight to help support Queensland farmers. They are doing it tough, they feel forgotten, and misunderstood. But when people say “Hey, we see you, we appreciate you, we support you,” that is something we as farmers thank God for. That encourages us. Thank you.’

  Holly wasn’t ready for the lights to come back on. She wiped furiously at her eyes. This girl’s reality tore her heart apart as much as her own. She knew what it was to lose everything. The sound of Rocket whinnying as he was driven away on someone else’s float, her sister screaming out Gidget’s name. Dad shut away in his office for days on end. It was still too raw for her to be watching this.

  ‘Good on you, Charlie!’ someone called out.

  The girl lifted her eyes briefly as she left the stage. Applause broke out and Holly was glad to be hidden in the all-encompassing noise. It gave her time to get herself back together.

  ‘People from the coast just don’t understand what farmers are going through,’ said Kaydon’s cousin, Aaron, as the applause subsided.

  The presumption drew fury from Holly. ‘You have no idea what
people from the coast do and don’t understand,’ she said.

  Aaron looked taken aback, offended almost. Kaydon held a hand up. ‘It’s all good, cuz,’ he said, diffusing the tension. ‘Leave it.’

  Holly pushed her plate away and was about to leave the table when she felt Jake’s hand on hers.

  ‘Settle, Holly-girl,’ he murmured and squeezed her hand tight.

  Holly fought back tears. Jake’s arm wrapped around her shoulder and she put her face in his chest, taking solace in all that was left, her family.

  Suddenly another man took the microphone and began prattling in the rapid-fire chant of a livestock auctioneer.

  ‘Who’ll give me a hundred dollars for this set of truck tyres? Here’s a one-hundred dollar bid, now two, now two, will you give me two?’ There was a holler from the back of the room and the man’s voice exploded into higher octaves. He pointed at someone in the back tables. ‘Two-hundred dollar bid, now three, now three, who’ll give me three?’

  The auction went on and on. There were holidays and beauty products and even a year’s supply of free bread. The prizes were endless and people seemed to be bidding way over what they were worth. The whole scene was crazy.

  Holly sat patiently through the whole thing, planning to escape as soon as possible.

  The plan had barely formed in her mind when the lights dimmed again and the entire marquee whirled with multi-coloured disco lights. The band struck up a slow tune and the MC returned to the microphone.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, the final auction will be for the first dance. Gentlemen, let’s see your romantic side tonight – buy this special moment for the girl in your life.’

  ‘Fifty bucks,’ someone yelled and was quickly outbid by another from a different table: ‘One hundred!’

  Holly was startled. Who would pay a hundred dollars to dance with their own wife or girlfriend? As soon as this bid was over, she was sneaking out the back door and walking home.

  But the bidding kept going up in twenties, until it almost reached four hundred dollars, and then stalled. The auctioneer goaded and begged and still the bid sat there. He banged his hammer once.

  ‘Seven hundred dollars,’ a voice called from table nine.