Somewhere around the Corner (9 page)

Friday was bath morning. Dad and Young Jim lugged load after load of water in kero tins as soon as the fried tomatoes from breakfast were cleared away. They sweated up the hill from the creek until the creek was nearly dry, Dad said. Barbara and Elaine fed the fire with bits of twig and dry wood to keep it burning hot. The water steamed and bubbled on the coals, sending droplets of water snickering and whispering onto the hot ash where they bubbled and spluttered until they disappeared.

They washed the little ones first, giggling and wriggling and soapy in the old tin bath, and then they washed their clothes in the same water, pushing and scrubbing them until they were clean, then hanging them on the thornbushes to dry. Dad, careful not to lose a drop, poured the water on the tomatoes—the best drink they got all week—and the little ones ran
naked in the sunlight, laughing and getting grubby feet and knees all over again.

‘Let them run,’ said Ma comfortably. ‘A bit of sun on their hides won’t do them any harm till their clothes are dry. Come on Young Jim, you fill it up again. I’ve been looking forward to this all week.’

Ma washed next, then Elaine. Then it was Barbara’s turn, cramped in the tin bath with the breeze on her shoulders and a kookaburra staring at her from the branch above, with only the thornbushes for privacy. No-one would peek, Elaine assured her, ‘Because they knew if they did we’d peek at them, and anyway, Ma would give them what for if they tried.’

It was strange to bathe outside, with the sun on your skin and the curious ants running along the rim of the bath as though the water was ant soup that they could take away to store. The trees swayed overhead, their leaves bunched like soft green pillows. If only she could reach up and pull one down to rest her head on.

‘Hey, come on slowcoach, it’ll be half past lunchtime before we’re finished at this rate!’

Barbara dressed in the clothes Ma had given her the day before. Ma had put her jeans away for Joey to wear when he got bigger. She wouldn’t accept that they were fit for girls at all. ‘And as for that thing you call a T-shirt, it’s hardly decent. That world you come
from may be all very well my girl, but you’d think someone’d think to dress a child properly. Look, there’s this real nice skirt that Dulcie sent up last week. If I just take up the hem and give it a good airing you can put it on tonight.’

‘That way it’ll be clean for the dance,’ Elaine explained. ‘Everybody dresses up Friday night.’ She leant over the fire and shook her wet hair. The water spat and hissed as it landed on the coals.

Young Jim looked up. He was carving something by the fire, scraping at the wood with his pocketknife so the shavings fell in little curls over his knees. Barbara bent over to look.

‘What is it?’

‘A brooch for Ma. She can wear it tonight if she wants. See, it’s a flower. I reckon if I thread a bit of wire back here—’

‘It’s lovely,’ said Barbara.

Young Jim grinned. ‘I’ll make you one for next week if you like. Hey, what are we going to do now?’

‘Nothing,’ decided Elaine. ‘I’m staying clean for tonight.’

‘Let’s go get some eels,’ suggested Young Jim. ‘Hey Ma, you’d like some eels, wouldn’t you?’

‘Urk. Nasty slimy things,’ protested Elaine. ‘We’ll get mud all over us.’

‘Well, you don’t have to touch them. You can just play Lady Muck and watch us catch them. You coming, kids?’

‘No, they’re not,’ said Ma firmly. ‘You lot can go if you want. At least you can wash yourselves after. I’m not cleaning this lot again before tonight. You can take your lunch with you. Two slices each and mind you don’t cut them too wide, that bread’s got to last till tomorrow lunch because I’m not making any scones till then, and will someone please eat that tomato jam—it’s going to go to waste if you don’t.’

‘We’ll eat it Ma,’ said Young Jim soothingly. ‘You going to come, Elaine, or not?’

‘I suppose.’ Elaine uncurled herself and stretched. ‘But I’m not touching any eels, mind. And I’m not carrying them either.’

Young Jim hunted around for string and bits of meat from the night before.

‘That’s how you catch eels,’ he explained to Barbara, as they started down the track. ‘They grab hold of the meat and won’t let go. Then you just haul them onto the bank.’

‘That’s when the real fun starts,’ agreed Elaine. ‘These great slimy things wriggling all over the place trying to get back into the water and biting if you get anywhere near them.’

‘Garn, they aren’t that bad,’ protested Young Jim.

‘They’re worse,’ said Elaine decidedly, pushing a branch out of her way. The track was filled with midday shadows; short and fat, thick with gum leaf scent and dancing sunlight and the faint tang of smoke from hot dry wood.

‘I reckon everyone in the gully’s having a wash,’ said Young Jim. ‘I bet shirts and skirts are hanging on every bush.’ He kicked at a rock. ‘Makes you mad, doesn’t it? I mean, I bet up in Sydney there are rich people with marble bathrooms and gold taps and…and everything. Down here people like Ma and the Hendersons don’t even have a bath they can fit their knees in.’

‘I liked bathing in the sunlight,’ said Barbara dreamily. ‘It was like having someone pour warm smoke down your back. I bet my skin’s gold if I could see.’

Young Jim pulled back the neck of her blouse and peered down her back. ‘Nah,’ he said, ‘still the same colour. Pink and lots of freckles.’

Barbara tried to kick him. He dodged, laughing. ‘Nah,’ he went on seriously. ‘That’s not the point anyway. I mean, I don’t mind having a bath under the gum trees. Cripes, I reckon it’s better than a marble bathroom any day. I mean rich people can bathe in the sun or bathe inside. We don’t get to choose.’

‘I’d choose sunlight any day,’ said Barbara.

Elaine snorted. ‘That’s all very well when it’s sunny,’ she informed them. ‘How about in winter and your knees freeze because you can’t fit them in the tub?’

‘See, that’s what I mean,’ said Young Jim.

‘Well, you go and get your soapbox and tell everyone then,’ said Elaine tranquilly. ‘Not us. We’ve heard it all before.’ She thrust her hands through her wet hair again, untangling the rat’s tails as it dried in the sun.

The eel pool was down near the main road, where the creek slowed down to a more sedate pace after bubbling down the gully.

‘Hey,’ announced Young Jim. ‘That’s the police car. Wonder why it’s parked down here?’

‘Maybe there’s trouble up the gully,’ said Elaine.

Young Jim shook his head. ‘We’d have heard some commotion or other on the way down the track. You can’t miss someone as big as Sergeant Ryan. No, look, here are his footprints in the sand, too. He’s gone down the creek, not up towards the gully.’

‘How do you know they’re his footprints?’ demanded Elaine. ‘They could be the Williams boys’, or Gully Jack’s, or Dad’s.’

‘’Cause no-one else round here wears boots, chookbrain. Not boots like his.’

‘Maybe he’s tracking bandits,’ said Elaine eagerly. ‘They’ve just stolen a thousand pounds and they’re hiding in the valley.’

‘Who’d they steal a thousand pounds from?’ argued Young Jim. ‘No-one here’s got sixpence to spend on their tombstones. I bet there isn’t even a thousand pennies in the whole valley.’

‘Well, I don’t know.’

‘Maybe they stole it from Sydney and brought it down here,’ suggested Barbara.

Elaine beamed at her. ‘That’s it. It was a daring bank robbery.’

‘I think you’ve both got rats in your attic,’ said Young Jim frankly. ‘I bet he’s just gone picking mushrooms or something.’

Elaine giggled. ‘What would Sergeant Ryan want with mushrooms? He doesn’t even cook.’

‘Well I don’t know,’ said Young Jim, exasperated. ‘How about we follow him upstream and see?’

Elaine shrugged. ‘It’s all right with me. I didn’t want to go eeling anyway.’

‘Bubba?’

‘Sure.’

‘Better take your shoes off,’ advised Young Jim. ‘You’ll ruin them if you slip in the water. Here, give them to me. I’ll stick them in my pocket’

‘It’s okay. I can carry them.’

‘You don’t have a pocket. Here, hand them over,’ ordered Young Jim. He bent down and looked at the boot prints again. ‘Come on, everyone. Follow me.’

They walked slowly up the edge of the creek. The soil felt strange on Barbara’s bare feet, worn hard and flat from floods, scattered with casuarina needles and sewn into a patchwork by eroded tree roots. The dragons stared at them, drowsy on their rocks, or leapt startled into the clear water and lay watchful on the bottom of the pools.

‘We should check the opposite bank,’ whispered Elaine. ‘Maybe he followed the gangsters into the scrub.’

‘Look, you silly fruit-bat,’ said Young Jim. ‘His footprints are just in front of us. Why are you whispering, anyway?’

‘In case the gangsters hear us.’

‘You and your bally gangsters. You’ve got gangsters on the brain. I bet Sergeant Ryan’s never followed a gangster in his life. Chook thieves and drunk and disorderlies are more his line—look, there he is now.’

Sergeant Ryan was sitting on a rock that some forgotten flood had wedged in the exposed roots of a giant casuarina. He held a pencil that moved slowly
and erratically over the book on his knee. He seemed oblivious to the approaching children.

‘He can’t hear us over the creek,’ said Young Jim. ‘Hey, Sergeant Ryan!’

Sergeant Ryan started. He closed the book quickly and put the pencil in his pocket. He stood.

‘Afternoon,’ he said awkwardly. ‘You kiddies going for a walk?’

‘We were going eeling,’ said Elaine. ‘But then we saw the car. We wondered what was up.’

Sergeant Ryan looked embarrassed.

‘It’s my afternoon off,’ he told them, as though that explained what he was doing sitting up the creek.

Elaine looked at the book in his hand.

‘What’s that, Sergeant Ryan?’

Young Jim kicked her ankle.

‘Don’t be rude,’ he hissed.

‘Well, he doesn’t have to tell me if he doesn’t want to,’ argued Elaine.

Sergeant Ryan looked even more embarrassed. He fumbled with the book as though he wished he had a pocket big enough to hide it in.

‘It’s nothing,’ he told them, trying to sound firm.

Elaine’s eyes opened wide. ‘I know what it is! It’s a sketchbook. Mrs Henderson’s got one from when she used to teach drawing at the school. I didn’t know
you sketched, Sergeant Ryan!’ She plucked the book from Sergeant Ryan’s grasp before he knew what had hit him.

‘Hey, don’t snatch,’ objected Young Jim. ‘Don’t you have any respect for your elders? Ma’d have your hide if she saw what you just did.’

Elaine stuck her tongue out. ‘Sez you. I just want to have a look. I
can
have a look, can’t I, Sergeant Ryan?’

Sergeant Ryan looked at her helplessly. ‘They’re not much good,’ he protested.

‘I bet they are! Hey Bubba, have a look at this!’

Sergeant Ryan sighed.

Young Jim tried not to laugh. ‘Ma says you need two brooms and a cage of tigers to keep Elaine from doing what she wants to,’ he said.

‘Too right,’ said Sergeant Ryan. ‘Look, kids, take a dekko if you really want,’ he said. ‘But you’ve got to promise me you won’t go telling anyone, will you?’

‘Why not?’

‘Not even Dulcie?’

‘Especially not Dulcie.’ Sergeant Ryan shook his head. ‘What do you think the blokes in the valley’d say if they knew their Sergeant drew pictures for a hobby? They’d laugh their heads off.’

Young Jim looked at him with sudden comprehension. ‘You’re right there,’ he agreed.

Barbara looked over Elaine’s shoulder at the sketchbook. The sketches were all in pencil. Most were views of the valley: the single tree on the hill above Dulcie’s front paddock; a pool in the creek below the casuarinas. There was a sketch of the pub, and the post office and telephone exchange. There was a sketch of a strange house too, with a bull-nosed verandah, neat gardens and a picket fence. Barbara looked up. ‘Where’s this one?’ she asked.

Young Jim peered over her shoulder. ‘It looks like Dulcie’s,’ he said. ‘But Dulcie’s hasn’t got a verandah—and the garden’s not like this at all.’ He looked up with sudden comprehension. ‘It’s like the one above Dulcie’s mantelpiece!’ he exclaimed. ‘The one she thought Gully Jack did! But it was you, wasn’t it?’

Sergeant Ryan looked embarrassed. ‘It wasn’t much,’ he muttered.

‘Hey, that’s Dulcie with a baby—and this one’s of you and Dulcie dancing.’ Young Jim stared at Sergeant Ryan. ‘But you’ve never been to any of the dances!’

Sergeant Ryan was silent.

‘They’re your dreams, aren’t they?’ said Young Jim quietly. Sergeant Ryan looked uncomfortable. ‘Cripes, we’ve all got dreams. Dreams are things so close to you you think you’d die sometimes if anyone knew what they were.’

‘What’re your dreams then?’ asked Elaine curiously.

‘None of your beeswax,’ said Young Jim shortly. He handed the book back to Sergeant Ryan. He hesitated. ‘Sergeant Ryan, why don’t you go to the dances? They’re really beaut, and the food’s just great, all sorts of cakes and pies and sandwiches and things. Dulcie would love it if you went.’

‘I can’t dance,’ said Sergeant Ryan simply.

Young Jim stared at him. ‘Everyone can dance,’ he protested. ‘Didn’t your parents ever teach you?’

Sergeant Ryan shook his head. ‘My Ma died,’ he explained. ‘And my Pa was more interested in the pub than teaching me to dance. There weren’t any dances out our way anyway when I was young. Later,’ he shrugged, ‘I reckon I was too embarrassed to say I didn’t know how.’

‘Stone the blooming crows,’ whistled Elaine. ‘A sergeant who can’t dance! Hey, it sounds like a song: The Dancing Sergeant.’

Sergeant Ryan’s face went red.

‘I can’t dance either,’ Barbara admitted softly.

Young Jim stared at her. ‘You can’t dance either! Cripes!’ He grinned suddenly. ‘Well, you know what then?’

‘What?’

‘We’ll have to bally well show you, won’t we then?’

‘None of that language, boy,’ said Sergeant Ryan. But his eyes were full of hope.

It was like he’d fallen into the creek and come out in another world, where all the rules were different. It was like a dream had swept down with the breeze and carried him along. What was he doing here by the creek, wondered Sergeant Ryan—on a grassy flat, kept short by roos and wallabies, watched by kookaburras and blooming water dragons, dancing with a mob of kids?

‘Come on, lift your boots,’ ordered Elaine. ‘One, two, three, one, two, three—hey, he’s nearly got it, hasn’t he?’

Young Jim twirled Barbara around a log of driftwood topped with wombat droppings. ‘You’re doing great! Let’s try the polka again. You remember how it goes Bubba—to the right, no follow me, you great galah—and lift your feet, dad dah dah dah dah, careful, don’t trip over that rock, dah dah dah da
dah, dah dah—dahdah, dumde dumde, that’s the way!’

‘My feet keep getting tangled!’

‘Then lift them up, you nitwit. That’s the way.’

‘Watch out for the tree root, Sergeant Ryan, now back again and turn around.’

‘Ow!’

‘I said watch out for the tree root. It’s all right, Sergeant Ryan, there won’t be any tree roots in the hall tonight. Come on, try it again.’

The sun was leaning on the casuarinas when they’d finished, puffing and giggling.

‘Think you can manage now?’ demanded Elaine, standing back with her hands on her hips.

‘I think I can manage anything after that,’ said Sergeant Ryan.

‘You’d better,’ Elaine warned him. ‘Or I’ll have to come down to the police station and show you again.’

‘Cripes,’ said Young Jim suddenly. ‘We forgot all about lunch. Where’s the swag, I’m starved! And Ma is expecting those eels for tea.’

‘I’ll give you a hand,’ said Sergeant Ryan. ‘I may not be much of a dancer, but I do know about eels. And there’s a big slab of fruit cake back in the car. Old Ma Hourigan at the pub makes a good fruit cake.’

‘You’re a real beaut dancer,’ said Elaine. She grinned. ‘I’m a bonzer teacher.’

They rock-hopped back down the edge of the creek to the eel pond. Sergeant Ryan glanced at Young Jim, intent on placing his feet on the slippery rocks.

‘You know—what you were saying about dreams and all that—well, if there’s anything I can ever do to give you a hand. I mean, I know it’s hard for a kid like you.’

Young Jim looked at him for a moment. His eyes were a brighter blue, as though he was considering. Then he shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I reckon my dream’s—well, just a dream. But thank you anyway.’ They walked in silence for a minute. ‘You’ll be coming to the dance then, tonight?’

Sergeant Ryan grinned, ‘What’d you say if I said no?’

‘I’d say we’d come down the valley and drag you up here,’ said Elaine frankly. ‘I didn’t get trodden on by your great boots for nothing.’

‘I reckon that’d be against the law,’ said Young Jim. ‘That’d be assaulting an officer, wouldn’t it Sergeant Ryan?’

Sergeant Ryan nodded. ‘Too right,’ he agreed. ‘I’d hate to see you land in gaol, missy. I reckon I’ll just have to turn up to keep you safe.’
Dinner was early that night, the sun still hovering above the ridge and the shadows spreading long and thick from the trees. It was roast mutton, the forequarter Gully Jack had given them the day before, baked in their home-made oven set at the edge of the clearing—a kero tin packed in a bed of clay and ants’ nest, with a rough firebox on either side. The firebox was two big holes dug into the clay with holes at the top for the smoke.

Ma had decided to keep the eels for the next night. They sat in a kero tin of salty water around the back of the shanty, gutted and twisted, ‘Looking just like meat,’ as Barbara said wonderingly, not like the savage snake-like things they’d fished out of the creek.

The girls had stayed by the fire ever since they’d got home, feeding it with more twigs and bits of bark to keep it hot and the dinner cooking evenly. The meat smelt wonderful. There was even gravy, made in the camp oven from the dripping and browned flour and water, and potatoes in their jackets cooked in the ashes, and boiled pumpkin and swedes and beans, as much as anyone could eat.

‘No point leaving it for the bandicoots,’ said Dad, passing his plate over for a second helping. ‘You know love, I reckon you’re the best cook in New
South Wales. I bet you could cook a drover’s dog and make it taste like chicken.’

‘That’s what Gully Jack says,’ said Elaine. ‘He says he wished he had someone like Ma to cook for him.’

‘Then he’d better marry Dulcie before they both turn grey,’ said Ma. ‘Thellie and Joey, if you don’t eat your pumpkin there won’t be any pudding. It’s treacle dumplings, but there won’t be a single crumb for anyone who doesn’t eat their vegies.’

The sun collapsed behind the ridges like someone had burst it and let all the air out. The shadows spread across the hills. Young Jim covered the fire with old ashes to keep the coals burning for the morning and to stop sparks spreading, and plucked his good shirt from the thornbush. It was dry now and smelt faintly of creek and gum leaves. Ma checked that everyone had brushed their teeth, with twigs dipped into a cup of salt and rubbed in firmly until their gums were red and their teeth as shiny as bits of quartz in the sunlight.

‘Hey Ma, could you cut my hair?’

‘Not now.’ Ma’s head was in the box where she kept her good clothes, wrapped in brown paper and mothballs. ‘There isn’t time.’

‘But Ma, it’s shaggy as a balding budgie.’

‘You should have thought of it earlier.’

Dad was shaving with the last of the hot water left over from tea, squinting into the tiny mirror balanced on a tree branch. He scraped off a week’s worth of whiskers.

‘Struth, I wish I’d done this earlier, the light’ll be gone in a minute.’

‘Ma, Joey took my underpants.’

‘No they’re not, they’re mine!’

‘Says who?’

‘If you two don’t shut up I’ll spiflicate the both of you.’ Elaine was trying to plait her hair. ‘Has anyone seen my good ribbon?’

‘You just watch your language my girl.’

‘It’s there in front of you, dopey!’

‘No it’s not.’

‘It’s right there. Struth, if it was a dog it’d bite you!’

‘Can someone spread tomato jam on those pikelets I made for supper?’

‘Oh Ma, not tomato jam, no-one’ll eat it. How about the apple jelly?’

‘Ma, I have to go to the toilet!’

‘Well, off you go then.’

‘It’s getting dark. I’m scared.’

‘I’ll take you then.’ Barbara took Thellie’s sticky hand. ‘You’ve been licking the treacle tin, haven’t you?’

‘How do you know?’ Thellie licked the brown stains from around her lips. ‘I bet you know everything Bubba, don’t you? I’m glad you’re my sister now.’

Barbara smiled. ‘Why?’

‘’Cause you tell good stories. Tell me about the funny boxes, again Bubba. The ones that tell you stories too.’

Thellie skipped along the narrow path. The dunny was in the bush behind the shack, modestly hidden behind the thornbushes—three poles upright in the ground and another two strapped on to them longways, with bark woven in between for walls and a deep pit in the middle that had taken two days to dig. The seat was a kero tin with a hole in it and a big sheet of bark was filled with dry moss, used instead of toilet paper. There was no roof. ‘I mean what’s the use,’ Elaine had said when she showed it to Barbara. ‘If it’s raining you get as wet walking down there as you do sitting on the seat and thinking.’

Barbara waited outside until Thellie had finished and washed her hands in the tin of water that Ma kept filled beside the bark. The air smelt faintly of dunny and gum leaves and sweet night air, a different smell from daytime, different from any smell she’d known before. A wallaby crashed by, then stopped and peered into the growing dusk, as though
wondering if there was someone there or not. Its whiskers twitched and it hopped on.

‘Bubba, I’m finished now.’ Thellie took Barbara’s hand again. ‘Do you think anyone will dance with you?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know,’ said Barbara honestly. ‘Are you going to dance?’

‘People always ask me to dance,’ said Thellie importantly, ‘Dad, and Joey ’cause Dad tells him that he’s got to, and Gully Jack danced with me last time, when Mrs Reynolds took a turn on the piano. I was the only one he asked to dance in the whole room except for Dulcie. You get to dance with everyone in the barn dance.’

The chaos in the clearing had subsided when they got back. Ma was flushed, in her best dress kept pressed in brown paper for Friday nights; Dad was pink-faced and dewhiskered. Elaine was resplendent in the ribbons she only wore once a week. It was hard to recognise her with her hair tidy and not waving around her face like a swarm of butterflies. Young Jim was in his clean shirt and his sandshoes, not bare feet, and the little ones had clean bright faces. Dad counted heads. ‘All ready then? We’re off.’

There wasn’t room on the track for everyone at once. The little ones skipped in front with Dad and
Ma arm in arm behind, Young Jim carrying Harry piggyback on his shoulders, and Elaine carrying the pikelets Ma had made, spread with apple jelly from Dulcie’s apples, to add to supper. The lamps were lit in the other shanties. Shadows hunted for clean clothes or their last pair of boots, put away for occasions such as this. Down the track they could hear the voices of other parties wending their way towards the hall.

‘What’s up?’ Young Jim spoke softly to Barbara.

‘Nothing. Just a bit scared.’

‘What of? It’s a dance! You’re supposed to enjoy yourself.’

‘I don’t know. Just the idea of so many strangers, I suppose.’

‘Don’t worry. You just stick with me and you’ll be right. Hey, there’s Mr Henderson. Mr Henderson, aren’t you coming?’

‘Maybe he can’t dance either?’ whispered Barbara.

Young Jim stared. ‘Of course he can dance. He’s a school teacher isn’t he?’

The Hendersons were sitting by their camp fire watching the flames. Mr Henderson squinted through the darkness. He hesitated before he spoke. ‘It’s Young Jim O’Reilly isn’t it? No, not tonight, son. I can’t say we’re in the mood for dancing.’

‘But you’ve got to come.’ Elaine was bouncing with excitement. ‘
Everyone
is coming. Come on, you’ll love it when you’re there.’

Mr Henderson glanced at his wife.

‘I don’t have a good dress to wear any more,’ she said uncertainly. ‘I thought I had them all packed safely but when I went to look they’d all got mildewed…’ Her voice broke off.

‘What’s a bit of mildew?’ Ma’s voice was matter-of-fact. ‘You bring it up tomorrow and we’ll have a go with salt and lemon juice. There’s a lemon tree laden with fruit down by Dulcie’s. The kids can pick a few of them. Anyway, you look lovely as you are, doesn’t she Dad?’

‘Pretty as a sackful of sugar to a hive full of bees,’ agreed Dad.

It was as though something in the air had infected Mr Henderson. He smiled uncertainly at his wife. ‘In that case, why not!’

‘That’s the spirit that won the Empire,’ said Dad. Mr Henderson was still smiling as he kicked ash over the fire and held out his hand to his wife.

The hall was lit by kero lanterns, shadows jumping crazily as figures strolled out of the darkness, past bright yellow windows and walls too dark to see the peeling paint on them. Posters were plastered by the door:

All Talkie Features, first Monday of each
month; Herbert Rowe Presents his
Original Refined and Entertaining Musical
Comedy Show, prices 2/-, 3/-. Children
half price.

Kids played hopscotch out the side by the dim squares of light from the windows. Men were clustered by the steps yarning about the weather or the death of Phar Lap, women perched chatting on the verandah rails, and horses whickered from the yard behind. Through at the back of the hall, Barbara could see Dulcie with the other valley women, setting plates along the trestles that had been covered by a selection of multicoloured cloths. Flowers tumbled out of vases under the faded streamers and the tinted photo of the King.

‘Where’s the music?’ she whispered.

Young Jim looked around. ‘Gully Jack’ll be along soon. He’ll have kept digging till dark. You can’t get Gully Jack away from his diggings while there’s any light. He likes to wait till the hall’s filled up before he starts to play anyway.’

‘He plays the piano?’

‘Naw. Remember? He’d have your guts for garters if he heard you say that. He’s got his fiddle. Loud
enough to wake the kookaburras, you wait and see. As long as he gets his whisky he’ll play all night.’

‘Who brings the whisky?’

‘Johnny Halloran goes up to town each week with the vegie cart. Everyone throws in something, a few tomatoes or some rabbits. He sells them and gets the whisky for tonight. Come on.’

Barbara held back, her eyes wide at all the people. Who would have thought there were so many tucked among the wattles and gums and thornbush.

‘What’s up?’

‘I’m nervous, that’s all. What if I can’t remember the steps?’

‘You’ll remember. Who cares about the steps anyway? Think about the food.’

The inside of the hall was lit by the glow of lanterns and it was hot, a reminder of the day’s sun that had baked the walls and roof. Gully Jack was in his corner in a shirt with all its buttons. His face was shiny, scraped clean of black whiskers, his eyes blue as the morning sky. A chipped teacup by his side had been filled with a pale brown liquid. The fiddle lay across his knees as he tested the strings, ting tung, tung.

‘Take your partners!’

‘Come on, Bubba, they’ll be starting without us!’ Young Jim pulled Barbara on to the floor before she
could object. Ma was there already with Dad, and Thellie with Joey, his face looking sulky, as though Dad had already had a word with him and told him to dance with his sister, and Elaine stood with a boy from down the valley, his big bare feet still grubby from the dusty track and knees like a kangaroo’s. Even Mr Henderson was there, looking surprised at enjoying himself, with his arm around his wife’s waist, her hair gleaming in the lamplight, her happy face looking years younger than it had half an hour before.

There was a surprised stirring at the door. ‘Hey, there’s Sergeant Ryan,’ whispered Barbara.