Rain Dance

by Karen Wood

  Pat also gave the man a questioning look. ‘Shouldn’t we discuss this first, Hugh?’

  Chrissy’s dad set his jaw. So he was the business partner Kaydon had told her about. That meant he was also Dad’s boss. Holly stood her ground, waiting to hear what would happen.

  ‘Dad, he can’t do that,’ said Kaydon. ‘This is our place. We say who . . .’

  ‘Take Chrissy inside and look after her!’ snapped his father.

  Kaydon hesitated.

  ‘Get inside when I tell you to,’ Pat growled, so low and ferocious that the leaves in the surrounding gumtrees curled. ‘Nothing is going to jeopardise this Glenvale deal, do you understand me?’ He pointed to the marquee door. ‘Let me sort this out.’ He turned to Holly’s father. ‘I’ll ring you in the morning.’

  Kaydon took Chrissy by the hand and led her back into the marquee.

  Holly felt her father’s hand on her arm again. ‘In the truck,’ he muttered. ‘Now!’

  ‘I . . .’ Holly watched Kaydon retreat into the marquee. She wanted to say goodbye. ‘I have to get my purse and my shoes.’

  ‘Hurry up. We need go and find your brother,’ said Ken. He turned to Pat. ‘I’ll wait for your call.’

  ‘There’s nothing to discuss,’ said Chrissy’s father, intervening. ‘I want your family off Glenvale as soon as possible.’ He spun on his heel and stalked off after Chrissy and Kaydon.

  Holly’s dad gave Pat another questioning stare. Pat gave a bewildered shrug before following the others into the marquee.

  Holly’s heart squeezed so hard it could barely pump. Just like that. They were being kicked out of here? Why did she feel so shattered? This was what she wanted, wasn’t it? It was what they all wanted. To go back to Blue Gum Flats. ‘Dad . . .’

  ‘This whole trip was a mistake,’ he said, taking his keys from his pocket and heading for the truck.

  Holly glanced back and saw Kaydon’s silhouette, handing a glass of something to Chrissy. ‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘maybe it was.’

  22

  Kaydon sighed heavily as he helped his mother stack the hire chairs. The band had finished for the night and the die-hard party-goers were kicking on over at the house. The ground was littered with plastic cups and burst balloons. He kicked his way through the debris as he carried chairs to the doorway.

  ‘What on earth got into Dan tonight?’ asked his mother, as she gathered empty paper plates into a garbage bag.

  Good question. What the hell had got into Dan? Nobody seemed to know what had started the fight. ‘No idea,’ said Kaydon.

  ‘One minute the two of them were talking and laughing,’ said Bron. ‘The next, Dan was going crazy.’

  ‘He gets so wound up about the smallest things.’

  ‘He has a lot on his plate,’ said his mum. ‘Has his dad’s life insurance come through yet?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Still, there’s no excuse for that sort of behaviour. Mr Parker was furious.’

  ‘He sacked the builder,’ said Kaydon, incredulous. ‘Don’t you think that’s a bit extreme?’

  Mum gave a slow, thoughtful sigh. ‘There’s a lot riding on this deal.’

  ‘It’s still a pretty low thing to do to a family that has nowhere to go. And over such a small thing. I can’t believe Dad’s letting it happen.’

  Kaydon slammed the stack of chairs onto the ground and they creaked and clunked in protest. Something wasn’t right about this whole Glenvale deal and the way his father was so keen to please the Parker family. There was something Kaydon was missing. Something he wasn’t being told. And now Holly and her family were being kicked off Glenvale. He dragged another two chairs across the ground and threw one into the other.

  Holly: why was he even thinking about her? She was a blow-in and soon she would be blowing out. He would be going back to boarding school in a matter of days and she would be back on the road, eating tofu and lentils and probably watching stupid YouTube videos about animal cruelty.

  He dragged the stack of chairs out into the darkness and saw Dan driving his mother’s red Corolla out of the carpark and towards the front gate. He watched as his friend turned towards town, towards the grain stores.

  Kaydon sighed heavily. He couldn’t let Dan do it. He would get busted for sure. He sprinted across the paddock, madly waving for Dan to stop. The car slowed and pulled over into the gravel. Kaydon yanked the door open. ‘You’re not honestly going to do this?’

  He was shocked at Dan’s face. He was crying.

  ‘What is wrong with you tonight, Dan?’

  ‘Nothing!’ Dan pressed the base of his thumbs into his eye sockets. Kaydon stepped into the car.

  ‘Dan, what?’

  Dan dropped his fists and looked out the window, averting his eyes. ‘I didn’t want to fight him.’

  ‘Jake? Then why the hell did you?’

  Dan inhaled sharply with what sounded like a sob. What was going on?

  ‘How much have you had to drink, Dan?’

  ‘The fight was my fault, Kaydo. I picked it.’

  Kaydon got in the car and closed the door. ‘Why, what did he do?’

  ‘He said something I didn’t like.’

  ‘Must have been bad.’ Kaydon tried to imagine what someone like Jake could have said. Holly’s brother seemed like a happy-go-lucky kind of guy.

  Dan pressed his forehead against the steering wheel. ‘I’m so messed up.’

  Kaydon stared at him. He was making no sense, and he was clearly in no state to be driving. Kaydon got out of the passenger side, made his way around to the driver’s side door, and pulled the keys from the ignition.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Dan demanded.

  Kaydon pushed his friend’s shoulder. ‘Move over. I’m driving.’

  ‘The hell you are,’ said Dan angrily.

  ‘Don’t go rob the grain store, Dan. You’re not thinking straight. You’ll get busted. You’ll blow everything. You’ll stuff your life.’

  ‘The guy is already meeting me there.’ Dan sniffed, as if refocusing.

  ‘I’ll give you some cash,’ said Kaydon. ‘You know I will. How much do you need?’

  ‘I don’t want your cash. Don’t you get it, Kaydon?’

  ‘No. I don’t get it,’ he said, frustrated.

  Dan clenched his teeth. ‘Give me the keys back.’

  ‘No.’

  Dan’s voice rose. ‘Give me them back or I’ll get out of this car and smack you about properly!’ He launched himself out of the car and charged at Kaydon.

  His friend bulldogged him right in the middle of the road, slamming his shoulder into Kaydon and rumbling him onto the bitumen. Kaydon’s breath exploded from his lungs as he hit the hard surface with Dan on top of him. The force of the charge knocked the keys from his hands and they clattered onto the road.

  Dan snatched them, scrambled to his feet and retreated to the car. He shoved them into the ignition. Kaydon hauled himself off the road, raced around to the passenger-side door and threw himself in before Dan squealed the tyres and took off up the highway.

  Dan brought the Corolla up through the gears, revving the guts out of the car. His face was set in a hard determined stare.

  ‘You’re smart, Dan. You have so many choices in life if you want them. I’m stuck on Rockleigh forever. I’ll never lead my own life. You can. You can do anything. Don’t go stuffing your life up just to get some quick cash.’

  ‘Easy for you to say. You’ve got no idea what it’s like to scrape five-cent pieces together to try and buy some two-minute noodles for your kid sister.’ Dan put his foot harder to the floor and the car screamed in protest.

  ‘Slow down, Dan.’

  ‘I said I’d meet the guy at the warehouse at twelve-thirty. I’ve only got an hour to pick up as much as I can.’

  Damn it, how did he get himself roped into stuff like this? Kaydon glared at his friend. Why did Dan like to live on the edge so much? Because he was povo? No one cared. He was smart, funny. The
chicks loved him. But he kept them all at arm’s length. He kept everyone at arm’s length, except Kaydon. ‘You need to chill out about this povo thing, Dan.’

  Dan hit the brakes of the car and it skidded to a stop. ‘Dad left all his problems in my lap! I’m seventeen years old. I can’t get a job that pays enough to look after a family.’

  ‘But you will one day. If you finish your scholarship.’

  ‘That’s half a lifetime away. In the meantime I’m going to get enough grain to feed the stock for a few weeks and get them strong enough to send to market. When I sell them, I’ll get a real job, okay.’ Dan slammed his head on the steering wheel.

  Kaydon looked at his friend and wished he could take some of Dan’s burden away.

  ‘I hate living here,’ said Dan, without looking up.

  Kaydon looked at the miserable slouch of a human being slumped over the wheel and cursed himself for what he was about to say.

  ‘Okay, come on. Let’s go heist. Just don’t let us get caught.’

  It was like flicking a switch. Dan straightened and took a deep breath. ‘Thanks, buddy.’ He shot Kaydon a grin, shoved the Corolla back into gear and planted his foot on the accelerator. Kaydon clung to the handle on the door and prayed none of the tyres blew.

  Within minutes, there was a high-pitched wooop, and suddenly blue lights were flashing.

  Dan looked in the rear-vision mirror and swore. ‘Marg Kennerley? I thought she was still at the party!’

  He pulled the car over and put his head back where it belonged – on the steering wheel.

  Marg Kennerley stuck her head in the window. ‘Your mum know you’re driving her car without a licence, Daniel?’

  Kaydon put his head against the back of the car seat and shut his eyes. ‘Nice one, Dan.’

  23

  Holly felt as though her world was torn in two. She didn’t belong in Kaydon’s life and he definitely didn’t belong in hers. That moment in the stables was a one-off thing, brought about by too many fairy lights and fizzing pink drinks with strange sea critters in them.

  His parents were meat-eating barbarians who supported live export, while she was a peace-loving vegetarian. And to top it off, her family had been kicked off the property, so she would probably never see him again anyway.

  She shouldn’t be thinking about him. She shouldn’t be visualising his eyes on hers with that glint of humour in them, or the kindness in him when he just sat with her without speaking. She shouldn’t be lying here reliving the touch of his fingertips as he rolled up her sleeves, or the way they wove through hers when he asked her to dance; his mussed-up hair and his faded jeans. Aagh!

  It had been a nice moment but it was over.

  She rolled over in her bunk and stared down the driveway through the dark night, watching for Dad’s truck to come back. Jake was still missing, and Dad and Brandon had gone off trying to find him while she stayed home with Eva. She lay in bed, wondering how Jake had gotten into such a heated fight. She had never seen him so angry.

  Outside, the moon lit up the flattened patch of dirt where the new house was supposed to go. The project had never even started. A large kangaroo hopped over it, nibbling at the grass.

  Holly wondered where the family would go next.

  Suddenly she missed her mother with a pain that tore at her insides. If only she could ring Mum, tell her what had happened.

  In the end she flicked on the lamp and reached down for her guitar. In the dim light of the hut she began slowly finger-picking. She closed her eyes, hummed softly and began to melt into a place where nothing existed; a place where her brother hadn’t been beaten up and her mother wasn’t sick, a place where nobody relied on her and there were no responsibilities. The humming in the back of her throat numbed her mind and took away the loneliness, grief and pain.

  Solitude: sometimes it was the air that she breathed.

  Holly was asleep on the couch when the noise of a vehicle outside made her sit upright. Her guitar tumbled to the floor with a hollow twanging noise.

  ‘Can’t find Jake anywhere,’ said her father wearily, as he threw his keys onto the kitchen bench.

  ‘What happened last night?’ said Brandon. ‘What did he do?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Holly. ‘I didn’t see. I just hope he didn’t upset someone . . . you know, try to chat up the wrong person.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Dad.

  ‘Oh come on, Dad, don’t tell me you haven’t worked it out,’ said Brandon. He pulled a bottle of milk out of the fridge and began glugging it into a tall glass. ‘He’s queer.’

  ‘He’s not queer,’ Dad snorted. ‘He’s just going through a phase. Every second boy thinks they’re gay these days.’

  ‘Phase?’ Oh great. Dad was in denial. ‘Dad, Jake is gay.’

  ‘He thinks he’s gay,’ Dad corrected her.

  Brandon raised an eyebrow.

  ‘How did the fight start?’ Dad demanded. ‘Weren’t you on the same table with him, Holly?’

  ‘Ummm . . . yes, but not when that happened. I was . . . getting changed.’ That was kind of the truth. ‘He was having a good time when I left him.’

  Her dad gave her an interrogative frown. ‘Whose clothes are they?’

  ‘I needed to get changed and Kaydon lent me some clothes.’

  ‘Why did you need to get changed?’

  Oh boy, here came the long lecture on ‘true love waits’.

  ‘Because it was a second-hand dress and the original owner was at the ball.’

  ‘Did she want it back?’

  Gosh, Dad was clueless. ‘No, she wanted to humiliate me. Anyway, no one saw me get changed, Dad.’

  ‘Not even that Kaydon boy?’

  Holly let out a long, frustrated groan.

  ‘I’ve seen the way he looks at you.’

  ‘Well, that’s not going to be a problem anymore, is it? Because we’ve been kicked out of here. We can go back to the coast, where we belong, and we can be with Mum.’

  ‘Yeah, well, we can’t go anywhere until Jake comes home,’ said Brandon.

  ‘Home? We don’t have a home, Brandon. We are homeless!’

  Eva walked into the kitchen looking like a scarecrow. ‘I’m hungry.’

  ‘It’s barely daylight,’ Holly grumbled. She got up and pulled some Weet-Bix out of the pantry. ‘I think I know where Jake will be. I’ll go and get him.’ As she poured milk into the bowl, she looked outside and saw a haze of smoke in the distance. ‘Someone must be burning off.’

  Dad joined her. ‘I don’t like the look of that.’

  ‘Maybe they’re backburning,’ said Holly, as she found a spoon for Eva.

  Brandon joined them at the window. ‘It’s a long way away. It’ll be fine.’

  Dad took another look ‘Yeah, it’s miles off. I’m going to pick your mother up from the station in Tamworth. Holly, you find Jake. Brandon, you start packing. I’ll be back mid-morning.’ Moments later the front door slammed shut.

  ‘Where is Jake?’ asked Eva.

  ‘He might be down by the river,’ said Holly. And she could just imagine what a state he would be in. ‘I’ll go and see if I can find him.’ She grabbed Penny’s halter off the hook by the front door.

  ‘I want to come too,’ said Eva.

  ‘Stay here and eat your breakfast, Eva,’ said Holly in a don’t-test-me voice.

  ‘But I want to come and find Jake.’

  ‘Oh Eva, not now.’ Holly almost cried. ‘You’re not even dressed.’

  ‘But Penny is my horse! I want to ride her.’

  ‘She is not your horse. She belongs to the boss. She always did and she always will.’ Holly let herself out the door and slammed it behind her.

  24

  The cell was little more than a steel cage with a bench seat, lined with clear Perspex. It smelled of vomit and cigarette smoke. Kaydon had tried to sleep, with his head wedged against the wall and his arm over his eyes to shield it from the persistent fluorescent l
ight. The only thing he was thankful for was that they’d been busted before they’d filled the car with stolen goods.

  In the next cell, Dan lay with his arm draped across his face. He jiggled his leg nervously, making the fabric of his jeans swish against the edge of his seat in a way that irritated the crap out of Kaydon. He hadn’t spoken except to answer questions in the charge room while they had been interviewed, fingerprinted and photographed.

  He heard his father’s voice at the front counter, talking in business-like tones. Marg Kennerley had her police-officer voice on. ‘Because he’s under eighteen, he can be dealt with under the young offender’s act,’ she was saying. ‘He’s clean-skinned, no prior history so we can let him go with a caution.’

  ‘What about the car?’

  ‘It’s in the pound.’

  Kaydon looked into the next cell. ‘Dan.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What happened? At the ball. What happened with Holly’s brother?’

  Dan’s arm tightened over his face and his body went tense.

  Kaydon stared at his friend a while longer. Dan’s leg resumed jiggling, only more agitated than before, giving a clear signal that he wanted Kaydon to leave him alone.

  Kaydon breathed deeply. Whatever crap he had to take at home it would be a fraction of what Dan now had to deal with. Pat Armstrong’s anger would pass, and he and Kaydon would resume their usual semi-truce. Dan didn’t even have a father. At only seventeen, he was dealing with a drought, dying cattle and little to no income – and maybe, now, no school. His scholarship at Bentleigh would be withdrawn, no doubt about it.

  ‘Dan.’

  Dan’s chest rose as he inhaled deeply.

  ‘Mate . . .’

  Dan’s fist clenched.

  Kaydon looked him over one last time, through the bars of the tiny cell. ‘Friends stick solid, mate, through thick and thin. You know how to find me.’ He was relieved when he saw Dan give the smallest of nods.

  Kaydon heard footsteps and the sliding of a pad bolt. He followed Marg through the station to the front desk. He couldn’t look at his father, choosing instead to stare at his boots.

  Marg passed his belt, wallet and keys over the counter. ‘Don’t let me see you in here again,’ she said to Kaydon.