I remember the weekend we took Eddie’s horses to the market. Rosemary and Meg took turns driving us there. It was such a long way.

The field set aside was a sea of folding tables and pop-up shelters, and we struggled to get the horses out of the trailer and across to the spot they’d given us. Not because we couldn’t manage them between us, or because we didn’t know where we were going; there just weren’t enough of us. Someone needed to stay with the trailer, and someone needed to stay with the stall, but it took two of us to carry each horse. It was like that riddle where the farmer has the chicken, the fox and the bag of grain to get across the river. He can only take two at a time, but the chicken will eat the grain, and of course the fox will eat the chicken if either pair are left alone. I don’t remember the answer, but there’s a lot of back and forth involved. The solution’s not obvious, and it wasn’t for us. If I remember rightly, we roped in a fella who painted Elvis on clocks.

People came in droves, and they all had a good look. We had to tell them to keep their sticky fingers off the saddles, even though Eddie had given us cards he’d laminated that told them not to touch. There must have been close to a hundred stalls that day. I’d never seen anything like it. Everything you could think of—so many candles!—and a little van selling Tibetan dumplings, of all things.

The horses were gone by lunchtime, but Rosemary didn’t want to go home. ‘Can we stay another night?’ she asked us. She was like a child.

‘We can do what we like,’ I told her, but we couldn’t really. If we could have done what we liked I don’t think any of us would have gone back to Magpie Beach. But we had to. There was Norman to be taken care of, and Eddie to be fussed over, and I suppose Meg’s scratty cat and kittens would have needed something.

We did stay another night, though.

We took the trailer back to the hotel and we each had a bath and a change of clothes, another bottle of wine while we waited for the sun to set, then we headed to the pub on the main street. I don’t remember its name, but I know we stayed there till it closed.

There was a band set up in the corner and we danced till we were dizzy. We weren’t going to dance at all to start with, but some busty redhead got us on our feet, in a line with all her friends who’d come in for the rodeo. Girls in fancy boots with tassels on their blouses, all over the cowboys in their big hats and their dirty jeans. Oh, I was so cross at that redhead for making a scene—making everyone stare at us and clap and egg us on—but looking back I’m glad she pulled us up. Once we joined in, no one was bothered that we didn’t know the steps or which way we were supposed to turn. I forgot all the things that were waiting for me at home, the salt and the dirt and Norman’s illness and the awkward business of that little girl. There we were, the three of us arm in arm, tapping our heels and yee-hawing like Annie Oakley, like we hadn’t a care between us.

It was one of the best nights of my life. I never told them that—Rosemary and Meg. I should have told them. I should have thanked them. It had been such a long time since I’d laughed like that and let myself go.

It really was a night I’ll never forget.