Boxing Day seemed to drag by. I couldn’t wait for eight o’clock, but I was nervous, too. I had been looking forward to the ball so much that, now that it was almost here, I worried that something would go wrong and spoil it.
At last the sun went down and the temperature began to drop. Jack arrived in his white shirt and waistcoat. It was too hot to wear his jacket, but he carried it slung over his shoulder.
‘I was looking for Clara. Have you seen her anywhere?’ Jack teased as I stepped out to meet him in my lace-trimmed dress and new shoes.
‘Lucky you needed your tie straightened the other night, or I wouldn’t have recognised you either,’ I said as Jack offered me his arm.
As we passed Florrie’s room, I called to her, ‘Are you ready?’
‘Won’t be a minute. You go on,’ she called from behind the door.
‘We can wait,’ Jack called back. ‘Mind you, I’ve never known a woman who can be ready in one minute. I’ll wager five pounds it will take longer than that.’
The door opened and there was Florrie. Her hair was piled up and pinned in curls on the top of her head. Her best dress was washed and pressed. She had even contrived to add a white lace collar that showed off her smooth English skin.
‘Florrie, you look wonderful!’ I exclaimed. ‘I thought you didn’t have anything to wear.’
‘So did I,’ Florrie said, and did a pirouette to show off the matching lace she had sewn around the hem of her full skirt.
The dining rooms at the Club Hotel were beautifully decorated with coloured streamers, artificial silk flowers and fresh leafy boughs of gum and kurrajong. The local gum trees were so tall and spindly that ladders must have been taken out onto the plain specially to reach the high branches. It was worth the effort, though. A pleasant smell of eucalyptus filled the spacious rooms. Unlike our Exchange Hotel, which had struggled up out of nothing and grown bit by bit, this hotel had been built to accommodate a crowd.
Dancing with Jack, our bodies moving easily together and our steps matching effortlessly, I looked around the room. It was full of old friends and new acquaintances. Florrie, Mrs Fagan, the warden and Mrs Finnerty, Padraig, Jock and Mac. Jock and Mac came here on Mr Snell’s coach with me, but I felt as if I had known them forever. Dryblower Murphy had arrived since then, and become part of our lives. Dryblower wrote some very funny bush ballads and sometimes read them out to entertain the crowd in the bar. He had to compete with Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson for column inches in The Bulletin, but we felt he was one of our own and understood the goldfields better than most.
The women were dressed in the finest clothes I had ever seen in Coolgardie. Everyone was laughing, talking, relaxing, dancing, enjoying each other’s company. I felt happier that night than ever before in my life. I thought of Mother saying she hoped I would not come to regret leaving Southern Cross. If only she could see me now. At that moment there was nothing more I could wish for.
After midnight, the crowd began to thin out. With six or more men to every woman, Florrie and I were in big demand as dancing partners, but Jack made sure he didn’t miss out. We danced until two a.m. and I still wasn’t the least bit tired. While the band took a break, people gathered around the keg and began to sing. Jack and Dryblower Murphy provided the harmony while the rest of us joined in.
A cool easterly wind had been blowing for several hours but it was still hot inside.
‘Let’s go outside and cool off,’ Jack said eventually. He took off his tie and undid the top button of his shirt. I didn’t want this special night to end, so we sat out on the verandah where we could still hear the music. The black dome of the sky was studded with stars. They looked so close in the clear, dry air that I felt I could reach up and catch one. Jack took the handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the sweat off his face. At that moment a comet came streaking across the sky.
‘Jack, look!’ I tapped his arm. ‘A shooting star.’ He pulled the handkerchief away from his eyes. We both stared up at the sky, but the fast-moving ball of light with its fiery tail had all but disappeared. ‘Make a wish,’ I said.
‘Damn. I missed it,’ he replied, but put his arm around my shoulders. I leaned against him, looked up at the sky and smiled. My wish had already been granted.
It was three a.m. before the ball was finally over. The exhausted musicians packed up their instruments and the last of the dancers trickled out into the night. Florrie had stayed to the end and the three of us walked back to the Exchange Hotel together. Jack said goodnight and went to join Tobias, who had offered him a place to sleep for the night on the floor of one of his storerooms.
Over breakfast the next morning, Florrie asked me, ‘Are you in love with Jack?’ I was still not properly awake and stopped eating to think about it. ‘Just asking,’ Florrie said before taking a sip of her tea and crunching into another piece of toast with jam.
‘Jack and I are best mates,’ I said, eventually. ‘You can’t be in love with your best mate, can you?’
‘Of course not,’ Florrie agreed. ‘A best mate is, well … a best mate.’
We talked about Padraig, who was a good friend of Jack’s, as well as mine, and Arthur Williams, who was always so kind to me, but sometimes looked at me strangely.
‘You mean the way Dryblower Murphy looks at me?’ Florrie laughed.
‘Well, yes, I suppose so. But Arthur is much older.’
‘How old is Jack?’ Florrie asked.
‘Twenty,’ I said. We talked about other things, but at the back of my mind I was still thinking about whether I was in love with Jack. We had fierce arguments and there were long periods when we didn’t see each other, but we always seemed to fit back together as if we had never been apart. I loved Mother, and Pa, and Susan, in a different way. She often made me so angry I could shake her, but I knew that if anything bad happened to her I would be awfully upset. Emily was fun, but she and Mary were grown-ups, nearly twice my age. I liked them, but I hardly knew them. And the boys were almost alien creatures, needing no-one but each other. I realised that Jack was different. I knew him and he knew me. He saw through my skin, right into my soul. But being in love – that seemed to imply marriage, which, to my mind, was nowhere near as much fun as being best mates.