30

Kaydon sucked a lungful of air through his teeth as he plunged his hand into the bucket of cool water that Marg Kennerley had fetched for him.

‘That was a dumb thing to do.’ Marg held him by the elbow, as though he might pull his hand out again at any moment.

He closed his eyes and exhaled, still lost in a haze of ice and fire, one extinguishing the other. Marg rested the bucket on the tailgate of her station wagon and reached for a first-aid kit. ‘Lucky you let go quick,’ she said, as she rummaged through bandages, creams and sterile wrapped gauze pads. ‘You could have ended up like your cousin.’

‘How is he?’ asked Kaydon. He’d barely had time to spare Aaron a thought.

‘He’ll have a few scars.’ Marg pulled his hand out of the water and it instantly felt as though it was on fire again.

‘Kaydon!’ Holly’s voice was breathless as she appeared beside him. ‘Are you okay?’

‘He’ll live,’ said Marg, squirting some gel onto his hand. She wrapped it in a bandage. ‘You’ll need some painkillers,’ she said, setting off and leaving him alone with Holly.

‘That was so kind of you.’ Holly took his bandaged paw in her hands. ‘Kind and brave.’

Kaydon glanced quickly over her shoulder. His dad had arrived. He stood alongside his fourbie with his arms folded and his eyes creased in a scrutinising gaze. Next to him stood Hugh Parker in trousers and a business shirt, and his wife in a dress and high heels. Clearly they weren’t planning on joining the fire-fighting effort.

Beside them was Chrissy, in a short skirt and a sleeveless top. Although it felt like a lifetime since he had kissed her, it had been less than twenty-four hours.

Nothing is going to jeopardise this Glenvale deal.

‘Why would a geologist want to buy properties with disused oil wells on them?’ he thought out loud.

‘Geo-sequestration,’ said Holly.

‘Geo-what?’

‘Geo-sequestration,’ she repeated. ‘Carbon dioxide capture and storage. They capture CO₂ coming out of power stations and pump it into old reservoirs to get rid of it.’

‘I just got a principal’s award for an assignment on carbon cycles. How did I not know that?’

‘It hasn’t been done much. Some people think it would be good for the environment because it stops greenhouse gases from polluting the atmosphere. But no one knows if it will really work. There are serious risks having it stored in the ground.’

Kaydon ran his eyes over Hugh Parker, who stood with his hands in his pockets watching the fireys hose the last of the shed blaze. Was he friend or foe? Did he want to pump CO₂ into the ground at Rockleigh and Glenvale? If this was what he was planning, it meant Mr Parker had lied to his father about wanting to be a beef farmer.

‘What sort of risks?’ he asked Holly.

‘Like sudden release,’ she said. ‘If carbon dioxide escapes from the ground in a large, sudden quantity, it can be deadly. There have been some cases overseas where people and some animals have died.’ Holly shrugged. ‘Why not just use clean energy in the first place?’

‘How come you know so much about it?’ He hadn’t picked Holly as the scientific geeky type.

‘They wanted to trial it at an old well at Blue Gum Flats but the community fought it and stopped it from happening.’ She gave him a tight smile. ‘Tree-hugging hippies that we are.’

Kaydon caught his father’s gaze and they locked eyes for a moment. He had to tell him about this. But how would he ever get him to listen?

Behind Dad, Chrissy waved. Oh struth, she was coming over.

Holly saw her too. ‘I have to go and check on Eva,’ she said in a crisp voice. She immediately split. Kaydon watched as the two girls crossed paths without acknowledging each other. One looked like someone who’d just stepped off a catwalk, the other like someone who’d just crawled out of a swamp.

‘What have you done to yourself?’ asked Chrissy, taking his bandaged hand and rolling it over in hers. Even through the lingering smoke, he could smell her perfume.

‘Eva had some joeys in the front of the ute. It nearly went up in flames.’ He held his hand up. ‘Burnt it on the door handle trying to get them out.’

‘Joeys? As in kangaroos?’ Chrissy’s face went all soft and pouty. ‘How adorable. Where are they?’

‘Aaahh . . .’ He pointed to Eva, sitting on the step with her rescued marsupials. Holly sat next to her, peering into the bundles and talking quietly with her little sister.

‘Can I see them?’ she asked, and before he could answer, she was making a beeline for the joeys.

‘Hey, Chrissy,’ he called after her.

She stopped and raised her eyebrows at him.

He walked over to her. ‘Does your dad own any properties on the coast?’

She shook her head. ‘Nope.’ Then she frowned. ‘I think he tried to buy a farm near Newcastle once, but it all fell through.’ She paused. ‘Why?’

‘Nothing.’ He pointed to Eva. ‘You’ll love those joeys.’

Chrissy’s face lit up again and she trotted off to the front steps of the shack.

He watched as she sat next to the small girl and peeked inside the old woollen jacket. ‘Oh, that is the cutest!’ she enthused.

‘You can hold one if you like,’ said Eva.

Chrissy took the wriggling bundle and held it like a baby. ‘I should have my photo taken with you, handsome boy,’ she cooed to the baby roo. ‘Cos you’re so cute.’ She snuffled it with her nose.

‘His mum died in the fire. We saved some koalas too,’ Eva went on. ‘The fire nearly burnt their trees but we put it out with a tank and a hose.’

‘There are koalas on this property? Are you serious?’

Eva nodded solemnly. ‘Yep, we saw their poos.’

On the other side of Eva sat Holly, with a hard, closed face. He could almost see storm clouds hovering above her head.

Meanwhile, Chrissy seemed oblivious to who Holly was and she chattered happily with Eva.

‘Codeine,’ said Marg, appearing again. She passed two pills to Kaydon with a bottle of water. He threw them down his throat and emptied the bottle in one long guzzle.

‘Seems the fireys have this under control,’ said Mr Parker, reaching for the doorhandle of his car.

Mrs Parker waved the smoke from her nose and got in the other side without a word.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow at the solicitor’s office for settlement,’ Mr Parker said. ‘Are you coming, Chrissy?’

‘You should see these adorable joeys,’ she called back. ‘They’re going to bottle-feed them.’

‘That’s great,’ he answered. ‘But we have to go.’

Chrissy looked reluctant as she handed the joey back to Eva and stood. As she went to leave, she turned to Holly. ‘Do I know you from somewhere?’

Holly breathed in slowly and said in a voice that was barely above a whisper, ‘I don’t think so.’

Chrissy shrugged and returned to the car. As she was about to open the door she spun around. ‘The dress!’

Holly’s lips twisted.

‘I almost didn’t recognise you!’ She climbed into the car.

Kaydon watched as his dad shook Mr Parker’s hand and waved him off the property. He couldn’t help wondering, was the dress the only reason Chrissy recognised Holly?

Settlement was tomorrow. He had very little time to find out what was going on. And he was exhausted. His body ached for sleep, but his heart ached for Rockleigh. Something was amiss with this Glenvale deal.

He walked over to the front steps and knelt in front of Eva and Holly. A tiny pink face with huge eyes peeked out of the folds of wool. ‘Did you give him a name?’

Holly’s hand brushed against his arm as she opened the bundle further and ran a gentle finger around its face. ‘I think the girl should be called Flame,’ she said.

‘And the boy should be Smokey,’ said Eva.

‘Perfect,’ he said.

‘We’ll be gone tomorrow,’ said Holly. Why did his chest suddenly feel as though it was collapsing?

‘Kaydon,’ Pat Armstrong called. ‘We’re going to visit Aaron. Coming?’ He stood by the fourbie. It was an order.

‘Yep,’ he called back.

As he stood, Holly took hold of his arm. Something in her summer-storm eyes signalled a question.

‘What?’ he asked.

She chewed on her lip and frowned. ‘Bye.’

‘Bye,’ he said.

Without warning, Eva threw her arms around his waist. ‘Bye-bye, Kaydon.’

He leaned down and wrapped his arms around the kid and squeezed her. He could smell green apples and burnt eucalypts in her hair. ‘See ya, little ringer.’

‘I love you all the way to the stars and back,’ said Eva.

Holly sat with her hands in her lap. An unbearable sadness passed over her face, as if she wanted to cry but couldn’t. Kaydon wanted to hug her too. He wanted to take that look off her face and replace it with a smile. She’d handled a .303 and a Toyota ute, rescued orphaned wildlife and fought fires, all in one day. Holly was awesome, and gracious and beautiful. He silently cursed Mr Parker for evicting her family.

Kaydon gently peeled Eva off. ‘I’d better go.’

Holly stood up. This was the one and only, the last chance he had to hug her, let her know he liked her. On an impulse, he quickly wrapped his arms around her and gave her a hug. His face brushed across her hair, which was still in ringlets from the night before. She smelled of ash and mud and flowers. ‘See ya,’ he whispered.

Her arms slipped around his back and she pressed her face into his chest. Then she stared up at him. ‘I should have said yes to that dance.’

‘Kaydon!’ Pat’s voice was sharp.

‘You were always my first choice.’ He took one of Holly’s hands, raised it above her head and twirled her around a couple of times. Then he took her in his arms, stepped across the front of her and gently laid her back into a dip, lowering her almost to the ground. A tiny squeal of laughter escaped her and then he lifted her back up again.

‘About those koalas,’ she said. ‘You made me a promise.’ Her hair blew around her soot-streaked face.

‘And I’ll keep it,’ he said. ‘Somehow.’

‘See ya.’ She smiled and the brilliance of it, like sunshine through soft summer rain, nearly took his feet out from under him.

Kaydon dragged himself to his father’s car. As they rolled away from the homestead, he gazed over the smoking ruins of the grain shed, and the fire engines that pumped water jets over it, making it steam. The half-burned-out ute was covered in dry foam with dents in the front panel. The tractor and slasher sat in the middle of neatly slashed rows.

Eva ran out and waved at them to stop.

Pat slowed before winding down the window.

Eva looked up at him. She was filthy, in blackened pyjamas and bare feet. She stood on the dirt track with the burning ruins of Glenvale behind her, holding a scrunched-up woollen jacket with a silvery snout poking out. ‘Can we stay one more night? Because my mum has cancer and she will be too tired to travel today.’

Kaydon couldn’t see his father’s face. But he saw him nod, before he closed his window and drove on. He twisted around and waved to Eva. She stood clutching her joey, waving back.

The sky; rumbling and overcast, still held the empty threat of rain. As she disappeared from sight, Kaydon longed to make it rain. But no dance was going to make that happen.