Chapter Eight - The Dance


“Mai” Joe well he was on his feet smiling and I felt breathless and dizzy as I sat down in the chair that he had pulled out for me. Wanting to look at the stranger again and being scared to at the same time. Me heart still thumping away in me chest, my hands sweaty and me breath coming so fast I could barely even say hello. Ned smiled at me in that soft way he had, gentle and slow making you feel safe and welcomed all at the same time even as Joe made the introductions. A friend of theirs from up North, horses, cattle, it was all a blur but he was shaking me hand, his eyes finding mine, eyes that were so dark they were almost black. His hand so big that mine was lost in it.
“Maireagh” his voice soft and low and I felt a flush rise from me feet right up to me face. His name was Liam, William he was, I never caught his last name that night, in fact I did not know it for some weeks but it did not matter anyway. Joe was talking on, this William well he was Irish like us and he was from up New South Wales way, seemed to be in that same horse business that Joe and Ned was in. At least I think that was what Joe said. I nodded still staring at Liam and realized with a bit of a start that I had not let go of his hand. Well if I am to be honest here I did not really, it was only when Ned who was sitting next to me gave me a dig in the ribs and whispered in me ear that Liam might be needing his hand to be lifting his glass to his mouth. I blushed furiously, though I don’t really think that Liam had noticed, he was too busy watching me face. A frown between dark eyebrows as if he couldn’t quite figure who I was.

Joe well he was looking backwards and forwards between us, face caught between a grin and a frown and he made a funny noise that sounded somewhat like a cough that had choked on the way out. Ned he was stroking his beard and smiling kind of funny too.

“Mai would yer like to dance”
I felt meself shiver and managed a nod, taking the hand that Liam held out to me, hardly even noticing that Ned had moved out of the way or that Kate was yelling and waving at me from across the room

That night is both etched in me memory and is also a haze. I can remember every word that Liam and I said to each other, every dance and every step. He held me against him and I felt like I was both burning up and as if I was sinking into him all at once. I don’t really know how late it was when we left the big room, what time it was that we stumbled up the stairs to the small room that he had taken. But I do remember Joe saying something to him as we left, something that had Liam shaking his head and placing his hand on Joe’s shoulder and Joe’s eyes finding mine, a kind of question in them that I could only smile an answer too.

What happened after we closed the door, well it is not something that I can share even now. That first time that we was together. To tell someone else of how he touched me, of how I touched him would be to somehow reduce what felt like some miracle to the ordinary. So I will not say anything more than it felt like I had found why I had been born. Not just the being with him, the sharing of each other but of the talking and the lying close afterwards our hands twined together just breathing. I slept that night in his arms in that cramped little bed. Not knowing when or if I would see him again by anything that we had said but knowing all the same that I would.

There was no sign of Joe or any of the others when we left the next morning. But me horse had been fed and properly stabled, Joe had taken care of that, least that was what Jane one of the chamber maids had told me, even as she had stared me up and down as I came down the stairs. No doubt already thinking of who she could tell of me scandalous behaviour. I just stared back at her, knowing that she had been known to get up to a thing or two herself. Joe Byrne being one of them. But I held me tongue and truth be told could not help but to grin at her. She did grin back too when she saw Liam come out of the room and I could see her eyeing him up and down like he was a prime cut of beef or something. I wanted to say that he was mine, though I did not really be knowing that but I need not have worried, he did not even appear to have seen Jane, he looked only at me and I found it hard not to be suggesting that perhaps we just go back and warm that bed up one more time.

He rode with me home. Along that dusty road and we talked and talked. About things that I had not talked of to anyone, they just fell out of me mouth and at times I was wanting to put both hands over me face for fear of him thinking me a babbling fool. But he seemed to talk almost as much, laughing often and when he smiled he did not look near so big nor tall but more boyish and one could not help but to smile with him. I could see him studying our run down hut, a slight frown between his eyes but he said not a word about us women being out there all on our own. He smiled and was very charming when he met Meg, but not too charming mind. Meg she was suspicious of men that were too charming. She had that little frown between her eyes until he had asked to meet our Ma too but Meg had smiled then and told him that it would be wasting his time, that our Ma would not be knowing if he was a man or a wombat. Meg had seemed to be liking him then, asking him if he wanted tea or something to eat before he had left. But he had politely refused, saying that he needed to be on his way. But that he would call by soon.

I walked with him out to his horse feeling like I wanted to cry, missing him already though it had not even been one day that I had known him. Somehow he seemed to know that for he brushed me cheek.

“I will be seeing you soon Mai”

Meg she was full of questions. Wanting to know who the fella was, where he was from who is family was, his cousins, his priest, she wanted to know everything. And there was not much I could be telling. His name is Liam, he is in the horse and cattle business, and there she gave an almighty snort and rolled her eyes and asking if he was a mate of Joe’s. But she did give a grin when she said it and patted me on the arm.

Joe well he arrived on sunset, just calling he was, I am pretty sure that Meg said something about being nosey under her breath as she passed him a cup of tea but he only gave her a grin and a wink so that she was soon passing out some cake that she had baked only the yesterday. Meg was not as stern as she liked to be thinking she was. After tea and cake and some help with the cow and little calf Joe and I we sat down on the steps and I answered the questions that he was not asking as well as asking a fair few meself. The ones that I had not thought to ask Liam. And Joe well bless him, he answered the best that he could seeming satisfied that I was being treated right as he put it. Me final question to him being both breathless and blushing all at once, did he know when Liam would be riding through again.

“Soon Mai” Joe leaned to tag me hair “don’t be frettin last I saw of him he was talking about riding back through with some steers” he grinned “was asking me about that pen up the hill he was”
I let out the breath I had been holding and allowed meself to smile. He was coming back.

And Liam well he came back that week and the week after that, not always regular but never more than two week went by that I did not see him. Always with a little something for us, be it a pound of sugar or some flour that he had just happened to have a little too much of there was never a time that he did not have something. Bulbs the one time, Iris bulbs to be planting outside the house and those bulbs they flowered for many years after, even when we was long gone from that place. He would pass some time with Meg and even me Mam, though she did think he was someone else but none the less he would smile and speak gently to her. And then when I was almost jumping out of me skin with wanting to be alone with him we would leave, riding all over them hills that I knew so well, knowing each other, finding the places that I had run and played in as a child, though now it was places in which we would come together. Calloused fingers that were so gentle on me, words and touch that bound me heart tighter and tighter to him.

In between those times I milked the cows, I rode into Beechworth to sell the butter and I talked and smiled to the same folk that I always spoke to. But inside I was happy, more than happy, I felt like I wanted to both sing and dance, a fool in love as Meg put it, but she would be smiling too, seems like her Danny made her feel just the same. We was sisters that were pleased and happy for the other and life seemed to be full of promise.


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Chapter title influenced by the Garth Brooks song The Dance....will find lyrics..