Kids were running around everywhere but wherever Zidra went she was in the way. The whole evening all she’d heard was watch it, or scram, or where’s Lorna. She might as well go home, no one would even notice. Then someone turned on the fairy lights that were strung along the eaves of the hall and over the lower branches of the pine tree and everything changed. The hall was the vast cabin of a ship sailing across the ocean and the yard became the decks crowded with people. Beneath the tall mast of the pine tree was a dark space where she would take shelter. She could lie on this thick carpet of needles and never be seen.

But she was wrong.

‘Great spot you’ve got here,’ said Jim. ‘Mind if I join you?’

He sat cross-legged next to her and immediately she began to feel more cheerful. Just as he’d opened his mouth to say something, Roger O’Rourke came barging up. Right away she knew Roger wanted to get even with her for laughing when his parents roused on him. Bracing herself, she waited.

‘Wotcher doing here, eh? Got any smokes, Jim?’

‘No. We’re just talking, that’s all.’

‘Jim loves Zidra. Zidra loves Jim.’ Roger danced around them, chanting.

If she ignored him, maybe he’d go away. She sneaked a quick look at Jim to see how he was taking it. You could see he didn’t care. ‘Bugger off, you little twerp,’ he said.

In spite of this, Roger didn’t seem to want to leave. He leant against the rough tree trunk and idly kicked at the pine needles while simultaneously picking at a scab on his elbow. ‘I heard your Ma talking to Mrs Bates,’ he said to Zidra.

‘What about?’ Her voice came out even sharper than she’d intended.

‘Menzies and stuff. She’s a Commo, your Ma.’

‘No she’s not,’ Jim said. ‘She had a letter published in the Burford Advertiser about Hungary. How can that make her a Commo? She’s against the Reds not for them.’

‘My dad said she’s a Red.’

‘You’re a Red,’ said Zidra. ‘Red hair; red freckles. Red, red, red Roger.’

‘Reds under the bed,’ said Roger giggling. ‘Better watch out for yours.’

‘Yours more like.’

‘I’m in the top bunk and Johnno’s in the bottom.’

‘Reds under your bed then,’ said Jim. ‘Johnno’s hair’s even redder than yours.’

Grinning, Roger pulled off the scab and flicked it into the long grass next to the fence. ‘Sure you haven’t got any smokes, Jim?’

‘Mum would skin me alive if I did, and put me through Dad’s sausage machine.’

Zidra smiled although it wasn’t much of a joke. Especially as she wouldn’t have put it past Jim’s mum to lose her temper and carve him up if she caught him with a cigarette.

‘Betcha don’t know where Lorna is,’ Roger said.

‘Bet you don’t either,’ Jim said. She could tell without looking he was checking on her reaction.

‘Do so. Just heard she’s gone to an orphanage.’

Stupid Roger, thought Zidra, and decided to leave the questioning to Jim. He didn’t let her down. ‘How can she go to an orphanage when she’s not an orphan?’ he asked.

‘’Cause she’s an Abo,’ Roger said defiantly.

‘That’s no reason.’

‘Ask Dad then. That’s what he said, and she’ll never be able to go home.’

‘Where is this orphanage?’

‘Gudgiegalah Home.’

‘That’s not an orphanage.’

‘What is it then?’

‘A home for girls.’

‘What for, if they’re not orphans?’

‘It’s for Aboriginal girls whose families can’t look after them.’

‘Lorna’s family look after her,’ Zidra said, unable to keep quiet any longer.

‘Half-caste girls.’

Zidra now felt completely confused. Lorna had gone to the Sutherlands’, that’s what Mr Jones had said. Then Mrs Bates had said she was at Wallaga Lake. And now stupid Roger had made up another story, just to upset her; he knew what good friends she and Lorna were. Then to say Lorna was half-cast instead of being fully and perfectly cast was too much. ‘There’s nothing wrong with Lorna,’ she said. ‘She’s beautifully cast. She can run faster than anyone.’

‘Not cast, caste,’ Jim said quickly. ‘It means race.’

‘What’s half-caste then?’

‘One parent black, one white.’

‘But her father’s black, I’ve met him.’

‘He’s not her father,’ Roger said, smirking.

‘How do you know?’

‘Just do.’

He was wrong about everything, the idiot. She glared at him but already he’d lost interest, his eyes fixed on a game of tag that someone had started up. Once he’d gone, she said to Jim, ‘Have you heard anything about Lorna?’

‘I heard Mrs Dalrymple tell someone just now that the Welfare had taken her.’

‘Not to the Sutherlands’?’

‘No. To Gudgiegalah Girls’ Home, like Roger said.’

‘Everyone says something different.’ Mrs Dalrymple and Roger must have got it wrong.

‘That’s probably ’cause they don’t know. It’s all rumours.’

She waited to see if he had any more to say. Above their heads, the fairy lights twinkled from the pine branches. She watched him start to gnaw at one of his fingernails. In spite of the warmth of the night air, she shivered. Funny how you could feel so alone even when you were surrounded by people. Maybe she’d wake up and discover Lorna hadn’t gone at all.

‘It’s not as bad as you think.’

‘But she’d be away from her family.’ She didn’t add that school would be intolerable without her. The loneliness. The teasing. The taunts.

‘Think of it as if she’s going away to school. If she has gone. Like me next year. Off to a new school.’

‘But she can never come home, that’s what Roger said.’

‘She’d be able to come home when she’s grown.’

‘That’s years away.’ Years and years, an eternity. She felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach and her eyes began to water. Surreptitiously she wiped them with the back of her hand. Only when she felt that her voice wouldn’t quaver did she add, ‘All my friends are going away. When are you coming home?’

‘Every holiday.’

But there’d be that everlasting term in between holidays. Blinking away more tears, she looked over the yard. Some of the younger kids were beginning to get tired. Quarrels were breaking out and little ones starting to throw tantrums. That’s what she’d like to do: stamp and bellow and hurl herself on the ground, and then to shout don’t and no and why Lorna?

Yet she’d felt a bad thing was coming. She’d felt it ever since that night before the boat trip, when she’d woken up thinking Lorna was telling her something. The telepathy was real but Mama had been wrong about its meaning. A variety of emotions now battled within her. Anger with her mother for misinterpreting that dream. Rage with the world that she was losing Lorna. Anxiety for what Lorna must be feeling, and worst of all, this terrible feeling of sadness. Struggling to retain control of herself, she was but dimly aware of Jim’s awkward pat on her forearm.

Ilona’s head was spinning, not with alcohol for she had not touched a drop all evening, but with music, with dancing, and – she was at last willing to admit it – with the intoxication of Peter’s presence. Standing next to her at the piano, he was turning the pages of the music at exactly the right time. Not that she needed this assistance, she was perfectly capable of turning the pages herself, and indeed she felt so confident tonight that she could have played these pieces blindfolded. Plus Billy the Fish was making the violin sing like a human being accompanying her playing; an unexpected talent that added to her pleasure in the music.

On finishing her last piece, she glanced up at Peter. He smiled and rested a hand lightly on her shoulder. Before he had a chance to withdraw it, she gently put her hand over his and watched his face light up. Then she remembered Zidra.

‘I am such a bad mother,’ she said, jumping to her feet. ‘I must find Zidra. I had almost forgotten about her.’

She weaved her way through the packed hall, and into the kitchen that was empty now apart from piles of dirty plates and a ragged-looking dog chewing at a bone under the table. She clattered down the back steps of the hall and stumbled a little on the rough grass at the bottom. Bill Bates, part of the knot of men wrapped around the beer keg, caught her and Mr O’Rourke seized her other arm.

‘Steady on,’ O’Rourke said, as if she might be intoxicated when it was he, she suspected, who was shickered.

‘My heels,’ she explained, laughing and extricating herself from the men’s steadying grip. ‘Have you seen Zidra anywhere?’

‘Sitting under the pine tree,’ O’Rourke said. ‘I’ll show you.’ He led the way across the grass, as if she might have trouble distinguishing it from the other trees, all eucalyptus, encircling the yard.

‘Zidra!’ she called.

‘We’re here, Mrs Talivaldis!’ Zidra and Jim were sitting side-by-side on the pine needles.

‘I wondered how you were getting on,’ Ilona said. ‘I have finished playing the piano and wondered if perhaps you might be feeling neglected.’

‘I want to go home now, Mama.’ Zidra’s voice sounded strained. The excitement had been too much for her.

Ilona crouched down next to her. ‘Don’t you want to hear Billy the Fish doing his solo?’ she said gently.

‘Billy the Fish is terrible,’ said O’Rourke. ‘You oughta go home before then.’

‘But he is a wonderful musician,’ said Ilona. ‘He plays the fiddle with so much passion.’

‘You haven’t heard him on the accordion, but,’ said O’Rourke. ‘Terrible songs, those, and rude too. That’s why he’s on at the very end. So the kiddies won’t hear.’

It was the singers rather than the musician who were so terrible, Ilona suspected. ‘I’ll take you home now, darling,’ she whispered to Zidra, putting an arm around her shoulders. Even in this dim lighting, her face looked washed out. ‘Are you staying, Jim?’

‘I’ve got to wait until Mum tells me to go home,’ he said.

‘That’ll be as soon as the singing starts,’ said O’Rourke, laughing. ‘My missus’ll be heading off with our lot then too.’

‘We shall make our farewells inside the hall,’ said Ilona.

‘Say goodbye, you mean,’ said Zidra, quite crossly.

‘We shall say goodbye,’ Ilona continued, ‘to our friends in the hall.’

But Ilona’s attention was distracted, so she did not hear Zidra’s whispered words to Jim. She had caught sight of Peter, who was just emerging from the kitchen. He was standing on the top step and peering down the yard.

He was looking for her. He was looking out for her.