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talking about the Stewart boys. They were all like brothers to me. Drew was my hero when I was a kid. The best shot in New South Wales . . .”
    He looked into the distance for a moment and then suddenly turned to me and grinned. “Let’s dance.”
    He stood up and offered me his hand. Then he pulled my hat off my head and threw it on the floor, followed by his own.
    â€œToo hot,” he said and led me to the dance floor, where they seemed to have lined up all my favourite dance tracks. Out they came . . . “Car Wash,” “Groove is in the Heart,” “Love Shack”. . .
    Billy was a great dancer. He understood all about being funny on the dance floor, about dancing stupidly and ironically as well as dancing sexily, doing the Hitchhiker and the Pony and singing along. He knew all the moves for “My Sharona” and “Night Fever.” We did the Twist. We did the Mashed Potato. We even did the Macarena, during which I thought I was gong to wet myself, because he did the wiggle in such a funny way. And when he took my hand and spun me around, out and back and into his arms, I was in heaven.
    It was wild on that dance floor. Suddenly it seemed that every person at the party was dancing. Danny Green, cameras still around his neck, was prancing around like the Mad Hatter on speed. I could see Jasper and Lin Lee on the other side of the dance floor and noticed with satisfaction that she had absolutely no sense of rhythm, although he had a louche hip-swivelling style.
    Antony and his eyebrows went by a few times, accompanied by a series of laughing women, each one very attractive. All of his friends from the dressing room were on the dance floor too and they kept coming up and kissing me on the cheek in the middle of a track for no apparent reason. “Having fun, Georgie?” they’d ask.
    â€œGo girlfriend!” said a drag queen in a red sequin kaftan, with a platform shoe as a hat on top of a blood-red wig.
    â€œWoo hoo!” we all sang. Especially me. Woo bloody hoo. “How do you like Sydney, eh Georgia?” asked Antony, appearing suddenly and whispering into my ear. How did I like Sydney? I bloody loved it. That’s how much I liked it. I hadn’t had this much fun for years. And Billy spun me out and in and round and round, never missing a beat, until I was breathless with excitement.
    â€œWater! Water!” I cried, slumping on a gold salon chair, while he went off in search of liquid refreshment. It wasn’t until I stopped for a minute that I realised it was dark outside and that the room was beginning to thin out. I’d arrived at the party at four o’clock and now it was nearly eleven. I’d been carrying on like this for seven hours.
    Billy came back with water and champagne and, as he crossed the room, I had another good look at him. He may have been only half a Brent, but he was all gorgeous. His shirt was now unbuttoned to the waist so I could clearly see a perfectly smooth, muscular chest. He had slightly bandy legs, which I’ve always found very attractive, and his riding boots were fetchingly worn in. His blond, slightly wavy hair flopped over one eye. Crikey. What a dreamboat.
    â€œThere you are, darl,” he said, taking the seat next to me. I skulled the water and then we sat sipping the champagne in a happy silence.
    Billy turned and smiled at me. “Where did you learn to dance like that?”
    â€œI could ask you the same question,” I said. “I’ve always loved dancing. My whole family loves it. My parents had a lot of parties when I was growing up and there was always wild and crazy dancing. And we used to go to my grandparents’ in Scotland for hogmanay and there’d be reeling, so I suppose I’ve spent a large proportion of my adult life skipping the light fantastic.”
    Now I’d started, I couldn’t stop talking.
    â€œOne of the things I’d started to hate