Review of Australian Fiction, Volume 4, Issue 5 Read online

  ‘Lemme go,’ she said, slinging her guitar over her neck. ‘Fuggin control freak.’

  Filled with apprehension, I mounted the stage. By now the Gershwin Room was chock-a-block. I tapped the microphone and cleared my throat, my thumb strumming the bass strings like a baby with a comforter.

  ‘Okay?’ asked the sound check technician.

  ‘Yep.’

  We waited anxiously during Benjy’s interminable testing of the snare. Selima rolled her eyes. Finally he was happy, and Doll played a few dodgy chords.

  ‘Is that how you want it?’ asked the sound check guy, with jaded contempt.

  ‘Sounds good from up here,’ Doll called back.

  Gazing down at the light and dark faces I saw the familiar orange moustache glinting. He raised his beer to me. I’d practiced some patter but the words dried in my mouth. I bowed my legs slightly and sank my weight into my feet. I nodded to Selima and we started with “If You Can’t Give Me Love”.

  * * *

  Well I’ve seen you before on that discotheque floor,

  You were driving me out of my mind…

  * * *

  Doll pointed at Richard and screamed the lyrics into her microphone. Wetness broke out at the nape of my neck and slid down my back. Of all the times to lose it! Please Doll, not now. She turned her back to the crowd, and pulled herself together enough to play; but she was chalk-faced and unsteady on her feet. She was sweating even more than I was, or so it seemed. Drops stood out like ball bearings on her skin.

  We followed up with “I Bit Off More Than I Could Chew” and “Rock Hard” and worked our way up to our crescendo.

  ‘You wanna come down to Devil Gate Drive?’ I shouted into the microphone. I lifted the guitar above my head. The crowd roared. Benjy intoned in his deep bass voice:

  ‘Welcome to the Dive!’

  We threw our left arms out, raised our right arms in the air and jumped sideways in a brief, synchronized dance like the original band. I worried that Doll would topple over, but she kept to her feet alright. Selima jumped on keys and I sang “Devil Gate Drive” gruffly into the microphone, sealed like a cutlet in my sweaty leather.

  About halfway through the gig I sensed that magical coalescence of sound and bodies, performers and audience. The crowd danced and sang with us, their faces flashing like a bed of shining, flat rocks through fast-running water. Everything was flowing into a sparkling oneness. No wonder the Rolling Stones keep playing after decades. The feeling’s addictive.

  Afterwards the lead singer from Tiny Purple Fishes, Jim, wanted to talk shop about the difficulties of being a cover band. I drank a whiskey and lime and felt hot with success.

  ‘That was a great gig. Covers are tricky—punters want you to capture how the original band sounded, not the music itself—’ he said, leaning forward so his words could be heard.

  I nodded, distracted by seeing Richard with Doll at the bar. He had a hold of her wrist and was pushing her arm up behind her back. Beside him, his girlfriend couldn’t see what he was doing.

  ‘Excuse me, Jim,’ I said, reluctantly.

  As I approached, Richard glared at me. Doll’s mouth was hanging open and she seemed to have gone into some realm beyond speech.

  ‘Time to go,’ I said to Doll. ‘We’ve got to get a photo before your make-up disappears.’

  Doll blinked, and nodded.

  ‘We’re talking,’ said Richard.

  ‘You can talk to her later.’

  ‘At least let her finish her drink,’ he said in a more conciliatory tone. ‘You were great up there, Suzy!’

  ‘Well, thanks.’

  ‘You sounded better than you’ve ever sounded. And you always sound good.’

  ‘That’s nice of you to say.’

  ‘Credit where credit’s due. Sexy outfit,’ Richard’s eye fell to my hand. ‘Nice ring. Snake, is it?’

  He picked up my hand to examine the ring.

  ‘The eyes have fallen out,’ I said, withdrawing my hand.

  ‘Oh yeah, how’d that happen?’ he said, dropping his voice so that only I could hear. ‘Sticking your finger up yourself?’

  After a moment’s astonished pause I said, ‘Fuck off, you creep.’

  ‘No, you fuck off. I will talk to Doll if I want to, right? Don’t get in my way. I mean it.’

  ‘Oh, scary.’

  Richard’s face closed and a murky sneer, unlike anything I’d ever seen before, passed across it.

  ‘You should be scared.’

  I swallowed, my heart racing. For a moment I was scared, but of what, I wasn’t sure. Something filthy. I managed to drag Doll away, and find the rest of the band. We passed Coppers on the way out.

  ‘Oh—hi Suzy…’

  ‘Yep, thanks,’ I said, busily steering Doll past the same bulgy-armed men who hadn’t helped us with our amps. One of them leaned forward and pushed open Doll’s vest, and when he’d confirmed there were no breasts he exhaled with a long and noisy pffffing sound, as though rendered speechless.

  The four of us lined up to have our photo taken on The Espy front steps. It was our moment of triumph and the beginning of the end. In the second photo, Doll’s falling forward out of the shot. When Benjy’s mate texted it to me I examined it closely. There was Selima, Benjy and myself, smiling; and Doll blurred by movement and laughing, her mouth open.

  She wasn’t laughing a moment later. She fell face-down onto the step below, too drunk to use her arms to break her fall. In the ambulance I sat beside her while a female paramedic pressed a gauze cloth to her split lip. I held her clammy hand and told her not to speak.

  ‘Cockers—wants you…’ she mumbled. Her eyes glittered above her swelling, bruising nose. I forced a smile.

  ‘What’s she saying?’ asked the paramedic.

  ‘She’s making a joke.’

  * * *

  VIII.

  * * *

  The Espy asked us to come back, but we had to wait for Doll to heal. We gave ourselves a break, and I made that long put-off appointment at the dentist, which turned out strangely.

  The evening before the dental appointment, I found Benjy in the garage playing softly on the drums, in the dark. Although I’d given all the band members a key, no-one had come to practice on their own before. I turned up the dimmer. Benjy’s head was hanging more than usual.

  ‘What’s up?’ I asked.

  He shrugged.

  ‘Do you mind me being here?’

  ‘Of course not. You look a bit flat, Benjy.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he admitted. ‘Dunno why.’

  ‘Do you want a nice cup of tea?’

  He smiled, acknowledging my little joke.

  ‘Why don’t we have a go at playing “The Difference Between Us”? I’ve been practising the lyrics.’

  ‘Yeah, okay,’ he said, brightening. He lifted his head. He was pleasant-looking, short and broad-shouldered and trim. His face would have been plain, under those blondish curls, if it wasn’t for his long-lashed hazel eyes.

  We did the best we could with the bass and drums.

  ‘I’m not the way that you found me. I’m neither here nor there. One day I’m happy and healthy, next I ain’t doin’ so well.’

  Afterwards I said to Benjy:

  ‘I just can’t make my voice do what hers does!’

  ‘No,’ he nodded. ‘It does what your voice does. There’s something interesting there, something we could draw out.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Sure. We need to spend some time just finding our sound.’

  ‘Give up the Quatro stuff?’

  ‘In a while. We need to build up our own songs.’

  ‘Maybe your songs. I’ve tried so hard to write a decent song, but all the verses are rubbish.’

  ‘Doggerel.’

  ‘Well, thanks a lot.’

  Benjy laughed.

  ‘What I meant to say was, all songs are doggerel until you’ve really got something to say. I don’t think my songs are
much good yet, either.’

  I got out my electric violin, untouched for almost six months.

  ‘What about some Dirty Three? ’ I said, lifting the violin to my shoulder and resting my chin. The bow quavered sweetly over the strings. We played “Sirena” till we were happy with it, followed by Benjy’s favourite, “Sea Above, Sky Below”, restoring ourselves with this melodious salve to Quatro’s ferocity.

  It would have been a perfect night, if Benjy hadn’t tried to kiss me.

  * * *

  IX.

  * * *

  The receptionist told me my usual dentist, Dr Joanne, was on holiday and I’d be attended by the new dentist, Dr Carl. Nurse Lin took me through to the chair and put a bib on me. I lay still, touching the sore molar with my tongue and wondering what it would cost.

  Dr Carl came in wearing his mask. He wore his hair rather unconventionally for a dentist, swept up in a ponytail. Dark and wavy. Then, I recognised him and went cold all over.

  No, no—it’s all right, I thought. He doesn’t know me. He won’t recognize me. Even if he’s seen me on the street, he won’t know it was me that made the complaint. My mind worked hard to assimilate this unlikely information. A dentist drives that car?

  ‘Hello,’ said Dr Carl, sitting beside me. ‘Suzy, isn’t it? We’ve just got to take some X-rays, Suzy.’

  ‘Suzanne,’ I said.

  They took the X-rays. Dr Carl showed me the dark shadow on the molar.

  ‘Nasty,’ he said. ‘Would’ve been hurting a while.’

  I studied the ceiling while Dr Carl gave me the numbing injection. I felt it pumping in, and my lips turned rubbery and weird. He put a noisy, vibrating instrument into my mouth and scraped the decay. My cheeks wobbled. After about fifteen minutes, he said:

  ‘You can rest.’

  I closed my mouth and eyes. Above me I sensed him and Nurse Lin exchanging implements.

  ‘So you complained to the police about my car?’ he said.

  My eyes flew open. He knew. I nodded, horrified at the stupid situation of having trespassed against the dentist now fixing my tooth.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, your dad complains about our band all the time. And—your car wakes me up. Do you realise how noisy it is?’

  ‘I do it to annoy him. He’s such an uptight prick. I never do more than four laps. I only stay there when the ex kicks me out.’

  One lap’s enough to wake anyone from the dead, I thought but didn’t say, mindful of the metal skewer in his right hand. When the work was done, Dr Carl surprised me by taking off his mask and smiling. He was good looking with superbly tended teeth.

  ‘All finished. You want to come out for a beer some time?’

  ‘What? Isn’t that against the rules? I’m your patient.’

  ‘We know each other. I come and see you play at Milk. I believe you’ve seen me there.’

  My mind raced back. Yes, I remembered. How had I not made the connection before? The face that did nothing to ease my giddiness. Yes.

  * * *

  X.

  * * *

  The affair with Dr Carl was the nail in the coffin for The Roxy Rollers. Doll had moved home for help but was still hiding vodka in her grandmother’s flowerpots and was too shaky to hold a guitar. She confessed that coke was damaging her septum.

  So we lost our lead guitarist.

  Selima was fired from Milk after replacing the halogen globes in the lamps with energy-saving globes. She told Jackie they were better for the environment.

  ‘Not this environment,’ Jackie had said. ‘Can’t you see what I’m doing here?’

  According to Selima, Jackie took off a lampshade and threw the new globe onto the floor. Selima responded by tossing her apron over the broken tube, and saying she was finished.

  And so we lost our venue.

  * * *

  And then, one sunny afternoon after a naughty session with Dr Carl on Bill Dudley’s living room floor, I came home to find Benjy’s ute backed into our driveway. He was loading his drum kit.

  ‘Oh Benjy, please don’t,’ I said, shocked. ‘What are you doing? You can’t be leaving!’

  ‘I’m joining The Squirts,’ he replied. ‘They need a new drummer.’

  ‘The Squirts?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He paused. ‘You have to be under five foot seven.’

  I would have giggled if I hadn’t been so close to tears.

  ‘I thought you liked having a place to leave your drums set up…’

  ‘I liked being close to you, Suzanne. But you don’t like me in that way. And it’s too painful for me to see you with that arsewipe.’

  ‘He’s not an arsewipe.’

  ‘Yes he is. If he looked like Coppers instead of Johnny Depp you’d get that. And anyway, I need a break from Quatro covers.’

  ‘But—our band…’

  ‘Could’ve been great. But it ain’t happening.’

  Benjy closed the back doors of the ute, and gave me a small, compressed smile that was more like a grimace. Then he got into the ute and drove off. And so we lost our drummer—and without Benjy there was no ‘we’ anymore.

  * * *

  Dad found me later, still teary, sitting slumped against the garage door with my head in my hands.

  ‘Let’s go for a bite, honey,’ he urged, after listening to my woes. ‘My treat.’

  So we went to Milk. I let him order chops and peas and mash for us both. I felt too heartsick to want food but I couldn’t bear to disappoint him too.

  I chewed slowly.

  Over and over, I saw the ute doors closing over the drum kit. I kept seeing the back of Benjy’s massive head in the front seat, the exhaust pipe puffing as it accelerated out of the driveway and disappeared from view, taking Benjy and the drums, the love and the rhythm. Potato slid in a sticky, half-masticated mash down my throat. I wrestled manfully with the chops before I gave up and pushed the plate aside.

  * * *

  XI.

  * * *

  Doll and Richard got back together, and she kept sending me invitations to meet them for drinks. She had some idea of us as a foursome. I never wanted to see Richard again but I was running out of excuses: soon I’d be forced into honesty.

  Besides, I was losing my allure for Carl. With the band gone, I had no excuse to wear a leather jumpsuit with my cleavage showing. Or maybe it was the smell of salami that followed me home from the delicatessen where I was working longer hours. Three weeks after the band broke up, he sent me a text: ‘It’s been great Suzy, but it’s time to move on. I’m sure you’ll get tired of me sooner or later, so better to quit while we are ahead. Let’s stay friends, love Carl. xxx ’

  And a smiley face. Unbelievable. I started stabbing in a reply and then gave up and rang him:

  ‘You drop me in a text message?’ I screamed.

  He hung up.

  As I was jogging over to the dental clinic to confront Carl, I realised I couldn’t hold onto the anger because I didn’t want to be with him either. By the time I’d waited half an hour for him to be finished with his patient there wasn’t much of the feeling left, especially having expended so much energy washing the smell of cold cuts off my hands in the clinic’s bathroom. When Nurse Lin told me I could go in, I found Carl washing his own hands.

  ‘I’m sorry Suzy, I shouldn’t have done that,’ he said, quick to get in the first word. He picked up a towel and rubbed. ‘But at least I’ve got the guts to be talking to you now. Right?’

  ‘It’s not like I’m very scary,’ I said, and sat down on Nurse Lin’s stool, not wanting to sit on the dentist’s chair where our romance had begun.

  ‘Are you very upset?’

  I shrugged. ‘Maybe I was more angry at the text than anything else.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. He seemed to be holding his breath. I realised he was simply waiting for this unpleasant moment to be over.

  ‘At least now I’ve got a genuine excuse to give to Doll. She wanted us to go out as a foursom
e. But I didn’t want to go out with Richard,’ I said, taking pity on Carl and getting up again.

  ‘I would never have gone out with that drug-dealer scumbag.’

  ‘A dealer? Isn’t he some sort of banker?’

  ‘You’re pretty naïve, for a rock-n-roll chick,’ said Carl. ‘I thought you were tougher and cooler than you are. But then, I guess, it was just a cover band. You’re still a wannabe.’

  ‘Well, thanks for pointing that out, Carl. I must be the only wannabe who is also a has-been.’

  * * *

  XII.

  * * *

  Doll’s grandmother Lotta let me in when I finally went to visit, telling me in a noisy whisper:

  ‘He no good. He no eat. Tell him he must eat.’

  Lotta had the same dark eyes that sloped upwards, the same fine nose and attractive lips as Doll, but she was as small and round as Doll was tall and thin. When Doll and I we were first friends I’d visited often, drinking Lotta’s hot chocolate thickened with cornstarch and eating fresh churros so floury they sucked all the moisture from my mouth.

  ‘I will. Of course I will.’

  Encouraged by this, Lotta said:

  ‘Dolfo dress always as girl. Or girl and boy, all mixed up. It’s no good. Nothing good can come of it.’

  I nodded, to acknowledge her opinion, not because I agreed. Doll was as she was: to be otherwise would be a lie.

  Doll was lying stretched out on a floral couch in front of the TV, her large and bony feet clad in men’s slippers. She wore flannel pyjamas and a men’s velour dressing gown, one pocket of which was weighted with a flat, rectangular object.