Review of Australian Fiction, Volume 4, Issue 5 Page 5

  ‘Suzy,’ she said. ‘So glad you came. I was sorry to hear about Carl.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be.’

  Doll eased herself upright. She was so thin she looked ethereal. It was the first time I’d seen her face bare since school and I was shocked by the shadowy roots showing in her white hair.

  ‘Come with me into the front room,’ she said.

  She moved slowly, as though her bones hurt.

  The front room smelled unused, and the yellow-gold couches felt stiff as always. I sat on one of them and kicked off my shoes so that I could rub my feet on the thick carpet, a burnt sienna colour swirled with white. Doll opened the lid of a record player.

  ‘CDs passed Lotta by. If you gave her a USB stick she’d probably use it to scrape off burnt beans from the bottom of the pan. I appreciate vinyl more now. The famous crackle. The sound quality.’

  She slipped a big black disc onto the player and handed me the album cover. It was a sepia photograph of young woman in front of a ploughed field, the rows vanishing into a haze of light. The woman stood in profile, her arms folded and her eyes closed.

  ‘Sibylle Baier,’ said Doll.

  ‘Where did you find this?’

  Doll had a history of finding amazing old records at garage sales and in op shops. She gave a self-conscious, chattering sort of laugh.

  ‘Oh, that was released on CD. She wrote the songs in the seventies and her son released them only a few years ago—I had to wait for it to come out on vinyl!’

  ‘She looks… sort of plain.’

  In fact, I found the image very inviting in its effortless evocation of another time.

  ‘Not my usual style, you mean?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Just listen.’

  Doll dropped the needle onto the groove and I heard Baier’s voice, captured in what sounded like the rawness of a home recording. Just her sweet voice and a guitar, creating an atmosphere so intimate it seemed to transport us to the seventies—probably when Lotta’s room was furnished. Baier seemed to be right there beside us, singing for our ears only of sad things that had happened to her. I found myself humming, enthralled by its lack of guile. We listened to the whole album, wordless. We hadn’t done such a thing since our school days.

  ‘I can see why you like it,’ I said.

  ‘It makes me think of my own mother. Well, what I imagine she might have been like,’ said Doll, whose eyes looked shiny. ‘Lotta says she used to play the guitar with me tucked on her lap, behind it. I don’t remember her.’

  I got up, knelt over her and gave her an awkward hug. I kissed the top of her head, fragrant with her favourite coconut shampoo.

  ‘That’s awful,’ I said, sitting down again. Doll had no parents at all. No-one knew the identity of her father. I thought of my father, always barracking for me; to the point where he’d given up his garage and paid for it to be made over into a studio. Now the studio was empty: I needed another band to make his investment worthwhile.

  ‘If my mother had lived, I think I’d be a more peaceful person. She would have understood me. No-one does. Not really. No,’ she said, reading my expression. ‘You don’t. You think you do, but I’m just a pin-board of your ideas.’

  I shrugged.

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘You don’t know what it’s like to be an in-between person. Androgynous.’

  ‘But you’re not truly androgynous. You’re a boy who dresses as a girl.’

  Doll studied me for a moment. I couldn’t read her expression.

  ‘Channeling goddess energy when you’re male lets you give the feminine a different expression. That’s what I do, or what I intend to do. In the band.’

  ‘What band?’

  ‘That’s one of the reasons I invited you over. I wanted to tell you in person what’s happening,’ she said.

  ‘In person. Sounds ominous.’

  ‘I’m the lead singer. Finally.’

  ‘Well, that’s fantastic, Doll. Congratulations!’

  ‘Kind of inspired by The Dead Weather.’

  ‘Oh. Really?’ I said, nodding a little too much. My throat tightened and my voicebox developed a strange itch.

  ‘We’re called Lodestone.’

  ‘Nice,’ I said, still nodding. I cleared my throat and tried to put aside the ungenerous thought that she’d sweetened me up by awakening my pity, before she dealt me the sour news. I considered Doll’s thin frame, her lustreless skin, the way she was hobbling around. I couldn’t imagine her on stage in her current state.

  ‘Your grandmother says you’re not eating.’

  ‘I eat. And I drink,’ she said, patting the concealed hip flask in her pocket. ‘We’ve got a gig next week at The Horn Café in Richmond. You’ll come, won’t you? Selima will be there. And Richard.’

  ‘That’s no inducement.’

  Doll laughed.

  ‘He’s just such—an arsewipe,’ I said, using Benjy’s expression. ‘Worse than that. I don’t know what you see in him.’

  ‘I don’t expect you to,’ she said, lightly, as if there was some secret about Richard I couldn’t possibly penetrate. Changing the subject, she added:

  ‘I’ll let Coppers know that Carl’s off the scene.’

  ‘Don’t you dare!’

  ‘Oh, I will. I’ve got his number in my phone. It’s always so amusing to see you trying to get—’

  ‘Will Benjy be there?’ I interrupted.

  Doll gave me a long, hard look out of her dark eyes. She knew that what she said next would be hurtful.

  ‘Benjy’s the drummer.’

  * * *

  XIII.

  * * *

  The Horn Café was an intimate venue with a small stage, a tapas menu and Florence Broadhurst wallpaper as a backdrop to a bizarre collection of genuine rams’ horns. I didn’t want to go to the gig but Selima insisted: she picked me up.

  ‘It’s best to normalise the situation with you and Benjy,’ she said. ‘Some friends are too good to lose.’

  They were already playing when we arrived. Lodestone. The word sat heavily in my mouth. A great name, I thought. A magnet, a thing that attracts, a metal composition. Selima went off to get us both a drink and I sank into a red leather couch close to the stage, trying to tame my roaring jealousy enough to appreciate the music.

  Doll was beautiful, sucking up attention in a corolla of stage-light, while Benjy was a quiet presence behind her. I gazed at the droop of his sleepy, long-lashed eyes, the same light turning him into a geometric composition in gold and red: the oval of his head, the square of his shoulders, his hands flying over the immobile cylinders of his drums. The boy who could play like John Bonham at sixteen. The most talented of us all.

  Doll surprised me. Not her perfected ‘look’ so much as her stage presence. She wore a bolero of white rabbit fur, a leather pencil skirt, a crimson scarf and nothing else. The moustache was gone and she had no eyebrows whatsoever. A fan set her scarf continuously flickering, like a gymnast’s fluid ribbon. She wasn’t quite Breslin and Dylan and Mosshart rolled together; but her throaty voice was passionate enough to make up for its lack of range, her eyes meeting mine as she sang:

  I don’t know

  what way to be,

  except the way

  of my way-worn heart…

  * * *

  When the gig was over I wanted to leave. I smelled Richard’s putrid presence nearby, cologne over chemical sweat. And I didn’t want to congratulate Doll or find words for Benjy.

  ‘Can’t we stay a bit longer?’ begged Selima. ‘There’s a back room here, there’s going to be a party.’

  ‘You stay,’ I said.

  ‘You can’t drive.’

  ‘I’ll get a taxi.’

  ‘On Bridge Road? Now? Just wait half an hour.’

  I sank further into the couch and drank my whiskey and lime and nibbled at a plate of tiny, warm olives. The place was closing. Someone was pulling down the blinds.

  ‘Come this way
,’ said Selima, reaching down to pull me out of my seat.

  ‘No. I’m staying here.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  I leaned my head back. Lodestone, I mouthed again. I didn’t feel jealous anymore. I just felt tired, friendless, headachy. Lodestone. Sleep came, and it was welcome.

  * * *

  When I woke up I was alone in the dark. The leather couch hadn’t warmed in response to my body but had drawn warmth off me, instead. Through a half-open door behind the stage flowed the sounds of music, movement and voices. I drew a bottle of water out of my bag, drank, and patted a drop to each eyelid. I got to my feet to find Selima and tell her I’d try my luck on Bridge Road.

  I followed the music down a short corridor and entered a large room filled with people dancing in a dull, reddish light cast by the lampshades. Doll’s hips were swinging wildly, her back looking pale and snaky above the leather belt, vertebrae jutting out like marbles. Where was Benjy? He must have left. I was surprised to find I was disappointed: if he’d wanted to kiss me now, I would have let him.

  ‘There you are!’ said Selima, pushing her hair away from her brow. ‘Ready to go?’

  ‘Yes—but can you drive?’

  ‘Sure!’

  ‘I’d better say goodbye to Doll.’

  ‘Oh, she’s busy, let’s just go.’

  ‘It will only take a sec.’

  I dashed up to Doll and reached my hand up to her shoulder. She turned and I got a shock: she had tampons jammed up her nostrils, so full of blood they looked almost black.

  ‘What—what the hell?’

  Doll laughed hysterically and screamed something over the music. I watched her lips but I couldn’t make out the words she was saying.

  * * *

  XIV.

  * * *

  Lodestone did well. They toured. Cut an album with two hit singles—typically, the first was better. We fell out of touch. Every now and then she sent me a text, often with a photo of herself onstage, or a photo of her and Richard who was looking increasingly like the picture of Dorian Gray. She didn’t seem to mind, or even notice, that I never returned the messages that eventually petered out. Then, out of the blue, she sent a text inviting me to see her new apartment in Elwood:

  ‘Hey Suze, want to come over and hang out? x’

  And the address. I had no desire whatever to see her new place or even be in her company. Something in me had withdrawn. I was going to a concert that night anyway, so I texted back:

  ‘Maybe next week. x’

  And that was all.

  * * *

  Three days later, I heard about Doll in the news. Not the entertainment bit of the news but the bad news, the news you don’t ever want to be featured in; the cross-dressing lead singer of Lodestone had been found dead in her apartment. I looked across at Dad, who was watching the news with me, shaking his head. I said:

  ‘No—it can’t be her. No.’

  In bed that night I jammed in my earbuds and listened to music as loud as I could bear. Nothing could deaden my feelings. I gave up and wept, convinced that she might not be dead if I’d responded to her message. Why didn’t I go to see her in Elwood? Maybe she needed to talk. Maybe she needed to see someone away from the maelstrom, someone calm, who loved her. But I didn’t love her enough. I hadn’t acted when I could have. I’d been so busy envying her rareness and loathing her obsessions that I hadn’t understood how she displayed those things in an effort to convey herself truly. She wanted what we all want: to be seen, to be loved, to be understood.

  My mind tried sorting what I knew of her. My tears were gone. With a dry, aching throat I recalled the day we became friends, those frail limbs flying through the air, the way she got up and put up her fists, the weird mixture of self-aggrandising drama and genuine courage. A swan in peacock’s clothing. My friend. I’d always thought we’d be together again, some day; she was so much a part of me, the most vivid star in my constellation.

  * * *

  XV.

  * * *

  At the funeral, her grandmother came up to me.

  ‘You never came over again,’ she said, reproachfully. ‘Dolfo needed you. He needed protection from that…’—here Lotta screwed up her mouth and almost spat—‘Boyfriend.’

  ‘Do you think Richard had something to do with her death?’ I whispered.

  Lotta narrowed her eyes, balling her hands up convulsively.

  ‘The poleece. They say they will look into it. They say, no, no, it was just an overdose. They need evidence. I don’t need evidence. I know. He’s not here, is he? He is guilty as hell.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said.

  ‘Where did you go? When he visit me, he says you don’t speak to him.’

  ‘I meant to come, sometime…’

  ‘Too late now. Too late.’

  Then the old woman burst into tears and leaned into me, sobbing harshly. I put my arms around her, my heart hideously contracted with guilt and regret.

  ‘I’m so sorry. I’m so very sorry, Lotta.’

  * * *

  After the service I saw Selima and Benjy and made my way towards them. I wondered if they too had received last-minute texts from Doll, but now wasn’t the time to ask. Selima threw her arms around me and squeezed hard, before letting go and hurrying towards the open coffin.

  ‘They’re closing it. I want to pay my last respects,’ she said, over her shoulder. Her eyeliner was smudged.

  ‘You going to look at her?’ said Benjy.

  ‘No. I’d rather remember her as she was. Singing at The Horn Café.’

  He nodded.

  ‘Congratulations on the success you’ve had…’ I said.

  Then I realized that Lodestone was also finished; I shut my mouth with embarrassment.

  ‘It was a good run,’ said Benjy. ‘But of course, we won’t go on. We wouldn’t want to.’

  ‘No. Of course not.’

  It was awkward, as funeral conversations often are, our small talk somehow belittling the dead.

  ‘It’s good to see you,’ Benjy said. ‘Do you realise we haven’t spoken since I left your garage? Heard what happened with Dr Carl.’

  ‘Yeah. What kind of arsewipe drops his girlfriend with a text message?’

  Benjy gave his slow, affable grin and my eyes filled with tears to see it, which was hardly surprising: the atmosphere was as wet as a sponge. He slipped his arm into mine and led me up to the where the coffin stood, now closed. The lid was covered with framed photographs and the hip flask, a cheap feather boa and a cosmetic waxing kit. Who had organised that? It seemed inappropriate. Tacky. Maybe some other person who’d gotten close to her, a stranger. It was wrong. I turned away.

  * * *

  XVI.

  * * *

  Benjy was surprised when I turned down his offer to sing with his new band.

  ‘It’s sweet of you to ask, but I don’t want to. The desire has simply gone. I’m an okay musician but my voice isn’t that great, and I don’t have that persona to project, like Doll had.’

  ‘You were amazing on stage.’

  ‘Well—that was easy. I was being Suzy Quatro! All I had to do was watch clips of her, imitate her, cut my hair like hers. ’

  ‘It wasn’t as easy as all that, Suzanne.’

  The two of us were at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl, watching the technicians set up for The Black Keys. They pushed in the drum kit on a portable stage, already miked up. When they tested the light—four movable pillars strung with high-beam discs—it flashed over the crowd with ruthless, searching lucidity. I pressed myself under Benjy’s arm to keep warm, the wind tugging my hair.

  ‘What will you call your new band?’

  ‘We don’t know, yet.’

  I took out a slip of folded up paper from my purse and handed it to him. It was the first draft of a song.

  ‘You can have this. If it can be worked up into something half-decent.’

  Benjy read it and hummed the chords. I waited anxiously
.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s good.’

  ‘Not doggerel, then?’

  He grinned, reading it over. I sighed, listening to the drummer testing the snare while the wind sent raindrops spinning through the light like white-gold moths. In life, Doll would have loved it: a song written about her. She would fix the lyrics to project what she wanted, editing what she didn’t, in the same way she arranged herself like a curio cabinet. In this last year, she must have loved being photographed by professionals. I wished, more intensely than I have ever wished anything, that I could hear Doll fussing over my clumsy lyrics. Leave out the moustache, darling, that was just a phase! I’m glad you didn’t mention the tampons—that would have been vulgar. And don’t forget I died young and that’s got to be good, doesn’t it, I get a chance at immortality that way…

  That’s right, Doll, I thought. You will never have to watch youth take its leave, or suffer a double chin. You won’t have to go back to rehab, or one day walk on ancient feet with collapsed arches, clasping a fur stole over your hunching shoulders. And I won’t get to see what you might have become, making good on those small glimpses of majesty.

  In Benjy’s humming I heard the song take shape, and sensed where his gifts would take it. The song would have its own life, become a thing apart, but it would never be equal to her.