“So, what happened to Julie?” Hannah asked.
I was surprised she didn’t know about this already.
“She got mixed up with drugs at the foster home. That place was no good for her at all. Even before their parents died, things were screwed up. Their dad drank a lot. That’s how their parents died, he was drink-driving and wrapped the car around a tree. I think he was pretty rough on the kids, if you know what I mean. Tex would never say anything but he got banged up a few times. Julie too.”
Brownie kept his eyes focussed on the two guys while he spoke. The thud of punches was less frequent now and their breathing had become laboured.
“You’ve known him a long time?” I asked.
“We were at school together. What do you do when you’re kids? Your mate comes to school with a black eye, says he fell off his bike. You don’t ask questions. Anyway, Julie, she was happy back with Tex at first. Happy to get out of that place, I reckon. I think one of the old pervs running the place had his eyes on her — and she was only 15 when she left there. I think he’d been looking long before that, hopefully only looking. Poor kid. When Tex got her out of that place, he worked days and did the band stuff at night. He worked like a dog so she’d have a home. Julie hung around our band rehearsals, in my old man’s garage. Typical little sister at the time, running to get us drinks and helping out. Tex always promised he’d make it to the top and buy her a big house, a proper family home.”
Brownie made a sweeping gesture with his hand, indicating the empty block where the house had stood.
“Shit, it’s a mess,” he said. “Burnt to the ground. You were lucky to get out alive.”
“How did Julie die?” Hannah asked.
Tex turned his head towards us and I wondered if he’d heard her ask that. Both guys were on their backs; their fight had run out of steam. Tex raised himself onto one elbow but a yelp of pain escaped his body. Before I could even think what I was doing, I ran to him.
“Are you okay?” I asked. I couldn’t see his face but it was slick with something. Blood or maybe mud? The thought of him in pain made my heart burn with fear. He put his arm around my shoulder and used me to prise himself up off the ground. Devon tried to stumble to his feet too.
“Can you walk?” I asked Tex.
“I think so.” But he clutched at his stomach. “I think my ribs might be bruised.”
“Well, why would you want to do a fool thing like get into a fight anyway?” I turned to Devon. “And you were meant to come here to help, not to cause a ruckus like this.”
Devon laughed. Laughed!
“Make sure his hands are okay because he needs to play guitar. He’s playing that festival if I have to drag him there, kicking and screaming.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
After I’d cleaned Tex up, he wasn’t as much of a mess as I’d suspected. Mostly it’d been mud covering him. Still, he was knocked about a bit with some serious bruising on his face. Devon looked just as bad.
“What the hell were you guys thinking?” I asked. “What exactly were you trying to prove?”
I thought they’d at least do that guy thing where they bash the shit out of each other and afterwards are all friendly and sorted but Tex still didn’t look at Devon. Their rift ran much deeper than any fight could hope to fix. I turned to Hannah but she just shrugged her shoulders as she dabbed disinfectant on Devon’s face.
Brownie had helped carry them both inside. Tex couldn’t walk without groaning and wincing in pain.
“You should see a doctor about your ribs,” I told him.
“No way. No doctors. I’m fine. It’s just bruised ribs. The doctor would just tell me to rest up and I can do that on my own.”
I let it go. It wasn’t my body that had been beaten. He looked miserable though. I wondered what would happen. Brownie had told us no more about Julie because the fight had broken up and I couldn’t ask him while Tex was there. It seemed wrong anyway, to get the story from him when it should’ve been Tex himself telling me, if he wanted the story told.
When Tex was all patched up, he sat in silence but it seemed that the others weren’t ready to leave. The atmosphere was awkward and way beyond my ability to smooth over. I did the only thing I could think of and that was to put the kettle on.
“So, you live in the recording studio?” Brownie asked. “Good thing you put that toilet in when it was built or it’d be a bit uncomfortable. What do you do for a shower?”
“We have a camp shower out on the porch,” Tex said. “Though Ruby isn’t that impressed with it. And I think the wall around it needs replacing now.”
It sure did. The two of them had smashed most of it down before they hit the grass.
“We’re getting a mobile bathroom soon.”
“Not bad. I bet it’s a bit weird for you though,” said Hannah, indicating the studio room where we slept. “Sharing a room and all that.”
I didn’t feel like going into that.
“Wait,” said Brownie. “You’re not… oh…”
“Ruby’s my housekeeper,” Tex explained.
“Oh, housekeeper, right…” Brownie didn’t sound convinced. “I guess you’d have to pay her to put up with you.”
When he put it like that, it sounded even worse.
“Who wants a drink?” I said as the kettle boiled. I hoped not all of them did, because I didn’t have enough cups but the atmosphere was strained and I wanted the whole thing sorted out, one way or the other.
“Not tea, do you have anything stronger?” asked Devon.
I looked to Tex who didn’t reply.
Then I noticed what Devon was doing. The box of stuff that Tex had put aside was still in the corner and Devon was going through the contents. I wasn’t sure if Tex realised but I worried it would make him angry. Then Devon threw something at Tex. Tex held it up. It was the tiger mask from the box. Devon got out the elephant one and put it on.
“God, I remember that night. We thought we were so funny. Were we funny or were we just shitfaced?” said Brownie. “What else is in that box?”
Devon held up one of the fliers. I didn’t know Tex had kept any.
“Our first concert. That brings back memories. What a night. I thought we’d end up getting our throats cut because we played so bad.” Devon shook his head. “But we had something, didn’t we. We really had something.”
Tex didn’t react. He just sat with the tiger mask on his knee.
Devon pulled out a champagne glass.
“Ha, I remember that day.” Brownie laughed. “The glasses we nicked from the record company when we signed our contract. I’ve still got mine too. It’s sitting on the mantlepiece. Do you have yours, Devon?”
Devon nodded. He tried to smile at Brownie but his face broke into a grimace from his injuries.
“Why did you do it?” Tex said, so quietly I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it. He stood up. “Why did you give her the stuff that night?”
Devon turned to him in shock.
“What the fuck are you talking about, man?”
“You know. You were here. I found the bag beside her bed. It had to come from you.”
I looked from Tex to Devon. Something major was going on between them, the air almost crackled with the charge of tension.
“You thought that? You seriously thought that? How fucked up are you?”
“You can’t deny it.”
“Fuck you, man. If you believe that then you can live the rest of your life here wallowing in your own misery. I gave her nothing. I came here to talk to her, to try to sort things out. She was with that guy, that fat sleazy bastard. He left when I arrived and I tried to talk to her but she wouldn’t have anything to do with me. You were in the recording studio. I tried to talk to you. I bashed and bashed on the door but you wouldn’t answer. I tried to call you. I didn’t want to leave her alone. I gave her nothing.”
Tex didn’t reply but his emotions played out over his face, a complicated pattern of confusion and d
isbelief and guilt.
“I know I did the wrong thing at times. I took her out partying and neither of us said no to anything that was offered to us. And man, did it get offered. I didn’t get her started though. She was doing stuff at that home. You must’ve known that. She always had her hand out to take anything that was going.”
Tex’s nostrils flared. “She was only smoking pot, nothing harder.”
Devon raised his eyebrows as if to disagree. “She was getting in too far though, I knew that. I wanted her off the stuff. I wanted off it myself. That’s why I came out here. I told her we could go to rehab together, tried to make her see sense but she wouldn’t listen. And I thought I had time. I thought I had all the time.”
I tried to piece it together. Julie, the sister, had died of a drug overdose and Tex had thought Devon had given her the drugs. That was why he was mad at Devon.
“She was clean. She was coming good.” Tex’s splayed fingers covered his face and his voice came from somewhere deep inside his pain. I wanted to run and put my arms around him but I knew they had to work it out between themselves.
“She wasn’t clean, mate,” Brownie said. “I knew that, Devon knew it. We thought you knew it too. She wasn’t using like she had been but she was getting it somewhere. You tried to hide her all the way out here but if someone has the money and the connections, they can always get it.”
Tex faced Brownie, his face full of questions.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Before Brownie could answer, Devon butted in.
“Would you have listened? You wanted to wrap her up in cotton wool. She was your precious sister and you thought you could protect her but Julie had a will of her own. She never let anyone control her. You weren’t enough for her, Tex. Sorry, but you were only her brother and once she grew up enough to realise you weren’t the be-all and end-all of her life, you never had a hope in hell of controlling her. She was on a one-track path to self-destruction and no one could help her.”
Tex glared at Devon, the violence flashing in his eyes again but he stopped himself.
“She was my sister. My little sister. I thought I could save her. Everything I did, I did for her. The band, the music, everything. I thought if I had the money and the power, I could do anything but it all went to shit. How can you ask me to go on stage again, knowing that?”
“That’s bullshit,” said Brownie. “I’ve seen you up there. You might have started this for her but you’re kidding yourself if you think that’s all it was. Mate, you were made to be on stage. What do you think Julie would’ve wanted, if she’d survived and got clean? Remember her sitting up, watching you on stage? Her face shining and telling everyone that was her brother up there? She’d want you to keep playing, not rotting away.”
“If I’d got a normal job working in an office or something, I could’ve been there for her. She’d have not have been hanging around, meeting those slimeballs. Those hangers-on that gave her what she wanted, to get to us. They used her.”
Devon reached over and put his hand on Tex’s shoulder.
“You gave her everything you had. No one could’ve done more than you did for her. She was doomed.”
Tex knocked Devon’s hand away. “She wasn’t doomed. Don’t ever say she was doomed.”
Devon exchanged a glance with Brownie.
“We’re going to leave you, mate. You have a lot to think about but we’ll be in touch. If you really want to do her proud, don’t bury yourself with her. Get out and rock. That’s what she loved. Write a song for her, something loud and grinding and dirty. She’d have loved that.”
Tex hung his head, not responding. Devon and Brownie looked at Hannah, signalling that they should go.
As they walked to the door, Tex looked up.
“Wait, do either of you have a photo of her? They’re all gone now…”
His gaze went to where the house had been. I’d not even thought about the things he’d lost, the personal things. He must have had his whole life in there.
“Sure, mate. I’ll get copies made for you,” said Brownie, and Devon nodded.
Hannah ushered the two of them out and, when I came back in, Tex had gone to bed. I could understand that he needed time alone.
During the night though, I heard him. Although he tried to mask the sound, I heard him sob. I lay in my bed. I was the one who never got involved. I hated other people’s pain and emotions. I could put the pillow over my head and pretend I’d never heard him. That was probably what he’d prefer anyway. But the sound he made had so much pain in it, I couldn’t stay detached.
I went to him, to give him the comfort he needed. I slipped into his bed beside him, not sure how he’d react. He wasn’t the type to accept sympathy and I half-thought he’d yell at me but he didn’t. He put his arm around me and pulled me closer to him. So tight I could hardly breathe. With his body nestled into mine, he buried his head in my neck and stayed like that until he fell asleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I thought things would be awkward the next morning with Tex but he was out of bed by the time I woke up. I found him on the porch outside, sitting with his guitar – the Julie guitar – looking spaced out, I wasn’t even sure if he saw me. He strummed the guitar, as though trying to sort things out with it, and I could tell he needed to concentrate. I made myself some breakfast and then got out of his way.
Tex hadn’t said anything more about the festival but I took his new-found interest in playing the guitar as a good sign. I wanted to do something to help but I had no idea what. If I pushed him too hard, he might give up. Leaving him alone to sort through his thoughts definitely seemed like the best idea.
I worked on getting my app ready to upload but I couldn’t concentrate. I went online and checked the downloads on my existing apps. Things were quiet. A few downloads, not many though. Then I checked if CJ was online so I could chat. She’d not been around much since she’d met a guy and was doing real life stuff like dating. Then I checked in with Mum and Dad. Mum had posted more photos online of her frolicking on the beach in her bikini. I swore that woman would end up with her photos on some sicko MILF group. I’d sent her strict instructions about online security but she didn’t listen.
I went outside once to ask Tex if he wanted some lunch but he didn’t answer. I made him a sandwich and sat it down on the porch beside him. It was there if he wanted to eat it.
Since he was in a world of his own, I took my own sandwich into my room and tried to be productive. A part of me was on alert though, in case he needed something. Finally, I got bored and hungry so I started making dinner.
“Listen to this,” Tex called to me.
I went out to watch him play. It had gotten dark and the sky was full of stars. The only other light was a ship far out in the bay.
The tune started out soft and melodic. It sounded nice. But then suddenly, it all seemed to crash. The sounds were harsh and awful, yet compelling. I didn’t know what he did with that guitar but the music reached inside me as if he’d dug out that part of my soul I kept hidden from the rest of the world with a sharp edged brutality.
When he finished, I couldn’t speak.
“What do you think?” he asked. “Did you like it?”
He looked up at me so eagerly, making me wonder if my opinion actually did matter to him.
“I didn’t like it but I think it’s genius,” I said. “It made my flesh crawl.”
He put his guitar down and smiled.
“Do you think I should play the festival?” he asked.
I sat down beside him.
“Yeah, I do. Play the festival. Give it a go. If you decide music is not for you, then give it up but don’t do it because you’re afraid or because you’re angry. Do it because you are ready to move on.”
He stared off into the distance at the stars.
“I still have to write the lyrics.”
“The words will come,” I said.
He reached for my hand and we sat
in silence for a long time with his hand in mine, both staring at the stars.
***
“We can’t rehearse here,” said Devon. “Not while you’re living in the studio.”
“Sure we can, we can just clear some space.” Tex was full of action since he’d made the decision.
“What do you think, Ruby?” Devon asked. He wasn’t as much of a jerk as I’d first thought. “It’s your space too. You might want to sleep or something and you’d be surrounded by loud, annoying musos.”
“I don’t mind. I’ll just put my headphones on if it gets too much.” I’d rather have them rehearse there than not rehearse at all. Even though Tex had agreed to play, he was still very skittish about the whole thing. It was easier to give in on that one point than to have him pull out all together.
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. I can make a workspace in the sound booth.”
It all seemed to happen so fast after that. Brownie had a job during the day and Devon worked at a bar so they had to organise rehearsals around that. Even from the first rehearsal though, you could tell they’d kill it.
“We’re so rusty, we can’t even think of headlining a festival,” Tex said.
“You’re kidding, right? You sound amazing.” I mean, I wasn’t any kind of expert or anything but they sounded fine to me. Tex did seem a bit stiff playing guitar, like he was holding something back, but I figured he’d get back into the swing of it.
Tex bit his lip and nodded. He turned to Brownie and Devon.
“We can’t screw this up. You guys have to be on time and ready to go for every rehearsal. We’re professionals.”
Brownie laughed. “That’s the old Tex back.”
***
Things began to change. The studio stopped being a sanctuary. During the day, we had workmen measuring up the house site and doing their workmen-type things. As soon as they’d left, Devon and Brownie turned up for rehearsals. For the next month, they rehearsed every day.
Rock You (Fallen Star Book 1) Page 14