Song for Jess: Prelude Series - Part Two

by Meg Buchanan

  “She’s burning up, Isaac. I’ve given her the baby paracetamol, but it hasn’t done anything.” The tears started rolling down her cheeks like she had just been keeping it together until I arrived home.

  “Let me hold her.” I took Isabelle off her, and even the blanket felt hot. I touched my lips against her forehead, and, instead of being soft and warm, she was hot and dry. I pushed the edge of the blanket away from her face and studied the closed eyes, the waxy white skin, the cheeks red and burning. I put my face close to her mouth to feel if she was breathing. Her breath felt like a soft whisper against my cheek. She was flushed and quiet and floppy as if all her bones had gone.

  “Do you think I should call Mum?” asked Jess.

  “Nah. Call an ambulance.” We’d been through colds and teething and earache, but I’d never seen anything like this. I bet if we called Jess’s Mum, she’d say to call an ambulance.

  Jess picked her phone up off the table and dialled 111. I could see her hands shaking, but the tears had stopped.

  “How long has she been like this?” I asked as we waited for an answer.

  “I don’t know. She was fine when I put her to bed. I heard her cry out a little while ago. She was like this when I picked her up.”

  Someone was on the other end.

  “We need an ambulance,” said Jess, then answered questions while I held our little girl. She was so still, I couldn’t tell if she was alive.

  When I got ready to go pick Luke up this afternoon, she was happily toddling around the house, talking to me. A beautiful little girl, full of love, the centre of our world.

  “Daddy, ‘tar,” she said when the guitar went in the back seat. She put her arms out to be hugged before I got in the car. I picked her up and her hand slid around behind my neck, and her cheek rested against mine.

  “See you in the morning, kid.” I handed her over to Jess and took off. We were going to be late. I thought there was no time to muck around.

  It seemed like hours before the ambulance arrived, but it was probably only minutes.

  “Should we pack anything for her?” Jess asked.

  “I don’t know.” I’d never taken a baby to hospital before. Fuck, a few hours ago, I was on stage in a pub, playing a violin. I still smelled of the sweat and alcohol.

  So we did nothing. We just waited. I figured if we needed something, Mum or Dad would get it for us. Or Jess’s parents. They could come and get us from the hospital too. I wasn’t taking the car. There was no way either of us was letting her go into that ambulance alone.

  Finally, the ambulance arrived, and we were rushed to the hospital.

  Isabelle died an hour ago.

  A virus.

  Nobody’s fault.

  That’s what the doctor said anyway.

  Jess is nineteen.

  I’m twenty.

  Isabelle was eighteen months.

  Luke and Reg helped me make the coffin. Luke helped me carry it. Did you know, when it’s a little kid’s funeral, the whole world turns up? And they expect you to shake hands and say the right thing. And, Jesus, what’s the right thing? It gets like you’re trying to make them feel better.

  In the end, I couldn’t stand it. They could all say what the fuck they liked as far as I was concerned. It wouldn’t bring Isabelle back. I buggered off and left them to it. I walked around to Collins’ house and let myself in.

  I thought maybe I’d play something, try to lose myself in the music the way I could in this house. But I didn’t. I got out the stuff Collins and I are working on and stuck it up on the ledge. Then I sat on the piano seat and did nothing.

  After a while, I heard the key in the door, and when it opened there was Collins. He stood by the door for a moment like he was deciding what to do. Then he came over and sat beside me, the way we’d sit if we were working on something.

  “What are you playing?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  He nodded, and we sat for a while. Then he said gently, “You can’t be here now, Isaac. Everyone is looking for you.”

  “And?”

  “I have to let them know where you are.” He said it like he was asking permission.

  “Okay.” I shrugged. Like I cared.

  He got his phone out of his pocket and flipped it open.

  He must have rung Jess’s dad. “John,” he said. I guess he had his number. They work together.

  “He’s at my place.” Collins listened for a moment, then asked me, “How did you get here?”

  “Walked.”

  “Walked,” he said into the phone. Another pause. “Yeah, okay. I’ll drop him off at home soon.”

  Someone must have got rid of the flowers and cards because by the time Collins dropped me off it had all been cleared away. Jess and her Mum were waiting for me.

  “Where did you go?” Jess asked.

  “Collins’.”

  “Why?”

  I shrugged. “I figured no one would be there.”

  “We were worried about you, Isaac,” said Jess’s mother.

  I shrugged again. Why would they worry about me? I’m useless. I couldn’t even protect my own kid. I wasn’t even here when she got sick.

  After that, the house was filled with emptiness. I tried to support Jess, but it was hollow. She tried to support me. It didn’t work. Our parents helped us hold our lives together. They said it was until we could face doing it for ourselves. But we just drifted. Like two ghosts wandering through a house filled with emptiness. We survived each day going through the motions and not thinking.

  Jess and I worked and lived, but something was always missing. It was like what we once had was wrapped up somewhere in a corner, and we couldn’t find it. Like we were two train tracks. If I looked ahead, it looked like we would get closer soon. But no matter how far we went, we never found a way to touch.

  One day Jess said, “Isaac, I’m going to the cemetery to put flowers on Isabelle’s grave. Do you want to come?”

  “I could come after work.” But when I got home, she’d already done it.

  Or, I’d come home and see Jess had been crying. It was like that, sometimes. Something would happen, and it would hit you when you weren’t looking. Then missing Isabelle would flood over you. If Jess was like that, and I tried to go near her, she’d push me away like she was lost in that place and didn’t want to be found.

  That’s the way it is with us now.

  Life is hell.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Sunday 29th January

  I sat on the porch, leaned against the wall, and watched Jess wander out to the letterbox. It was Sunday and it was hot again.

  “What do you want to do today?” Jess asked when she came back with the junk mail in her hand.

  I knew what I should be doing. The grass was long. The butterflies were in the cabbages again. The breakfast dishes were sitting on the bench. For that matter, so were last night’s dinner dishes. But what the hell? If they were still there tomorrow, we could do them before we went to work.

  I hadn’t touched a guitar for eight months. As for the journals, they’d spent the time lined up on the bookshelf collecting dust. If the violin and piano still have strings, I wouldn’t know. All that seemed to die with Isabelle.

  Why bother? Mum found Jess a job at the local paper, so she’s the writer now.

  I watched a car roll up the drive. Jess shaded her eyes to see who it was. Her mum got out and went around to the passenger side. She took an envelope off the seat then shut the car door and came over.

  “Good morning, you two. Isn’t it a lovely day?” she said.

  “Hi Mum. Do you want a coffee?” asked Jess.

  “If you’re making one.”

  I hauled myself up. “I’ll make it.”

  Jess’s mother was all right, but sometimes all that niceness could get on your nerves. I left them to talk.

  Her mum settled on the step. I found the coffee pot, washed out three mugs, and made coffee.


  I went outside, and Jess had the envelope her mum had got out of the car. She held it up so I could see it.

  “Mum’s brought your birthday present around, Isaac.”

  I swapped a mug of coffee for the present. I was turning twenty-one in a couple of days.

  “Thanks.” I handed Jess’s mum her mug.

  “Thanks, Isaac.” She looked sort of hesitant.

  I opened the envelope. Inside was a birthday card and two tickets for the Big Day Out in Auckland on the 20th. It was an expensive birthday present. I stared at the tickets. Jess’s bloody parents were interfering again.

  “I work on Fridays.” I went to hand the tickets back.

  Jess’s mother nodded. “I know.” She still looked hesitant. That’s not like her at all. Usually she crashed in where she wasn’t wanted. She never minded her own business like she should.

  She took a breath. “I went and talked to Mr Reilly. He said you can have the day off if you want to go.”

  Did I want to spend all Friday at a music festival?

  I pushed the tickets back at her. “No.”

  Instead of taking them, Jess’s mother put her hand over mine.

  “You’ll enjoy it, Isaac. And Jess too. It’ll do you both good to get away and do something fun. You need to start living again.”

  “Do you want to go?” I asked Jess. Maybe a day together acting young will make things better. It can’t make them worse.

  She nodded.

  “Okay, thanks.” It was ages since Jess and I did anything together.

  Two weeks later we piled into the car early in the morning. We went to Auckland and headed for Mt Smart Stadium and the Big Day Out. The crowd was huge, the biggest ever: forty-four thousand people.

  And the heat was unbelievable. Endless bodies streaming into the stadium. The clamour, dust, rubbish and excitement, all mixed together with the noise of the early bands. The White Stripes were the headline act, and it looked like plenty of other people liked them too.

  I stood in the middle of the flow looking at the programme. I figured out how it worked, then turned to Jess. “Lilly Allen first?”

  “I don’t mind.” Jess watched a goth fairy, completely wrecked, sitting on the back of the four-wheeler ambulance. The fairy looked stoned and woeful. Long streaks of mascara tears lined her face. Her bewildered fairy friends followed behind in their black boots and net skirts.

  “I bet they’re wondering how soon they can ditch her,” said Jess.

  “Just happened.” The friends faded off to the side.

  We went into the boiler room where Lilly was up on stage and watched for a while. It was hot and sticky and packed. Lilly sounded great, but we couldn’t see her because we were so far back in the tent. We watched the video screen.

  “Not the same.” I had to shout to make myself heard.

  “We can’t see anything, and I’m thirsty.” Jess grabbed my arm. “Let’s go.” We worked our way out again pushing against the kids still going in.

  “Did you see anyone selling water?” Jess asked when we were outside. It was no quieter. She was still shouting.

  “A caravan over there.” I waved at the corner of the grandstand.

  “I’ll get it. Do you want some?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Wait here for me.” Jess wandered off.

  I sat on the rock wall outside the tent listening to the noise and watching the silent disco, people dancing with headphones on, different music playing in each set so they were dancing out of sync.

  Weird.

  A blonde girl in a checked skirt and cowboy boots wandered by. Then emos with dark soulful eyes and long black coats came the other way. A couple of years ago, I could have joined them. Now, no eyes like a panda anymore.

  I saw Adam and Noah wandering along. They were studying the programme. They look like they were trying to figure out the map. I hadn’t seen them for months. They used to come around when they were home, but generally they’re in Hamilton at university. Stadium lives on in Hamilton without me. Just Luke, Cole, Adam and Noah.

  They sat down each side of me. “Hi Zac,” said Noah loudly. I looked from one to the other.

  “Where’s Jess?” asked Adam.

  “At the caravan buying water.” I looked through the crowd to see if I could spot her coming back.

  “We’ve been thinking about you,” said Noah.

  “Why?”

  “Come back to Stadium.”

  “Nah, Luke asked. Told him I can’t.”

  “Why not? You still play, don’t you?”

  “I’m pretty rusty. Haven’t played for months.”

  Jess was walking towards us with the bottles of water. “Hi. It’s hot, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where are Luke and Cole?”

  “Gone to park the van.” They stood up. “We’re supposed to be meeting them at the beer garden but can’t find it.”

  “It’s over there, just past the water caravan.” She waved her bottle past the herd of people heading towards us.

  “Come with us. Have a drink.”

  “Nah,” I said. “Jess and I have a plan. Might meet up with you later.”

  “Text us. We’ll let you know where we are,” said Noah. “It would be bloody hard to hear the phone ring.” They wandered off to the left.

  “What were they doing?”

  “Just catching up,” I said.

  It was the middle of the afternoon, and Jess and I put our plan into action. We found our way to the main stages then we sat in the grandstand and watched the bands. The mosh pit danced in the sun and the dust. A huge D-shaped barrier fence surrounded the kids in the pit and the two main stages. This massive black spider loomed over everyone, twenty metres tall, an evil grin on its face, a huge orange grimace to go with the hooded eyes, bright plastic colours on black. The kids dancing inside the barrier were presided over by the spider.

  It wasn’t packed in the pit yet, and it looked like the best place to be. I knew that was where I wanted to finish up, and we needed to get there well before the White Stripes started setting up.

  The afternoon wore on, and the names got bigger.

  Two drunk kids came weaving by us and sat down. They looked about fifteen. The girl, tiny with blond braids, was sunburned already. She’d have more than a hangover to worry about in the morning.

  She saw me looking at her and held up an H2Go bottle.

  “Do you want a drink? It’s vodka.”

  I had a swig. She was right, straight vodka. She held up a second bottle.

  “You can keep it if you like. I don’t need two.”

  I sipped on the vodka again. “Okay.” The kids staggered off to find a tree to sleep under. I took a few more swigs and started to like the warm glow it gave me. I offered Jess a drink, but she declined.

  Twilight arrived. Jess and I went down to the centre of the arena. We leaned against the barrier fence for a while and watched the acts. Slowly the inside of the barrier filled up as the names got bigger and everything got louder.

  “What if we get separated?” I yelled into Jess’s ear.

  “I’ll meet you by him,” she yelled back and pointed at the spider.

  Kings of Leon came on. Never liked them much but Jess was a fan.

  A text flashed across the video screen. ‘Kings of Gay’. Jess looked at me.

  “Not guilty.” I showed her my hands. “They suck, but my phone’s still in my pocket.”

  Jess looked irritated and moved away. I probably didn’t need to say they sucked. But lots of things annoy Jess now, and she could stay frosty for a while these days. She pulled out her own phone, took a picture of the band and sent it with a text. I waited for her message to come up. We stood in heavy silence leaning against the barrier for a long time.

  Franz Ferdinand, on the left stage, looked like bored boys who didn’t want to be there. When they finished, Iggy Pop, a skinny old man showing his flat white stomach in jeans slung so low you ex
pected to see pubic hair, started on the right stage, and the crowd moved over to watch him.

  Like I told Adam, I had a plan. “I want to be right up front when the White Stripes come on,” I yelled over the noise and racket at Jess, and she nodded. I figured if we made our way to where we wanted to be while the other bands were playing, we’d get the best spot.

  “This is our chance. the White Stripes are on next,” I yelled, and she nodded again. We edged our way to the front of the mosh pit to see the stage get set up.

  There was Iggy Pop, warbling away on the next stage and trying a stage dive, while me and Jess watched the red, white and black set develop ready for Jack White. I kept swigging on the vodka as the long red banners dropped from the gods with black palm trees and huge white feathers silhouetted against them.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Jess stuck with me but pretty much ignored me. Slowly, as the pit filled up with kids, the crowd pressed around, and we got moved further apart by people pushing between us. I had never been so close to so many people all trying to stand in the same place before.

  I saw Adam standing behind some girl with his arms around her.

  I should be doing that too. I should have kept Jess with me. We’d been to enough of these things in the past to know what can happen.

  But I didn’t try to get past anyone to get to Jess. Like I said, Jess can stay angry for a while these days, and I’m not too pleased with her either getting shitty like that for no reason. I can get pissed off at her easily too.

  Then the White Stripes came on stage, just the two of them in white suits and fedoras. A huge roar went up, a sustained ferocious sound that echoed around the stadium and back at the crowd. Jack White started to play. At first the roar drowned him out then silence, and the music soared.

  The 1957 Gretsch White Penguin guitar sobbed, the piano spoke, and the singing was raw then sweet and pure. Jack strutted and slunk and performed. I could see the mastery in it. He held that guitar like a baby and played. Intense concentration didn’t stop him sauntering across the stage to be at the right spot to hit the tremolo bar once he’d played the note, and then the reverb rang out. It was spine-chilling. The echoes built up and slowly decayed as they were absorbed.