Cherry Bomb

by Jenny Valentish

  6. The Lesbians

  7. The Foundlings

  8. Miso Horny

  9. Geisha Girls

  10. The Vignettes

  And so, The Bain Maries began to take solid form in Rose’s bedroom, with Erica wedged behind the kit in shorts so small I preferred not to turn around to face her. Reluctantly, I put her anarcho-vegetarian anthem to three chords.

  C So you like a bit of steak to eat from day to day

  C You like the taste and you’re prepared to pay

  F Money to kill the animals that do you no harm

  C And at night you go to sleep safe and warm . . . G

  We were, and will always remain, a punk-rock band—although you may variously have read ‘pop’, ‘pop-punk’, ‘punk-rock’ and (terrible) ‘kitty-punk’. From the start, I was the chief songwriter.

  Within a week I wrote the vaguely tribal ‘Mud (‘Mud sticks, sticks like glue / How about I throw it at you / Throw it at the wall / Throw it at the wall / Throw it at the wall’, etc.); and ‘Creeps and Perves’, about the men of the western suburbs; and ‘Dead Samantha’, with its unrevealingly ominous plotline (‘She said oh my god / Oh my god / Oh my god’). On this particular night I revealed ‘Dumb Girl’, which was about Erica, who thumped away at her toms none the wiser. I could always feel Erica’s eyes boring into the back of me when we played, probably judging me for looking too lithe.

  ‘I’m not being horrible, but I think your guitar is out of tune,’ Erica said, waving ‘Dumb Girl’ to a halt. Rose sighed and drew cherry lip balm on her lips, which I’d come to understand meant: This is your problem.

  As soon as Erica left each night, Rose and I spent hours honing our craft in front of her ensuite mirror. Lined up with the light dimmed flatteringly, we practised shimmering. I filmed Rose on my phone as she radiated magickal energy through her eyeballs, then she did me. The model Tyra Banks called it ‘smizing’ and we’d watched all the footage on America’s Next Top Model. Rose had even started to upload her own tutorials, on hair, make-up and facial expressions.

  ‘I’m doing it! Get it!’ she’d say.

  Rose had a natural propensity to look sour when she was off-guard, so my job was to make sure that she didn’t slip. In return, she coached me on how to give a small, magnanimous sigh whenever a photo was taken, which softened the face.

  ‘Through the nose,’ she instructed. ‘And think “blessings”. “I bless you.”’

  We’d also taken to speaking with American accents, though we hadn’t discussed this as such; it just happened organically. All three of us, Rose decided, needed to wear one bra strap visibly hanging down under our top, even at school. That would be The Bain Maries’ thing.

  These are some of my fondest memories of Rose. Anyone we came to work closely with over the years, from stylists to drivers and personal assistants, would comment among themselves—and to the odd journalist—that she and I were scathing about each other. But I needed her. I loved the reward of making her face light up, just as I hated to feel myself blacken inside whenever I compared our lives. So, when The Bain Maries were booked time at Glasshouse—to emerge, with John Villiers’ spit-polish, as The Dolls—I didn’t hesitate at the idea of being locked into a contract with my cousin for an unspecified number of years. We were yin and yang, the perfect foil to each other, I thought.

  And anyway, I owed her.

  3

  MEN

  I’ll forever be remembered as the scary chick in the thigh-high boots. I made sure that I could drink the male journalists under the table, and I’d screw around, taking my pick of the band and crew. But at the same time, I was propelled by a fury. Ever since I had the realisation as a little girl that I was on the losing team, I’d tried to be one of the boys. But I wasn’t one of them and we all knew it. In truth, this dichotomy wasn’t beneficial to my wellbeing.

  POUR ME ANOTHER—ALANNAH DALL (SABRE BOOKS)

  You attracted a certain type of man, being in a band. You had your peers, such as The Dummies, who rehearsed in the next studio and looked at us as little sisters; your collectors, such as John Villiers, who developed us and captured our souls; and your leeches, such as Hank. I met Hank the night we finished up recording at Glasshouse; it was as if he saw my coat-tails fluttering as I exited the door on Bayswater Road and fancied he’d grab himself a ride.

  We were on our way to Dingo’s, just a few blocks away, where we were going to see The Dummies play. They made dark psych-pop, like The Byrds on bad acid. They had been rehearsing in the next studio along from us and we started getting to know them when Rose asked if they’d share their beers. We were rarely ID-ed by bottle shops in Kings Cross, but I hadn’t found a job since dropping out of school at the end of Year Ten, so money was tight.

  The Dummies were loaded. They had signed to a major and were picked up by the New Musical Express as the poster boys for the new wave of new-wave Australian music, and they were rarely out of the news. They couldn’t usefully tell us how they managed it, though, because they had no idea about anything. All they did was punch cones, fixate on guitar tones and talk in circles. Still, we watched them keenly, as though they held the keys to our success. We were always assimilating, scavenging, taking shape.

  Their sleepy-eyed singer, Gareth, looked like he’d been knocked on the head with a surfboard once too often, but he could talk about music twenty-five hours a day. Occasionally he’d tell me about what ratbags he and guitarist Bruce were at school: egging teachers’ cars, chroming in the toilets until they had two brain cells left between them. Brutally speaking, if The Dummies ever fell out of favour with fans they’d not be good for much but working in a drive-through, and then they’d last about three days.

  Gareth was talking his management into letting us support them on their next tour.

  ‘You’ll bring the teenage girls,’ Gareth wheezed through filthy bubbling water, as if he had a deficit of such things. As well as the odd catwalk model with a back catalogue of famous boyfriends, The Dummies attracted women who loved too much. Something about Gareth’s on-stage tantrums and his guileless way in interviews had them weeping on message boards as though he were a puppy mangled at the side of the road.

  He’s so fragile!

  Everyone leave him alone!

  Sometimes they hung around outside the rehearsal studios in their Dummies T-shirts, psychedelic leggings and shorts with knee-high socks, and shot baleful looks at The Dolls. They often carried a stack of pancakes in a Tupperware box, as an ode to that Dummies song ‘Pancakes’. Bruce, The Dummies’ guitarist, called them ‘the sisters of mercy’.

  As Rose and I walked the three blocks to Dingo’s we discussed the fact that someone had stolen Bruce’s pedals at their last show. I’d only ever nicked a guitar strap and strings from an open case. Pedals you just didn’t do.

  ‘They can afford it, though,’ noted Rose as we cut through Orwell Street, past the odd ibis. I loved those bald birds, toppling in bins and tripping over their own legs. They were simply misunderstood.

  ‘They’ve got way more money than they let on,’ she continued. ‘Sadie told me Gareth gets his hair bleached at Wink but he gets them to leave the roots black.’

  Sadie was our friend who was studying hair and make-up at tech, and did ours for our early photo shoots. Sometimes she was a useful buffer between Rose and me, but we were getting on really well tonight without her. I started singing ‘Wasted’—Alannah’s duet with Danger Michaels—and when we came to the chorus, Rose let me be the girl. We sang it lustily as people looked from the creperie across the street.

  I wore: pastel pink Mad Max hair with plaits and feathers; silver lamé off-the-shoulder dress; motorcycle boots.

  Rose wore: lilac fake fur jacket; wet-look black jeans, vest top, beret and hologram sunnies.

  We had our CD to give out around town now, and had written John Villiers’ name on it as large as our own. We were ripe for the picking; we just needed a record label to shake our tree. The most obvious
route, Rose said, adjusting the neckline of my dress, would be to maintain the John Villiers link, because everyone in the industry knew his name.

  I was doing my best. Earlier in the control room, I’d pressed myself softly into him as I kissed him goodbye on the cheek, so that he’d remember. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. Rose took a selfie of the three of us and posted it on Facebook.

  We’d taken one of John Villiers’ old drum machines with us, half as hostage, half as replacement for Erica, who’d been going around saying we’d better not show our faces in Parramatta again, now that we’d given her the boot.

  ‘She’d better not be there tonight,’ I told Rose.

  ‘She won’t come all the way in. But Jimmy will be there, so don’t embarrass me.’

  Rose’s new boyfriend, Jimmy, worked behind the bar at Dingo’s, and now that we’d left school he didn’t mind people meeting her. He’d get us AAA passes, which stood for Access All Areas. Usually it was a sticker, but if it was a bigger show, he said, it’d be a laminate—a ‘lammy’—to hang around our necks. It meant we’d get to hang out with people such as the band booker of the venue, but we had to always be on our guard. On a couple of occasions Rose had caught me crying during laboured sets from boys who knew too many chords. It just happened whenever I’d had a few drinks; like someone had turned on a tap. I figured nobody would notice if we were all facing the same way, but nothing got past Rose. Back in the eighties, no one thought twice if you cried, or pissed yourself on stage, or overdosed in bed. These days it wasn’t cool. Funny how everyone liked a histrionic girl in a video clip but not so much in real life.

  We slipped into the cool darkness of Dingo’s, our shoes making leeching noises every time we lifted them from the sticky carpet. My eyes adjusted to the gloom and we cut a course down the centre, heading for the beer garden. Outside Jimmy’s mates were standing around a tall table. Rose immediately leaned into Jimmy—shoulder-length hair, baggy pants, black T-shirt with a sombrero-wearing owl printed on it—and kissed him proprietorially.

  ‘I’m exhausted,’ she said, loud enough for everyone to hear. ‘We’ve been recording for, like, eight hours and the album’s finally in the can. I never want to do another double-tracked overdub.’

  They might have taken her more seriously if she wasn’t pulling her hair up into a ponytail at the time, an action intended to show off her stomach and get her rack riding high. Personally I didn’t say much till the third drink kicked in, at which point—like a phoenix rising—I became the centre of attention. Lately I’d taken to challenging everyone to an arm-wrestle; I knew that it embarrassed Rose, but the more uncomfortable people were around me, the more bravado spurred me on. Rose would catch up pretty quickly, though. ‘I’m only little,’ was her catchphrase when drunk, accompanied by a three-tiered laugh.

  At gigs—anyone’s—we’d scream, ‘The Dolls!’ and mimic the singer down the front. We were hilarious. Between sets, Rose might drop into the splits or dance on a chair. If a social-pages photographer was around she’d flash the tongue-through-the-V-fingers or press her tits up against mine. Someone would invariably ask me, ‘And what’s your party trick?’ We were starting to get known around town, definitely.

  ‘I hear you take requests,’ Jimmy’s friend said, bored of listening to Rose talk about The Dolls’ live set at the Java Lounge. He nudged his mate, to prep him for the punchline. ‘What about you and your sister together?’

  ‘She’s not my sister; fuck off,’ I said routinely. Other times, I’d just cut to the chase upon introduction: ‘I’m the mean one. You should meet Rose.’

  •

  You’re probably wondering what it is Hank Black did that night at Dingo’s to make me fall for him. Did he appear bathed in a celestial glow? Did Cupid himself usher Hank forth and pop his collar? Because all you’ve heard are tabloid stories of him being a user, a scrounger, a cheat. But he was all right, you know. Once.

  Traditionally, comedians are socially awkward depressives, either nothing to look at or shocking to look at. Hank was from a new breed of filthy young rock’n’roll comics. I don’t want to say ‘bad boy’, because the expression brings to mind suburban dating profiles. Let’s say a ‘loin on legs’. That’s what I whispered to Rose.

  Rose had taken to insisting that I run all prospective roots past her for her approval, but she hadn’t learned to use sex as currency like I had. This newfound power had its drawbacks, though. Already my problems from Parramatta were spreading to Kings Cross, like an army of cane toads. I was starting to get the ‘I know you’ from bitches at gigs, and they weren’t talking about seeing me play at the Java Lounge. Whenever we did play a gig—two defiant girls bashing our instruments in front of a drum machine—I scoped the audience, checking for adversaries.

  ‘You’re in that band. Aren’t you the horrible one?’ asked Hank, who’d been watching us as he lounged at the bar. Now he was upon us. He spoke with an Irish accent, which immediately made me assume certain things about him, based on my experience of the bars around Bondi. I activated my force fields as he continued, ‘My name’s Hank. Hello, horrible.’

  He was negging me; the oldest game in the book. Push a girl down with negative jokes and make her bounce back up wanting approval. Ignoring him, I pulled the silver foil out of my new cigarette packet. The fragrance of virgin tobacco wafted up to my nose.

  You Am I came on over the sound system and I was trying to remember which song it was while lighting my regulation Marlboro Red, but Hank wouldn’t leave me be. ‘I know how to crack your code,’ he said, running a finger down the sleeve of my leather jacket. He had on a plain T-shirt and jeans. His hair was dirty, but it messed up well. When he tilted his head and looked down at me, one of his eyelids flipped shut, like that of a plastic doll I had as a child. I would come to find that it did that a lot, giving him a wasted look even when he was relatively sober. He liked to pretend he was more wasted than he was, anyway.

  He pulled out a pack of cards.

  ‘Oh my god. You’re not actually going to do a card trick,’ I said. Everyone laughed. ‘What are you, a magician or something?’

  He turned a falter into a swagger. ‘No, I’m not. I’m a comedian-stroke-promoter.’

  ‘Slash-actor, slash-model,’ Rose cut in, looking pleased with herself. She took a sip of her margarita.

  Hank barely paused. ‘Viva la revolución,’ he said, saluting her beret. She looked at him blankly.

  I stifled a laugh. I thought Rose might ark up, but she’d decided to ignore him. I could hear her, across the table with her hangers-on, off and running in an American accent: ‘You dreamt of me? Oh my god! What happened? Did we totally make out?’

  So, I was safe to continue. Hank and I turned back to each other. He was as shady as shit, but there was something about him. He was like me, damaged goods. I could smell that a mile off. It meant he would be a great root.

  ‘What kind of a name is “Hank”?’ I demanded, stabbing my straw into the lemon in my gin. ‘Shouldn’t you be called “Paddy” or something?’

  ‘Hilarious,’ he rejoined, leaning on the table so I could see down his baggy T-shirt. ‘It’s my stage name. And no, you’re not finding out my real name unless you sleep with me.’

  •

  ‘He’s a groupie, basically,’ was Rose’s take on it during our post-mortem back at her parents’ house, keeping our voices down in the kitchen. ‘Jimmy says Hank’s slept with every woman we’re likely to get a support slot with . . . and he has more product in his hair than you do.’ But she was laughing.

  I sat on the stool at the breakfast bar, watching her prepare a drink under the big map of America we liked to pore over, listing aloud the states we wanted to visit and delighting at the limitless possibility of their names: Colorado. Kentucky. Georgia. Delaware. One thing I’d always admired about Rose was her attention to detail. If she was making a cold drink she’d mix sparkling water, two kinds of juice, squeeze on passionfruit and cut a
slice of lime. The lamps in her room were draped with vintage shawls, while fairy lights trailed her mantle. She put care into everything. I could see the benefit of this, the way she made herself and others feel valued.

  Back in her room, we sat across from each other, cross-legged, and meditated on the future that awaited us in LA. ‘Picture us having meetings by the pool of the Chateau Marmont,’ Rose said under her breath, the same way she used to dictate the plots of our Barbie games. To our minds, the Chateau Marmont was the top echelon of Los Angeles accommodation, where celebrities had trysts, conducted poolside interviews and overdosed.

  Rose breathed in deeply. ‘Put it out to the universe.’

  4

  BAD MANAGER

  Where to start with the list of Things We Didn’t Want to Do? Things you wouldn’t even believe, like the time we had to play at a sheik’s birthday—an honour that usually has a hefty price tag attached to it, yet I saw none of it. Or the time I was sent to entertain the troops. I was a pacifist if I bothered to think about it, but any publicity is good publicity, apparently.

  POUR ME ANOTHER—ALANNAH DALL (SABRE BOOKS)

  It was at one of our early shows at Dingo’s that our manager-to-be introduced himself. He was a benign man wearing black-rimmed glasses and an expensive-looking black V-neck jumper. He looked like the sort of bloke who’d say ‘Ciao,’ and he was.

  You’re in the wrong industry, was my first thought as Marcus slid into our booth with his card proffered. It said ‘Marcus Biel Management’, black on cream, but it wasn’t even embossed. Still, I shifted up to make room for him. I was killing time with Hank before we went on and he was pointing out women in the room who were stalking him or had stalked him already. The confidence that attracted me to him that first night had already revealed itself to be a monster, now that his web show had been picked up by a major network. I dreaded to think what kind of loose-hipped prima donna he would become when it actually went on air. He was a worthy drinking partner, though. With his messy hair, filthy jeans and ripped T-shirts, you couldn’t tell if he was in a band or if he was going to ask you for fifty cents. He was also riddled with daddy issues; it was quite sweet. He had that hangdog way some men had when they thought they were worthless. It meant I could tell him bad things I’d never told anybody else.