‘If you were going to leave your wife it may as well be for one of The Dolls,’ Sadie contemplated.
‘I wouldn’t want to be in a relationship with him,’ I protested. ‘He’d be a terrible partner. You wouldn’t even trust him if he said he was going down the shops.’
I realised my voice had climbed to a roar, so when I hung up I studied the local paper intently, as though there was nothing to hear here. Did I just yell ‘Kane Sherman’? I wondered.
My phone vibrated on cue. He and I sex-texted each other every moment we were apart—great, lustful long outpourings that plumbed the depths of our imagination. We had the passion of poets. From Kane’s feverish brain, sash windows would materialise in his hotel room for me to half hang out of—against all hotel industry standards—while I’d sketch out the very vague interior of a semi-trailer cab that he picked me up in, wearing the black shirt with half the buttons undone. If Kane ever sensed my interest waning, he’d drip-feed me attention and reel me back in. Stroke, stroke, stroke.
One afternoon while I was tooling around on my guitar in my apartment, Rose rang. She wanted to tell me all about Grayson’s new film, in which she’d got a bit part as a punky hooker. It made me instantly jealous even though I couldn’t act for toffee, as evidenced in the 1999 Parramatta eisteddfod. ‘I’m flying back to LA for a few weeks to be on set,’ she said. ‘It’ll be weird without you there.’
I was trying not to feel unfairly disdainful about Grayson. He was a nice-enough boy, and the pair of them seemed happy, in their healthy relationship. They had just done an Alice in Wonderland–themed photo shoot with a magazine; most blokes might baulk at this, but this was the man who introduced himself by kissing Rose’s hand and saying, ‘A rose by name, a rose by nature.’ I’d been more appalled by a shoot Rose had done for Runway without telling me, in which she posed in Alannah’s famous net dress, as though she were the rightful heir. Rose confessed she’d had to delete a few emails to Grayson from his agent so that he would be free to return to Australia with her.
‘Nina, I just wish you could be as happy as I am right now,’ my cousin crooned down the line. ‘That’s what I wish for you.’
The temptation to tell Rose that I was as happy as she was and that my sex life was one hundred per cent hotter was enormous, but I knew I’d have to keep Kane my dirty little secret. Rose wouldn’t tell anyone, but she’d think it was just the sort of thing I’d do, and I hated being predictable.
‘Things are pretty good,’ I said, then added to wind her up, ‘John Villiers put me in touch with a studio here, so I’ve been getting quite a lot of new work done with this amazing engineer.’
‘John Villiers told me you were being pretentious,’ she said.
I met this with silence, but my rage began to inflate in my skull like a hot-air balloon with nowhere to go. Was it possible Rose had been having tete-a-tetes with everyone I had ownership of?
After a few seconds, Rose exhaled and turned it into an affectionate chuckle of which Helen would have been proud. ‘I’m joking! For someone with a massive ego, Nina Dall, you’ve got very low self-esteem.’ She sounded awkward. ‘Just take care of yourself, okay? Come back to me a rockin’ country cowgirl, but please come back.’
And I realised with satisfaction that the tables had been turned.
•
What’s your philosophy on love?
I’ve never been in love, Molly. I prefer to keep things cut and dried.
Kane’s wife was getting suspicious, he said, so we had to cool it for a while. ‘We can still have phone sex, though,’ he said. Kane had written a whole song about phone sex—called ‘Off the Dial’—but I found it awkward.
He’d go: ‘What are you doing right now?’
I’d go: ‘Lying on my bed . . . talking to you.’
He’d go: ‘Yeah?’
I’d go: ‘Yeah.’
He’d go: ‘Yeah. Mmm . . . Are you on top of me right now?’
And I’d sigh inwardly, because that was not my favourite position, but I was a good sport, so I’d go: ‘Yeah.’
And he’d go: ‘Are you fingering yourself?’
And so it went. Eventually I’d blurt out something physically impossible, and I’d hear a pause as he digested this and tried to make it fit.
After a few days we figured out it was best to switch to future tense: what we were going to do.
‘I don’t want you to say a word when I open the door,’ I told him. ‘I’ll keep the lights off, then you come in. Don’t say anything.’
‘Yeah,’ he rumbled in his sex voice. ‘Yeah. But it probably won’t work. I’ll probably feel awkward and say hello, and then you’ll say hello.’
When he hung up, I brought myself to the boil. It was too distracting while he was there.
At first, being torn apart by fate was fun. I sent him a clip of myself coming. Only my face—I wasn’t going to be that reckless twice. Then I sent him photos of my naked legs. Then I wound up doing an entire shoot in front of the mirror, with little mounds of bed sheets hiding anything likely to make the six o’clock news. It whiled away the whole night and I sent him the best shots when the sun came up. In return he texted me the dimensions of his erection throughout his morning meeting with his accountant.
As the time passed, Kane jacked up the intensity of his communications and daringly made them more public on Twitter. We were becoming increasingly Bollywood, ripping our hearts, still beating, from our chests, but it was also starting to irritate me. I knew which latest ache of the heart or groin Kane was going to complain of before he even had the chance.
The more my malaise bloomed, the more late-night googling I did, to prove myself right. I was shocked to discover that Kane’s gracious wife was a ‘raven-haired beauty with generous curves’ . . . what kind of an amateur was I not to discover that on page forty-five of Google Images first time around? Then I discovered through Woman’s Day that the reason for the big gap in ages between Kane’s children was not because their marriage was on the rocks, but because Fiona suffered a series of miscarriages. The photo shoot of the pair of them arranged on an expensive peach sofa in their beautiful home confirmed their inseparable bond through adversity.
Meanwhile, Kane kept the drip-feed of attention going. Whenever he let up, my fever abated and the lust delirium I’d been suffering under started to lift. But then, knowingly, he’d be back.
Kane did arrange for me to come to see him play at the radio benefit in Port Macquarie. He wanted me to travel up with him and hang with the band properly, but I preferred to take the coach. We were both labouring under the pretence that he was protecting my identity, that he was not giving his band salacious updates about the time we left fingerprints all over the console window at Rewind, or the time we got caught by the concierge in the walk-in closet at our hotel. It was a constant source of frustration to me, the gulf between how deep I knew myself to be and how seriously people like Kane’s band took me.
While Kane soundchecked, I waited in the VIP beer tent and hunched over my phone. Another drama had bowled out of nowhere, this time over a tweet of Rose’s about Syria. There was a massive crisis going on over there and people weren’t allowed access to social media, so Rose sent them ‘love from the universe’. It was a typical Rose tweet, yet somehow this one made the grade with the tabloids, and they were dragging us both through the mud.
As a distraction, I took a selfie in VIP with the Country Strong banner in the background. Once upon a time I lived to hang out in the VIP tent of a festival the entire weekend. Now it was only interesting if I got to goad on the tabloid journalists following my Twitter account; get them guessing where I was and why. And with whom. I worked my way through a flat beer in a plastic glass and typed some conversation starters into my phone for when Kane arrived, because when we weren’t talking sex I could never think of anything spontaneous.
– It’s funny that radio DJs have faces just like they sound.
– Why do country song
s always have to bang on about being country songs in the lyrics?
– How about those 4 a.m. alarm calls for TV appearances? (Work in an anecdote.)
– He should get R.M. Williams to give him free boots.
‘Do you have the time?’ a bloke asked as I typed. I shook my head without looking up, but he kept going. ‘I know you, don’t I?’
I heaved up my eyes. ‘Doubt it.’
‘No, I do. You’re the one in that boxing video. “Fa-fa-fa . . .” Do you fuck like a girl?’
Lowering my phone, I checked him out. He was my age, was wearing a rugby shirt—probably his favourite rugby shirt—and had a drinker’s nose. If Rose were here she’d dispatch with him immediately.
‘Nice ink,’ he added, and stroked my arm.
I withdrew it. ‘Better than yours,’ I agreed. Across the tent I saw Kane walk in, but upon scoping the scene he proceeded to the bar, which he leaned against as he arranged his face into an expression of concern.
My new friend raked up the grass with a plastic chair and sat at my table.
‘So, have you met Delta Goodrem?’ he said. ‘How many albums have you sold?’
‘Why does that matter? How much money do you make?’
‘But I’m not famous,’ he reasoned. ‘So, you haven’t sold any, then. Not like Delta.’
‘Our album went gold, actually.’
Usually my filthy looks could wither springtime, but somehow this bloke was impervious.
‘Leave her alone,’ a voice said, and of course it wasn’t Kane. I’d been saved by a no-nonsense mum—the sort you’d find in a Ford ad extolling the virtues of the ergonomic dashboard. She had a young daughter in tow, who latched her solemn eyes onto my hair.
‘We’re just talking,’ he protested, gesticulating at me and knocking over my plastic glass so that the contents spilled everywhere. He looked annoyed, but I was pleased. Beer spillage always helped in these situations—there was no arguing with it.
‘No, you’re being a nuisance,’ the woman responded. ‘Go and listen to some music.’
When the bloke traipsed off I clicked into gracious mode and readily signed a programme for her daughter. Young Kaysie wanted to know what it was like being in a band, too, and this time I was more verbose. It was the best. The best thing ever. I was so grateful to have this opportunity. If Kaysie kept on practising her guitar, there was no reason she shouldn’t become famous, too. That she was already performing in talent pageants with her sister was a wonderful start.
Kane made his approach once the coast was clear. ‘Your fans are the worst,’ he said. ‘You really need to do a membership drive for some prettier ones.’
‘Yeah, thanks.’
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I think if I’d come over he’d have hit on me and then things would have got awkward. I know how jealous you get.’
‘I’m having the worst morning,’ I said shortly. ‘We’re splattered all over the internet again—this time it’s Rose’s doing. Look.’
I showed him my phone. ‘But you look very hot in that picture,’ he countered. ‘I think I might have to take you back to my dressing room. Right now.’
‘Really?’ I said. His grin faltered. ‘Really? This is serious, Kane. Don’t switch this back to sex.’
He looked at me from under his brows, unused to this. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, repentant. ‘You’re right. I wish there was some way I could protect you.’
I could tell that Kane was wishing we were being mindless in our fuck fortress right now, which was what we’d dubbed our hotel room. I wished he was there too, and that it would collapse in on him. Watching him pretend to care was terrible, but not quite as terrible as having to pretend to believe it. It was like a double dacking in public. For this very reason, whenever I had a full-blown panic attack that my solo work wasn’t up to scratch yet, I didn’t tell Kane. I’d been cool. I’d been so cool.
‘Do you think I’m too demanding, Kane?’ I enquired, arching my brow.
‘No, I think you’re a crazy-beautiful textbook narcissist,’ he said soothingly. ‘That’s why we love you. We do love you. It’s okay.’
‘What do the textbooks say about the men who go for crazy-beautiful?’ I asked icily, but I accepted his big, warm hand as we headed for the entrance. Before we hit the main arena, he let go again.
On stage the support act was underway: a tanned, blonde Taylor Swift-alike. She had a stunned look, as though she’d been hit on the head by a low-hanging PA system.
She looked lonely up there. I could see how hard she was having to work, filling the stage on her own. That had been preying on my mind lately. I thought of all the successful bands that busted up when their singers got sick of all the bullshit and split to go solo—never to better their earlier work: Savage Garden, Take That, Silverchair, Wolfmother, Van Halen, Echo and the Bunnymen, the bloody Bangles. Would I find myself galloping across a vast stage alone, with nobody to jump in when I fluffed my line? I’d be exhausted with double the clicks to clock up.
‘She’s had a hard life,’ said Kane out of the corner of his mouth. I braced myself for the usual anecdote involving an unfortunate incident he’d had with her. ‘Apparently her dog ran away, the bank took her house and her no-good woman left her for another man.’
I laughed and we stood close, enjoying the proximity of each other. I understood that Kane was as much a sex tourist as I was, adding a pop star to his collection, but I did get a kick out of people casting us glances and doing the maths. I didn’t mind being associated with the ‘voice of the badlands’ for a bit, in the same way I might try on an interesting hat. Whenever we spotted a camera phone coming out, we drifted apart ever so slightly and stared smugly ahead.
When reject Taylor wound up her set, Kane led me backstage, to some seats erected stage left. I didn’t make eye contact with any of the wives and hangers-on but I kept watch for roadies; anyone in black Dickies. Once I’d been watching a big international band side of stage and the tour manager mistook me for a fan. ‘Hi, I’m Nina Dall,’ I said when he stopped in front of me and stared. ‘Hi, I’m Greg,’ he said. ‘Get off my stage.’
Today I could only spot their powder monkey, who would be engrossed in triggering a pyrotechnic every time Kane leapt in the air, and a roadie called Snacks, who knew me. He was leaning over Kane’s guitar rack with a torch in his mouth, dripping drool on to a nice Gibson.
When the Old Dogs took to the stage, I battled the feeling of ownership I had over Kane and tried to appraise him in a professional way. It was his technique I needed to observe, not how hot he looked in a trucker cap. At first my ego had been tethered to Kane, but in the past week I’d been reconsidering. The Dolls were easily as exciting live as the Old Dogs, and ten times better looking. Kane’s first album didn’t go platinum like ours did, and I’d already had as many column inches as he had in his much-longer career. Probably just on my hair alone.
I only had a week left in Tamworth and there was still so much he could teach me, without even having to know it.
TOP 5 PYROTECHNIC EFFECTS USED BY THE OLD DOGS (1992–PRESENT)
1. Airburst to accompany Kane’s jump from the drum riser.
3. Forty-foot gerb fountains.
3. Flame pots, timed with closing cymbals in ‘Big Girls Don’t Cry’.
4. Concussion mortar (final chord of final number).
5. Silver jet for the chorus of ‘Winter’s Gone’.
The Old Dogs launched into the introduction of ‘Going Bush’. Kane was skilled at making a performance look impulsive when it was actually something more calculated. In a sea around him, even in the inverted V between his legs, women with hair awry sang along to every word. Kane preached to the choir, pointing, hectoring and sermonising. His band had the prowling, wide-legged last-gang-in-town thing going on, and even though Kane was as sick of the Old Dogs as Rose and I were of each other, no one would guess it to watch him. I snickered to myself as he slung an arm around the bassist, whose name I hadn’t e
ven needed to learn.
Pantomime-style call-and-response had always been a bugbear of mine, but Kane did it well. He traded in the tired old ‘I can’t hear you!’ for ‘Did I say we were done?’ Slinging his guitar behind his back, he jumped down into the photographers’ pit, shaking hands the length of the front row. One woman streamed tears. Would his fans be troubled if they knew that their hero hated his band, hated his music and worried about his receding hair? Probably not. They’d never know, though.
A roadie down in the photographer pit was handed the Gibson as Kane vaulted on to the barrier, swayed upright for one perilous second, and then let himself fall backwards into the crowd. I was on my feet with the rest of the VIPs, craning to see if he’d hurt himself, but after some solid groping and ripping of his shirt, he was passed back to the pit and regained his guitar.
‘Shit,’ a guy said appreciatively to me, presumably a journalist. We locked eyes.
Whatever.
Kane was wrong about me going solo. People didn’t want just one of us; they wanted Rose and me both. With boys, they enjoyed the double-up—which one was your favourite? With girls, best friends liked to figure out who was like Rose and who was like me. Other people probably just enjoyed the symmetry.
We wrote about our desperate lives—real lives, not some bullshit spoon-fed by the record label—and people appreciated that. I knew in that moment it was time to take it to the next level. We could pepper in subliminal messages to all the Kaysies out there. We could make the streets of Sydney, Los Angeles, London and Tokyo ring out with our intent. We could be a revolution.
Coming off stage, Kane kissed me quickly and the guitarist laughed, throwing me a look that didn’t even reach my eyes. I didn’t care. I’d just stolen all their moves like a jewel thief.
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