by Paula Boock
Rochelle was wearing a black sexy number and her hair was piled on top of her head. Close up she hadn’t looked too good, but under the lights on stage she looked brilliant. Sometimes she played the keyboards but mostly she sang.
Benny moved around constantly, dancing and playing and laughing with the others. He walked from the drummer to the lead guitarist, to Rochelle, getting everyone moving.
‘Doesn’t Benny look great up there?’ shouted Abby. ‘He’s so natural – he looks born to it!’ I smiled in answer. ‘Rochelle’s good too!’ she added.
The place was quite crowded now, and gloomy. Only the stage was lit up and in the beam of the lights wafted clouds of cigarette smoke.
Steve asked me a lot of questions, so I found myself telling him about Smirk and leaving school and visiting Bob and Benny. He was easy to talk to, Steve.
‘So what are you goin’ to do now?’ he asked.
‘Join the circus?’
‘Be a cloon, be a cloon, be a cloon,’ he sang, a bit too loudly.
‘Well, what about a trapeze-artist? I’ve always fancied that.’
‘You’re not scared of heights?’ he asked.
‘Nope. Brave as a lion.’
‘Then a lion-tamer mebbee?’
‘No, this is a no-animals circus – apart from the humans of course.’
‘Of course.’
I looked at Steve’s twinkly eyes and decided to trust him. This is pretty rare for me.
‘I don’t know what I’m going to do, Steve. That’s what I’m supposed to be working out now. Things are meant to be getting clearer, whatever that means, but I don’t know anything more than I did last week when I left Dunedin. If anything,’ I said, glancing at Benny, ‘they seem to be foggier than ever.’
Steve was watching the dance floor and I thought for a moment he couldn’t hear me for the music, but then he said, ‘Mebbee you should talk to Abby. She appears to have solved all Carol’s problems.’ He pointed. Carol had lost the intense, depressed look and was leaping about the dance floor, flinging her extraordinary hair back and forth across her face. Abby was with her and signalling to us to join them. I shook my head.
‘Mel, if you’ll listen to someone you’ve just met,’ Steve said with a crooked smile, ‘it isn’t easy to make any decisions at all after a while on the dole. I know that for a fact.’
For a long moment he held my eyes and then Benny’s voice startled us both.
‘One last number before a break,’ he boomed over the mike, ‘this is called “Traveller” …’
Steve grinned and offered to buy me a drink. ‘I’ll get one for Benny too, I think.’
I was impressed with the band. Mostly they played covers but I thought the few originals they played were the best. I was getting really slacked off with the drummer though. He had no ear for sound – just noise, and his rhythm was off. No one else seemed to notice.
At the end of the set Benny came over with Abby and Carol. Steve poured him a beer.
‘What do you think?’ Benny asked.
‘You sound great,’ I nodded.
‘Really?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘We were a bit rusty on the first two, but we warmed up after that.’
‘I don’t like your drummer.’
Benny grimaced. ‘Sam’s lazy, that’s all. He’s brilliant on the harmonica, but – hey!’ he slammed down his drink. ‘You could drum for us!’
‘What?’
‘Go on Mel, come up and play for us – you’re much better than Sam and then he can play the harmonica!’ He took me by the shoulders. ‘Please?’
‘I can’t, Benny. I don’t know your songs. I’m not dressed for it, I haven’t –’
‘Course you do. The band knows “Black Day”, that’s your song and maybe just one other, say, “Thieves” – just two Mel, please?’
I had been about to say that I hadn’t ever played at a gig before, but both Steve and Abby had joined in now, and I knew nothing I said would convince them. I took Benny’s hands off my shoulders.
‘“Black Day” It’s the only one that needs a harmonica. That’s all.’
‘Okay!’
And I was being dragged through the side door backstage amid explanations to the rest of the band, my heart pounding. Holy hell.
On stage Sam helped me adjust the drums and seat while Benny did some smooth intro which I was too nervous to hear. I did pick up that the cheers and clapping were coming from our table.
‘Black Day’ is an old song that Benny and (mainly) I had written in Dunedin when we used to go surfing at Blackhead Beach, so I knew it backwards. Sam led in on the harmonica and at Benny’s nod the rest of us fell in. I was still stunned at what was happening. The lights were blinding and so hot I was sweating almost immediately. I felt a jerk drumming in a dress. But to be honest, even Rochelle’s dumb dress couldn’t ruin this moment.
Watching the Roman pillars
Crumbling away
Piling up your slagheap
(Blackhead) It’s a black black day
If you do anything well, I don’t know – maybe you’re a hot shot tennis player or a math’s whizz or a champion raw egg gargler, whatever – you’ll know what I mean when I say that I was me up there, really me in a way that I never am anywhere else. I felt more myself than ever, because this was something I was really good at. It’s like – what’s the word they use about marriage all the time? Consummated, that’s it. I felt consummated.
Riding your blue horizon
Dolphins dive and play
While cranes attack your coastline
(Blackhead) It’s a black black day
Benny was right about Sam. He was much better on the harmonica. At the end of the number he had the audience transfixed and I was nearly crying it sounded so good. Then we were deafened with clapping and Benny winked at me (again) and Sam, bless him, said he’d never be able to drum like that and thank you. I needed to get out of the light, fast, and somehow I scrambled offstage to be received in the comfort of the dark dance floor by Steve, Abby, Carol and a few others slapping my back and congratulating me. It seems Benny had said in the intro that I had written the song.
Now the nervousness was gone, I was feeling really high, so I started this crazy dancing that makes me lose touch with everything and get inside the music and the rhythm. The music was so loud next to the speakers it made my eyes water. The sound of the beat crashed through my ribs in time with the pulse banging in my head and all I could see was the occasional flash of Abby with this loopy smile on her face. I was laughing and dancing and laughing – it was almost as good as playing. The band went straight into the next song without a break and l felt rather than saw more people around us. The floor was bouncing into my feet, the music blasting out of a speaker right beside me and we were all part of the sound, in the heart of a giant pulsating animal.
I heard Benny’s voice float out to me, serious and warm in a slower number. I smiled, watching my feet swish the floor. I stopped myself from looking up and concentrated on the floor, knowing he was singing to me. I rocked lightly, cruising, feeling his voice vibrate through me, thinking – tonight, tonight.
Then something else happened. I heard a soft, husky voice answering Benny’s. I looked up. Benny and Rochelle in an island of light. Beautiful Benny and beautiful Rochelle, like something out of a pop magazine. They were gazing into each other’s eyes in this grossly overdone way and I felt my feet stop of their own accord. That’s when the really freaky thing happened.
I stared at them. I knew it was Benny but somehow I was convinced that it wasn’t; that it was just his body up there and my Benny, the one who didn’t want to be beautiful, was lost and stranded, waiting for me to realise what had happened. I turned away from the stage and blundered in the dark through the tables and chairs, blinded from staring at the bright stage.
I was frantic to get to the exit, but it was like a nightmare – there seemed to be more and more tables and people
in the way. I had this crazy idea that the real Benny was outside yelling, ‘Mel! Mel!’ and I fixed my eyes on the fluorescent exit sign, heaving chairs and pushing people out of the way until I was nearly there. As I ran towards it everything went white and I thought I was going to be sick. I felt the doorknob in my hand, opened it and ahead of me in a tunnel of white I saw Benny walking away. There was this roaring noise and I tried to scream above it, ‘Benny!’, but it came out as a whisper. He paused though, and turned, only it wasn’t Benny at all – it was Wai. Then I hit a wall of black.
* * *
The really disappointing thing is that I don’t recall anything while I was out to it. I came around at one stage and couldn’t work out why everyone was leaning sideways until I realised that I was lying down, not standing, and they were bending over me. Then I said, ‘I fainted’, and fainted again.
The next thing I remember was Abby, close to my face, saying, ‘She’s coming round, it’s all right. How do you feel?’
I saw a group of people around me and a woman with a cup of coffee. Someone was saying, ‘Is she drunk?’
‘I’ve never fainted before,’ I said to Abby. I wished I would again, I felt such a jerk. People were coming in and out the door and I could hear that the band were still playing. I sat up gingerly as Carol handed me the coffee.
‘Do you want to come back inside?’ she asked.
Not bloody likely, I thought. ‘No,’ I said, ‘the fresh air’s good.’ The coffee was strong and sweet. I was actually feeling fine, just a bit freaked out by what I’d seen. Wai? It didn’t make sense.
Abby and Steve and Carol sat with me and most of the others disappeared.
‘What happened?’ asked Carol, who looked like a ghoul in the dark.
‘I don’t know,’ I answered. How could I explain it without sounding like a psycho? ‘I thought I was going to be sick and then I blacked out.’
‘It wasn’t the drink, was it?’ said Abby. ‘You hadn’t had much.’
‘No, I don’t feel drunk at all. I just fainted.’
‘We’d better take you home. Shall I call a taxi?’ asked Steve.
‘No, no, Benny’ll take her,’ said Abby, opening the door and looking in. ‘This is the last number now. Is that okay, Mel? Can you wait?’
‘Sure. I feel fine now.’ I ventured a look through the door. I could see the lit-up stage. Benny played the final chord and dashed up to the mike.
‘Thanks very much, we’ll be here this time next week, see you then!’ He unplugged his guitar and disappeared. I took a few deep breaths and finished the coffee. I smiled at Steve’s worried face. Then Benny arrived at the door.
‘What happened? Are you all right?’ He looks sort of fierce when he’s worried.
‘Yeah, yeah,’ I told him. I was embarrassed at all the attention. ‘Don’t worry, I’m fine.’
‘Maybe you should take her home.’ Rochelle had appeared behind him.
‘Yeah, we’ll go now. Okay Mel?’
‘Okay,’ I shrugged. ‘What about the rest of you?’
‘We might as well come too. Where are Rob and Sam?’ asked Steve.
‘Still backstage. Go and give them a hurry up and we can all pile in the van.’
Steve disappeared and Rochelle, Abby and Carol went to collect their things.
Benny turned to me and said quietly, ‘Are you really all right, Mel?’
Physically I felt fine. I wanted to tell him what had happened before I fainted, about the tunnel and Wai, but I couldn’t think of how to begin. Running away from the beautiful Benny and Rochelle on stage seemed so dumb now.
‘Yeah, I just got a fright. I feel perfectly all right now.’
‘You got a fright? I just about dropped my guitar!’
I laughed.
‘Come on,’ he said, putting his arm around me. ‘Let’s go home.’
Back at the flat Benny fussed around me, leaving the others to unpack the band gear. In his room he said, ‘I guess you’d better sleep in my bed.’ I raised my eyebrows in what I thought was a seductive way, but can’t have been, because he quickly added, ‘I’ll take the couch. Are you still going to Cape Reinga tomorrow?’
‘Sure. There’s nothing wrong with me,’ I said for the millionth time. Good grief. How was I going to seduce him while he was heavily into playing nurse?
‘Hey, Benny!’ It was Rob. ‘Are you watching this video?’
‘Oh, right. Come on Mel. The guys have got out this crap horror movie for a giggle.’
Great. We went into the living room where Rob, Sam, Steve, Carol, Rochelle and Abby were sitting around the television. The movie had begun and there were two joints being passed around.
I sat down with Benny on the floor. Rochelle offered me her joint.
‘No,’ said Benny before I could open my mouth, ‘she’s had her kicks tonight,’ and laughed. He took the joint and drew in deeply. What an arsehole. I didn’t want any of his dumb dope anyway, I hate the stuff. I moved onto the chair behind him.
The movie was awful. It was about this dopey woman who had locked her psychopathic mother in the attic to stop her killing any more people. Then she, (the daughter), fell in love with Mr Nice Guy who didn’t know about the mad mother until she (the mad mother) fell in love with him too and tried to kill him. The dopey daughter kept drifting around saying ‘Just this once, mother…’ into space.
The thing about not smoking dope is that when everyone else is stoned you might as well go and bury yourself in a deep ditch until it’s over. They sit around and laugh at the same things that aren’t funny in the least, and it only makes it funnier if you aren’t amused. They think they are on some special planet and it’s all very childish. Then you end up feeling a real prude. Even Rochelle, who never laughed aloud, kept standing up on the sofa and saying ‘Just this once, mother… just this once,’ and collapsing amongst the hysterics.
I made myself a cup of coffee and went back to the bedroom. I was unlikely to have much success with Benny now. Still, I got undressed and into his bed. It was cold, so I sort of sat on my legs to keep them warm.
Nothing seemed to be turning out the way I’d planned. The Fridge had been a disaster and now Benny was sitting around smoking dope and watching a tacky movie while I was ready for the Big Event. Huh.
I heard the living room door open and the noise spill out into the hall. They were getting some food. My door opened.
‘Mel?’ It was Benny.
‘Here I am.’
‘Are you feeling okay?’ He shut the door and came over to the bed.
‘Of course I’m okay. I told you, I’m perfectly all right now.’ I wished he’d drop it.
‘We’ve got the munchies. Do you want a toasted sandwich?’
‘No.’
‘Why are you sitting up like that?’
‘I’m waiting for you, Speedy.’
‘What for?’ God, what a moron.
‘Oh, f’ chrissake. So we could have a dippy conversation all night. What do you think?’
He smiled. That patronising sort of Taming the Shrew type smile. ‘I love you when you’re stroppy.’ I knew it. He bent down and kissed me. On the forehead.
‘What the hell is that?’ I demanded.
He shrugged. His body was all loose like a giant wilted vegetable. ‘Goodnight,’ he explained. This was getting worse.
I looked down at my big blue shapeless teeshirt. Hardly seductive, I guess. I saw Rochelle’s dress lying on a chair. Okay, my move.
I raised my head and met Benny’s eyes. Then I took a slow, deep breath and peeled off my teeshirt. I have never been naked in front of anyone before. It scared the hell out of me, but I kept looking him straight in the eye and said in this very Joan Collins type voice, ‘Maybe I don’t want you to say goodnight.’
Well, I maybe able to imitate Joan Collins’ voice, but my body obviously left something to be desired. Benny looked absolutely terrified. His eyes flicked all over the place, looking everywhere except at my b
reasts and then he spun around in a full circle with his hands over his face saying, ‘Wow, wow. Oh no. Oh, Mel, no – you can’t mean –’
I was sitting very still mainly because I was trying hard to disappear. I felt like a bird stranded on the ground near a cat – any tiny movement may mean death. My cheeks were pounding with heat but the rest of me was icy and I slowly dug my fingernails deeper into my other hand. I wanted to faint again. Oh, god, if only I could faint again.
Benny finally stopped his demented ape dance and picked up my teeshirt from beside me. I had fixed my eyes on the end of the bed and was taking deliberate, steady breaths.
‘Look, Mel, we can’t, I mean I can’t – there’s just no way –’ He was kneading my teeshirt with his hands in front of him as if it helped prove his point. Then, just to make it quite clear, he added, ‘You can’t really mean it.’
I turned and snatched the teeshirt from him, which seemed to free my vocal chords. ‘You bastard!’ I cried, throwing the teeshirt back on. It was caught around one shoulder and I swung away from him, tugging it free. Then I turned on him.
‘You bloody shitty bastard! I hate you!’
‘What the hell have I done wrong now?’ His eyes were big and bloodshot.
‘You can’t handle it, can you? It was fine this morning when you wanted to, but not now.’
‘But you told me no! You said you weren’t ready. F’godsake, Mel, it was only this morning you told me that!’
‘So what? This morning I’d just arrived. I didn’t want to leap into bed! But I’ve thought about it. I just wanted to be prepared, to be ready for it. But no, you only want it on your own terms, when you’re ready. You’re a selfish bastard, Benny.’
‘Well why didn’t you say so then? How was I to know what you’d decided? I’m not a bloody mind reader.’