I know, everyone tells drummer jokes. “How many drummers does it take to change a light-globe?” — that sort of thing. But they really are a necessary evil.
So we waited.
Of course, while we were waiting we could jam like there was no tomorrow. But given our histories, a twelve-bar blues was just as likely to degenerate into a Bach fugue, if someone felt the urge. The two are really a lot more similar than most people realise.
But we were just marking time. The search was on, but it was making slow progress. In a band, everyone is important, and Max wanted it to be perfect. He even gave us the veto. If two of us gave any try-out the thumbs down, they were out. No questions asked.
“You guys are going to be together for a long time,” he said once. “No good if you can’t get on. I’ve seen it kill a good band.”
He was right, of course, and none of what happened later was really his fault. I know he always had our best interests at least partly in mind.
I couldn’t help wondering, though.
Who had had the veto on the three of us?
TASHA’S STORY
I’d never planned to be lead-singer in a band. When I was a kid, I’d done my share of the usual things — you know, stage-school, dancing lessons, gymnastics, even a “junior miss” modelling course for a few months. But so did half the kids in my grade. I played basketball, too, but I never had any intention of trying out for the Sydney Flames. They were just things to do. They weren’t vocational training.
What I was actually doing was working in a fashion boutique in the arcade. And planning to do a course in fashion designing, which I’d probably never have got around to.
But I guess you know the story. Max made a big thing of it in the early publicity. How I went along with one of my friends to an audition and ended up getting the gig. I always thought it sounded a bit too much like one of Max’s stories, except that it happened to be true.
It was my first time at a studio and I’d borrowed one of the dresses from the shop, so I wouldn’t look out of place among the “celebs”. I guess that shows how naive I was. No one dresses up for a studio session. Not unless they’re filming it for a video-clip. Believe me, once you’ve been through a couple of marathon sessions, the last thing you’re worried about is whether you’re wearing the right designer gear.
But I didn’t know all that, and Penny, my friend, hadn’t bothered to tell me.
So there I was in this body-hugging red mini, wide shoulders, V-neck, the whole bit, while everyone else was sitting around in jeans and T-shirts — not all of them particularly clean. So much for glamour!
A couple of heads turned when we walked into the control booth, but they were more interested in what was going on in the studio. Penny was one of seven or eight they were trying out, and I don’t think they were exactly impressed with any of them. I sat on a padded bench at the back of the booth and tried to blend in with the wallpaper — which is pretty hard to do when you’re wearing a dress that particular shade of red.
Still, I got to watch them without them really noticing me, and in the end, I think they forgot I was there altogether. So I was probably the only one who noticed what was going on.
There was only one person there, apart from me, who wasn’t wearing jeans, and that was Max. He wore a suit, with, of all things, a Bugs Bunny tie. It caught my attention — the tie I mean — because I didn’t have him pegged as the Bugs Bunny type. Geometric patterns, or maybe a plain colour — red, even. But then, I never did understand power-dressing; that wasn’t my end of the market. Of course, I didn’t know his name at the time; they were too busy for introductions.
It was obvious that he was in charge though. He sat next to the engineer and made suggestions, none of which was ever questioned. But that wasn’t what caught my attention.
Every now and then he’d look across to three kids about my age. They were sitting in the front corner, by the edge of the long glass window that looked out into the studio proper, watching the try-outs, and whispering among themselves. And every time he’d look across, they’d give him a sign. Not a word was exchanged, but they’d shake a head, or give a slight shrug, and that appeared to be the death sentence. He’d let the poor hopeful in the studio go on for a while longer, but it was pretty obvious that he’d lost interest as soon as the jury of three gave its verdict.
I got to know those three later, of course, but at the time they just looked like three kids, not much older than I was, and I wondered how they could have so much power.
Actually, the two boys were both less than a year older than me. I was about to turn seventeen, and neither of them had reached eighteen yet. Chrissie, though, she was the surprise. She was the one I thought might be younger than I was, and she turned out to be almost six years older.
But I was talking about the audition.
It was pretty obvious that Penny was out of her league. She’d been doing stage stuff since she was four or five — that was where I’d met her — but wanting isn’t enough. Not nearly enough. She had a good voice, she moved well, she was even pretty, but somehow all the parts didn’t quite add up to the sort of quality that makes “image”.
It’s a tough business — I’ve found that out — and very few get the nod. Penny wasn’t one of them. The jury gave its verdict, and it was over for her a long time before she realised it. I think I was the only one in the booth who knew, though. The signals were pretty subtle.
Penny was the last hopeful, and when she came back into the booth I stood up to meet her. I knew the deal. They wouldn’t say anything to her right then; they hadn’t said anything to the others. It would just be a case of “don’t call us, we’ll call you”, then a polite letter some time in the next week or so. The classic let-down.
And I wasn’t going to say anything. I guess I’m a coward, but she’d tried so hard, and it just wasn’t the moment.
Then something happened.
I’m not sure exactly why, but Max Parnell turned and looked at me. Maybe it was the dress, I don’t know. Anyway, he looked straight at me and smiled.
I was ready to hate him. After all, I was feeling pretty bad for Penny, for the disappointment she was going to feel when the letter came. But I couldn’t. Hate him, I mean. He didn’t look like a cold monster at all.
“And what was your name?”
It took a moment to realise that he was talking to me. For a moment I hesitated.
“Tasha … Natassia … Kuznetsoff.” The name was always a killer. Natassia I could live with; Tasha or Tash … Nats even. But there was nothing you could do with Kuznetsoff. Unless you count what the kids in Primary managed — but kids that age are pretty inventive. It’s the kind of name that sticks to you like chewing gum on a hot day. It doesn’t matter how you pick at it, it’s always there, embarrassing you, waiting for someone to notice.
But Max Parnell just nodded, absorbing the fact of my name without comment.
“Do you sing?”
“A little,” I stammered, while part of me whispered, Don’t be an idiot, you’ll only make a fool of yourself.
Then I heard Penny speaking. “She’s got a great voice. She’s been singing since she was five.”
Suddenly I understood.
Penny wasn’t nearly as naive as I was. She’d known the score from the moment she’d walked back into the booth — maybe even before that. It didn’t stop me feeling guilty later, when I was offered the job she’d wanted so badly, but it did mean that I didn’t have to lose a friend over it.
She was out of the race and she knew it, so there wasn’t any harm in trying to help me win it.
The rest is pretty much the way Max told it in the publicity stories. The others had auditioned to backing tapes, which they’d been given in advance to practise with, but I didn’t know any of the songs, so Alex, Tim and Chrissie took me into the studio and worked out a quick arrangement of a couple of songs I did know.
And we did it.
Looking back, I think that maybe the surp
rise factor worked to my advantage. I had no time to get nervous, everyone was willing to give me a little leeway because I was unprepared, and I had the guys in the studio with me, so there was a bit of feedback that the others hadn’t had.
Whatever the reason, they brought out the best in me. I’d never sung in a studio before, and I just took to it.
“Like a pig to mud,” Alex said afterwards. He said it in Spanish first, “Como un chancho a barro”, then translated it. I found out later it was one of his grandfather’s favourite expressions.
I guess it was the way they joked with me that told me I stood a chance, well before I stepped back into the booth. Max’s expression more or less confirmed it, even though they didn’t officially tell me until a couple of days later.
Penny didn’t speak until we were in the cab on the way home. I thought she was upset, the way she stared out the window. Maybe she was, just a little. I knew how hard she’d worked for her shot at the “big-time”, and I think we both realised that it had just come — and gone.
Penny was never much good at school, but she was one of the most talented people I’d ever met. She had a way with design that left most of the stuff I sold every day for dead. But her first love was singing, and I knew how much it must have been killing her, putting on a brave front for my benefit.
But then she turned to me, and the only expression I could read was a smile.
She touched my hand. Just a light touch. “Remember me when you’re rich and famous.”
I didn’t want to get my hopes up. And I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so I wasn’t sure how to reply.
“Who knows what they’ll decide —” I began, but Penny cut me off.
“Helloo?” She put on her best Beverley Hills Brat accent. “Earth to Natassia! Was I the only one paying attention back there?” I noticed the cab-driver looking at us in the rear-vision mirror. So did Penny. She stared at him until he looked away, then she continued, “They loved you, Tash. Shit, even I loved you, and you were the opposition.”
“I didn’t mean to —”
“Oh, shut up, you idiot!” It was obvious I wasn’t going to get to finish a sentence. “There was no way they were going to pick me. Not even if you sang like Peewee Herman. I’m not stupid, my dear. Thing is, though … How come I never knew you could sing like that? I mean, I’ve known you most of our lives and you never …” She shrugged.
I shrugged back. “Beats me! I never did it before.”
It was true. Even as a kid at the stage-school they always stuck me in the back row. Away from the microphone. I guess I didn’t do the Shirley Temple thing well enough. But something had happened back in that studio, something I couldn’t explain. Maybe it was the way the others played, or the way it all sounded in the headphones. I don’t know. All I do know is that at sixteen I suddenly knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life — or at least for a good part of it.
“Friends?” This time she took hold of my hand.
“Always,” I replied.
And at the time, I really meant it.
9
THE HEARTBEAT
ALEX’S STORY
“Okay, genius, how did you know?”
Max was never what you might call unapproachable, but in the early days Chrissie was the only one who felt comfortable treating him like one of the boys.
Tasha and her friend had just left, and he was sitting there in the booth like a cat with cream all over its whiskers.
“How did I know what?”
Tim cut in. “How did you know that girl could sing like that?”
Max shrugged, but the smile on his face gave him away. “It’s what they pay me for.”
“Bullshit, Mr A&R Executive! Bullshit, cow pats and bovine diarrhoea. I think it’s because she’s a blonde.” Chrissie hijacked the conversation, and for a moment I looked at her, confused. This was a strange sort of joke. I was waiting for the punchline.
Then I realised that although the smile was there and the tone was light-hearted it was no joke.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” She stood up as she continued. “It’s all about being absolutely PC, isn’t it? You’re positioning us already, before the band is even up and running.”
I looked at Max, and from the expression on his face I knew that Chrissie was scoring points, though for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what she was talking about. I waited for her to go on, but Max spoke first.
“It’s not like that —”
“No, of course not! And I’m the bloody tooth-fairy. At least be honest with them, man.” She indicated Tim and me with her hand, but her eyes never left his. “Or are you going to pretend it’s all just a big happy coincidence? She can sing — great! I happen to think she’s just what we need. And she’s a nice kid, too. But you wouldn’t even have asked her what her name was if she hadn’t looked like she’d just stepped out of Dolly. Look, it’s no big deal — not to me, at least. But you have to tell them the truth, Max. If this thing is going to work, it’s got to be based on the truth, not bullshit … Or do you want me to?”
I looked at Tim. He was as much in the dark as I was. Max just opened his hands, and she went on speaking. To us.
“What we are, guys, is an equal-opportunity, politically correct, United bloody Nations. Do you think it’s a complete accident that we’ve got one Hispanic, one” — she looked at Tim and smiled — “one WASP, and one female of the Asian … persuasion? And now we’ve got a White Russian for a front-man … person. We only auditioned girl-singers, of course — better demographics. Two females in a band of five — talk about an ABBA-complex! Enough for the guys to salivate over and good role-models for the girls. So the gender-mix is perfect.”
Max was saying nothing — a fact that spoke volumes. But strangely there was a kind of smile on his face.
“What if the black girl … what was her name?”
“Cindy,” Tim put in helpfully.
“Cindy. What if Cindy had cut it? I’ll tell you. We’d have been looking for a bloody surfie for a drummer. Blond, blue-eyed … Just to complete the set. Well, we’ve got our blonde, so what are we looking for now? Maybe you could import a Zulu to beat the skins, or what about an Islander? They’re supposed to have rhythm.” The sarcasm was so thick you could carve it.
I’ll say one thing for Max. He’s cool. He stood up and walked over until he was facing her.
“You want out?”
But Chrissie is ice herself when she wants to be.
“You want me out?”
For a moment they faced each other, then they both burst out laughing. He put a hand on each shoulder and looked straight into her eyes.
“As if!” Then he let go and took a step backwards. “Look, there may be a grain of truth in …” At the look on her face he paused. “Okay, you’ve got me. The UN you are. But maybe it’s not quite as cynical as it first appears.”
He paused again, but Chrissie wasn’t going to make it easy for him.
“You were saying?”
“I was saying … I’m not denying there’s a marketing aspect, but —”
“A marketing aspect! So now we’re a frigging hula-hoop!” She was having fun, but the serious edge was still there.
“It is part of the image, Chriss. It’s an image industry. But that doesn’t mean there can’t be a positive side to it all.”
“I’m listening.”
“The message. What does it say to kids who see you up there on stage? Tolerance, cooperation. It’s not ‘us and them’, it’s just a universal us. It’s got to be better than some Rap band preaching death, destruction and discrimination. Instead of representing what is, we can show them what could be.”
Chrissie was softening, but she wasn’t quite ready to give up a good fight.
“ ‘We are the world’. Very sweet! And we get to feel good all the way to the bank.”
“All the way to the bank. Look, Chriss, it’s my project. My deal. I want it to succeed. Of course I do. But
I’m not a complete sell-out. Not yet, at least. Maybe we can do it without destroying too much along the way.”
Finally Chrissie sat down.
“Okay. Benefit of the doubt. But it really wasn’t about the race thing. Hell, we’re all in it for the money.” She looked at the two of us and winked. “And for the art, of course. I just wanted to clear the air. It’s about honesty, Max. Tell me the truth, and we can discuss just about anything. Screw with me, and I walk. I mean it.”
“What, turn your back on ‘fame and fortune’?” Tim jumped in to lighten things.
“Just watch me!”
She answered Tim, but she was looking into Max’s eyes.
Sitting where I was, I could see what he saw, and I knew she meant every word.
Still, in the end it wasn’t Max who found our heartbeat anyway. It was me. And a large chunk of blind luck. Not that Max minded all that much. He couldn’t have made a more perfect choice, even if he’d sat down and worked it all out on a spreadsheet …
MARCO
Five o’clock.
He assembles the thin metal tripod and curses silently to himself. Damned trackworks. Twenty minutes waiting between stations. Enough of a delay to lose the chance at any of the good spots.
Tucked into the comer between the station entrance and the newsstand, he has barely enough room to move his arms. He looks at the sky. Rain coming. The rush-hour is on already, and he isn’t even set up.
A fat man in a business suit pushes past and his brief-case catches the leg of the tripod that now holds a pair of old bongo-drums — the only real instrument among his whole collection of noise-makers. A reflex shoots out his right hand in time to catch them before they fall under the feet of the jostling crowd.
Old Sam leans across the counter of the news-stand, and cranes his neck around the corner.
“Late this afternoon, kid?”
Sam is a master of the obvious. The boy nods.
“Train was delayed.”
“Looks like you’re stuck with me, then.”
“Could be worse.”
He smiles. The old man likes him and he knows it. His performance slows down the rush at times, so that someone might notice the headlines and stop to buy a paper or magazine for the trip home. Besides, it breaks the boredom of the afternoon shift in a job that just serves to keep you alive while you’re waiting to die. Sam has been waiting to die since 1987, when his wife managed the trick and left him alone.
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