“She did not.”
“It’s a true story, man.” Knox lets go of his leaning support team in order to throw his arms out wide. It takes a moment for him to find a gravitationally neutral pose, then he’s waggling his finger in my face and struggling to recall what he’s disagreeing with me for.
“Told you, she’s easy,” Dane says, smirking at me, as if the fact that her being upfront about what she wants makes his description of her, or his own antics, somehow justified. One day, he’ll realise that there’s no justifiable reason for any of his shit. Until then, I work on keeping my mouth buttoned and saving my breath. The trouble then, is that there’s only one other thing I could possibly turn my attention to in this room, and that’s the magic happening up on stage.
“What are you asking about her for anyway?” Dane enquires a moment later.
Duh, moron. Do you want to think about that for a moment? Can’t you hear it? It’s the sound of serious competition. I bite back an actual reply, bearing in mind that it was only a few minutes ago that Dane was ready to jump on stage and start pulling heads off. If he thinks for a minute that Jessie’s band is going to do us out of a major contract, then a whole roomful of people will be witnesses to his murderous rage.
I want to go places, and one of them isn’t jail.
Having escaped from Knox’s overfriendliness, Joel throws an arm around my shoulders, and brings our heads together so we can hear one another over the noise without shouting. “She hardly looks big enough to play bass.”
“Yeah—although I’m told it’s not the size that counts.”
I snort, as does Joel.
“Fuck you, man.” Knox hollers, having obviously caught the quip.
“You know I love you.” I blow him a kiss and that seems to soothe his wounded pride, but doesn’t alter the fact that this girl could out play him in her sleep.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Joel asks with both eyebrows raised and his lips pursed into a Jim Morrison-esque pout. He looks over his shoulder to make sure Knox is out of earshot.
“It’s not an option.” I say, making the rebuttal sharp and swift. At least, that was my intention, but Joel, just like the rest of them, never thinks twice about challenging my authority when he thinks he’s in the right. There’s a lot of head butting that goes on inside this band, enough of it for me to occasionally contemplate investing in some sort of steel head guard. I reckon the fact I’d look like a dick in it would be offset by the reduction in tension headaches.
“You can’t look after him forever, Nate. There’s a point where your…our ambition and the direction you’re leading this band ceases to be realistic while you cling so persistently to him being part of it.”
Screw this. This is not what I need to hear tonight. Not now. Not when we really need to show some solidarity. “We’re in this together.” I say, sounding like a party political broadcast. “We’re going to make it together. Don’t even suggest otherwise. I’m serious, Joel.”
Joel gets a hard look in his eyes, which tells me he’s going to press the point regardless. This bastard’s the most stubborn of the lot, Dane’s a hot-head, but he can be reasoned with if you can get him to cool off, Knox is amiable and amenable as long as you approach from the right angle, but Joel only backs down when he’s been irrefutably proved wrong.
“Don’t pretend that you weren’t imagining the same thing. We’re super close, Nate, but we’re not there yet, and she could make the difference. Knox is our main liability. Think what Paradise Kiss could be, if it was you, me, Dane and her. We wouldn’t need to be playing support for fucking Black Halo we’d be headline our own international tour.”
I allow myself a momentary fantasy of what that would be like. Us bigger than Black Halo, fuck yeah, it’s totally what I want. And deep in my guts, I know Joel is right. Knox is the weak point in our whole operation, while Ms. Trevaskis could catapult us into the stratosphere. Too bad my heart’s in charge of this operation.
“It wasn’t what I was thinking,” I lie. The possibility of us getting rid of Knox has never once entered my head as a serious option. I’m not about to abandon my roots. Joel on the other hand is ready to make whatever sacrifice is necessary. I can see it in him. The last twelve months have changed him. He’s grown in confidence, recognised that we’ve a chance to make it big. He’s started believing in the dream I’ve spun.
“What, you expect me to believe you were checking out her finger-picking and flapping techniques with a view to something other than recruiting her?”
I expect him to believe whatever the hell I tell him to believe.
“I was checking out her curves.”
“The hell you were.”
I give him the look, because actually, she’s curvy in all the right places, and nicely top heavy.
“Nate.” His hot breath stings my cheek, and I step away from him, rubbing at my skin to remove the sensation of his nearness. I wade forward, moving closer to the stage, shoving a path through the audience, as the song reaches its crescendo. Joel tags along behind me. Obviously he missed the fact that I was moving because the conversation was done.
“Nate, this is serious. We need to talk about Knox. It’s no good, you constantly side-stepping the issue. He’s a problem, and you making like we’re blood brothers and that we don’t leave anyone behind—”
“We don’t leave anyone behind.”
“—is bollocks.”
Several of Bitch Slap’s more obvious fans give us evil glares. For a second or two, it looks as if things could get ugly, but Joel comes and butts his head up against mine, and it becomes apparent that we’re having a disagreement that no one needs to get involved in.
“Look, I’m not saying we should make the cut this minute, but it’s going to come to that, and you know it. Christ!” He tugs a hand through his abundance of brown curly hair and sighs theatrically. “When it happens, it might be that you’ll look back and realise it would have been more humane to have done it sooner. It’s going to sting like fuck if we hit it big and then you give him marching orders.”
“Joel, it’s not fucking happening. Ever.”
He sneers, showing me his pearly whites. “Yeah, well we can all reflect on that when Graham Callahan decides to sign Bitch Slap instead of us.”
“For fuck’s sake keep your voice down.” The crowd here don’t need to know that Black Halo’s manager is in the audience. If Jessie gets wind of it, we are seriously fucking screwed, because that woman will do anything to see us fail, and/or steal our prize from under us.
“Are you so sure she doesn’t know already? They didn’t just pull this set out of their fannies.”
“We’ve got this,” I say, trying to sound confident, but the conviction that I had before the show began has all but evaporated. One glance across the room over the heads of the crowd is enough to elevate all the fears Joel is doing his damnedest to sway me with. Graham Callahan is watching Bitch Slap perform with a smile on his face, and pound signs in his eyes, and as much as I want to tell myself it’s because they have tits and nicer butts—I notice the lass playing keyboard has hers hanging out—I know Graham Callahan has more integrity than that. Black Halo make him pots of cash, and he’s not going to saddle them with a crappy support act—not that Bitch Slap are—just because he gets off on the fact they have thighs and curves and sweet baby Jesus, au naturel hairy muffs.
And the keyboard player has taken her knickers off.
My thoughts are derailed, and the night might just have been saved after all, because if there’s one thing I’m absolutely sure that Graham Callahan wants, it’s a low maintenance supporting act. With all the unwanted press attention and fuck ups Black Halo have suffered over the last few months, I reckon he’s looking for a bit of stability. No manager wants to be attending bail hearings at the crack of dawn following every show because the band members are being done for public indecency.
FOUR
Loveday Trevaskis
The set ends and we pile off stage, wet with perspiration and probably in good need of a shower. Cooling off and getting squeaky clean will have to wait for a while though, because we have people out there baying for more, and while we’re not in a position to give it—the line-up tonight doesn’t factor in encore performances for virtual unknowns—it’d be idiotic not to take advantage and go flog our wares and sign T-shirts.
I have my lucky Sharpie all at the ready.
“I thought we agreed you were going to keep your knickers on,” Jessie berates Ivy as we stow our instruments and head out front with our box of goodies. Most of the bands have dedicated merchandise sellers, but they also have larger followings, and apparently plenty of volunteers to stand in a foyer all night looking vaguely bored, instead of living it wild while watching their favourite acts.
Jessie co-opts the only bit of prime real-estate left, which just happens to be right next to Paradise Kiss’s table. The girl from earlier, the one Jessie almost slogged in the teeth while she was aiming for Dane, gives a squeak of alarm when we muscle in, but she doesn’t object to the trestle table of goodies we set up, or the oversized poster we unroll and fix to the wall behind us so that it’s overlapping the black and white image of Paradise Kiss. The way Ivy pins it, I’m rocking out face to face with Nathaniel Darke. A buzz rolls through me at the notion. I wonder what sort of sounds we’d make.
“You know he’ll be crap in bed.” Jessie taps me on the shoulder. “The ones who think they’re hot always are. They’re not prepared to put the effort in.”
Is that an actual universal truth, or merely a lie we like to tell ourselves, so we can be content with the geeks and wash-outs that normally find their way to our beds? I’m certain there has to be a few playboys out there who know how to drive a woman demented in bed, and also manage to be refined, loaded and handsome, and not just sleazy. Hell, I know at least one—sadly now attached.
“I’m not going to fuck him, Jessie. I told you that. I was checking you’d hung our poster straight.”
She gives me a look designed to melt flesh. “You think I don’t know what’s in your head. Post show, you’re a cocktail of hot emotions, and screwing is normally your top priority. All it takes is a whiff of testosterone and you’re glued to whoever is offering.”
“He’s not offering.”
“Yeah,” she concedes. “Make sure it stays that way. When I said we were coming tonight to screw with Paradise Kiss, you and Nathaniel Darke doing a horizontal mosh wasn’t what I meant.”
I nod and sigh, but there’s no point escalating this into any sort of an argument. Darke hasn’t even noticed me, and I imagine after the barney between Jessie and his brother earlier, he’s perfectly happy to keep things that way.
“They’re the official competition, Lowdy, try not to forget that.” She drums two fingers against the side of my head.
Jessie does believe in labouring the point. If I’m not eyes front and one hundred per cent engaged on the pocketful of fans we have approaching for the next twenty minutes, then she’s going to be berating me with a frying pan, or some other equally hard metal object that’s close to hand.
Staying engaged isn’t as easy as it might seem. After our five true fans disperse, the second wave of people consists mostly of drunks who paw through our stuff like they might the leaflet stand at the local G.U.M. clinic. It doesn’t matter how hard I try, I can’t pretend I’m interested in their opinions about anything, least of all our set. In any case, all our name recognition is now associated with Ivy’s antics. Anyone who walks away from here tonight is going to associate Bitch Slap with the mad woman who flashed her pubes, not the rocking anthems we played them.
We’re doomed to perpetual obscurity.
I want to sneak back into the auditorium and watch Bulldozer on stage, just to prove to myself we have a chance in hell of making it. Their tunes aren’t nearly as hot as ours. I can’t believe that the audience are rocking out with anything approaching the same gusto.
I’m still attempting to convince myself of that fact, when a gargantuan man blocks the entire front of our trestle table. When he sticks out his hand, I’m tempted to ignore his attempt to shake, but the choice become irrelevant, as Jessie barges in and clasps his great big mitt like he’s an old friend.
“Nice performance, ladies,” the dude says. He has a quiet confidence about him, and I notice he’s wearing a Black Halo Requiem for the Damned tour shirt. “Do you have time for a little chat?”
“Of course.” Jessie flashes him her wonderful smile. Clearly, she knows who he is. I wish she’d clue Ivy and me in. Actually, Ivy has her back to us, and is on the phone to Nightshift again.
“Is here a good enough place for a chat, or do you want to find somewhere we can sit down?” Jessie asks.
“There’s nothing terribly extensive I need to say right away. You girls just stick around after the show is over. I think I have a proposal that might interest you.”
Oh a proposal, is it? Dear God, it shows what this industry is that every time I hear those words my toes curl. Actually, everything that can curl up and hide does so. I swear every creep in a forty mile radius has honed in on us and laid out their propositions. Ivy’s had at least twelve marriage proposals since we came off stage and a lot more unsavoury offers.
That said, this guy doesn’t sound local, but maybe they’re just shipping in from farther afield.
“What sort of proposal?” Jessie asks.
He shakes his head, refusing to say anything. “In there, once the punters are gone.” He points a thumb towards the function room that houses the stage. “Mind you’re punctual. I don’t hang around.”
He turns and leaves.
“Who is that?” I ask, staring at his retreating back. “Do we really want to meet him?”
“You’re kidding, yeah?” Jessie stares at me as if I’m insane.
“He’s Graham Callahan,” Ivy answers from behind me. When I turn, she’s still looking at the screen of her phone.
“And who the heck is he?” I need a little more to go on than a name.
“Black Halo’s manager,” says the girl manning Paradise Kiss’s stall. “Haven’t you heard, since they’re taking a short hiatus, their manager is looking to pick up someone new to take under his wing.”
Jess looks sceptical. Ivy is tapping on the phone, but not to Nightshift. She shows me the Metalworks News page, there are certainly rumours to that effect, and that the right band will be expected to open for Black Halo once their tour resumes.
“That’s not what he’s about to offer us,” I say.
“Yeah, but imagine if it is?” Jessie squees and hugs me.
“I’m not sure I’d like that,” Ivy says squashing both our dreams with six unbelievable words.
“Ives you love travelling. They’re touring Europe, before moving across to the States and the rest of the world.”
“Cities—they’re touring cities. I like green, open places. Not belchy, smoky, noise-filled locations.”
She wouldn’t go without Nightshift packed into her suitcase either, but hey, I’m sure that could be arranged. Graham Callahan can probably organise anything. He manages one of the biggest rock groups in the world, sorting out the plebeian wishes of three barely twenty-something girls should be a doddle for him.
I see him return to the main room in time for the scattered applause the end of Bulldozer’s set receives. There’s a thunderous cacophony of stamping feet, whoops and wolf whistles a few seconds later, and I realise Paradise Kiss have taken to the stage, which is when it hits me that tonight might result in more drama than even Jessie planned. Mr Callahan might want a word with us, but I’ll lay money on him chatting to Paradise Kiss too.
FIVE
Nathaniel Darke
We play seven tracks and encore, which means Hypocritical Bitch gets two outings. Dane leaves the stage smiling, and proceeds to tongue tango with several of our fans. The man is gross. He just works his way along the
line. I’m not sure he’s even paying attention, since he almost snogs a bloke.
Eventually, folks drift away, and the hotel quietens. We head back stage, switch shirts and grab some drinks before we head back to the now emptied function room for our scheduled chat with Graham Callahan. There’s something distinctly depressing about the place after the fans have gone. The pattern on the carpet no longer hides the stains, and the miasma of real ale and sweat pokes two fingers up your nostrils. Knox looks confused, like he’s not sure why we’re here. As long as he remembers we’ve played the gig, all will be cool.
“Far corner,” one of the bar staff engaged in glass collecting points us towards the right of the stage where there’s a section of seating that was cordoned off earlier, so the bands could use it as an instrument store. There are six people seated there now, Graham Callahan and his minions I expected, but the remaining three come as something of a shock.
“Bitch Slap,” Joel mouths.
Dane is far less circumspect. “Why are they here?” His fists curl, prompting me to tense, ready to pounce the minute he shows any sign of going for Jessie’s throat. He has a nice bruise across the bridge of his nose from where she thumped him earlier that he’s currently disguising with sunglasses, so he’s already on a short fuse.
Jessie sits tight and keeps her mouth shut. Her two partners in crime, the exhibitionist and the maverick, shuffle a little closer to her.
Joel plants a hand on Dane’s shoulder.
“Good question,” Graham Callahan replies.
Actually, it’s a shite question, since the answer is bleedin’ obvious. They’re here because Callahan thinks they’ve the chops to open for Black Halo. A more relevant question would be, why are they still here given he could have sewn up the deal anytime over the last hour, and more importantly, how does this development affect Paradise Kiss?
“Are you replacing us with them?” Dane just can’t hold it in. I don’t blame him, I’m sure I’d feel the same way if it was my harridan of an ex-girlfriend sitting on that couch looking so beautifully smug.
BANGED: Rock Stars, Bad Boys & Dirty Deeds Page 40