by Debra Oswald
‘Wait,’ Charlie said to Ash. ‘I’ve just got to – I’ll be back in one sec.’
But Ash didn’t wait. He turned and headed towards the side path. He registered Erin standing there and for one nanosecond they made eye contact. She only needed that quick glimpse of his face to confirm that Ash was upset. Gutted.
She couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound lame. Ash had his jaw clamped tight, as if he was holding in a mouthful of angry words. Maybe he didn’t want to talk about it right now. Or maybe he needed Erin to take charge of this moment and say out loud how wretched they were both feeling. But before Erin could decide what to do, Ash was gone, walking past her, away from the Novaks’ house.
As promised, Charlie came back outside a minute later.
‘He’s gone,’ said Erin.
‘Oh. Right.’
‘What did he say?’ she asked.
‘Not much,’ admitted Charlie and then bunged on a grin. It was the only time Erin had ever seen him give a fake smile. ‘I was just showing him some albums I’m leaving for his collection.’
Charlie indicated the bag full of CDs and records. Ash had left it behind. ‘There’s some succulent stuff there,’ said Charlie with desperate cheeriness.
Erin sighed. Charlie and Ash were best friends but they couldn’t talk to each other properly about something important. Ash had stood there saying nothing and Charlie had just blathered on about the records.
‘I wasn’t going to disappear without saying goodbye,’ Charlie explained. ‘I wouldn’t do that. I was coming to the rehearsal at Lester’s place, to explain it to everyone. I’d love to have one last jam with you guys before I have to go to the airport.’
‘I believe you, Charlie, but I’m not sure –’
‘No, I realise there isn’t going to be a jam session now. Ash said he doesn’t want to. That’s okay.’ Charlie sank down onto the back step. ‘I’m sorry about this.’
‘Not your fault.’ Erin shrugged, sitting down on the step beside him. ‘You don’t get a choice about where your family goes. But it feels weird you didn’t warn us this might happen. I mean, why keep it secret from us?’
‘Oh no, it wasn’t some secret thing – yeah, I get why it looks like that. The thing is, I don’t like a big fuss about moving every time.’
Charlie had moved so often he had developed a method for surviving it. He wanted to keep living where he was, hanging out with friends, making music, whatever, for as long as possible. He didn’t want to be regarded as a temporary person or feel like a temporary person. Erin thought of those spiritual types who appear on Oprah and go on about ‘living in the moment’. That’s what Charlie did. And then when it was absolutely time to go, he did the goodbyes quickly, at the last moment, hoping to make it as painless as possible.
‘Is it like tearing off a bandaid?’ ventured Erin. ‘When you have to leave, you do it fast so it only hurts for a second?’
Charlie nodded and made a strangled ‘yes’ sound. Erin could tell his throat was tight. Tearing off a bandaid quickly still stings. Charlie squeezed his eyes shut a couple of times, trying not to cry. Then he grinned like the bouncing-up clown and sounded like Charlie Novak again.
‘Excuse me, Miss Erin, let’s put aside all this tragic talk. How lush is the Ignition thing!’
‘Oh. Yeah. When did you –’
‘I didn’t even know Blue Noise was on the shortlist! Not until Ash told me just now. I gave the school music department as the contact number. Just in case. Anyway, anyway, it’s scintillating news.’
‘Amazing,’ said Erin. ‘Hey, why can’t you stay here until we do the Ignition gig? It’s only two and a bit weeks away. You could stay at my house or somewhere. Actually, why can’t you stay for even longer and finish school at Mulvaney High? Live at Ash’s place and visit your family in the holidays. It’d be like going to boarding school. It’d be –’
But Charlie was shaking his head and Erin knew why. The Novaks were a close family. They stuck together. That was how that family worked and there was no getting around it.
‘Okay, so maybe you can’t stay for two more years,’ conceded Erin. ‘But why not stay for Ignition at least?’
‘My parents want us to get there for the start of the school term. It’s always easier if you start with the other new kids.’ Erin realised Charlie knew all about how to survive as a new kid. ‘Anyway,’ said Charlie, ‘since I won’t be in the band anymore, I shouldn’t do the Ignition gig.’
Erin wanted to keep arguing but every time she thought of a point, she rebutted it in her own mind and didn’t say anything. They sat on the back step in silence for a minute.
Erin had always envied Charlie his family. She would have sacrificed several goats on an altar of blood if her own family could be a little bit more like the Novaks. The Novaks were truly fabulous. Spontaneous, fun, open, supportive, funny, affectionate, creative and so on and so on. But there was still a downside. Charlie was in a family that moved a lot and he just had to cop it. That was why he was so good at finding friends and building a life for himself when he got to a new place. That’s why he’d zeroed in on musicians and formed the band with the speed of a hyperactive pixie.
Erin decided there was no point wailing about it. Kids didn’t have much say in the end – you had to make the best of the family you got. When you were older, you could choose where to live, but for now, Charlie had no choice.
Erin’s phone beeped as a text came in.
‘Is that from Ash?’ asked Charlie.
‘No.’ Erin read the text and slipped the phone back in her pocket. ‘Doesn’t matter.’
The text was from Joel. It read: ‘Lily quit band.’
In her imagination, Erin saw the wispy silk scarf connecting Lily to the band slip away and float off. There was no point telling Charlie about Lily quitting, no point making him feel any worse than he did already. And what did it matter now? Blue Noise was over.
‘Hey, I reckon Guatemala’s going to be interesting. Wild,’ offered Erin, trying to sound as positive as possible.
‘Affirmative,’ said Charlie. ‘Guatemala’s going to be delish.’
The Novaks were frantically busy so Erin didn’t hang around for long. Charlie insisted she take the green supermarket bag and give the albums to Ash sometime.
Erin said her goodbyes to Vic and the kids, with a few tears and huge squeezy hugs. With Charlie, it was awkward. They’d never been huggers. But in the end, she grabbed him for a hug, if only to stop herself bawling. She didn’t want to lose it and sob all over him, smearing snotty tears on the clothes he would wear on the plane to Guatemala.
Back at home, a wallop of sadness hit her. It was like the time she’d been in a car accident. At the time of the crash, her mood had been pumped up by the adrenaline and she didn’t feel too bad. A little later, the bad feeling of the accident hit her in a delayed reaction, making her shivery and weepy. That’s how she felt now.
An important part of her life had crashed, the mangled pile of metal abandoned in the middle of the road. Her friend Charlie was gone. His wonderful family was gone. Her friend Ash was wretched and there was nothing she could do about that. The music was gone. With no bass player, no lead singer, no band leader, Blue Noise didn’t exist anymore. The Charlie Novak time was over.
Chapter Twenty-three
Ash couldn’t bear to go straight back to the black hole of the Corrigan house. He knew he’d have to go home eventually, but for an hour and a half, he put off the moment by walking relentlessly around the streets. He walked fast, almost jogging, hoping to make himself physically exhausted. That would have to feel better than the way he felt now.
The anger hit him like a sequence of blows from a sledgehammer. Ash was angry at Charlie. He was angry at Charlie’s parents. He was angry at the stupid, crappy way life turns out. He was angry at himself for ever being dumb enough to think things could be different.
He felt like such a massive fool. Charlie had lie
d to him. Not by telling explicit lies but by not sharing the truth.
Ash started reprocessing scraps of information from the last few months. The house had never been properly unpacked. The Novaks had never talked about plans too far in the future. That family scooped up old friends and made new friends with such energy and speediness. They were good at constructing an amazing life in a place but always ready to move on.
He remembered a conversation he’d had with Vic one evening while he was helping chop vegetables. Ash had wondered aloud if they could all go to the Mandawarra festival the next year and maybe stay on to do some surfing. Ash realised now that Vic had made enthusiastic noises about the festival but had carefully not made any firm plans. That’s because the Novaks never planned very far ahead. They brought people together, generated good times, created a party wherever they were, for as long as they were there. And then they were gone.
That was all very well for them, but it left Ash here, stranded in his crappy life like a beached whale. He was worse off than before. Before he’d met the Novaks, he hadn’t realised what he was missing out on. At least, he hadn’t realised it in a full-colour, knowing-it-in-your-guts way. Before, Ash had known his music was going nowhere interesting and his life too. He’d known his family was a tragic case, like a lot of other families probably were. Then Charlie had come along and waved in front of Ash the possibility that it could be different, the gleaming, wonderful idea that you could be in a band that clicked, have fun, play good music. You could have a brilliant family where people told jokes at dinner and friends dropped by and joined expeditions to music festivals. You could live in a family where everything seemed possible.
But life wasn’t like that. Not really. Now the Novaks were moving, tearing a huge hole in everything. And suddenly a fresh thought shouted above the noise of Ash’s self-pity: Charlie’s life had been torn apart too. Sure, he would get to live with his great family in a new, interesting country. But other things that were important to Charlie – the band, his friends – well, those were being ripped away from him. And what about Ignition? It was Charlie Novak’s idea of the ultimate sizzling event and now he’d miss out.
Ash was ashamed he had been a bad friend, childish and sulky. He owed his friend a proper goodbye. Okay, yes, Charlie should have warned Ash. He should have handled the whole business differently. Ash was still ropable about that, no question. But Charlie was working out the best way to handle the family he’d got in the lucky dip, the same as everyone else. And whatever, there was no excuse for Ash to stomp off in a tantrum without saying goodbye.
By this time, Ash had speed-walked several kilometres away from the Novaks’ house and it took him a second to work out where the hell he’d ended up. He spun round and jogged back to Charlie’s place.
It was getting dark as Ash turned the corner into the Novaks’ street. Both trucks had gone and the house was locked up and silent. There were still a few items on the front lawn: a computer monitor, chairs, garden tools and such. A scrawny old guy in a dark-blue jacket was picking through it all, like a scavenging bird. A man in a battered ute cruised slowly past the house, also checking out the stuff on the lawn.
Ash’s first impulse was to ring Charlie, but he had no credit on his phone. He’d have to run home to use the land-line. He would ring Charlie, grab his guitar from home and then meet up at Lester’s so they could all have one last jam together. That would be better than nothing.
Ash gunned it home and jumped up the front steps three at a time, breathless, legs aching from running. He was surprised to see Luke awake and mobile, loping up the hallway in track pants and a crusty T-shirt. Ash just nodded hello, then quickly slipped past to get to the phone. There were only a couple of hours before Charlie had to be at the airport.
‘I know why you’re upset,’ murmured Luke.
‘Really? You know about Charlie?’
‘What?’ said Luke, confused. ‘No, I mean your guitar.’
‘What about my guitar?’
As soon as those words were out of his mouth, Ash felt a sick lurch in his guts and he knew. He ran to his bedroom and looked in the corner where he kept the Fender. It was gone. Ben.
Luke scuffed around outside the doorway to Ash’s room.
‘I told him not to but he wouldn’t listen,’ said Luke. ‘He took it to a pawn shop. To get cash.’
Ash must have had a ferocious look on his face, because Luke flinched.
‘I told him not to,’ Luke bleated again.
Ash’s first thought was to thump on his mother’s bedroom door and tell her what her eldest son had done. But he fought the urge. There was no point upsetting her.
Ash felt so much rage burning through his chest and limbs, it was as if his skin would be seared off.
He ran the three blocks to the main road and reached the front entrance of the club with its tacky fake-gold fittings, frosted glass panels and sparkly posters with fat block letters in fluorescent paint. Ash was already dizzy from running and when he pushed through the doors, sucking in a lungful of the icy, desiccated air, the interior of the place made his head swim. It had mirrors and shiny surfaces everywhere; even the wallpaper had glossy blobs on it. The swirls of garish colour on the carpet made it look like a cartoon character had vomited all over it. And the noise: a mixture of tinny music, the gabble of sports commentary from the TAB area, a woman’s shrieking laugh and cutting through all of that, the inane jangling sounds of the poker machines.
There was someone on duty at the front desk, a huge Tongan guy, solid and thickset, like a person carved out of a hunk of wood. If Ash had stopped to think, he would have realised he had to be signed into the club and even then, would never be allowed into the poker machine area. But Ash wasn’t thinking. He walked straight past the front desk towards the pokies.
‘Hey mate,’ Huge Tongan Guy called after him. ‘Hey mate.’
Behind a wall of mirrors and wooden boxes full of plastic foliage was the poker machine area. There were half a dozen people in there. All of them were silent, separate from each other, staring at the poker machines, grim-faced, their heads enveloped in the mix of electronic hoots, arpeggios and childish jingles coming from the banks of pokies. All of them were punching the buttons relentlessly, robotically, like factory workers stuck with the most repetitive job on the assembly line. They managed to look mind-numbingly bored and totally stressed out at the same time.
Ash had a good idea his brother would be there. In the couple of seconds before Ben turned, Ash saw his brother’s glassy eyes fixed on the machine, the flickering lights from its screen making pink and blue splotches on his face.
‘You piece of scum.’ Ash was shocked by the vicious edge and the power he could hear in his own voice.
‘I’m sorry,’ responded Ben. ‘Ash, I’m sorry.’
By then Huge Tongan Guy had come out from behind the front desk in pursuit of Ash.
‘Mate, you can’t be in here. I have to ask you to leave, all right?’
Ash turned to face Huge Tongan Guy with a look as if to say ‘Please give me a second.’ The guy must have read Ash’s mind because he dropped his gaze to the carpet for a moment.
Ben got up off the chair. ‘Listen, listen, listen, I’m sorry. I can explain. I know it was a terrible thing to – it’ll be okay. I’ll get your guitar back. For sure, it’s –’
‘It’s not just you stealing my guitar,’ Ash spat back at him. ‘It’s everything. Everything. Stealing from Mum. Yelling at Mum. Lying. Talking crap nonstop. Being the worst scumbag brother on the surface of the earth. You’re such a loser. A piece of scum and a loser.’
Ben yabbered back at him, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll get your guitar back, I promise. That’s a promise. I only took it because – I got the word from this guy about some machines that were all primed to – look, yeah, okay, it didn’t work out the way I – but you know, there’s a real chance it’s going to come good and then I’ll be cashed up. Get your guitar back. Everything’ll be sweet.�
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Hearing Ben rave on with his endless stream of lies and fantasies, Ash realised that it was hopeless. There was no point yelling at Ben. His brother was trapped in his own screwed-up world. There was no point expecting anything out of him.
Ash just shook his head. ‘Shut your mouth, Ben. Shut the hell up. And don’t come near me ever again – oh, but if I ever hear you pulling that aggro crap on Mum again, I’ll smash your face into the wall.’
Ash was suddenly hit by a wave of nausea, overwhelmed by the smell of beer and sickly sweet carpet deodoriser. Or maybe it was the musk aftershave and the body stink of a guy perched next to Ash in front of a poker machine that was playing ‘ancient Egyptian’ music. Ash figured that if he did throw up in there, it could only improve the fragrance of the room and the look of that carpet.
At that point, Huge Tongan Guy decided he couldn’t bend the rules a minute longer. He steered Ash away from the pokie area, his meaty hands resting gently on Ash’s shoulders. Behind him, the other players turned back to the machines as if nothing had happened.
When Ash pushed through the doors onto the street, Huge Tongan Guy was saying something to him. It was clear the guy understood what was going on and he was sympathetic. But Ash didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for him at that moment. He just needed to be angry.
In the street outside the club, Ash had a sudden urge to kick the guts out of that building. He slammed his foot into the base of the concrete steps. It was stupid, pointless, childish. The pain shot up through his foot like a knife and made his eyes fill with hot tears.
Chapter Twenty-four
Friday night, Ash switched off his mobile phone. He didn’t want Ben to ring and assault his ears with excuses and lies.
Too churned up to fall asleep, he played computer games half the night then crawled onto the couch and dozed for a few hours. When he woke up, he saw that Ben’s bed at the other end of the lounge room hadn’t been slept in. His brother hadn’t dared to come home and face him.