Blue Noise

by Debra Oswald

  Ash knew ‘Help Me’ so well that he could’ve played it in his sleep. So as Jimmy started to sing, Ash found his hands playing the notes as if they were working independently of his brain. Voices in his head were screaming, ‘No! No! Are you crazy? You can’t do this!’ but his body was ignoring those voices and just playing the song.

  The feel of that Gibson in Ash’s hands was so good that only Charlie Novak’s silly words could do it justice. Playing that guitar was certainly succulent. It was indeed sizzling and yes, it was lush.

  ‘Help Me’ is one of the all-time great blues harmonica numbers, and so Jimmy’s keyboard guy had switched to playing harmonica. His solo was amazing, swerving from piercing high notes to growling vibratos, tingling head rolls, through to the throb of the low notes. The sound of that harmonica carried so much gut-tearing pain that it caught Ash by surprise. He found his eyes were burning with tears, thinking about Charlie, Ben, his mum, his own stupid mistakes.

  As the harmonica solo wailed to its finish, Jimmy turned to Ash and nodded. Meaning Ash should do a solo. Ash immediately froze into a solid lump of hopeless nonfunctioning terror. Jimmy laughed, then turned to the crowd, appealing to them with a ‘What can we do?’ gesture. The crowd roared for Ash to play. So he played.

  It was not the greatest guitar solo of all time. Nowhere near the top ten of all time. It probably sounded like kindergarten-level stuff compared to Jimmy Nicholls’s guitar playing. But Ash played the best guitar solo of his life, or at least it felt that way to him. This might be the last time he would ever play like this, so it had to count. He had to pour every piece of himself into it.

  He finished the solo and looked up. Jimmy was beaming at him. Ash thought if he died right there on the spot, it would be okay.

  ‘How about that?’ Jimmy asked the crowd. ‘Mister Ash Corrigan. How about that? The boy can play.’

  Whipped up by Jimmy, the crowd whistled and applauded. Ash grinned like a lunatic. He stayed on stage to play two more numbers with the band and later came back for the encore.

  With the harsh fluorescent lights on and the crowd gone, the Carlisle looked shabby: black-painted walls scratched beyond dreadful, beer-soaked fraying carpet, boarded-up windows, grubby plastic chairs. But it looked like a palace to Ash Corrigan.

  He was onstage, helping pack up the gear. Jimmy sat perched on the stage steps, signing autographs for the last few stragglers before they were herded out by the pub security guys. One of the security guys looked suspiciously at Ash and raised his eyebrows.

  Jimmy flashed the security guy a wily smile. ‘You wouldn’t believe this gent was thirty-five years old, would you?’ said Jimmy, pointing at Ash. ‘He has a doctor who injects him with monkey glands or some damn thing – that’s what keeps him looking so young.’

  The security guy was no brainiac but he wasn’t a moron either. Of course he knew Jimmy was talking rubbish, but he just pulled a face and turned the other way. Jimmy winked at Ash.

  Once they’d packed up the van, Jimmy announced, ‘I’m starving. Shall we eat, boys? Is there anywhere around here we can get some food?’

  ‘Oh, there’s a chicken place that stays open late,’ said Ash. ‘I mean, it’s just a takeaway joint with a few tables and it’s –’

  ‘Sounds perfect,’ Jimmy declared.

  It was the Portuguese chicken place Blue Noise used to go to on Fridays. Ash was so hungry he could have eaten the paper napkins and possibly the orange plastic tables, but he had no money on him. Jimmy shouted him a huge feed though, to thank him for ‘helping out the band’.

  Ash had a weird disembodied feeling; part of him was outside his own body looking at himself. He observed himself sitting in a plastic booth at a takeaway place, having a post-gig chat with a blues legend and his band.

  Jimmy Nicholls was one of those guys who can get other people to talk and spill their guts. So Ash ended up telling him about the collapse of Blue Noise. He even described the situation with his brother but left out Ben stealing the Fender. He didn’t want to sound like he was whining for pity. He also left out the part about taking the money from Mr Galea.

  Jimmy listened to Ash’s story, nodding and making sympathetic comments. But he wasn’t as despairing as Ash about the band’s woes.

  ‘The thing is, Ash,’ Jimmy said finally, ‘if you want to play music, you’ll find people to play with.’

  Half an hour later, at almost two in the morning, the van dropped Ash off at the corner of his street and then headed back to Jimmy’s hotel.

  ‘Send me emails. Keep in touch,’ said Jimmy as the van drove off.

  Ash had lurched from the worst moment of his life to the best moment of his life within a couple of hours. He wondered if a person’s brain could overload and burn out from a power surge like that.

  He didn’t want to go inside his house. Not just yet. And he was busting to tell someone about the night. It had to be someone who would truly understand what a big deal it was. Charlie would understand better than anyone, but he was out of communication range. Ben would get it but Ash hated his guts too much to consider him.

  That left only one other person.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Erin Landers pictured herself as a large pretzel lying on her bed. She was an insomniac lunatic even on a good day, and with the angst about the band over the last two days, sleep had been almost impossible. She lay awake, twisted and knotted up with anxiety. The long, sleepless hours gave her plenty of time to analyse how miserable the Blue Noise situation was and how many ways existed in the world for things to go wrong.

  So Erin was awake at 2 am when Ash’s text came through on her mobile.

  ‘Must talk. Ring me when wake up. Any time.’

  Straightaway Erin dialled his mobile.

  ‘Oh, you’re awake,’ said Ash.

  ‘Yes,’ Erin whispered in reply. ‘I’m a human pretzel. I can’t sleep.’

  ‘I’ve got to talk to you. Can I come over?’

  He wanted to come over in the middle of the night? She couldn’t say no. Poor Ash must be feeling so down about everything.

  ‘Umm, I guess. Better not wake up my parents though. Come round the side of the house,’ said Erin. ‘My room’s the third window on the right-hand side.’

  ‘Be there in ten minutes.’

  During those ten minutes, Erin considered putting on the most flattering outfit in her wardrobe but then decided it would look try-hard to be fully dressed in the middle of the night. Trouble was, there were crusty patches of egg yolk on her pyjama top. A bit disgusting. She pulled a sweatshirt on over it but then she looked lumpy and deformed. Finally, she put on a bra and clean T-shirt with her pyjama pants, which seemed a reasonable compromise.

  She attempted to smooth down her hair, which was all matted and birds-nested because she’d been writhing on the pillow trying to sleep. It would be better if she ducked into the bathroom and wet down the protruding spikes but she couldn’t risk waking up anyone else in the house.

  And then, after all that, she roused on herself for being so superficial and shallow as to worry about how she looked when Ash was in the middle of an emotional crisis.

  Anyway, she figured, if Ash was going to turn up at 2 am, he would have to deal with seeing her with matted hair and wearing faded PJs covered in dancing monkeys.

  As Erin watched her clock radio flick to the next number – that made it ten minutes – there was a faint tap against her window. She eased the window up as quietly as she could and Ash climbed inside.

  ‘Hi. Thanks,’ he said.

  Erin expected Ash to look miserable but he was grinning, looking pumped, in a slightly hysterical, crazy-eyed-kelpie way.

  ‘The most incredible thing happened to me tonight,’ he said.

  Erin made a ‘shh’ gesture and Ash winced apologetically.

  ‘So tell me,’ whispered Erin.

  He told her everything, except about Mr Galea’s money. He told her how much he regretted not saying goodbye to
Charlie. He told her about Ben stealing the guitar, the scene at the poker machines, about feeling he was doomed and then rushing down to sit outside the Carlisle. When he got to the part with the van in the alley and Jimmy Nicholls saying ‘I know you’, Erin had to strangle herself so she wouldn’t scream loudly enough to wake everyone in the street.

  ‘Wait, wait,’ she said to Ash. ‘Slow down. Don’t leave anything out. I want to hear this blow-by-blow.’

  Erin sat on her bed while Ash prowled around her room, too revved up to be still. He did his best to describe the night at the Carlisle moment by moment. A few times, Erin made him double back to give her extra details about what someone said or how a bit of music sounded.

  When Ash ended the story with the van dropping him off, Erin gasped for air as if she’d been underwater for the last few minutes.

  ‘Oh my God. I don’t know what to say,’ she said. ‘That’s so fantastic. I don’t know what to say.’

  Ash grinned. ‘I knew you’d get it.’

  Erin’s hand was gripping one of the bedposts and Ash reached out to put his hand on top of hers. Their hands clasped together and they smiled; that seemed to celebrate the moment more effectively than floundering with words.

  And then, with their hands entwined, smiling into each other’s faces, they both suddenly realised they were alone together in Erin’s bedroom in the middle of the night with their hands touching. They’d been so focused on the Jimmy Nicholls story, they’d lost track of where they were. But now they were both aware of the situation and they froze, too self-conscious to move or speak.

  Erin did consider lunging in and kissing him – but would she just be taking advantage of his emotional turmoil? Would she end up embarrassing both of them? Also, to kiss a guy when you’re sitting on your bed in the middle of the night, wearing monkey pyjama pants, is more heavy duty than having a pash at the bus stop in broad daylight wearing normal clothes. And anyway, if Ash Corrigan really wanted to kiss her – if he ever wanted to kiss her – surely this would be the moment. There was nothing stopping him. So the fact that he didn’t make any move towards her was another piece of evidence that even though he really liked her, he didn’t like her in that way.

  After a few moments of excruciating silence, Ash pretended to cough so he could retrieve his hand. Eventually he spoke.

  ‘Um, I also wanted to say – apart from telling you about what happened – I wanted to say something about Blue Noise.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I’ve been thinking about that too.’

  ‘You might think this sounds crazy,’ said Ash. ‘I mean, maybe it’s hopeless, especially without Charlie, but –’

  Erin laughed. They’d been thinking the same thing. ‘We should keep the band going.’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, I think so,’ replied Ash. ‘I don’t know how or what we can – anyway, we should try.’

  ‘You know it might be impossible.’

  ‘But it’s worth a go,’ said Ash.

  ‘Yes.’

  They agreed to get a few hours’ sleep and meet the next day to work out the strategy.

  ‘Eleven o’clock at the Portuguese chicken place?’ suggested Erin.

  ‘Can we make it twelve? There’s something really important I have to do first.’

  Ash said goodnight, climbed back out the window and disappeared between the dark shrubs down the side of the house.

  Erin turned off the light and curled up under the doona without expecting to sleep. There was too much going on in her head. Just brooding about Ash would be enough to keep her going until dawn. And now she had to think about how to rescue Blue Noise. If that was even possible.

  Charlie had always been the motor behind the band. Possibly, they couldn’t resuscitate the thing without him, especially when they had no bass player or lead singer.

  The other two guys might not want to hold Blue Noise together. Erin suspected Joel would prefer to slip back into the jazz world. She knew Lester had had an offer to play drums in a metal band with his cousins. Lester reckoned the cousins’ band was pretty lame but they sometimes got paid gigs at eighteenth birthday parties. So maybe Lester had already moved on.

  She was in the middle of some tangled thought about the fate of Blue Noise when she drifted off and slept surprisingly well.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  On that Sunday morning after he played with Jimmy Nicholls, Ash had one important job to do before he had a right to do any other thing on this earth.

  He burned a CD with the five numbers that Blue Noise had so far recorded, including ‘Tongue-tied’. They weren’t proper studio recordings, of course. Charlie had just done his best with borrowed gear and help from Vic Novak. Even so, the quality was pretty decent.

  Ash scrawled ‘Blue Noise – special edition’ on the disc and found a proper CD case for it. He slipped that into his backpack and jumped on his bike.

  When he knocked on the door, the voice inside sounded fragile, wary.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘It’s just me, Mr Galea. It’s Ash.’

  ‘Oh, Ash! Come in. It’s open,’ said Mr Galea. He was expecting a visit from his daughter later in the day, so he’d left it unlocked. When Ash first stepped inside, he found it hard to meet the old man’s eyes. But Mr Galea was smiling, looking like his usual buoyant self. Ash puffed out a breath of relief: the old man had no idea the money had been taken, let alone by Ash.

  ‘Today isn’t Saturday, is it?’ Mr Galea asked. ‘Am I going crazy in the head?’

  ‘No, your head is fine. It’s Sunday.’

  ‘You don’t do deliveries on Sunday now, do you?’

  ‘No. I brought something,’ explained Ash. ‘Remember I promised to give you the first record from my band? Well, we haven’t got a proper record but I can give you a CD with some of our songs on it.’

  ‘Really? What a marvellous thing!’

  Ash pulled the CD case out of his pack and handed it to Mr Galea. The old guy held it out with two hands as if it was a piece of exquisite, fragile porcelain.

  ‘How exciting is this! Can we listen to it now? Have you got time to play it for me now?’

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ said Ash. ‘I mean, you don’t have to like it or anything.’

  ‘I’m going to like it. I know,’ he said, tapping the case. ‘Shall we have each a chocolate biscuit while we listen?’

  ‘Sure. I’ll get them.’

  Ash put the disc in the old man’s portable CD player and turned it on. Then, as he heard himself playing the opening chords of ‘The Sky is Crying’ on the disc, he went into the kitchen. He lifted the jar down from the top of the fridge, terrified it might slip out of his trembling hands.

  The second Ash got the roll of money out of his jacket pocket and back into the jar, he felt the relief. It was as if he’d been given the antidote to a poison that had been spreading through his body. He still felt wobbly and a bit toxic but now he could gradually return to normal.

  ‘This is so good! I knew you were talented!’ yelled Mr Galea from the other room.

  Ash laughed and carried a plate of chocolate biscuits back into the lounge room. He stayed there for almost an hour, chomping on biscuits and listening to all the Blue Noise tracks. He explained the arrangements, the history of the songs and anything else Mr Galea wanted to know. They both agreed that Erin was a highly talented songwriter. Mr Galea kept exclaiming about the music, full of extravagant compliments. Ash protested – embarrassed – but he drank up every word of praise like a thirsty dog.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  On Sunday morning, Erin had to keep reminding herself that Ash Corrigan truly had climbed in her bedroom window at two o’clock the night before. It wasn’t a dream. It had actually happened.

  As arranged, they met up at the Portuguese chicken place at midday to work out a rescue plan for Blue Noise. They quickly chomped their way through half a chicken plus several serves of chips. When you haven’t had much sleep, hot and greasy food ‘fortifies body and soul’.
That’s what Charlie Novak used to say.

  They wrote a neat list of the issues the band was facing, as if writing stuff down on paper made them more businesslike and their problems more manageable. Something on a list can be ticked off rather than just buzzing in your head like a fly stuck in a bottle. The first item on the list was finding out how many band members were left in Blue Noise.

  ‘You talk to Lester. I’ll ring Joel,’ suggested Erin.

  She watched across the table as Ash rang Lester.

  ‘Hi, mate. It’s me,’ said Ash.

  Erin could hear Lester roar ‘Ashman!’ through the phone.

  ‘Me and Erin want to keep the band together. Are you in?’ Ash asked.

  Erin held her breath and then Ash gave her the thumbs up. They should have known Lester would stick with it. He was a loyal guy and he just wanted to play good music.

  Lester was obviously asking questions and Ash answered, ‘Yeah well, we’re not sure about a few things. But we’ll work it out. Ring you back later, okay?’

  Erin dialled Joel’s number and the poor guy hardly had a chance to say ‘Hello’ before Erin started babbling at him.

  ‘It’s me. Erin. I’m sitting here with Ash and we were thinking – look, I know everything seems like a huge mess and I know you’d probably rather play in more of a jazz outfit than Blue Noise. Oh, and I know you’re going into Year 12, which means loads of work so maybe you can’t fit in the band, so you know, don’t worry about it.’

  ‘Do you think you’re making any sense?’ asked Joel.

  ‘I know. God. Sorry if I’m blathering when you probably couldn’t give a –’

  ‘Shut up,’ interrupted Joel firmly. ‘Of course I want to stay in the band. I’m surprised and a little bit offended that you even doubted me.’

  ‘Oh sorry, sorry, I didn’t –’