‘How?’ I exclaimed. My reaction seemed to confuse her more.
‘You . . . don’t think so?’ she asked.
‘No,’ I said bluntly. ‘I’ve only ever heard of things like this doing a serious actor’s career harm.’
‘Really?’ She was looking at me seriously, her lovely green eyes troubled. ‘So you wouldn’t do it, Jude?’
‘Well, it’s up to you,’ I grinned. ‘No one is offering to pay me twenty-five grand to take my clothes off.’
I got up and set the pictures out across the kitchen table in a line, determined to work out what I really thought about it all. ‘What was it like . . . doing them?’ I asked curiously. Katerina was on the other side of the table.
‘In a way it was kind of fun,’ she said. ‘I mean it was a sexy situation . . . and I found it hard to stay serious . . .’
We were both so engrossed that we didn’t hear Carmel coming back down the hallway. When she poked her head around the kitchen door we both jumped.
‘You got anything on tonight, Jude?’ Carmel asked sheepishly.
‘Not a thing,’ I said. Katerina had hurriedly begun to collect up the photos, but when Carmel stepped into the room there were still a couple left on the far edge of the table. Carmel looked at Katerina and then at me.
‘What . . . ?’
‘Just a few pictures,’ I said stupidly. I could see Katerina desperately trying to hide them and sensed her intense embarrassment.
‘Well, I came back to ask if you want to come tonight,’ Carmel said. ‘In fact, I’d . . . love you to.’
‘Yeah?’ I tried to grin carelessly. ‘I thought you didn’t want your friends to see how pathetic you are just yet!’ We were both aware of Katerina putting the pictures back into her satchel.
‘I’ve just decided that it would be better to play to you than to nobody,’ Carmel went on.
‘Thanks a lot!’
‘Katerina, you too, if you like,’ Carmel said a little shyly. ‘Bring whoever you’re with. It’s quite a nice place. Drinks are expensive. But there’s a good dance floor. Anton’s coming.’
‘Anton?’ Katerina said accusingly, her back to us.
‘Yes.’
‘Where is it again?’ Katerina was acting like she’d never heard of a club or a band before.
‘Brunswick Street,’ Carmel answered. ‘Jude, what about Eduardo and Juan and Declan and Annie . . . all those people? They might like to come.’
I nodded. ‘I’ll ask them.’
‘Well, we might drop in,’ Katerina gave a perfunctory half-smile. ‘I’m having dinner with . . . some people. We’ll be looking for somewhere to go afterwards.’
‘Good,’ Carmel said. ‘Jude will let you know exactly where it is.’
And with that she was gone once again without my having told her about her mother’s conversation.
‘I can’t handle Carmel,’ Katerina said suddenly. The front door had slammed shut and we were alone again.
‘What do you mean?’ I replied warily.
‘Just that,’ Katerina said huffily, throwing the strap of the satchel over her shoulder. ‘I just can’t handle her.’
‘What particular thing about her . . .’ I tried to keep the defensive note out of my voice. I really sensed Katerina’s loneliness at that point, her need for a friend, the way she’d let me see the pictures, asked for my advice. I knew she was confused. But there was no way I was going to put up with her slagging off Carmel. I would listen to anything, except that.
‘She’s probably my best friend,’ I warned, eyeing her stubbornly. Katerina was at the doorway into the lounge room. She turned and flashed me one of her haughty looks.
‘That’s what I don’t understand, Jude,’ she said. ‘You’re special, really special. I don’t know why you waste your time.’
‘With Carmel?’ I said coldly.
‘She’s fat, she’s stupid, she’s got no idea about . . .’
‘Shit, Katerina!’ I cut in angrily. ‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this. I mean, in your ideal world everyone looks the same, do they? Listen to yourself, girl!’ Katerina took an involuntary step backwards, rattled by my fury. ‘Anyone who doesn’t come up to scratch you cull out? Is that it?’
‘It’s just that you two seem so different,’ Katerina returned heatedly. ‘I can’t imagine what you’d find in common . . .’
‘So?’ I said. ‘In some ways we are worlds apart! In other ways not. Why should that matter?’
Katerina shrugged and looked away.
‘I really have to get going . . .’ she said.
‘Yeah,’ I grunted. ‘Me too!’ She walked out of the room, leaving me there, staring at the dirty dishes.
She’s jealous. She’s really jealous of Carmel and me and she doesn’t even realise it.
But I couldn’t dislike her for it. I understood then that those pictures were, as well as glamorous and sexy, a bit pathetic. I wondered what she was trying to prove. For the first time in months I was overcome with curiosity about her.
BY THE TIME I WALKED INTO THE CLUB WITH Declan, Annie and Patrick, it was ten o’clock and the place, although not yet really crowded, looked like it was starting to buzz.
Carmel needn’t have worried about having no one to sing to. True, most of the crowd was packed around the bar, but some were beginning to move into the adjoining room to watch the band. There was a polished wooden dance floor directly in front of the band and around that stood tables to sit at. The music was incredibly loud, but it sounded all right. I stood on tiptoe to have a geek. Carmel was with the other back-up singer, just to the left of the lead singer, a dull-looking longhaired man in his mid-twenties with thin legs and a not very good voice. I recognised Alan too. He was playing keyboard and looked as though he’d rather be somewhere else. As I got nearer I noticed how terrific Carmel looked in her tight red skirt, high heels, and that dark top of Mum’s she’d worn to Katerina’s party. A pair of truly gross diamanté earrings hung from her ear lobes almost to her shoulders. Where the hell did she get those? They looked fantastic.
I smiled and waved as I led my friends through the thick air and groups of young students in black shirts and torn jeans hanging around the bar, but I don’t think she saw me. There were a couple of people I recognised from uni as we slowly made our way towards the back of the room where there were some empty tables. José was sitting at one of them by himself, staring morosely into his glass of beer.
‘Hey, José!’ I called, putting a hand on his shoulder. ‘You here by yourself?’ I was actually wanting to know if Eduardo planned on showing, but I was too self-conscious to ask. José looked up, his face brightening.
‘At last,’ he said smiling. ‘I’ve been here for about an hour.’ We pushed a couple of tables together, pulled out the chairs and sat down next to him.
‘How’s it been?’ Declan yelled into his ear. José made one of his wry faces.
‘Okay. Okay.’
We all peered forward to where Carmel was standing on the low stage. Her eyes were half-closed as she concentrated on the song. She looked like she was having a really good time. It gave me a buzz to see her. I was glad that I hadn’t told her about the phone call from her mother. You never knew, the old girl might have calmed down a bit after her bout with me. Maybe they’d talked it over and decided not to interfere. But even as I went over all the possible scenarios, I couldn’t quite get rid of the uneasy feeling.
I’d met up with Annie, Declan and José at Juan’s cafe earlier in the evening. We’d had something to eat and then walked the few blocks to the club. Juan and a few others had said they’d come down later.
‘Want a drink?’ Declan asked, getting up. Although he was probably the poorest of us, he was always the first to be generous. ‘I’m in no hurry,’ I smiled. ‘Might have a dance first.’
‘Yeah. Get us a white wine will you, Dec?’ Annie held out some money, but he wouldn’t take it.
‘José?’
‘Nah, mate,
I’m right.’
I took a deep breath of the poisonous smoke-filled air and looked back over at the band and smiled. Carmel was doing well. She and the other back-up singer were moving in unison, back and forth, to the side, then together again, grinning at each other as they sang. Her fabulous voice was more or less lost under the loud amplifier. Still, the overall sound was all right, and she looked like she was having a good time. No one was dancing yet. I knew it wouldn’t be long before I was up there, but I had to settle down a little first and get a feel for the place and the music. Maybe I would have a drink. I needed to relax. José was getting up, so I touched his arm and handed him some money.
‘Get us a glass of something, will you?’
‘Sure. Wine?’
‘Yeah. Red. Thanks.’ He disappeared into the crowd at the bar, and I noticed Declan’s curly black head loping along above most of the others.
‘Declan’s a lovely guy,’ I said to Annie. She smiled and nodded in agreement. I sighed enviously, and we both laughed. I wanted to ask her how they’d met. Had it been love at first sight? But the music was too loud to talk. Anyway, it just seemed they belonged together, Annie and Declan.
After my strange morning – dealing with Carmel’s mother and then with Katerina and her photos –I ’d gone off to the library to study for my mid-year exams. The medical library is a nice light place, full of quiet, swotting students. No one interrupts anyone much. There is just this dull murmur of purposeful activity that sort of seeps into me within minutes of entering those wide glass doors. I normally love it. But that day I’d found it hard to concentrate. It wasn’t as if I didn’t get any work done, just that I found myself drifting off every now and again. It didn’t satisfy me the way it usually does. I love mastering new material; making the knowledge my own. But this day I had to keep forcing myself to do it. I was worried about Carmel’s family; alternately wishing that I’d told her about the phone call and then going over all the reasons I hadn’t. And underneath that layer of worry I was mulling over what Juan had told me the night before. A kind of sick fascination for the name Orlando built up in me that afternoon. I found myself writing the word on the top of each page of my notes. Hating to see it there, but not being able to stop myself from writing it again on the next page. By the end of the afternoon I was still battling to remember all the muscles of the soles of the feet, something I would normally have found a breeze.
The muscles in the plantar region of the foot may be divided into three groups, in a similar manner to those in the hand. Those of the internal plantar region are connected to the great toe and correspond with those of the thumb . . .
First layer. Abductor hallucis. Flexor brevis digitorum. Abductor minimi digiti.
Orlando.
Dissection – Remove the fascia on the inner and outer sides of the foot, commencing in front over the tendons, and proceeding backwards. The central portion should be divided transversely in the middle of the foot, and the two flaps dissected forwards and backwards . . .
I had to learn all this because next Wednesday it was our group’s turn to demonstrate our dissection skills. We’d been assigned this area of the body. I’d promised the rest of my group that I’d lead. I had to know it backwards.
Orlando.
The man who ordered Juan’s and my father’s torture sessions is alive and well. He has a nice family and a fine business and he is living in this city. . . this city where I live. Melbourne. The city to which my mother had had to flee with her young child, to get away from him and those like him . . .
Orlando.
‘Here. You look like you need this.’ José plonked a glass of red wine in front of me with a grin, then pulled up his chair.
‘Thanks.’ I took a sip and smiled at him. José and Eduardo had been playing music with a few other South Americans in the city that afternoon. I’d heard it had gone well – they’d made enough for them all to have a slap-up meal at a hotel afterwards. I was dying to ask José if Eduardo would be coming later, but I bit my tongue. Maybe Eduardo had confided in him, told him I was a complete jerk.
‘You seem uptight,’ José said. ‘Anything up?’
‘Not really,’ I said. He looked at me thoughtfully and then gave a grin.
‘Well, nothing you’re going to tell me, right?’
‘Ah, it’s nothing, José,’ I said, touching his hand. ‘Just a few things I’ve got to work out.’
‘Eduardo said he was coming tonight,’ José said. My face must have perked up a bit because he laughed.
‘Yeah. Said he was coming straight down after he’d been to see his oldies.’
‘José,’ I said, hating myself. ‘You . . . you don’t have to answer this, but . . .’
‘What?’
‘Does he . . . er, Eduardo, hate me for . . . you know . . . saying what I said?’
‘Nah,’ José said, then closed his mouth and looked away uncomfortably.
Jeeze, what was I meant to make of that? The little balloon inside me went zip . . . flat as a pancake.
We were interrupted by Anton. He looked like a dream as usual, his olive skin glowing, his fair hair tied back in a ponytail, and his perfect white teeth straight out of a toothpaste ad. He was smiling.
‘G’day, Jude!’
‘Oh, hi, Anton. Pull up a chair, why don’t you? This is José . . .A nton.’
‘Oh yeah,’ José said. ‘We’ve met, I think . . .’ Declan came back and plonked another glass in front of me and he and Anton shook hands. We all turned to the stage. Carmel was singing on her own and she sounded terrific. It was the old Roy Orbison song, ‘Crying’. The guys were backing her simply with lead guitar and keyboard, and the other girl was sitting it out on the sidelines. With the first few bars the noise from the crowd died. I looked around. People seemed to have stopped in mid-sentence, mid-cigarette, mid-sip; everyone was watching the large redhead with the sparkling ears. The one with the voice. At the end of the song the applause was loud and enthusiastic. The rest of the band looked a bit sulky as they picked up their instruments and got ready for the next number. It was as though they were put out by Carmel’s appeal.
‘She’s great, eh?’ I said to Anton.
‘A knockout,’ he agreed with a thoughtful frown. ‘Want a drink?’
‘I’m okay,’ I said. He got up and went over to the bar.
It was at that point that Eduardo arrived with a couple of other people I didn’t know. One was Rosa, the girl who sometimes played music with José and him. He gave me a tight little nod then greeted Declan and José with warm grins and pats on the back.
‘This is Robert and Rosa, everyone! José, Declan, Jude . . .’ I felt a shard of anxiety slip in under my ribcage as I peered up at Rosa. Was she with him? I couldn’t work it out. Stop panicking, Jude! Eduardo moved to the other end of the table, sat down and began talking and laughing loudly, including everyone but me in his warm invitation to come over and check out the new house he and Robert had just moved into.
‘Where does Rosa fit in?’ I wanted to ask. She was looking up at him as he talked, as if she thought he was the cutest thing she’d ever come across. Was I jealous? I don’t know. But I didn’t like her. She looked dumb and twitty and . . . Yeah, I was jealous. It was a new sensation. I sat back mutely and tried not to care.
When the bracket ended, Carmel bounced down from the stage and came over to our table. Everyone congratulated her. ‘Fantastic, Carmel!’
‘Really good!’
Declan stood on one of the chairs and proceeded to ‘interview’ her amid much cheering and cat-calling from the rest of us.
‘How do your see your career panning out, Miss McCaffrey?’ ‘When do you see yourself appearing at the Entertainment Centre?’
She grinned happily and when everyone had calmed down a bit she pushed her way onto half my chair because there weren’t any spare ones.
‘How are you going?’ she whispered. ‘You seem a bit . . .’
‘A bit what?’ It wa
s really starting to piss me off that I still hadn’t told her about her mother’s call. In fact it sat heavily on my conscience.
‘Carm . . .’ I began. And then I decided that I couldn’t do it here. What if she got really upset? I should at least wait until her singing was over for the night.
‘What?’ she said curiously. ‘Come on, Jude. Spill the beans. We tell each other everything, right?’
‘I’ll tell you later.’
‘Promise?’
I nodded. Carmel sighed and looked up at the other end of the table to where the others were talking animatedly.
‘He’s here,’ she said pointedly.
‘I know,’ I said.
‘He with that girl?’
‘I don’t know . . .’
‘Has he said anything to you?’
‘Nope.’
‘Ask him to dance when we start playing again.’
‘Nah,’ I said grimly. ‘I don’t think he likes forward women.’ Carmel leant nearer and put one arm around me, squeezing my shoulders.
‘Go on, Jude,’ she said.
‘What makes you think he’d say yes?’ I laughed in spite of myself.
‘Because there’s no one like you . . . he’d be mad, completely bonkers, to pass you up!’
‘Sure,’ I said, laughing. ‘Go on. See, they want you.’ I pushed her off the seat. One of the band members was motioning for her to get back on the stage. She stood up and collided with Anton coming back with drinks.
‘Oops! I’m sorry.’ He put the drinks on the table and kissed her warmly on the cheek.
‘You’re sounding terrific,’ he said.
‘It’s all right?’ she asked. ‘Not too loud?’ Anton turned to me in mock impatience.
‘All right?’ he joked. ‘Girl, you’re sensational!’ He pulled Carmel onto his knee. She laughed and kissed him lightly on the forehead.
‘I gotta go,’ she said, getting up. But she stopped suddenly and gulped, staring at the entrance to the bar. We all turned to see what she was staring at.
A stunning vision, a woman in white, was standing in the doorway, flanked by a couple of very sharply dressed older men. Katerina. The two men were around thirty, and they stood protectively beside her as if she was a film star and they were the bodyguards. They actually had sunglasses on at that time of night! Then someone else pushed into the inner circle. It was Glen Simons, the handsome old creep I had been so horrible to earlier in the year, the one I hoped I’d never see again. So he was still on the scene! He took Katerina’s hand authoritatively, as though he owned her, and the four of them just stood there staring around. Katerina was sort of smiling, but the men were very aloof in their snappy leather jackets and Italian linen pants, as if they suspected that someone had planted a bomb in the place. There was an immediate quickening in the atmosphere. Everybody in the room turned for a look. Perhaps they thought she was a film star. She could easily have passed for one.
Queen Kat, Carmel and St Jude Get a Life Page 25