The Byron Journals

by Daniel Ducrou

  Back at the hostel, Andrew apologised again to Heidi for being selfish down at the river.

  ‘It’s just that we were having so much sex in Byron,’ he explained. ‘Every day, twice a day—sometimes more—and now it’s all stopped and I don’t know what to do with myself.’

  ‘Deal with it.’

  ‘I’m trying.’

  ‘In case you hadn’t realised,’ she said, ‘there are other ways of being affectionate.’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘There are?’

  ‘Don’t turn this into a joke, Andy,’ she said. ‘It pisses me off that everything’s so easy for you. No periods. No warts or sleep problems. It’s not fair that everything bad happens to me and you get such an easy ride.’

  A hollow clanging interrupted Andrew’s reply. He turned to see one of the German guys who’d come down to watch their show, walking out of the kitchen banging a cooking pot with a wooden spoon. Two of his friends danced behind him, one wearing a pot on his head, and both of them beating rhythms with kitchen implements.

  Other people in the hostel soon joined them, slapping their hands on tables, stomping their feet on the wooden decking and tapping cutlery on beer bottles.

  Andrew looked at Heidi, shrugged and slapped his hands on the table. With a reluctant smile, Heidi joined in too. Soon, close to thirty people had joined the impromptu jam. The rhythm stumbled along like a blind, crippled beast. Manic and off-balance. And suddenly Andrew and Heidi couldn’t stop laughing.

  The only person clearly not enjoying it was the hostel manager, who threatened to kick people out unless they shut-up.

  Before going to bed, Heidi and Andrew were smoking a joint on the hostel verandah, when they saw a red Mazda turn into the car park and stop beneath a street light. Heidi drew on the joint and smiled as the car door opened and Jade stepped out, slinging a bag over her shoulder.

  nineteen

  Jade woke the hostel manager and paid for a private room, then she woke Tim. Their arguments and make-up sex were heard by most people in the hostel late into the night and through much of the next morning.

  At midday, when Jade and Tim still hadn’t emerged from their room, Andrew and Heidi walked into the main street to buy some lunch. They postponed eating, however, when they noticed a small crowd gathering around two performers down on the corner past the supermarket. They wandered closer to have a look. Two singers wearing Doc boots and knee-length gospel gowns stood at the centre of the crowd, swaying and clicking their fingers. Both of them had cropped hair except for long fringes which they wore swept to one side. Through the verse, the shorter, plumper of the two girls, who was wearing a lime-green robe, held down a simple melody, while the taller girl, who was dressed in deep blue, soared above the melody. On the chorus, they came in together, then split into rounds. Andrew imagined drums thumping through their voices, maybe someone on double bass, and him chopping out some chords on the keys. High-energy gospel…drums and keys…whatever—he didn’t know what it would be called. He caught Heidi’s eye and saw that she was thinking the same thing: the girls would be perfect for her mum’s song.

  Andrew and Heidi had both propositioned by crowd members after a show, especially by by other musicians, so they knew it was important not to appear too eager. They waited for the crowd to disperse, then moved in and introduced themselves.

  ‘Belinda,’ said the taller of the two, holding out her hand. ‘And this is my partner, Emily.’

  ‘We loved your show.’ Heidi shook Belinda’s hand and smiled at Emily. ‘We’re performers too. And we thought maybe you’d like to play a show with us?’

  ‘What do you play?’

  ‘Keys and drums,’ Andrew interrupted. ‘We’d be a great fit. Heidi’s written some lyrics and—’

  Heidi cut him short with a look. Belinda glanced at Emily, something passing between them, before she turned back to Heidi.

  ‘Thanks,’ Belinda said. ‘But we’re a capella. And we don’t do other people’s songs.’ She pulled her gospel gown over her head, revealing Japanese Anime-style Kanji tattoos that covered the lengths of both her arms. ‘Thanks for the offer though.’ She turned away.

  ‘We’re going to play tonight,’ Heidi persisted. ‘Seven-thirty up near the pub. Drop by and have a listen. If you like it—feel free to join in. Mostly we improvise.’

  When Belinda ignored her, Emily stepped forward, her voice soft. ‘What instrument do you play, Heidi?’

  ‘I’m on the drum kit. I used to play in an all-girl punk band in Adelaide. We were terrible, but the girls I played with got me into all sorts of kickarse girl bands. I just thought it would be fun for us to play together.’

  Emily turned to Belinda. ‘What do you think?’

  Belinda shrugged without looking at her.

  ‘Punk band?’ Andrew said to Heidi as they walked off, his voice low. ‘It scares me how well you lie sometimes.’

  ‘I wasn’t lying.’

  ‘You played in a punk band?’

  ‘You don’t know much about me, do you?’

  ‘Only as much as you tell me.’

  He took her hand and she laughed and looked away.

  Tim and Jade’s room smelled of sex, the sickly, sweet scent of overripe fruit.

  ‘Aca-what?’ Tim said, the sheet drawn up to his waist and his hands behind his head.

  ‘A capella,’ Andrew replied, leaning on the doorframe. ‘Unaccompanied singing. Kind of gospel style.’

  ‘They sound awesome,’ Jade enthused.

  Tim guffawed. ‘So they’re a church choir?’

  ‘No—not exactly. Look, let’s just try it. If it doesn’t work, we leave it. If it does, we can invite them to record with us.’

  ‘What? Record with us in Sydney?’

  ‘She hasn’t told you?’ Andrew turned briefly to Heidi. ‘Heidi wants to record a song for her mum. Something to play for her when she goes back to Adelaide.’

  ‘I’m planning to visit her after Melbourne,’ Heidi said.

  ‘That’s fantastic, Heidi.’ Jade turned to Tim. ‘You can handle not being the centre of attention for a couple of shows, can’t you?’

  He shook his head. ‘No.’

  The others stared at him and waited.

  ‘All right, fine…’ he said. ‘Fine. Let’s play a show with the Church of God.’

  Heidi, Tim and Andrew set up while the choir girls watched from the back of the crowd. The pale, dusk sky filled with the calls of flying foxes. Nervous about playing with the girls, Heidi rolled off a fill and started. Tim joined her mid-bar without waiting for a cue. When Andrew looked up, he saw Belinda cross her arms, step back and say something to Emily. He edged in with a funk riff, brought it down and counted it back in: Two! Three! Four! The rhythm bounced then sagged. The crowd didn’t cheer and the girls didn’t join them.

  Andrew brought the sound down again, let it creep along and exploded it back up again. And this time, the choir girls reacted. They stepped to the front of the group, began to sway and click their fingers. For a minute or more, this was all they did. Finally they began to sing. Their voices soared over the thump of drums, broke apart and came together, then swooped down and arced around again. The crowd let out a cheer as the girls broke into a chorus. They jammed; everything flowed. It worked.

  They played another couple of shows with the choir girls and split the profits. Belinda and Emily agreed to record with them in Sydney as long as they had some studio time to themselves to record their own songs. After consulting Jade, Heidi told them it wouldn’t be a problem. The girls had never been into a recording studio before and it was obvious they were excited about the prospect.

  After their last show together, Heidi gave the girls the lyrics she’d written, but they reiterated that they had their own songs and were reluctant to try other people’s. ‘Tell them about your mum,’ Andrew said. ‘Otherwise they won’t get it.’

  Heidi dismantled her kit without looking up. ‘I don’t want their pity.’


  After exchanging numbers and setting a date to meet in Sydney, the choir girls climbed into their beat-up purple Kombi and took off down the street.

  Echoing through Andrew’s mind, was the last thing Emily had said before leaving, when Belinda was out of earshot:

  ‘Just a word of advice. I don’t know if you guys take drugs or not, but if you do, don’t let Belinda see you with any. She hates drugs and she hates anyone who takes them. Okay?’

  Andrew had thought of the six pounds of dope on board the bus, the liquid acid and whatever else Jade had brought with her, and nodded. ‘No worries.’

  twenty

  The day after Belinda and Emily left, it started raining. Heavy, relentless rain like Andrew had never seen before. It rained all afternoon, all through the night and was still pouring when they woke the following morning. While most people in the hostel read, watched movies or played cards, Tim couldn’t sit still. He paced like a caged animal.

  After a lunch of toasted sandwiches and fruit, Jade suggested they all take Ecstasy. She’d brought a supply especially for the trip. Heidi and Andrew agreed straight away, and after a moment of deliberation, Tim agreed too.

  They dropped pills, borrowed a disco ball from a cupboard in the hostel living room and threw a party in the bus. They cranked up the music, danced inside the bus, outside in the rain, and play-wrestled on the back mattress. They were a writhing mass of warm bodies and limbs all tangled up with laughter and music, until Jade complained that Tim had his hands on Heidi’s breasts. Andrew hadn’t noticed because he’d been so busy laughing and wrestling with Jade. On Ecstasy, it all seemed kind of trivial, but Jade turned off the music and said they should think about doing something else.

  ‘Hey,’ Heidi sat up and pushed her fringe out of her eyes. ‘Has anyone noticed?’

  It was silent outside; the rain had finally stopped. The four of them piled out and jumped into the puddles, splashing each other.

  ‘Let’s walk down to the river,’ Andrew suggested.

  Jade shook her head, grinding her teeth. ‘Let’s get the tubes from the hostel and go for a river-float.’

  ‘That’s an awesome idea,’ Tim said.

  ‘And we should take more pills,’ she added.

  Tim turned to her, pained. ‘Look at you, Jade. You’re already trashed. You don’t need any more.’

  ‘Whatever, babe.’

  ‘I’ll have some more,’ Heidi said.

  Andrew saw that her eyes were half-open and rolling back. ‘We can always take more later.’

  ‘Why don’t you two go and get the tubes,’ Jade said, ‘while Heidi and I get changed.’

  They walked upstream through lush, green paddocks with the inflated tubes under their arms. The clouds were still low and dark above them, but for a few minutes the sunlight split through a burst seam, making the wet grass in the paddocks appear hyper-green, almost emerald. Rain-soaked cows watched them pass with weary eyes. Andrew felt the mud squelching between his toes. Normally it would have turned his stomach, but at that moment it felt pretty damned good. There was nowhere else he would have rather been, and nothing else he would rather have been doing. On Ecstasy he was invincible.

  They ducked beneath an old oak tree and looked down to the river’s edge from the top of a steep bank. The water looked fast and deep, its muscles rippling.

  Andrew drew Heidi aside and lowered his voice. ‘The river’s moving pretty fast. We could walk back if you don’t feel up to it.’

  Her pupils flickered before she managed to focus on him. ‘I’m fine.’

  They clung to the oak’s exposed roots, but the bank was greasy with mud and Jade and Heidi kept slipping over, laughing and squealing on the way to the water’s edge. One after another, they launched off the bank. The water was cool and each of them sighed with pleasure as they settled into their tubes and the current drew them into its flow. Tim steered towards the deeper water, spinning in circles. Andrew shoved his hands in and did the same, his head back, laughing. A troupe of flying foxes flew over them, their shrill calls piercing the still air.

  The river ahead narrowed and the current accelerated. Andrew was still laughing when he turned to check on Heidi. She’d drifted out to the far side of the river and was lying back on her tube, dragging her fingertips along the water’s surface, staring up at the sky. It was only when Andrew spun to face downstream again that he saw the submerged tree. It had toppled off the river bank and lay across the edge of the river, water rushing over its trunk and sluicing through its branches. Heidi was sweeping straight towards it. He called out, but she didn’t hear him. He called again, more urgently. And when she didn’t respond, it struck him just how out-of-it she was.

  Her eyes flashed in panic when the current wedged her against the tree. She made a brief, desperate attempt to thrash against the flow of water before her tube buckled beneath her and the river sucked her under. Andrew screamed, rolled onto his stomach and paddled frantically. He waited for her to resurface or get flushed out the other side, but neither happened. She must have been snagged underwater. He ditched his tube and swam as fast as he could. She would drown if he couldn’t get to her. Arms burning, he looked up to find that he was still drifting downstream.

  He saw Heidi surface, eyes closed and arms flailing— the river had pinned her backwards to a branch, her head just above the surface. He saw her gasping for air, then lost sight of her as he was swept further down river. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tim reach the river bank and start running. Andrew put his head down and swam faster, and every time he turned his head to breathe, his ears filled with Jade’s distraught screams. Looking up, he saw Tim smash through a bush, leap over a log, slip, fall and get back to his feet almost without breaking stride.

  Tim dived into the river upstream from Heidi, slammed into the outside branch and got pinned, but managed to pull himself onto the trunk. He reached down, grabbed Heidi beneath her armpits, heaved her out of the water and lunged, falling with her into the water on the other side. At first she thrashed and pushed him under in her panic. But Tim held onto her until she was calm, then rolled onto his back and towed her with one hand tucked under her armpit. Andrew ran down the bank, waded up to his waist and helped to bring her in. They collapsed onto the mud, exhausted and gasping for breath. Andrew reached out to stroke her back. ‘Heidi, are you okay? I tried to get to you, Heidi. I’m sorry.’

  All the colour had drained from her face, a thin streak of snot sat on her upper lip and her hair was swept to one side. She shivered and coughed, trying to catch her breath. And she clung to Tim, her fingernails digging into his back. A minute later, Jade ran down the bank whimpering and went to wrap her arms around Heidi, but she pushed her away. She drew away from

  Andrew too and clung more tightly to Tim. Andrew let his hand fall to his side, stood and took a step back, struggling to repress the feelings rising within him.

  Spattered with mud, and without their tubes, the four of them walked downriver towards the bridge. Heidi and Tim led the way with their arms around each other, while Jade and Andrew lagged behind. Andrew noticed the cuts and grazes on Heidi and Tim’s arms and legs and felt guilty that he hadn’t sustained any injuries in the rescue. Why hadn’t he just swum straight to the river bank like Tim? Why hadn’t he been as quick?

  Closer to the hostel, Andrew and Jade caught up to the other two. Jade put one arm around Andrew’s back, and her other around Heidi’s. They’d all survived and they were still together, but Andrew knew that something between them had shifted.

  Jade and Andrew walked to town to buy bandages and disinfectant. The Ecstasy was still pulsing through them and the world seemed to deepen with every moment, moving and breathing with them. They tried to talk about the river, but it was like peering over the edge of an abyss. Neither of them could comprehend how close they’d come to disaster, what might have happened if Tim hadn’t been so quick.

  ‘Do you ever get jealous of those two?’ she asked.

&nb
sp; ‘No.’ He looked away. ‘Why would I get jealous?’

  ‘Because they’re so loyal to each other, and they have their little secrets.’

  ‘What secrets?’

  ‘Like the acid.’

  ‘I tried asking her about that but it turned into a fight. There’re some things she doesn’t want to talk about,’ Andrew said. ‘I worry about her, but…’

  He stopped short and Jade put her arm around him. ‘C’mon, just because Heidi’s all locked up and doesn’t talk about anything doesn’t mean you have to be like that too. You can tell me anything, babe.’

  ‘It’s just…’ he started. ‘She’s got this craziness inside her—’

  ‘I know—I worry too. She’s tried to hurt herself once before and she’s the kind of person who’s too proud to ask for help. That’s why it’s up to us to keep an eye on her.’

  They crossed the main street in silence.

  ‘How are things with you and Tim?’ Andrew asked when they reached the other side.

  She shook her head. ‘One minute he loves me, the next he won’t even look at me. Sometimes I think he uses his friendship with Heidi to punish me—to make me jealous. Sometimes I wonder if we should give them a taste of their own medicine.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Make them jealous so they know what it feels like.’

  The chemist, who was counting the till to close, looked at them suspiciously when they walked in wide-eyed and soaking wet. They picked bandages and antiseptic off the shelves and placed them on the counter.

  Andrew started counting out a pocket full of change from their collection box, but Jade stopped him and withdrew a scrunched one hundred dollar note from her purse.