I pull the door closer, ensuring I’m sandwiched between it and the frame. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
His face pleats with dejection. I almost want to snatch back my words. He bites his bottom lip. ‘I’ve been a dick. I want to explain.’
The steel inside me melts like snow in the sun. After a moment, I step aside to let him in.
And then remember I’m wearing flannel pyjamas patterned with musical notes.
He traipses into the room, says, ‘It’s complicated.’
I shut the door. ‘It was a kiss. It’s not complicated.’ The words are hot coals on my tongue; I need to spit them out. ‘I get the message. It’s fine. I don’t see why we can’t move on.’
Jacob takes two steps toward me and his hand suddenly warms my cheek. His mouth meets mine. My fingers splay stiff at my sides. His tongue slips between my lips and his palms slide to my hips to tug me against him. My fingers go limp. My bones soften and knit together. Only to steady myself, I hold onto him. The muscles on his back tense under my touch. His chest expands against mine. He runs his fingertips down the side of my jaw and across my collarbone. Every thought gets severed from my mind. Feelings loosen themselves from where I’d pinned them down. My body sings an aria and a music score plays just for me: ‘Love Me Like You Do’.
Warm fingers thread under my pyjama top and my body careens. Wait.
Stop. Too fast.
When I pull myself away from him it’s like yanking open that damned suctioned studio door. I lurch toward the bank of windows, my palms flat on the cool glass. The view of Hyde Park blurs behind gullies of rain that tendril down the window panes. I can feel the downpour spluttering against my palms on the other side of the glass.
‘Sorry, Astrid. I didn’t mean to do that.’ Behind me, Jacob’s breaths come in puffs. ‘I meant to explain – then kiss you.’ I hear the smile linked in with the last few words.
Swallowing hard, I cross my arms, turn around.
He half-smiles. ‘I was in love with someone and it didn’t work out. Guess it still hurts like f– hell.’
‘When?’ I shuffle backwards and knock into the window.
‘Nine months ago. Ten. That’s a good sign – I’m not counting the days anymore.’
I want to seize his grin and fling it out the window to the road below where it’ll be run over by every passing car.
Instead I tell myself to breathe. ‘Harper? She broke your heart?’
‘She broke more than my heart. I think she broke me.’
‘She doesn’t sound very nice.’
‘It’s not that. She wasn’t a bitch or anything. She didn’t love me back – enough. And I was a dick. It’s how I got this.’ He points to the scar on his calf. ‘I kinda lost it, got drunk, then took off on a Harley and didn’t care if I died on it.’
I picture my five-year-old self pedalling my bike with its wobbling training wheels, hoping to go fast enough that I’d have an accident and join Mum and Savannah in heaven.
‘I thought I was getting over her. And I am.’ Jacob takes a step nearer. I push myself against the window. ‘It doesn’t hurt as much to think about her. But when you kissed me, it felt –’ He crosses his arms, then scuffs his foot against the bed. ‘– like I might lose her all over again. It confirmed she’s gone and I’m moving on, and it was like losing one more person in my life – you know, after the band.’
Jacob peers at me from under long eyelashes. ‘But this is the good bit.’ His worried expression morphs into a grin. ‘It’s taken me a while to sort through this stuff, but when I understood why I reacted that way, after you kissed me, I knew I was ready to let Harper go. Because I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I feel – good – when I’m around you. And that’s not something I’ve felt a lot of lately.’
The room seems to expand like an inflatable toy being blown up. I half cringe, anticipating the disappointing pop.
‘You helped me shut the door on that part of my life and open a new one. Sorry if you got a bit – messed around – in the process.’
‘You’re over her?’ The words, tinged with hope, tumble out of my mouth.
He studies the pattern on the beige carpet. ‘That sounds too – final.’
Pop.
I’m not looking for love, so I can’t explain why I’m disappointed. In fact, I spend all my time pushing everyone away to remove any risk of losing them. I’ve whittled my life down to one person: Maestro. But now he’s going loopy or he’s fighting demons or something, and I’m so, so alone. And a little afraid. And here’s Jacob: I want him like Cinderella wanted her prince, but I can’t gamble on the fact he might want me back in the same way, and even if he does, he might not stay. He might move to London. As Kara moved to Singapore.
Jacob licks his lips, stares out the window at the steady drizzle. The sky is dead and white and flat and feels as though it’s pressing in on me. He adds, ‘Let’s say I’m loosening the grip Harper has on me.’
‘I’m glad I could help,’ I say. ‘It sounds as though you’re on the road to recovery.’
Jacob’s grin smudges. ‘I’m saying sorry, but you’re still mad.’
‘What happened? Between you and Harper?’ I shift to brood out the window, not wanting to see his face in case it confirms what I already know.
‘It’s complicated. I mean – it kinda involved her whole family because it was like they adopted me. I practically lived with them. And before Harper, I was with her sister Aria. And Harper and me – we were in love but we had to keep it a secret – I messed everything up.’
‘Don’t ever kiss me like that again.’ I can’t let him finish because every word is twisting me tighter like I’m being wrung out. My breath fogs up the window.
‘Ever? Was it that bad?’
Loosening the grip Harper has on me.
I draw a heart on the fogged-up glass and write J4H inside. ‘You can’t kiss me when you’re not over your ex.’
Jacob moves in behind me. He reaches to rub out the heart. ‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you.’ The warmth of his breath on my ear sends a tickling heat swarming through me. I can smell the toothpaste I recently tasted in his mouth. ‘For the first time I believe I am getting over her.’
It’s not enough.
‘Jacob, we can only be friends. You said yourself, you’re getting over Harper, but you’re not entirely over her. And you might be moving to London.’
A stagnant moment passes before Jacob moves away from me. When he doesn’t speak or leave I turn around. He’s staring through the floor, shaky, as though something eroded away his edges.
He looks over at me. ‘Friends then?’ His smile is the closed-lipped one, needing his teeth to prop it up.
I reply, ‘Always.’
‘Bon Jovi version or Atlantic Starr?’
I swipe a cushion from the chair beside me and throw it at him. Although I paste a happy expression over my frown, it’s as if I got busted apart and put back together again, except the pieces of me don’t fit as well as they used to.
17
Jacob
My audition’s the last one of the day at 5.45 pm, then tonight we’re going to listen to Yolanda Gustav and Renee Fleming at the Royal Opera House. This morning Doc has meetings with industry dudes. He’s the kind of man who has buddies – associates – in every corner of the world from the old days when he performed. He suggested I distract myself with sightseeing. He doesn’t realise that Astrid is the distraction.
For once, the sun’s shining in London. Astrid and I wander across Tower Bridge. She gets all poetic about how the River Thames sparkles beneath puffy clouds that chase each other across an endless sky. For me, it’s the kind of day for holding hands, for eating outside, and for taking idiotic selfies in front of famous buildings. I doubt she’d hold hands though.
‘I’ve al
ways thought Tower Bridge was made up,’ I say. ‘With the blue paint and the castle turrets. It’s as if it’s been extracted from a fairytale.’ She laughs and shoves me, teasing. Her touch creates a zing through my veins.
‘You do know the Eiffel Tower is part of this world, right? The Statue of Liberty. The Leaning Tower of Pisa?’
‘Reel it in, smart arse. How do we get to Covent Garden from here?’
She pulls a folded map from her back pocket, smug. She’s wearing something she bought yesterday: a jean skirt and a flowery blouse that slips off one shoulder. She looks her age instead of like a teacher and I keep wanting to pull the blouse up – or more accurately, touch her bare shoulder. Kiss the skin there.
My phone rings. I check the screen. It’s Harper, but I don’t want to talk right now and reject the call. Astrid glances away, pretending not to have seen. She ups her pace but keeps her finger on the map as we walk. Each time she looks up she seems to be studying people, searching for something in their expressions.
‘Why are you inspecting everyone we pass? Or are you trying to read their minds?’
Astrid stops abruptly. The person behind walks into her. He growls something, and she apologises then steps aside to stand next to an old red post box. Her face is crinkled with thought.
‘What’s going on?’ I ask.
‘My mum’s parents live in London. Whenever I’m here, I can’t help people-watching. I search for grandparent-aged people that resemble her. Stupid, because if we ever met, I’d be furious at them because they didn’t support my mum.’
‘It’s pretty unlikely you’ll be on the same street at the same time –’
‘That’s why I’ve made a decision. We’re not going to Covent Garden. Well, you can. But I’m going to Camden.’
‘Okay.’ I stretch the vowels out. ‘Why?’
Astrid stares into space, the map hanging limply from her fingers. ‘When I was seven, I found this bundle of letters in Maestro’s bedroom, tied together with string. They were unopened. They were from a John Miller and the address on the back was 7 Broccoli Street, Camden. I remember because we’d just been to the Camden markets after a summer break in London, and – well, a street called broccoli is hard to forget. Anyway, I recently figured out John Miller must be my mum’s dad, but there are too many John Millers to find him online, and none listed in Camden –’
‘And you want to go visit him now?’
‘Yes and no. This is kind of spur of the moment. I’ve been angry with my grandparents for years. They thought singing wasn’t a respectable profession and threw my mother out of the house. Maestro never even met them. Mum told him that they were ignorant and should never have borne a child. That’s why I haven’t written to them – it feels a little like I’m betraying my mum. But there’s a part of me that wants to know them because except for Maestro, I have no family in the world. And I’m curious about my mum. They could tell me more about her when she was my age. Maybe they could tell me how she died. If I know her better, maybe I’ll understand myself better – you know, like who I am?’
‘Okay. So, let’s go.’
‘You’ll come with me?’ That smile is back.
‘Of course. Impulsive is my middle name.’ I gesture to the map and she searches for a street sign. As we set off, she hooks her arm with mine. It’s all I can do not to bend and kiss the top of her head.
‘But what if they don’t want to know me? They banished my mother from her home!’ She slows her pace. ‘What if I get angry at them and we argue?’
‘Why wouldn’t they want to know you? It’s not like you want anything from them. And you won’t get angry. You’ll just ask about your mum and stuff. Who knows when you’ll next be in London.’ Astrid studies my face. I nod like a bobblehead until her expression moves from uncertain to decisive and she ups the pace again.
‘Here we are.’ Astrid points at an underground station sign for Leicester Square. We clamour down the concrete stairs, racing each other to reach the turnstiles. Being the morning rush hour, it’s packed, and we’re forced to slowly weave with the crowd along a bright underground passageway toward the train platform.
‘By the way, did your dad bring up your stage fright in Vienna?’ I ask.
‘We talked forever about what my inner voice says and how to feed myself more positive instructions, repeating I can do this. And other secret weapons like visualisation and a new breathing technique. He’s suggested a hypnotist when we get back to Sydney. Except there’s one problem with all those solutions . . .’
I put out an arm to stop some guy hitting Astrid with the huge sport bag he’s flung over a shoulder. ‘What problem?’
‘I’m going to tell Maestro I want to stop performing and write songs instead. And this time I’m going to make sure he hears me. It’s still music after all.’
‘Yes! Put it there.’ We bump fists, but there’s no sparkle in her, only doubt.
A train zooms out of the tunnel bringing a warm gust of wind that whips my hair around. I tuck it behind my ears. The crowd propels us onto the train and my face encounters the armpit of a man in five-inch heels. Astrid and I hang onto the same central pole as the train lurches out of the station.
‘Did you think about letting Dex sing your songs – recording them?’ I ask.
‘Did you think about singing popera instead of indie pop? Vienna was awesome, right?’
I have to fight to stop tracking her curvy lips as she talks. ‘Why do you always answer my questions with a question?’
She folds her map and pockets it. ‘Well, did you?’
‘I dunno,’ I lie. It was awesome, but I’m not sure if I’m ready to say it out loud.
‘You need to sing what you were born to sing, not what others tell you is cool. You’re being disappointing.’
‘What the hell?’
‘There’s a reason why anything good has the word “classic” in front of it – classic car, classic rock, classic clothing. Anyhow, you can’t choose your future based on how cool it is.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong. Have you heard of the cool-career-ometer?’ But Astrid has a point. Somehow the applause Purple Daze used to get never lifted me in the same way the applause in Vienna did – maybe because I was sober. Or maybe because of the grand setting and huge audience. All I know, is in Vienna, I was thinking something along the lines of, so this is what it feels like to be alive. ‘Anyway, back to recording songs with Dex?’
She studies me for a moment. ‘I wouldn’t want to hold back Dex.’
‘What? You don’t think your songs are good enough? Are you crazy?’
‘They’re okay. But they’re for me. I’m not a songwriter yet. I have a lot of learning to do.’
‘Not based on what I’ve heard. You’re a natural.’
She snort laughs. ‘You’re biased. I’m not ready for the world to hear my songs.’
‘You’re afraid. That’s what you mean.’ Just like I’m afraid to leave behind the world of indie pop. ‘But you are good enough and unless you take that risk and put your songs out there into the world, they don’t exist. You have to be brave.’
‘I guess I’ll have more time now, without the singing rehearsals. And it’d be a good way to practise my songwriting. If you’re sure.’
‘I’m sure. We could submit something to some music labels. Get some feedback.’
She jiggles her head, not to say no but like she can’t believe what she’s hearing. ‘I’m not sure about that. And I don’t understand that side of the business, do you?’
‘Sure. I submitted demos for Purple Daze. With Dex’s voice and your songs, who wouldn’t sign you?’
A shadow crosses her features. ‘What if you move to London?’
‘I doubt I’ll even pass this audition.’
We travel in silence for a while. Compared to Harper, Astrid’s
not a huge talker and I kind of like that. It feels as if there’s space for me. I’m not used to it. Harper could dominate a conversation. I realise also that when Astrid and I look at each other there’s an honesty in each glance – it’s like what I see there is what she’s feeling and thinking. Harper had too many secrets, and parts of her tennis world I couldn’t understand, just as she didn’t understand my music.
A couple of stops later the crowd thins and we find a seat. I read the graffiti on the opposite wall about fifty times: don’t die wondering being my favourite, and bombing is a religion my least. I check my phone when it vibrates; a text from Dad asking how the audition went. He’s a bright guy, and can work out the time zones well enough to know my audition is later today. Clearly, he couldn’t be bothered.
When we reach Camden, Astrid doesn’t get up when the train stops. I grab her hand. ‘Come on. You have a date with your grandparents.’ But her face has paled, and fear barges all the hope out of her.
18
Astrid
Broccoli Street doesn’t contain a single tree or flower or blade of grass. Maybe that’s why someone’s added colourful graffiti to the metal garage doors that line the blackening pavement. Occasionally, there’s a shop instead of a metal door – a drycleaners, a greasy café, a pawnshop that’s closed. Gloomy brown-bricked flats perch on top of every garage or shop, each with two windows, like blank humourless eyes.
I had pictured someone as dazzling as Veronika growing up in a stylish London address. But perhaps she didn’t grow up here.
Jacob points to a number seven on a green door that has a mailbox in the middle, a mouth threatening to bite. I stop and inspect the building. The windows are shut. Maybe no one’s home.
‘Are you ready?’ asks Jacob.
It’s like someone’s trampling in my head and I’m suddenly confused about why I’m here and what I’m going to say. They probably don’t even know they have a granddaughter, given they were estranged from my mum.
‘Come on. I’ll be right here with you. Why wouldn’t they want to know about their grandchild?’
The Astrid Notes Page 11