A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing

by Jessie Tu

  Praise for

  A LONELY GIRL IS A DANGEROUS THING

  ‘This novel knocked me out. I read A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing with escalating excitement, galvanised by the emergence of a powerful new voice. Tu’s writing is fierce, bold and astonishingly controlled. The storytelling is deft and compelling.’

  Christos Tsiolkas, author of Damascus

  ‘Searing, unflinching and unapologetic, Jessie Tu is a fearless talent.’

  Sophie Hardcastle, author of Below Deck

  ‘I absolutely inhaled this book. Gutsy, bold and surprising, with a darkness that draws you in and keeps you hanging onto every word. This novel is both an adventure and an intelligent character study. It’s a razor-sharp reflection of middle-class white patriarchy, but fun, too, somehow. I haven’t read anything like this in a long while and especially not in a debut. I hope to see Tu’s name on prize lists next year.’

  Bri Lee, author of Eggshell Skull

  A LONELY GIRL IS A DANGEROUS THING

  First published in 2020

  Copyright © Jessie Tu 2020

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: info@allenandunwin.com

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  ISBN 978 1 76087 719 4

  eISBN 978 1 76087 463 6

  Set by Bookhouse, Sydney

  Cover design: Akiko Chan

  For M.L.

  The panic of the female race comes only after she falls for the other.

  —THE NARRATOR

  CONTENTS

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  55

  56

  57

  58

  59

  60

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  1

  The ceremony lasts longer than anyone expected. We are gathered at the last minute to provide the music. The wife of the dead man had insisted on having the funeral at noon. Dragged from our Saturday morning sleep-ins by a text at 9 am. We, as in, the orchestra. His old students. It’s a pop-up funeral. I suppose all funerals are pop-up. Nobody plans on dying.

  Neither did I plan on being inside a chapel closet with a bassoon player, gripping his hair as he spread my legs apart. Pantyhose down. Donut rings around ankle. Cunt salivating. His tongue slips inside my mouth. We are upright, heaving our bodies against each other. Fingers struggling at his belt.

  I’d known the boy from Young Performers Awards when we were both ten. He had braces, a scar over his left eye and bad breath that smelt like blue cheese. I felt sorry for him. The kind of pity that was entirely self-serving. I knew this yet felt no shame. He took pity on me, too, I think, because I was the only other Asian who made it to the final round of the comp, which was unusual. Usually, we dominate the podium. Now we were newly minted college graduates, reunited. Better hair. Better skin. Better sense.

  Bassoon bends down to retrieve a condom from his pocket. Naked below our torsos. I kneel down. Give his cock a paddle-pop lick. He is smaller than I expected.

  He tears at the aluminium wrapping.

  ‘Here, let me.’

  In the darkness, his hands trace my skull as I reach up and unpeel the rubber along his cock. His breath is heavy. I stand to meet his face. Open mouth fans the hair around my cheeks. He lifts me up, slides inside me. Thrusts. Groans. Marks each penetration with a short, muffled growl. The male is insertive. I am receptive. He grabs my wrist for balance. I flinch.

  Tchaikovsky’s Adagio Lamentoso floats through the speakers outside.

  ‘Fuck! We’re on.’

  I push him off; leap out of the closet, pull on my panties, skirt, rummage for my shoes. He zips his trousers, pants frantically.

  ‘I was so close to coming!’

  ‘Where’s my violin?’ I scan the room.

  He points to the corner where my Gabriel Strad lies on top of the piano. I slip on my shoes, pick up the violin. Bolt. Hand to the door. Pause. I still my shoulders. Composure.

  On the stage, I arch my back. Violin gripped at the scroll. A large congregation of mourners blink in my direction like school children waiting for instruction. Eighteen musicians wait on me. Behind them, a row of twenty vocalists.

  Suspended over our heads, a banner:

  IN MEMORIUM

  PHILIP RESLING

  30 JANUARY 1948–10 JANUARY 2016

  Bassoon shuffles into place next to the clarinets, his black hair standing up at weird angles. I glance at the leaders of each section and rest my eyes on the music. I guide the violin into my neck. Bow on the A string. Pull.

  A low, sustained murmur trails through the chapel. We begin Mozart’s Requiem in D minor.

  He’d written it for his own funeral, supposedly. At university, Olivia and I wrote poems for our parents to read aloud at our funerals. We were stupid like that.

  The choir enter on cue, dramatic and full of minor-key despair. My fingers drop like hammers on the fingerboard. I could play these lines half asleep. I glance at Bassoon whom I’d just let inside my body. His eyes are closed, brow creased. I return to the music in front of me. Long bows. Arms raised. We only play the Introitus; the opening. Sustain the final note. My eyes flick to the banner above, a photo of my former accompanist, who’d died suddenly last Sunday. A stroke in his sleep. In the picture, he is staring into the camera, daring us to look away. His wife and daughter are hunched in the front pew. They are silent. They are still. They are deflecting the pity being thrown at them. I look back at Bassoon. His eyes are still closed. What a loser.

  The wife invites us to the wake at the family home. Other musicians exchange stories about the dead man. I hide in a corner with a glass of orange juice, staring at the plate of cut triangle sandwiches and assorted cream biscuits. There is nothing sadder than a plate of assorted cream biscuits arranged on a plastic plate.

  Bassoon spots me from the doorway.

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘Oh, hi.’

  ‘Good performance.’

&nb
sp; I swallow some juice. ‘I think so.’

  ‘Olivia said you toured with him.’

  ‘No. He toured with me.’

  Just in time. My best friend pedals across the room, offering a plate of sliced melon and blueberries. I put an arm around her shoulder and take the plate.

  ‘This is a dreary funeral. Why don’t we get married?’

  Bassoon glances between us. ‘Very funny.’

  Olivia pushes a palm into my face. ‘You wish we were married. You’re not my type. You’re too thin.’

  I roll my eyes. It’s 2016. Anyone respectable is thin.

  ‘You’re also too pretty,’ Olivia says.

  ‘And you guys are both girls, so,’ Bassoon chuckles.

  ‘Are you serious?’ I stop chewing midway through a piece of melon.

  ‘Quieten down!’ A man in a grey suit walks by and puts a finger to his lips.

  ‘Fuck you.’

  ‘Jena!’ Olivia slaps my arm. ‘That was Resling’s brother. I have to go apologise.’

  Bassoon and I watch her walk into the kitchen, where the man has disappeared into.

  I am so ashamed. I’d just fucked a homophobic bassoon player.

  ‘About before,’ he begins. ‘I don’t think—’

  ‘Don’t worry.’

  He smiles awkwardly. I want him to walk away.

  What did I know about throwing my body at strangers?

  A whole lot.

  I was a child prodigy. I never learned to share the attention. I was always the only kid in the room. I was always the star.

  My grandpapa was a child prodigy too. He believed talent chose people. He said it was his destiny to suffer. To pursue great art. He had needs. They were excessive. That’s what he used to say. He used to say it all the time. Maybe I inherited his ferocity. It drove him mad. And wild. And to his death.

  2

  Home is Sydney. An old terrace house with cracked walls. Tasteful damp. I live on a quiet street in Newtown, a suburb in the inner west lined with milk crate cafes and bike stores owned by bearded white guys with sensible tattoos. Most practice takes place here, away from the chaos of the city. Away from my mother. Away from Banks.

  A week after the funeral, Olivia and I find an evening to practise together. I’m in bed pushing a glass vibrator between my legs when I hear her arrive. I wipe myself clean and slip on a T-shirt and shorts before opening the door.

  She wheels her bike onto the verandah as I step out, barefoot. Her hair bunched in a loose ponytail; violin case strapped to her back.

  ‘Why did you cycle here? It’s dangerous on King Street.’

  She shrugs, unties her hair and whips it around like a dog shaking off its wet. She’s clutching her helmet in one hand and extracting a Tupperware container from her shoulder bag. ‘Brownies. I just baked them this morning.’

  ‘These don’t have hash in them, do they?’

  I follow her into the kitchen. She pours herself a glass of water.

  ‘Why would I want us to be stoned while practising?’

  We’re auditioning for a permanent place in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra; both of us have been casuals since the beginning of 2015 sustaining on sporadic incomes. The audition is a few months away. Only one position is opening. My best friend and I are vying for the same role. It’s new terrain for us.

  The orchestra performs four nights a week, beginning Wednesday. Most of the time, we’re called on Friday or Saturday nights. The programs on those nights require larger numbers. Mahler. Brahms. Big romantic symphonies. The pay is decent. One concert is enough to cover a week’s rent. I have a small amount of money left from my time as a soloist. Most of it I’d spent on books during university.

  ‘Did you warm up already?’ Olivia slips off her case and begins unzipping.

  ‘Yep.’

  We play chromatic scales. G, G sharp, A, A flat. All the way to F sharp. Then down again. We pick each other apart sonically. Whoever fumbles on intonation has to buy dinner. In the last two weeks, I’ve had to pick up the bill.

  Olivia thinks I’m deliberately hitting the wrong notes because I pity her. We both know I am the better player.

  The first five minutes, we play flawlessly, two violins in unison. We hit each note with the calibrated precision of a sniper. During a fast-descending passage of the F harmonic minor scale, her notes scatter off-key. I blast her.

  She dips her chin in defeat. ‘I can only afford Thai.’

  After graduation, Olivia moved in with Noah. They’d met Theatre Sports one Tuesday afternoon when Olivia was in year ten at Barker College. Noah was in year twelve at Newington. They started fucking a few weeks later and haven’t spent a weekend apart since. They have shared iTunes playlists containing Coldplay, Maroon 5 and Drake. They once played an entire Bruno Mars album on repeat at a party. I had to leave to find another party, one with better music. Their studio is on the ground floor of an apartment block in Enmore. They tell me they don’t mind the forced physical intimacy.

  Before Olivia, there was nobody else. I was one of those girls people saw coming and going, appearing too busy to socialise. I’d never known how to relax, how to ‘hang out’. I had no idea how to ‘be’. Recently, Olivia has been the one coming and going. Perhaps it’s her job teaching violin at her old primary school in the Blue Mountains. Perhaps it’s her mother, whose illness she has not yet named. Perhaps even she does not know what it is.

  We finish the scales, arpeggios, bow exercises and move on to the excerpts. On my laptop, I bring up the third movement of Beethoven’s 9th. We play along.

  ‘Can we do it separately?’ Olivia sighs through her nose.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘You’re playing too loud.’

  ‘It’s supposed to be loud—fortissimo.’

  ‘I’m hungry.’

  ‘Then order.’

  It’s past ten when the food arrives. A slim man stands at the door with a helmet on, holding a package at his chest. Olivia brings in the bag and I set up the plates in the kitchen. She scoops half the noodles into my bowl, the rest into hers.

  ‘Let’s put on some music.’

  Silence makes Olivia nervous. When I first met her, she was always wearing earphones. She’d have them in even during class. One ear, usually the left. She was always distracted, in some other place.

  ‘Beethoven? Mozart?’

  ‘You pick.’

  I settle on Ravel, the second movement of his Piano Concerto in G. Its sad waltz-like gentleness always soothes the bottomless need I feel to move, to do something. We eat, hum along, eat more. I look around the kitchen, stop at a small magnet in the shape of Royal Albert Hall on the fridge door. My mother had bought it when I debuted there in another life. Was I eight or nine?

  Since I moved out of home, I have seen less of my mother. She was reluctant for me to leave the North Shore, but I’d grown weary of the stifling whiteness of the upper middle class. The casual wealth. The polite faces. The polished performance of adulthood. Pressed pants. Dark blazers. Straight hair. My mother didn’t like the inner city and she didn’t like my flatmates either. She thought I’d catch homosexuality.

  As we’re washing up, Mike and Jacob shuffle through the front door carrying a large canvas.

  ‘What’s that?’ Olivia steps out to peek.

  ‘The exhibition,’ Jacob says.

  They plant the picture against the back of the couch.

  Mike’s hair is damp with sweat, fringe clamped to his forehead. He stares at the canvas, picking at a loose thread on his denim jacket. ‘Do you think it needs more, grit?’

  Olivia and I look at each other, then back at the canvas. It is blank, a single shade of beige.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ Olivia says.

  ‘More grit, yes. Definitely,’ Jacob says.

  Mike disappears into the kitchen and returns with the pepper shaker. ‘Let’s do it now before it dries.’

  Jacob lays the canvas on the floor and leans forward, twistin
g the shaker. Black flakes fall—ash on white sand. He looks to Mike, who is cupping his cheek with one hand and staring at the painting as though it is a text he cannot translate. ‘Maybe.’

  Olivia goes to her violin and begins packing up.

  ‘I better go.’

  I reach for her arm. ‘We’ll do this again?’

  She shrugs, noncommittal. At the door, I wrap my arms around her shoulders. My ring catches the end of her ponytail. We spend a few seconds disentangling it.

  I watch her ride away.

  I am settling for a good orchestra. Something permanent. But Olivia. When have I ever wanted what Olivia wants? When did I settle for playing a melody with eight other violinists? I won’t be alone in the spotlight anymore, like I used to be. Before I destroyed everything.

  3

  At the chemist, I am restocking on condoms. Banks calls. My teacher from another life.

  ‘I’ve been busy.’ He always begins by qualifying a call. ‘Can you come around? I’d like to hear your excerpts.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Did you see the hand physio about your wrist?’

  I make vague sounds.

  Last week, I’d knocked my wrist against the station turnstiles while running to catch the train. I am always bumping into things. My body knows no boundaries.

  With my free hand, I press my wrist to assess the pain.

  ‘It’s not bad today.’

  ‘Your audition is only a few months away,’ he says.

  ‘Is that why you called? To remind me?’

  ‘No. The orchestra needs you to step in for a concert tomorrow at noon. The soloist missed her flight from London.’

  I stop in the middle of the aisle.

  ‘What piece?’

  ‘The Beethoven.’

  The last time I played Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, I was fifteen years old and standing on the stage of Carnegie Hall. I didn’t finish the performance.

  ‘I know it might bring up old memories,’ Banks says. ‘It’s only one performance.’

  I had a therapist once who gave me an exercise to do if I ever felt a panic attack coming on. I had to weigh up advantages and disadvantages. Of saying yes: good exposure, good venue, reputable orchestra. Of saying no: too much fame is not a good thing. Of saying yes: fame can be good, if used in the right way. Of saying no.