Stars Like Us
Page 23
‘She had it up for auction,’ he said. ‘There was quite a lot of interest, actually. I had to fork out four thousand quid for it.’
‘Thank you,’ I breathed. I wanted to throw my arms around him, but he stood so still that I wasn’t sure he’d return the hug.
‘Weird that your old jumper would be worth more than your guitar,’ he said drily.
I laughed, and his mouth twitched like he wanted to as well, but he held it in.
‘Will you come to the Supernovas?’ I said. I didn’t care if I never saw Carter again, but I couldn’t imagine going without Sam.
‘I don’t want any part of this anymore.’
‘I’m not saying you should come back to the band. I don’t think Carter and I can ever work together again. But if we win a Supernova, you deserve to be up there with us.’
‘They don’t reckon “King Cutie” will get it. Best money is on “Stargirl”,’ he said bitterly. ‘What a badass way to kick off your solo career.’
I took a step back. ‘Don’t you want to be there?’ I said, shocked. ‘After everything we worked for?’
‘I’m going to read Medicine at Bristol. I want to forget that last year ever happened.’
‘Come on,’ I said. The tears finally broke through and I wiped them away on my sleeve. I couldn’t bear the thought that he regretted the entire time we’d had together. All the long nights and hard work, all the shredded fingers; the hissed arguments and quick forgiveness and the future shared in a smile. The four of us whooping on the footpath outside a grey building on Canary Wharf, guitars on our backs; every time he stepped in to answer an awkward question in an interview; every time I stood up for him and Tish. I had to believe it had mattered. ‘It wasn’t all bad,’ I said. ‘We went to Paris and Ibiza. Your single got to number one. The album had rave reviews.’
‘Four stars out of five is not rave reviews,’ he said, with the edge of a smile, and I thought of him comforting me in the lift in Ibiza after the NME review.
‘Even Bowie didn’t write Station to Station right off the bat,’ I said.
Finally, the grin split his face and he pulled me into a hug.
‘So you really want a date for the Supernovas, then?’ he said.
I laughed, relief bubbling out of me. ‘Yes, please.’
He stepped back from me and looked out across the river, at the boathouse where we had first met. ‘Well, you’d better go and ask her.’
CHAPTER 47
Addie wore a beret over her cropped hair and a navy pea coat. She was sitting on a bench looking out over Hampstead Heath, her back to me. Neutral ground, she’d called it – although it was walking distance from her place and a substantial cab ride from the hotel in Chelsea where I’d been living with Jack and Dad for the last two weeks.
I cleared my throat before I sat down, but she didn’t turn around. In the back of my mind was her text on New Year’s Eve: I saw the show and I hope you’re OK. I hoped the girl who’d written that still felt something for me.
‘Hey,’ I said nervously.
She pulled one flat ankle boot under her, curling in on herself. I couldn’t believe I had ever seen her as aloof, that I had ever thought she was Addie Marmoset: Impassive Superstar, not a fragile girl with a beautiful voice and a big heart.
‘Thank you for agreeing to meet me,’ I started.
‘My mum said I owed it to you to hear you out. I came to hear what you had to say.’
What did I have to say? There was no way to explain what I had done, nothing that might make it all right between us. I had nothing to give her – except an apology.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘I understand if you can’t forgive me. I don’t really want to forgive myself. But I want you to know how sorry I am for hurting you.’
‘I heard about you and Carter.’ His name didn’t come easily for her, and I yearned to reach out and touch her.
The whole world had heard about me and Carter, thanks to my outburst being captured on twenty phones. He hadn’t called me since that night and his frantic texts had petered out after a few days. At night, when I went to bed in my hotel room, I would think about the look on his face in the booth at MudDragon and be flooded with fresh anger.
‘I should have told you about Carter from the beginning,’ I said. ‘We said we’d be honest with each other, and you trusted me, and I broke that.’ My voice faltered, but I had to tell her how I felt – I owed myself that much. And I owed her so much more.
‘What do you want from me, Lily?’ she asked. Her voice was uneven but the hand tucking her hair under her beret was steady.
‘I want whatever you’re willing to give me,’ I said. She wouldn’t look at me, but I dug my nails into my palm and told myself to keep talking. ‘If that’s friendship or maybe, one day, if that’s something more. I want your honesty and your kindness, your sense of humour and your vulnerability and all the parts of you I don’t know about yet. I want the girl without the wig, without the heels, without the gates behind your eyes. I want you in my life.’
When she finally raised her eyes to mine, they were wet.
‘Has anyone ever said you should write songs for a living?’
I reached for her hand, tentatively, and when she didn’t baulk I squeezed her fingers.
‘It’s not easy for me, Lily. I don’t trust many people. With you, I thought if we could be honest from the start, maybe we’d stand a chance.’
I nodded. Her thumb moved softly over my hand, and my heart expanded. I tried to hold still, tried not to think about the way she’d kissed me on my bed, scared I’d rupture this delicate truce. Behind her, I could hear ducks calling to each other on the pond. My voice shook as I asked, ‘Can we start over?’
She studied me for a long second, then nodded slowly. ‘My name is Adelaide Mawson. I was born in Manchester and my nineteenth birthday is next week. My parents are getting a divorce and it’s my fault because my mum accepts that I’m gay and my dad can’t forgive me. I like to eat pancakes on Sunday mornings with maple syrup and butter. And I have a huge crush on this gorgeous blonde Australian.’ She knotted our fingers through to the knuckles. ‘And who are you?’
I let out my breath and looked her square in the eyes, smiling. ‘I’m Liliana Donadi.’
ATTRIBUTIONS
Arthur O’Shaughnessy, ‘Ode’, in Music and Moonlight: poems and songs by Arthur William Edgar O’Shaughnessy (Chatto & Windus, 1874)
‘You just pick a chord, go twang, and you’ve got music.’ – Sid Vicious, quoted in Jon Savage, England’s Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and Beyond (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2001)
‘As an artist of artifice, I do believe I have more integrity than any one of my contemporaries.’ – David Bowie, quoted in Lepota L. Cosmo, Rock Love Quote – 5000 Quotations On Rock N’ Roll of Legends, Bands, Producers, Instrumentalists, Writers and Leading Vocals (Lulu Press, Inc, 2016)
‘Music doesn’t lie. I agree it can be misinterpreted, but it cannot lie.’ – Jimi Hendrix, quoted in an interview by Roy Hollingworth (Melody Maker, 5 September 1970)
‘Fame means millions of people have the wrong idea of who you are.’ – Erica Jong, quoted in Rosemarie Jarski, The Funniest Thing You Never Said 2 (Ebury Press, 2010)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It took a lot of people to get me here.
I am here because when I was six, my mother gave me a battered copy of Watership Down – and she has never stopped giving me books.
I am here because when I was ten, on long car rides, my father would tell me the history of the Second World War or the mostly fictional adventures of Mack the Whiskey Bottle, and my brother and I would listen, spellbound.
I am here because when I couldn’t sleep, my Ami, Anne Zigmond, would make up Enid Blyton-esque adventures about children stranded on an island, with smugglers and picnics and caves and treasure.
I am here because of a long line of storytellers in the Chapman and Auchincloss and Zigmond clans, includ
ing my grandmothers, Eileen Auchincloss and Dorothy Chapman, and my wonderful sister, Genevieve James, who has only ever had positive things to say about my work. I am lucky to have such a huge and loving family, which includes Rena Chapman, Tony James, Helen Zigmond and Naomi, Mark and Guy Sherborne, my sisters Claire Grocott and Gen and Ingrid James, their hetero lifemates Lachlan Chisholm, Dave Murphy and Chris Grocott, and my niece and nephew, Frankie and Theo.
I am here because a lovely man named Travis Franks encouraged my meandering first attempts at a novel. Vivienne Howe read the first draft of Stars Like Us and every version since then (and there have been many) and her enthusiasm meant that I kept going.
My wonderful friends Alex Chalwell, Gemma Conley-Smith, Catherine Hanrahan, Emily Jateff, Amanda Lavis, Petronella McGovern, Margaret Morgan, Vita Morgan, Ingrid Neal, Katy Pike, Alison Stanton-Cook, Lauren Stracey and Ken Ward didn’t laugh at my early drafts and gave me loving, supportive feedback. Dan Christie, Ali Cotsworth, Tristan Fraser, Rikki Mawad, Zoe Pollock and Jacqui Street kept my spirits up when it felt like I was chasing an impossible dream.
I am here because Chris Chapman and Greg Stone checked parts of the manuscript for musical mistakes and technical errors (any that remain are my own).
I am here because Nigel Featherstone and Mary Cunnane at the ACT Writers Centre HARDCOPY program were so encouraging about my writing at an early stage. The good people at Varuna and Black Inc. selected my manuscript for their Publisher Introduction Program in 2017, and Stephen Measday, Carol Major and Mark Tredinnick offered feedback and mentorship.
I am here because my agent, Alex Adsett, gave me such wise words and went in to bat for me with kindness and poise at every hurdle.
I am here because Emily Wilson saw the potential of my manuscript from all the other great entries in the Ampersand Prize, and Marisa Pintado took a chance and worked closely with me to make it better. Emma Schwarcz saw all the missing pieces. My brilliant editor, Luna Soo, polished the manuscript again and again, until it was no longer a manuscript, but a book. Jess Cruikshank did the beautiful cover with input from Penelope White, and Lauren Draper was so enthusiastic and committed in her marketing of the book.
I am here because twelve years ago, a wonderful person with hair like a lion’s mane asked me over for hot chocolate and has been my greatest ally ever since. I am here because my sunny, clever kid, Grace, chose me for her parent and inspires me with her creative mind every day. I’m here because a little white-haired legend came into my life at the perfect time, bringing joy and smiles and delightful little toes with him. My Head of Security, Roscoe, had the important job of scaring off intruders while I finished the manuscript, and is a very good boy.
I am here because of a long-limbed, freckle-faced boy who grew briefly into a kind, honest, golden young man, and who left us too soon. David, my brother, the true storyteller in my family and the best person I have ever known, when are we going to stop missing you?
Frances Chapman is a novelist, playwright and screenwriter from Sydney.
Born in Henley-On-Thames in England, she spent her childhood pinballed between continents before settling in Sydney. Several years as a journalist and social researcher gave her a healthy curiosity about people’s stories before she became a freelance writer in 2015. The idea for Stars Like Us came when, after a string of rejections for her first manuscript, she decided to write a book that her teenage self would have loved. It was also partly inspired by a photo of Justin Bieber eating chicken on a visit to Sydney. The novel won the Hardie Grant Egmont Ampersand Prize in 2018, and was selected for the Varuna Publisher Introduction Program in 2017.
Frances now lives by the beach with her family and Roscoe, the most winsome of hounds.
Stars Like Us
first published in 2020 by
Hardie Grant Egmont
Ground Floor, Building 1, 658 Church Street
Richmond, Victoria 3121, Australia
www.hardiegrantegmont.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers and copyright holders.
eISBN 9781743586792
Text copyright © 2020 Frances Chapman
Cover design by Jess Cruickshank
We welcome feedback from our readers. All our ebooks are edited and proofread vigorously, but we know that mistakes sometimes get through. If you spot any errors, please email info@hardiegrantegmont.com.au so that we can fix them for your fellow ebook readers.