Cherry Bomb

by Jenny Valentish

  ‘That’s all I have here,’ he said, when the faintest echo of the last note had died away. ‘The rest is in the mastering stage.’

  I sat down next to John Villiers at the laptop. I couldn’t think of anything to say. All I could think about were the things I didn’t know, that other people knew about, and Alannah reckoning I didn’t know him at all.

  ‘Let’s go outside,’ I suggested, desperate for a smoke.

  We went and sat on rickety plastic chairs on the balcony. It overlooked the pool, which was lit either end by an orange lozenge. If we were down there, I could slowly walk to the edge, pull my dress over my head and dive in. Make it Hollywood. Make the dive good. Make it rain, hard.

  John Villiers lit us both a cigarette and closed his eyes. I’d never felt awkward with him like this before, and I didn’t like it. It felt like something was ending. I leaned forwards with my forearms resting on my knees, watching the water ripple. After what seemed an age, the tap of his ash broke the silence.

  ‘Shall we go in?’ I said, looking around at him. Then I took out my gum and stuck it under the lounger, because I intended to defer to the path of least resistance and kiss him.

  John Villiers opened his eyes. He reached out his hand and put it on my head. I felt like I was being blessed. We stayed like that for a few minutes, completely still, then he got to his feet and led me inside, my hair still tingling.

  Once we’d done away with words, everything was fine. John Villiers pulled me close, then hotly closer, moving almost imperceptibly to some music in his head. He kissed me and the pressure of his lips on mine smudged my edges. Under his shirt, I felt the heat of his skin on my palms and the shocking solidity of his body after so much ghostly fucking. I ran my hands from his shoulder blades down to his jeans. Yes, it was on.

  Sex with a sober John Villiers should have been something to get over quickly, but we spun it out. I’d always thought sex had to equal sensory obliteration, but there was no thrashing in the pool, no thundering guitars, no bar-room brawl, no blackout—just one long, real, strung-out moment. It felt more daring. He fucked me so deeply in the dark, it felt like he was rewriting my genetic code.

  In the morning, he would realise I had left him. He would leap out of bed and check his pockets for his car keys, which would still be there.

  I had something important to do.

  22

  BOSS

  I started to alienate everybody I ran into with my tantrums. I put it down to the way I was wired, which always wound up overruling intellect. Either I was taking my rage out on some hapless roadie, or on Mickiewicz, who gave it back just as hard. I should have known his amusement would eventually run out.

  POUR ME ANOTHER—ALANNAH DALL (SABRE BOOKS)

  We were staring at the finish line: the final touches to the record, followed by Flood Aid and, finally, the big album reveal. I just wanted to have one thing in my life to be proud of.

  First cab off the rank would be ‘The Last Laugh’, which was the final song we recorded in the studio with Noakes. When a song really resounded through you, when you were all locked in to its cosmic groove, something weird happened. Thoughts were conveyed like gamma rays. The air throbbed, your revolutions-per-minute slowed almost to a halt and it was like you were smearing your scent glands all over each other in slow-mo. With Ryan shaking death throes out of his pedal steel, Noakes playing a spooky old pianola, and a cellist and harpist roped in for the evening, we looped the final refrain into infinity, sending it squalling into the sky like a tornado, unwilling to let it fall. When you really, really got it right, it was like everybody was having sex, including the audience.

  There was no audience in the studio that night, but love was definitely in the air. The feeling of John Villiers inside me still resonated like a tuning fork. It was beautiful, like we were all on eccy.

  ‘Wait, I can’t swallow,’ said Rose into the mic, waving us to a halt and bunching her hair in one fist. We were on eccies, but that was beside the point.

  Mickiewicz had been looming in the control room all afternoon, even contributing handclaps to ‘Gilded Cage’. We all wanted to get out of there, but Rose kept stuffing up the last verse, by laughing when she was supposed to be vengeful. Noakes pressed the talkback button in the control room.

  ‘What do you think of The Lindas?’ we heard Mickiewicz ask Noakes. ‘I’m thinking of signing a new young girl duo. Something fresh.’

  ‘Good plan,’ Noakes agreed. ‘They’ve really nailed that Melbourne sound.’

  ‘I’ve heard they’re very professional, always on time.’

  It was a lame attempt at winding up Rose, but it showed Mickiewicz was in a good mood. He’d been typically offhand about the impending honour of being nominated as an Australian National Living Treasure. Mickiewicz was about business, not glory: he claimed never to have read rock memoirs that name-dropped him—Alannah’s included—nor scan the interviews he’d given to newspapers. The day before he was due to receive the award at the National Trust, here he was, turning up like clockwork to the studio and bunkering down at the console next to his mate Noakes.

  As I re-strung my guitar I watched Mickiewicz and Noakes laugh with Rose in the control booth. She was off her tits. They looked at me and laughed again. As far as I was concerned, conspiring with Noakes was like sleeping with the enemy—I’d heard he’d been going around saying he was The Dolls; yet he barely talked to us. It wasn’t like he never had a laugh. He did laugh, but it wasn’t a very nice one.

  I was starting to suspect that Mickiewicz didn’t always have our best interests at heart, quite apart from making us work with his golden boy. Sometimes he tried, in seemingly small ways, to pit Rose and me against each other to increase the artistic tension—such as letting Rose do photo shoots without me, or getting me to play her keyboard parts on the record; or just excluding one for the other, like now. I’d casually mentioned to him the likelihood of Rose wanting to get pregnant and how we must make the most of her while we had her, but all he said to that was, ‘That’s good. Will she or won’t she? We can perpetuate that uncertainty.’

  When I finally nailed the overdub to my satisfaction I joined the others. As ever, there was a waft of heat and a stale smell when I opened the door. I high-fived Rose, but Mickiewicz remained in a reclining position on the couch, his feet up on the armrest.

  ‘Come on, Granddad,’ I said, holding out my hand, unsmiling. ‘We’re going to take you out for a drink.’

  ‘I should be taking you out for a drink,’ he said.

  ‘We can buy each other one. You need a celebratory champers to go with that shiny trinket you’re going to get tomorrow.’

  Mickiewicz had his chauffeur pick us up in the Holden Caprice and he called dibs on the front seat. Rose pumped up the volume of ‘The Last Laugh’ on the stereo, cranking down one of the tinted windows so she could sing it at passers-by.

  Rose and I settled at a table outside the Beach Road Hotel while our CEO ordered a round. He brought the wine back in a fine mood and wedged himself into the table. He was wearing his favourite old-man denim shirt and jeans; smart casual. All Rose and I were required to do, apparently, was listen as he outlined the game plan for the next few months and gulls swooped on discarded chips around us. When Rose went to the bathroom I acted quickly.

  ‘Once we get Flood Aid out of the way we’ll get you doing promo for the album release,’ Mickiewicz was saying.

  ‘About that,’ I cut in. ‘We want pyrotechnics at Flood Aid. We’ve been asking for ages.’

  ‘Ask away,’ he scoffed. ‘It’s not happening.’

  ‘I went to see Alannah yesterday,’ I told him, as clean and efficient as a surgeon. ‘She filled me in on that last tour. She lost your baby doing that, you know. You not only abandoned your artist, but you abandoned a woman who was pregnant with your child.’

  It was plausible, so therefore it wasn’t necessarily a lie.

  ‘I’d hate for the papers to find out tomorrow, o
f all days, what with your award ceremony and all,’ I added, almost running out of breath. I took a neat sip of my wine. It was all I could do not to vomit it back up again.

  Mickiewicz looked rattled. ‘Bullshit.’ He held my eye, trying to gauge what I knew. It was a dangerous bluff on so many levels—I could only imagine the elements of this story I still hadn’t been told—but I looked steadily back at him. The tension between us felt like sex, but it was probably closer to violence.

  ‘Is it?’ I queried. ‘Pyrotechnics—gerb fountains, flame pots and silver jets. And you’ll release Alannah from her contract.’

  He choked on his wine, about to go off like a concussion mortar. ‘What the hell difference does it make to her anyway?’

  It made a difference to me. Alannah had been the making of The Dolls, that’s what people said. And now I’d return the favour and we’d be even. I’d owe her nothing.

  ‘She’s recording with John Villiers right now. Right now, at Glasshouse.’

  Mickiewicz laughed like a toilet flushing. ‘Darling,’ he said, ‘that I would love to hear.’

  ‘You will,’ I said. ‘Once they put it out.’

  There was a menacing pause. The sun was in my eyes but I kept them trained on him. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Good luck to them.’

  ‘And the pyrotechnics. That’s all I ask.’

  ‘Is this a Dall trait?’ he erupted. ‘That bitch blackmailed me into signing you in the first place, for better or for worse, and now I’m being blackmailed to un-sign her. I wish you women would make up your minds.’

  I reached over and put my hand over his. ‘Please.’

  He lifted his glass abruptly and the wine slapped against the side. ‘No one else on the bill will have pyrotechnics. It’s not a fucking fairground. I’m not asking the promoter that.’

  ‘You can sort it. Then I’ll leave you be,’ I promised, mentally sacrificing the wind machine. ‘Our record will pay you back in dividends.’

  Mickiewicz tilted his head back and sucked in air through his teeth. Then he looked at me square on. ‘You’re selling your soul at the crossroads, Nina,’ he said with a hard edge to his voice. ‘I hope it’s worth it.’

  ‘I know,’ I muttered, as Rose returned to her seat. ‘But I have to.’

  •

  Dad was back in town from Western Australia, so he invited me around. I dressed incognito and took the train in order to glean some perverse enjoyment out of the oppressive scenery: industrial parks, cranes, shipping containers. From Banksia station I walked the three blocks to home as the sky turned blood red. I’d brought him a bag of merchandise, including a T-shirt that said ‘Bounce for me’. It was a reference to the bouncer incident in Sydney, and I hoped I wouldn’t have to kill the joke by having to explain it to him. He could wear it to the pub and field questions about his daughter.

  I wouldn’t be mentioning his affair with Alannah, which would just be another shitbrick for my load. The unspoken turn-a-blind-eye deal I had with the old man forbade us from judging each other. I was sure he had let my mother think I was home, sober, way more than I had been, and if he’d ever found powder residue on his coffee table, he’d never mentioned it. The old man saved me a lot of hassle. It was very adult.

  ‘G’day, stranger!’ Dad said at the door and clapped me on the shoulder. He was wearing his favourite white Chisel shirt, which meant he’d been down the RSL. ‘Doug’s here. Want a beer?’

  Doug was one of Dad’s old friends. He was okay, but he’d avoided me ever since we were watching TV once when I was twelve. You have to laugh. When Dad left the room to check dinner, I’d stretched out my legs in front of me, pointing the toes and raising them long and lean like I was in an exercise video. I’d admired their smooth tautness, the way the ceiling light illuminated the sleek line of my thigh muscles. When Dad came back in I’d stopped winding Doug up.

  ‘Nina,’ he said in greeting, meeting my eyes for only the briefest of moments.

  I prowled around the kitchen so I didn’t have to sit opposite him and make us both feel iffy. ‘Ooh, you have a package,’ I said, seeing a stack of mail addressed to Jeff Dall. ‘Can I open it?’

  ‘Open your own,’ Dad said, tossing over an envelope addressed to me. I ripped it open, but it was just a letter from the Government. They reckoned they wanted to fine me for not voting in the last general election, as if the running of this country meant anything to my lifestyle.

  ‘So what have you been up to, Dad?’ I asked companionably.

  ‘Your father was just telling me about the latest jaunt to WA,’ said Doug, lifting his beer.

  ‘I don’t want to know,’ I warned. ‘It’s bound to be unsuitable for children. You should come to LA and visit, Dad. It’s great over there.’

  ‘Nah,’ he said, tilting his chin. ‘There’s too much to see in Australia. We don’t need to go overseas when we’ve got everything here.’

  Doug was in agreement.

  ‘Oh Father,’ I said, wandering over to the fridge and rummaging around in the junk he stacked on top. ‘Oh look! You kept the little tequila hat.’

  I dropped it and it went bouncing under the table. Doug shifted uncomfortably when I followed it under.

  ‘That’s all my daughter left me when she buggered off to Tamworth,’ Dad told him. ‘A bloody stuffed koala and a tequila hat.’

  ‘Yeah, but she’s doing it for her career, Jeff, look at her,’ Doug protested. I noticed he was slurring a bit, which pricked my irritation. I hated drunks.

  ‘I know, I’m very proud of her,’ Dad said, slinging an arm around me. ‘My daughter, the rock star. My daughter.’

  ‘We’re on TV in a few days, Dad,’ I said. ‘Playing with Crowded House, Jessica Mauboy and all sorts.’

  ‘Good one, Nina,’ Doug said.

  ‘My daughter,’ Dad said again.

  Later that night, after Doug had gone home, I tidied my paltry possessions up a bit so that Dad could free up the spare room when I was on tour. He brought in a stack of mail and some photographs.

  ‘What are these?’ I asked with sinking heart.

  ‘Just some old snaps I dug up. You can have these ones if you want.’

  Why did my parents both insist on labouring over the past this way? Was I going to have to trawl through photo albums until they fell off their perches? Or were they just as aware as I was, on some level, that things weren’t quite done right the first time around?

  I looked at a photograph of us at the Gold Coast, back when I was six. ‘Ha,’ I said. As I peered closer, I had a fatalistic feeling, a sort of sad premonition.

  ‘If anything happens to me, Dad,’ I said, ‘you can have my Telecaster. I’m telling you that now.’

  ‘Nothing’s going to happen to you, love,’ he said, dropping a hand on my shoulder. ‘You’re as tough as nails. Look at that,’ he continued, holding up another photo. ‘You could have gone either way there.’

  He was ruminating over one of me at sixteen with blue hair.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Your mental health.’

  There was a photo of Tony, among the stack of family snaps. It was taken around the last time I saw him—so, I would have been eleven or twelve. Already his eyes were swimming like soft-boiled eggs in his ham-hock face, but I’d never questioned his health.

  It might start with a touch of your hair. You might pass him in the hallway, where he might happen to find himself at the same time as you, on your route from bathroom to bedroom. A light stroke, and then another that tranced you, until you were hypnotised like a rabbit. This made you complicit.

  ‘I can’t help myself,’ he might explain. ‘You’re just too tempting.’

  Later, he might grow more daring, stroking your leg affectionately with one finger as you sat on the sofa with your family. Ironically, he might be the only one paying you any attention.

  Children have a fiercely held concept of what’s right and wrong, because it’s drilled into them daily. There’s no grey area or taking
into account of variables. If you were involved in wrongdoing, you were a bad kid. As a teacher, Tony knew that well.

  While Dad made us both a Scotch, I took a stud out of my ear and used the pin to scratch out Tony’s eyes. He would never be dead enough for me.

  23

  TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP

  While there may have been unexpected challenges along my journey, I’ve always felt in charge of my own destiny. I wasn’t about to be dropped by my label like a dummy, to twiddle my thumbs. And so, there was always going to be a last hurrah.

  POUR ME ANOTHER—ALANNAH DALL (SABRE BOOKS)

  By the time the shit hit the fan with Kane, I didn’t even care. I was in our room at the Casino Royale in Melbourne, tooling away on my guitar, trying to get the riff to ‘The Last Laugh’ locked in my head before the Flood Aid show that afternoon. I knew I knew it, but I wanted to know it without knowing it.

  I was also trying not to think about John Villiers and how many hours in total had passed since I left his hotel room. It was funny. When I was in a room with a guy, I was completely laid-back about it. It was when he left that my yearning became monstrous.

  Rose was keeping up a spiel about Grayson, who’d flown back to LA for an audition the night before the most important performance of her life. This, despite Rose’s usually efficient efforts to delete every email from his agent.

  Then she said with a frisson of excitement, ‘Wait. Is that him?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Bill Clinton. Your boyfriend.’

  I looked up from the fretboard as Rose pumped up the volume on the remote. Kane was in the middle of a press conference with a telephone number running along the bottom of his chin. A disembodied reporter was asking him, ‘What do you say to rumours of an affair with India Arbuckle, Kane?’