Cherry Bomb

by Jenny Valentish

  ‘Nuh. Didn’t come to my room.’

  ‘Shit.’ Brendan had got a right bollocking from Mickiewicz after I set my hotel room on fire and I suspected he wasn’t off the hook yet. I could see why he was worried.

  Jenner ran a hand through his hair, but I didn’t have time for this. Every time I thought of the word ‘London’, it twinged like a filament burning in my gut. I needed a drink.

  ‘Here she is!’ I was halfway through pouring a large vodka when Brendan called from the dressing-room door. Rose walked in stiffly. Behind her, Andrea shot me a filthy look.

  I wore: Tim Ryan fringe jacket in pink, red and white; gold lurex dress; white cowboy boots.

  Rose wore: Strawberry Shortcake dress with petticoats; big hair bow; legwarmers; pink Chucks; frosted pink lipstick. The Japanese ‘fairy kei’ influence was getting ridiculous, but it, too, would pass.

  ‘Nice face,’ I said in reference to the make-up. ‘You look like Nicki Minaj, doll.’

  Usually any Minaj reference was our idea of a good time, but not now. Rose looked like she was spoiling for a fight. She stood with her back to me, violently cleaving pistachios, which would ruin her gel nails. The handsomes were furtively kicking around at the other end of the room and she yelled at one to put his cigarette out.

  ‘Where have you been?’ asked Brendan.

  ‘At Andrea’s,’ she said shortly. She made a show of gingerly dabbing her cheekbone with her fingers. ‘She had some designer samples for me to try.’

  Andrea unzipped a cooler bag and set out a tray of Manuka honey and tippy jugs. She plugged in an atomiser. We all watched, but we knew better than to start. Outside, the Nina brigade set up wailing my name again as though one had decided to count them all in.

  ‘Can somebody shut them up?’ Rose snapped. She looked over at Brendan and Jenner. ‘Is there a frigging door we can shut or something?’

  ‘Oh, come on, usually the cheer squad’s for you,’ I said.

  ‘Rose is having issues right now with some of Grayson’s fans,’ said Andrea, as if she were speaking to an idiot; she didn’t rouse herself to look at me. ‘It’s possible some of them are out there now.’

  Brendan heaved himself up from his armchair. ‘I’ll go and have a look,’ he said. ‘But don’t worry, Rose. This place is stuffed with security.’

  We still had a couple of hours to kill before we went on, so Rose and I ran through the songs with me scratching away on an unplugged guitar. Halfway through ‘Firewater’ she fished an ice cube out of her vodka and held it to her cheek.

  ‘Oh, fucking please,’ I said.

  She sniffed. Our drummer was soundchecking out on the stage; you could feel it right through the wall. The vibration of each snap on the snare confirmed my rage in increments. When he reached the toms I was going to do something I’d regret.

  ‘Don’t start wheeling into my side during “Fight” tonight,’ she said, hardly moving her mouth. ‘I mean it.’

  ‘Don’t you come over to my side, then,’ I said.

  ‘Fine. How about we just divide up the stage?’

  ‘Fine.’

  Turbo came back with the fishnet stockings I’d sent him to get. Then we went to the side of the stage and stood with crossed arms as we watched him divvy it up with gaffer tape while the crowd looked on curiously. Rose walked back into the corridor.

  After a moment, I followed her.

  •

  One hour till show time. Brando were on, and with Rose locked in the toilet for ages, I went to stand in the wings and watch them with Brendan. Their stylist had ditched the homie look for something more rockabilly. They had two quiffs, four leather jackets and five Bonds tees between them.

  ‘Rose’s really got the hump,’ I reported as we stood shoulder to shoulder. ‘I hope she doesn’t mess up the show.’

  Brendan sighed. ‘I told Jenner not to tell her about the Sunday Mail until tomorrow. Ridiculous, warning her on the day of the show.’

  We watched Billy Brando’s impassioned knee-slide. The audience couldn’t see, but a roadie had laid down a sheet of masonite board and the seamstress backstage had sewn padding into Billy’s pants.

  ‘It’s been going on for a while,’ I said. ‘There’s a picture of her and Noakes that keeps doing the rounds. They’re just having lunch in the middle of recording, but the gossip mags made out it was a romantic dinner. Now it’s all over Grayson’s fan pages in the States.’

  ‘They’re saying she’s a great big sluzza,’ he concluded, nodding. Brendan still found it hard to get his head around The Dolls’ lifestyle sometimes. He was used to dealing with hardcore bands whose biggest problem on the road was finding a vegan restaurant.

  ‘And she’s so not,’ I said.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘As if she’d sleep with our producer,’ I added, just to give myself a John Villiers thrill.

  Brendan’s phone buzzed with a text from Jenner summoning him to the dressing room, so we exited stage right and made our way back through the corridors.

  Jenner was standing over Andrea, who was sniffling.

  ‘Drama,’ our manager said flatly. ‘Rose has locked herself in the car and won’t come out.’ Andrea wouldn’t meet my eye. I guessed the cushy PA job had suddenly all got a bit much.

  ‘I’ll go,’ I said to Jenner. Pulling on my coat, I barrelled up the stairs and past the bouncer. For a moment I couldn’t figure out where Turbo had parked—it wasn’t the sort of thing I was expected to remember—but then I spotted the Tarago up on the grass. Inside, Rose was staring straight ahead, rocking back and forth. When I rapped on the window, she turned her head slowly and then unlocked the doors.

  ‘I was going to leave,’ she said in a flat voice as I climbed in the passenger side. ‘But I can’t work this car.’ She wiped her nose like an accusation.

  I stared at her, wishing I’d had the presence of mind to bring a bottle of wine to make her feel better, but then she reached for a bottle of vodka I hadn’t noticed from between her thighs and lifted it up for a slug.

  Rose Dall was getting pissed. Before a show. I looked around for a witness.

  ‘I’m leaving The Dolls,’ she said, as though we were in the middle of a conversation about it. I was bunched around in my seat towards her, but she gazed fixedly at the windscreen. ‘It’s time. I can’t do the album tour, Nina.’

  I fired the lighter in my hand with my thumb, sparking it to the pulse of my rage. Shick.

  She turned to me and clawed my wrist in panic. ‘I can’t do it. Something bad’s going to happen.’

  Shick. Shick. Shick.

  ‘Rose, you’ve never had stage fright,’ I said finally. ‘Never. It’s just Melbourne doing it to you.’

  It wouldn’t pay to admit it now, but I knew what she meant. We’d all pictured a smack in the chops every now and then, from some deranged fan or outraged parent. Alannah wrote about imagining her stalker rushing the stage. I had visions of someone sucker-punching me for being a fraud every time I came out of a stage door. It was life in the public eye. You just dealt with it.

  My cousin took another squeaky suck on the bottle and started to cry; a long, keening whine. Her eyes were glazed.

  ‘Shit, Rose. You’ve got to pull it together.’

  ‘I’m leaving the band,’ she said, trying to set her jaw, but it was wobbling. ‘It’s decided. I’ve already rung Mickiewicz.’

  ‘Ha,’ I barked, flicking the Bic right out of my hand and down to the floor. ‘And how did that go?’

  She wiped her nose again. ‘He understands I need to be with Grayson right now. He’s my family.’

  Bullshit. This was such bullshit. She wasn’t the only one who’d maybe just lost the love of her life. And what was she going to do, cite musical differences? The difference was I was the one writing all the hits.

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ I said as patiently as I could. ‘We’re about to go to Japan.’

  ‘I’m not going to Japan.’

  At that
moment it was like a switch had been flicked. I’d just had enough.

  ‘What about the merch?’ I heard myself scream. ‘What about the fucking merch? We just got it the way we wanted it. What am I supposed to do? Cut you out of every fucking shirt? Am I supposed to put “The Doll” on it?’

  ‘There won’t be any merch,’ she said, unflinching. ‘I’ve had advice. The Dolls are over, and the name equally belongs to me. I’m dismantling the band.’

  ‘But, Rose,’ I said, without even knowing I was going to. ‘If you do that I’ll have to tell people about the emails you deleted from Grayson’s account. I don’t want to do that. I’m doing this for us, doll.’

  I put my hand on her shoulder and it was as though the touch of it broke a spell.

  ‘I’ve got no one on my team,’ she screamed, looming into my face. Her eyelashes had come loose on one side so that her right eye flapped like a bird with a broken wing. ‘You have to hog everybody. Alannah, Mickiewicz, John Villiers . . . They all have to revolve around you, don’t they? But if they knew you like I did, they’d see through the attention-seeking. No wonder John left.’

  I lunged for her, wrapping my hand clumsily around her neck. She slapped my face like a windmill, then scrambled for the door handle. I grabbed at her, but she pulled out of my grip, slammed the car door and was gone.

  ‘But, Rose, you’ve got me,’ I laughed, to no one.

  My heart was thumping and I concentrated on quieting it by humming a note under my breath. I hummed the feeling away until it just drifted off like a balloon on the breeze, smaller and smaller until I couldn’t see it any more. I’d been able to do that ever since I was a kid. After a while I started to feel a strange new sense of peace seeping in. I sat very still in the passenger seat with the heater on until I was completely toasty and calm.

  I must have been sitting there for a while, because eventually Jenner rapped on the window. He opened the door. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yeah, fine,’ I smiled spacily.

  He looked worried. ‘I thought you might need some help getting past the Ninalikes.’ He held out his hand, and I took it, but I stopped at the fence and signed some blurry arms and faces, still humming to myself.

  Upstairs, in the maze of rooms and shower stalls, the fluoro lights and chaos quickly popped my zen bubble. I headed for the rider table and cracked open the Scotch, whether Jenner was watching or not. Intrusive thoughts. Coping strategy.

  ‘Who are these people in our fucking dressing room?’ I heard Rose snap from the other side of the wall, to some mumbled reinforcement from Andrea. It was a good sign. The bitch was back.

  •

  Those pissed girls in the front row triggered a flood of memories. Eight at night, and they lolled over the barrier vacant-eyed, squalling at the security guards like baby birds in a nest, lost coats trampled underfoot. The Music Bowl was an outdoor venue, so I’d really have to stare into the stage lights to blot them out.

  But as I jogged on the spot for the intro of ‘The Last Laugh’, I realised: it was just a part of growing up, this stuff. Everybody was somewhere on the shame spectrum. Some people just did their shameful things when they thought no one could see, or they covered so well that they even fooled themselves. With me, it was what people paid to see. It had value.

  ‘This one’s the first single from our new album,’ I yelled into the mic. I wasn’t one for greeting cities—they knew who they were. ‘It’s called “The Last Laugh”.’

  Rose took the first line, and I telegraphed my thanks to the gods of vodka that she was together enough to come in. ‘Speeding away,’ she sang, ‘drop out of space and time’. I flung out my arm and pointed at her until it was my go.

  Crouching, I tore a hand through my hair. ‘Telling me no, but you don’t know how far I’ll go.’ I jumped back up into rock-out position and head-banged the lead-up to the chorus so that my hair would be all dishevelled when I stopped—‘You don’t know the lengths I’ll go.’ The drummer looked quizzically at me as I made my approach, yet still flinched when I lassoed out the mic lead and smashed the cymbal. He recovered quickly.

  On her side of the stage, Rose clutched at her dress and bent knock-kneed as though she needed a wee. That was her signature move and the crowd loved it. She dropped to a squat in front of Craig, the guitarist, and watched him jerk out a solo. I knew without bothering to look that she was shaking her head as though overcome. When she skipped across the gaffer tape line to join me I put my arm around her so that we could sing the final verse into the same mic. I could smell a rubbery tang of sweat; the panicky kind. We got a big cheer when we hugged for about fifteen seconds. She tried to break, but I held her close.

  ‘This one’s called “Hounded”,’ Rose said, haring off across the stage. ‘It’s about wanting to break free from someone who won’t let you.’

  ‘Seek me in your search engine, stake me out behind stage doors . . .’

  ‘Hunt me in arena grounds, chase me through the corridors . . .’

  ‘Pin me up against the wall . . .’

  ‘Set me up just to see me fall . . .’

  I gave Rose a sharp look as she emoted her bit, doubling over and grabbing her chest. I’d written ‘Hounded’ about John Villiers, yet somehow it always seemed to become all about her. She forgot the next line and gave a desperate little laugh. I could hear her panting in my in-ear monitor because our sound engineer had stuffed up the levels again. It was really off-putting. I finished off the verse for her, then took a seat on the edge of the stage to belt out the chorus.

  The last song was a crowd-pleaser: ‘Chica Rock’n’Roll’. I knew it would be the one that made the televised concert. At the front of the stage I stopped to survey the crowd. There were a few home-cobbled banners for other bands further back, but the front rows were full of faces looking at me expectantly. They all knew I liked to zag when people thought I would zig.

  As the glam-rock stomp cranked up, Rose flicked the hem of her dress like a little girl and marched her feet to the beat. When she fronted up to take the first verse, all tits and hips, I ducked out of my guitar strap, took a running jump and pelted myself into the crowd. I’d stage-dived before at The Dummies’ shows, but never at my own. My job was to stay as stiff as a board and keep hold of the mic, blind with adrenaline, before being passed back towards the photographers’ pit. The camera crane followed me for the up-skirt shot.

  I fell on to a security guard and accepted a leg-up back on to the stage. It was exhilarating. Turbo ran out and handed me my guitar, and beyond him I vaguely noticed Jenner, hovering at my speaker stack. I laughed my way through the next verse with the crowd helping me along, before the sound of someone screaming, ‘We love you, Nina!’ reminded me to check on Rose.

  She was right there, eyes blazing, when I turned around, and her mic echoed on my chest when she shoved me backwards. I couldn’t hear what she said. Taking the chorus, I sang raggedly, trying to catch my breath. I didn’t dare risk the high note. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Rose heading back over the gaffer tape to her side. I watched her trip over a teleprompter and stumble forward. She went over like a newborn colt.

  Then she walked off stage.

  I closed my eyes, only now registering the spittle of fine rain that was making it past the lip of the roof. The stupid cow, I thought, as the band played on.

  The stupid cow.

  Everything was still to come. Not just the rest of the set; everything. We hadn’t had the choppers, the TV series, the wind machine, the wardrobes, the personal chef, the on-tour masseuse, the backstage mini-golf for the roadies, the fast-tracking through customs with an airport concierge—we’d barely scratched the surface.

  That was her dream, all that stuff, but she’d slowly eroded away at my punk-rock ethos until it had become mine, too. I wanted to be huge enough to have to run all our hits into medleys at shows like this. I wanted a big-name guitarist from some dinosaur stadium rock band to play a solo through all my costume changes. I
wanted to live in such a bubble of free rides and drivers on retainers that I would forget how to sign my own name. I wanted to go missing and miss my flights. I wanted people to scream, ‘Sell out!’ at us on King Street as we ducked through the rear door of our Holden Caprice. I wanted to program rage.

  People didn’t get the stars aligning for them twice. The Dolls was our one shot and she knew it—but coming from privilege in the first place, it didn’t matter to her.

  I ran into the wings after my cousin, shoving past Brendan. Turning on her heel, Rose screamed in my face. Just that: a scream. We boxed punches at each other, barging sideways into the monitor desk so that the sound guy had to brace himself against it.

  ‘How much do you want it, Nina?’ she challenged, as we hoisted each other by the collars. I could see lipstick on her teeth. Once upon a time I’d have warned her. ‘Are you choosing The Dolls over me?’

  She clawed at me and ripped out my in-ear monitor. I thumped her in the face with a closed fist, but I was too close to do any damage.

  ‘Break it up!’ Brendan barked, pulling at my arm, but I kept my grip on the frilled collar of Rose’s dress. On stage, I heard Craig launching into a solo, all pinched harmonics and pick slides. I turned back to Rose, whose face was contorted with exertion.

  ‘We promised,’ I said, grinding my forehead into hers. I could feel the blood pumping into my arm muscles, fight or flight. ‘It’s both of us or nothing. That was your idea.’

  Rose pulled away and I made a grab at her arm, but she yanked it free. I pegged it on stage after her. It was raining hard out there now, almost giving the insulating impression that we were alone. Thinking on their feet, the band wound up their bizarre funk jam to segue clumsily back into the last chorus of ‘Chica Rock’n’Roll’. We’d already missed our cue three times.

  Automatically, Rose and I wound up back to back in the middle of the stage. We always did it, and it had been prearranged with the camera operator, who was still hanging in there. I stuck one hand in the air like a flamenco dancer, my chest heaving and falling. Vaguely, I registered that my lip was bleeding.