Rounding up Alice and Tim is straightforward, and all of a sudden I’m wondering what was ever so hard about having the kind of life I want, and all the miserable nights sitting in my room by myself are just a memory.
I’m doubly excited because my friend Ella is back in town for the weekend. In high school, she was probably the closest Alice and I had to a Third Musketeer. She used to come over and we’d sing pop songs into a hairbrush in my bedroom. It seems just slightly lame now. She moved to Melbourne in the summer to study art at a university there and has been loving it and is crazily busy. Neither Alice nor I have heard from her as much as we thought we would, so there’s a bit of a weird vibe. Plus the last time I talked to her she went on about how séances are really cool if I would just give them a chance and how she’d been seeing a guy she met at a cemetery. We’re old friends, but friends that don’t really know what’s going on in each other’s lives any more.
I tell Ella about the disco and she says she’ll think about it and see what else people are doing tonight, which is the most annoying thing. I thought she’d be glad to see us, not holding off to see if she can get a better offer.
We get there as the sun’s going down and you can tell instantly that something big is on: the whole area is a buzz. It’s meant to be drug- and alcohol-free, which means kids are sitting around on the gravel basketball court outside and in the park, drinking UDL cans and swigging cheap wine hidden inside crumpled paper bags. We wind our way through the scattered groups to the makeshift rink inside, which looks like heaven, or what I imagine every prom looked like in 1987: paper streamers, girls in shoulder pads and candy-pink taffeta dresses, a fold-out card table with a bowl of punch and plastic cups. Most people have really dressed up: there’s a few eighties Madonnas, a lot of sparkly jumpsuits and leg warmers, a group all dressed in baggy MC Hammer pants, and even a Gene Simmons complete with a black wig, massive bat wings and a made-up face. Then there’s someone who’s misread the occasion completely and come in a Halloween outfit with fake blood dripping down his zombie face.
Alice has brought her own rollerskates, which she got from a garage sale a while back, but Ella, Tim and I have to rent skates for the night. Tim’s never rollerskated before, but he says it’s kind of like skateboarding, which he did for years, and he picks it up pretty quickly.
We drink too much red cordial and decide that we need to skate over to the DJ and get him to play the eighties mixtape we made, which starts with Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Time After Time’. Now, I like post-rock, C86, weirdo sad bastard music and experimental tape loop stuff, but seriously, if you don’t like ‘Time After Time’ you’re probably a sad robot who needs to have a fun chip installed in your mainframe. It is the ultimate eighties disco song and it needs to be played here.
Unfortunately the DJ has other ideas.
‘I’ll donate money to the charity, all the money I’ve got,’ Alice says.
‘How much have you got?’
She looks through her wallet. ‘Fourteen dollars fifty … no, wait, fourteen sixty.’
He looks at her like he can’t quite tell if she’s serious, then says, ‘Alright, what the hell.’
‘Yes!’
After that high point, I need a rest, and Ella and I get some cans of soft drink and join the wallflowers and tired skaters lying down on the edge of the rink. I can see Alice, hands behind her back, moving effortlessly around the outside of the circle, and Tim stretching out to skate one-legged and zigging and zagging between people, showing off as he flashes past us.
‘How are your art classes?’ I ask Ella. ‘Is it as exciting as it sounds?’
She giggles. ‘I haven’t been going to uni much. I don’t know, it’s just hard to stay focused on it when there’s so much other stuff going on.’
‘Yeah, I know what you mean,’ I say, trying to sound cool.
‘I went to a Martin College party the other night.’
‘Martin College?’
‘Yeah, they’re pretty notorious — the party college. Some guy wouldn’t leave me alone! Then he sent me this.’
She takes out her phone and shows me a photo that can only be described as a dick on a measuring tape.
‘What? That’s ridiculous.’
‘I know. I saw him around the other day and he wasn’t even embarrassed.’
‘How did he get your number?’
‘I stupidly gave it to him. I didn’t want to seem rude.’
Tim skates up to us at exactly the wrong moment. ‘Whoa, what is that?’
‘It’s pretty much what it looks like,’ Ella says.
‘It’s not mine!’ I say, flinging the phone out of my hands as if it’s made of lava.
‘Some jerk sent it to me,’ Ella says. ‘It wasn’t wanted.’
‘Do you want me to fight him for you?’ Tim asks.
‘No, he’s in Melbourne. And he’s a lot bigger than you.’
‘Oh, OK. I didn’t really want to, I just thought I should offer.’
‘Hey, look what they’re doing,’ Ella says, successfully changing the subject by pointing to some skaters who are catapulting their friends around the rink.
Behind them, I can see some of the organisers of the event watching with concern, clearly wondering if they should say something about people being used as projectiles.
Before they can stop us, we get into a good position at the end of the rink and Tim and Ella grab my hands and let me slide back before flinging me forwards. I fly past clusters of fancy-dress skaters and couples clinging together and for a second I even close my eyes, feeling the wind rush past me, feeling like I’m flying, almost invincible and weightless.
I come to a soft landing against the gym mats taped to the walls at the end of the hall. When I spin around I see out of the corner of my eye Alice take off her skates, run across the floor and out into the night. Then I look to where she’d been standing and see Liam with a bunch of his friends, wearing a CHOOSE LIFE T-shirt and fluoro leggings. He doesn’t know it, but just by being here he’s wrecked her perfect evening.
Tim
On a Friday night that’s neither hot nor cold but that rare and perfect in-between point, I’m playing in a little café down at the harbour end of Balmain, somewhere in a tangled mess of mossy winding streets. It’s a nice space with surprisingly decent acoustics, and it’s packed with polite middle-aged types, but unfortunately most of them are there to eat the gnocchi with baby vegetables or the wild rabbit ragu (which is really good, I admit) rather than to hear my songs. The clatter of knives and forks on plates just about drowns out the words, so I pretty much forget about impressing anyone else and just play for Mandy.
She’s sitting with Alice, Alice’s uni friend Belinda, Seb, Bree, Jane, my school mate Ricky and, bless them, Ned and his greyhound-racing mate Tom. I burn through a set of my saddest and most emotional songs, but tonight they don’t bring me down one bit. I even play one of my favourite songs I’ve ever written, ‘You’re Perfect Except For Your Boyfriend’, which I’d kind of subconsciously dropped from my set since I met Mandy because I didn’t want to freak her out with the ghosts of girlfriends (or girls I’d wished were my girlfriends) past.
I’m pretty satisfied with how I play, and I end with ‘Brown Eyed Girl’, the only cover for the set, and a couple of people clap and cheer, but I think most are grateful they can now get on with their meal without having to talk over the young kid with the guitar. A couple of people buy my demo CD, I think out of pity, then return to their meals.
Ned’s mate Tom comes and shakes my hand. ‘I like that one you played at the end, was that by Bobby Dylan?’
‘Van Morrison.’
‘Ah, I knew it was one of those old guys!’
Everyone comes up to me as I pack up the CDs, and I notice Alice’s friend is looking around anxiously, as though she’s wondering if she can leave without anyone noticing.
‘Poor Belinda, this wasn’t really her thing,’ Alice says.
Mandy is waitin
g patiently at the back of the group, and when everyone has patted me on the back and shaken my hand, she comes forward.
‘That was amazing. We should go out somewhere and celebrate,’ she says.
I don’t know exactly what we’re celebrating, or where we’re going, but I agree.
Later, Seb and I are queuing at the counter to get desserts for everyone. This place is known for having this totally luscious two-layered chocolate mud cake with a layer of salted caramel in the middle. I’m getting a piece to share with Mandy. Seb is getting a piece for himself.
‘So, Mandy’s got my seal of approval,’ he says.
‘She’s great, hey?’
‘I thought she was quiet at first, but yeah, she seems nice.’
‘She’s a dark horse.’
‘Where did you meet her?’
‘The Old Canterbury.’
‘That creepy old shithole is good for something then.’
‘It’s not creepy, it’s just … not doing that well.’
‘And I would totally do her, by the way.’
‘You know, you can have thoughts and not say them out loud.’
‘Nah, where’s the fun in that?’
This place closes early. All these people have kids and babysitters to get back to. We barely have time to finish the gooey last crumbs of our cake before they’re stacking up chairs.
Ned and his mate get a taxi home, but we’ve got some celebrating to do and everyone else is keen to kick on. Mandy suggests the Different Drummer, but I say I got dumped there once and now I can never go there. Seb suggests Darling Harbour, but gets shouted down and goes into a sulk. Mandy says that she thinks there’s a karaoke machine at her house. We have a winner.
Mandy
‘Do you want some tea?’ I ask Tim.
‘Yeah, why not?’
‘OK, I’ve got peppermint, camomile, green tea, green tea with jasmine, cranberry and pomegranate, Earl Grey, English breakfast, Irish breakfast, Adelaide breakfast, Brisbane breakfast, Russian caravan, lemon and ginger, strawberry, elderberry, Turkish apple, toffee and cinnamon, Assam, Darjeeling and apple crumble.’
‘Can you run me through those again?’
‘Tim! Here, I’ll make you a Prohibition tea. It’s got lemon syrup and black tea and rum in it.’
‘You didn’t even mention that one!’
‘It’s an iced tea, that’s a whole different category.’
I’m stalling in the kitchen as Heather, seemingly not in a strop for once, fiddles with cables, trying to get our karaoke machine to work. We literally haven’t used it for ten years, probably not since Heather and I did a rousing rendition of ‘Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves’ at some dodgy drunken family gathering. That was when Sonya and Dad were still together, before I discovered good music, before Heather became a psycho bitch from hell. Ch-ch-changes!
Belinda leaves to meet some other friends, but Alice miraculously gets a text from Kimmy asking if she wants to meet up. Even more miraculously, we persuade her to come over here for our hastily convened karaoke night.
I give up on the machine and decide that plugging in the microphone and just singing over CDs will have to do. The first song I put on is an old favourite, by this Sydney band, Glide, called ‘You Were Always More Than Just a Trick to Me, Ray’. They never got anywhere and their singer died young. I remember reading an obituary for him where his bandmates talked about how he was a brilliant poet and a sensitive soul, but also had his rock ’n’ roll side and a talent for eating McDonald’s as he drove them all to gigs in a crowded little car. Glide are amongst my heroes. I’ve never met anybody who knows this song. Tim knows it, and he sings it beautifully.
But we’re not serious for long. The sillier pop stuff comes out and the red wine flows. After a while Kimmy looks at the clock, then looks back at me, horrified.
‘I’ve got study group at eight thirty tomorrow morning,’ she says.
She kisses Alice and me goodbye, farewells Heather and Tim, and heads for the door. And just like the princess whose carriage will turn into a pumpkin on the stroke of midnight, she disappears.
Tim
Karaoke is a success. Just quietly, I’m the star, though everyone gets involved, which I think is the mark of a really excellent karaoke night. I’m feeling up after the gig and my good mood rubs off on the others, unlike a certain karaoke party I was at last year where I totally brought the mood down by singing Badfinger’s ‘Without You’ (a great song, even if it was butchered by Mariah Carey) and basically got told I was being a massive buzzkill and herded into a cab.
Tonight, though, there’s Alice singing Kelly Clarkson’s ‘Since U Been Gone’ like she really, really means it, and Bree and I doing a duet on a sweet version of ‘You Keep Me Hangin’ On’, then upping the tempo with a ridiculously epic version of ‘November Rain’, which gets Ricky, a happy drunk and a completely hopeless, tone-deaf singer, involved in some air-guitar action and enthusiastic wailing, even though he struggles with the whole concept of singing into the mic and not just somewhere vaguely near it. And just when you think there’s no topping that, well, we do, with Heather, Alice, Bree, Jane and I all singing the hell out of ‘Wuthering Heights’, complete with me climbing on the couch to belt out the final chorus and finally coaxing Mandy to sing along.
It’s about this point when the neighbours start banging on the wall, and I’ve got a good mind to go round there and explain to them what terrible no-fun people they must be, but then everyone starts to call it a night. Alice goes up to sleep in Mandy’s bed, and some shady-looking guy in a poncho comes to pick Heather up. Bree and Jane decide to get a lift home with Seb. He hasn’t been drinking and his car is parked a suburb away. Ricky, who has a crush on both Bree and Jane that only emerges when he’s drunk, follows them hopefully.
I randomly get a text from Kiera, who I don’t even remember giving my number to, saying she’s at a party nearby and wants me to come. I reply with two words: Sorry dude. She replies with: Y Not? and a sad face, and I decide this conversation, as brilliant as it is, has gone on long enough.
By the early morning, it’s just Mandy and me on the couch, falling asleep on each other’s shoulders and watching rage. A night of furious dreams is coming to a quiet end.
Mandy
Considering the last time I got a surprise at work it was someone projectile vomiting in the bathroom that I had to then clean up, I’m going to say that Tim randomly showing up at the sandwich shop is the best work-related surprise I’ve had in a while. He comes in slurping on a milkshake in a paper cup, acting cool. We both act cool for a couple of seconds. I want to scream.
‘Shouldn’t you be at school?’ I ask.
‘I finished early.’
‘Shouldn’t you be studying, then?’
‘In theory, yes. But I feel like I’ve earned the afternoon off. I worked the early shift at the newsagency. I had to get up at 5 am, which was murder.’
‘That is rough. I wouldn’t get up at 5 am for breakfast with Ryan Gosling.’
‘I probably would. He’s a good-looking dude.’ He slurps on his shake, looks up and down at my uniform and raises an eyebrow.
‘What? They make us wear this crap.’
‘Nah, it’s cool. I like girls in uniform.’
‘Fast-food-outlet uniforms?’
‘Not ideal, but I’ll take it.’
‘Desperado.’
‘It looks good on you. It’ll look better off you.’
‘God, you’re so cheesy.’
‘And you’re so fricking cute.’
‘Stop it! I’m blushing.’
‘Even cuter.’
A middle-aged man in a suit and shiny shoes comes in to buy a meatball sandwich. He looks at us like we’re the world’s most annoying human beings. As soon as he leaves, we burst out laughing.
‘I’m distracting you from your work. Maybe I should go,’ he says.
‘It’s not like I’m doing brain surgery, a little distraction isn
’t going to hurt anyone. Stay.’
‘OK.’
‘It wasn’t really hard to convince you.’
‘No.’
‘You know, I think your job would be cool.’
‘The newsagency? It’s hard work sometimes, and then just really quiet other times.’
‘I guess, but I always liked newsagencies. I had this total revelation in a newsagent’s once. I used to go and read bits of the magazines before I had any money to buy them and I remember this one edition of MOJO where they listed all their favourite records of the year and there was a page with all the pictures of the album covers. It was, like, an exact list of my favourite music from that year. Everyone at school thought I was a weirdo for listening to these bands they hadn’t heard of and then this magazine came along and was saying, “Hey, you’re not a weirdo, you just have good taste!” It was kind of strangely reassuring.’
‘I get what you mean. You realised there were others like you.’
‘Exactly. Other weirdos.’
‘That’s kind of what being into Neutral Milk Hotel and Portishead and these bands is,’ he says. ‘It’s like being part of this international network of weirdos, and I mean that in the best possible way. You know, I saw this younger kid, Brandon, reading MOJO in detention a while back and I talked to him about it after. Now we talk all the time and we’ve jammed together a bit, we’re good mates.’
‘I never got a detention. I assume it’s just like The Breakfast Club?’
‘Pretty much. We did all strut out of the school at the end with Simple Minds blaring.’
‘Did you all get to know each other better and learn valuable life lessons?’
‘No, we mostly just sat looking at the walls or reading textbooks, waiting for the clock to tick over … Wait, how is that even possible, no detention? You never got in trouble?’
I feel so boring right now.
‘Nope.’
‘Not even for drinking or smoking or anything?’
‘Not at school.’
‘Ah, that’s where I went wrong.’
You’re the Kind of Girl I Write Songs About Page 10
