Song for Jess

by Meg Buchanan

  Adam came over. He rested against the back of a chair and watched.

  “Luke stick you with the solo again?” he asked.

  “Yeah, just for “Stardust”.” I tucked it under my chin and tested how the thing sounded. Almost right.

  “That’s good, he’d almost talked me into doing it. How’s Jess?” he asked.

  She’s pregnant. How does he think she is? But Adam’s all right. He would be the one who asked about Jess. He tends to remember to do that sort of stuff. He’s nice to people.

  “Okay.”

  “I thought she’d be here for our first night,” he said.

  I swiped the bow across the strings. “She didn’t feel up to it.”

  He nodded. I put the violin down and picked up my guitar. I checked that was in tune too. Played a few chords. Cole was behind the drums and had a steady beat going. They sounded all right. He and Adam had been adjusting them for most of the afternoon and had got them the way Cole wanted them.

  “You ready Isaac?” Luke had the mic in his hand. His guitar was leaning against a chair where he could grab it. Noah’s was behind the keyboard. Chords were floating out from that. It was all just random sound, but we were starting to sound ready. This was going to be our first real performance. It wasn’t the first time we’d played in public. But it was the first time we’d played in public together outside of the Smokefree thing, school balls and assemblies.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “We’ve got half an hour to make sure everything’s right,” said Luke.

  “Yeah.”

  We ran through “Stardust”, it sounds great. Then we went and got something to eat. It could be a long night.

  We got back to the pub, and it was time to go on stage. I picked up the violin and the bow, held the guitar by the neck with the other hand, and breathed in. I followed the others to the stage. The lights dimmed. A spotlight followed us. Everyone in the bar looked at us, just white faces and dark eyes. The hush was magic. Like expectation. Waiting just for us.

  Luke did the talking like he’d done it a million times before.

  Then we started playing. The music took over. Being there was a fairytale.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sunday 9th March

  We’re having the wedding at Jess’s family’s bach. My mum said she’d have nothing to do with it. She’s never heard of anything so ridiculous.

  So, Jess’s mum drives it all. She is just a whirlwind of thoughts, ideas and plans. I think the faster she moves the less she has to think.

  Maybe that’s unfair, maybe she just wants to make the day special for me and Jess like she says. But special? There’s nothing about this that feels special.

  “We’ll have the service under the pergola, it will be lovely.”

  “We don’t have a pergola at the bach, Mum.” Jess pointed out.

  “We will by then,” said her mum.

  During the week, we built the pergola Jess’s mum wanted. Dad helped. Then Jess’s mum spent two days winding white ribbons around it. Since the grape vines she really wanted weren’t going to grow in time. She tied big bows and added these silk flowers she’d bought in bulk off some outlet store. She was still just a whirlwind of grim smiles and relentless positivity.

  Jess sat and watched. She was even quieter than she usually was. I put it down to the morning sickness.

  “Are you, all right?” I asked.

  She nodded and smiled. Her hair fell over her face. She pushed it back. The way she looked, and the way she moved, made my soul reach out to her. It was how I felt about her when we first started going out together. I know, because I’ve read over that bit of the journal a couple of times. For a moment there I was almost certain we were doing the right thing and I really did just want to be with her.

  Sunday 16th March

  The wedding has happened. Jess turned up in long white lace dress her mum found in some shop. Her hair all piled on top of her head with little cream flowers threaded through.

  She bit her lip then smiled when she saw me waiting under the pergola with Luke. We looked like we were in school uniform, white shirt, black pants, shoes.

  But she was beautiful, even a bit pale, and not looking like she was real. She was Jess and for a moment again I could see why I was doing it.

  Cole, Adam and Noah were there too, somewhere in the crowd of Jess’s family.

  Mum and Dad gave us a bloody house as a wedding present.

  It’s small.

  It’s in town.

  It needs work.

  But fuck.

  A house?

  As for the day being special? With me scared shitless, Jess crook most of the time, her dad a ball of fury, barely concealed, my mum looking like she just bit into a lemon, dad keeping mum polite, Jess’s mum making the best of things, and Murphy being impossible. It was never going to happen.

  Tomorrow I start working for Luke’s dad. I’m going to be a builder. Luke’s dad said he wanted another apprentice. Builder wasn’t part of the plan, but Jack White was an upholsterer so that makes me feel a bit better.

  A bit. I guess Jack never planned a career in upholstery either, and he moved on.

  Thursday 20th March

  The first few days of being a builder were fine. Me and Luke got to make our tool boxes. Luke’s dad got this old guy Reg, to show us the ropes. He made sure we had earmuffs and tool belts and he assigned us a workbench each in the joinery workshop.

  We started on the tool boxes. I did woodwork at college the first couple of years I was there, so it’s all good. I know how to use the saws and hammers and drills. Besides Luke’s been hanging around building sites and this joinery factory all his life. If I get stuck I can ask him.

  Luke went to the store cupboard, found the screws and brought them back to the bench. “You’ll want these,” he said.

  “Thanks.” I looked up and saw Reg walking across the workshop floor towards us.

  “Need any help?” he asked.

  “Not yet, just sorting stuff out.” Luke put the jar of screws on the bench. “Where do you lot keep the PVA these days?”

  Reg rolled a cigarette. “I’ll get some.” He wandered off to another workbench picked up the bottle of glue and brought it back.

  Reg stood there watching us work, face worn, bald spot showing through the comb over. He twisted one end of the cigarette paper carefully with the tips of his fingers, slipped the smoke between his lips, then fished in his pants pocket for a lighter.

  “Were you at school with Luke, Isaac?” he asked around the cigarette.

  “Yeah.” I ran a line of glue down the edge of the side of the toolbox. I got the bit I’d cut out for the bottom and put them edge to edge and started screwing them together.

  “Are you in the band too?” Reg lit the smoke and took a puff.

  “Yeah.”

  “A bit of advice, keep the makeup for the weekend. A couple of the other guys have mentioned it.”

  I looked at Luke. Not a sign of mascara. He could have warned me. He shrugged. He must have already had that message from his father.

  “Thanks,” I said to Reg, and got on with making the toolbox.

  Wednesday 7th May

  After the first week on the job, we got sent out on site. It’s all pick up this, put that there, stack this load of timber inside, now move it outside, dig that hole and so on.

  And fuck they expect you to work all day. When I got home from work, I was real tired. It’s not just me, even Luke has had the bounce knocked out of him.

  I did what Reg said, I left the makeup off. Over the next couple of months, I let my hair go brown again. I don’t have the money to keep all that stuff up anyway. They don’t mean you to try and buy a car, keep a house and a wife and prepare for a baby on apprentice wages.

  Do you know what a car seat costs?

  Two things make life worth living. I’m still writing lyrics with old Collins and I’m still going to Hamilton in the weekends with Stadium. Now
some of what we play is stuff I’ve written.

  I’m not great yet. I haven’t written those lyrics that are going to make our fortune, but I’m getting better. And when Luke sings my lyrics, the crowd listens. It’s a rush.

  Tuesday 24th June

  Yesterday, Jess dropped me off at the building site. She wants to turn the spare room into a nursery and needed the car for the day. Just before morning tea time she came back to show me the paint samples she liked. I saw Reg watching us.

  “You choose,” I said to Jess. “You know what you want. Get it and we’ll do it in the weekend.”

  “Thanks.” She kissed my cheek, hopped back in the car, then took off to buy the paint. It’s her mum and dad paying for it anyway.

  I went to the smoko room.

  “When’s baby due, Isaac?” Reg asked.

  “Seven weeks.” Jess and I’ve done the maths, she pretty much must have got pregnant the first time we had sex. Talk about lucky.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sunday 29th June

  Laura’s home for the holidays. It’s the end of the first semester. You wouldn’t believe how much time off university students get. Easter, the middle of the semester, the end of the semester and Christmas.

  She came around to help with the painting.

  The three of us worked together and got the walls painted in record time. Jess stood back, hands on hips, tummy like a tadpole and looked at the job we’d done.

  “I really like the colour, don’t you Isaac?” Jess gets pretty tired now. Only six weeks to go. I don’t play with Stadium anymore. What would happen if I was in Hamilton and Jess went into labour?

  “Yeah.” It’s dirty white, what can you say?

  “When will you put up the curtains?”

  “Tomorrow when the paint’s dry I guess.”

  After lunch she went and had a rest. Me and Laura hauled the cot outside, pulled it to bits and started sanding it.

  “How’s uni?” I asked Laura.

  “Okay.” She opened the paint Jess chose for the cot. It’s sort of caramel coloured. “I thought babies liked bright colours.”

  “No, fifty shades of taupe, Jess saw it on Pinterest.”

  “I guess Jess would know.” Laura looked around. “We need something to stir it.”

  I went to the woodshed and got an offcut from the factory and gave it to her.

  “I have to pick a major soon,” said Laura.

  “What’s that?”

  “What I’m going to specialize in.” She stirred the paint, it looked the way coffee does when you add milk. Circles of colour.

  “I thought you were going to be a lawyer.” I wiped down the end of the cot I’d just sanded it and handed it to her.

  “I have to choose what type of lawyer I’m going to be.”

  “I didn’t know there were different sorts.”

  “Yeah, there’s heaps. How’s the building going?”

  “It’s a nightmare.” I never tell Jess that. I don’t want her to feel bad. But telling Laura is all right. She glanced at me, gave a bit of a smile that was sort of sympathetic, then started painting.

  We worked on the cot for a while. I tried to figure out how to ask if she was all right now. When she finished painting that bit of the cot, she leaned it against the wall to dry. Then came back.

  “Going to Auckland did help,” she said. It was like she’d read my mind. We hadn’t really talked about her getting raped six months ago, but I’m the only one who knows about it, so I guess I’m the only one she’s got to talk to.

  I stopped working too. “So, you’re all right now?”

  “Better anyway. I’m not sure about going to the bach again though.”

  “How are you going to avoid that?” I don’t think her family goes anywhere else for holidays.

  “Don’t know.”

  I gave her the next bit to paint.

  “Might have to get a holiday job,” she said.

  “I’ll see if Luke’s dad needs a painter.”

  “Yeah right,” she said, as Jess wandered out to join us looking all tousled and even more like a tadpole.

  “Why do you want a holiday job?” asked Jess.

  “Need the money,” lied Laura. “My student loan only covers so much.”

  Today, me and Laura were still working on the nursery. Jess was sleeping again. We’ve got all this stuff we’ve been given that a baby needs. It all needs painting, and we were running out of time.

  “Fifty shades of taupe,” said Laura. She was meant to be painting the changing table a light coffee colour. “You were right.” She held the brush up. The paint dripped on the floor.

  “Hey, Murphy, paint the table not the floor.” I got a rag to clean it up. She was still waving the brush around and got me on the cheek.

  “War paint,” she laughed just as Luke came through the door. He had offered to help but he was too late. We were pretty much finished.

  I looked in the mirror. “More like a brand,” I told my sister in law.

  I wiped the paint off then turned to Luke and he was looking from me to Laura and back again but didn’t say anything.

  Laura finished the change table. I collected up the brushes and put the lids back on the tins.

  “There’s beer in the fridge. Go get it and bring it in here.” I told Luke. “We’re nearly done, just have to clean up.”

  Luke brought in three beers and we perched on the sawhorses I borrowed from work.

  “It looks good,” said Luke.

  I looked around. Most of it was done. Truly it just looked like someone had poured milky coffee over everything. “Yeah. Jess wants me to sand the floor and stain it really dark.” I guess when that’s done, and the curtains are up it’ll look pretty flash.

  Who would have thought last year we’d be discussing decorating a nursery?

  Luke must have thought the same. “Have you written anything more?” he asked.

  “Nah, with the baby so close and work and everything, writing lyrics is starting to feel like make believe. I can’t find anything I want to write about anyway.” I waved my hand at the change table and paint pots. “I’m a bit preoccupied.”

  “I could see that when I came in,” Luke said, and looked at Laura.

  Sunday 17th August

  Isabelle was born yesterday.

  “Do you want to hold her?” Jess asked.

  “Yeah.”

  She passed over this little thing we’d made accidentally. Isabelle’s all tiny fingers and tiny toes, and eyes that follow you around.

  I can’t believe how I felt when I held her. Like she was the most awesome thing in the world.

  No one tells you that when you hold your baby for the first time, and she nuzzles into your chest. You could burst with the love that floods you.

  Saturday 30th August

  She has taste that baby. When we got her home, I got the violin out and practiced her to sleep and she listened. Some nights now I play difficult pieces, just to prove I still can. Classical Gas or Leyenda. Or melodies I make up as I go. My fingers fly across the strings and frets. I played for her with all my soul.

  Isabelle smiles and gurgles, as I drift into another world.

  The one I’ve lost.

  Thursday 11th September

  It's bloody lucky I feel the way I do about Isabelle, because looking after a new baby isn’t like having a new puppy. It turns out keeping a house clean and tidy, and a baby fed is more work than you can imagine.

  For something that can’t move, babies make a hell of a mess.

  Laundry everywhere.

  And toys.

  And nappies.

  And they cry.

  And did you know babies don’t sleep when you want them to?

  They don’t come with an ‘off’’ switch.

  And there’s only so many things you can do for them when they won’t sleep.

  You can feed them.

  You can change the nappy.

  You can cuddle th
em

  You can pat them

  Or give them a bath

  Or rock them

  Or stick them in the stroller and walk them

  Or drive them.

  Then start it all again until something works.

  “All babies have their unsettled times,” said the Plunket Nurse.

  “Babies need to develop their lungs,” said Mum.

  Yeah right. I don’t believe Isabelle’s crying for practice. It makes me feel like there’s got to be something I can do.

  It all just makes Jess sit down and cry.

  And Jess doesn’t do housework. Some days she starts to paint in the morning and forgets to do any of it. Sometimes she forgets to get dressed even. At the end of the day, she’s still in her pyjamas, and there’s stuff everywhere.

  One day I got home, and Jess had spent all day painting. She was proud of her canvas with the three bowls. Isabelle seemed happy enough, so Jess must have at least remembered to feed and change her. But fuck.

  “That’s us,” she said and stood in the mess looking at this thing she had spent all day on.

  I had a go at her. “You’re meant to keep the place tidy, that’s your job.”

  Jess looked hurt for a moment, then got angry. “Do it yourself. I don’t give a shit.”

  “I can see that,” I tell her. “We live in a tip.”

  “Fuck you,” she said. She scooped Isabelle up off the floor and walked away.

  And that’s how it is with us.

  All the time.

  Any time I’m home.

  When I can’t stand it any longer I go back to Mum and Dad’s or to old Collin’s place. I play the piano, play the violin, or try to write something, then go back to Jess, and try again.