Almost a Mirror Read online

  They walk to Mona’s house over the railway bridge.

  So, you like it at MacRob, Michelle?

  It’s a long way from Frankston but I like doing the musical. You should come see it.

  What musical? Mona asks.

  Godspell.

  Is it like Jesus Christ Superstar?

  It is about Jesus and everything but not really. We have to dress up like clowns.

  There’s this bit–

  Michelle and Danny laugh.

  –this guy Marcus, who plays Jesus, he has to lie down on the stage and Donna has to walk on top of him, and he always gets a stiffy.

  Michelle and Danny bat the conversation to each other like a game of Pong.

  We did the rehearsal in front of the Melbourne High assembly and the whole school saw it. He’s never going to live that down, Danny says.

  He could just strap it.

  He also has to sing this song when he’s being crucified, when he’s dying. Every time he gets to the high note his voice cracks at the top and we just stand there looking up at him waiting for it. It’s excruciating.

  Michelle pokes him.

  You’re just jealous because you missed out on Jesus.

  And then he has to sing after he’s dead.

  That doesn’t make any sense at all, Mona says.

  It does if he’s resurrected! Didn’t you ever go to church? Michelle says.

  Kaz wouldn’t let me. I had to sit on my own near the principal’s office when they had religion.

  Your mum’s the best.

  Have you seen Rocky Horror?

  Michelle starts quoting.

  We saw it at the Valhalla. People were dressed up and they acted in front of the film and sang all the lines.

  Mona can’t keep her eyes off Frank N. Furter. Neither can Jimmy.

  Hot dogs!

  Kaz comes in carrying a tray.

  Good timing! Jimmy says.

  She starts doing the Time Warp with them on the mattress and then leaves.

  Your mum’s the best, Michelle says.

  If you want to get horizontal, feel free to lie down, Jimmy says.

  Does your mum really let you sleep out here?

  Jimmy pretty much lives here.

  When Danny comes around, I have to leave my door open, even during the day!

  Danny leans in and whispers.

  They don’t know I’m here.

  Obviously.

  Mum says she’d rather know I’m around than out on the streets somewhere, Mona says.

  Michelle looks at the posters.

  Still Kids in the Kitchen?

  Yep. You?

  Michelle frowns.

  You traitor!

  The Cure.

  Michelle pulls Danny over and starts putting white make-up on him.

  Just like Godspell, ha!

  Stay still!

  She runs liquid eyeliner along his lids, smudges red lipstick.

  Mona flicks through the clothes hanging in her wardrobe, choosing, and they start dressing the boys, curling their hair.

  It really gives me the shits how you look better in a miniskirt than I do, Mona says.

  And those lashes!

  Where’s my camera?

  Mona sets up the timer and then races back. When the flash goes off, they’ve all fallen out of frame, laughing.

  They’re always the best shots.

  By the time Michelle starts singing the touchie song, Mona wants to be dirty and they’ve had enough of the movie.

  Danny and Michelle zip themselves up in the single sleeping bag, squeaking as they jostle. Mona hears the occasional giggle and little scream.

  She wonders how far they’ve gone.

  She turns to Jimmy.

  His face. It’s beautiful. Mauve and sparkle. He smiles. When she kisses him she imagines he’s a girl.

  Her hair gets caught in his hoop earring and she yanks it off.

  Aaagh.

  He rubs his earlobe.

  How do you girls put up with so much pain?

  It’s a fine line.

  I think I might get my ear pierced.

  She sticks her finger inside the silk holes of Jimmy’s stockings, tickling him. She unclips the suspenders and rolls them down. She kisses his purple lipsticked mouth and it tastes of grape. Not him at all.

  When he manoeuvres down she looks over his shoulder. The two of them. A caterpillar with an extendable body. Arms and legs everywhere, Jimmy’s feet over the edge of the bed. She tucks her head under the doona.

  Just when she’s getting into it, Danny’s moon face appears close to hers. A trail of red lipstick into the white make-up. Eyeliner skewed. He looks like a clown at the show.

  Danny raises his eyebrows.

  Awesome foursome?

  She pushes him off the bed.

  She tries again but it’s gone.

  Jimmy’s messy head appears at eye level. She wipes his mouth before the others can see. He kisses her and she tastes herself. She knows he likes it. They both do.

  Danny rolls a joint and passes it to Michelle and the room fills with the sweet smell.

  When it’s Jimmy’s turn, he does perfect smoke rings that expand above their heads.

  He hands it to Mona, soggy, smeared with red lipstick. She burns her fingers before it reaches her lips.

  Jimmy goes to find a pair of tweezers.

  She puts it in her mouth but doesn’t really get any in. She coughs.

  Michelle laughs.

  Still the same old Mona.

  They pour out the rum. The ducks without the fluffy.

  They watch the end of the movie, kissing and smoking, eating cold hot dogs and buns soggy with tomato sauce.

  SPELLBOUND

  Melbourne, 1981

  It takes over an hour for Beñat to get to the rehearsal.

  The guitar case swings against his legs as he walks from the train. The cold blasts along Fitzroy Street.

  Even when the sky’s blue, the street is shaded grey.

  A girl hangs about in a doorway. She’s wearing black fishnets and a denim skirt she wears high and long sleeves that she keeps pulling down over her hands. The cars slow down then cruise by.

  She looks at him but turns away quickly. Her body is young. About his age, fifteen maybe, but her face is heavy. Blue eyeshadow and red lips.

  A mouth that has forgotten how to smile.

  She looks so cold.

  The girls at school never wear coats or jumpers in winter. With them, it’s like a badge of honour. In class, at lunchtime, they drape their bare legs over the lukewarm heaters.

  He likes winter.

  In summer they take their legs outside.

  A man stops him to ask for a smoke. Beñat says he doesn’t smoke but the guy doesn’t believe it.

  Fuck off, yer poofter!

  The man goes on to the girl and she gets a smoke out of her skirt pocket and offers him one. Alpine menthol fresh from the ice-capped mountains.

  Fuck that!

  The man still takes it and continues on down the street, pant legs trailing along the concrete.

  Beñat’s dressed in a soft white shirt which he tucks under a duffel coat. No one on the Broady train dresses like him. He spent the trip perched in the small passageway swinging between the carriages.

  He has his mum’s eyeliner tucked into a pocket to put on when he gets there. The buckles on his shoes are the only things that shine on the street.

  He’s lived in Melbourne all his life and has never been to St Kilda beach. It’s only a few blocks away from here.

  But it’s a long way from Pascoe Vale.

  From a corner of the wide boulevard he looks up to a Rapunzel turret as he waits for the lights to change. A little balustrade where she could let her hair down.

  He tilts his head to flick the long curtain of black fringe out of his face. It hides him most of the time and that’s how he likes it.

  His mum is continually reaching over at the dinner table to
move his hair to one side so she can see his eyes.

  The columns outside the Ballroom remind him of a Roman ruin.

  The slight angle of the building makes the place look offkilter, not quite right. It makes Beñat feel seasick. Or how he imagines it anyway.

  He’s never been on a boat.

  The footpath outside is piled with empty VB cans, gashed with broken glass that only glitters at night.

  When he walks up the stairs, his heartbeat is the only thing he can hear. The columns on either side of the doorway make it feel like he’s really heading somewhere.

  The first thing that hits him is the smell. Rock n roll perfume, Smash the drummer calls it – sweat, smoke and cheap scent.

  To the left is a caged bar, glimpsed behind curtains of red velvet.

  The carpet looks like it’s never been cleaned. The muddy swirls, all the colours, now the same stained brown.

  There was a pattern once.

  Cigarette butts swept into corners. He wouldn’t want to go barefoot like the girls do. But he likes their pale ankles and the way they dance.

  He looks down at his Docs. They are too big and he is too skinny. Sometimes walking home at night his legs feel so weighed down he can hardly lift his feet off the ground.

  He turns right when he enters, heading to Paradise.

  His brother is already here.

  Guy is backed by a mutant army, different tribes held together by sound.

  Rob’s behind the synthesiser, his long blond hair falling completely over his face. He talks in numbers and letters and abbreviations. Casio PT-100. Omnichord. Strumplate. A new language. What he does is a mystery to Beñat.

  Guy calls him the Composer.

  The band hasn’t written any lyrics yet. When they do, it will be Beñat’s turn to sing.

  At the moment in rehearsals it’s about the right sound. A shimmering wall of noise bouncing off walls and diving headfirst into carpet.

  When Guy jumps up and down on stage he nearly bangs his head on the roof. He sees Beñat and stops playing.

  Hey, can you help us with this?

  Sitting at the side of the room is a corrugated iron tank, its tap leaking onto the carpet. Its grooves meld in waves, a giant slinky perched as if to slip off the wooden platform.

  Lucky, Beñat, Guy and Smash hoist it onto their shoulders like a coffin. It’s surprisingly heavy and Beñat nearly drops it. Guy rescues him and they roll it to the back of stage. Connie calls out directions.

  We need to plug it up. Can’t drip on stage, Guy says.

  Lucky heads off to find something. He’s dressed in mechanics overalls with the sleeves ripped off and white paint splattered about. He looks like he just walked out of a factory.

  What’s it for? Beñat asks.

  You’ll see.

  Lucky gives it a friendly pat.

  As Beñat steps up on stage with his guitar, Connie slides over, plucking the bass. A cigarette juts out the side of her mouth.

  She touches the studs on his belt.

  Is this your first time, Benny?

  He nods.

  You know, the first time I played a gig at the Ballroom, I brought a TV with me. I put it up on the stage and switched it on so I could watch a movie instead of the audience.

  She helps him plug in the guitar and he joins up with the noise.

  He likes that, how she calls him Benny. The way she says it makes him sound like a star.

  His mum still calls him sweetpea as if he is a little flower in her garden.

  Connie’s bleached quiff bounces as she leans in to the beat, thin arms stretched and fingers quick.

  Her sideways glance reminds him of Debbie Harry, and she’s got legs.

  Guy says to just let the music do the talking. The girls will come.

  He doesn’t look at the fretboard, playing by feel. He tries to visualise the chords in front of him. His guitar looks beaten up now with dings. It makes her sound come alive. Scratches across the front like a map of the world.

  It’s a hand-me-down, like most of the things he owns.

  The bite of the strings numbs his fingertips. The sharpness of a plectrum.

  The room is falling down around them.

  A single fluoro light flutters. Red cellophane covers all the others. Even during the day the place is dark and feels like it’s underground.

  Everyone in the room who’s not in the band still has a coat on.

  Even sitting down at the drums, Smash looks too big for the stage and slouches as if the ceiling’s about to fall in. Beñat watches him out of the corner of his eye.

  Beñat wonders what his teeth look like. He’s never seen Smash smile.

  Smash points to the watch on his wrist with his drumstick.

  The band members go passive-aggressive about who’s going to end the song.

  Smash moves in and then withdraws.

  Guy gives him a raise of the head but Smash ignores it.

  Beñat does his best just to blend in. He wonders whether anyone can hear him in the mix anyway.

  Girls dance around the doorway. Friends of Connie.

  He’s seen them before. Every Ballroom gig, echoing each other, getting more alike. Black lace and Doc Martens. Bright lipsticked mouths in white masks blow smoke rings.

  The guys in the band play ‘Ring a Ring o’ Rosie’ with them. Lucky will disappear with one kissing in the dark stairwell and she’ll reappear with Guy the next day wearing his duffel coat.

  It makes Beñat dizzy but he’d like to join in the circle.

  Connie jumps down from the front of the stage to the parquet dance floor. She puts her arms out wide and starts to spin.

  The other girls laugh while they watch her, drowned out by the sound in the room.

  DON’T YOU WANT ME

  Melbourne, 1986

  Tony the guard calls out to Mona.

  I’m heading off soon. Scott Carne’s not coming, you know, Mona. He came in another entrance, got a cab.

  There’s another entrance? Why didn’t you tell me?

  Billy’s coming now. Do you want his autograph instead?

  She shrugs and chooses her silver glitter pen instead of gold. Consolation prize.

  Billy is wearing a paisley coat and a stream of curls reaches down his back. He’s beautiful in the way a statue is. Cool, smooth and dark. He’s smaller than he looks on Countdown. So is Scott. They all are.

  Tony comes up and puts his arm around her shoulder, commiserating.

  Billy, this is Mona. She’s been sitting here all day waiting for you.

  Mona punches him and gets out from under his armpit.

  Billy smiles and holds the texta like a spear, aiming it at her heart.

  What shall I write?

  That’s up to you!

  Billy looks at her neck and then at her mouth before he writes.

  Dear Mona, you have an enigmatic smile, love Billy.

  That’s original! You’d better put the band in brackets in case I forget who you are.

  Billy laughs.

  I’ve seen it, the painting. In the Louvre. It’s much smaller than I expected.

  Billy leans into her. He smells like sausage roll. It makes her hungry.

  Well, so are you.

  What do you mean?

  I was just thinking that you’re smaller than I expected.

  He gives her leg a nudge.

  You’d better get off my car.

  He grabs keys from his pocket and puts a cigarette in his mouth in one move, offers her the packet and the lighter.

  She perches one in her mouth, hoping she can keep her hands still while she lights it.

  Hey, you’re cold. Where are you headed?

  Castlemaine.

  Castlemaine! That’s a long way to come. I can’t go that far but I can take you to Spencer Street.

  He walks around to her side and opens the door.

  Mona, meet Val.

  Val?

  She’s my Valiant. You’d better not flirt
with me because she gets jealous.

  What does she do?

  She’s likely to veer off the road or not stop at traffic lights or just refuse to start at all.

  I’ll be on my best behaviour.

  The seats are cold, sticky and covered in ash. There’s a space for another person between them.

  She edges closer and thinks he does too.

  They both butt their cigarettes out in the ashtray in the gaps between words.

  She swallows the smoke.

  What tapes have you got?

  She rummages through the cassettes in the glove box.

  Duran Duran? Spandau Ballet?

  Not really my thing.

  She finds a tape she’s got at home and ‘Purple Rain’ explodes from the speakers. They sing along at high pitch.

  Oooh oooh oo-oo oooh, oooh oooh oo-oo oooh.

  Billy does a note-perfect shriek.

  Prince can hit the whistle register. Not many men can get up there, Billy says.

  In the pause before ‘Darling Nikki’, Mona turns from him.

  The track comes on and in the pulse of the song she waits for the word.

  She wants to stop the tape. She can’t stand it.

  They both stop singing.

  Masturbating.

  There it is. She sticks her arm out the window, watching the ash trail from her fingers.

  The song is too much for this small space.

  The first time she heard it, she wanted to be the girl, Nikki, in her hotel lobby.

  She can feel Billy watching her.

  The city is quiet as the streetlights blink on. He gets a park in Spencer Street.

  She grabs her bag but doesn’t get out of the car. His fingers tap the middle of the seat.

  I’ll walk you in. I need to get some cigarettes.

  He puts on a baseball cap and pulls it down over his curls.

  She walks beside him, feeling suddenly warm in the glow, hoping to be recognised, but without his hair no one notices.

  He buys cigarettes on the platform. Camels.

  Have you got any coins? he asks.

  She gets out her purse and shows him twenty-cent pieces.

  I still need to get my train ticket.

  Why don’t we go in here out of the cold while we wait? he says.

  He grabs her hand and guides her into a photo booth, fossicking in his pockets for change.

  She takes the coins and puts them in the slot. Presses the button.

  Say sexy!

  It’s not sexy to say it so she keeps her mouth shut.