:: chapter
two ::
As per usual, the first words out of
Matthew’s mouth when I finally made it back to his Landcruiser were less
than polite.
“You took your sweet fucking time,” he grumbled as I climbed into the front passenger seat of the four-wheel drive.
“Keep your fucking hair on,” I shot back. “I’m here now, aren’t I?” The Landcruiser’s engine roared to life seconds after I pulled the door closed behind me, and I scrambled to do up my seatbelt. I managed to buckle it a couple of seconds before Matthew flicked on the right blinker. “Jesus Christ Matt, you can’t wait until I have my belt on?”
“Considering we were supposed to be back at the uni half an hour ago, nope,” Matthew replied. By now he’d eased the four-wheel drive into the traffic that flowed along Crown Street, heading toward Corrimal Street. “Everyone’s dinner is going to be cold by the time we get back if the traffic doesn’t let up.”
“Not my fault they wanted something other than what’s at the uni,” I said with a shrug. “I would have been perfectly happy to stay there and have Subway or Thai for dinner, but nope – it was pizza or nothing with that lot.” I let out a quiet sigh. “At least once tour’s over, I won’t have to deal with them until Christmas.”
“You coming up to Newy for it?”
“That’s the plan, yeah. Whole clan’s meeting up at my parents’. Should be interesting.”
“Good interesting or bad interesting?” Matthew asked. The set of traffic lights up ahead turned orange as he spoke, and the four-wheel drive came to a stop not far from the rear bumper of a Holden Kingswood.
I shrugged again and looked out the windscreen, taking in the traffic that flowed along Corrimal Street. “Haven’t decided yet.”
I ended up spending the remainder of the drive back to the university running through scales and chords in my head. The final show of every tour up to this point had always been the most memorable, and I fully intended for tonight’s show to be no exception. I could only hope that it would be memorable in a good way. If either of my brothers cottoned onto my plans for next year before I had the chance to tell them, though…well, that wasn’t something I wanted to happen.
The car park nearest to the UniBar was absolutely packed when Matthew and I arrived back at the university. “I told you we should have got the Shuttle into town,” I said as Matthew hunted for a free parking space in the carpark. “Could have kept the parking space you had before that way.”
“Yeah, okay smartarse,” he retorted. Just as he said this, a car a few spaces away started to reverse out of its parking space, and he flicked on the right blinker. Almost as soon as the other car was out of the way he carefully eased the Landcruiser into the space it left behind. It was close to the university’s hall and the UniBar, so it wouldn’t take us very long to get the pizzas inside. “Come on. We’d better get dinner inside before all that lot cracks the shits and starts a riot.”
The backstage area at the UniBar was nothing short of barely-controlled chaos, I discovered once I had followed Matthew inside. The bar’s public area had been quiet, with just the bartenders present, but I figured that was because the afternoon crowd had been kicked out. In just a few short hours the small space would be crowded once more, something I always looked forward to. I almost wanted to slam my hands over my ears to block out the worst of the noise.
“Hey!” Matthew yelled, following it up with a shrill whistle. In almost an instant, everyone stopped talking and looked over at us. “Dinner time,” he continued, and lifted the stack of pizza boxes he was carrying a bit higher.
“It’s about fucking time,” a voice said behind me, and I looked back over my shoulder to see Zoë standing in the doorway. She was eyeing the pizzas with a suspiciously devious look in her eye.
“Zoë Genevieve Hanson, you watch your mouth,” Mum said as she came up behind my little sister. “That’s not very ladylike.”
“Mum,” Zoë groaned, the blue eyes she shared with me drifting closed as she spoke.
“Don’t ‘Mum’ me, young lady,” Mum scolded. “Or you’ll be on the first train back up to Newcastle.”
“Sorry,” I heard Zoë grumble about a second before she went wandering past me, not sounding very apologetic at all. As she headed deeper into the green room I could see the bright pink wristband she was wearing around her right wrist, and I bit back a snicker. The wristband had the word UNDERAGE printed on it in large black block letters, something I knew had to irk my sister no end. As the only one of my siblings who was still under the age of eighteen, she didn’t have much of a choice in wearing it if she wanted to attend tonight’s show, and I knew her well enough by now that the first chance she got she’d be ripping it off. With both of our parents present to watch her like a hawk, that wasn’t going to be anytime soon.
“How are you doing, Taylor?” Mum asked me as I followed Matthew over to a couple of long trestle tables that had been set up. At one point or another someone had dug up some paper plates and a stack of serviettes, and I set my pizza boxes down near them. The remainder of the tables were covered mostly with bowls of junk food – potato chips, M&M’s and jelly snakes featured prominently – along with cans and bottles of soft drink, water and various types of alcohol. While I considered my answer to my mother’s question, I grabbed a plate and a serviette, took three slices of Hawaiian from their box, and topped it all off with a bottle of water.
“I’m good,” I replied finally. “Definitely looking forward to being able to sleep in tomorrow.” I bit into one of my slices of pizza. “Can I talk to you for a bit?” I asked.
“Of course you can,” Mum replied.
“In private?” I nodded over at Isaac and Zac, who were deep in conversation with our backing musicians. “I don’t want those two to find out until I’m ready to tell them.”
‘In private’ turned out to be one of the tables in the seating area outside, under the bar’s awning. There were a fair few people milling about on the nearby pavement, some of them waving when they saw Mum and I walking out into the sunshine. I waved back and followed Mum over to an empty table.
“I’m going back to school,” I said without any preamble whatsoever once the two of us were sitting down.
Mum was clearly taken aback by this. “What about the band?” she asked. I could hear the shock in her voice, and I wasn’t entirely sure I blamed her. “I thought this was what you wanted to do for the rest of your life.”
“It is,” I assured her. “But I don’t have anything to fall back on if we decide not to do it anymore. Not that I think we’re going to stop doing it,” I added hurriedly. “Okay, yeah, I have my HSC, but that’s not really going to get me anywhere. Especially if I decide to do something that isn’t related to music.” I reached into one of my back pockets and pulled out the much-abused envelope that I had been carrying around with me for the last month, setting it down in the middle of the table. I’d read the letter inside it so often that I had pretty much memorised it. “I got sent this at the start of last month.”
While Mum read the letter I picked at my pizza, a summary of the words contained on that single sheet of white paper whirling around in my head. Dear Taylor, thank you for your application to study Certificate IV in Design part-time at Wollongong College – you will be notified of the outcome of your application within the next eight weeks. Part of me was hoping that whoever it was that decided course admissions rejected my application, because I wasn’t looking forward to my brothers’ reactions when I finally dropped it on them.
“When will you find out if you’ve been accepted?” Mum asked as she folded the letter up and slipped it back into its envelope.
“Hopefully just before Christmas,” I replied. “I’m going to tell them on Boxing Day. I can tell you right now that they’re not going to like it, and I’d rather not ruin Christmas for everyone if I can help it.”
“Oi Taylor!”
Mum and I both looked back at the door of the bar to see Zac sticking his head out of it. “Isaac wants to get one last practice in before the show kicks off,” he continued. “Better get back in here before he chucks a spaz or something.”
“Yeah, okay,” I said, and set about eating my dinner as quickly as I could without choking on it. “Guess I’d better get back in there,” I said to Mum once I’d finished off the last bit of pizza crust.
“I’m proud of you,” Mum said right as I scrunched my serviette up into a ball and folded my plate around it. “I know things haven’t exactly been easy for you,” she continued when I eyed her quizzically. “You’ve been through a lot, more than any one person should have to deal with.”
“Don’t remind me,” I muttered. As I spoke my right hand drifted up to my right collarbone, to the scar that rested just above it – a twin for the scar high on the left side of my chest. The memories attached to those two scars weren’t exactly positive, and it seemed as if all my old wounds, internal as well as external, opened up all over again whenever someone mentioned what I had spent nearly three long years going through. Even if it was just in a roundabout way.
As I headed back inside the bar, I could see that the stagehands had been hard at work while I’d been outside with Mum. The stage that sat against the bar’s eastern wall had been set up with a piano, my keyboard, both of my guitars, Zac’s drums, the rack that held Isaac’s guitars, and the instruments that would be used by our backing musicians. A high stool had been placed in the centre of the stage so that the evening’s opener would have somewhere to sit during their set. My brothers were seated on the edge of the stage, the two of them bent over Zac’s laptop.
“So are we going to practice or not?” I called out as I walked through the empty bar. “Seeing as Zac dragged me away from talking to Mum and all that.”
“Yeah, hang on,” Isaac said said without looking up from the laptop. “Do you mind doing Name to kick things off?”
“You know I don’t mind,” I replied as I hoisted myself up onstage, sitting down next to Zac, and studied the laptop’s screen. He had iTunes open, with what I figured was that evening’s set list in a new playlist. It was more or less the same set list we’d used during the current tour – an even mix of songs from all five of our albums and our two EPs, along with a few cover songs that we switched out for each show. “I reckon we should do at least one Christmas song,” I said. “Seeing as Christmas is coming up and all that.”
“Name one Christmas song that you can play right off the top of your head without having to learn it all over again,” Zac said. He glanced at me briefly. “And no, the Christmas songs you did for choir in primary school don’t count.”
I scowled at him. “Okay, fine, no Christmas songs. What other covers are we doing then?”
“I was thinking-” Isaac started, Zac interrupting with “Did it hurt?” and earning himself a whack over the back of his head. “Under The Bridge for one of them,” Isaac continued as if he hadn’t even been interrupted.
“The Chili Peppers song?” I asked, and Isaac nodded. “Okay, sounds good – you want to do that one?”
“Yeah, works for me,” he replied.
“I can do One Way Road,” Zac volunteered. “You know, the John Butler Trio song?”
“We know who it’s by, Zac,” I said absently. As I was saying this, Zac clicked back into his main iTunes library, found the songs the three of us had decided on, and copied them into the concert set list. “So that’s all sorted?”
“Pretty much,” Zac replied as he set his laptop to one side. “Come on. We’d better get a bit of practice in – that lot out there will start a riot if we go out onstage sounding like we’re strangling Ave’s cat.”
“Lovely analogy, Zachary,” I said, completely deadpan, and he smirked at me.
We ended up spending the next three quarters of an hour doing a very quick and dirty run-through of our set list, paying particular attention to the three songs we had chosen to cover that evening. They weren’t songs we normally performed onstage, at least not during our national tours – the general consensus for our regional tours, though, was that all bets were off and more or less an excuse to do whatever the hell we liked. Tonight seemed to be no exception to that particular rule.
Things ramped up near the end of intermission. The three of us had just finished going over the chords for Name one last time, having shifted ourselves backstage around ten minutes earlier, when a shrill, very loud whistle met my ears. I winced and looked back over my shoulder to see our tour manager, Caroline, standing in the middle of the room with her ever-present clipboard in hand, microphone headset hanging around her neck. The noise that had filled the green room quickly faded into silence, and I hid a grin – she had trained us very well over the last few years.
“Listen up everyone!” Caroline barked out, sounding very much like a drill sergeant. I could almost picture her standing there in camouflage gear, rifle in hand and a slouch hat sitting at an angle over her dark hair.
“You think she was in the army in a past life?” Zac whispered to Isaac and I, and I bit back a snicker.
“Quiet,” Isaac snapped. Zac mimed zipping his lips closed, the sight of which made me let out a snort of laughter that earned me an elbow to the ribs.
“We are at T-minus fifteen minutes before the lads take the stage,” Caroline continued, her English accent much more pronounced than it normally was. “We have a full house out there tonight – I’m sure you can hear them through those doors over there. They are all hyped up and very excited, so let’s give them a show to remember, okay?” She indicated the trestle tables with her free hand. “I need someone to get those tables packed up and all the rubbish cleared away within the next five minutes. Techs, make sure you have all the monitors and whatnot sorted – we had issues last show, as I’m sure you all remember, so let’s make sure they don’t happen again. Stagehands, I want you out there checking over instruments, making sure mic stands are sturdy, et cetera. Liaise with the lighting and sound crews if you need to.” She glanced down at her clipboard. “Right, we have a lot to do in the next quarter of an hour, so let’s move it – you all have your jobs to be done. If you run out of things to do, come and see me and I’ll give you something to occupy your time until the show starts. Everyone clear?”
Murmurs of assent echoed around the room, and I got to my feet. “I’m going to go and get changed,” I said, dusting off the back of my jeans as I spoke. “Meet you two back here in five?”
Both Isaac and Zac nodded, and the three of us broke off to different parts of the room. I headed over to the far wall and found my backpack where I’d left it, tucked behind a stack of road cases. Among the other things I’d needed that afternoon, inside it was a change of clothes for that night’s show – a black short-sleeved button-down shirt, and a white singlet that I planned to wear underneath. I’d figured that if I got too hot onstage, I could always unbutton or take my shirt off – something that, based on the tour’s previous shows, felt almost inevitable. I quickly changed out of the T-shirt I’d been wearing since that morning, and as soon as I had my clean shirts on I ran my fingers through my hair in an attempt to neaten it up a little.
The minutes before the three of us took the stage seemed to crawl past. At the very beginning, when we were just starting out singing a cappella at the Byron Bay Bluesfest, the Newcastle Regional Show and the Mattara Festival every year, and even during our first tours of Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia in 1997 and 1998, the time before each performance had seemed to fly past in almost the blink of an eye. That had all changed in 2002. These days, it was almost like I subconsciously wanted to appreciate how lucky I truly was to still be here.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
Out of the corner of my eye I could see Dad settling himself down in a chair next to me. “They’re worth more than that,” I said, and he let out a chuckle. “I’m just thinking about all the crap that happened when I was at uni.”
“Well, that’s very random,” Dad said. “What’s brought this on?”
“Just…” I picked at a loose thread on my shirt. “Before it all happened, everything seemed to go by so fast. I barely had a spare moment to think before each show, let alone worry about what was going on in here.” I tapped my chest with the fingers of my left hand, right over my heart. “Things are a lot slower now. I just hate that it took going through almost three years of absolute hell for that to happen.”
“I think your mother would definitely agree with that. I know I do. But look at it this way. You survived, right?”
“Yeah,” I replied, wondering just where Dad was going with this.
“And if I’m not mistaken, you’ve had six good years since then.”
I nodded slowly. I had had six very good years – no major health scares, apart from catching either the flu or bronchitis what seemed like every winter – and for that I was thankful. “Yeah, I have.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “I guess I’m just worried that it could all happen again, but a hell of a lot worse than it was the last time. Dr. Torrens did warn me about that, but she didn’t tell me when or how bad it could be. All she said was that I needed to watch for anything…” I trailed off as I tried to find the words I was looking for. “Anything that’s out of the ordinary or that doesn’t feel right.”
“How about you not worry about that right now? If you’re still worried in a week or so, make an appointment to see her while you’re home for Christmas.”
“Okay. Thanks, Dad.”
“Anytime, Tay.” He clapped me on the shoulder briefly and got to his feet. “Come on, your brothers are giving us both the evil eye – you’d better get over there.”
I let out a quiet laugh. “Probably a good idea.”
Just as Dad had said, Isaac and Zac were giving me just a bit of the evil eye when I finally made it over to where they were standing near the heavy black curtains that blocked off access to the stage. “Oh, lay off,” I sniped at them as I took my place in our pre-show circle. “I was talking to Dad, all right?”
“Yeah okay, don’t get all narky at us,” Zac said. He touched the monitor in his right ear briefly, and I realised somewhat belatedly that I wasn’t wearing mine yet. I immediately unbuttoned my shirt and shrugged it off my shoulders, just in time for footsteps to come up behind me.
“Lovely to have you join us, Taylor,” one of the sound techs said dryly, and I rolled my eyes. “Shirt up please,” she requested, and I lifted the hem of my singlet just far enough so that the wires for my own monitors could be threaded up my back. I caught them as they landed on my left shoulder and quickly shoved them in my ears, the reassuring weight of the receiver settling into one of the back pockets of my jeans as I got them settled firmly in place. My shirt went back on, and I did up the buttons as quickly and as carefully as I could. “Good luck with the show tonight, guys.”
“Thanks Gina,” Zac said, and Gina waved before heading off again.
In the last few minutes before we were due to hit the stage, I found my thoughts drifting back ten years to 2002 – the year that had seen my life and those of my family and friends thrown into complete disarray. I’d had to drop out of university not even a year into studying for my degree, the recording of our third album had been put on hold as I’d spent what had felt like endless months in and out of hospital, and I’d grown too acquainted for my liking with the bathrooms at the house in Newcastle. It wasn’t an experience I wanted to repeat any time soon.
“Ready, Tay?” Zac asked, barely seconds before we walked out onto the UniBar stage.
I nodded quickly, doing my best to ignore the anxiety that was starting to build deep in the pit of my stomach. “Ready. Let’s do this.”
A wall of noise from the audience slammed into me as I led the way onstage, the bright lights making me blink hard as I tried to focus. I gave the audience a wave and headed over to my piano, picking up my acoustic guitar from its stand and slinging the strap around my neck so that it rested on my left shoulder. As we had decided earlier, we were starting off with our version of Name by the Goo Goo Dolls. I had guitar and vocals on this one, so I fished my guitar pick out of my pocket and readied myself to sing like I never had before. The first chords of the song sounded, an intro for Zac’s drums and Isaac’s bass, and once my cue came I began to sing, giving the song my all. Over the mix of instruments and vocals I was hearing through my monitors I could hear the audience singing along, matching me word for word.
“And even though the moment passed me by…I still can’t turn away…‘cause all the dreams you never thought you’d lose…got tossed along the way…and letters that you never meant to send…got lost or thrown away…
“And now we’re grown up orphans that never knew their names…we don’t belong to no one, that’s a shame…but you could hide beside me, maybe for a while…and I won’t tell no one your name…and I won’t tell ‘em your name…
“And scars are souvenirs you never lose…the past is never far…did you lose yourself somewhere out there…did you get to be a star…and don’t it make you sad to know that life…is more than who we are…
“We grew up way too fast…and now there’s nothing to believe…and reruns all become our history…a tired song keeps playing on a tired radio…and I won’t tell no one your name…and I won’t tell ‘em your name…I won’t tell ‘em your name…I won’t tell ‘em your name…
“I think about you all the time…but I don’t need the same…it’s lonely where you are, come back down…and I won’t tell ‘em your name…”
It wasn’t until we’d finished our first song for the night that I saw her. Cheering and applause filled the bar as it ended, and I grinned before sketching a small bow. As I straightened up my gaze landed on the far wall, zeroing in on two people in particular – the two girls I had bumped into in Crust Pizza on my way out to Matthew’s Landcruiser. The downlights that ran in a strip along the wall lit Ruby up from above, her light brown curls turning golden, and for a few moments I couldn’t breathe. I’d thought Ruby was pretty in the pizzeria earlier, but now? She looked gorgeous. And I knew that I had to talk to her again.
“Whoa, easy,” I could hear Isaac saying in my left ear, and I realised he must have pulled that monitor out so that I could hear him properly. He had his hands on my shoulders, keeping me steady and upright as my knees threatened to give out from under me. “You okay mate?”
“I’m fine,” I said quickly, all of a sudden feeling lightheaded and a little dizzy. “Come on, before that lot starts a riot.”
“Okay, if you’re sure,” he said, sounding a little worried, and I nodded. “All right. But you let me know if you need to take some time out, okay? And you should probably sit down before you pass out.”
“Yeah, good idea,” I mumbled. Isaac let go of my shoulders, and I backed up until I bumped into my piano bench. Only then did I feel safe sitting down, and I let out a quiet sigh of relief before slipping my loose monitor back into my ear. I had a feeling the set list was going to be quickly reworked so I could get my act together before I had to sing again, and I knew that Twitter and Facebook would be alight with tweets and status updates within a minute about how I had nearly passed out onstage, but somehow it didn’t bother me.
And as the next song kicked off, and my hands found their way to the keys of my piano, I knew that nothing was going to bother me ever again.
“You took your sweet fucking time,” he grumbled as I climbed into the front passenger seat of the four-wheel drive.
“Keep your fucking hair on,” I shot back. “I’m here now, aren’t I?” The Landcruiser’s engine roared to life seconds after I pulled the door closed behind me, and I scrambled to do up my seatbelt. I managed to buckle it a couple of seconds before Matthew flicked on the right blinker. “Jesus Christ Matt, you can’t wait until I have my belt on?”
“Considering we were supposed to be back at the uni half an hour ago, nope,” Matthew replied. By now he’d eased the four-wheel drive into the traffic that flowed along Crown Street, heading toward Corrimal Street. “Everyone’s dinner is going to be cold by the time we get back if the traffic doesn’t let up.”
“Not my fault they wanted something other than what’s at the uni,” I said with a shrug. “I would have been perfectly happy to stay there and have Subway or Thai for dinner, but nope – it was pizza or nothing with that lot.” I let out a quiet sigh. “At least once tour’s over, I won’t have to deal with them until Christmas.”
“You coming up to Newy for it?”
“That’s the plan, yeah. Whole clan’s meeting up at my parents’. Should be interesting.”
“Good interesting or bad interesting?” Matthew asked. The set of traffic lights up ahead turned orange as he spoke, and the four-wheel drive came to a stop not far from the rear bumper of a Holden Kingswood.
I shrugged again and looked out the windscreen, taking in the traffic that flowed along Corrimal Street. “Haven’t decided yet.”
I ended up spending the remainder of the drive back to the university running through scales and chords in my head. The final show of every tour up to this point had always been the most memorable, and I fully intended for tonight’s show to be no exception. I could only hope that it would be memorable in a good way. If either of my brothers cottoned onto my plans for next year before I had the chance to tell them, though…well, that wasn’t something I wanted to happen.
The car park nearest to the UniBar was absolutely packed when Matthew and I arrived back at the university. “I told you we should have got the Shuttle into town,” I said as Matthew hunted for a free parking space in the carpark. “Could have kept the parking space you had before that way.”
“Yeah, okay smartarse,” he retorted. Just as he said this, a car a few spaces away started to reverse out of its parking space, and he flicked on the right blinker. Almost as soon as the other car was out of the way he carefully eased the Landcruiser into the space it left behind. It was close to the university’s hall and the UniBar, so it wouldn’t take us very long to get the pizzas inside. “Come on. We’d better get dinner inside before all that lot cracks the shits and starts a riot.”
The backstage area at the UniBar was nothing short of barely-controlled chaos, I discovered once I had followed Matthew inside. The bar’s public area had been quiet, with just the bartenders present, but I figured that was because the afternoon crowd had been kicked out. In just a few short hours the small space would be crowded once more, something I always looked forward to. I almost wanted to slam my hands over my ears to block out the worst of the noise.
“Hey!” Matthew yelled, following it up with a shrill whistle. In almost an instant, everyone stopped talking and looked over at us. “Dinner time,” he continued, and lifted the stack of pizza boxes he was carrying a bit higher.
“It’s about fucking time,” a voice said behind me, and I looked back over my shoulder to see Zoë standing in the doorway. She was eyeing the pizzas with a suspiciously devious look in her eye.
“Zoë Genevieve Hanson, you watch your mouth,” Mum said as she came up behind my little sister. “That’s not very ladylike.”
“Mum,” Zoë groaned, the blue eyes she shared with me drifting closed as she spoke.
“Don’t ‘Mum’ me, young lady,” Mum scolded. “Or you’ll be on the first train back up to Newcastle.”
“Sorry,” I heard Zoë grumble about a second before she went wandering past me, not sounding very apologetic at all. As she headed deeper into the green room I could see the bright pink wristband she was wearing around her right wrist, and I bit back a snicker. The wristband had the word UNDERAGE printed on it in large black block letters, something I knew had to irk my sister no end. As the only one of my siblings who was still under the age of eighteen, she didn’t have much of a choice in wearing it if she wanted to attend tonight’s show, and I knew her well enough by now that the first chance she got she’d be ripping it off. With both of our parents present to watch her like a hawk, that wasn’t going to be anytime soon.
“How are you doing, Taylor?” Mum asked me as I followed Matthew over to a couple of long trestle tables that had been set up. At one point or another someone had dug up some paper plates and a stack of serviettes, and I set my pizza boxes down near them. The remainder of the tables were covered mostly with bowls of junk food – potato chips, M&M’s and jelly snakes featured prominently – along with cans and bottles of soft drink, water and various types of alcohol. While I considered my answer to my mother’s question, I grabbed a plate and a serviette, took three slices of Hawaiian from their box, and topped it all off with a bottle of water.
“I’m good,” I replied finally. “Definitely looking forward to being able to sleep in tomorrow.” I bit into one of my slices of pizza. “Can I talk to you for a bit?” I asked.
“Of course you can,” Mum replied.
“In private?” I nodded over at Isaac and Zac, who were deep in conversation with our backing musicians. “I don’t want those two to find out until I’m ready to tell them.”
‘In private’ turned out to be one of the tables in the seating area outside, under the bar’s awning. There were a fair few people milling about on the nearby pavement, some of them waving when they saw Mum and I walking out into the sunshine. I waved back and followed Mum over to an empty table.
“I’m going back to school,” I said without any preamble whatsoever once the two of us were sitting down.
Mum was clearly taken aback by this. “What about the band?” she asked. I could hear the shock in her voice, and I wasn’t entirely sure I blamed her. “I thought this was what you wanted to do for the rest of your life.”
“It is,” I assured her. “But I don’t have anything to fall back on if we decide not to do it anymore. Not that I think we’re going to stop doing it,” I added hurriedly. “Okay, yeah, I have my HSC, but that’s not really going to get me anywhere. Especially if I decide to do something that isn’t related to music.” I reached into one of my back pockets and pulled out the much-abused envelope that I had been carrying around with me for the last month, setting it down in the middle of the table. I’d read the letter inside it so often that I had pretty much memorised it. “I got sent this at the start of last month.”
While Mum read the letter I picked at my pizza, a summary of the words contained on that single sheet of white paper whirling around in my head. Dear Taylor, thank you for your application to study Certificate IV in Design part-time at Wollongong College – you will be notified of the outcome of your application within the next eight weeks. Part of me was hoping that whoever it was that decided course admissions rejected my application, because I wasn’t looking forward to my brothers’ reactions when I finally dropped it on them.
“When will you find out if you’ve been accepted?” Mum asked as she folded the letter up and slipped it back into its envelope.
“Hopefully just before Christmas,” I replied. “I’m going to tell them on Boxing Day. I can tell you right now that they’re not going to like it, and I’d rather not ruin Christmas for everyone if I can help it.”
“Oi Taylor!”
Mum and I both looked back at the door of the bar to see Zac sticking his head out of it. “Isaac wants to get one last practice in before the show kicks off,” he continued. “Better get back in here before he chucks a spaz or something.”
“Yeah, okay,” I said, and set about eating my dinner as quickly as I could without choking on it. “Guess I’d better get back in there,” I said to Mum once I’d finished off the last bit of pizza crust.
“I’m proud of you,” Mum said right as I scrunched my serviette up into a ball and folded my plate around it. “I know things haven’t exactly been easy for you,” she continued when I eyed her quizzically. “You’ve been through a lot, more than any one person should have to deal with.”
“Don’t remind me,” I muttered. As I spoke my right hand drifted up to my right collarbone, to the scar that rested just above it – a twin for the scar high on the left side of my chest. The memories attached to those two scars weren’t exactly positive, and it seemed as if all my old wounds, internal as well as external, opened up all over again whenever someone mentioned what I had spent nearly three long years going through. Even if it was just in a roundabout way.
As I headed back inside the bar, I could see that the stagehands had been hard at work while I’d been outside with Mum. The stage that sat against the bar’s eastern wall had been set up with a piano, my keyboard, both of my guitars, Zac’s drums, the rack that held Isaac’s guitars, and the instruments that would be used by our backing musicians. A high stool had been placed in the centre of the stage so that the evening’s opener would have somewhere to sit during their set. My brothers were seated on the edge of the stage, the two of them bent over Zac’s laptop.
“So are we going to practice or not?” I called out as I walked through the empty bar. “Seeing as Zac dragged me away from talking to Mum and all that.”
“Yeah, hang on,” Isaac said said without looking up from the laptop. “Do you mind doing Name to kick things off?”
“You know I don’t mind,” I replied as I hoisted myself up onstage, sitting down next to Zac, and studied the laptop’s screen. He had iTunes open, with what I figured was that evening’s set list in a new playlist. It was more or less the same set list we’d used during the current tour – an even mix of songs from all five of our albums and our two EPs, along with a few cover songs that we switched out for each show. “I reckon we should do at least one Christmas song,” I said. “Seeing as Christmas is coming up and all that.”
“Name one Christmas song that you can play right off the top of your head without having to learn it all over again,” Zac said. He glanced at me briefly. “And no, the Christmas songs you did for choir in primary school don’t count.”
I scowled at him. “Okay, fine, no Christmas songs. What other covers are we doing then?”
“I was thinking-” Isaac started, Zac interrupting with “Did it hurt?” and earning himself a whack over the back of his head. “Under The Bridge for one of them,” Isaac continued as if he hadn’t even been interrupted.
“The Chili Peppers song?” I asked, and Isaac nodded. “Okay, sounds good – you want to do that one?”
“Yeah, works for me,” he replied.
“I can do One Way Road,” Zac volunteered. “You know, the John Butler Trio song?”
“We know who it’s by, Zac,” I said absently. As I was saying this, Zac clicked back into his main iTunes library, found the songs the three of us had decided on, and copied them into the concert set list. “So that’s all sorted?”
“Pretty much,” Zac replied as he set his laptop to one side. “Come on. We’d better get a bit of practice in – that lot out there will start a riot if we go out onstage sounding like we’re strangling Ave’s cat.”
“Lovely analogy, Zachary,” I said, completely deadpan, and he smirked at me.
We ended up spending the next three quarters of an hour doing a very quick and dirty run-through of our set list, paying particular attention to the three songs we had chosen to cover that evening. They weren’t songs we normally performed onstage, at least not during our national tours – the general consensus for our regional tours, though, was that all bets were off and more or less an excuse to do whatever the hell we liked. Tonight seemed to be no exception to that particular rule.
Things ramped up near the end of intermission. The three of us had just finished going over the chords for Name one last time, having shifted ourselves backstage around ten minutes earlier, when a shrill, very loud whistle met my ears. I winced and looked back over my shoulder to see our tour manager, Caroline, standing in the middle of the room with her ever-present clipboard in hand, microphone headset hanging around her neck. The noise that had filled the green room quickly faded into silence, and I hid a grin – she had trained us very well over the last few years.
“Listen up everyone!” Caroline barked out, sounding very much like a drill sergeant. I could almost picture her standing there in camouflage gear, rifle in hand and a slouch hat sitting at an angle over her dark hair.
“You think she was in the army in a past life?” Zac whispered to Isaac and I, and I bit back a snicker.
“Quiet,” Isaac snapped. Zac mimed zipping his lips closed, the sight of which made me let out a snort of laughter that earned me an elbow to the ribs.
“We are at T-minus fifteen minutes before the lads take the stage,” Caroline continued, her English accent much more pronounced than it normally was. “We have a full house out there tonight – I’m sure you can hear them through those doors over there. They are all hyped up and very excited, so let’s give them a show to remember, okay?” She indicated the trestle tables with her free hand. “I need someone to get those tables packed up and all the rubbish cleared away within the next five minutes. Techs, make sure you have all the monitors and whatnot sorted – we had issues last show, as I’m sure you all remember, so let’s make sure they don’t happen again. Stagehands, I want you out there checking over instruments, making sure mic stands are sturdy, et cetera. Liaise with the lighting and sound crews if you need to.” She glanced down at her clipboard. “Right, we have a lot to do in the next quarter of an hour, so let’s move it – you all have your jobs to be done. If you run out of things to do, come and see me and I’ll give you something to occupy your time until the show starts. Everyone clear?”
Murmurs of assent echoed around the room, and I got to my feet. “I’m going to go and get changed,” I said, dusting off the back of my jeans as I spoke. “Meet you two back here in five?”
Both Isaac and Zac nodded, and the three of us broke off to different parts of the room. I headed over to the far wall and found my backpack where I’d left it, tucked behind a stack of road cases. Among the other things I’d needed that afternoon, inside it was a change of clothes for that night’s show – a black short-sleeved button-down shirt, and a white singlet that I planned to wear underneath. I’d figured that if I got too hot onstage, I could always unbutton or take my shirt off – something that, based on the tour’s previous shows, felt almost inevitable. I quickly changed out of the T-shirt I’d been wearing since that morning, and as soon as I had my clean shirts on I ran my fingers through my hair in an attempt to neaten it up a little.
The minutes before the three of us took the stage seemed to crawl past. At the very beginning, when we were just starting out singing a cappella at the Byron Bay Bluesfest, the Newcastle Regional Show and the Mattara Festival every year, and even during our first tours of Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia in 1997 and 1998, the time before each performance had seemed to fly past in almost the blink of an eye. That had all changed in 2002. These days, it was almost like I subconsciously wanted to appreciate how lucky I truly was to still be here.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
Out of the corner of my eye I could see Dad settling himself down in a chair next to me. “They’re worth more than that,” I said, and he let out a chuckle. “I’m just thinking about all the crap that happened when I was at uni.”
“Well, that’s very random,” Dad said. “What’s brought this on?”
“Just…” I picked at a loose thread on my shirt. “Before it all happened, everything seemed to go by so fast. I barely had a spare moment to think before each show, let alone worry about what was going on in here.” I tapped my chest with the fingers of my left hand, right over my heart. “Things are a lot slower now. I just hate that it took going through almost three years of absolute hell for that to happen.”
“I think your mother would definitely agree with that. I know I do. But look at it this way. You survived, right?”
“Yeah,” I replied, wondering just where Dad was going with this.
“And if I’m not mistaken, you’ve had six good years since then.”
I nodded slowly. I had had six very good years – no major health scares, apart from catching either the flu or bronchitis what seemed like every winter – and for that I was thankful. “Yeah, I have.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “I guess I’m just worried that it could all happen again, but a hell of a lot worse than it was the last time. Dr. Torrens did warn me about that, but she didn’t tell me when or how bad it could be. All she said was that I needed to watch for anything…” I trailed off as I tried to find the words I was looking for. “Anything that’s out of the ordinary or that doesn’t feel right.”
“How about you not worry about that right now? If you’re still worried in a week or so, make an appointment to see her while you’re home for Christmas.”
“Okay. Thanks, Dad.”
“Anytime, Tay.” He clapped me on the shoulder briefly and got to his feet. “Come on, your brothers are giving us both the evil eye – you’d better get over there.”
I let out a quiet laugh. “Probably a good idea.”
Just as Dad had said, Isaac and Zac were giving me just a bit of the evil eye when I finally made it over to where they were standing near the heavy black curtains that blocked off access to the stage. “Oh, lay off,” I sniped at them as I took my place in our pre-show circle. “I was talking to Dad, all right?”
“Yeah okay, don’t get all narky at us,” Zac said. He touched the monitor in his right ear briefly, and I realised somewhat belatedly that I wasn’t wearing mine yet. I immediately unbuttoned my shirt and shrugged it off my shoulders, just in time for footsteps to come up behind me.
“Lovely to have you join us, Taylor,” one of the sound techs said dryly, and I rolled my eyes. “Shirt up please,” she requested, and I lifted the hem of my singlet just far enough so that the wires for my own monitors could be threaded up my back. I caught them as they landed on my left shoulder and quickly shoved them in my ears, the reassuring weight of the receiver settling into one of the back pockets of my jeans as I got them settled firmly in place. My shirt went back on, and I did up the buttons as quickly and as carefully as I could. “Good luck with the show tonight, guys.”
“Thanks Gina,” Zac said, and Gina waved before heading off again.
In the last few minutes before we were due to hit the stage, I found my thoughts drifting back ten years to 2002 – the year that had seen my life and those of my family and friends thrown into complete disarray. I’d had to drop out of university not even a year into studying for my degree, the recording of our third album had been put on hold as I’d spent what had felt like endless months in and out of hospital, and I’d grown too acquainted for my liking with the bathrooms at the house in Newcastle. It wasn’t an experience I wanted to repeat any time soon.
“Ready, Tay?” Zac asked, barely seconds before we walked out onto the UniBar stage.
I nodded quickly, doing my best to ignore the anxiety that was starting to build deep in the pit of my stomach. “Ready. Let’s do this.”
A wall of noise from the audience slammed into me as I led the way onstage, the bright lights making me blink hard as I tried to focus. I gave the audience a wave and headed over to my piano, picking up my acoustic guitar from its stand and slinging the strap around my neck so that it rested on my left shoulder. As we had decided earlier, we were starting off with our version of Name by the Goo Goo Dolls. I had guitar and vocals on this one, so I fished my guitar pick out of my pocket and readied myself to sing like I never had before. The first chords of the song sounded, an intro for Zac’s drums and Isaac’s bass, and once my cue came I began to sing, giving the song my all. Over the mix of instruments and vocals I was hearing through my monitors I could hear the audience singing along, matching me word for word.
“And even though the moment passed me by…I still can’t turn away…‘cause all the dreams you never thought you’d lose…got tossed along the way…and letters that you never meant to send…got lost or thrown away…
“And now we’re grown up orphans that never knew their names…we don’t belong to no one, that’s a shame…but you could hide beside me, maybe for a while…and I won’t tell no one your name…and I won’t tell ‘em your name…
“And scars are souvenirs you never lose…the past is never far…did you lose yourself somewhere out there…did you get to be a star…and don’t it make you sad to know that life…is more than who we are…
“We grew up way too fast…and now there’s nothing to believe…and reruns all become our history…a tired song keeps playing on a tired radio…and I won’t tell no one your name…and I won’t tell ‘em your name…I won’t tell ‘em your name…I won’t tell ‘em your name…
“I think about you all the time…but I don’t need the same…it’s lonely where you are, come back down…and I won’t tell ‘em your name…”
It wasn’t until we’d finished our first song for the night that I saw her. Cheering and applause filled the bar as it ended, and I grinned before sketching a small bow. As I straightened up my gaze landed on the far wall, zeroing in on two people in particular – the two girls I had bumped into in Crust Pizza on my way out to Matthew’s Landcruiser. The downlights that ran in a strip along the wall lit Ruby up from above, her light brown curls turning golden, and for a few moments I couldn’t breathe. I’d thought Ruby was pretty in the pizzeria earlier, but now? She looked gorgeous. And I knew that I had to talk to her again.
“Whoa, easy,” I could hear Isaac saying in my left ear, and I realised he must have pulled that monitor out so that I could hear him properly. He had his hands on my shoulders, keeping me steady and upright as my knees threatened to give out from under me. “You okay mate?”
“I’m fine,” I said quickly, all of a sudden feeling lightheaded and a little dizzy. “Come on, before that lot starts a riot.”
“Okay, if you’re sure,” he said, sounding a little worried, and I nodded. “All right. But you let me know if you need to take some time out, okay? And you should probably sit down before you pass out.”
“Yeah, good idea,” I mumbled. Isaac let go of my shoulders, and I backed up until I bumped into my piano bench. Only then did I feel safe sitting down, and I let out a quiet sigh of relief before slipping my loose monitor back into my ear. I had a feeling the set list was going to be quickly reworked so I could get my act together before I had to sing again, and I knew that Twitter and Facebook would be alight with tweets and status updates within a minute about how I had nearly passed out onstage, but somehow it didn’t bother me.
And as the next song kicked off, and my hands found their way to the keys of my piano, I knew that nothing was going to bother me ever again.