The Lords of Melody, page 8
But after more than a week on crutches, I had developed some serious guns. And they were up for the challenge.
I’m pretty sure Janis walked even faster than usual just to prove a point. I managed to keep up, but by the time we reached the ATM, I was sucking in the big ones. And my serious guns were complaining loudly.
Janis stuck her card into the machine, selected the ‘deposit cash’ button. The machine opened its jaws wide.
ATM hungry, it said. ATM want your money. Janis obliged, feeding it her wad of cash.
But just as the jaws were about to close, I reached into my pocket, grabbed my wad of germy old-person notes, and fed those to the ATM.
‘What did you do that for!’ complained Janis. ‘I don’t want your money in my account!’
‘It’s your money now.’
It took Janis a little while to understand. ‘You’re giving me your money?’
I nodded.
‘But … but … but why?’
‘Because I want to see my big sister on the Green Run at Chamonix,’ I said, imagining her, hair flowing, snow flurrying, as she skied right past the amazed Hambly twins.
Janis took the receipt and put it into her pocket. Then she had her phone out, crunching numbers on the calculator app.
‘I only need the money from Lee Ji-Yoo!’ she cried. ‘And two more guitar lessons.’
Then she put her arms around me, and hugged me as tight as I could remember her hugging me. And she kept on hugging me until a well-oiled voice from behind said, ‘Excuse me, girls.’
It was Chucky Charlesworth, wearing his fencing equipment.
OK, that’s not strictly true – he was wearing designer jeans and a polo shirt, but I always imagined him just like the photo in the local paper. And he was pushing the world’s biggest stroller, and in the stroller were the twins, Bella’s half-brothers.
‘The twins are so cute,’ I said, which was probably the biggest lie I ever told because they were pretty ugly, actually. No wonder Bella called them the Squish Heads.
‘Yes, they’re strong and healthy,’ said Chucky. ‘So how’s your grandfather?’
‘He’s good,’ I said.
‘He’s gone,’ said Janis.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘I really admire what you kids have been able to achieve given that you haven’t had a whole lot of choices.’ Chucky talked like I imagined he fenced, each word a strategic thrust. ‘And I absolutely get the ZedBedZ thing. How could I not? Property is my life. Unfortunately, it’s just not going to work in a tight-knit community like ours.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ said Janis, and she made as if to leave.
‘Janis, just hear me out, please,’ said Chucky.
‘You’ve got thirty seconds,’ said Janis, and she actually set the timer on her iPhone.
‘You’re right to think that an empty room is an asset, that makes complete business sense,’ Chucky continued.
‘Twenty seconds,’ warned Janis.
‘But the truth is your whole house is an asset, an underutilised one.’
‘Um, like we live in it,’ said Janis.
‘Yes, but if you sold it, and moved a couple of suburbs away, you could live in a more modern residence and still have money left over for education.’
I started singing under my breath:
Chucky, Chucky, leave us alone.
We don’t want to sell our wonderful home.
Chucky you’re evil.
Chucky you’re scum.
I wouldn’t give you
The smell from my bum.
But Janis hadn’t said anything, and the thirty seconds had long run out.
‘Thanks for the advice, Mr Charlesworth,’ I said.
But Janis wasn’t moving. ‘How many suburbs away?’ she said.
‘Depends on what you were after,’ said Chucky.
‘Three bedrooms, at least one with ensuite, media room, and an in-ground pool,’ said Janis.
I couldn’t help adding, ‘And air con.’
‘Possibly Swan Gardens,’ he said. ‘Definitely Suntown Heights.’
Wow! I thought. Imagine living next door to the Fakahokotaus?
‘I see,’ said Janis.
It was obvious that Chucky was performing some sort of real estate black magic. It was time to get out of there.
I smiled at the Squish Heads. ‘See you two gorgeous little dumplings later!’
Chucky’s talk had done something to Janis because as soon as he’d gone, she suggested we go to Mr Bean, our favourite cafe in the shopping centre – sorry – village.
‘You mean together?’ I said.
‘Yes, together!’ she said.
As we slurped our kale smoothies Janis suddenly said, ‘He’s right, isn’t he?’
‘About selling the house?’
‘Yeah, we’re the only poverty-struck people left on Melody,’ she said. ‘You know what, we don’t belong here anymore.’
‘How can you say we don’t belong when we grew up here?’ I said. ‘I mean, I had my very first babycino in this cafe!’
Janis shrugged. ‘Because it’s the truth.’
‘But who would want to live in Suntown Heights or Swan Gardens? They’re like Legoland, those places.’
Janis shrugged, and pushed the unfinished smoothie away. It was one of my sister’s things – she always left a bit. I guess it was a test of her self-control, her discipline, her Janis-ness.
She leaned closer, and said, ‘Did I ever tell you about the time I went back to the hospital?’
It wasn’t Lord Files, but it did seem vaguely familiar – had I overheard Strum and Miss Katy talking about it one day? But I couldn’t remember any details so I said, ‘No.’
So she told me the story, how one day when she was in Year Five she caught a train to the city and went to the hospital where she’d been born. She told them that she wanted to get the names of all the other babies born there on the same day because she was pretty sure there’d been a mix-up and she’d ended up in the wrong family. Her real family, her biological family, lived in a nice house, in a nice suburb and drove a nice car. They also had proper jobs.
The hospital people assured her there’d been no mix-up and Janis had no choice but to go home.
‘Wow, that’s so crazy!’ I said, when she’d finished.
I mean, we had the same colour eyes, the same colour hair. People always pegged us as sisters.
‘I’m pretty sure they were lying to me,’ she said. ‘But there’s no way they are ever going to own up to a mistake like that, is there?’
At first I thought she was joking, but I should’ve known better: Janis and joking may start with the same letter of the alphabet but that’s about all they had in common.
‘Imagine how much we could sue them for?’ she said.
‘Imagine!’ I murmured.
‘Anyway,’ she said, leaning across the table, putting her hands on top of mine. ‘What I wanted to say is even if we’re not biological sisters, I’m still going to treat you like one.’
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I really appreciate that.’
She looked at her phone. ‘Is that the time?! I have to get to orchestra practice. You’re OK to walk home by yourself, aren’t you?’
‘Of course, I am,’ I said. ‘I’ll text Miss Katy to let her know.’
I sat there a bit longer, and finished my smoothie. All of it.
When I went to pay, Gabe said, ‘You’re paying for two smoothies, Suzi?’
Janis had left me with her bill!
‘Sure,’ I said.
As I waited for my change, I realised something: I was tapping my foot in time to the cafe’s music.
Damn you, Pigpen!
I needed to get Strum and Miss Katy out of the house and I knew just how to do it – two words, that’s all it would take.
Strum, secateurs in hand, was in the garden pruning the roses. Yeah, right. Strum, as befits his nickname, was strumming his guitar. I approached, and when I was close enough, I casually dropped the first of those words. ‘Cassettes.’
Strum stopped mid-strum. ‘Cassettes, you say?’ he responded, nostrils twitching.
I added the second. ‘Gumtree.’
‘Somebody is selling cassettes on Gumtree?’ said Strum, excitedly, filling in the rest.
I nodded, and Strum was practically salivating now.
‘Show me!’ he said.
Now I had to deliver, but as I handed Strum my phone I was feeling pretty confident that the hour I’d spent trawling Gumtree this morning had been worthwhile.
‘Chad from Magpie Waters is selling his beloved cassette collection,’ Strum read. ‘Many obscure demo tapes and other collectibles.’
Now he was definitely salivating.
‘Darl, we’re taking a trip to Magpie Waters,’ he yelled to Miss Katy, who was still slopping around in her pjs.
Miss Katy wasn’t quite as excited by outmoded lo-fi technology as Strum, but somebody needed to make sure he didn’t spend all of next week’s Lentil Slop money on them so she agreed to go with him.
‘Maybe I should put something else on,’ she said.
‘No, you’ll be right, darl,’ said Strum, and he was right: somebody who was having a mega sale of ‘obscure demo cassettes’ probably wasn’t going to be fazed by a tartan dressing gown and Dolly Parton slippers.
But Miss Katy got changed, anyway.
And they piled into Bongo the Van Not the Drum. And finally I had the house to myself. The band room to myself. Pigpen’s old drum kit to myself.
Even though I’d been around musical instruments all my life, and I’d heard all the different terms thrown around – snare drums, kick drums, cymbals, tom-toms, hi-hats – it was intimidating sitting there on the rickety drum stool.
Why were there so many bits?
Guitar? Straightforward. Likewise the piano. And the violin. But drums were, I don’t know, messy.
No wonder somebody invented the drum machine. Cram all that stuff into a simple black box.
I propped the craPad up on a chair and said, ‘So how do I start?’
But Pigpen was sleeping, or hibernating, or doing whatever it is that ghosts – sorry, the departed – do when they’re not pestering the living.
So what did I do?
I googled it of course: beginner drum lesson video.
And I got a squillion hits. Now it was just a matter of scrolling through them and finding the one I thought would suit me.
Finally, I made a choice.
The teacher was a woman, which was nice. She didn’t look very rock ’n’ roll, which was nice. And she took it very slowly, which was also nice.
First, she explained how to hold the sticks.
Then she explained what the hi-hat was and what the snare drum was.
Finally, she demonstrated a really simple pattern using both of them.
Not bragging or anything, but I got it pretty much straightaway. But just when it was time to introduce something more complex she went all religious on me, a big old quote flashing across the screen: For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you.
It was sort of disconcerting that he had me by my right hand because I’m pretty sure I needed that to whack the hi-hat.
Just as I was about to find another video, Pigpen decided to wake up, or whatever it is that ghosts do.
‘So the old codger’s gone?’ he said.
‘Yeah,’ I said, but I wondered where Pigpen got off calling Jock old. At least he’s not dead, I thought.
‘Was he OK?’ Pigpen asked, with something like concern in his voice.
‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘He sort of sneaked off.’
‘Well, he had no right to move into my room,’ said Pigpen.
‘Whatever,’ I said, keen to move onto other topics – like me. ‘Did you hear me drumming?’
‘You were going OK,’ he said.
‘I was?’
‘I said so, didn’t I?’
‘Grumpy old ghost,’ I mumbled. But then I remembered he was grumpy before he was a ghost, so I couldn’t blame it on him being dead.
‘So what should I do now?’ I asked.
‘Add some kick drum,’ he said. ‘Lucky you broke your left leg and not your right.’
Obviously, being stuck inside a screen like that meant that Pigpen couldn’t show me what to do. But he could tell me what to do, what to hit and when, and he was also amazing at mimicking the various percussive noises.
‘Wow, you could totally do beatbox,’ I said, imagining him on The Voice, the three judges turning simultaneously to see a craPad propped up on a chair with a mike in front of it.
‘Let’s step it up,’ he said. ‘I haven’t got all day.’
Really? I thought. What other commitments would a ghost have? But I didn’t want to upset him, so I said nothing and I tried to do what he asked. This time it was much more difficult, and I kept mucking it up.
‘Stop!’ he cried. ‘That was horrible.’
He really was a bad teacher; I could never imagine Paloma, or Mr Popovic, carrying on like that.
‘Look, the thing about beats is this: us Homo sapiens, we’re not inventing them, right?’
‘Right,’ I said, though I wasn’t sure what he was on about.
‘All we’re doing is trying to reproduce what’s already out there in nature,’ he said.
‘Right,’ I repeated.
‘You’ve got your heartbeat, ba boom ba boom. There’s waves on the beach, swish swash. There’s frogs at night, ribbit ribbit.’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Ba boom. Swish swash. Ribbit ribbit.’
‘The beats are already there in your blood and all you got to do is allow them to express themselves.’
Namaste, Pigpen. But somehow his hippy pep talk did the trick, and when I tried it again, it felt right.
But Pigpen was still shaking his head.
‘What’s wrong?’ I said.
‘You’ve been having lessons at school, or something,’ he said, a hint of anger in his voice.
‘No way!’
‘Don’t lie!’ he said, and now he was angry.
‘I’m not lying!’ I said. ‘What’s the matter with you?’
‘Your drumming, that’s what’s the matter with me.’
‘But I thought that was better.’
‘Of course, it was better,’ he said. ‘It was pretty much flawless.’
‘But isn’t that good?’ I said.
‘No, it’s not good! It took me months and months to get to that level and here you are …’
The screen flickered and I thought Pigpen had gone but eventually he was back on the screen.
‘So there’s a new guest moving into my room?’ he said, obviously not keen to talk about my drumming anymore.
‘Yeah, tomorrow at two,’ I said. ‘She’s Korean.’
Voices from down the corridor – Strum and Miss Katy.
I got back onboard my crutches and hurried out of the band room.
Actually, I’m not sure why I didn’t want them to know I’d been playing around with the drums. Strum would be stoked, I had no doubt about that. But lately Miss Katy had been, in her low-key tuckshop lady way, talking about possible career paths for me. And not one of them had anything to do with music.
Strum was super-excited: he’d found a Diarrhea Planet demo cassette!
‘There’d be only a few of these in the whole world!’ he said.
When he put it on, I could sort of understand why that was – Diarrhea Planet sounded like an accident at a bed springs factory. But Strum could find something to admire in any piece of music, no matter how horrendous.
‘Did you hear that?’ he said. ‘That’s a diminished seventh!’
But then Janis came out with one of her Turn That Diarrhea Planet Demo Cassette Down looks.
Strum did just that.
‘So what time’s Ying coming?’ Janis said.
‘Yang,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘His name is Yang not Ying.’
‘It’s pretty much the same thing,’ she said, dismissively.
‘No, it’s not,’ I said. ‘It’d be like calling you Jinis instead of Janis.’
‘That exchange student from New Zealand did call me Jinis instead of Janis.’
‘That’s not the point,’ I said.
‘Exactly,’ said Janis, and having demolished me with her relentless, though flawed, logic she turned her attention to our father.
‘Strum, you need to be on top of your game today,’ she said.
Janis could see the finish line now, those dollars she needed to get to France, and she was going even harder.
‘He’s a sweet kid,’ said Strum. ‘But he just doesn’t have what it takes to rock.’
‘I only need Lee Ji-Yoo tomorrow,’ she said. ‘And a couple more music lessons.’
‘And like I said, he’s never going to play rock ’n’ roll guitar. Not properly.’
‘Who cares!’ snapped Janis.
‘Well, I feel bad about taking the kid’s money.’
‘Are you crazy?’ said Janis. ‘That’s exactly what music lessons are.’
I could see that Strum wasn’t quite understanding what she was saying.
‘Strum, how many music lessons did you have in your life?’ she asked him.
‘None, of course. I just learned by ear, playing along to the radio, to records.’
‘And Miss Katy, who taught you to sing?’ said Janis.
‘Nobody,’ she said. ‘I just sang.’
‘Exactly my point,’ said Janis. ‘Real musos don’t need lessons.’
I wasn’t so sure about that.
The doorbell rang.
‘That’ll be Ying,’ said Janis.
It was Yang, not Ying his Kiwi cousin, and he was certainly looking the part today: distressed jeans, a Prince ‘Purple Rain’ t-shirt, and wraparound sunglasses.
‘Jock?’ he managed to ask.
‘The old fella shot through,’ said Strum. ‘But Suzi here is learning your lingo at school so she can help big-time.’
Thank you, I said to Yang in Mandarin. And I counted to nine. Yang just smiled at me.
‘OK, time to get the lesson started!’ said Janis.
I reckon she could almost feel that powdery snow under her skis. So we all moved to the band room.
