One True Thing (3 page)

The morning drags painfully. During a free period, I make headway on some new songs. Mr Campaspe thinks we need to include a couple of originals alongside our covers for the audition, but we want to write something fresh. We're working on a couple of riffs that have potential but haven't got much further than that. Kessie says I'm so focused on the music that I'm forgetting about the lyrics – or ‘the story'. She wants to give us a theme, to set us apart, and while she might be right about that, all the new stuff she's written is serious and political, which is completely against the point. I didn't call my band No Politics because I was trying to be ironic.

She texts me before lunch, and we both promise to have a couple of lines for the chorus of the new ballad ready to try out at rehearsal, to see what the rest of the band has to say. I figure they'll go along with me, since I'm the one who brought us all together. No Politics has been my baby from the start.

The lunch bell rings and I try to calculate if I have enough time to sprint across to Carfe Diem for a bowl of their Moroccan lamb soup and still catch up with Tyler and Van to let them know I've booked the studio for the afternoon. I send them a text and then Dad's name pops up as my phone rings.

‘Hey, Dad,' I say, doing a less than elegant job of tucking my books and pencil case under my free arm while pinching the phone between my chin and shoulder.

‘Are you good for lunch today?' he says.

I'd forgotten we had plans. I can hear the vague drift of his voice as though he's still thinking about whatever novel he's reading or the paper he's about to give. Dad is a novelist and teaches at the university. He can actually talk and read at the same time – and still mostly make sense – so this is nothing new.

‘Um, sure … I'm on my way,' I say, walking as I talk, making the book/pencil case/phone juggle more complicated and even less graceful as I head out of school grounds.

‘I'll grab a table,' he says before hanging up.

I wait for the traffic lights to change, immediately thinking of the guy from this morning. The memory of those loose, floppy curls. The emerald-green eyes that held a kind of magic I'm not sure there's a word for. I let the memory return, feeling the warm strength of his hand anew, enjoying the twist of his smile. I glance up the street in the direction he disappeared, just in case. It's no surprise he's not there.

I thread my way through the cafe towards Dad, who's sitting at a spare table in the back courtyard.

‘Hey.'

‘I ordered at the counter,' he says, giving me a quick kiss. ‘Moroccan lamb soup, right?'

That's what I mean when I say his vagueness doesn't bother me. He might not
sound
like he's listening, and his gaze is always a little distant behind those thick, square glasses, but he remembers everything. The important stuff, anyway.

‘Thanks, Dad.'

He smiles and stretches out, pressing his back against the seat and placing his long legs diagonally under the table so he doesn't cramp up. He looks relaxed. No, that's not right. He looks like someone trying to
appear
relaxed.

‘What's going on?' I ask, sitting across from him.

He leans forward, his hands clasped together on the table between us. He glances away, as though expecting
someone, then turns those square, writerly glasses back towards me. ‘It's nothing,' he says, pausing. ‘I mean, it's not
nothing nothing
. Just …'

I stare blankly. My father, the novelist and literary scholar, is unable to form a coherent sentence. ‘Seriously, Dad, what's going on?'

‘I don't want you to worry. It's just … this is a big moment in our lives. Mum's election, the sort of changes we're going to see –'

‘Already seen, Dad, in case you haven't noticed. A lot has already changed, and we're coping just fine.'

Dad's eyes crinkle gently. He's acting like I'm a total newb with no idea what's ahead and how to deal with it. I sit up straighter.

He removes his glasses and pulls a cloth from his shirt pocket. ‘Winning an election is a long way from being promoted by your party. You're out there in public – not just Mum, but all of us. We're exposing ourselves in an entirely different way.'

‘Right, but hasn't that already started?'

‘Yeah, I suppose.' He wipes each lens, then sets his glasses on his nose. ‘But with Mum being the first female Premier here –'

‘
Elected
Premier,' I remind him. ‘Don't forget Joan Kirner.'

‘Yes,
elected
. Or soon to be. That's a big deal. To some people, too big a deal.' He shrugs. ‘I don't think anyone
is really ready for what's ahead,' he says finally. ‘What's already started.'

‘There's something you're not telling me.'

He smiles thinly and becomes engrossed in the placement of his knife and fork. I watch his long fingers lift one utensil, then the next, flattening and straightening them to fit some geometrical arrangement in his head. He looks up, that same brittle smile curling the edges of his mouth. ‘A lot will be asked of you, Frankie,' he says slowly, ‘and I'm not sure that's the way it should be.'

I sit back, thinking I should object, though I don't know what I'm objecting to.

The waitress arrives with our coffees, and Dad waits for her to leave before he continues. He does a quick scan for possible eavesdroppers. I know he needs to be careful about being overheard or misrepresented, but sometimes it feels like we're in a witness protection program.

‘We're in for a bumpy ride,' he says. ‘That's the truth. I don't know how or what form, but there are rumours.'

‘Rumours about what?'

‘I don't know. They won't say.'

‘I don't understand.'

‘I'm not making myself clear, am I?'

‘You think?'

Dad shifts uncomfortably.

‘You always tell me it's easier if you just tell the truth,' I say. ‘That the truth makes everything better – eventually,
if not immediately.' I've mangled the phrasing but it's close enough.

‘You're a smart kid, Frank. I know that, but honestly, I don't know what's going to happen. I'm not even sure your mum does,' he says. ‘It's just that politics is pretty ruthless.'

‘Yeah. I've picked up on that.' Seamus Hale has willed my mother dead in all kinds of horrible ways. The sound of his voice gives me the creeps, but the hatred he spews is almost physical. After I hear him rant about my mum, I feel …
abused
. That sounds melodramatic, but it's the only word I can think of. For the first time I consider how Mum must feel if that's how it affects
me
. And Dad too. I shudder involuntarily.

He looks at me and seems to decide something. ‘There's talk of a dirt file. Or several dirt files. Hale's people are prodding Harry and your mum for an exclusive.'

‘An exclusive on what?'

He exhales through his nose.

I shake my head. ‘Let me guess – they won't say.'

Dad cocks his head and offers an apologetic smile. ‘I sound like a politician's husband, don't I? Talking a lot but saying nothing.'

‘Funny that.'

I open a sweetener and pour it into my coffee. As good as it smells, I've lost my taste for it.

Dad places his hand on my arm. I wait as long as I can before gently extracting myself. ‘So what do we do?' I ask.

‘We wait and see. They might be bluffing.' He scans the faces of the other cafe patrons as if they're likely to tell us one way or the other. Someone – an older man – waves at him. Dad offers a half-salute, then returns his attention to me. ‘Or not.'

‘What could they possibly say? I mean, we're talking about
Mum
.' I think about her flat-out refusal to break any rules or to even bend them. She won't use her name in a way that isn't strictly part of her job. ‘She's never had a parking ticket!'

‘It doesn't have to be illegal,' Dad says. ‘Or even true.'

‘They can't just make something up!'

‘No. Not
technically
.'

‘So she'll be fine,' I say, relaxing in my chair. ‘There's nothing to worry about.'

He watches me, that familiar distance returning to his gaze, but when he finally speaks his words come out deliberate and thoughtful. ‘The thing is, Frank, everyone has some moment they regret. Your mum's no different to anyone else. Neither am I, for that matter.'

Before I can respond, the waitress returns with our food and there's a brief flurry of dishes and drinks being moved and removed after she mixes up our orders, and then the moment has passed, and I don't ask Dad what he means.

The truth is … I'm not sure I want to know.

‘Enough!'

I'm trying to be heard over the fading thrum of Van's bass guitar, but I can't help frustration edging my words, Dad's warning about dodgy rumours niggling away. I have to focus and block it out.

‘Kess, what are you doing?'

She's clinging to her microphone in zone-out mode, the afterglow of singing still pink in her cheeks. She blinks as though waking, all innocent and confused. ‘What?'

‘You know what.' That edge is there again, and even Kessie, the Queen of Denial, can't ignore it. I take a deep breath and count the cracks in the ceiling. The senior-school music studio is essentially a glorified closet with
power points and soundproofing, but it's the only space on campus where we can thrash out our music without anyone complaining.

Kessie is still all innocence but there's a twitch at the corner of her mouth.

‘Tyler?' I swing around to our drummer, whose cherubic cheeks and spiky red hair are just visible over her Billy Hyde drum kit. Short and stocky and dressed head to toe in black, she has a series of piercings in her ears, eyebrow and lip that could overload a metal detector from twenty paces. She looks like a poster child for 1970s punk rock. Despite her appearance, she's arguably one of the calmest, coolest people I know. I can't remember ever seeing her angry. Never heard her raise her voice. But she was born to play drums and can pound those skins like Dave freaking Grohl.

‘Don't drag me into it,' she says. ‘This is all you.'

‘What's the big deal?' Kessie smirks infuriatingly.

‘Don't play dumb, Kess,' I say, resting my elbow on my guitar.

Van dips his head, his shiny black fringe almost completely obscuring half of his face. He pushes his hair back, revealing smudged eyeliner and a blank gaze.

I swing around to confront Kessie, who's smiling again, thoroughly entertained.

‘Did I miss the memo? Suddenly you guys are rewriting my songs too?'

Kessie offers a loud ‘here we go again' kind of sigh and shakes her head.

‘Since when did “Love Song” become a protest song?' I've forgotten about Van and Tyler now, even though they must have been in on it, because they extended the midsection long enough for Kessie's little diatribe.

But there's no point attacking them. Van barely speaks – he lets his bass do all the talking. I mean, literally. When he was auditioning, I asked him a question about commitment or passion – I can't remember exactly – but instead of pleading his case, he played the opening riff of ‘Alive', as if that were all the answer I needed. (It was. We asked him to join that day.) And Tyler would rather swallow broken glass than get in a battle about
anything
. She says she got enough of that at home before she and her mum escaped her real dad.

‘I have no idea what you mean,' Kessie says.

‘
It's time. It's time to fix it. Time to …
What did you say?
Heal
it? I don't even know what that means.'

‘
Seal
it,' she says. ‘Obviously.'

‘
Old white men
…' I continue, trying to remember.
‘Get out of town.'

‘Close.
Faceless old men. There's a new chick in town
.' She hesitates. ‘But I like the passion of “get out of town”. That could work.'

‘No, that
won't
work!' I say, hearing the ugly lift of my voice as I get a little crazy.
What is wrong with me
today?
I deliberately lower my voice. ‘They're not the lyrics.'

‘So? I changed it up a little.'

‘Changed it up? It's
my
song!'

Kessie frowns. ‘But it's our band.'

‘Technically, it's
my
band.'

Kessie blinks and Van steps back as though to get out of the way.

‘Guys, come on,' Tyler says from behind her drums.

I feel a brief pang of regret; it's kind of a thing between Kessie and me – whose band it is. Kessie's all for democracy and equality. Me, not so much. I started the band. Found the members. I write most of the songs, and if I don't organise rehearsal it doesn't happen … Except none of my music works without them. ‘Seriously, Kess? We've talked about this.'

‘Hey – if you don't like my interpretation you can always sing it yourself.'

What can I say? I don't sing. Not on stage. That's why I worked so hard to convince Kessie to join. We needed a voice and it wouldn't be mine, and she knew that when she signed up. I change tack. ‘Rewriting lyrics is one thing, but the chorus too? I mean, “It's Time”? Could you be more obvious?'

‘What? There's no copyright on that line.' Kessie won't look at me, pretending instead to adjust the microphone stand – a dead giveaway because the stand is all rusted
and fixed, and none of us has been able to move it even a millimetre since the day Van brought it home from a neighbour's hard rubbish pile. We've had some paid gigs since then, family stuff mostly, and we've made enough money to buy new amps and instruments, but we've never replaced the mike stand and probably never will. It was the first piece of equipment we collectively owned and we're kind of sentimental about it.

‘I'm not worried about copyright,' I say through clenched teeth. Kessie's having a pretty obvious dig at the upcoming election. ‘It's Time' is straight from the Whitlam election, back when TV was black and white and there were virtually no women in politics – or none that were paid, as Mum is fond of pointing out – which all just reminds me of Dad's wig-out this afternoon, and that's something I
really
don't want to think about. ‘It's a love song, not a political slogan,' I argue. ‘Besides, we've talked about this. We don't
do
politics here.'

‘So that's where our name came from?' Kessie asks. ‘“No Politics” means
no politics
? Huh. Who'd've thunk it.'

‘You. Are. Hilarious.'

‘You can't live in a vacuum, Frank,' Kessie says. ‘Politics is everywhere.'

‘Right. Which is exactly why I don't want it here! “Love Song” has nothing to do with politics!' I shout. ‘Or copyright,' I add.

There's a long, stilted silence where Kessie and Van try not to look at me, and Tyler is virtually cowering behind her drum kit.

‘I agree with the noisy one. Copyright is not relevant in this case.'

I swing around to see a tall, good-looking guy blocking the doorway.
The
tall good-looking guy from this morning. The same one. Here.

‘You can use a song title without breaching copyright,' he continues, oblivious to our collective gawping.

I manage not to audibly gasp at the sight of him. But instead of being pleased to see him – I can't pretend I wasn't looking for him before lunch – right now, I'm royally pissed off. Because …

Because.

I don't really know why except we've got so much to do, Kessie's being a tool, Dad's words are still ringing in my ears and now there's this …
guy
just standing there, oozing arrogance. He's leaning against the doorjamb as if he owns the place and, even though it's obvious he's interrupted us, he seems in no hurry to leave.

Wait. Did he just call me noisy?

‘Can I help you?' I ask, not quite managing to keep the snark out of my voice.

‘No, no. Carry on.' He saunters into our studio, then hugs Kessie like they're old mates.

‘Hey, Jake,' she says, kissing him on the cheek.

I instinctively stand taller, not that it helps much, since Jake towers over the lot of us. He's probably a jock, I decide, noting the Hawthorn hoodie now tied around his waist. Sometimes the school sponsors footballers with scholarships as a way of improving their profile. It's a public school, but it's select entry. You have to have some special or extra ability beyond schoolwork. I got in because of my music. Kessie got in for, well, everything. And there's a handful of sports scholarships too, which accounts for Travis Neanderthal Matthews making the cut. Mum rails against these scholarship programs all the time for ‘entrenching privilege' and ‘sending the wrong message'. But not enough that she didn't help me and Kessie apply here.

Jake's wide shoulders and taut biceps are impossible to ignore. Not huge in that ugly body-builder-on-steroids way, but lean and strong and tanned. He's definitely a footballer.

‘Hey,' he says, standing in front of me.

He smells of musk and pine cones, and I feel the heat in my cheeks.

‘We're kind of in the middle of something here,' I manage, looking to Kessie and Van for support.

Kessie ignores me while Van is looking everywhere but at me. Tyler is watching too, a blend of confusion and curiosity in her expression – no help at all. I glare at the intruder, blaming him for my band members' blatant disloyalty.

I open my mouth to speak but nothing comes out.

‘You okay?' Jake asks after a difficult pause. He doesn't seem to be making fun of me – even though he could. Or should. I mean, I'd be all over it if the situation were reversed. My near faceplant on the street, my annoyance with him when he was the one who helped me … Really, he has every right to humiliate me. Instead, he smiles and asks if I'm okay.

And it occurs to me I'm acting like an idiot. A fact noted by everyone in the room.

‘So,' Kessie says eventually, bringing the attention mercifully away from my total tooldom, but not before shooting me a ‘WTF?' look first. ‘This is Jake D'Angelo. He just moved here from Canberra.'

‘Hey,' Van mutters. He starts fiddling with the levels on the mixer, twanging a chord here and there for effect. Van doesn't seem to be doing any better than me right now. I'm not entirely sure that Van is straight. I suspect he's not entirely sure, either. But he's also supremely shy, and the Jake D'Angelos of the world are about as intimidating and as confusing for an emo of wavering sexuality as anyone can be.

Or that's how Kessie described Van after the band watched
Crazy, Stupid Love
at Kessie's house one night. We'd paused the scene when Ryan Gosling takes off his shirt, all of us staring at the TV, struck dumb by the Ryan Gosling ab effect. Even Kessie was in awe, saying,
‘I might be a lesbian, but I'm not
dead
.' Tyler was nodding appreciatively but Van was worse than any of us. He actually paled. Kessie said afterwards that it was pretty clear he was still making up his mind about where he fits on the sexuality spectrum, and I figure she would know.

‘And
this
–' Kessie lets the ‘this' draw out, and it makes me wonder if she's mentioned me to him before, like she's warned him ‘– is Frankie Mulvaney-Webb.'

‘I'd guessed that,' Jake says, his mouth twitching at the edges.

Please don't mention this morning. Please …

He glances briefly at my ruined jeans – the patch dry now, the tear the only visible evidence – but lifts his gaze to meet mine and, although those dimples reappear to mock me, he doesn't give me away. He reaches out a firm, tanned hand, waiting for me to shake it. ‘Hey, Frankie.'

‘Great to meet you,' I say, making sure every syllable tells him it is anything but great. I don't know who this snarky cow who's invaded my body is, but right now she's all I have. ‘Listen, we're kind of busy here,' I continue, in case my sarcasm wasn't enough to suggest he isn't welcome.

His hand is still hovering, waiting for my response.

I grasp it, feeling a strange rush of heat shoot along my forearm when we touch. I try to pull away but he holds on tighter, making me look at him. Right into him.

I blink. Stare. Blink some more.

Kessie clears her throat, and we both let go abruptly, almost guiltily.

I wish the ground would swallow me up, though I note with some relief that Jake also looks a little flushed.

‘Well,' she says brightly, ‘that was odd.'

‘Can we get on with rehearsal?' I say through clenched teeth.

‘Yeah, about that.' Kessie's still hanging on to that microphone for all she's worth, and I'm realising that her relentless, all-encompassing confidence is more of an act than a reality. She's antsy and … what? Nervous? Kessie Blythedale is
nervous
?

I study this stranger in our midst, wondering what the hell has brought on this sudden personality transplant in my best friend who I've known forever and ever. What am I missing here?

As though I've asked the question, Kessie says, ‘Jake's doing a story for
The Issue.
You know, the journal I keep saying you should read?' Her voice doesn't crack, but it's got a shrillness that I know too well. It's the ‘I've promised something you're going to hate, and now's the time to tell you' tone that sits a couple of octaves above mild panic.

‘They haven't committed to it,' Jake says quickly. ‘It's just at pitch stage. Grassroots bands and youth culture, music programs in schools – that kind of thing.'

This is supposed to reassure me. I don't even glance in
his direction, my gaze wholly focused on my best friend. ‘Because I need more media in my life.'

Kessie shrugs. ‘Not you. The band.'

‘And you didn't run it by us?' I look at Van, who is unnaturally fixated on the sound mixer … Right. So he knew about it already. Tyler offers me an apologetic smile. Her too then. ‘Or me.'

‘Why would I?' Kessie says breezily, that bulletproof confidence of hers right back where it belongs. ‘I knew you'd be totally cool with it.' She smiles widely.

The truth is, any press coverage would be great this early in our formation. Not the kind I'd get if Harry or Mum were involved, which is why I've avoided talking about No Politics in interviews. But this kind – focusing on our music? I can't say no. We need it.