The Astrid Notes Read online

  He stops, mid-note. We eyeball each other. I raise a hand in a short salute, hoping he’ll go away.

  ‘What you doing all the way up there?’ He flicks flame from a lighter and then slips the lighter into his jeans pocket.

  ‘Thinking and stuff.’

  He keeps staring but doesn’t respond. I add, ‘Do the Hunters know you come here?’

  ‘Sure. Me and Mrs H go way back – as far as me swimming in their pool this summer. I was hot after vacuuming your mansion and the water was this mind-blowing blue. She wasn’t mad though. Said I could come by anytime.’

  ‘Don’t s’pose she knows you play with fire in her woods.’ I want to ask him how he held fire without burning himself. But I want him to leave more.

  He rubs the back of his neck, studies the tree, then rubs his palms on his T-shirt. He reaches for the first branch and swings his legs up easily. He’s tall for fifteen.

  I hide my injured hand in my lap when he perches on a limb to the side of me. He has a strong jaw and his dark hair flicks up in a coif. He looks at me sideways; his expression somehow says, ‘I didn’t do it’, and I wonder if he gets in trouble a lot. How bad can he be when he helps his mum clean our house?

  He gestures to my hair. ‘You let it grow out again.’

  After the accident on the Harley the surgeon shaved half my head so he could stitch me back together. I glance down at the one visible scar left – a shiny blemish the length of my calf.

  Changing the subject, I say, ‘Your voice slays. How’d you learn to sing like that?’

  ‘Church.’

  ‘A good Catholic boy then.’

  He snorts. ‘Tell my mamma that. She thinks pop songs are the devil’s making. Her brother’s some sort of bishop back in Italy. It’s like if I sing pop, he won’t make Pope or something.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Dexter De Brun.’

  ‘No shit. Seriously?’

  ‘Seriously. My dad was Dutch and a Dexter Gordon fanatic – saxophonist. Not exactly the name of a pop star. But De Brun means Brown. And I go by Dex. Unless I’m in earshot of my mamma, then I’m Dexter.’

  ‘Got it.’ The kid makes me laugh without forcing it. ‘So where’d you live?’

  ‘Naremburn. All my life.’ He fiddles with the stud he’s wearing in one ear.

  ‘You go to school there?’

  ‘Yep. Then a bus to get here to iron your carpets and clean up after your ass.’

  ‘Hey, I hardly set foot in that house.’

  ‘I noticed. I had to come next door to meet you.’ He pulls at a twig and aims it at a distant branch. ‘You’re always in your studio or touring with your band – I mean –’ He quickly looks away. ‘Were. Used to.’

  His words stab me and it’s as if a hole opens and my insides are pouring out of it. He breaks off another twig, snaps that into smaller pieces, and lets each one fall. We watch them hitting branches on their way down.

  ‘What you doing up here? Crap day?’ he asks. He studies my cradled wrist, the blood on my knuckles. The pain scales eleven out of ten now.

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘What the coif? I didn’t think trust-fund kids had bad days.’

  ‘What the what?’

  He pats his own neatly combed coif. ‘I’m a good Catholic boy and don’t swear. Much. How can you have a bad day when you get to sing all day in that studio? The shower’s my studio and I can’t sing if Mamma’s around.’

  I feel for the kid. ‘Money don’t buy happiness though.’

  ‘We’ll swap then. You go to death-of-brain school all day then come clean some rich dude’s house, then cook dinner for your sick mamma.’

  I consider his logic. But he’s only seeing what’s on the outside. ‘You don’t actually iron our carpets do you?’

  ‘Nope. But one day when I’m rich and famous – Are you mad at your parents? About that piano audition or else you’re on your own?’

  ‘How’d you know about that?’

  ‘Mamma. She’s diabetic, not deaf.’

  ‘What else has she told you about my family?’

  ‘Not much. I didn’t mean she gossips. Plus she works six days a week and leaves early and gets home late. We get to talk more now I’m helping her. Quality son and mamma time over the feather duster.’ He flicks his wrist like he’s dusting the branch then inspects my swollen hand. ‘Bit hard to play the piano now.’

  A series of silent expletives roar in my head. ‘I gotta get some ice. Maybe it’s not broken, just bruised.’ Dex looks doubtful. ‘You’re welcome to come by the studio anytime,’ I add. ‘It’s soundproof. You can sing what you want.’

  He lights up like I offered him a million bucks. I swing my leg over the branch, hang from my belly till my feet hit the bough below. Dex follows, instructing me to hang by my elbow – like he’d know.

  ‘I’m gonna stay here a bit,’ Dex says, when we’re back on the ground. ‘Good luck with the broken bones. And thanks for the offer – the studio and all. I owe you.’

  Dad visits the studio the morning after he hears about my hand. He adjusts his scarf. It’s not cold outside, but ever since Mum said scarves add colour to his pale complexion, he wears them practically year-round. He glares down at me. I spent the night on the Lego sofa – as Harper nicknamed it. I guess it is a sofa made of foam Lego pieces. I pull on a blanket, stay curled up.

  ‘I hear your hand is broken in two places.’ Dad keeps his volume at normal, which is a good start. ‘Correct?’

  I draw my sigh out. The muted TV on the wall shows a green python hanging from a branch, waiting to ambush a lizard. The TV runs 24/7; it drowns out thoughts I don’t want to have.

  ‘Then you will have to sing at the audition. If you renege on our deal, you leave this house and make your own way in the world but this time there won’t be any coming home again. I’ll pull down this studio if I have to.’ His forehead vein throbs and his skin is blotchy. He’s like an albino gorilla trying to get the juice from a coconut without breaking it.

  I glare back at him from my nest in the sofa.

  He raises his virtually non-existent strawberry blond eyebrows, jerks his shirt cuff down. ‘And no more bands or tours.’ He’s tightening his grip. ‘We’ve almost lost you twice this year.’

  Lost. Like a briefcase. Or a scarf.

  ‘I understand how you’re feeling, Jacob. Remember when my brother died?’

  ‘Yeah. The same day Coda died.’ I wrote a song to remember them both – everyone was so messed up. Tears prick, and I pinch them gone. Dad scoffed at the idea of a dog being missed as much as a brother. Sure, he was probably right, but I was a seven-year-old kid trying to reach him.

  Dad taps his foot, sighs his next words. ‘Maybe take a shower. Get dressed. Have you gone surfing lately?’ I can hear the effort it’s taking to soften his voice, to keep hold of his temper. When I shrug he adds, ‘If you won’t attend the grief counsellor’s sessions I booked, at least talk to a friend.’

  ‘They’re. All. Dead.’ Each word sends a punch to my gut.

  ‘Clearly I don’t mean them.’ The fact that he has halitosis doesn’t stop him looming close.

  I draw my knees up. ‘My school friends have gone to uni or backpacking.’

  ‘Precisely my point. Noah down the road has gone to Melbourne and if you remember my colleague Brian, his son has a scholarship to Yale.’

  I snort. ‘It’s clear why you’re so disappointed in me.’

  ‘This is non-negotiable.’ Dad pulls open the studio door.

  Once he’s gone I snatch my boardies from where they’re drying over the tap and bag the surf wax, craving oblivion, craving the fate the ocean waves could deliver.

  6

  Astrid

  I should be rehearsing or wandering around the majestic Berlin Acade
my of Music star-spotting famous composers or singers. Instead, I’m stuck in a cubicle with my head down a toilet.

  This is the new norm.

  Local performances and contests in Australia were one thing – but this is the professional scene; the world where my mum sparkled with stardom, where everyone knew Veronika Bell, and where they will now compare us. I can’t help feeling I’ll let everyone down.

  This is why rehearsing La Bohème for endless hours is pointless. And all those alphabetised operas on Maestro’s shelf –

  Earlier this year, when I up-chucked in Seoul, we blamed it on food poisoning – the sushi from lunch the day of the competition. And when the nausea began two days before the contest in Sweden, at first I thought I was dead unlucky to get stomach flu.

  ‘You’re aware that winning the money isn’t important,’ Maestro said. ‘We’re here for the opportunity, not the bank balance. Don’t let the nerves win. The international scene is merely the next step in your singing career.’ The look he gave me confirmed this illness was far worse than food poisoning or gastro, because it’s harder to cure a sickness of the mind.

  Reaching for the toilet again, I gag. My gullet is raw, my teeth coarse. Random squares of toilet paper and empty toilet rolls litter the pale green floor. Both knees are wet. I don’t want to think about what I’m kneeling in. My brain fuzzy, my pulse has changed from a restful adagio to a racing allegro. If this is what life is going to consist of from now on, I’m not sure I want to do it anymore. I will never be ‘the most outstanding vocalist of my generation’.

  When I next dry-retch my eyeballs nearly pop out and into the toilet. I shiver and retch again. I can’t do this anymore. I try to distract myself with happy thoughts and think about the latest song I’m writing.

  ‘I have something for you.’ The clipped female voice comes from nowhere. For a moment I think I imagined it. But then I hear scuffling behind me. Someone is waving a strip of pills under the cubicle door.

  ‘For the nerves.’ She waggles the pills harder. Her accent is German, but I don’t recognise her. ‘They block the nerves. Take it. I must go now.’

  I reach for them, just to get rid of her. ‘Thanks.’ The fingers disappear and I listen to the retreating footsteps on the tiles. The outer door squeals open and clunks shut. I gawp at the pills. Competitors pop beta-blockers like candy in this industry.

  Perhaps I need them because I must keep performing. I owe Maestro. I owe Mum. In the past, Savannah and I would imagine the various reasons for our mother dying – she wanted a boy not a girl and died of despair, or according to Savannah, I was an ugly baby and Mum couldn’t bear it. Or her singing sounded angelic and the angels insisted on taking her. But she died soon after my birth and Savannah probably hit the nail on the head when she said my birth caused her death. So I’ve always felt like I owe Savannah too; if I hadn’t been born, Mum would be alive.

  I grasp that it’s not exactly my fault, but it’s easy to see how Maestro, in his grief, could’ve blamed me. Yet he never made me feel less loved than Savannah, and for that I’ll love him more fiercely than I’ll love anyone or anything my whole life. I owe him for being both my parents rolled into one. I owe him for not resenting the fact I could still celebrate a birthday, but thanks to me, Mum could not. I owe him for homeschooling me and for all the overseas trips he took me on, instead of his wife. I owe him for being my only friend.

  The feeling of missing Kara, my friend from next door who I met in year one, spills over inside my stomach. It’s possible to mourn people who are alive, yet are not in your life anymore. Kara moved to Singapore four years ago. When she left it felt similar to losing Savannah. I decided it was safer to never get close to anyone again. Even swapping letters hurt, and we stopped communicating.

  From that point Maestro became my whole world and I, his.

  I throw the pills into the toilet. There has to be another way. Maestro gave me beta-blockers after Sweden. But they made me nauseous and dizzy and then I couldn’t sleep for two days.

  Wobbling to my feet I tie my cardigan around my waist and bemoan the dark circles on the knees of my trousers.

  Maestro’s waiting in the hallway, his expression sullen as a dirge. ‘You all right, Buttercup?’

  I burst into tears.

  He pulls me into him, hushes me. I’m small, so being engulfed by Maestro has always felt like being hugged by the hero at the end of a movie or when the music score from the final scene of Lord of the Rings blasts in your head and you’re sure everything’s going to end well.

  Maybe I should tell him how I spent the last two nights writing pop songs to fill the long hours after midnight, hoping to avoid the tossing and turning as pages of music notes crashed through my dreams. In one nightmare, I opened my mouth but nothing came out. Another time, what came out sounded like train brakes.

  My body droops with every sob. ‘I don’t have what it takes, Maestro.’

  ‘You’ll feel better now you’ve got it all up.’

  ‘No. I don’t.’ I pull away, clutch my arms around myself. ‘I didn’t eat today. Yet I need to vomit. I’m exhausted. I don’t sleep. I’m dazed going on stage. I can’t do this . . .’

  ‘Yes, you can.’ Maestro scours the passageway. Someone’s approaching and he ushers me into our practise room. Three rows of chairs front a grand piano, and the secured blinds make the otherwise white room appear shadowy. He opens the lid of the piano. My tears have created a dark patch on his sky-blue tie. ‘Part of learning to be a great performer is learning to handle the nerves. This is purely another lesson you need to absorb, like learning to sing an E6.’

  I think how much easier it is to hit one of the highest notes a soprano can master when I’m back home in the music room, compared to going on stage and merely singing a basic middle C.

  ‘This is what we’ve worked toward,’ he continues. His features have moved on from disapproving to hopeful. ‘Think of the engagement offers you could win – festivals all over Europe. You have the best voice here.’

  I drag my fingers down my cheeks. ‘Without the nerves maybe, but the nerves aren’t going away.’

  Maestro’s lips press together. ‘You have to believe in yourself, Buttercup. Be certain that you are the best and you can do this. Then let your mind and voice take over. Once you start, the muscle memory in your throat will know what to do. And the more you sing in these big contests, the less the nerves will affect you. It’s something you must go through. Lots of people suffer from performance anxiety, and like them, you’ll get over it. It’s not the reason to give up.’

  I wonder if Mum suffered with the same problem, but I don’t want to know the answer and don’t ask the question; if she didn’t, then that’s further evidence I’ll never be as good as her.

  Swallowing bile, I say, ‘Maybe hypnotism would work. And more practise. But until then – I can’t do this. Not today.’

  Maestro’s lips twitch. He strokes his neck, then rests his palms on my shoulders. Their warmth comforts, but he has the air of a stern teacher – the person he becomes if I’m having a bad rehearsal.

  I inspect the floor and his hands fall and grasp my elbows a little too hard. ‘All singers must learn to trust their voices. After the hours of practise, let it free, without overthinking, without self-consciousness. Trust that everything you’ve done has led to this point and you’re here because your voice is good enough.’

  ‘I get what I’m meant to do. But I nearly fainted on stage in Sweden. My breath stopped working. It felt as if my neck was in a vice. I couldn’t sing my best –’

  ‘But you didn’t faint.’ Maestro drops his hands from my elbows and whirls away from me. ‘And I have some pills that will help.’

  ‘They make me feel sick and they’re addictive – I’ve read about them.’

  ‘It’s not forever. Merely until you get through this.’

 
‘No! They don’t help. You stopped performing when Mum died. No more Don Giovanni or Rigoletto –’

  I’ve never talked back at Maestro, so when he twists to confront me, my heart squats.

  His expression folds into disbelief, then fury. ‘You are being childish, Astrid. That was different. You must sing on to fully discover your capabilities, including how brave you are. Fear is healthy. It stops you becoming complacent, but you cannot let it cripple you. Harness the fear.’

  He arranges himself on the piano stool, giving a flamboyant flourish of his hands when he’s ready. In the shadowy room his nose appears huge, his eyes deep pits, as though he’s wearing an opera mask.

  ‘You will not give up today. You will not surrender to this fear.’ His voices wobbles. ‘Time to rehearse. Then we must hurry back to the hotel for you to change into your dress.’

  I picture Mum’s royal blue dress hanging in my hotel room, the matching shoes placed neatly below. Maestro has her dresses taken up for me, but we share the same shoe size. Like always, I’ve dyed my hair auburn, to match hers, and straightened it, so everything’s organised. I can do this.

  Sensing nausea, I trundle toward the piano.

  Maestro flicks on a light that banishes his phantom mask. ‘Good girl.’ His transformation is dramatic; like stage curtains swooping open, his smile sweeps open his face. And with that, I know how much this means to him even though I want to snatch the smile from his face and snap it in two. ‘I wish I could rip those nerves from you,’ he adds, ‘but you’ll learn to deal with them. I promise.’

  I take in deep breaths and try to open my constricted throat by bending at the waist and flopping forward while letting a groan escape. I curl back upright, one vertebra at a time, pulling in another huge breath.

  Maestro begins with arpeggios, rippling up and down the keyboard. I stand tall. He counts me in, his index finger manically striking each beat in the air.

  My life for hers.

  The walk-in cupboard of the guest room back at home is filled with Mum’s performance dresses, her jewellery, shoes, capes, coats and hats. Savannah and I spent many hours dressing up in them. The dresses retain a faint scent of flowers, but that’s probably wishful thinking because Maestro dry-cleaned them.