One Way or Another (10 page)

Annie promised not to breathe a word until the next day. I had written a long letter to Mum and Dad, asking for their understanding. I knew no words would make them feel how badly I craved independence, but my letter tried. I gave it to Annie and asked her to sneak out in the early, early morning and slip it into the morning newspaper. I gave her my alarm clock and begged her not to forget. She gave me her word.

Tears stung my cheeks as I said goodnight to my littlest brother and sister. I gave Mum a warmer farewell than usual, hoping she'd one day understand what I was doing. And as I rushed out the door to the waiting car, I gave Annie a tight hug, whispering a promise in her ear.

‘I'll be rich and famous before you know it and you can come and have fabulous holidays with me.'

With that wired, slightly nauseated feeling of having been awake all night, we stepped onto Platform One at Sydney's Central Station. The sounds of pigeons in the rafters and early morning traffic greeted us – a bored city welcome. Taxis lined the streets but we decided to head into town on foot, exploring the sights at ground level.

Heading north up George Street, I was fascinated by the grime and the colour of the capital city. Exhaust fumes filled my lungs. It was eight in the morning, the start of a busy working day, and a simmering expectancy filled the acrid air. Souvenir shops were hanging out their Jimi Hendrix and Che Guevara T-shirts and their tables of gaudy snow bubbles and velveteen wall hangings.

After a greasy breakfast of sausage rolls, we asked for directions to Kings Cross. Ignoring the homeless people sleeping on every street corner, we made the long, hot walk up William Street towards the red-light district. I harboured a seedy desire to live in the Cross. Maybe because it was one of the few suburbs I'd heard of; maybe because its tarnished reputation epitomised what we were hoping to encounter in the big city.

It was everything I had expected. A dirty, broken-down old hooker of a place. We inspected the cheapest bed-sits and one-bedroom units we could find, but the options were depressing in the extreme. Deciding to try further afield, we trekked up into Taylor Square and along Oxford Street, where we passed more openly gay men than I had ever seen before. I thought of my gender-testing school friends, Berzerko and Paul, and wondered what they were up to. I hadn't even told them I was leaving.

I'd spent a restless night on the train, half expecting the police or my parents to board at every stop. I'd done a complete sweep of the platform before alighting, paranoia perched like a neurotic goblin on my shoulder. Only Sam and Rhonda knew where I was and had sworn to reveal nothing under pain of death. As even I didn't know where I'd be staying, there was little they could share anyway. I wondered how my letter was being received back at home. Annie would be being interrogated at the dining-room table. Mum and Dad would be furious. Change is always uncomfortable, but progress requires it.

At Darlinghurst we sat down with a local paper and desperately searched the classifieds. The rents were exorbitant.

‘We're going to have to get jobs and save a bit,' I pouted.

Billy nodded.

‘Let's find somewhere to stay for a few days. A cheap motel or hostel or something.' He pointed to a bunch of ads on the next page for hostels in Bondi. Bondi Beach. Maybe the beach would be a nice place to begin our life in the big smoke. On foot, mindful of our limited finances, we walked all the way down Oxford Street.

Falling in love with Paddington and its sardine-packed terrace houses, we continued through the shopping metropolis of Bondi Junction and dragged our weary feet down Bondi Road until finally the glorious Pacific rose up before us. The famous curve of sand glistened with promise and a sign in a window offered rooms for twenty dollars a night. A big yellow building called the Thelellen Beach Inn, it was perched at the top of the esplanade like an art deco castle, with sweeping views over the beach. The price was right and our blistered feet could not go another step, so we checked in and let ourselves into a weathered but spacious room with two double beds, a small table and two chairs, a fridge and an electric kettle. The shared bathrooms were at the end of the hall.

Flopping down onto the orange terry-towelling bedspreads, we fell into a deep sleep and stayed that way until dusk, when the sound of screaming sirens broke our slumber. After enjoying our first romp as de facto man and wife, we headed into the buzz of Bondi. The vibe was casual but everybody seemed so beautiful and sophisticated. A hundred different tongues chattered, Japanese tourists and European backpackers and Middle-Eastern kebab spruikers all calling into the sea breeze. There were black people. I'd never really noticed, but the Gold Coast didn't seem to have any black people. Nearly all of the people in Surfers were gold.

That night, we laughed and drank red wine and shared our hopes for the future. We strolled along the beach, watching the festival of coloured lights winking along Campbell Parade. Before we could chase fame and fortune we needed a permanent roof over our heads and a source of income, but our first night in Sydney was for romance.

Day two was devoted to job hunting. We dressed in our best gear and headed into the city on a grimy bus. Both of us had fulltime work before lunchtime. I was to start the next day in the kitchen of a funky vegetarian café and Billy was to sell jeans at General Pants. We were over the moon; we could feel providence looking out for us. With selfish joy I completely forgot about the life I had left behind. There was only forward.

I began squishing boiled eggs and mayonnaise between my fingers at eight the next morning. My co-workers were large, lesbian heroin addicts, which was kind of ironic in a health-food café. Despite their pinned pupils and the occasional ‘accidental' body rub, they were lovely people and I enjoyed the work. It wasn't long before I noticed something else about the place: our clientele consisted primarily of musicians, including some minor celebrities.

‘EMI recording studios are just around the corner,' my boss explained. Well, that made me love the job even more. Perhaps I could schmooze up some session work for my bass-playing boyfriend. Between the cheese grating and the onion slicing, unfortunately, there was little time for schmoozing.

Our first Saturday in Sydney was my eighteenth birthday. I opened my two presents, both from Billy: a hardcover book of pictures from Marilyn Monroe's last photo shoot and a little plastic Academy Award. We were having a night out to celebrate thanks to my guitar guru, Bob, who was living in Sydney now, playing with the Young Lions. They had a midnight gig in the Cross and Bob had promised to put our names on the door. We played dress-ups in anticipation, trying on all the clothes we owned in different combinations. Billy wore my red and black pin-striped jacket, a pair of skin-tight black jeans and (at my request) a little eyeliner. I opted for basic black and a pair of fishnet stockings I'd picked up in Bondi. Lots of make-up. I could have passed for a panda.

Kings Cross at night was like nothing I had ever imagined. We tried not to stare as we passed a pudgy prostitute, dressed only in tiny silver hotpants, sweat-stained bra and a cut-off white fur coat. She was tap-dancing on the pavement to a ghetto blaster blaring Shirley Temple, trying to attract trade.

We asked directions of a murderous looking biker and walked down a seedy back alley towards a narrow, well-lit doorway guarded by a human Rottweiler in a suit. Half expecting to be king-hit, I squeaked out our names and told him we were on the guest list. He checked his little black book and nodded us through into the inky darkness of the Manzil Room. My first Sydney gig.

The venue was one long corridor, dankly lit with a roof that barely cleared the top of Billy's mullet. Smoke filled the air and the crush at the bar was three or four deep. Where the Bombay Rock set was a rowdy mob of salty, sun-kissed surfers, the Kings Cross crowd was hardcore. Clothes were black. Hair was black or white-blond. Make-up was heavy, with deep dark eyes and vampiric lips. Girls favoured short skirts, cleavage and suggestive stances while the boys flashed hairy chests and tightly packaged pants. We braved the bar and ordered drinks before making our way to a safe spot just left and centre of the stage.

The Young Lions burst onto the stage like a cyclone. Those breathtakingly gorgeous brothers from Bob's house on the Gold Coast played the audience into a frenzy. Frontman Jeffrey's tight black leather pants air-fucked their way through the first set while his brother Clifford beat the life out of his drum-kit, showing off arms that looked good enough to lick. The music was loud and furious and the show was like a raw electricity cable, sending dangerous sparks in all directions. At half time the boys came out and said hello. We all caught some fresh air outside, shooting the breeze until it was time for them to be back on stage.

Halfway through the second set I began to feel like throwing up. My head throbbed and I broke out in a clammy sweat. Worried, Billy insisted we cab straight home. By the time we turned the light on in our room, I was bordering on delirious and stripping my clothes off to collapse on the bed. Within minutes I was up and running stark naked down the hallway to the bathrooms, where I threw up until my ribs felt they would burst through my flesh. Billy brought me a blanket, wrapped me in it and helped me back to bed. He sat with me all night, bathing my hot face and feeding me little sips of water.

The next day we did a post-mortem of the night before. I'd only had three drinks so wasn't stupidly drunk – but I'd left my drink on a table while watching the boys play. We concluded that someone must have slipped something into my glass. That or I'd picked up a bug. But Billy didn't get sick, and we'd shared an awful lot of bodily fluids in those first few weeks. It was a timely reminder to be on my toes – we were in the big city now.

Surfers Paradise was fast becoming just a long, neon dream. On our very first day in Sydney, I'd sent my family a postcard, letting them know I'd arrived safely and telling them not to worry. Since then I had sent another couple and had spoken to Sam and Rhonda, both of whom had been subjected to a third-degree interrogation by my parents. Mum and Dad were convinced I must be pregnant, despite my friends' assurances to the contrary.

My life was filled with laughter and friendship and crazy dreams now, thanks to Billy. I was happy. But early one Sunday morning, as I sat on the grassy incline above the sand of Bondi, I watched a storm approach from out at sea. The sky was a menacing deep grey and the seagulls against it were luminescent. Other birds preyed on flapping cardboard pizza boxes in the car park. As the thunder began, I felt a rumble of homesickness. Guilt washed over me. My mother had cried, my friends had said. Tears filled my own eyes at the thought. I had worried only about her rage, ignoring the possibility that she might miss me, her eldest daughter, and be afraid for me.

She didn't know that I was more streetwise than she could imagine. And I could not explain to her how deep my need for Billy's love was, and how badly I had needed to leave. I went back to the lodge as soon as the first thick blobs of rain began to fall and wrote to her, fat teardrops staining the page.

*

After a few weeks of conscientious saving, we moved into an apartment in Sussex Street in the heart of the city. Our fifteenth-floor unit overlooked the clock tower at Town Hall and the newly built Sydney Entertainment Centre was not far away. We searched noticeboards and found another couple to share the rent with us. Glen and Cherie came from some sleepy outback town and, like us, had come to the big smoke with knapsacks full of dreams.

Within a week Billy and I were having second thoughts. Glen turned out to be suffering from debilitating depression or psychosis or some combination of the two. He was on medication but it didn't seem to be working. He refused to leave the house and Cherie was more of a psychiatric nurse to him than a girlfriend. She would paint the town red with us each weekend, but when we returned we took it in turns to go inside first, to check if Glen had hung himself while we were out. Billy and I began to go out every night just to get away from him.

One Friday afternoon at the end of March, after a long week at work, Billy and I sat at our laminex dining table as Glen began to cry, from his room, at the top of his lungs. We ate some cheese on toast for dinner but could barely hear each other over the din. Finally I'd had enough. I wanted to do something wild and amazing and most of all I wanted to get out of the apartment. A light-globe clicked on in my brain.

‘Get dressed up,' I smiled at Billy. ‘Get
really
dressed up.'

‘Why? Where are we going?' he frowned.

‘Elton John is on at the Entertainment Centre.'

‘We haven't got tickets … or any money. I just paid the electricity deposit.' He shrugged apologetically.

‘We won't need money. Just get dressed. I've got a plan.'

Billy put on some fine threads and a little make-up. I dressed in a blue two-piece sequinned suit that I had found in a charity shop, donned a large feather hat and we were off.

‘How are you going to pull this off?' Billy laughed as we walked the two blocks south to the large auditorium.

‘I've got an idea,' I said in a patchy Scottish accent, throwing him a cheeky grin. ‘You just keep your mouth shut and look pretty.'

*

‘Whadyer mean, we can't come back?' I stood firm, glaring at the beefy security guard. This one had a gun on his hip. Heavy-metal security. Billy shuffled nervously behind me, keeping mute. I let fly another tirade in a thick Scottish brogue.

‘Just tell Elton that Nicola Stewart is waiting to see him. He'll be annoyed that you're giving me a hard time.'

‘Look, love,' the man smiled, showing me his ham-like hands. ‘You're not on the list. There's nothing I can do about that. My hands are tied. I'm just doing my job.'

‘Well, of course I'm not on the list, am I? I'm here to surprise the dear. Just be a good laddie and get someone to send a message to Elty. Just tell him Rod's little sister and her husband are waiting outside being hassled by security.' My accent was a mess, lilting from Scottish to Irish to a bastardised Russian, but I soldiered on, mustering all the cocky confidence I could.

‘Rod Stewart, love. This is all so frustrating … can't you just get someone to nip back and whisper in his ear?' I frowned. ‘Surely you've got more big muscle-bound security cockies about. Come on … the show'll start soon and I want to say aye before he goes on. For luck and all.' I gave my most doleful look, sweetening it with a flirtatious wink.

This went on for half an hour. More guards were called. They couldn't decide whether to believe me or to write me off as a complete nut job. No-one wanted to bother Elton. It could have meant their job. In the end I wore them down and the head of security nodded wearily for the doorman to let us past.

As we strode backstage, a surge of excitement ripped through me. The daily grind of work and bills and grocery shopping had settled into a necessary but vaguely unpleasant scum on the surface of my dreams. But going backstage to visit Elton John – a meteor had landed in our murky pond, dispersing all traces of surface sludge.

‘That was amazing. I'm in shock,' whispered Billy.

‘Just keep walking. Don't look back and we'll keep a low profile for a bit.' We burst through heavy doors into a darkened room full of people. Most lounged in comfortable chairs, enjoying champagne and gourmet nibbles. The grand master of the Australian music industry, Molly Meldrum, sat quietly by himself in a large armchair, watching an enormous screen. With his trademark Akubra and famous jowls, he looked faintly disoriented. As the host of
Countdown
, he had more power to make or break emerging artists than anyone in the country. More importantly, he was friends with Rod Stewart. I grabbed a champagne to quell my nerves and made a beeline for him.

‘Hi, Molly,' I enthused, sitting down beside him.

He gave a distracted nod of acknowledgement.

I looked around for Elton but saw him nowhere. Suddenly the spectacled icon, dressed in typically flamboyant costume with his trademark glitzy glasses and oversized hat, burst onto the screen before us and the show began. Everybody watched in silence, quietly moving their hips to the beat.

‘Who was the support act?' I leaned across and asked Molly, trying to make conversation.

‘Um ... Mondo Rock … Did you miss them?'

‘Yeah.'

More silence.

As Elton hammered his piano, the comfortable punters backstage had the best seats in the place. Although it lacked the sweaty intensity of the front of house, there was an egotistical thrill just in being there. I watched in silence with Molly for a while, then wandered off to find Billy deep in conversation with Ross and Pat Wilson. Ross was a celebrated singer-songwriter and producer, having fronted Mondo Rock and, before my time, Daddy Cool. Pat, his wife, was at the time enjoying a brief burst of stardom with her candy-pop single ‘Bop Girl'. Billy was regaling them with the tale of how we came to be backstage and they insisted I demonstrate my Scottish accent. Ross declared it the worst he'd ever heard.

All around the room, long trestle tables sheathed in white damask bore rows and rows of champagne. The French bubbles smelled sweeter than the cheap champers I was used to and I mingled gleefully, chattering my way through the throng before finally ending up back with Molly. I'd watched very little of Elton's performance, but I'd certainly seen a swankier side of the music scene.

Molly, meanwhile, was staring intently at the big screen. He seemed hypnotised. I made some more small talk but suddenly, in the middle of one of my half-formed sentences, he leapt to his feet and ran from the room like a jack rabbit. I wondered if I'd said something offensive. Embarrassed, I slid into the warm chair he'd left behind, took a sip from my crystal flute and focused my attention on Elton. To my great surprise, Molly appeared onstage and launched into a rather terrible duet of ‘Crocodile Rock' with the superstar. Oops. I had almost made him miss his cue.

Elton appeared some time after his show had ended. He'd clearly been washed and dressed to meet his admiring posse. He wasn't as short as I'd expected. All that sitting at a piano had made me think of him as about three-foot tall. He had an amazing smile, mischievously contagious, that seemed to slice his face in two. As admirers milled about him, Billy came over and whispered in my ear. We'd been invited back to the Sebel, where Elton was staying, for a party. As we didn't have a car or taxi money, we decided to walk and left straightaway, knowing it would take us at least half an hour.

*

The hotel was in Kings Cross, down behind the El Alamein fountain. When we arrived – a little tipsy, Billy wearing my ridiculous feathered hat – the guests were already mingling around the bar and the foyer was full of people searching for a glimpse of Elton. There was much whispered conjecture about his recent controversial marriage to his sound engineer, Renate Blauel. Word on the street had long been that Elton was gay, and rumours circulating the Sebel had him tumbling with everyone from Molly Meldrum to David Bowie. Was he covering up his homosexuality with a sham marriage, doing some shifty business deal, or genuinely in love? A glimpse of the blushing bride would probably have been even more exciting than one of her husband, but there was no sign of her. Instead, the artist formerly known as Reggie Dwight, surrounded by an entourage of beefy blokes, cut a swathe through the crowd and disappeared into a lift, not to be seen again all evening.

Billy and I sat cross-legged on the floor with Ross Wilson and drank beer straight from the bottle. I didn't care much for beer, but Ross was an entertaining chap with a wicked sense of humour. At three in the morning, we stumbled home through the slumbering city to the sound of snoring from doorways, where human bundles of rags dozed away. On the way upstairs I grabbed a handful of letters from the mailbox without looking at them. Probably just bills. We kissed passionately all the way to our floor and quietly let ourselves into the apartment.

Glen was still crying in his room. His anguished howls came from some deep cavern of despair that no anti-depressant could light. Cherie had left a terse note on the coffee table, telling us she'd had enough. She was going back to her inbred town. She did not use the word inbred in her note.

This left Billy and me with a real dilemma. Cherie had paid the rent for both of them and Glen was completely incapacitated. We couldn't cover his share, but kicking him out presented a few problems. He wouldn't want to go. He had nowhere to go and probably not a cent to his name. He hadn't left the apartment since we'd moved in. We went to bed and I lay awake, alternating between reliving the party and worrying about what we would do. At some point it occurred to me that we could simply push Glen from the balcony and call it a suicide. Even he would probably think this was a good idea. Lonely and irritable, I woke Billy.

‘I think we should drop Glen off the balcony,' I whispered.

‘Fine,' he smiled, half asleep. ‘First thing in the morning.'

By the sober morning light, of course, I'd discarded the idea and went into Glen's room to tell him he was being evicted. He was so soundly asleep that I couldn't wake him. His snoring made me despise him more than I thought possible. Shrugging and slamming his door behind me, I went to the kitchen and ate a bowl of Cornflakes, trying not to indulge in murderous fantasies.

I flicked through the mail that I'd left on the kitchen table the previous night. Bills, bills, bills … and a letter from Rhonda. I recognised her dramatic swirl and ripped it open excitedly. It was a card decorated with scarlet stilettos. Reading. Reading. Rhonda was in Sydney! She'd sent the letter on Wednesday and had been about to fly out of Brisbane that afternoon. It was now Saturday. She'd included a Sydney phone number and after a quick shower and change of clothes, I hurried downstairs and walked to Town Hall to find a public phone.

A man answered and passed me to a sleepy Rhonda, who growled, ‘Hey, foxy lady.' We chatted for a bit – she was very impressed with my Elton John tale – and agreed to meet up.

‘I'm in Paddington, staying at this funky house,' she enthused. ‘The guys who live here are great … so much fun. Why don't you come over?' She was suddenly wide awake. ‘And hey, just out of interest – they've got a room they're trying to rent for ninety bucks a week. It's a great room. Would you guys be interested?'