Roadside Sisters (2 page)

‘I couldn’t. I just couldn’t!’ wailed Nina. Her curling wand clattered onto the bench. ‘Ohmigod! I have to go again . . .’ Nina pushed her way through to the door and hurtled into the hallway.

‘We’ve got two options,’ said Meredith. ‘We either get out there and give it a go, or give up.’

‘Let’s just fucking do it,’ came Genevieve’s muffled reply from inside the bundle of fabric Annie was now forcibly dragging over her nodding skull.

Meredith poked at the spikes of hair which were threatening to slump into flat, soft petals. The second last thing she needed was directions from Genevieve. She reeked of marijuana and would be lucky to find her way to the stage, unless they all held hands like preschoolers and led her through the dark.

‘Ladies and gentlemen . . . Welcome to the Athenaeum Theatre for this night of stars . . .
’ the PA system popped, crackled.

The activity in the dressing room stilled and became a religious tableau painted by Caravaggio. Each head turned to the speaker on the wall, as if the Voice of God was to be heard there. With the first round of applause from the capacity audience in the auditorium, the tiny dressing room erupted in a riot of elbows, knees and metres of noxious purple polyester. Nina returned and squashed in. They jostled for space to peer at their reflection by the stark light of the naked globes.

‘SHOOSH!’ commanded Meredith. She turned and raised her arms to her small congregation. ‘Look, we’re the last act in the first half. That gives us thirty minutes to get it together.’

‘She’s right,’ declared Briony, still red-faced from grappling with a thousand windscreen wipers and her canvas bag of fluorescent orange A4 flyers. ‘We’re wimmin! Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves!’ She sang the Eurythmics hit they all knew from FM radio.

Jaslyn shook out her dreadlocks and slapped two large hands on her thighs. ‘We can do this! Yes we can! I threw the I Ching this morning and it said—’

‘Let’s just find a place to rehearse,’ Meredith ordered, and charged out the door with her robes flapping behind her like the wings of an avenging angel.

The six of them stood outside on that cold April night and did their best to ‘get it together’, even as they kept an eye on the stage door, hoping that the apparition of Corinne would appear and lead them to salvation. It was not until the stage manager gestured for them to follow him through the dark to the wings that they knew for sure they’d been abandoned.

Huddled in the velvety blackness, they twined their arms around each other’s waists and swayed to a silent hymn. Just metres away microphones were illuminated in celestial spotlights. Meredith was suddenly reminded that this was how people described a near-death experience—you were drawn towards a blinding radiance that was the font of all love and understanding. Then, if it wasn’t your time to go, you were sent back to earth, with gratitude, to live again. At least, that is what Meredith hoped it would be like—she had no desire to die out there and end up in cabaret purgatory. Each woman prayed to her own god for deliverance.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ announced the MC, resplendent this evening in a powder blue velvet suit with embroidered lapels, ‘please welcome seven—’ Meredith hissed at the stage. The MC turned and peered under the brim of his black cowboy hat to see her upheld fingers—‘no, six women tonight with heavenly voices. Melbourne’s favourite gospel choir . . . Sanctified Soul!’

It was Nina who picked up the phone and rang Meredith and Annie to suggest the three of them should have dinner to honour the twentieth anniversary of the night the group disbanded. She’d only put the dates together when she was sitting at the dining table sorting through a box of photographs. More raw material to feed her latest mania for scrapbooking. She’d found a poster, gnawed by silverfish, advertising their performance at the Athenaeum in April 1987. There was Sanctified Soul
,
listed in a stellar line-up of comedians, singers and bands. Nina recognised all the names. Some of the comics now had respectable jobs working on ABC radio, while others had become actors, writers or were in the ‘where are they now?’ file. The musical performers had likewise met various fates—one of them was in fact teaching Nina’s eldest son guitar on Saturday mornings.

The keeping of the Sanctified Soul mythology had fallen to Nina, Annie and Meredith. As the three of them went about
their business in the city they would sometimes drive past a pub, restaurant or town hall where they’d performed. Some of the spaces had been rebirthed as poker machine lounges or cocktail bars. Once Annie had been standing at the cash register of a Prahran noodle shop and suddenly remembered they had played a gig in the spot now occupied by a despairing giant crab in a fish tank.

When Nina, Annie and Meredith had last met—was it a year ago?—they shared a guilty laugh about who had made the least fortuitous escape. They choked on blueberry brioche as they realised the joke was on them. They were the ones still living in Melbourne. All these years later and they still lived within a fifteen-kilometre radius of where they’d sung that final night.

There had been seven of them back then—a goodly number for a heavenly choir. Genevieve had long since been claimed by a heroin overdose; Briony was now hostage to the tourism industry in Cairns; Jaslyn was working with UNICEF in Afghanistan. And Corinne? Corinne Jacobsen was in Sydney and was the one who had apparently ‘made it’. After years of hosting morning television she was now a ‘household name’—in the same way you knew the brand name of your favourite bench wipes and chose them at the supermarket, someone had cattily observed. How many of the performers from that night, Nina wondered, had walked out of the theatre and never, ever appeared on a stage again? Like Nina, Annie and Meredith.

A week after that phone call the three of them were sitting around a linen-covered table in a quiet corner of an Italian restaurant in East Melbourne.

‘Remember the time the sprinklers came on at that crappy motel in Shepparton and drenched us just before we were supposed to leave for the gig?’ asked Nina.

Annie and Meredith laughed. They did remember. And a lot more besides.

‘It can’t be twenty years ago.’ Meredith shook her head in disbelief. It was the fifth time she’d said this since they sat down. ‘You were a baby then, Annie. A baby. I can’t believe we took you on the road with us when you were, what? Eighteen?’

‘Nineteen. Yup! Fresh off the farm.’ Annie grinned. She reached for her wineglass and scraped back her trademark tumble of amber curls. ‘I came to the city to “find myself” and I found all of you instead. I never knew women like you existed!’

‘So, you must be coming up to the big four-oh—’ Nina had been doing her sums—‘and you’ve still not remarried. No kids. That’s a shame.’

‘Knock it off, Nina, you’re sounding like my mother.’ Annie drained her glass and poured herself another. Nina registered the rebuke, but couldn’t help noticing that Annie had hardly touched her veal cutlet. But she’d drunk most of the bottle of Barossa red. Was that how she stayed so slim? What a shame to see all that good meat going to—

‘Nina was always the motherly type.’ Meredith patted the sleeve of Nina’s lilac knitted cotton cardigan and turned to
Annie. ‘She was always nagging us to have breakfast before we got on the mini-bus.’

‘Nothing’s changed,’ Nina grimaced. ‘But I’d swap nagging six grown women for three teenage boys and a husband any day. They never listen to anything I say. I feel like the invisible woman. But then I look in the mirror and wonder how they could possibly miss me. I think I’ve put on a kilo for every year since the choir broke up.’

‘Come on, you still look fine.’ Meredith waved away her concerns. She was reminded that Nina had always moaned about her weight, even when she had been a curvy size twelve. ‘I remember back then you were on the Israeli Army Diet.’

‘Oh, my God! I was too,’ squealed Nina. ‘Two days apples, two days cheese, two days chicken and two days salad!’ She counted on her fingers. ‘I got as far as cheese and then went on to biscuits.’

Annie reached for her glass again. ‘Christ, imagine naming a diet after the Israeli army these days! About as politically correct as the Palestinian Refugee Camp Diet.’

‘What’s that? I might give it a try.’ Nina found her spoon and scraped up the last of her tiramisu. Annie was reminded that her musings always went over Nina’s head.

‘What I mostly remember,’ said Meredith, ‘is battling Corinne for time in front of the mirror. And Briony with her disgusting bircher muesli—containers of curdled yoghurt and grated apple stashed in her vile canvas backpack.’

Annie spluttered into her glass. ‘That’s right! I had to share a motel room with Jaslyn and her stinking patchouli incense
sticks! I’d never seen a woman with dreadlocks before. All I could think of were the dags on a sheep’s bum!’

And then it was Nina’s turn: ‘Do you ever think of poor Genevieve, with her Indonesian clove cigarettes and God-knows-what-else she was on?’

There was a pause as they all remembered Genevieve, dead now for twelve years, but still alive in their minds, swaying with her hands on her heart singing ‘Asleep in Jesus’.

Asleep in Jesus! Blessed sleep,

From which none ever wakes to weep;

A calm and undisturbed repose,

Unbroken by the last of foes.

 

Asleep in Jesus! Oh, how sweet,

To be for such a slumber meet,

With holy confidence to sing

That death has lost his venomed sting!

Five of them had sung that song at Genevieve’s funeral. They could only hope that she had indeed found peace at last.

‘So, Annie,’ Nina paused to lick her spoon—and her fingers—‘how’s the real estate business going?’ Nina thought things must be going rather well, judging by the size of the diamond dress-ring Annie was wearing and the price of the wine she’d ordered ($60!).

‘It’s all good. Got a cute little place by the beach in Port Melbourne. One bedroom. Nothing like Meredith’s palatial ranch out east, of course.’

‘Yee-hah!’ Meredith swung her napkin over her head like a cowgirl riding a $10,000 Miele range oven and five-burner cooktop. ‘I’ve just finished another round of renovations. The “ranch” is looking fabulous. You must come and see. And come into the store if you’re looking for something special for the home. In fact, I’ve got my latest full-colour catalogue right here. I’ll give you a discount.’

‘So you’re still in the house-porn business,’ said Annie as the catalogue was waved in front of her. Meredith dropped it back into her bag. She’d forgotten how sharp Annie’s comments could be. Cutting. Right to the bone. Always delivered with that winning, country-girl ‘whaddya reckon?’ grin.

‘As a matter of fact, Annie,’ Meredith leaned across the table and whispered, ‘I just got a shipment in from Sweden and I am in possession of some serious objects of desire.’

Annie remembered that Meredith had always been clever, quick-witted. How old was she now? Fifty? And still rail-thin and utterly intimidating. She was all cream suede and pearls this evening. The eighties feminist firebrand in overalls who had scaled billboards in the dark to deface sexist advertising had been spray-painted over. In her place was a tasteful mantelpiece portrait of carefully understated eastern suburbs affluence.

‘Ooooh, Swedish appliances!’ Annie teased and pouted glossy red lips. ‘Anything with studs and rubber? Maybe I will stop by.’

Nina had been reading the menu in search of one last treat and had missed most of this exchange. ‘I love your hair. It really suits you,’ she said, admiring Meredith’s slim face framed by sleek silvery layers. ‘When’d you stop colouring it?’

Meredith ducked Nina’s outstretched hand. ‘Six months ago. Not long after Donald left. I needed a change. How much of a cliché is that? “Husband walks out, wife runs to hairdresser.” Let’s order coffee.’ Meredith turned away and looked for the waiter.

Nina, as the convener of the occasion and self-appointed cheerleader, was torn. Meredith and Donald had been married for . . . it must be close on thirty years. She needed more information. Then again—Nina checked her watch—it was almost 10 pm. She would just bet that Jordy was still on the bloody computer in his bedroom, that the twins hadn’t done their homework and Brad was flaked out on the couch in front of the television. She should probably call home in a few minutes.

‘How old are Sigrid and Jarvis now?’ Annie asked Meredith.

‘Well, that’s the big news. Sigrid’s getting married in Byron Bay in three weeks. Jarvis is coming back from London for the wedding. He’s been working at Sotheby’s in Asian art.’ The name ‘Sotheby’s’ was offered with some pride. Annie was suitably impressed, although she wasn’t sure Nina caught the reference.

‘Siggie’s getting married? No!’ exclaimed Nina. ‘I can remember her coming to rehearsals in fairy wings.’

There was a brief silence in which they found themselves in a bare Scouts hall, warm breath visible on a freezing July afternoon. Seven grown women shrieked with alarm to see tiny blonde-headed Sigrid tear off her sparkly wings, and her clothes, and dance across the icy floorboards as her little brother, Jarvis, sitting in his stroller, chortled with delight. The moment came to them as a black-and-white scene from an old movie, cast with people they hardly recognised.