Layla

What'll you do when you get lonely
No one waiting by your side?
You've been running and hiding much too long
You know its just your foolish pride.
- Derek and the Dominoes, 1970

Revesby Workers Club carpark, Friday night. There’s an awful lot of sketchy looking bogans loitering with intent to cause a disturbance of the peace, in black T-shirts carrying names like Slipknot, Korn, Cannibal Corpse, Deicide or, most commonly, Hatchet Tracheotomy. We reach the front door. The poster reads: Friday night, Hatchet Tracheotomy. With special guests, Flange Gasket. The poster isn’t very nice to look at. As you’d expect from a band calling themselves Hatchet Tracheotomy.

WTF?

“Don’t you guys know who Hatchet Tracheotomy are?” Phil says, incredulously. “They’re, like, the biggest thing in local underground metal right now, they just played Ozzfest in the States! Wicked!!”

The Duffer never said ‘Wicked’; I wasn’t sure this was a good development. Kretin had mentioned in passing that either we were supporting someone, or someone was supporting us, the same thing he’d said about the Caringbah Bizzos gig on Wednesday. When we pressed him for further information, we got the usual spiel about showing some bloody respect for his efforts, we’d be nothing if it wasn’t for his hard work, slaving away making contacts while we swanned about the place, being fanned, massaged and fed peeled grapes by nubile serving maidens, etc. That we happened to be supporting the hardest-core metal act in the country wasn’t apparently important enough for him to mention. I’d picked a very good night to wear a Motorhead T-shirt, rather than, say, my Spiderbait one. Given that they’d just released the very gay Glokenpop as a single.

We took a long, hard look at our setlist, ditched anything which sounded remotely ‘soft’, threw in a couple of Metallica, Sabbath and Motorhead covers, and resolved to overcrank everything to eleven and bellow everything in an indecipherable gutteral roar that sounded like, well, we’d just been given a tracheotomy with a hatchet. Just like Razorslash, in other words.

Even so, we just got thrashed by these metal kids. They howled us down and eventually booed us off the stage about two-thirds the way through our set, bellowing for HAT-CHET!!! HAT-CHET!!! We knew when we were beaten. Truth be told we were lucky not to be beaten, literally, but escaped with our teeth intact, if not our dignity.

The irony was, Hatchet Tracheotomy were actually really nice guys. Their sound was reminiscent of old-school metal, early-80s stuff, like Judas Priest, Mercyful Fate or early Metallica. They apologised profusely for their audience throwing bottles at us. “I was wondering what kind of pussy name Flange Gasket was for a metal band, though,” said their fearsome looking vocalist, Thrasher (real name Terence Piper, day job maths teacher), over a post-show quietie. “No offence intended…”

Saturday night, The Annandale. The last and the shortest gig on the tour - a forty minute set in support of Eskimo Joe, who were in support of Grinspoon. The end was nigh, the end was near, I think I’ll have another beer. I don’t think I need to explain the Annandale’s reputation as one of the premier live rock venues in the city of Sydney, or how important this gig was going to be for us… sorry, I’m channelling Kretin’s speech to us in the band room before the gig. We not only had a band room (OK, so it was more a band walk-in-wardrobe) but actually got our own soundcheck. Welcome to the big time, boys.

A big, dusty, empty room echoed out in front of us, with just the front-of-house sound booth looming out of the darkness. It was five in the afternoon. I had a mike in front of me and a bright orange guitar in my hand. And here's McCarthy saying into his mike, “Two, two. Two for twenty-two. Super effort that. Maaarvellous.”

“Check one, two. My dog’s got no nose.”

“How does he smell?”

“Fuckin’ rank.”

Phil chimed in with a rimshot, and signalled a thumbs-up to the audio boys. For once, Phil was happy first-time with his mike setup. We were dealing with professionals here.

McCarthy put his hand over the mike. “Who’s the random dude at the back?” he murmured.

“The hairy-arsed Billy Connolly lookin’ guy?” I confirmed quietly, out of mike range. “Think I saw him at the Sydney Uni gig, talking with Kretin. I think he’s deusexmachina’s manager.”

“Doesn’t look like management material. Looks more like Chewbacca in bonsai form. What the fuck would their manager want with us?”

“Probably come to see some decent music for a change,” I suggested.

Marty piped up with a note of caution. “Guys, we’d better wrap this up, the other bands will want their soundcheck soon enough.” We knew we were very much bottom-of-the-pile and didn’t want to piss anyone off who mattered in this town. Which is why we stuck to picking fights with fellow bottom-feeders like deusexmachina.

“Shall we run through something to check the levels?” I called out. Front-of-house guy gave us a thumbs-up. I kicked my ‘acoustic’ pedal and started strumming something just to wind McCarthy up - the ‘unplugged’, stripped-back version of Eric Clapton’s Layla from his MTV Unplugged session of about six or seven years earlier. I knew it would wind him up because I was singing a slightly different name in place of the title:

“Lena… got me on my knees, Lena... Begging darling please, Lena... Darling won’t you ease my worried mind…”

“Well that’s just fuckin’ hilarious,” he pronounced. Then, in his tradition of unmitigated one-upmanship, he peeled into the full-throttle, old-school, Seventies electric version of Layla with all the twiddly solo bits. Once we recognised it, we chimed in behind him. Not that any of us knew the words, as McCarthy demonstrated in his best emphysemic Clapton mumble:

“Tried to something something something… when your old man had let you down… please don’t say, we’ll never find a way… something bollocks bollocks arse… Leyyynahhh!!! Got you on your knees… Leyyynahhh!!!... Suck mah furkin’ bawls… Ahh, bollocks to this.”

He abruptly chucked his toys and went off into Back In Black instead. We always ended up playing Back In Black at soundcheck, on account of it being the greatest song ever written and all. Apart from Russell Crowe’s Band Is A Fucking Pile Of Shit, and that hadn’t been written yet.

Our sound having been checked, we packed up and got off so that someone else could have a go, namely Kev and the boys from Eskimo Pie. Erm, Joe.

“That was beautiful, mate. I think you should go play that under her bedroom window Romeo-and-Juliet-style and see how you get on.”

“Yer not funny, Angus. Yer fat, and you fink yer funny, but yer not.” Among McCarthy’s favourite pastimes at present was misquoting right royal cockney flippin' geezer dialogue from Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels, his new favourite fillum, innit.

Billy Connolly’s shorter, hairier little brother emerged from the gloom and dust of the empty Annandale performance space. He extended a hairy paw. “Greg Richardson,” he said.

The four of us introduced ourselves. Greg Richardson. I knew the name, just not where from. McCarthy’s memory was better than mine.

“You’d be young Le… Megan Lane’s boss at the Drum Media?” he guessed.

“That’s correct,” Greg nodded. “Though I’m guessing you’re aware Megan Lane is a pen-name?”

“Yeah, she introduced herself as Lena,” I said, as McCarthy looked appropriately shifty. If our new paddle-pop-lion-impersonating friend couldn’t join the dots on those, given our recent serenading of his young employee, he certainly wasn’t capable of editing the leading street press organ in Australia’s largest city. “Have to say,” I continued, “she was a lovely girl. And wrote some ridiculously nice things about us, particularly Uncle Sam here. He’s still a little embarrassed about it still, aren’t you mate. That and having to walk through doorframes sideways on account of his swollen head...”

McCarthy declined further comment by kicking me sharply in the back of the leg.

“Yes, I did have to have a word with her over that,” Richardson admitted with a furrowed brow. “But she’s very strong in her opinions, our Lena. Would never agree that it was overly positive or slanted in any way, she just told me to go out and see you guys, and if she was wrong, she’d gladly retract her article and resign - not that I would want that, she’s a bloody good writer, but she does tend to throw these bold statements around when she’s arguing her point. She can be very strident, our Lena.”

“Can’t say I found that,” I replied, “but I could see how it might be true.”

“Actually,” he admitted, “the main worry I had, as editor, was that there was some sort of unprofessional relationship or arrangement at work here…”

“Well,” McCarthy quipped, “this lot have been taking the piss out of me something fierce over it. We seem to be sound-checking with Layla rather a lot this week, except they keep changing the lyrics for some strange bloody reason…”

Richardson smiled benignly. “So, just to set my mind at ease, there’s nothing untoward going on here? I can stop lumbering about the office barking at shadows?” Kind of fitting - he had a bit of a ‘werewolf’ look to him, in a certain light.

“To be honest, I certainly wouldn’t mind having an unprofessional relationship with her if the offer was there… but in all seriousness, I can’t say I’ve had the pleasure.”

You monumental bullshit artist, I thought.

“That’s good,” he said. “I’d have hated to think that she was doing something like that… because of my other job, we’re under a lot of scrutiny in the industry as it is.”

“Your other job?”

He fished some business cards out of his pocket, and passed them around the four of us. Greg A. Richardson, it read. Managing Director, Exocet Records. “I run a small independent record label,” he said by way of explanation. “Obviously, I can’t be seen to have the two spheres overlap. There’s serious questions raised about credibility and conflict of interest issues if, say, a band who signs with me starts getting positive coverage in the Drum Media… so that’s why I’m a bit sensitive about things like this.”

A few loose ends started tying themselves up in my head.

“Sorry Greg, but weren’t you at our gig at Sydney Uni the other night as well? I thought I saw someone who looked like you being bored to tears by our manager Chris Kurtin.”

“You’re right, there aren’t too many other people who look like me,” he conceded. “Actually, I was there with my Exocet hat on, to see those boys from Melbourne play, deusexmachina. Good job I got there early, given they swapped you two around…” None of us were game to ask what he thought of our performance. What we did realise was that we just might be in the shop window, if we played our cards right. And probably our instruments too, that might help. “So yeah, I got a chance to catch up with Chris. I suppose he’s told you about his time down here?”

“You mean he hasn’t made it all up?” the Duffer asked.

“Depends on what he’s told you,” Greg replied with a wry grin. “Ask him if he still has the sequinned purple jumpsuit with the holes cut out of the arse cheeks…”

Band room, seven-forty pm. In an hour, we’d be walking off stage, our time in Sydney at an end. Tomorrow we were going home. We could sit out on the balcony at Chateau Dodgy, crack a beer and watch the sunset over the hills to the north of Lismore. We could go for a surf at Lennox or Broken Head or in the fucking river at the farm if we wanted, being towed by Jeff’s dinghy and outboard. We could go and see our family members, or as I’d been hanging out to do for several days, we could get the hell away from our family members. Not that I’d seen Jeff for several days. I’d seen plenty of Jeff and Beck as a unit, but never on his own. They were absolutely inseparable. I started calling them Jeff Beck. McCarthy preferred to call them Voltron. Either way they were heading for some unpleasantness come roll-out tomorrow morning.

We should have been concentrating on our performance, getting into the zone to punch out a set for the ages. Instead we were babbling on like rabid chimps about those loose ends I was talking about. Richardson coming to see us. Richardson coming to see deusexmachina. Richardson knowing Kretin from back in the day. Lena apparently engineering Richardson being here in the first place. Finally, it took Marty to cut through the chatter and point out the facts.

“Whatever happens,” he began, “and no matter who said what to bring who to see which band… look, I just want to say, it’s been a year. Let’s remember something - it was almost exactly twelve months ago that his ex-girlfriend [pointing at me] tried to get him [pointing at Sam] laid, by telling some other random chick that he was in a band. That’s the only reason we’re here today. Just think how far we’ve come.” He paused to gather his thoughts. “And think about how we’re going to crystallize all of that into the next forty minutes.”

As a pep talk it was one of his finest. Largely because it was one of his only. We got up there, in front of all those lovely shining faces, and we simply forgot everything. We forgot how tired we were after playing eight nights in succession, how our throats were ripped to shreds from trying to ‘sing’ metal the night before, how our fingertips were blistered and palms callused (and that was just the Duffer from compulsive self-abuse). We forgot how crabby and pissed off we were with each other and how shat we were with this city and its high-pressure, keep-running-just-to-stand-still lifestyle. We forgot about Greg Richardson, Lena, Emma-Kate, deusexmachina, Jeff and Beck, Matt and Zoe, Chrissy and Emily and Carissa… and we played some loud, raucous, hundred mile an hour, rock and fuckin’ roll. Our set was road-honed and razor-sharp:

1. Sketchy At Best
2. (I Wanna Be) Angus Young
3. Nirvana In Pyjamas
4. Gis A Recording Contract Ya Cheap Bastards
5. Don’t Tell Me Mum
6. Our Year 12 Formal Was At The Evans Head Bowlo
7. Farmarama ’91
8. Learn To Swim With Harold Holt
9. Ode to Joy from Lennox
10. Would The Last Spice Girl To Leave Please Turn Out The Lights
11. Git The Led Out a.k.a. It’s Not Technically Plagiarism If Led Zep Ripped It Off Someone Else Before We Ripped It Off Them

And then we packed up and went home for a beer.

On any average evening, seeing Eskimo Joe and Grinspoon on the same bill would have been pretty cool; tonight, we just wanted to get the truck back to Phil’s grandparents and our arses back to Super Dave’s for a quiet, unwinding ale or three. Super Dave wasn’t there - he and the Sydney lads stayed for the rest of the gig - but we let ourselves into his apartment, sat out on his balcony and drank his beer for him in his absence. (Hey, we’d been buying the beer all week - we knew how to square the rent as well as anyone.) It was oddly quiet and still, with just the four of us camped on dirty plastic outdoor chairs, looking southwards down Arden Street to the garish lights of Coogee. The Coogee Bay and the Beach Palace were calling, but we weren’t answering.

“What time do we want to head off tomorrow?” Marty asked.

“Probably got two options,” McCarthy suggested. “Early-as, to avoid peak hour. Or well after nine, for the same reason.”

“Plan B sounds good to me,” proposed the Duffer, repacking his cone. “We can cruise over and pick you guys up then. It’ll be good to get home, hey.”

“Fucking A,” I observed.

“Hey where’s your reprobate brother?” McCarthy inquired.

I laughed. “The Jeff? Where do you think?”

McCarthy scratched his head. “I’d estimate he’s about half a mile away to the north, saying a fond farewell to Raggedy Ann.”

“Man, that’s going to be ugly,” Phil predicted.

“Not as much as you’d think,” said the Jeff, emerging from the kitchen with fresh beers for all, a couple in each hand, intertwined between his fingers. “My ears were burning,” he muttered pointedly, “so I came back.”

“If that’s the case I think she’s using the warming lubricant incorrectly,” I suggested.

“Warming lubricant?”

“Yeah, it’s this stuff you can get which is like KY except it has a dash of Deep Heat or something in it.”

“Why are we not surprised you know about this, Angus?” asked McCarthy.

Rather than admit I was introduced to it recently by a Canon sales rep from Perth, I replied, “More to the point, why do I have to be responsible for all you guys’ sex education?”

“Fuckin’ hope there’s no practical component,” the Jeff observed. He went on to point out he hadn’t actually been up to Beck’s place yet; he’d actually been out the back taking a rather large and memorable dump.

“Thanks for sharing, Jeff.”

Beck wasn’t back from work yet, he went on to say, but she was finishing up pretty shortly and should be home soon. He’d intended to head up there in about twenty; if any of the rest of us wanted to join him we were warmly encouraged.

“I didn’t think you guys were into that sort of stuff,” suggested Phil.

The Jeff rolled his eyes. I got the distinct impression he and Rebecca hadn’t actually slept together yet. “The other thing is that this is the last of the beer,” he pointed out. “The Clovelly Hotel bottle-o is on the way to hers... sort-of…”

I nodded, following the drift. “Sounds OK to me, could probably do with a walk,” I proposed. General noises of assent from the others, with one exception.

“I’ll stay,” McCarthy remarked.

“Lena won’t be there,” the Jeff said, “if that’s what you’re worried about. She’s working late, she’s at another gig across town.” Not ours, of course. She'd been a conspicuous no-show. Then again, her boss could presumably write this one up for the paper.

“Not at all,” he replied. “Didn’t even occur to me.”

Sure it didn’t. Twenty minutes and a round of beers later the rest of Flange Gasket were standing around outside Super Dave’s apartment block waiting for the Jeff to emerge - he’d claimed he needed a jumper to ward off the evening chill.

“You’ve spent too long in Gatton,” I suggested.

“Two minutes,” he’d said by way of reply, as we’d headed out the door for the stairs. Yes, two minutes was too long to spend in Gatton, I agreed. When he arrived at ground level, he had a tatty old St George footy jumper and a reluctant McCarthy in tow, mumbling something about not super-keen to sit out on the balcony on his own without any alcohol to keep him company. So our tribe began the march up the north face of Arden St, Coogee from Super Dave’s place, over the rise, down and back up again towards Beck’s place in Clovelly.

“Aren’t we getting beers first?” McCarthy queried.

“Should drop by Beck’s first to make sure she’s in,” The Jeff wisely suggested. The apartment block was a long three-storey setup on a narrow street frontage, not dissimilar to Super Dave’s. The Jeff buzzed unit nine over the intercom, exchanged hellos with an excited female voice, and we traversed two flights of Pebblecreted stairs to her door. Beck opened the door in her black-on-black waitressing outfit, strawberry-blonde curls tied back, looking cute as a button and as pleased to see us as she was to hear us (well, pleased to hear from Jeff just now, anyway.) She ushered us into the apartment; I stood at the back, nearest the door, on security detail. She then winked at me (or probably Jeff), clapped her hands, and skipped off down the corridor to her flatmate’s bedroom door. A perfunctory knock, then she opened it, stuck her head in and said there was someone to see her. Lena emerged in an old Ben Harper T-shirt, black Adidas trackpants and bare feet, with a look of surprise and encroaching discomfort.

I’m not sure who was the first to declare “What the fuck is going on here?” out of Lena or McCarthy. We'll call it an honourable draw. I could see the ‘fight or flight’ response prick up in McCarthy; newly wise to the plan and developing attitude about it, he turned and began moving towards the door, which I was standing directly in front of. I gave him my most dissuasive Samoan bouncer stare, and gave him a dismissive wave. “Go and sit down on the couch.”

“Fuck off out the way, I’m leaving,” he said, but I wasn’t moving. “What is this, some kind of bullshit intervention?”

McCarthy was and wasn’t a lot of things, but being quick on the uptake was definitely one of his stronger suits. However, it wasn’t getting him out of the situation. The Jeff and the Duffer each gently took a shoulder and guided him onto the couch. Actually they pushed him backwards, and he toppled onto his arse, sprawled across the cushions.

“We’ve heard enough from you two,” I said, “particularly you, old son. Consider this a lock-in. We’re off to the Clovelly Hotel to watch the league - when we get back we expect to see you’ve sorted out your fuckin’ differences, or one of you is disposing of the other’s body. Either way, we won’t ever have to listen to childish bullshit from either of you about the other, ever again.”

We left them glowering indignantly at each other, shutting the door behind ourselves. I’d been trying to figure out a way to actually lock them into the unit, but Marty pointed out it may be a little bit of a fire code violation if the alarm went off and they couldn’t get out without jumping out the bathroom window or off the balcony.

“But they’ll die in each others arms,” I replied whimsically. “How romantic can you get?”

Unfortunately my romantic ideals weren’t shared by the rest of the group, so we didn’t attempt any dubious door-barring exercises (as can be learned from senior residents at pretty much any university residential college in the land.)

“Went pretty well, I thought,” The Jeff said.

“I didn’t think we’d get him up there,” Phil admitted. He and Marty had gone along with the plan being not necessarily aware of all the background and baggage between these two, but very much aware that there was some serious dysfunction that needed to be ironed out.

“Never underestimate the attraction of beer,” I said. “Speaking of which…”

The Clovelly Hotel’s entrance beckoned warmly; an excellent spot to wait out the hours and watch a bit of futebawl. St George were playing Souths in the Charity Shield, a traditional stoush which always got the old-school rivalries bubbling (like that between Jeff and myself… up the fuckin’ Rabbitohs.) But the Jeff spoiled the fun I was about to have at his expense - presuming Souths got up, of course, which was fucking unlikely given we’d been shit for 10 years and were a year away from Murdoch booting us out of the comp - by announcing he and Beck were going to head down to the cliffs for a bit instead. A bit of what, we never found out.

“At least try and be back before nine tomorrow morning,” I quipped, as Jeff rolled his eyes. “We’d like to get away before afternoon peak-hour as well, you know...”

Meanwhile, not very far away, Lena and McCarthy were now entering their eleventh consecutive minute of sullen silence. Which was an all-wicket record for this particular partnership.

“Look, I don’t need this, okay?” Lena said, finally spearing the verbal cease-fire. “I’ve got a lot of work to catch up on before deadline tomorrow afternoon.”

“So, what, this wasn’t your idea?”

“Hardly,” she said derisively. “Don’t flatter yourself I actually want to spend time with you, big shot. I work in the music industry, remember, I get to hang out with self-centred egotistical pricks all the time.”

“Oh really? What happened to dribbling all over me and wanting to have my babies? Or was that your ‘friend’ Megan talking?”

“Oh fuck off…”

“You know, schizophrenia is a common, treatable condition, nothing to be ashamed of…”

Lena screwed up her face. “I knew you’d do this. I fucking knew it. I try and do you a favour, despite what an arsehole you’ve been, and this is what I get.”

“A favour? Ripping the piss out of me in a made-up interview, how is that a favour?”

“How the fuck did I ‘rip the piss’ out of you? How more favourable a write-up could it have possibly been, for fuck’s sake?”

“Come on, Lena,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’ve written the odd journalistic piece myself, and I’m not American. I can understand irony when I see it.”

“You obviously don’t,” she contended.

“So what, you’re serious?” he said. “You have some giddy teenage crush on me… yeah right. Plausibility meter is off the fucking scale.”

“Not you, obviously. You’re a total arsehole. I certainly wasn’t thinking about you when I wrote that. I was trying to remember the guy you used to be before you decided to turn yourself into an arrogant prick in the hope that cheap slutty girls would sleep with you.”

“Not a ‘hope’, as it turns out,” McCarthy offered casually. “Works remarkably well, actually. Angus taught me well…”

Lena shook her head derisively. “Angus… You don’t get it, do you. You just don’t get it. Girls don’t sleep with Angus because he’s an arrogant bastard. Girls sleep with Angus because they like him. Because he’s actually likeable. Sure he carries himself like an arrogant bastard, but under it all he’s a sweet, fun guy who actually gives a fuck about peoples’ feelings. [She really had me wrong, hey.] And you can’t carry the same thing off, because you aren’t. You’re petty, you’re resentful, and you’re manipulative. So just stop trying to be like him. It’s pathetic.”

“You know what? I think you two should fuck. Seriously. You’ve got more in common with each other and have been spouting off about how wonderful each other is for so long, fuck it, you should hook up. I’d even give you away at the wedding. I mean your dad won’t be able to stand him either, so he won’t turn up will he?”

“I’m not attracted to Angus,” she replied emphatically, “any more than I am to Rebecca.”

“Could be interesting,” he considered. “Video it, put it on the internet, you’d make shitloads.”

Lena looked at him in disgust. “You’re such a creep sometimes. Such a nasty little creep. Anyone would think, the way you’re carrying on, that you hadn’t had sex for four years. Oh, yeah, hang on… you didn’t.”

Right. That’s done it.

McCarthy simply got up and stalked towards the door. But try as he could to leave it at that with the moral high ground or something like it in tow, he couldn’t leave without one last spray.

“You just fucking hate it that other women find me attractive, don’t you. It fuckin’ eats you up inside that I’m sleeping with other girls. Your loyal little cheerleader is away giving pleasure to women you don’t even know, and you can’t stand it. It used to be so good, why ever did he leave, you wonder? ‘Oh, some fucking cock has completely fucked me over, whatever shall I do? I know, I’ll go and cry on Sam’s shoulder, he’ll make me feel good about myself!’”

“Professional revisionist historian, are we? Or just doing it on an amateur basis?”

“Put it this way. If I had my time again, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. We wouldn’t have had any fucking conversations at all.”

“So it’s my fault you couldn’t get laid?” she clarified.

“You knew what you were doing,” he contended. “Kept me close enough so I wouldn’t stray, gave me just enough of a sniff to keep me interested, made me think this might just work out… but in the end, I’m just your doormat. I was just your fuckin’ doormat,” he repeated. Deliberate change of tense. Johnny belabours his point with one hammer, then he works with two.

“That’s not how it was, and you know it.”

“Oh really? Then pray tell, how the fuck was it, because apparently I wasn’t paying attention?”

“You know how it was, don’t play the fucking martyr. You know I had feelings for you. I just couldn’t do anything about them… the timing was never right.”

“Timing,” he nodded sagely. “It’s all about the timing.” With a sneer that said ‘Pull the other one, it plays Dr Hook’s Greatest Hits.’

Paul Shaffer’s character from Spinal Tap popped into his head: You know what’s wrong? Timing. It’s the timing. I just fucked up the timing. Fucked up the timing. I got no timing. I got NO timing! Can you do something for me? Can you kick my ass? Please, kick my ass. Just kick my ass! Kick this ass, for a man! Despite himself, he half-grinned.

“I tried,” she said, mostly to herself. “Look, just go. Whatever that bunch of idiots thought would come from throwing us together, it just isn’t going to happen. We have very different interpretations of our time together, it seems.”

“That’s a fuckin’ understatement.” He walked back across the room towards the sliding door leading to the balcony, fishing his mobile phone out of his pocket. He strode out into the evening seabreeze and scrolled through his recently dialled numbers. A couple of rings, then an answer.

Background mayhem. A voice, mine. “Bunnies are up twelve-six.” Then a ferocious, gutteral burp (also mine) followed by slightly drunken giggling (everyone’s). And silence, as the party on the far end of the line hung up. McCarthy listened to the dial tone with rising frustration. It wasn’t helped by turning around to the sight of Lena tripping the lock on the sliding door, trapping him out on the balcony with a pettily victorious smile. He shrugged, turned back to the view, and slipped one leg side-saddle over the balcony railing. It was a bit of a drop, but nothing that would separate him from a nice cold schooner at the Cloey.

“Don’t,” she said. The door had opened pretty fast. “You’ll break your ankles or something stupid. What’s the point?”

“You tell me, you locked the door - how childish is that?”

“It’s open now. You can use the stairs like a proper grown-up.”

“Oh goody.” He brushed past her, slotted his phone back in his wallet, and without a backward glance, made directly for the exits as though directed by a burly fire warden.

“So what, not even a goodbye?”

He turned. “Did I get one?” he reminded her. “Don’t think so. No, I got a hurriedly scrawled letter on the back of a takeaway menu. I’m so sorry… I can’t deal with all of this… I hope you can understand…” The scars were fresh, the wounds still stung. By fuck they stung, a hell of a lot more than he cared to admit, even to himself. It’d been a year and change and it still kept him awake at night, still meant he couldn’t get close to any girl who he wanted to get close to. Then again, it’d prevented him getting serious with Andrea, so not all bad news in the long run.

“Just how long am I going to get punished over that, Sam?”

“Nah,” he said suddenly. The hurt was fading. He’d thrashed at it long enough to do it some serious damage, and it was considering buggering off to fight another day instead. His composure was surging back and he had a sniff of the ascendancy in this particular stoush. “Doesn’t matter now. As far as I’m concerned, it can all end here. You’re just my… let me get this right… just my bandmate’s brother’s girlfriend’s flatmate, after all. No need to ever bother yourself about me again… no cold showers necessary. Oh, yeah, and cheers for the positive write-up, too. I’m sure someone must think it was sincere. Fooled your boss, anyway.”

Lena looked like she’d taken enough hits after that last combination. She leant against the wall, almost for protection, her eyes cast down. If there was going to be a winner tonight, it didn’t look like being her. She’d taken a couple of standing-eight-counts already and was looking very unsteady.

“Look, Sam… can’t we at least end this like adults? Last time you just fucked off in the dead of night, or so it seemed... you didn’t even give me or anyone else a chance to say goodbye before you moved away. Can we just part as friends, or at least not as enemies? There’s no point resenting me for everything, it doesn’t change a thing.”

“No,” he concurred, “but it makes me feel better.” It’s more productive than resenting myself, he neglected to add, which he’d tried and not enjoyed much. He folded his arms, propping himself against the breakfast bar. Still defensive in terms of his body language, but no longer openly hostile. He still had dry powder left in the shed if the scoreboard warranted its use, as well as plenty more mixed metaphors where the sun didn't count its chickens.

She looked up, hesitantly. “Can’t we come up with anything positive to say about each other, after all this time? Couldn’t we just try to?” she proposed, almost pleaded. It suddenly occurred to him that she might actually be drunk; he hadn’t picked it up through the red mist before then, and it surprised (and encouraged) him. The smell of blood was in the air, or at least quite a bit of claret. Some sort of inexpensive red in large volumes anyway. “Haven't we said enough negative shit about each other?”

“What kind of first-year psychology bullshit…” Mid-rant, he relented. “Whatever. If it makes you sleep better at night.”

“Okay,” she said. “How about this. I’m sorry about what I did, the way it ended last time. I’m sorry it didn’t turn out how I wanted it to.”

“You’re sorry,” he muttered. “You had what riding on it, exactly?”

Lena winced. “Positive comments,” she reminded him.

“Okay, okay. Look…” He thought hard about what he was going to say. “I don’t resent you, not as much as you seem to think I do. And I don’t go out chasing lots of women to punish you. I’m just catching up for lost time. Overcompensating, perhaps. I’ve never been shown this amount of attention before, and it’s going to my head.”

“At least you can admit it,” she smiled. Weakly, but she smiled. Progress. She ventured forth bravely with her return of serve. “I like your band. I didn’t lie about that. To coin a phrase, you guys rock. And boy, you play that guitar like a motherfucker born. What made you waste your time down here with me for so long?”

He left that as a rhetorical question, not yet about to offer any reply which would make her feel better about herself. He wasn’t being manipulative, he told himself, he was just… fuck it, he was being manipulative.

“I should say thanks for putting your job on the line to get your boss to come see us,” McCarthy conceded instead. “It’s more than we deserve… well, more than I deserve, anyway.”

“Hey, it’s not so bad now is it,” she insisted. “Doesn’t it feel better to say goodbye like this?”

“I don’t know,” he said, “I don’t make a habit of saying goodbye to people. There’s a lot to be said for disappearing into the ether. Less complicated.”

“Any chance you’d like to apologise for that, by the way?” she ventured. “Beck was distraught when she found out you’d just vanished.”

“She’s not that shallow, and you know it,” McCarthy maintained. “Everyone who I felt needed to be told, were told. Actually they came out to the pub and got ratso’d with me. Several pubs actually. The Great Escape Pub Crawl through all the old student pubs starting in Kingsford, on through Randwick and down to Coogee. Ended up at the Beach Palace fending off the drunken advances of sketchy Pommie backpacker chicks.”

“No wonder you wanted to leave so soon,” she offered, with the outline of a smile.

“The biggest struggle was convincing Super Dave that he really needed to keep it in his pants rather than busting out the helicopter when the DJ played Eagle Rock,” McCarthy recalled wryly. “Look, okay. I could have handled it better… not Super Dave’s dodger, the situation I mean. Maybe I could have stayed in touch with Beck, though it would have been awkward. But I’m not going to apologise for how things finished with you. It was the only way I could get out with any dignity or self-respect left.” At her reproachful look, he put a hand up. “I know, I know. Positive comments. How about this. I didn’t leave here because of what happened between us.” Which was a damn lie and they both knew it. “In fact, I would have been out of here years earlier if it wasn’t for you. It’s just not my kind of town.”

“Well, for what it’s worth, and I know it’s probably not worth much now…” She hugged her arms tightly against herself. “It’s not my kind of town either, any more. I miss you,” she admitted. “It’s lonely here without you.”

McCarthy shook his head; he wasn’t entering into this conversation. “I don’t buy that,” he said. “You don’t have time to be lonely, you’re so flat-out all the time.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I seem to make time,” she replied with weak buoyancy. “Like any night when I’m not out at a gig. I tend to go out and see a lot of bands these days, which is just as well. Otherwise I tend to slouch around the house feeling sorry for myself.”

“Come on,” he said, patience wearing a little thin. “Not to point any fingers or break our positive comments policy, but you never had any problems finding male company when I was around. You can’t tell me it’s any different now.”

“It is different,” she maintained. “I don’t feel very attractive any more, and there isn’t exactly a queue around the block of guys trying to convince me otherwise. There’s tumbleweeds blowing down the street, I’m telling you… Look, I know time plays tricks, and maybe I’m remembering things in a slanted way, but… some of those guys were such total fucking write-offs, I wonder if I was just desperately trying to make you jealous. Subconsciously trying to compel you to make some move on me, come and defend your territory perhaps… I don’t know.”

“That’s revisionist,” he observed flatly. “Let’s not rewrite history here. It’s just another of a billion cases of unrequited love out there. Boy loves girl, girl might love boy but isn’t lacking for attention in any case. It ended the way these things always end. We’ve both moved on.”

“That’s the royal ‘we’, is it?” she queried, dwelling over ‘boy loves girl’ a little longer than maybe she should. “There’s the irony, of course. You’ve moved on. You don’t need me anymore. I’m the one sitting in my room on a Saturday night in tracksuit pants drinking red wine and listening to the Cure while my supposedly celibate flatmate is out with her new boyfriend. And is moving out in two weeks.”

Suspicions confirmed; she’d had more a few drinks already. A bottle and a half, as it turned out, and it was starting to show. And he’d spent the last twenty minutes raining the most vicious psychological warfare he could come up with on a girl who’d spent the evening drinking alone in her bedroom. What a stellar fucking individual you are, McCarthy, he thought. In wartime they’d give you a medal for being this much of a cunt.

She’d given up trying to hold up the wall, and had collapsed limply into the couch, staring straight ahead, talking to him softly, methodically, as though she was sedated, or at least self-medicated. McCarthy remembered how sad and melancholic Lena could get when she was feeling drunk and unloved; he could remember the contempt he used to feel for the guys who were usually the cause of her distress, but he couldn’t remember ever being culpable himself. She blinked; tears began to roll, she resented them every humiliating millimetre of the way. “I want to go home,” she said. “If I knew where that was, I’d go. It isn’t here, and it isn’t Melbourne. I should do what you did, Sam. Just load up the car, flip everyone off and fuck off someplace else. Tasmania sounds good,” she quipped. “Failing that, Reykjavik.”

Despite himself, McCarthy was drawn towards the couch. Some last semblance of duty made him sit down next to her and put his arm around her. She buried her face against his shoulder, hurting and thoroughly humiliated.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Look, you’d better go. I think I’ve embarrassed myself enough, as usual.”

“You sure?”

“No,” she admitted, “not really. I’ll just go back in there, finish the bottle, curl up on my bed and cry myself to sleep.” Lena lay back so her head was in his lap, looking up at him. He stroked her hair, tentatively, very gently. She thought: this is just like it used to be, you comforting me after I’d been dumped by someone or other. Note to Ms Morissette: THIS is ironic. Not fuckin’ rain on your fuckin’ wedding dayayyayyyyy.

“Hey,” she said, “mind if I ask you something?”

“No…”

“How the hell did you get yourself fired from the Northern Star?” she wanted to know.

“Well,” he replied, “you being our number one fan, you know Ode To Joy From Lennox?”

“Yeah…”

“Joy,” he grinned. “That’s how I got fired. Although her parents christened her Andrea…”

And that was how we found them, when we staggered back from the Cloey after the game - McCarthy draped over the couch, telling stories; Lena lying across his lap, quietly captivated.

By the way, most importantly of all, Souths got up, as I pointed out to Jeff when I saw him next… which wasn’t until next morning, as you’d expect. He’d given up his Dragons jumper to Beck by that stage, to keep her warm. Chivalry is not dead, folks; not when there might be a root in the long term offing, anyway. Beck and Lena saw us off with hugs and promises to keep in touch - ones which I was instructed to compel McCarthy to keep.

So we fled Sydney, the big white ‘Cruiser splitting the air like a nuclear-powered washing machine as the Pacific Highway yielded under its thrumming treads. (Yes, thrumming treads. Christ those off-road tyres made a bloody din.) The sun was shining, the traffic light, the banter engaging - even though the Jeff and Uncle Sam were occasionally lost in their own thoughts regarding the girls of unit nine - and it was just a good day to be out on the road. Because we were heading home.

We made good time. The sun was setting over the hills to the north of Lismore as I pulled up a chair, cracked a coldie and put my feet up, out on the familiar balcony at Chateau Dodgy. It was so quiet, so wonderfully quiet out there, and the late-dusk light playing across the hills was just gorgeous. Sydney be fucked, I thought. It was great to be home. I grabbed my phone and called a familiar number. Kirsten was glad to hear we’d made it back. Yeah, she said, I’m free tonight, you want to come over? How’d she been going? Not so well, she admitted wryly. She’d broken up with her boyfriend. Oh, I said, trying not to sound as happy as I was.

Yes, dammit, it was great to be home.