Getting Real

31. To the Flame



Today Rand missed Jonas. He sat with Rie, Harry and the video director Martin Levin in a darkened meeting room at the hotel and second-guessed himself about going ahead with the shoot.

They hadn’t shot a video without Jonas for several years and while the whole thing had been planned from LA months ago, it was tainted with the after effects of what went down yesterday at the Bolt from the Blue gig—because that had been planned months ago as well.

He’d wanted Jake here too, but the guy was busy with a hundred new issues. The insurance tangle alone would take days to sort through.

He considered putting the whole thing off til later in the tour. Of course that would bring the record company, the lawyers and a bucket load of other crap down on them. Rock and roll was the bomb—rock and a hard place only looked funny in cartoons.

He’d talked to Harry and was comforted and surprised by her insights. Harry thought her crew had captured some extraordinary scenes of the tour so far that might be adapted to the music video format.

Her crew had filmed hours of footage of the shows, the roadies at work, rehearsals, the audience, the band and crew mucking about, as well as backstage activity. She’d identified the sequences she thought showed the most promise and edited them together with a soundtrack so they could watch a rough edit of selected highlights.

His angel was a centrefold, and she was also a shit hot TV producer and making Martin twitchy about maintaining creative control. Martin had eaten three pastries to Rand’s one and they’d yet to start rolling tape. And Martin was not a dude who needed to be eating pastries.

“What’re we waiting for?” said Rie. She looked impatient, but none the worse for yesterday—not that she’d admit to feeling bad anyway.

Harry rolled tape, and Rand immediately regretted getting out of bed. His angel was devil spawn. The screen showed him in the grip of two unusually dressed groupies. He shot out of his chair yelling, “No—you can’t,” as the vision showed a thickset girl with a long scraggly plait making cow eyes at him, and Stu in the background trying not to laugh and not succeeding.

“Harry, you can’t,” he said again, laughing. She was so going to pay for this. He’d take it out on her in bed, or maybe the shower or the back of this room, if she didn’t watch herself.

“Oh, yes you can.” Rie shot forward in her chair. “When did that happen? How did I miss that?”

Harry left the vision playing, now showing the short plump girl falling out of her high-heels and clutching at him. He glanced at Martin—not amused, drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair.

Rie was amused though. She’d climbed onto the table. “Who are they?”

“They were sweet girls, but so drunk. Jonas gave them backstage passes. The price for breaking into Jake’s room to scam his Zanect.” He looked at Martin. “We’re not using any of that.” He blew Harry a kiss. “You’re dead to me.”

The next scene was an unintentional slapstick routine featuring Bodge, Teflon and Lizard, a bunch of cables, a ladder and a pot of black paint. At any moment, the ladder and the paint pot threatened to either flip or drip and Bodge’s face as he tried to stop a minor mishap was Three Stooges funny. Rie’s butt was back in her chair and she had a huge smile plastered on her face. Martin’s sigh was prolonged and accompanied by the sound of him rapidly clicking the top of his pen, but after the stress of yesterday, laughing felt good.

He looked at Harry across the table from him. She’d done this deliberately to lighten things up. She was sweeter than any pastry, or the sugar they rolled in.

The three stooges were followed by Neddy in his starring role as the hanging roadie and Rie groaned. No prizes for guessing Harry would edit in shots of her and Neddy during the football game. She had; so what followed was Rie’s punch and her knee in Neddy’s groin and Teflon and Lizard hailing her. Rand grunted in sympathy with Neddy and Martin’s eyes popped.

Then Harry’s presentation changed mood. There were shots of Glen and the Ng brothers at work, of the stage construction and the band rehearsing. There were shots of manic backstage activity. Jake laughing at Teflon and Bunk, and Lizard crawling in the rigging. Martin sat forward now, paying more attention. Another mood change showed dressing room doors slamming and runners with headphones on, security men standing in shadows, and lines of punters ready to enter the stadium. There was a powerful sequence of Rielle on the trapeze, flying, fearless and fabulous in a blaze of smoke and filtered red light. Another of her in the Hand with Bunk; his little sister teasing the audience into a frenzy.

Next came a rocking segment with him and Stu; another of How pounding the drum kit, his sweat flying. A lovely close up of Ceedee standing in the wings waiting to come on stage showed her steadying herself and then stepping into the bright lights, and a two shot of Brendan and Jeremy had them seductively bathed in speckled lighting effects.

Now Harry had Martin’s full attention, because some of that would make great cut-aways. He abandoned his pen popping; he was staring at the screen, not moving. Rand watched Martin change his mind about what he was seeing. He changed his too. They’d go ahead tonight.

He heard Jake slip into the back of the room with a quick “Hi,” in time to see a shot of himself and Rielle backstage. On the screen Rie pinched his arm and he pulled her hair and they both laughed and stepped forward into the wings ready to go on.

In the room they both laughed too. Harry had captured the push and pull essence of their relationship in that one quick sequence. He looked at Rie and his throat got clogged. He sipped some water but you couldn’t wash away pride so easily. She was his little sister and she was mess-up scared, and she was awesome.

Harry’s final sequence was Rie and Ceedee rehearsing their pole routine. It was the night there’d been dead moths all over the stage floor. This must’ve been earlier. On screen the girls went through their stuff as the Bogongs blew in. The way Harry had captured this, the moths seemed to take on a mystical quality as they fluttered about the two dancers, high on their silvery poles. The whole thing made Rand itchy as he watched Rie continue to rehearse alone, chasing perfection. She looked like a powerful witch, an otherworldly being, charming nature itself when the moths invaded her.

“Cool,” he said.

“Extraordinary,” said Martin. He was standing, transfixed.

Rand looked at Harry and she blew him a kiss.

From where Jake stood at the back of the room, he could see Rielle’s profile. She had her heels on the chair rung and was hugging her knees with her chin tucked down, her mouth open in wonder and her eyes locked on the screen. She was seeing this for the first time and she loved it.

He swallowed as he recalled how dry his mouth was that night and how he felt when he stood close to her and brushed Bogongs from her hair, like he wanted to lay down his life and worship her. And everything that made him feel that way, uncomfortable, surprising and raw, was there on the screen.

He was so intent on watching the real Rielle, he almost missed the shot of himself. Harry’s crew captured him gazing at his moth goddess with a look of pure adoration on his face. The tenderness of the scene where he almost held her, and deliberately tangled his hands in her hair, hit him with a force that knocked the air out of him. He leaned back against the wall because his knees might not hold him.

He was in love with this woman. With her goddess and her bitch, with her tough rock chick persona, and with the self she didn’t even want to be.

Rielle dropped her legs and spun to him, her eyelids flaring, shock in the set of her shoulders. Their eyes met, but Jake couldn’t handle the pointed intensity of her focus. He pushed the door behind him and stumbled out of the room, blinking in the brighter light of the corridor. He should’ve kept moving, should’ve bolted, because he wasn’t ready to face her. She came through the door and flung herself in his arms.

Shocked, he caught her, but pushed her away, his hands at her waist, bending to bring his face level with hers.

She thrust her chin up. “You and I have a thing. We’re not done yet.”

He shook his head. “Rie, we tried. It’s not meant to be.”

“That look in there with the moths, it was after that awful night together—after it. You looked at me like that, like you’re freaking in love with me and you’re going to stand here now and tell me it’s nothing.”

He dropped his gaze to the carpet. He couldn’t face that truth. “I like you, Rie; I admire you. I’ve never hidden that.”

She pushed him and he took a step back. “You’re a liar, Jake Reed.”

There were two spots shaped like Rielle’s palms that burned along his ribs. He’d never wanted anything in his life more than he wanted to grab hold of her now, but it had to be all of her, not this half world where she kept part of herself hidden.

He looked up. He was breathing heavily, focussed on the frustration and anger in her expression. “All of you. It has to be all of you: the good and bad, the actress and the imitation. All or nothing, Rie.”

She punched him, her fist driving into his arm, her words pounding at his heart. “No, you don’t get to say who I am. You don’t get to make that choice.”

“You already made that choice for me. You already showed me parts of all of you. From the very first day we met. I don’t want less now.”

She shouted, “No!” making a chopping gesture with both hands.

He closed his eyes to block out the vision of her resentment. “Your call, Rielle.” He stepped back from her. He needed distance to stop from wanting to snatch her up. “You know how I feel; you just saw it and you know what I want. But if you can’t handle it, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for both of us.”