Getting Real

47. Jake



Sydney, Australia.


The call from Glen was a pleasant surprise. The building site was noisy, and Jake almost missed the phone ring under the squeal of an angle grinder. From his perch on top of the scaffold, four storeys up, where he was threading electrical cable, Jake told Glen how his dad was doing. Thankfully much better, with movement restored to his right leg and arm and cheekier every day now that he was getting his speech back after the stroke.

That’s what the shouting the night Rielle came to dinner had been about. Dad working too hard and not taking care of himself. They were lucky he’d survived. His recovery was going to be slow and frustrating, but he’d get there. He was a tough old bugger. They’d had to make changes of course, maybe take on a partner for the business or sell it, because much as Jake was happy to carry things, it wasn’t what he wanted to do forever.

He had no idea what he wanted to do next week, let alone forever. He was distracted, unanchored; bouncing between the business and helping Mum and Issy take care of Dad.

It was good to be busy. Too much thinking time was bad for his soul, because in his quiet moments he thought of Rielle.

He had an endless loop of mental images to call on. Rielle in every mood and manner: the mystery Gym Girl, the fiery hellcat, the tempting seductress, the electric powerhouse performer. The girl he’d loved. The girl he hated. Rie on the back of Bonne. Rie in lycra and leather, and Issy’s flowery dress. Rie in his arms, in the cage, in her bed. Rie as the moth goddess. Rie as a bitch and a sweetheart, an idol and a lover and a nightmare.

When he remembered how she looked that night with the Bogongs, or seducing him in the St Kilda alleyway during the video shoot, he felt nothing but anger with himself for being so taken in by her. She was a fake and an actress and a liar, and he’d known it from the first. The only thing she’d been brutally truthful about was the one thing he’d chosen to conveniently ignore—the fact they didn’t have a future. That she would use him and leave him without a backwards glance.

He was a fool and a sap with a straw heart like she’d once accused him of being. Too angry to forgive her, too craven to forget her and perversely grateful that what happened to Dad prevented him from abandoning all pride and going to her so she could humiliate him all over again.

Talking with Glen felt good. He was full of industry news. The coming tours planned, the gossip on various promoters, the story of how Sharon broke her leg, Jonathan Bennett’s drink-driving charge and court appearance. Jake lapped it up. It was a sudden and welcome distraction from the seriousness of his life now. But when Glen went on to talk about the inside story on Ice Queen’s shock split, Jake shut him down. He’d seen the media stories. He didn’t want the gory details, because it might mean hearing about her and he wasn’t ready for that now—maybe not ever. Rielle was a ragged, hated addiction he fought every day, so proximity to the source of the drug was guaranteed to be bad for his health.

When Glen suggested they meet for a drink, he fobbed him off. Three or four beers in he knew he’d be asking for news of her and then drinking til he could obliterate the memories again.

Two days later, when he was up a ladder fitting the lighting grid for an office development, Glen rang again. He and Bodge would meet him at the Three Drunk Monkeys and Glen wasn’t taking no for an answer.

He met them in the front bar and they caught up on news of his dad and the crew, discussed new bands touring and how the groupies were getting younger and younger. In the back bar, a singer was setting up, a girl with an acoustic guitar. They talked about Glen’s coming tour and Bodge’s kids, and the singer started up. She had a decent crowd. Jake wondered who she was. Someone starting at the bottom. Probably staying there too, like hundreds of others before her, despite having obvious talent. Bodge suggested they move inside and check her out, professionally speaking.

They went into the crowded back bar, stood with their beers, listened to the singer and watched the punters with practised eyes, assessing the impact of the songs and the performance. It was an occupational hazard.

Jake couldn’t see her from where he stood but for an occasional glimmer of blonde hair, but after a couple of songs he was keen to match the voice with a face. It was somehow familiar, but he couldn’t think where he’d heard a sound like this before. It was whimsical, indie, not obviously commercial, but fresh. The singer’s voice was raw and achy, cut with emotion, sexy as all f*ck. It got to him. Kicking up feelings he’d tried to cut out of his head and his heart. He had to look at her. Not an option, an imperative.

He took his beer and moved closer to the stage, and when the singer lifted her head to sing a long low note, he felt a quick flash of hot rage flare inside him. Christ!

He turned back to look for Glen and Bodge but the bastards had left him there. They’d set this up and he’d walked straight into it.

He downed his beer. He needed its courage. He retreated to the edge of the room out of her direct line of sight. What was she doing here? He should clear out while he had the chance, but just the sight of her, the real Rielle, his Arielle—freckled face, gap teeth, blonde and pretty, wearing fitted jeans and a simple white t-shirt—trapped him inside the room. His hands shook. His eyes burned. His jaw was wired shut. His addiction was raging.

She sang a last song, got warm applause and the room started to empty. The jukebox filled the silence, Gotye and Kimbra singing Somebody That I Used to Know. The lyrics crashed through the confusion in Jake’s head, solidifying his thoughts. He didn’t need Rielle, but he didn’t deserve the way she’d treated him either.

He waited until the crowd cleared and she’d started packing her gear away. He walked up to the edge of the small riser used as a stage, planted his feet, crossed his arms and watched her. She was so beautiful like this—real, vulnerable, lovely. F*cked if that meant anything. Beauty hid the bitch.

Out of the corner of her eyes, Rielle saw a man approach the stage. She knew he was watching her. He looked like he’d dug himself in the beer stained carpet waiting to grow. There was something vaguely familiar about that stance. She glanced up carefully and her next breath choked her. What was he doing here? Bodge, bastard! Sold her out. F*ck! This was a train-wreck.

“I thought you were dead,” he said, his voice hard-edged and loud.

She coughed, swallowed with effort. “I guess I was for a while.”

He uprooted and walked forward. “Why? Why the f*ck you have to cut out on me like that? What did I do to make you treat me like I was nothing?”

Jake was shouting and the barman looked up, catching Rielle’s eye. “You okay, love?”

“Fine, Dave,” she called. She looked back to Jake, not sure how to manage the anger vibrating out of him, wanting to touch him, but worried he’d shake her off. She managed to say, “I’m sorry,” and heard how outrageously simple and inadequate that those two words were.

“You’re sorry. You’re sorry. What’s the point of being sorry? You couldn’t have answered a call or sent me a message? You couldn’t have said, ‘hey, good to hook-up, have a nice life’?”

Rielle searched Jake’s face for any sign of the infinitely patient man she’d known. All she could find was hostility and aggression. She dropped her head. “I couldn’t do that.”

“Why the f*ck not?” His rage was so intense it was burning the platform under her feet. Any minute now she’d fall through the plywood stage.

“Because I was broken and I couldn’t be what you wanted.” She believed that. He need to understand it too. “If I talked to you I’d forget it and I’d hurt you more.”

“How did you f*cking know what I wanted?”

“You told me you wanted me whole before you fell in love with me. And when you did, you settled for half: half of me, half the story, half of what you deserved. One day you were going to wake up and hate me for that, for being a fake and a liar. So I had to go, had to push you away. Don’t you get that?”

He stared at her, uncomprehendingly. “I loved all of you.”

Rielle shook her head. “I wouldn’t let you. You only had part of me.”

It was true. Jake loved all she’d shown him, but she’d only given him parts, selections, edited highlights, and yet he’d been willing to live with that. He surveyed her body, a critical appraisal, like she was a piece of steak he might pick to grill on an open flame. She felt small, so small and without hope.

“So, who are you now? Is there a new name to go with the new look?”

“I’m just me, Jake. Arielle, Rielle, Rie, all the same person now.”

“Changed.” He hissed. “I didn’t think you believed people could change.”

“I didn’t.”

He glared at her and she saw genuine hatred in his eyes. Hatred she’d put there. “Why are you here?”

How to answer him? She came to try out her new sound, the new music, a different performance from the big stage madness of Ice Queen. She came because it was home and she wasn’t scared of it anymore. She came because it was safer here than in other parts of the world for this experiment. But now looking at Jake, at the fire in his eyes, and the fury in his muscles, she knew Rand was right. She came because despite the way she’d changed, she wasn’t yet whole. She’d left a part of her heart here and this man, frowning at her, furious with her, held it in his hands.

And he would crush it, squeeze it bloodless, and fling it away. And she’d deserve it.

Realisation brought tears to her eyes. “I came for you.”

Jake balled his fists, he shifted restlessly. He was different, without respect, without any tenderness. He scared her. “We could’ve worked it out together.”

She had nothing to lose. She’d already lost. “I loved a man once who faced his fears. He said there are some things you have to do alone. He was right.”

Jake shook his head. This couldn’t be real. She couldn’t be real—not the rock star, just the girl, alone, playing to a suburban pub audience. What kind of f*cked up cruelty was this? How had he ended up here, his heart crashing around in his rib cage? This was meant to be a quick social drink with friends, not an encounter with the demon woman he hadn’t yet managed to exorcise from his senses, who threatened to cut out his remaining sanity and smear it over the tiled pub walls.

He wasn’t ready for this. He’d never be ready for this. He should’ve walked away as soon as he saw her, but he couldn’t now. If he did, he’d be the one who was only half a person.

He looked in her duplicitous green eyes. “You ripped my heart out.” In two strides he was on the stage with Rielle, grabbing her, pulling her into his arms, smashing his lips down on hers. It was an attack, retribution, an act of war against a heartless warrior who’d left him living dead instead of killing him off properly when she’d had the chance.

“Hey!” shouted the barman.

Jake pulled back breathing heavily. Rielle was wide-eyed with shock, and her body was trembling under his grip.

“It’s okay,” Jake growled, but Dave had already come out from behind the bar with a cricket bat in his hand. Jake let go of Rielle and stepped back, holding his hands out and up to show he wasn’t making any trouble.

“It’s all right, Dave, I know this guy. He won’t hurt me,” Rielle said, but her eyes showed shock and her voice shook like she wasn’t sure.

Dave retreated with a wary look on his face, laying the bat on top of the bar for easy access.

Jake turned away. He was done. “I have nothing for you.”

She called after him. “You have everything I need.”

He stopped, his back to her. “You took what I had to give and you trashed it.” His voice felt serrated, like it belonged to someone who ate swords for a living. He turned back, he needed to see her face the moment she truly understood the damage she’d wrought him was permanent. “I’m done. Go home.”

Tears streamed down Rielle’s cheeks. “I am home.” Despite a rage that made every colour in his eye’s palette appear a shade of red, Jake knew if he stayed, if he looked at her too long, he might have to forgive her and he couldn’t live with that. He turned and walked out.

Outside on the footpath, Bodge and Glen waited, but their expressions changed when they saw him.

“You bastards! What the f*ck made you think that was a good idea?” He registered the rapid ripple of surprise in the look Glen and Bodge exchanged, but he didn’t wait for a response. “How long has she been here?”

“Three days,” said Bodge, shifting his weight forward. His eyes were on the doorway. He’d made this happen. He’d set it all up. They were supposed to be mates.

“Ten months, one week, three days,” Jake said bitterly. Ten months, one week, three days and every minute was the twist of a knife in his ribs.

“Sorry mate,” said Glen, “we thought—you’re both so stubborn—we thought if we gave it a nudge—”

“What? That I could forget what she did to me?” Jake exhaled hard, shook his head. He put a hand up to forestall either of them responding and left them standing there.

He rode home via a bottle shop. He didn’t think he could carry enough alcohol to dry out the flood of feeling in his body, to create enough forgetfulness, but f*ck it, he’d try. Back home, he drank steadily, until he made himself sick, until he could no longer see her face, feel the ghost of her in his arms or imagine how it all might’ve been different.


Rielle was at the bar tearing up drink coasters into pieces, when Bodge found her. That poisoned riff was in her head, like a dirge, like a lament. If only. If only. If only.

“Rie, shit, I’m sorry.” Bodge hung his head, avoided looking directly at her and took the beer Dave pulled gratefully.

Rielle gave him a watery smile. “It’s okay. You didn’t know it would go like that.” She put her hand on Bodge’s arm and gripped, trying to find an anchor in the swell of emotions that swamped her.

The depth and heat of Jake’s anger had left her wrung out. She knew she’d hurt him, but he was meant to forget her and move on, not marinate in the bitterness she’d caused. He was too smart for that, too rational and stable. He was meant to look back and see her for the disaster she was and be relieved it was over. He was meant to live without regret and compromise. He wasn’t meant to love her so much. The change in him shocked her. He’d looked lost, without his compass, without the steady centre that defined him. Somehow she hadn’t forced him to let go, she’d taught him to hold on and to hate because of it.

She couldn’t process that. Couldn’t take it in.

“It was wrong, we screwed up.” Bodge’s big hand came down over hers, calloused and warm. “Should’ve let you make your own decision. Shit, we’re both divorced, Glen and me. Neither of us know how to keep a woman. Me, you don’t wanna know about how badly my love life turned out. We’re a couple of drunk old monkeys, thinking we could fix things. We wanted you and Jake to have a chance and now look what we’ve done.” Bodge thumped his elbows down on the bar top and wedged his forehead down on his palms. “Shit!” But when Rielle stayed silent, he lifted his face. “Why aren’t you carving me up?”

Her head was a mess of frayed emotions. She’d been so sure she knew what she was doing when she came here. But she was still faking it. Now all she wanted was to run from this new fatal accident she’d caused, this new death of someone she loved.

“Not your fault, Bodge. I did this. I screwed up with Jake. It’s my fault he’s so hurt.” She sighed. “Why did you think this would work?”

Bodge shrugged a meaty shoulder. “We thought he’d forgive you. He needs to forgive you.”

She shook her head. “I made it so he couldn’t ever do that.”

“That boy loved you, Rie. I reckon he could love you again.”

She choked back a sob. Bodge put his arm around her. He smelled like magic marker; it made her eyes water more. “I’d feel a lot less shitty if you’d tear strips off me.”

She gave him another wobbly smile and leant her head on his shoulder. “I wish Rand was here.” She missed him something fierce. She should never have come back without him.

“What do you reckon he’d do?”

What would Rand do? He’d let her cry, he’d let her rant and rave, he’d let her sulk and all the time he’d be standing there waiting for her to solve the problem for herself and poking at her til she did.

“He’d tell me to get it sorted. He’d remind me I made this bed. That I’ve never backed away from anything and if I wanted this, I’d have to fight for it.”

Bodge nodded. “Smart bloke your brother. You reckon you can fix this then?”

“No,” she said, dropping her eyes to her lap. “I don’t think I can.”