2011 Submissions:
Silent All These Years
by Aeryn
Chapter One: They call me quiet girl
The first thing I laid my eyes on when I opened the front door was a long and narrow white envelope with my best friend's name and address typed in uppercase letters on the front.
"What the hell is that?" I asked once Kirrily had lowered the envelope.
"Your birthday present," she replied cheerfully.
"It's not my birthday for another three months," I reminded her, raising one eyebrow as I spoke.
She waved me off. "Call it an insanely early birthday present then. You would not believe the strings I had to pull to get these. They sold out last week."
"What sold out last week?" my younger sister asked from behind me, as I stepped aside to let Kirrily inside the house. Almost at the last moment I saw that Kirrily had brought a suitcase with her.
"Tickets to Frequency's Hordern Pavilion concert tomorrow night," Kirrily replied, with just a touch of high-and-mighty in her tone. "Meet and greet passes as well. Managed to snag three of each."
I looked back over my shoulder just in time to see the look on Rebecca's face. Her mouth had dropped open in surprise, and I hid a grin behind my hand. "You didn't," she said in what was evidently disbelief.
Kirrily waved the envelope at Rebecca. "Oh, I definitely did. Last in the whole country, at that."
"How did you manage that?" I asked as Kirrily stowed the envelope with the tickets in her handbag.
"Called in a favour," she replied.
"Natalie, who's that at the door?" I heard my mother call out, then footsteps padding their way across the wooden floor. "Oh, hello Kirrily. You're here rather early."
Kirrily flushed bright red. "Sorry, Mrs. Bryant."
Mum seemed to wave her off. "Don't worry, Kirrily. You're more than welcome to drop by anytime you like, you know that." Her tone changed with her next words. "Rebecca, shouldn't you be getting ready for uni?"
"Well, yeah, but-"
"No buts. Go on, you're supposed to be in class in an hour."
Rebecca let loose a somewhat long-suffering sigh. "Fine, I'm going. But I want to hear all about the concert later on!" she added, her tone emphatic.
"Yeah, yeah, we'll tell you all the juicy details on Monday arvo, don't worry."
"Monday afternoon?" I questioned. "Why Monday afternoon?"
Kirrily's response was to latch onto my right wrist and start pulling me toward the stairs. "Enough out of you, we need to get ready to head up to Sydney. See ya later Becs."
"Yeah, see ya," Rebecca mumbled as Kirrily and I headed upstairs.
Kirrily didn't say another word until we were up in my bedroom with the door closed behind us. "I said Monday arvo because we won't be coming home until then," she said as she perched on my desk chair, answering my earlier question. "Just you and me at the Ibis hotel in Pyrmont for three nights. We have the concert tomorrow night, a day of shopping on Sunday followed by dinner and a bit of clubbing if you think you're up to it, and then late Monday morning we'll hop on a train back down this way. Lots of fun."
I forced a wry smile. "Right, fun."
"Don't be such a worrywart. You'll have a good time, I promise."
I eyed Kirrily. "You do realise that I know nothing about Frequency, right?" I asked her.
"Oh, come off it. Of course you know who they are. Anyone who's listened to the radio or watched rage at any point in the last nine years does." I looked at her blankly - she knew I didn't listen to the radio. "Apple Of The Eye doesn't ring a bell? Underneath The Colours? Stand Against The Storm?"
"I have no idea what the hell you're on about," I replied. "What are they, song titles?"
"Unbelievable," Kirrily said softly. "And here I thought you knew everything."
"I'm not a genius, Kirrily."
"Well, obviously." She not-so-maturely stuck her tongue out at me. "I'll tell you what - I bought a splitter for my iPod over the weekend just gone. I ripped Frequency's new CD to my iTunes almost as soon as I bought it a couple of months ago, and it's on my iPod - we can listen to it on the way up to Sydney if you like."
I shrugged. "Sure, whatever."
Kirrily chuckled. "Unenthusiastic much?" She clapped me on the shoulder. "Come on. Get yourself packed and ready to go - Tyson said he'd pick us up at about eleven or so, and he'll drive us to the station."
I sneaked a quick glance at my alarm clock, sitting on my night table - its display gave the time as eight o'clock. I had more than enough time to do laundry and take a shower before Kirrily's brother came to drive us to the train station.
"Right, well, I'm going to go start the washing machine," I said, nodding just a little toward my bedroom door. "I'm pretty sure I don't have enough clean clothes to last me for a long weekend."
"I'll go hang out with your mum, then." She hopped up off my desk chair and gave me a wide smile. "You won't need much - jeans, two or three shirts, maybe a nice dress for clubbing, sneakers, that sort of thing. There's usually a moshpit at Frequency's shows so whatever it is you decide to wear to the concert tomorrow night, make sure it's something you can jump around like a maniac in. Steel-cap boots might be a good idea as well if you've got them."
I snapped off a mock military salute, and as soon as Kirrily had disappeared out into the hallway I started digging through my laundry hamper.
By the time eleven o'clock rolled around I'd showered, washed and dried my hair, put a load of washing through the washing machine and the dryer, dragged my suitcase out of the spare bedroom and packed it, and shoved all manner of bits and pieces into my messenger bag. Among them were my wallet, my mobile phone, my digital camera with a spare memory card and battery, my iPod in its case with a pair of earphones, and my well-thumbed pocket notepad and a pen. A quick flick through my notepad's pages had me swearing silently - I was down to my last few pages, and that was with writing as small as was still legible. I was going to need to make a detour to Woolworths on the way to the train station, otherwise relying on Kirrily to translate for me was going to be unavoidable. It wasn't a prospect that sat well with me, even though I knew Kirrily didn't mind translating in the least.
Once I was downstairs, I left my suitcase near the front door and went into the kitchen. Kirrily was in there talking to my mother, so rather than interrupt I waited for a break in the conversation before tapping her on the shoulder.
"Can we go to Woolworths on the way to the station?" I asked. I fished my notepad out of my bag and held it up for Kirrily to see. "I'm on my last couple of pages, and I'm probably going to run out by the end of the weekend."
"I don't think it'll be too hard to talk Tyson around to a pit stop," Kirrily replied. "Though you know I don't mind translating."
"I know you don't mind, but I like being independent," I said, and I shrugged.
Tyson arrived right on eleven, announcing his arrival with three quick staccato knocks at the front door.
"I'll see you out front," Kirrily said, rising from her seat at the kitchen table. "See if I can't talk Tyson into dropping by Woolies on the way. Thanks for having me over, Mrs. Bryant."
"No trouble at all, Kirrily. You have fun up in Sydney."
"I will," Kirrily replied with a grin before she ducked out of the kitchen.
Almost as soon as Kirrily was out of sight, I went to make a move of my own but Mum held up a hand to stop me. "Please be careful this weekend," she said to begin.
"Of course I'm going to be careful," I said. "I always am."
"I know you are. I just want you to be more careful than usual - I know you've been to Sydney plenty of times, and I know you're more than capable of looking after yourself, but going there for a weekend is different to just going up there for the day. Make sure you stay with Kirrily while you're away from the hotel, and keep your phone's battery charged. And if you need me or your dad at any time, no matter what time of the day or night it is, send either of us a text message. All right?"
I fought back the very strong impulse to tell my mother to back off and leave me be. "All right," I agreed.
After a quick detour to Woolworths so I could buy a new notepad, along with a trip to the bakery to grab an early lunch, Tyson dropped us at the train station on the other side of town. "D'you want me to pick you up on Monday arvo?" he asked once Kirrily and I had unloaded our gear from the back of his car.
"You don't mind?" Kirrily asked.
Tyson shook his head. "Nah, s'all good," he said, sounding almost dismissive. "You just drop me a text when you're leaving Wollongong to come back here, and I'll be waiting here to pick you up when your train gets in."
"Awesome. Thanks for the lift Tys."
Before Tyson drove away from the kerb, I rapped on the front passenger window with my knuckles to get Tyson's attention. "Thanks for the ride, Tyson," I said once the window had been lowered and he was looking at me.
"No worries, Nat," he said, and tipped the brim of an imaginary hat before driving off.
The train we were to catch to Sydney was already sitting alongside the platform, so once Kirrily and I had bought our tickets we boarded and found somewhere to sit. As soon as we'd situated ourselves, and had piled our gear within arm's reach, Kirrily pulled her iPod case out of her handbag.
"Right then, you reckon you don't know anything about Frequency," she said, and I nodded. "Tell me you've at least heard of Eskimo Joe and End Of Fashion, then?"
"Of course I know who they are," I replied, feeling a little indignant.
"Good, because Frequency sound a lot like those two bands. They even opened for Eskimo Joe during their Inshalla tour a couple of years back." She pulled the elastic strap from around her iPod case and unrolled it, taking her iPod out of the middle pocket. A set of earphones and a splitter came out of the right-hand pocket. "Did you bring your earphones?" she asked, and I nodded before going to dig around in my handbag for them, handing them over once I'd untangled their cord from between the bristles of my hairbrush. "Right then, there's four of them - two guys, two girls - and they're from up Brissie way." This was said as Kirrily hooked my earphones up to the splitter. "Two lead vocalists, guitar, drums, piano and bass. Pretty standard lineup. Taylor and Morgan - they're the lead singers - split the songs they take vocals on more or less straight down the middle, though that really depends on the show or album in question."
By the time Kirrily had sorted her iPod out and found the playlist she was after, the train had started trundling its way up the railway track toward Wollongong. I settled back into my seat and watched the scenery pass by, thinking.
I had been to quite a few concerts in my time. It was one of the few ways my parents had of getting me out of the house unless I was going to school or to see my doctor, especially once I'd turned eighteen and could get into club and pub shows. I had lost count of the number of Thursday mornings my mother had slipped me a $20 note, told me to flick through the Illawarra Mercury to see if there were any bands I was even remotely interested in seeing live, and sent my older brother and I off up to Towradgi or Thirroul for a night out. Going to Sydney for a concert was a rarity - I could count on one hand the number of bands I had seen play a show up that way. It definitely wasn't my first choice for a night out.
You are going to enjoy this, I told myself. You are going to go to that concert tomorrow night and jump around in the moshpit like a woman possessed, and on Sunday night you and Kirrily are going to go out to dinner and then hit the clubs for the night. Almost as if it hadn't quite sunk in properly, I repeated to myself, You will enjoy it, or no chocolate for two weeks. Got that, Natalie?
My inner voice snickered, and I bit back a smile. I was beginning to think this weekend away up in Sydney wasn't going to be so bad after all.
Midway through the next afternoon, I eyed my appearance in the bathroom mirror. It had been a somewhat busy day - Kirrily and I had spent the morning wandering around Paddy's Markets, and after lunch at the McDonald's in Haymarket we had returned to the hotel to begin getting ready for the concert. Having been in the moshpit quite a few times, and knowing what I was more than likely in for, I'd opted to dress sensibly - jeans, bright red singlet top with a lacy black blouse over the top, and my well-worn army boots. My hair was done up in two neat plaited pigtails, laying across my shoulders. I wasn't out to impress anyone, so comfort and practicality was the order of the evening.
Deciding I was satisfied with my appearance, I picked up my comb and spare elastic bands from the vanity and exited the bathroom. Kirrily was already dressed in her concert outfit, similar to my own except she wore sneakers on her feet and a black T-shirt with a very intricate Celtic design printed in silver on the front. Her dyed-red curls had been pulled back off her face under a black bandanna. She sat on her bed, digging through her handbag, and looked up when I whistled at her. "Oh good, you're ready to go then?" she asked, and I nodded. "Awesome."
"So how are we supposed to be getting there again?" I asked as Kirrily zipped up her handbag.
"The bus," she replied. "Hayley's meeting us in the Entertainment Quarter for dinner at a quarter past five, and the meet and greet's at six-thirty." She glanced quickly at her watch. "The bus we're catching leaves from Druitt Street just before twenty-five to, so we should probably make a move now. Don't want to be late."
One bus trip through the Sydney CBD and into the suburbs later, Kirrily and I got off the bus at Moore Park. My watch read 16:51 as we stepped out onto the footpath that ran alongside Anzac Parade. "It's not too far from here I don't think," Kirrily was saying as we walked quickly across Moore Park in the general direction of the Entertainment Quarter. "She texted me earlier, said she was waiting outside Mi Piace."
I tapped Kirrily on the shoulder so that she looked back at me. "That sounds Italian," I said, miming twirling spaghetti around an invisible fork to get my point across.
"It is Italian so far as I know," she said with a shrug. "But I've never been there before - it was Hayley who suggested it, and she said it's pretty good. Hope she's right."
Waiting outside a tall building on Bent Street, not far from the Hoyts cinema, was a woman who looked very much like Kirrily - Hayley, I figured. One of the few differences between them, so far as I could see, was that her hair was dark where Kirrily's was close to fire engine red. I was proved right when Kirrily called out.
"Hey Hayles!" Kirrily yelled across the street. The mystery woman looked up from her brief rummage through her handbag, and through the late afternoon sun I saw her grin.
"Hey Lee," she said once we were in earshot. The two of them embraced quickly. "It's good to see you again."
"It's good to see you too, Hayley." Kirrily nodded to me. "Hayley, this is my friend Natalie Bryant - Nat, this is my cousin Hayley Rossiter."
"It's nice to meet you, Natalie," Hayley said, extending a hand. I shook it quickly with a smile, one that Hayley mirrored. "Well then, shall we? They're nice and quick here, so if we're lucky we can be done with dinner and over at the Hordern by a quarter past six."
"And it's Italian, right?" Kirrily asked as we walked into the restaurant.
"Yep," Hayley confirmed with a nod. "Very good Italian, as it happens. Bloody expensive, though."
"I can imagine," Kirrily said softly. She sounded just a little worried.
"It's my treat, Lee," Hayley said, her tone reassuring. "Least I can do, seeing as you bought my ticket for me. That goes for you too, Natalie."
We were seated quickly and handed a menu each, and almost right away I dug my new notepad and pen out of my handbag. I had a feeling it was going to get a workout just during dinner. I flipped through my menu one-handed and tapped on the cover of my notepad with the cap of my pen as I tried to decide what I wanted for my dinner.
"So how do you and Kirrily know each other?" Hayley asked me.
Without even missing a beat I flipped my notepad open, uncapped my pen and scrawled out my answer, showing her the page when I was done. High school. Met on the first day of Year 10.
I didn't miss the way Hayley looked at Kirrily when I'd written out my answer. She raised an eyebrow and not-so-subtly nodded toward me. "Nat's not a talker," Kirrily explained. "Not in the traditional sense of the word, anyway. Give her half a chance though and she'll sign until her hands cramp up." Out of the corner of my eye I saw Kirrily glance at me, and she gave a minute nod. With my elbows braced against the table, and doing my best to keep myself from grinning, I signed out one of my favourite jokes. I could hear Kirrily doing her best to keep from laughing as I 'spoke'.
"And what does that mean exactly?" Hayley asked as I finished telling the joke and a waitress came up to our table.
"I'll tell you later," Kirrily said. "It's not really a joke that should be told in polite company."
Once we had given our dinner orders to the waitress - pasta for both Hayley and Kirrily, and my risotto - Kirrily leaned down to her right side and lifted her handbag into her lap. After a quick root around inside she found the envelope she had brought to my house with her the morning before.
"I've got our tickets in here," she said. "I can hang onto them until we're done with dinner, or we can each take our own ticket and try our best not to lose them between here and going into the Hordern. It's up to you guys."
"I think I can keep an eye on mine," Hayley said dryly, and I nodded my agreement. Kirrily opened the envelope and took out two of the tickets, handing one to Hayley and the other to me. The text on the front was fairly standard as far as concert tickets went.
Not wanting to misplace my ticket before I even had a chance to use it, I picked up my own handbag and took out my wallet, slipping my ticket into the compartment I usually reserved for old train tickets and ATM receipts.
"How is the meet and greet supposed to work, anyway?" Hayley asked as Kirrily put her handbag back down on the floor.
"Well-" Kirrily broke off as our waitress came back to the table and set out plates. I was secretly very impressed - it hadn't even been ten minutes since our orders had been taken. "Thank you," she said to the waitress. "As I was saying, one of the tour promoters gave me a bell a couple of days ago and let me know what we're supposed to do. There's going to be this great long line of people waiting to get in - we get to bypass that and go straight into the Hordern. The meet and greet itself will be in the Hordern's foyer - we will have fifteen minutes to have our CDs or whatever signed and a few photographs taken, then we have to go back outside and wait with everyone else for the doors to officially open."
"So pretty painless then," Hayley concluded.
"More or less, yeah," Kirrily said with a nod.
As predicted, my notepad got a decent workout during dinner. I scribbled with my right hand and ate my dinner with my left, with both Kirrily and Hayley including me in their conversation. It was a nice change from how things had been at TAFE - the group I had found myself sitting with almost by default had seemed to forget most of the time that I didn't talk, and I'd never been able to get a word in edgewise.
All too soon it seemed, we were leaving the restaurant and heading over to the Hordern. Just as we stepped onto the footpath outside the venue, Kirrily started digging through her handbag again. "What are you hunting for now?" Hayley asked her.
"Our meet and greet passes," Kirrily replied. "There's no way we're getting in early without them, and I have a feeling one or both of you would deck me right now if it turned out I left them at home." She finally found a long white envelope at the bottom of her bag, identical to the one our tickets had come in, and unsealed it. "You guard these with your lives," she said half-jokingly. "There are more than a few girls and guys over there" she nodded toward the long, orderly line of people that snaked almost halfway down the road in front of the concert venue "who would kill to get their hands on them. They'd be worth quite a bit on eBay as you can probably guess." She took the passes from their envelope - they were laminated pieces of paper about the size of a credit card with Frequency - Hordern Pavilion - 18/09/11 typed on them in black, each attached to a black lanyard - and handed one each to Hayley and I. The third she kept for herself, looping it over her head and freeing her hair from beneath the lanyard. I put my own on before following Kirrily and Hayley.
Inside the Hordern itself it was almost peaceful compared to the noise from the crowd outside. The doors that would soon be opening onto the concert hall were tightly closed, but I could hear Birds Of Tokyo drifting out into the foyer. It made me smile a little - clearly someone in either Dating The Enemy or Frequency had excellent taste in music. The merchandise table was in the process of being set up, and I found myself itching to break my debit card out of my wallet and go crazy buying just about everything I could afford. I managed to resist the temptation - there was no telling if I was actually going to like either band, and it would have been a complete waste of money if it turned out I didn't.
"Is it just us?" Hayley asked in a low voice.
"I think so," Kirrily replied. Before she could say much more, the hall's doors opened and the chorus of Wild At Heart came blasting out on the heels of a group of two guys and two girls. I unconsciously stood up straighter - the absolute last thing I wanted to do right now was make an arse of myself. Hayley and Kirrily immediately began rooting around in their handbags, with Kirrily unearthing her camera and a CD inlay booklet and Hayley digging up a DVD case. I kept my hands firmly in my pockets, having brought nothing I wanted to have signed. This was Hayley and Kirrily's moment, anyway - it wasn't mine. I kept my distance as the two of them got their autographs and had photographs taken with the band, not wanting to intrude.
"Bit overwhelming, isn't it?"
The voice had come from my right. I looked over to see a tall guy dressed in jeans, black T-shirt, hoodie and sneakers leaning against the front of the merchandise table, his elbows braced behind him so that he stayed more or less upright. He had his light brown hair pulled back into a low ponytail at the back of his head, and when he looked at me I let out a low mental whistle of awe. His eyes were the brightest blue I had seen in a long while.
Deciding I had better answer his question, I nodded. He seemed to understand, giving me a sympathetic smile in return. "Are you with them?" he asked, gesturing toward Kirrily and Hayley, and I nodded again. "Not much of a talker, are you?"
I shook my head, before digging my notepad out of my handbag and flipping it open to a new page. I don't talk but I sign, I scrawled out. I glanced up from my notepad just in time to see him turning to face me fully, and I got my first proper look at the front of his shirt. In bold white lowercase lettering it read i void warranties. I like your shirt, I added, before showing him what I'd just written.
"Oh, I see," he said, before grinning. "And thank you."
You're welcome. Almost as an afterthought, I added, My name's Natalie Bryant.
"Well, Natalie, it's nice to meet you," he said with another smile. "My name's Taylor Hanson."
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