Blackwood

[queeniegalore]

 

“Don’t answer it.”

The roar of the crowd wasn’t enough to drown out the buzzing of Jay’s phone, the hoarse, desperate whisper as his brother looked down and saw who it was.

“But it’s just Mum,” Jay started, and Noah leaned closer, made to snatch the phone out of Jay’s hand and stopped himself.

“Jay-Jay.”

The buzzing stopped, Jay’s phone going dark, and they both let out a breath. He didn’t get it. “Noah, why-”

The phone rang again, mum flashing insistently on the screen, and as Noah’s leaned in in panic, Jay pressed the button and put it to his ear.

“Hey Mum, we’re just about to go on stage. What’s up?”

#

“We’ll be famous one day,” Noah whispered. “I swear to fucking god, Jay.”

Jay, all of twelve years old, hunching over his bass and rubbing his newly formed calluses over the thick strings, looked up through his hair at his brother. Noah was standing in the middle of the room glaring fiercely at the door, the guitar hanging loosely at his waist at odds with the tension vibrating through his body.

Adam was arguing with their mother again, about joining the Army, how it would help with finances, help take pressure off her. Their mother didn’t want him to go, but he’d already applied without telling her and their screams were gonna bring the roof down on their heads, Jay thought, and bury them all.

“Yeah, Noah,” he murmured. His hand ached. Sometimes he felt like his body was growing too quickly, bones and joints creaking and stretching in ways he couldn’t keep up with, even when Noah tsked at him and helped him rub in the Deep Heat on the nights he couldn’t sleep for the pain. They’d stay up together, hiding under the blankets from Adam and their mother, sharing headphones as Noah rambled about all the bands he was discovering, the different types of music, what their band name would be, how rich they would be. How they’d escape Geelong, if it was the last thing they did.

“Hey, I can’t get that bassline, show me again,” Jay added, and watched Noah watch the door for a moment more before shaking himself, turning towards his brother and settling next to him on the couch, too close, so their guitars bumped and got in the way. The sound of the argument didn’t fade, but Noah was back with him, now. They could ignore it better together.

#

 

When they were children, Jay followed Noah everywhere.

There were three years between them, but it didn’t matter to Jay. As soon as he could walk, he would toddle along after his big brother insistently, sleeping curled up in his bed, crying when they had to be separated, cheering whenever Noah got home from the long, impossible six hours he had to be at school. Noah put up with it gracefully, mostly because Adam - five years older than Noah and already off doing his own thing - wouldn’t have much to do with him at that age. Jay was small and pliable, and could be convinced to get into mischief, because to Jay, Noah’s word was law.

“You do what mummy tells you,” their mother would exclaim in frustration, “Not Noah!”

It never stuck.

They were best friends, and Jay’s worship of Noah was sweet and uncomplicated, something Noah accepted with benevolence. He was already charismatic, dangerously so according to: his mother, his teachers, the girls at school whose hearts he started to break early and often. Jay never lost the habit of following him around, but Noah stopped merely tolerating it. Jay’s love was simple, his enthusiasm for Noah’s ideas enthusiastic and genuine. And somewhere in Noah’s heart, Jay knew, he believed that such worship was his due - not that he was malicious about it, no, it was just a sense of supreme self-confidence. The world was his for the taking, full of people who were in awe of his beauty, his smile, his way with words, and it was his younger brother who was partly responsible for instilling that confidence in him. Jay would have walked off a cliff for Noah. And Noah knew this, but importantly, Noah would never ask.

 

#

 

“We’re on for Saturday night, Jay! At the Richmond!”

A frisson of fear and excitement wormed through Jay’s veins, crackling in his fingertips. “The Richmond?”

“Yeah, it’s a hole but it’s a start, Jay-Jay.” Noah’s grin made his eyes crinkle, cut dimples deep into his cheeks. He looked so happy that Jay batted his nerves aside and smiled back.

“Will they even, like, let me in?”

Noah laughed. “As long as mum comes, I already asked her, she said it’s cool. Our first gig!”

Jay shook his head, and then yelled as Noah scooped him up, lifting him in the air and shaking him around. At fifteen, Jay was going through another growth spurt, gangly limbs, big hands and feet, flailing around after his brother. He let himself be held for a moment before squirming away, Noah’s hand roughing up his messy hair.

“We’re gonna get outta here, my boy,” Noah whispered fiercely in Jay’s ear and Jay was helpless to do anything but grin back at him, let himself be swept along in the wake of his brother’s dreams. Adam was long enlisted, and their mother alternated between sadness and anger, working two jobs to keep the lights on, letting Noah carry the bulk of the burden of looking after Jay. In that regard, anyway, not much had changed.

But getting out of there, that was the dream. Fame, fortune…it all came second to the two of them escaping, for Noah. And Noah had decided they were gonna do it with their guitars and their voices.

“Can’t wait, Noah. Oh my god, I can’t wait.”

 

#

 

“AUSTRALIAN YOUNGSTERS TOP CHART WITH SURPRISE HIT”

“BLACKWOOD’S FIRST ALBUM TAKES WORLD BY STORM”

“DIRTY, GRUNGY AND GENIUS – FROM BOY WONDERS TO ROCK DARLINGS”

“BLACKWOOD TALK TOURING, RECORDING, AND DEALING WITH THE SPOTLIGHT”

#

 

They made it.

Blackwood made it big just before Jay’s seventeenth birthday. At seventeen and a half, he was high on cocaine and having sex with a stranger in a supermodel's spare bedroom.

The girl wasn't a model herself – she was a publicist or a PA or maybe just a receptionist at some record company, lucky enough to score an invite to the party – but she was older than Jay, and Jay thought she might be the most beautiful woman on the planet. All women were beautiful to him then, especially the ones who wanted him, or were happy to settle for the baby of the band, the bassist, the little brother who never made the magazine covers.

Noah was probably having sex with the supermodel, and that was okay.

To Jay, that was okay.

Every woman was the most beautiful woman in the world, and every woman wanted his brother first, because Noah was beautiful too. Noah never lost his charisma, his talent for making people love him, bend to his will, look past his flaws and want to do anything to make him happy. Noah stood in the spotlight with his sad eyes and his perfect hair and bled his soul into the microphone, flayed his skin open on his guitar, bared himself to the world, and in return, the world gave him – them – anything they wanted. Fame came first, then money, women, tours, magazines and interviews and cameras following them around, invitations from models and pop stars and actors, drugs and drink, far away from home, no mother to watch them, no Adam to keep them in line. Just Jay and Noah, their bandmates a part of them but not really of them. Noah and Jay, and Noah was supposed to be looking out for Jay, but Jay was seventeen and a half and even out of his mind on drugs and sex he knew something between them was changing, some dynamic shifting. Jay was starting to realise that there was no one to look after Noah, and Noah…was spiraling.

 

#

 

Rolling Stone: What was it like, finding fame so young?

Noah Byrne: Oh, you know, it was fun. We had a blast in those early days, everything was so weird and new, you know? We wanted to try everything.

RS: Did you get into any mischief?

NB: (laughs) Nah, I had to take care of my little brother. He wasn’t even allowed in the bars we started playing at without our mum there. And when we started touring, I had to look out for him, keep him out of trouble.

RS: Jay? Anything to say about that?

Jay Byrne: Oh, yeah, nah…I don’t know what I would have done without Noah, hey. He’s looked after me since I was little. Keeps after me, you know.

RS: You just turned eighteen. Was it nice to be able to go out by yourself?

JB: Oh, I haven’t tried yet, hey (laughs). Happy to just stick with Noah. Someone’s gotta keep an eye on him too, sometimes (both laugh).

RS: There’s a third brother, right?

NB: Uh, yeah, our big brother Adam. He’s actually in the Army.

JB: He’s got a real job, hey, he doesn’t bother with us (more laughter).

 

#

 

On the tour bus, in the middle of an empty stretch of English countryside, Noah waited until everyone but the driver was asleep before crawling into Jay’s bunk, and for that at least Jay was grateful, even as he had to shift uncomfortably to fit the bulk of his brother’s shoulders, his bony arms. Jay settled the blankets over them both and sighed as he smelled vodka and chocolate on Noah’s breath.

“You okay?” he whispered, knowing the answer, and Noah let out a soft moan.

“Why’d I get drunk on my own on a tour bus on the way to nowhere?” he asked wretchedly. Jay closed his eyes, let the fingers of one hand tangle in his brother’s dark curls.

“I don’t know, Noah,” he murmured. He was terrified, Noah sounded miserable, and Jay was thrust back into their childhood, into the nights spent under their covers dreaming of the future, dreaming of this moment. “Why do you do anything?”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” Noah muttered, and Jay nodded, Noah’s head closer, to rest against his shoulder. He didn’t want Noah to feel him shaking, but he also didn’t want to let Noah go, not like this. What do I do, he wondered, helpless, staring into the dark of the bunk. How do I take care of him?

It was an inconvenient time to go to rehab, was Noah’s reasoning. They had just started a big tour, an important tour, the biggest and longest they’d ever done. They’d been called the saviours of rock ‘n roll, they were all over the internet, they were on the covers of all the music magazines that were still around. When they finished touring, before the next album, if he needed help then he could get it. He still made it on stage every night, playing his guitar perfectly and hitting every note. Still charmed the press and made the groupies swoon, still took care of business. He was only a mess on his own time, he insisted, and sometimes Jay’s. It wasn’t affecting the band.

As far as Jay was concerned, Noah was the band.

Noah snuggled in closer and slung an arm around Jay’s waist, Jay automatically moving to accommodate him. They’d spent a lot of their lives sharing beds, bunks, couches, it was as natural as breathing, even if he didn’t think the others would understand. No one else had to understand, anyway. They were just...them.

“Do you hate me?”

“Noah,” Jay whispered. “Go to sleep. You’re drunk.”

They were heading to Glastonbury. Blackwood were one of the youngest headliners ever, and there was going to be press, journalists, photographers, all panting after Noah, wanting him to put on a show. Even hungover, Ray-Bans firmly in place, Noah would oblige. What happened in the dark of the tour bus, alone together, stayed there. Noah would put on a show and Jay would shrink back into his shadow, into the role of the baby brother, and pretend that he never had to worry about Noah at all.

“I’m sorry, Jay-Jay.”

Don’t be sorry. Jay thought back to Noah teaching him how to play bass, putting his fingers in the right positions, yelling at Adam to let them have another half hour of practice before they started their homework. Thought of him putting on a Nirvana record for him, staring at him with bright blue eyes as he waited for Jay to react. Thought of how angry he’d get, at their mother, at their brother, at the dad they hardly remembered, dead somewhere in Afghanistan. Thought of the way he used to be able to bring Noah back to himself, when he got lost in his own quiet fury, or his own self-importance.

Don’t be sorry, Noah. Just be okay.

Streetlights flowed past them, bathing the bunk in a slow strobe of sodium white, as the bus passed through a town. The next day they had the biggest show of their life, and all Jay wanted was for his brother to be back with him. Just that.

 

#

 

The kick drum from the band on stage was taking over Jay’s heartbeat, thrumming through his blood and vibrating his bones, and he found himself running jittery scales up and down his bass without being conscious of it, transferring his nerves to the strings, trying to work them out of his body.

Thirty minutes until show-time, and he wondered if it was possible to have a heart attack at eighteen.

Backstage at Glastonbury festival was a sprawling outdoor area, picnic tables arrayed around on fake turf, an open bar for the bands and their crews, media stations dotted around the place. The rest of his band were off…carousing, partying, whatever they did. Noah was off doing press, thought maybe he was supposed to also be doing press, but he could hardly speak for nerves, knew he’d just come across dumb and tongue tied, as usual. That was fine. Noah was sober enough today, though viciously hungover. The media only really wanted him, anyway, and yeah, that was fine. Jay was happy in the little semi-private area he’d found, curled up on a couch alone where he could watch what was happening without being part of it. No one approached him, either they didn’t know who he was, or they were too cool to bother.

Like a genie summoned with a thought, Noah appeared out of nowhere and flung himself dramatically onto the couch next to Jay. He smelled, Jay was relieved to note, like sweat and cologne and Red Bull. None of the liquor from the night before lingered, although the Ray-Bans stayed on.

“Jay-Jay,” he said, the torn velvet of his voice dragging across Jay’s jangling nerves. “Jay, god, I think I’m gonna throw up.”

He looked as supremely unbothered as he ever did, and Jay rolled his eyes.

“No, you're not,” he murmured.

Noah shrugged, sipped at his Red Bull.

“Well,” he said, smiling. “Probably not.”

Noah wasn't going to throw up, Jay knew, because he never got nervous before shows, not even when they were starting out, though he pretended for Jay’s sake, and for the melodrama. I almost threw up before our first gig, he'd told a magazine recently, and Jay had been thrust back into the memory of that gleeful teenaged Noah doing excited laps around the Richmond, sticky floors and rickety pool tables and all, while Jay sat silently and trembled, clutching his bass with shaking hands and watching his big brother get the zoomies like a cat. Right Jay?

I have no memory of that first gig, I was scared shitless, Jay had lied ruefully, and the magazine guy had laughed, and his brother had twinkled his blue eyes at him approvingly. He hadn’t needed to say anything for the rest of the interview, riding high on making Noah smile.

“There are a lot of people out there, though,” Noah continued, and he was trying to sound apprehensive, but Jay could hear the satisfaction in his voice. So many people out there for them. For Noah.

“You’re gonna make me puke if you don’t shut up, man,” Jay complained softly, and then grinned as Noah pounced, pulling him into a hug, shaking him by the back of the neck a little.

“Loosen up, Jay-Jay,” he smiled. “Hey, we’re good, right?”

“Far from Geelong as we’re ever gonna get,” Jay said, and watched as Noah beamed. They were gonna get fucked up after the show, Jay knew. Noah and some of the guys from the other bands, they had standing invitations to parties, and even though Jay had quietly stopped doing coke when he realised how bad his brother was getting, he knew he’d join in. Knew it was going to be crazy and, ultimately, after the high of being on stage, meaningless.

Between them, half wedged between the cushions of the couch, Jay’s phone started ringing.

“Don’t answer it.”

The roar of the crowd wasn’t enough to drown out the buzzing of Jay’s phone, the hoarse, desperate whisper as his brother looked down and saw who it was.

“But it’s just Mum,” Jay started, and Noah leaned closer, made to snatch the phone out of Jay’s hand and stopped himself.

“Jay-Jay.”

The buzzing stopped, Jay’s phone going dark, and they both let out a breath. He didn’t get it. “Noah, why-”

The phone rang again, mum flashing insistently on the screen, and as Noah leaned in in panic, Jay pressed the button and put it to his ear.

“Hey Mum, we’re just about to go on stage. What’s up?”

“Where’s Noah? He hung up on me, have you spoken to him?”

“He’s right here, mum, what’s going on?”

“It’s Adam, didn’t he tell you? It’s Adam, there’s been an accident, you need to come home right now.”

Noah had taken off his sunglasses, eyes intent on Jay, slowly shaking his head. He really did look, now, like he was going to throw up.

“An accident – what? What happened, is he okay?”

“In a coma, we don’t know, the doctors won’t say if he’ll wake up, you need to come home, baby. You and Noah-”

The bottom fell out of Jay’s stomach. His mother was crying, and Noah’s eyes were wet and red-rimmed. Adam in a coma, and Noah knew. Had been about to let Jay go on stage, when he knew.

“After the show,” Noah whispered, quiet enough that their mother wouldn’t hear. “Jay-Jay, please. After the show.”

His nose was running. He’d taken a bump, Jay realised, as if in a daze, before the show. That…that hadn’t happened before.

“Jay? Jacob, are you there?”

Noah took his hand, squeezed, let their calluses catch and rub together. Noah, his Noah, who’d taken care of him, who’d protected him, given him the world on a platter and then crumbled right in front of him. Who’d lied.

“Please.”

“Yeah, mum,” Jay said slowly, and squeezed his brother’s hand back. “Yeah, yeah of course. Of course we’ll come home.”