The Candle Dancer / The Way That You Found Me by Patrick Holland Read Free Book Online

into the ute and drove off. And so we lost our drummer—and without Benjy there was no ‘we’ anymore.
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    Dad found me later, still teary, sitting slumped against the garage door with my head in my hands.
    ‘Let’s go for a bite, honey,’ he urged, after listening to my woes. ‘My treat.’
    So we went to Milk. I let him order chops and peas and mash for us both. I felt too heartsick to want food but I couldn’t bear to disappoint him too.
    I chewed slowly.
    Over and over, I saw the ute doors closing over the drum kit. I kept seeing the back of Benjy’s massive head in the front seat, the exhaust pipe puffing as it accelerated out of the driveway and disappeared from view, taking Benjy and the drums, the love and the rhythm. Potato slid in a sticky, half-masticated mash down my throat. I wrestled manfully with the chops before I gave up and pushed the plate aside.
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    XI.
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    Doll and Richard got back together, and she kept sending me invitations to meet them for drinks. She had some idea of us as a foursome. I never wanted to see Richard again but I was running out of excuses: soon I’d be forced into honesty.
    Besides, I was losing my allure for Carl. With the band gone, I had no excuse to wear a leather jumpsuit with my cleavage showing. Or maybe it was the smell of salami that followed me home from the delicatessen where I was working longer hours. Three weeks after the band broke up, he sent me a text: ‘It’s been great Suzy, but it’s time to move on. I’m sure you’ll get tired of
me sooner or later, so better to quit while we are ahead. Let’s stay friends, love Carl. xxx ’
    And a smiley face. Unbelievable. I started stabbing in a reply and then gave up and rang him:
    ‘You drop me in a text message?’ I screamed.
    He hung up.
    As I was jogging over to the dental clinic to confront Carl, I realised I couldn’t hold onto the anger because I didn’t want to be with him either. By the time I’d waited half an hour for him to be finished with his patient there wasn’t much of the feeling left, especially having expended so much energy washing the smell of cold cuts off my hands in the clinic’s bathroom. When Nurse Lin told me I could go in, I found Carl washing his own hands.
    ‘I’m sorry Suzy, I shouldn’t have done that,’ he said, quick to get in the first word. He picked up a towel and rubbed. ‘But at least I’ve got the guts to be talking to you now. Right?’
    ‘It’s not like I’m very scary,’ I said, and sat down on Nurse Lin’s stool, not wanting to sit on the dentist’s chair where our romance had begun.
    ‘Are you very upset?’
    I shrugged. ‘Maybe I was more angry at the text than anything else.’
    ‘Sorry,’ he said. He seemed to be holding his breath. I realised he was simply waiting for this unpleasant moment to be over.
    ‘At least now I’ve got a genuine excuse to give to Doll. She wanted us to go out as a foursome. But I didn’t want to go out with Richard,’ I said, taking pity on Carl and getting up again.
    ‘I would never have gone out with that drug-dealer scumbag.’
    ‘A dealer? Isn’t he some sort of banker?’
    ‘You’re pretty naïve, for a rock-n-roll chick,’ said Carl. ‘I thought you were tougher and cooler than you are. But then, I guess, it was just a cover band. You’re still a wannabe.’
    ‘Well, thanks for pointing that out, Carl. I must be the only wannabe who
is also a has-been.’
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    XII.
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    Doll’s grandmother Lotta let me in when I finally went to visit, telling me in a noisy whisper:
    ‘He no good. He no eat. Tell him he must eat.’
    Lotta had the same dark eyes that sloped upwards, the same fine nose and attractive lips as Doll, but she was as small and round as Doll was tall and thin. When Doll and I we were first friends I’d visited often, drinking Lotta’s hot chocolate thickened with cornstarch and eating fresh churros so floury they sucked all the moisture from my mouth.
    ‘I will. Of course I