CHAPTER 36

The car emerged from the tunnel onto the freeway, heading north to the Gosford turn-off, where it would exit and fishhook back south to Bullford Point. Barb had been talking about her husband leaving her in a factual, almost matter-of-fact, tone that to Seb sounded manufactured, as if she was keeping a tight leash on her feelings in case they escaped.

It had been a long day, but Seb would be home in a hour. There must be some sport on telly, surely? Commentary down, Spotify on shuffle. A quiet beer. Bliss.

‘Shall we listen to more of Joe’s podcast?’ asked Barb, another of her statements disguised as a question.

‘I’m kind of tired.’ He had spent enough of today in the past. Every time Sal’s name had been mentioned, it was like being jolted by unexpected turbulence.

Barb was already opening the laptop. ‘Look at it this way. As soon as I press “play” I’ll stop talking. I’ve listened to a bit of it. I think he’s cut up the interviews he did and put all the bits into chronological order. And if you’re wondering how I got into his computer, his password was in a note on his phone. And if you’re wondering how I got into his phone … well, as you know, I’m quite observant. This bit is titled: “Bullford Point Rough Edit”. You’ll hear yourself!’

Seb wasn’t sure what to say to all that.

JOE: First time I met Sal was in high school, in Year 8, when she and her mum moved to Bullford Point. She was this small girl with glasses and blond hair. We caught the bus to Kincumber High every day together. Year 8 is a hard time to come, because everyone is concreted into groups and terrified of making the wrong move socially. We didn’t exactly reach out to new kids. But Sal didn’t do what every other new kid did and desperately try to attach themselves to any group that would have her. She sat alone, and somehow didn’t look like a loser. She made sitting alone look cool. Soon, people started asking her to sit with them.

She was pretty, but it wasn’t her looks that got everyone’s attention. It was her personality and energy. She always had this thing that made people want to be around her. She was popular, but unlike the rest of us, she didn’t seek it. People just wanted to hang with her. She had this ease and confidence that every teenager tries to put on, but not many have. I certainly didn’t.

Her enthusiasm, for everything from bushwalking to music to dancing, dragged everyone along with her. We all kind of forgot about trying to be world weary and cool, and just went with whatever she suggested, because it felt like you were at the centre of things. If she suggested climbing down to the rocks that ran around Barra Point, then that seemed like the best thing to be doing. If anyone else suggested it, it’d be like, ‘Nah.’

What is that? Charisma?

LEANNE: I have no idea why everyone always loved Sal so much. No idea. She was just like anyone else, except more irritating because she was so bubbly. Like, shut up now and again.

VIV: For the record, before I start, I still think this is a terrible idea, but I am unwillingly doing it to support my brother, Joe.

JOE: Thank you, Viv. Tell us your first impression of Sal when she moved to Bullford Point.

VIV: She was quite short and slim, but very outgoing and confident. I was two years older than her and you, so I didn’t have much to do with her at school, but she lived just up the hill, and there was a group of us who all caught the bus together and hung out on weekends. She quickly became a part of the group. More than me, actually.

GARY: I lived near her and we would walk to and from the bus every day. She was super easy to talk to, really interesting, smart. Every week she had a new hobby or interest.

DEV: She was very talented, but dreamy. She was good at most things, but flitted from one to another. One week she loved netball, the next week sewing, the next painting. She could have been really good at any of them, but kept losing interest. Very frustrating for those of us with less natural talent. Until music. That stuck. She was good at guitar and piano, and wrote lovely melodies, with really clever lyrics. Well, I assumed they were clever. I didn’t understand a lot of them. I’m not really a lyrics person.

Anyway, everyone liked Sal. Students, teachers, parents, everyone. When we were younger we all liked her as a friend. As we got older things got more complicated.

JOE: Sal and I got closer through music. When I was eleven I picked up an old guitar at home and taught myself from an app. I used to play whenever I was bored or pissed off, which was a lot, and before too long I would dangle my feet off our jetty, work out how to play songs I liked, and even write my own. Bad ones, obviously, especially the words.

Sal and I talked music on the bus sometimes. She had a piano at home and her mum taught her. She suggested we try to write a song together, so I went over and we did. I showed her some chords on my guitar, she asked her mum to buy her one, and she was away. We kept writing together and it kind of worked. I had rhythm, she had melody. We helped each other.

It was all about the music for a long time. Even when it became about more than that, the music was still a big part of it. Maybe that’s why I’m not into playing anymore.

At the end of Year 10 she suggested we try to get a band together.

SEB: I always found her easy to talk to. She was small, but full of beans. She was always getting excited about something, and somehow, before too long, she managed to get everyone else excited about it, too. That’s how the band started. Her idea, then a few weeks later, it was real. We were in a band.

She was naïve in a way. She had this power to galvanise people, but she never tried to exploit it. In fact, I think it made her feel uncomfortable.

GARY: Sal was not unaware of what a heat bead she was. She knew that if she suggested something and pushed it, most would follow. Maybe it was a natural thing for her and she took it for granted, but to suggest she had no idea is somewhat disingenuous in my view.

VIV: When Sal wanted something to happen, it happened. She wasn’t forceful or bossy. People just wanted to follow her. I’m kind of the opposite.

JOE: She and I were on guitars. Viv played drums. He had a set of drums in the garage and was always in there, headphones on, playing along to something. He didn’t love groups, though. Never played team sports. Rode his bike and played tennis instead. Singles tennis, not doubles. But I knew how to get him interested.

VIV: Joe said I could leave all the talking to him and just sit up the back and play. I liked playing drums, keeping time, being precise. Drums are the most physically demanding instrument. It’s good exercise. Cycling is good for your lower body, and drumming is good for your upper body, so it was a good balance.

I liked the idea of doing real songs, not just playing along to them. To be honest, it was also a good excuse for me to stay in Bullford Point. I had just finished Year 12 and was supposed to move to Sydney to study law, but the idea of living in a huge city was stressing me out. I didn’t want to go. The band gave me an excuse to stay. I organised all my lectures into two days, and got the train down to Sydney Uni on those days. Fifteen-minute drive to Woy Woy station, an hour and a quarter later I’m there.

Also, if I’m honest, being around people often made me uncomfortable and I thought being in the band might help me learn how to get a bit better at being in a group. I could sit at the back, I knew the other people, Joe would be there.

LEANNE: I was kind of the junior member of the Bullford Point kids, being a year younger. When you asked me to—

JOE: Just say ‘Joe’ like I’m not here.

LEANNE: That’s weird. But fine. When you … sorry. When Joe asked me to join the band I was excited. I’d been playing piano since I was a kid, so I just switched to keyboards.

VIV: I was glad when Leanne joined. Like me, she was a bit of an outsider, and I liked talking to her. She had always liked Joe and had hung around at our place, so to me she was almost like a younger female sibling. Actually, maybe more a cousin.

JOE: I persuaded Sal to play guitar, not keyboards, because it’s more dynamic and she was so charismatic she should be out the front. We had Leanne for keyboards. We needed a bass player and Seb was keen. Bass is super easy to learn.

SEB: Bullford Point is a great place to grow up. Beach, bay, bush, but the fourth ‘B’ is boredom. When you’re a teenager there’s not that much to do, so when I heard about the band I was keen to be a part of it. They needed a bass player, so I said I’d give it a go. Learning bass is hard, but I got up to scratch pretty quick. I was friends with Gary and knew he was a good singer and performer, so I told him about it.

JOE: Our songwriting got better. Sal was a good singer, but I was terrible, and a lot of our songs sounded better with two voices. We asked Gary to join. He had been the lead in the school musical and had a great voice that sounded really good with Sal’s. Plus, he’s a showman. He loves an audience, and audiences love him. When we started getting gigs, just little ones at friends’ parties, he somehow instantly knew how to get the audience going. He had quite the presence, even back then.

GARY: I always knew I wanted to be a performer. I’d starred in a couple of school productions. My Oliver in Oliver! is still talked about in the halls of Kincumber High. (LAUGHS) Seriously, people did like it, and I got the bug. When they asked me to join, it was quite flattering, really. I thought it would be fun.

Sal and my voices sounded good together. She was playing guitar, so I was the frontman. When we started to play to audiences, I loved it.

LEANNE: I felt like I had a bit to prove, being the youngest and knowing that Sal, who, of course, acted like it was her band, could also play keyboards. I worked hard. Harder than I did for school, and I think I won them over. Viv was always really encouraging. Much more than you were. Sorry. Can I rephrase that? I meant, much more than Joe was.

JOE: At first we just jammed in our garage or in the hall. Covers first, but then Sal and I started bringing in our songs.

VIV: I avoided all the group discussions. When the rest of them argued about the best way to play a song, I’d just open my laptop and study.

GARY: The songs Joe and Sal wrote were really good. Sal and I tried writing lyrics together and that worked, too. She’d often have some words that were cerebral, poetic, emotional, and I’d punch them up, add a bit of funny, mould them into something people could connect with and get in their head. For example, ‘Agitated euphoria connects me to us’, which is deep, but not exactly singalong material, became, ‘There’s a buzz in my head. Let’s make it a party.’

SEB: In Year 12, I was a pretty diligent student, but we all made time for practice and gigs. Joe wasn’t fussed about school and Sal seemed to be able to float through anything, although I suspect she worked harder than she let on.

‘That’s the first section,’ said Barb. ‘Was it strange listening to yourself?’

‘Yeah. Very. My voice sounds weird. I thought it was a bit deeper, more, um …’

‘Commanding? Powerful? Everyone thinks that. I used to ring home and if Dennis didn’t pick up, I’d hear my voice on the machine saying, ‘Please leave a message.’ It sounded awful. All thin and weak.’ She grimaced. ‘But I saw you smile a few times while you listened.’

‘Yeah. Some good memories.’

‘The next file is titled: “The Band In Sydney”. Shall we?’

‘Do I have a choice?’

She clicked ‘play’.

SEB: When we finished Year 12, we had to decide if From Afar had been a fun hobby, or we were serious and wanted to keep going. Everyone wanted to keep going, but we’d outgrown Bullford Point. Most of us planned to move to Sydney for study, so we decided to continue the band there.

I did economics, cos … I honestly have no idea why. Seemed sensible, I suppose. Sal was doing arts. Both of us were at Sydney Uni and we found a flat in Newtown. Dev, Gary, Joe and Viv moved into a place in Enmore. It was pretty rundown, but the living room was big enough for us all to cram our gear in and rehearse.

JOE: I was keen to keep the band going, and get out of Bullford Point. They were all going to uni, but that wasn’t for me. I wanted to be a musician. I moved to Sydney and got a job in a pub. Leanne, who still had a year of school left, was pretty pissed off and needed a bit of managing.

LEANNE: I was pissed off you all left me. I thought about leaving school a year early – I wasn’t a great student – but Mum freaked out. You said … Joe said, just get through the year, we won’t replace you, and come join us then. That made me feel a bit better, but it wasn’t a fun year.

VIV: I wasn’t mad about moving to Sydney, but I was going to have more uni days when I had to attend in person, so it made sense. And at least I was living with people I knew. It was a pity Leanne couldn’t come. I felt more on my own in the band without her.

GARY: Sal and I used to talk about how cool it would be to make our living performing and writing. We both really wanted that, much more than the others. We were aware we were talented. We both worked hard, but we knew luck played a huge part. There are a lot of great musicians and comedians working in banks.

Sal tried to play it cool, like she was just going with the flow, but we were both desperately hoping we’d get that one big break. If we did, we were going to make the most of it. I was lucky I got mine. I’m sure that if it weren’t for the tragedy of her death, she would have got hers, too.

SEB: I felt like I was just along for the ride, but Sal was super focused on the band. She wanted playing music to be her job. In fact, she even got me to half believe it could be my job, too, and I was a pretty average bass player. She was such a great songwriter and singer. She would definitely have made it.

JOE: We had been called ‘The Cushions’ because … I don’t know why. Because we couldn’t think of a good name. But we needed something better for Sydney.

SEB: I liked ‘The Blueberries’, but no one else did.

GARY: ‘From Afar’ was my nomination. Sounded deep and meaningful. Meant nothing. Everyone liked it. Or at least liked it better than the other suggestions at the time. We got sick of talking about it and made a decision. From Afar it was.

VIV: I didn’t care what the name was.

SEB: Everyone except Joe was doing uni courses, but none of us loved them. Socially, uni wasn’t the social paradise I thought it would be. It wasn’t that easy to make new friends, but we had each other and the band gave us a focus. It was fun.

GARY: I was studying media and communications at UTS, but I wanted to perform. The band was great, but I wanted more. I started doing stand-up comedy and, to be honest, I kind of took to it. After a few months I was getting paid gigs. Most of it is confidence. Same as being a singer. I was still committed to the band, but now I had two irons in the fire.

SEB: We went and saw Gary do stand-up. He did have a presence. Great rhythm and timing. His material wasn’t fantastic when he started. I remember some story about a cat? Anyway, people wanted to watch him. Over time, his material improved a lot.

DEV: I’d moved to Sydney to study business and marketing, and the band rehearsed at our place. Their songs were great, they were tight, Gary and Sal up front complemented each other really well, Joe played great guitar. I thought they had a chance of making it, I really did, but they had no idea how to market themselves or go about getting gigs. Naïve country kids.

They needed someone to push them. Someone with hustle. I offered to manage them for ten per cent. Back then it was ten per cent of nothing, but I saw it as an investment. If something happened, great, but if it didn’t, I wanted to run my own business and it would be great experience. Plus, I’m not musical at all, and seeing how much fun they were having, I felt a bit left out. Poor me.

SEB: Dev was pretty forceful and bossy, but we needed that. None of us were particularly interested in, or good at, the business side – booking gigs, haggling over pay, getting and moving equipment, organising rehearsals – so to have Dev do it all was fantastic. We were all a bit scared of her, though. Gary nicknamed her ‘El Presidente’, and that caught on. Although we never called her that to her face, obviously.

That year we made real progress. Dev found us a gig at a divey pub in Annandale that led to another one, and so on. Every time we played it went great, and we started to get a following.

Actually, can you edit that ‘El Presidente’ bit out? I think I’m still a bit scared of her.

JOE: You’d see the same faces at our gigs. Like, we had fans! It was amazing. Dev got us more and more gigs, and the more we played the better we got. Sal and I were writing some good songs, and everything was going great. I was starting to wonder if maybe – maybe – we had a shot. Maybe.

VIV: Dev was pretty, um, full on. She pushed us, but I wasn’t overly invested. They all got fired up about which songs to play and how to play them, and even what order to play them in, but I sat all that out. I always assumed it would stay a hobby and then I’d finish uni and become a lawyer. I didn’t want to invest all this hope and end up disappointed. Turned out I was right.

DEV: The band worked well, and I think they respected me. Viv often brought a coffee to rehearsal for me, which was sweet. He brought Sal one, too, sometimes. After we got some gigs happening, the next step was to record some songs and get them out there. They needed to be catchy, obviously.

LEANNE: I played my first gig back with them in Sydney during my HSC. I had four days between exams and thought, ‘Fuck it’. I was going to bomb anyway. It was fantastic to be back and they all liked having me and the keyboards sounded amazing. I think they’d forgotten how much I added. As soon as I did my last exam, I moved down, got a job in a café, and re-joined.

GARY: It was a bit weird having Leanne back at first. We had developed a pretty great sound without keys. At first, she stayed at our place on the couch, because Joe was there. Funnily enough, she was only on the couch for a couple of nights, if you get my drift.

JOE: Okay, you don’t have to be a smart-arse about it.

GARY: I thought you wanted me to talk like you weren’t here. Anyway, that all turned out well. For a while anyway, but you probably don’t want me to go into all that.

JOE: It’s part of the story.

GARY: Well, I’ll let you tell it because you know more about the ins and outs – so to speak – than me.

LEANNE: I was so happy to be back, then you and I got together and that was great.

JOE: Yeah, I mean, it was kind of a casual thing.

LEANNE: Not really.

JOE: It kind of was. Like, we didn’t go out on dates.

LEANNE: We didn’t have to. We were living together. Fuck, you can be a prick. We were together. Don’t try to minimise it so you don’t feel guilty about what you did.

JOE: Sal and I kept writing together, at her place, because Leanne wouldn’t leave us alone at ours. One night it just happened. I didn’t plan it. I knew I liked her, but didn’t think she liked me. Turns out she did. It was confusing at first because of Leanne, but I knew with Sal it was something on a higher level. We decided to keep it secret for a while, until I could sort things out with Leanne.

SEB: I could tell as soon as it happened. Joe looked like he’d won lotto. He was trying to play it cool, but failed completely. Sal was always so natural with what she was feeling, so she couldn’t help showing it, too. It had been coming for a while, anyone could see that. Everyone picked it up pretty quickly. Except Viv, obviously.

But I was worried about Leanne. I knew she’d be devastated.

JOE: It was amazing with Sal. Honestly, when she focused her attention on you … I know people tend to idolise the past, especially first love, especially when the person is dead, but even allowing for all that, it was better than any drug, and I know what I’m talking about there.

LEANNE: You did the dirty on me. That was fucked. Then you were too gutless to tell me.

JOE: I was just trying to work out what—

LEANNE: Don’t give me that shit. I had to ask you about it. Do you have any idea how humiliating that was?

JOE: I should have told you. Sorry.

LEANNE: Fucking a low act.

VIV: When Seb told me about Sal and Joe, I was amazed. Apparently it had been going on for weeks. They were incredible at keeping it secret. I was worried about Leanne. She had seemed upset about something and now I knew what.

DEV: Leanne started turning up late to rehearsal. She was obviously unhappy. I took her aside and said, ‘If we want to be a professional band, we have to act like one.’ She said, ‘Guns N’ Roses weren’t always on time, and they did pretty well.’ As the other girl apart from Sal, I suppose I should have been Leanne’s shoulder to cry on, but we weren’t close. She was younger, less sensible, less reliable. A decent musician, but she didn’t bring much else.

LEANNE: After Joe dumped me, I tried speed for the first time.

DEV: We needed to invest in some recording gear and everyone agreed to pitch in. My plan was to record some stuff at home, get it on YouTube, SoundCloud, Spotify etcetera and see how it went. Build, build, build. But we didn’t have quite the right songs. I wanted the first ones we sent out into the world to be really catchy, so that was up to Sal and Joe. And we needed the songs fast because I’d got us a support for Lite Horse – don’t ask me how! – at the Enmore Theatre.

JOE: How?

DEV: I said not to ask. Let’s just say that if I did sleep with someone to make it happen, he or she was hot. Anyway, Lite Horse were big at the time, and that gig was going to be a great opportunity for us to showcase our material to a new audience, hopefully get some word of mouth and great reviews, and leverage that into Spotify likes. So I kept pushing Sal and Joe to write a catchy hit, but whenever they got together to write songs, they ended up doing something else. (PAUSE) Fucking, that is.

JOE: Christ sake. Didn’t have to say it. Obvious what you meant.

GARY: Dev was putting a lot of pressure on Sal and Joe to write a hit. I think Dev saw From Afar as a way to get rich, more than as a fun thing.

JOE: You did too, didn’t you?

GARY: I wanted to try to make my living performing. Dev wanted to be rich. There’s a difference. I mean, look what she’s doing now. Property developing. High risk, high reward. You have to … wait, she’s negotiating with you, isn’t she? So perhaps I shouldn’t …

JOE: No, go on.

GARY: Well, you have to be ruthless to succeed in that game. You have to be able to convince people to do things that are in your best interests, not theirs.

DEV: After Joe and Sal got together, whenever Sal brought in a new song, Leanne would just play dead on it. Like deliberately play the most bland, boring keyboard line she could. Sal was quite sensitive, and you could see it was stressing her out. Leanne didn’t get that we were at work. I mean, deal with your personal shit in your own time. Self-indulgent. Then things got even more complicated.

SEB: Joe, I don’t mind talking about this stuff, but it’s awkward with you here.

JOE: Pretend I’m not.

SEB: How about you duck out? I’ll say what I remember, you’ll have it recorded.

JOE: Okay.

SEB: Err … how honest do you want me to be?

JOE: (LAUGHS) Brutally.

SEB: Okay. And that’s on tape, so don’t say you didn’t ask.

(FOOTSTEPS)

SEB: They were both strong personalities, Joe and Sal, but in different ways. People naturally gravitated to Sal. She didn’t have to try, whereas Joe was more in your face. If he wanted something, he’d tell you. If Sal said something funny, she’d throw her head back and laugh, whereas if Joe said something funny, he’d look to see if you were laughing.

Before they got together, Joe often came around to write songs, and they’d be in the lounge room while I pretended to read a book and watched how they did it. I was kind of fascinated.

They clashed a bit. Joe pushed his ideas hard. Often Sal would back off, but then come back at it another way. I suppose every collaboration is tricky, but Sal had to manage Joe’s ego a little. Her being such a free spirit, I don’t think she loved that.

When they added a relationship on top of that, maybe it got complicated. Joe could be a bit up and down. Easily offended. Plus, he liked going out a lot, and often had big nights, whereas Sal wasn’t really into that.

Because we lived together, Sal talked to me about Joe. The first month or so they seemed happy, but then she started having doubts. She’d get irritated when he was late coming over to write songs or to hang out, and sometimes when he arrived he’d be drunk. Sometimes he’d say things she didn’t like; jokes or teasing, but with an edge. I think maybe he was insecure about how much she liked him, and kept trying to test her.

He could be quite direct, abrasive even, but Joe’s also very sensitive. Sal might make some silly joke at rehearsal the rest of us didn’t even notice, and he’d take it personally, then say something much meaner back. She’d be upset, but just swallow it.

I could see that her doubts about Joe were growing, but I didn’t encourage her to break up with him. I just listened. After she did end things, I concentrated on being a good friend to her. That’s all.

JOE: Sal broke up with me maybe two weeks before she disappeared. I didn’t understand it, I thought everything was fantastic. I was crushed. Like, crushed. Confused. Angry. Dev was trying to tell me I had to keep writing songs with her, but no fucking way. How could I?

I don’t know if Seb had anything to do with it. I’m pretty sure he was keen on her, and I wondered if maybe he had been undermining me to her. There were times I was at their place and I could just feel that he hated the fact that I was with Sal. He tried to hide it, but I could tell. I guess I’ve never really trusted him since then.

DEV: It was all a bit Fleetwood Mac, except we didn’t come up with a killer album at the end of it.

GARY: It was like Sal was a light and everyone else were moths. Not the most eloquent analogy. She wasn’t loud or demonstrative, but whenever she was in a room, people looked at her. But just before she vanished she seemed to be getting very stressed. She was always really present, totally focused on whatever she was doing or whoever she was with, but in those last few weeks, she was distracted, anxious, almost zoned out.

I was worried about her. I wish I’d talked to her one-on-one more, but it was hard to find a chance to. First it was Joe, then after they broke up Seb was constantly with her, plus Dev was always haranguing her about writing. Given what happened, I wish I’d done more, but you almost had to take a ticket and get in line.

JOE: Do you have any idea why Sal disappeared?

GARY: I assumed it had something to do with your relationship break-up, plus the pressure from Dev. She was worried about money, too, because her mum couldn’t afford to help her as much as our parents, and she wasn’t doing well at uni. I think it all weighed on her.

Also, in our group she was kind of the centre of everything. Everyone wanted something from her – friendship, a relationship, love, attention, a hit song. I know what it’s like to be in the spotlight. It’s great in many ways, but it can also be exhausting. I’ve learned how to manage that, but I don’t know if Sal had.

I think it all got too much. She was run-down, maybe even depressed. She needed a break from everything, but she couldn’t face telling us because she’d be letting us down. So she did a runner to the Blue Mountains, where she was desperately unlucky.

LEANNE: So the wonderful, talented, saintly Sal stole my boyfriend, then got sick of him and dumped him. She was like a spoiled toddler – taking another kid’s favourite toy, then getting bored of it and chucking it away. Then, apparently, she was going to hook up with Seb. Maybe she did. Maybe she would have worked her way through all of them. Viv would have been keen. Terrified, but keen. Dev, too, just quietly. Not sure about Gary.

DEV: It was just such a waste. The band could really have been something.

‘That’s it,’ said Barb.

‘Aha,’ replied Seb, not wanting to start a conversation.

He hadn’t enjoyed listening. The reminiscing had started off sweet, but was now souring. It had been particularly unpleasant hearing others speculating about his feelings for Sal, and the last thing he wanted was for Barb to interrogate him. Better to hit it on the head before she tried.

‘What Leanne said wasn’t true, by the way,’ he said, staring resolutely ahead. ‘About Sal and me. We were just friends.’

He snuck a side eye at Barb, who was studying him.

‘How about some music?’ he added, poking his phone for Spotify. He hit ‘+’ several times on the steering wheel, pushing the volume up to a level that made conversation difficult.