Chapter Sixteen Mo
Chapter Sixteen
MO
Gravel crunched under the Jeep’s tyres as Mo pulled into his driveway.
The heavy gates closed automatically behind him, thunking solidly together in a way that made him instantly more relaxed.
Like he was finally off duty. Invisible.
He cruised through the guard of sentinel trees and pulled up near the back door, the absence of Mav’s car announcing he had the house to himself.
He entered through the mudroom, then walked through the spotless kitchen and into the lounge.
It was his favourite room in the house, stuffed with worn-in couches and armchairs arranged around an oversized timber coffee table.
Floor-to-ceiling windows hung with sheer drapes let in muted winter light from the garden beyond, and a huge fireplace flanked by neatly stacked firewood sat empty and cold.
Mo arranged some wood in the grate and soon had the beginnings of a fire, flames gingerly licking at kindling sticks, urged on by his gentle blowing.
As the fire took, he sat down on his favourite couch—an outrageously comfortable green velvet monster of a thing—and shucked his shoes off.
He slid the diary from his back pocket, turned it over in his hands two, three times, then gently tossed it onto the coffee table.
Sinking back into the deep cushions, he closed his eyes and focused on the comforting smell of the woodsmoke.
The staccato crackle of the fire. The gentle tap of rain on the windows. His breath, deliberately even.
He felt stirred up. Like someone had cracked his head open and taken to its contents with a whisk.
Years of stuff pushed down and confined to the faraway corners was suddenly free to whiz around his consciousness again, and all because of the fucking diary.
And Netta, too, if he was being honest with himself.
He’d felt weirdly exposed in her company, like his guarding walls weren’t quite tall enough and the crocodiles in the moat were on lunch.
He’d never talked about any part of his childhood before, and yet the story about his music teacher had leapt from his mouth like a cartoon lemming off a cliff.
And then, of course, just to fuck him up even more, there’d been the pink-haired photographer.
He let his eyes close briefly, then jumped at the sound of his phone ringing.
‘Rhona,’ he answered.
‘Mission accomplished?’
‘Tom Cruise would be proud,’ he said, eyeing the book on the coffee table, still wrapped in the zip-lock bag Netta had put it in. ‘And the interview and photo shoot went well, I think. They said it’d be in the paper in a day or two.’
‘It was the right thing to do,’ Rhona said. ‘It’s about time the world knew you’re more than just a pretty voice and a bad mood. What did you think of Netta?’
‘She seemed nice. And I believe her that she hasn’t read the diary.’
‘Yeah, but what did you think of her? Is she someone you’d consider, I don’t know, going on a date with?’
‘I thought you said I wasn’t to be looking at the ladies at the moment.’ Mo crossed his ankles on the coffee table and stared into the growing fire, the fledgling flames sending flecks of gold up the chimney. ‘I was led to believe it would be bad for business.’
‘I was just thinking she’d be ideal as your date for the gala, don’t you think?
’ Rhona asked. ‘She’s your age, intelligent, attractive—but not in a plastic, walking-filter kind of way—and as far as I could tell, she doesn’t have plans for Christmas Eve.
It’s almost like the solution has fallen in your lap, Mo. ’
Mo tipped his head back to rest it against the couch. ‘I thought that too,’ he said. ‘But my conclusion is a big no. Capital N.’
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t want to use her like that,’ he said, truthfully. ‘She’s not a PR stunt.’
‘But Mo, what if she wanted to go? I mean, she’d get the whole designer dress and hair and make-up experience. She’d be mixing with famous people—’
‘Many of whom are arseholes,’ Mo interrupted.
‘Many of whom are arseholes,’ Rhona agreed, ‘but many of whom are not. And it’ll be a great show. I bet she’d love it.’
‘I don’t know, Rhona, it doesn’t feel right.’
Rhona sighed impatiently. ‘Netta is perfect. She wouldn’t have to do the red carpet or anything if she doesn’t want to. Although it’d be much better if she did …’
‘Can I not do the red carpet if I don’t want to?’ asked Mo, his mouth curling into a smile.
‘Oh, bugger off, darling. You know you have to do it. You’re kind of a big deal.’
The smile in her voice softened Mo’s resolve a touch. ‘I’ll think about it, okay?’
‘Mo …’
Mo braced himself at the change in Rhona’s tone.
‘The record company have called us in for a meeting tomorrow morning. I think it’s fair to say the ice you’re contracted on is getting very thin.
Image matters, and yours needs some serious massaging.
That magazine article has gone viral, and the pushing over of the photographer really wasn’t helpful. ’
Mo sighed. ‘I didn’t fucking push him, Rhona. He threw himself back onto the footpath to make it look like I had.’
‘I know, Mo. But perception is reality, and right now you’re not being perceived in the rosiest of lights. They’re ready to pull the contract. It’s a shitload of money to miss out on, and I know you had plans to use a lot of it for Play On.’
‘Right,’ he said. ‘This is all such a load—’
‘Of shit. I know, I know.’
Mo rubbed his knuckles into his jaw.
‘I think taking your brother to the gala would solidify the impression that you don’t take women seriously,’ Rhona continued. ‘I know Netta’s only here for a short time and you’re not about to fall head over heels in love with her and get married and make lots of lovely babies—’
‘Definitely not,’ he interjected. ‘Not with anyone.’
‘I know. But given the circumstances and what’s at stake, it would be smart to have an age-appropriate woman next to you. Someone who looks real and relatable.’ She paused for a split second. ‘And it’s not so bad you know.’
‘What isn’t?’
‘Falling in love,’ said Rhona. ‘You shouldn’t block it out forever, Mo. You’re missing out.’
Mo laid the palm of his hand over his heart, safe behind its bony cage, anchored by a deep knowing that giving it to someone just wasn’t something he could ever do. ‘Hmm, well, you never know. I heard a pig flew once.’
‘Hilarious,’ Rhona deadpanned. ‘Okay, I have to go. I’ll send you the meeting details for the morning, and we’re seeing you tomorrow night for dinner, yes?’
‘Wouldn’t miss it.’
Rhona ended the call and Mo cast his eyes around the room.
The plants looked like shit. He pushed himself off the couch, grabbed the ridiculous flamingo-shaped watering can Mav had given him for his birthday, and carted it to the kitchen to fill it with water.
One by one, he watered the plants, all of them chosen for their ability to be resurrected from the brink of death when he forgot to water them for days on end: peace lilies, a monstera that was threatening to take over the world, and a devil’s ivy that he’d trained to creep over the top of the kitchen doorway.
The fire was crackling enthusiastically now, its glow giving the room a feeling of safety and comfort.
Mo took a stick of incense from the box he kept on the mantel.
He held it to the base of the fire and watched as it caught, gently blowing the baby flame out to let the scent of nag champa fill the room.
His mum had burnt it on her good days and the smell of it still filled him with a sense of home.
It was one of the only things from his childhood he wanted to hold onto.
He slumped back into the green couch. Mum. All of this, it all came back to her. The wave of the memory started to engulf him and he knew he was powerless to stop it, so he closed his eyes and braced for the impact.
He’d thought she was asleep at first. She often was, so seeing her prostrate across the bed was nothing unusual.
It wasn’t strange to him that he’d had to grill the fish fingers so that he and Mav could eat, nor that it was him who tucked his little brother into bed that night instead of her.
She’d been dead for seventeen hours before he’d realised that she wasn’t just asleep.
The facts of that day had haunted him every hour of his life since.
That maybe, had he noticed earlier, he could have done something to help her.
That he’d watched Blinky Bill with Mav in the room right next to their mother’s cooling corpse.
That she had taken her last breath while little Mav was playing on his own in the front yard and Mo was at school.
It didn’t matter that he was so successful now, that he lived in a beautiful home, that he’d played to millions of people all around the world.
None of that meant shit. Because deep inside, away from all the bright lights and celebrity ra-ra, he was still that eleven-yearold kid, watching from the doorway as the paramedic zipped up the bag, knowing it was all his fault.