The Otto Bin Empire by Judy Nunn Page B

in her world, she didn’t notice him though he stood right beside her. He leant in closely and listened, and as he listened, he was amazed. She was not only pitch perfect, she was singing a harmony, but not the obvious harmony line most would choose. This was something quite different, something that enriched the song, adding a poignancy and depth to both the melody and the lyric. She has to be a back-up singer, surely, he thought, and a bloody good one at that.
    â€˜ Yes they’ll all come to see me in the shade of that old oak tree
    As they lay me ’neath the green, green grass of home. ’
    As the song came to an end, Rose opened her eyes and gave a startled gasp to find a man standing close beside her.
    â€˜Sorry, sorry,’ Toby said, stepping back a pace. ‘Didn’t mean to crowd you – just having a listen. You’re a singer, I take it?’
    Rose shook her head, mortified, wondering how loud she’d been singing. There’d been no-one nearby, so she hadn’t thought for one minute anyone would hear her.
    â€˜Don’t worry, love,’ the man assured her, ‘nobody else was listening, just me, and if you’re not a professional singer then by God you should be. I’m Toby, by the way,’ he held out his hand, ‘Toby Manning. I’m the sound engineer around here. Well, on Saturdays when there’s a gig, anyway.’
    She shook his hand self-consciously, still unsure of herself. ‘I’m Rose, Rose Napangurrayi.’
    â€˜Right you are.’ He winked. ‘I’ll just stick to the Rose part. You sure can sing, Rose. That was a grand piece of harmony that was.’
    The lilt of his accent was pleasing and his easy manner reassuring and Rose felt herself relax. He looks like someone from the music business, she thought, intrigued. She’d never met anyone from the music business herself, but she’d seen plenty of pictures. A bit on the skinny side and hair too long – He looks like one of the Beatles, she thought, John Lennon without the glasses or George Harrison, only not so good looking.
    â€˜Where’re you from?’ Toby asked. He too was intrigued. She was the first Aboriginal person he’d ever met.
    â€˜A long way away,’ she said. ‘The grasses aren’t green where I come from.’ They shared a smile. ‘Who’s singing tomorrow night?’ she couldn’t help asking.
    â€˜Col Joye.’
    â€˜Oh …’ Her expulsion of breath said everything.
    â€˜You want to come? I can get you in for free.’
    Col Joye! Was he joking? Rose was speechless. She just nodded.
    Â 
    She didn’t want to sit at a table down the front with people she didn’t know and where she obviously felt she’d be conspicuous, preferring instead to stand up the backagainst the far wall, which to Toby’s mind only made her all the more conspicuous. He couldn’t take his eyes off her the entire night. He could see her lips moving imperceptibly throughout each song. She knows every melody, he thought, and she knows every lyric. There’s a voice in her head that’s singing harmony with Col. Toby was riveted.
    The following week it was Judy Stone, another favourite performer of Rose’s, and things developed from there. Toby took Rose to every gig he worked on after that, not just at the Labor Club, but all over Sydney. Before long they were sleeping together. And then she moved in with him, into the old ramshackle house in Glebe that he shared with several musicians. And then they were inseparable.
    It was a bohemian existence. The Glebe house regularly served as Sydney lodgings for performers on tour and there were always people coming and going, smoking dope and downing beer and cheap wine. It reminded Rose of Redfern, but with one difference: there was always music in the house.
    Rose was happier than she remembered being in the whole of her life. The partying was fun