Posted by Alanna Horgan January 25th, 2010 |
 

Like so much else, it’s not there anymore, of course. It hasn’t been there for six years now, bulldozed at the turn of the millennium, but really, for the ten years before that, it was just a shell of its former self, living on past glories and name value alone.

But in its day…

Every Friday night we would swarm in, as those older than me had in the sixties, and the generation before that had done in the post-war period. The music might have changed, but the purpose and what it stood for never did. Still, this was the seventies, and, as it had been for thirty years up to that point, the Palais Minor was the place for kids to go and dance and see the acts. Mostly local acts – I think it was where I first saw Cold Chisel play – but every so often a so-called minor international star would come and we would fill the place.

And that was where I first saw her and fell in love with her. Me and about two thousand other horny teenage boys.

Including my best friend, Matt Howard. But he was not like the others.

Sure, we knew who she was but to see her live… wow. It was like something happened to us and we were just mesmerised by her presence. And that voice…

And now that he’s dead, I guess I can tell what really happened that night, why my best friend killed the woman who everyone said was destined for super-stardom and world-wide fame. And also my small part in it. It was thirty-three years ago, when I was seventeen; I wonder if there is a statute of limitations on withholding the truth? Oh well, the guilty party was punished and I guess that was all that matters. After all, to the eyes of the world, justice was served, even if it was not quite what I would call natural justice…

Unfair, I know. The truth is unbelievable. But maybe if he had tried to tell them what had really happened, then he may have been put into some sort of mental institution, which surely would have been better than the thirty years he spent behind bars. He came out such a different man that I’m not surprised he ended up back in there just over a year later. Then he was released again after another sixteen months, and still couldn’t cope and so took his own life two days ago.

The killer of Diana Rivers, blues singer, the new Janis Joplin, now dead himself, and millions of her fans across the world celebrated in their own way. No histrionics, no triumph, just a quiet satisfaction that it was finally all over. He got quite a write-up around the world, but I am sure that he could have done without that part of his past being dredged up again. And maybe he would have considered telling the truth.

But who would have believed it?

At the time I didn’t know how he did it, a skinny eighteen year old with a nervous mate tagging along, but he talked our way back-stage after that show. Diana had done three quarters of an hour of songs and then had come back on and done another three tunes with local legend Jim Starbanto, a guitarist who supported her and who gave up after Diana’s death. And then she had done another encore of another three songs without any musical backing. Quite the awesome show for its day. And, afterwards, there we were, backstage.

And I lost him after getting talking with Jim Starbanto, so what happened next is just what Matt told me. But the fact that he told me, swore me to secrecy after admitting his guilt in a court of law, and then denying it when I tried to talk to him about it a year or so later with a warning look in his eye makes me think that he was telling the truth. He did not want anything to come out. He wanted it to end with him.

He really did love that American woman, despite everything. And he protected her to the end.

At least, that’s what I choose to believe.

During the final, three song, a capella set it was obvious to all of us in the immediate vicinity that Diana had been ‘making eyes’ at Matt. We – the two of us and a few other mates – had managed to push our way to the front of the stage by then and when she clamped eyes on him her focus was my friend and she sang those three songs just for him and him alone.

It was as though they were the only two people in the room.

I said before that I didn’t know how two kids had managed to talk their way backstage. Well, I should clarify that it was at the time that I had no idea. And it was made hard for us at first, but I am under no illusions that Diand had ensured we would find our way to her. At least, that Matt would.

And he did. She offered him a drink, apologised when she saw the type he had requested was not available, then ‘remembered’ she has some in her small dressing room. Some nudges and winks from her band and road crew and Matt was leaving me with a local legend to have his own fun. I did not care; Starbanto was more interesting to me. I wanted to play just like him and when he gave up very publicly three weeks after this… well, so did I.

And now I’m the manager of a pub in the eastern suburbs of Adelaide and Starbanto teaches art and drama at a high school two kilometres away. He came in for a drink one night, I recognised him, we got to talking, depressed ourselves and he’s never set foot inside my pub again.

That’s life.

But it’s not why I’ve put pencil to notepad.

Look, the basic story is pretty simple, I suppose, and I’ve told it to maybe half a dozen reporters since Matt killed himself, and who knows how many more before then. After all, I was a key witness. And my story was the same for all of them, and it was the truth. Just not… well, you’ll see.

Matt and Diana went into her change-room, something that everyone said happened after every show. She’d pick a guy who looked young and cute (which to her was boyish, skinny and shy), find a way to get them alone, then she’d have her way with him and then the guys just went off after maybe an hour with the singer. In fact, according to the crew and musos backstage, these guys never said anything. So there was never a hint outside of her working circle that it happened. Someone once tried to say something in America after she fired him, but none of the kids came forth and so it was ignored and he was deemed a disgruntled ex-employee. These guys apparently literally just disappeared from public view.

They were all seen leaving, but no one knew their names or anything. The roadies told me this after the court case, when we all gathered at a pub to sort of celebrate Matt’s incarceration. Still, why none ever went public, especially after she died and these stories all started to come out – and they did eventually come out as her former employees started to tell tales through their own depression – was beyond me… until I heard Matt’s tale.

Because that’s not how it worked out with Matt.

Back to the oft-told version of events.

It was maybe forty minutes after they disappeared when we heard a scream… and it was not Diana. And then we heard what sounded like a cry for help which could have been either of them, and then we heard the thumping and sounds of things breaking… and that was when everyone ran to the door before some huge burly guy hit it twice with his shoulder to open it.

And there was Matt, standing over Diana, blood everywhere, a broken bottle in his hands, a stunned look on his face… and the singer dead. I pushed my way forward and was the first to enter the room. He looked at me, smiled sadly, then down at Diana and the only thing he said was, ‘I did it. I’m so sorry. I did it.’ And that was all he said – all he said; he repeated it at the trial maybe eight, nine times – until he had been in jail for eight years and he told me everything.

That in itself is another story but I won’t go on about that here. Needless to say, I owe the man in charge of that division at Yatala more than just a beer.

And now that he’s dead, I’m going to tell you his tale.

I think he deserves that much.

So it started as he had sort of dreamed it would. She closed the door behind him and locked it. Simple. She came up behind him, he turned around and she kissed him. And not just any kiss, but one so full of lust that he, as someone who had only lost their virginity when drunk a few months earlier and had done it just the once since, was so taken aback he just stood there and let it happen as passively as a doll.

And she smiled as she led him to a couch and pushed him down before going to the fridge. She pulled out the beer he had asked for and handed it to him as she snuggled in close to him. He was frantic and, he admitted to me, terrified. And, you know, I think I would have been if I were in the same situation. For all the bravado teenage boys like to think they have at times like this, when faced with a sexually aggressive older female, maybe we aren’t as courageous as we’d like to make out…

So anyway, he looked around the room and stood up to stare at a picture on the wall. Any excuse to get away, he said. And it appeared to she had apparently really decorated the room in such a short time. Weird, considering she was going to be in town for a measly three shows at this old dump.
‘Is that you and Sinatra?’ Matt asked.

‘Yep, she replied, and she laughed. “’He’s such a sweetie. And the one next to that is Sammy Davis Junior, but he was much younger then. And that other one’s Johnny Ray, but you really don’t hear much about him anymore. That’s a shame.’

Matt says he bent closer to look at the photos, old black and white ones, then back at her. She smiled at him and waved a little. He thought she was going to eat him there and then, like a ravenous shark. But then he said he looked back at the pictures and when he looked up she was right beside him.

‘That makes you…’ He couldn’t work it out. ‘How old are you?’ he asked. ‘The magazines all say you’re twenty-three…’

‘And I’ll always be twenty-three. Like I was back then. Forever young.’ She touched the Sinatra picture, then smiled and went to a chest beneath a table. It was old and made out of wood. She pulled out what Matt saw was a framed print. ‘Seen this before?’

He looked at it and nodded. ‘That’s La Conalto by John Singer Sargent.’

He thought there was some concern on her face. ‘Smart lad,’ she smiled, edging even closer. ‘Well, what would you say if I told you that’s me?’

And he said he looked at the picture, then at her. In the picture the hair was darker and considerably longer and the figure was fuller, but it definitely could have been her. And then he looked at the eyes of the picture and the little smile.

It was her.

But…

‘Sargent died between the wars.’

‘You are clever!’ she exclaimed like a small child. ‘But I did say I was forever young.’ And her kiss stunned him.

The way he described what happened next was like something out of a dream- she almost dragged him to the couch, stripped his pants from him and then almost forced him to make love to her. Not that there was a huge amount of pressure needed from her once everything was started, but the fact is that she made him do it. And he said that the whole time it was as though he could feel a part of his mind slowly drifting away from him, floating free.

He reckons it must have taken him not more than five minutes to finish the job, but she appeared as satisfied as if he had done some of the rock star Sting’s magic tantric sex. She kissed him all over and he felt like he was floating on clouds. His head, he said, was swimming like he was drunk.

And then she started to sing.

It was soft, he said, a lullaby or something, right in his ear.

He looked up at her and smiled as she sang, feeling his mind drift more and more away from him. And, as he always did when he was really happy, his mind started to think about art. It was always his great passion…

But he could not remember some of the pictures he so loved, especially some of the Rockwells. He always did love a good Norman Rockwell…

He stood up and shook his head, getting fleeting images back of those great works, but they were sort of lost in the back of his mind. “I can’t think about them…” he whispered, more to himself really.

‘About what?’ she asked. He thought she sounded genuinely concerned, but he couldn’t be sure.

‘Pictures. Paintings.’ She was confused. ‘I can’t picture the paintings in my mind!’ he cried.

She smiled at him even more sweetly. ‘It won’t be an issue soon,’ she murmured so sensuously he started to feel himself lose control again. And she started to sing once more. And he looked at her as his minds started to actually go blanker. And as he watched her face was taking on a more youthful sheen…

She was growing younger even as his mind was disappearing. And it was through her song.

She was singing away his mind.

Now, this sounds crazy, even to me and I believe it. But it does explain why those other kids in this situation never said anything. Ever. Even after she died – they couldn’t. She had turned them into… what? What became of them after she had sung them into a sort of walking zombie-like state? They were just kids, so they probably went about the rest of their days as slightly abnormal people, got jobs, maybe even settled down, but really lacking something… that something she had taken from them…

And which Matt was not going to give up without a fight.

He said he screamed to drown out the singing.

She just glared at him and that was when he grew scared. He thought he might have called out for help, but he didn’t get a chance to say much more because she was onto him, and sent him crashing into a table. And she held him down and he said she was strong and she started to sing again and he knew what she was doing, and he couldn’t stop anything…

And then his hand found something – the beer bottle she had given him.

He smashed her over the head with it. She rolled off him, but she was still very much alive and holding herself. She looked at him and what he saw in her eyes made him more scared than he had ever been in his life. She started to sing again, and he felt it strike into his brain and so he hit her again. And again. And again and again and again and again… he just kept on hitting her until the bottle shattered, sending the leftover beer everywhere. He stopped, but he said she looked at him and opened her mouth again and took a breath and started to let a note come out and that was when he stabbed at her again and again…

And then we broke in.

But for all that happened, he still loved her. She had had that sort of affect on him and so he just stood there in the dock at the trial, admitted his guilt, and was sentenced to life in prison. Which, in South Australia, normally meant twenty-five years. For some reason, he was stuck in there until thirty years had gone by. I did hear he had asked not to be let out. But they couldn’t keep him inside forever and so he found himself in public housing, almost fifty years old and unable to do anything with his life. Then he lost it at some reporter who had tracked him down and harassed him, went back inside for over a year for aggravated assault, got out and finally hung himself in the toilets of the shopping complex which they’ve built on the site of the Palais Minor.

He did something which was not right, but it wasn’t wrong either.

I honestly believe that.

Diana Rivers was something different, that was for sure.

And I think singing in front of all those people in a concert, she took a little bit from all of us, and that was why none of us ever minded being there listening to her.

But really, how many more are out there, famous singers, using our listening to keep themselves forever young?