by Lesley Jones
It suddenly struck me, I wasn’t crying, I hadn’t cried since he called me Thursday night, I was hurt and angry and emotional but I didn’t cry, I just let that little man keep building that wall, higher and higher, one course at a time.
“So what happened?” He drags his hands through his hair and I want to do the same but I won’t, I can’t, I need him to look me in the eye as he explains what happened, I need him to tell me that he didn’t touch her, that he never laid a finger on her. I sit and stare at him for a few long moments and notice that his hair is almost perfectly straight now, the curls that he had when we first met have gone, he’s wearing it longer again. When did it grow? When did his curls disappear? It’s a simple observation but one that makes me realise he’s changing and because he’s not with me, I’m not noticing, I’m not part of his everyday world, this boy who’s skin I have known as well as my own these past few years has grown and changed and he’s done it all without me.
“I was so drunk.”
No! Please no.
“As soon as the door slammed shut behind us, she was on me.”
Oh Sean!
“She was on you?” He nods as he covers his face with his hands, his elbows resting on his knees, he’s sitting on the edge of my bed, angled toward me, his skin looks tanned, obviously from the time he’s spent in the sun these past few weeks, in the sun, around a pool, without me. Every single beat of my heart hurts, it echoes through my body and wherever it reaches, it causes pain, I don’t want it to hurt, I don’t want it to feel, I would rather it just stopped.
“How, how was she on you?” This time he shakes his head.
“Rocco had these pills, I only had one, Marley had a couple, they were, they made me feel fantastic, we danced for ages down by the pool, everything just felt good and I just felt so horny.”
“No, no, no! Get out, get out Sean, I don’t want to hear this.”
My stupid, stupid, naive, sixteen year old heart has now ceased to exist and something hard, harsh and cold is slowly taking its place but before it does, I need him to shut up and I need him to leave. Now!
“I love you G, you, no one else, no one else ever, please listen to me, it was the drugs, I just couldn’t stop, I couldn’t…”
Now it was time for me to cover my face with my hands, I wanted to scream, I wanted to cry, I wanted to die. I slid off the bed and took my engagement ring from its hiding place and held it out to him.
“What are you doing? I don’t want that, it’s yours, I bought it for you G, I spoke to your Dad on the flight, he’s fine with it, he knew, he was expecting it, put it on, put it on and we can go down and tell everyone. G, put your ring on please.” He’s talking so fast but all I can hear is the phone ringing and my Dad shouting, then Marley’s shouting and the front door slams. My Dad and Marls are still shouting at each other and I just stand there, with the stupid, ugly ring between my thumb and index finger. I’ve barely eaten a thing all week and I feel light headed, the room is swaying and I want to be sick. Then my bedroom door flies open and Jimmie is there, she looks from me to Sean.
“What did you do, what did you do? You stupid fucker!” She launches herself at him, punching and kicking and screaming and I just continue to stand there holding the ring out to him.
Lennon comes in and pulls Jimmie off of Sean. “Leave it Jim, let them sort it out, it’s between them.”
“There’s pictures, there’s pictures you fucker!” Jimmie screams as she tries to fight her way out of Lennon’s arms. Sean stands up from where Jimmie knocked him back onto my bed and looks at Len.
“What, what are you talking about, what pictures?”
“She’s got pictures of what you were doing, pictures of you and Marley snorting Charlie off her tits and she’s sold them to the papers, you’re all over the Sunday papers you fucker!”
My world stops spinning, the little man lays his last brick and my heart stops beating the way that it used to, it’s enclosed safely behind a wall now, so it doesn’t feel, it doesn’t love, it doesn’t care anymore, it’s only use now is to keep me alive and I really don’t care if it even bothers to do that. Sean’s big brown eyes with their flecks of gold turn and meet mine but I can’t focus, I feel my legs give way and the floor starts to come toward me.
CHAPTER 9
I don’t pass out cold completely, everything just becomes hazy and I have no control or strength in my limbs. I’m aware of lots of shouting, Sean lifts me onto my bed, my Mum is crying, Jimmie is shouting and my Dad is arguing with Sean right over my head, as I look through it all, the noise, the faces, all I can see is Marley, standing in my bedroom door, sobbing. It’s a sight that will stay with me till the day I die.
My Dad tells Sean to leave, which eventually he does but only because Len drags him out of my room. I don’t know if he’s gone home or just down stairs, I don’t care, I just can’t be near him now. My Mum makes me drink hot sweet tea and it does actually make me feel a little better.
Everyone except Jimmie and my Mum finally leave my room, I lay on my side, curled into the foetal position, not making eye contact with either of them. My Mum is fussing around me and talking too much, finally she kneels down in front of me and strokes my hair. “Can I get you anything Georgia, a drink, something to eat; do you want your music on?” I shake my head.
“No Mum, I’m fine, could you just leave me on my own, thank you for looking after me but honestly, I’m fine, you need to go and get some sleep.”
She shakes her head back at me. “Oh George, there’ll be no sleeping here, the sun’s nearly up and your Dad has sent Tony and Nick out for the first editions of the papers so he can see what the damage is.” Jimmie fidgets next to me on the bed, she knows I don’t want to talk, hear or see anything to do with papers, the story, the charges or events of the past few days.
“Mum, you can do one thing for me.”
“What’s that George?”
“I don’t want to see those newspapers, I don’t want to know what’s in them, I don’t want to see, or hear about them ever and I do not want to see Sean.”
“Georgia, babe, don’t you think you should wait and find out first? It could be nothing; you know how the papers like to make things up.”
“Mum, please, I know Sean, I know him inside out and something went on in that room, I’m not saying the boys raped her, I don’t believe that for a second, but he couldn’t look me in the eye last night, he didn’t tell me something did go on but he couldn’t tell me that it didn’t and I can’t live with that Mum. If he’s having threesomes with girls in hotel rooms now, what’s it gonna be like when they’re really famous? It’s done, we’re over, he can go and live the life he’s been dreaming of and working so hard for all these years, he’s let me down and I don’t trust him, I don’t want to see him again, please Mum, I can’t see him.”
I amaze myself by not crying, my Mum kisses my cheek. “Oh Georgia, I’m so sorry, I wish I could make it all better for ya babe.”
“You can make it better by hiding it all away from me Mum, I don’t want to talk about it, I don’t want to talk about the band or their music or what they’re doing, and as far as I’m concerned they don’t exist.”
She lets out a big sigh. “I’ll do my best George but with your brothers being so involved, it won’t be easy but I’ll try.”
She stands up and heads out the door. Jimmie has said nothing from where she’s sitting on my bed behind me, I know she thinks I’m being harsh and over reacting but I’ve got to, it’s the only way I know how to protect myself.
“George?” she whispers, as if she’s been listening to my thoughts.
“Yeah?”
“I love you George, I’ll do my best to not talk about this or the band or the boys but it’s going to be so hard and I don’t want to lose you as a friend if I slip up and say something by mistake.”
I shake my head. “You won’t lose as me as a friend Jim, you’re my best friend and you always will be and I understand
if this makes things difficult but please just do what you can to save me from this. I can’t see him Jim, it hurts too much, I can’t see those pictures, I don’t want to know what happened that night, ever, so please, as my friend Jim, as my best friend, would you please try and help me with that.”
“Of course I will, forever G, I’ll keep it from you forever, unless you ask me otherwise.”
“Thank you.”
We lay on my bed, spooning, until eventually we must drift off to sleep as the birds start singing.
The next few weeks of my life were a complete nightmare; by Sunday afternoon we had the press hanging about outside our house, trying to get pictures of Marley at first, then trying to get pictures of me, because somehow they had been tipped off that I was Sean’s girlfriend. I finished the last of my exams with Tony driving me to and from school, other than that, I never left the house. Sean sat outside for the few days that they were home, he hid in his car so the press wouldn’t see him, I have no idea what he thought it would achieve. He rang my house almost hourly, even when they flew to Sweden for the last few shows of the tour before coming back to England. In the end my Dad told him not to call anymore otherwise he would get the number changed.
Whoever came up with the phrase ‘No publicity is bad publicity’ wasn’t wrong; the boys album launch was a worldwide success, on the back of all the newspaper headlines, they shot straight to number one. We had more press than ever camped outside the house, as well as the silly little fan girls; the label had to hire minders for the boys and as they were now back in England before the UK leg of the tour kicked off, there was absolute pandemonium down our street every time Marley tried to leave the house. I received untold amounts of hate mail through the post and even had an envelope full of dog shit shoved through the letter box addressed to me. All the crazy little fan girls hated me, they either thought I was still Sean’s girlfriend or they hated me because I had apparently broken his heart, I was paying the price for the bands fame and reaped none of the rewards. I had continuous offers from tabloids and magazines to sell my story to them; they wanted to know all about my life as the sister and girlfriend of the biggest bands in Britain right now. I even had offers to pose topless, my Dad hit the roof and I became an absolute recluse. I knew the very little I did about the bands success because they received so much airtime on the television; I had stopped listening to the radio so as to avoid their songs. In fact I had stopped listening to music all together but I couldn’t make the whole family stop watching the telly, my parents were good and would quickly turn it over or the radio off if I came in the room if something was playing or being mentioned, other than that, I pretty much managed to avoid all contact with anything band related. I didn’t look at the papers, I stopped reading my magazines, I rarely left my room and that’s how it stayed the entire summer. I didn’t see much of Jimmie as she travelled around Britain with the band so that she could be with Lennon. I was jealous, incredibly so, but that was my issue and I knew it was wrong of me, I tried to be upbeat and chatty whenever she called but I was dying inside and so, so lonely; I hadn’t spoken to Marley since we left Spain, on the rare occasions he did come home. I would wake up sometimes and find him standing in the doorway of my bedroom, I would then get up silently and close it in his face, I had nothing to say to him, as far as I was concerned, he had ruined my life, my beautiful, perfect life, that Sean and I had planned out together was over, all because of Marley, Haley The Whore and drugs and I wasn’t yet ready to talk to my brother about any of it.
My parents desperately wanted me to go back to school in September and start my A levels, I got outstanding results in my O levels and knew that my A’s would be no problem. The problem was, I was terrified of going back, I didn’t know how I’d be received and I would be all alone for the first time in my entire secondary school life, I would just be Georgia Layton and not Sean McCarthy’s girlfriend and I knew there would be plenty of nasty little bitches that would be over the moon about that.
I finally agreed with my parents that I would go and give it a try and as it turned out, the years of not being a bitch to the other girls at school paid off, there were a few spiteful comments but mostly people were still okay with me just because I still had links with the band. I spent the next two years studying for my Maths and English A levels, as well as a business studies course. I threw myself into my studies and completely shut out the rest of the world; the only person I really had anything to do with at school was Ashley. She had stayed on to re-sit her maths and English O levels as she had failed them miserably last year, we weren’t in any classes together but it was nice to have at least one person to talk to around the school, she asked me to go out with her practically every weekend but I always said no.
All of my time was taken up with studying, going to the gym that my Dad had just bought in Brentwood or helping my Mum out in the shop my Dad had bought for in the local high street. My Mum had always had fantastic fashion sense and absolutely loved clothes so when my Dad came home and told her he’d helped out a mate by taking his struggling business off his hands, she barely listened. My Dad seemed to have so many businesses on the go it was hard to keep track, but then my Dad happened to mention that it was a frock shop as he called it, my Mum was all ears.
The following day was a Saturday so my Mum and I went down and had a look, it was a good sized shop in a fantastic location but it had a terrible range of stock. We lived in an affluent area, the shop had a high end hairdressers and beauty salon on one side and a bespoke furniture designers on the other, the shop itself sold absolute crap, cheap, nasty ‘fashion’ items; just the name ‘Hollywood Fashions’ would be enough to put off most of the women who would frequent the shops either side.
By that afternoon, my Mum had one of my Dad’s draughtsmen who worked for his building company around, giving her advice on the changes she wanted to make. It took her around two months to have the place re-fitted, re-named and stocked with an up to the minute range of designer labels, by the time I’d finished with college, between us we were running a very successful business and had extended into the furniture shop next door. My Dad having somehow convinced the owners to relocate to another shop he owned, further down the high street. I’d been on numerous buying trips with my Mum, spending time in Europe and Asia and in the summer of 1987 we opened our second shop in Chingford; while my Mum took over the opening of the new store, I took up the reins of the Brentwood store. Not only were we selling clothing but we now offered a full range of accessories, including, shoes, handbags, scarves and sunglasses and had seven girls working for us. Despite the fact that I had zero social life, I was always busy and had little time to think about how dead I was inside; it had been over two years since I’d seen or heard from Sean but it still hurt like it was five minutes ago. I’d come to terms with the fact that it would probably always hurt but I still wasn’t ready to face the world. I’d barely spoken a few words to Marley in that time and that was only because I was being polite at the Christmas dinner table last year, a few days before then, Lennon had asked me if it would be okay to invite Sean to have lunch with us as he had nowhere to go. I apologised to Len but explained that I just couldn’t, just the thought of seeing him made me want to vomit, not because I disliked him but because I still loved him so very, very much, Len said that he understood, but I doubt that he actually had any idea.
Finally in the August of ‘88, I ended my self-imposed social isolation and went for a drink after work with Ashley; she was working for us now, we had three shops and were due to be opening a fourth before Christmas in Epping, we had managers in all of them and my Mum and I spent most of our time with buyers and now some small independent designers, who made stuff exclusively for us. Our range now including a few lines for men and underwear for both men and women, I had an office above the Brentwood shop and would soon be moving into my very own flat there as well. The tenants that were already in place had given notice and I’d convinced my Dad to fix it
up and let me move in, Ash wanted to move in with me but I wanted to live alone, that way I could control the TV and the radio and anything else that might bring me into contact with Sean and the band, something that had become a complete obsession with me. The band were now world famous, my parents had sold our family home and bought a farm house in the countryside just outside of Brentwood, Lennon and Jimmie had bought their own place and were getting married next year and Marley had bought a place in the city to crash, whenever the band were in the country and I very rarely saw him. Jim and Lennon were only living around the corner so finally I got to see her on a regular basis again; she was working alongside Len as part of the management team for the band and so got to travel with him whenever she wanted to. I had dinner and caught up with them at least three or four times a month and they were always good in avoiding any mention of Sean and the band if possible, I had called Jim that afternoon and invited her for drinks tonight and she was going to meet us there.
My palms were sweating and I felt absolutely sick as we walked into the wine bar that night. I was glad we’d come somewhere up market and swanky as this, it was as far removed from the sweaty pubs I used to go to with the band as you could get. Full of big hair, shoulder pads and yuppies and yet, here I was, still thinking about him. I was almost twenty and still fucked up over a boy I met when I was eleven. I heard a loud squeal as we headed for the bar and saw that Jimmie was already here. She jumped up from her stool at the tall round table as she spotted us; she knew what a big deal this was for me. I’d driven my parents insane with worry these past few years and I knew they’d asked her to do what she could to get me out of the house but Jimmie knew nothing would work, she knew I’d do it in my own time and she was right, the time was now and here I was.
She threw her arms around me and whispered into my ear, “I am so fucking proud of you Georgia Layton, so fucking proud.” I almost teared up, something I hadn’t allowed myself to do since that fuck awful week my world fell apart.