by Lesley Jones
Milo stood back and I stepped inside the door before coming to a complete standstill.
What. The. Fuck?
There was a mattress on the floor, which Ash was sitting on, her back to the wall. Her eyes were red and watery as she watched me take in the room. Next to the bed was a small wooden table with a saucer on it. Resting on the saucer and flickering wildly was a large candle. There were three others burning around the room, and those were the only source of light. There was a clothes rail, and the clothes hanging from it, along with the shoes lined up underneath, looked totally out of place in those surroundings. There was a doorway off to the left, and I could see through it to a room that contained a small sink and toilet, but the saddest part of all, the bit that really hurt my heart, was the childlike suns that had been painted or chalked in bright yellow on the boarded up windows.
I looked from them, back down to where she is sitting on top of her purple and silver bedding. Her knees were pulled up to her chest and her arms were wrapped around them with a tissue in her hand.
“Ash,” I said quietly. “I bought some cold and flu tablets, stuff for your sore throat, and pain killers. I know you said last night it was hurting.”
“Why are you here?” She croaked.
“I was worried about you, baby. You said you didn’t feel well last night, and then today when I went to the shop...”
She shook her head and I trailed off.
“Well, now you can leave.”
“What? Why would I leave? I thought I could come play at being doctor Marley, or nurse Marley if you’d prefer. Whatever floats your boat, baby?” I wiggled my eyebrows and gave her my best rock star on the front of a magazine smile.
“Don’t make out, Marley. Don’t pretend that you want to spend another second in this place.” She held her hands out as if she was presenting her home to me, her pride and joy, instead of a room that was really not even fit for the rats she probably shared it with.
“I wanna be wherever you are, Ash.”
“Yeah?” She tilted her chin in the way she did when she was feeling challenged.
“Yeah.” I nodded my head and hoped that she could see that I meant it.
“Well, the last place I wanna be is here.” She started to cry. “How could you, Marley? How could you come here? I’m so ashamed, I’m so embarrassed.”
I fight to stop my bottom lip from trembling. “The last place you wanna be is here? You don’t wanna be here?” I asked.
She wiped her tears on the sleeve of her hoodie and shook her head no.
“Milo,” I called out.
“Boss?” He popped his head in around the door.
“Pull the car up to the front doors and I’ll take Ash down to it. Can you come back up and gather all of her clothes, shoes, anything personal, and bring it down for me please?”
“No problemo, Marls.” He disappeared out of view and I walked towards Ashley.
“What are you doing?’
“You’re coming home with me. I’m calling you a doctor and while you get yourself better at my place, we’ll find you somewhere else to live.”
“Somewhere with lights and glass in the windows and everything?”
“And everything.” I promised her.
She looks up at me through watery blue eyes, my heart pounds in my chest, echoing in my throat and ears. I hope she doesn’t fight me on this because there is no fucking way I’m leaving her here.
She lets out a long sigh.
“I’m not sure Marls, I’m just not sure.”
“Ash, look, whatever you might think of me and my reputation, all I wanna do is help you out right now.”
“Why?” Her chin wobbles as she asks and I hate that she just didn’t get that I was genuinely interested.
“Like I keep trying to tell you, I like you, a lot. I like being with you. I don’t know Ash, I don’t have the words. I just know that I’ve never felt like this before. I need to know you’re safe and that ain’t gonna happen if I leave you here, so either you come to mine, or I’m staying here with you.”
“I might not want you here with me.”
“Tough fucking shit. Them’s your options baby.”
She looked around the room, before she looked back at me, saying so quietly, I could only just make it out, “I’ll come with you.”
She wrapped her arms around my neck as I lifted her up. “I still ain’t shagging ya.” She croaked into my ear.
“We’ll see about that, sweetheart ... we’ll see.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
1989
It took a week for Ash to fully recover. I had a doctor out to see her as soon as I got her to my place and tucked up in my bed. He declared she had laryngitis, as well as a chest and sinus infection. He prescribed a five day course of antibiotics and paracetamol for the pain. After taking her tablets and eating a bowl of tomato soup, she slept for almost fourteen hours.
In that time, I got myself set up in Maca’s room and moved all her clothes and girlie shit from her place and into my room.
I left her to rest the first couple of days, just bringing her food and making her drink plenty. She was up and about by the following Thursday, and watching telly on the sofa, curled up next to me under a blanket.
It’d been a week, and I already didn’t want to imagine her not being there every day. It was killing me to lay in bed at night, knowing that she was in the other room.
We’d done nothing more than curl up next to each other, or kiss each other’s cheeks goodnight. I desperately wanted more, but I knew that I had to prove to her that I didn’t just want her here for sex. I had to make her understand that I wanted her there because I couldn’t stand the thought of her not being there.
I got out for a run on Friday morning, then headed into our home gym and lifted some weights, anything to take my mind off sex, specifically sex with Ashley.
I’d just showered and was making Ash and myself a sandwich when my phone rang.
“Madam Vaginas Brothel, how can we help you today?” I answered.
“Please tell me George is with you?” It was Maca.
“Na, mate. Not seen her.”
“Fuck.” I got instant goose bumps.
“Mac, what’s wrong?”
“Dave fucking sat back and did nothing when she left with Cameron King’s minder.”
What?
“What the fuck, Mac? When?”
“Six fucking hours ago.”
“Where are you?”
“At the flat.”
“I’m coming over.”
“Okay. Your dad’s on it and on his way over too.” He was quiet for a few seconds. “You don’t reckon she’s gone back to him, do ya Marls?”
“No mate, I don’t.” I had no fucking clue.
He hung up.
“What’s wrong?” Ashley asked from behind me.
She looked a lot better. She’d actually dressed in clothes rather than her PJ’s. Her hair was all clean and shiny, and she had some colour in her cheeks. She looked beautiful—perfect.
“George left the flat with Cameron King’s minder six hours ago and no one’s seen her since.”
“Oh shit.”
“Yeah. I’m gonna head over there.”
“I’ll come.”
We literally walked through the front door of my sister’s to an entire Layton family reunion.
My dad was on the phone, shouting out orders to someone and my mum was on the sofa, looking worried.
Bailey was trying to shout over my dad to whoever it is was he was talking to on the phone.
“If he touches a hair on her fucking head, I’ll have him and his bald fucking sidekick. They’ll both end up at the bottom of the Thames wearing concrete boots.”
Jimmie was making tea and Len was talking quietly in the kitchen to Maca.
All eyes turned to us.
“You know anything?” Maca directed his question to Ash. He was obviously unaware that she was with me when he’d called.
She shakes her head no, but then calls out to Bailey, “He won’t hurt her.”
Everyone once again turned in her direction.
“Hang on a minute, Fin, hang on,” my dad said as he sat down the phone.
“What?” Bailey and Maca both said at once.
She looked up at me, terrified, and I watched her throat move as she swallowed. Then she pulled her classic Ash pose; shoulders back, chin out, that was my girl. She walked farther into the room.
“He won’t hurt her. I spoke to him at the wine bar last week.” She turned and looked in my direction as she said it, probably because she knew that it was news to me. “I popped over there after work with Lorna before going out one night and he was there.”
“And?” Bailey snapped, and that was exactly what his neck would be doing if he talked to her like that again.
“He was half cut and told me that he was in love with George, that he’d planned a future for them together, but if Sean was what she wanted, then he would stand aside and let her be happy.” She looked around at everyone, looking them in the eye, but I could see her fingers and thumbs rubbing together. I knew she was nervous. “He loves her. He’d never hurt her.”
Maca ran his hand through his hair, then over his beard. His shoulders slumped, and I knew what he was thinking in an instant.
“She’ll be back.” I told him, but he shook his head no.
“What about Georgia? Has she said anything about him to you?” He asked.
“Na, I’ve hardly seen her the last coupla weeks. She’s been with you all the time.”
“What about you, Jim?”
“Na, same as Ash. I’ve hardly seen her.”
I’ll call you back in a sec, Fin.” My dad ended his call, just as a wide-eyed Georgia came through the door. She stopped in her tracks and looked at all of us. It was a classic ‘deer in headlights’ moment as she took us all in.
“Where the fuck have you been, George?” Bailey jumped in first.
My dad moved towards her and wrapped her in his arms. “Princess, you scared the fuckin’ life outta me. Don’t ever, and I mean ever, do that again!”
Princess? Fucking Princess? My sister seriously got away with murder.
I watched Maca, watching ‘Princess George’ with a look of ... I don’t know what, on his face. He looked relieved, but still worried. She was back, unharmed by the look of things, but he was obviously as curious as me to know where it was exactly that she’d been all day.
I tune Bailey out as he bollocked my sister and told her what a selfish little bitch she was, and I had to say, I agreed with him on that score.
Georgia made her apologies to everyone, which I was surprised at. Usually she’d just storm off and slam doors, but she took it on the chin and said sorry. I actually thought she meant it.
I gestured to Ash that it was time for us to go. Now that I knew G was safe, I wasn’t hanging around to listen to her get a Frank special. He could go on for hours, my dad, when you displeased him, to the point where your ears would bleed.
By the time we got back to my place, Ash was tired and I was starving, so we called out for pizza and got back on the sofa to watch ‘The Untouchables.’
Mrs. Cooper, our cleaning lady, came over and helped me make a shepherd’s pie on Saturday, and wrote me a list of what I needed to buy for a Sunday roast.
Milo was out with Georgia and Maca while they looked at houses. Everything seemed to be sweet with them when I called to check that morning. I read the shopping list out to Dave over the phone and sent him to the shops to get everything that I needed.
Working for rock stars can be seriously dangerous work at times, I kid you not. Just ask Dave.
Ashley had hardly said a word since she got here. Yesterday was the most I’d heard her speak, and the majority of what she had to say was aimed at other people. I wasn’t sure if she still had the hump with me Saturday afternoon when I leaned against the bedroom door and asked her if she’d like to get out of bed and eat, or if she wanted me to bring her food in on a tray.
The antibiotics had taken full affect at that stage. Her voice wasn’t as croaky, and she wasn’t coughing as much. She’d had some colour in her cheeks for the past few days, and I couldn’t help but notice how pretty she looked as she contemplated my question, quietly.
“I’ll have a bath and then I’ll get up, if that’s all right?” Her reply finally came.
“Of course it’s all right. I told you to treat this place like your own while you’re here. There’s some muscle soak bubble bath shit under the sink if you wanna throw that in.”
“Thank you.”
“You need help washing your back ... or your front?”
“Do you ever give in?”
“Never. So, do you?”
“No, Marley, I think I can manage.”
“Just shout if you change your mind, baby.”
I can’t tell if her eyes were watery because of her condition, or if she was about to cry. “Why are you doing this for me, Marley? Why are you looking after me?” Shit, she was about to cry.
I walked into the room and sat down on the edge of the bed next to her. I got Milo to buy her some girlie bedding yesterday, and Mrs. Cooper washed, dried, and put it on the bed for her earlier. I told him to get purple, as she seemed to like it.
She looked so young sitting there, surrounded by purple pillows and sheets. I tucked a wayward strand of blonde hair behind her ear before I spoke. “Why won’t you believe that I really like you, Ash?”
“Because boys like you don’t waste their time on girls like me.”
“So boys like me have no interest in smart, funny, mouthy, sexy girls like you?” I asked. She shook her head no.
“That’s got fuck all to do with it. That shit’s all just for show. I’m talking about me, the real me; where I come from, who my parents are, where I was living.”
Now it’s my turn to shake my head. “Where you come from, who your family are, and where I found you living, have all gone into making you the person that you are, and I happen to like that person, Ash. I don’t know why you keep banging on about blokes like me. I come from the same place as you. We went to the same school, for fuck’s sake.”
I wasn’t a snob, and I’d never looked down my nose at anyone—that’s not the way we were raised—and it was pissing me off that she kept implying that I somehow thought that I was better than her. Yeah, I described the place she was living as a shit hole because it fucking was, but I wasn’t judging her for it.
“We hardly had the same upbringing though.”
“What the fuck has that got to do with anything?” I asked, my voice sounding high-pitched in disbelief. “I like you, Ash, a lot, and if you like me, then there’s no reason why we can’t give this a go, that is unless you don’t like me, and you’re just coming up with bullshit excuses as to why we can’t be together. And if that’s the case, well then, that’s fine. I’ll help you out anyway, because I like you. Just say the word and I’ll back the fuck off and leave you to get yourself well, then I’ll help you find a new place to stay.”
Please don’t say the word. Please, please don’t.
“I’m not a charity case. I’m not a little project for you and your family to work on.”
What?
“What the fuck has my family got to do with this?”
“Well, there’s you feeding me bullshit so you can get into my knickers. There’s Georgia being my mate, just because she doesn’t have too many to choose from, and there’s your mum, giving me a job and treating me like the rain in Spain bird, out of the Doctor Doolittle film, trying to make me talk and dress all proper.”
That’s what she thinks of us?
I watch in silence as she wipes her nose on the back of her hand. That was why I didn’t do relationships. That was why I didn’t do that caring bollocks. It just made your chest hurt.
It took me a few seconds to calm the emotions bubbling inside of me, trying to think
of what to say. She could bitch about me all she wanted, but bringing my family into it, I was gonna get pissed off.
“Well, I’m glad you’ve clued me up on how you really feel. I won’t waste any more of your time, but just so you know, the only thing I was planning on feeding you today was the shepherd’s pie I’ve spent the last two hours making us for dinner. Georgia is just choosey about who she lets into her life, and you should feel fucking honoured that my sister has let you in and given you the title of friend. As for my mum ... from what I hear, my mum gave you that job because apparently you’re an excellent sales woman. She gives you an allowance to spend on clothes because it’s a perk of the job, and good advertising for the shop. And as for the bird from the film? You’re even wrong on that score, sweetheart. Her names Eliza Doolittle, and the play’s called Pygmalion, the film is My Fair Lady. Doctor Doolittle has got fuck all to do with it. Even I know that much.”
We stared at each other for a few seconds before Ash started to climb out of bed. “I’m off. I don’t need this bullshit, and I don’t need to be lectured by you.” She headed into my wardrobe and started pulling her clothes off the hangers.
“Where the fuck are you gonna go?” I snapped. I shouldn’t have used that tone, implying that I was her only option. I knew it as soon as I said it.
She spun around and stared at me with an armful of her designer dresses, held against her chest. “You think I don’t have places to go? People that I can stay with? People that care and don’t just see me as a charity case?”
Whoa, that fucking hurt.
“When the fuck have I ever made you feel like a charity case?” I asked, astounded.
“Oh, I dunno.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Only ever since I met you, and especially since you turned up to my flat uninvited.”
She tilted her chin in that way that she did, and my heart rate increased. Why? I don’t have an answer to that.
She moved to try and put her hands on her hips, but they were still filled with her clothes. She didn’t even have a suitcase to put them in. Pretty much everything she owned was is what she held in her arms. I couldn’t imagine how that must’ve made her feel, but I don’t want it to be inadequate, unworthy, or beneath me, or anyone else. She was a better person than I could ever hope to be. I just needed her to understand that.