Finally, Conor leaned forward and asked, “Do you remember ‘The Clash’?”
Gavin laughed at the absurd question. “The Clash? Of course, I remember them. One of my all time favorite bands.”
“Not the band, Gav. I’m talking about the mood swings you used to have when we were kids. We called it ‘The Clash.’ As is, ‘One day it’s fine and next it’s black.’”
That wasn’t something Gavin would easily forget. There had been years where he’d felt a complete lack of control over his emotions and moods as they would shift as easily and quickly as the winds off the sea. He attributed it to hormones. These days, it would have been described as him having been “triggered.” Though he scoffed at the indulgent term, he knew it was accurate. There had been any manner of things that could change his mood during that time period. He had been incredibly angry with his lot in life, but at the same time he hadn’t allowed himself to admit that. It was just as he explained to Sophie when he first met her, he was holding out (unrealistic) hope that his mother would return. Lying to himself about it was a self-preservation technique. But that didn’t mean he really took comfort from it. It was only Conor’s support, and then Sophie’s, along with the catharsis of both music and time passing that saw the mood swings dissipate. In fact, it had been so many years since he had suffered from this phenomena that he was genuinely perplexed that Conor had brought it up now.
“Okay, so yeah, I remember that,” Gavin said. “What’s the point?”
“The point is that you and Christian have that in common. You both have that darkness pulling at you. It’s why you got on so well.”
“So you did think I would hurt myself, too.”
Conor grimaced. “Not consciously. I think what happened is, it all clicked in my head that if Christian, a guy who seemed to have things together despite his issues, wasn’t able to make it, then you might be at risk the same way. I mean, he got into music for the same reasons as you did, for the release of his demons. But it wasn’t enough. And that fucking scared me, if you want to know the truth.”
Gavin nodded as this sunk in. He had never been shy about the fact that he’d been drawn to music as a coping mechanism. It had truly saved his life.
“It’s a fine line artists walk,” Gavin said. “Pouring all their issues into their music as a form of release without any guarantee it’ll work. We put it all out there, hoping to spread out our pain to make it more tolerable. But you’re right, it wasn’t enough for Christian.”
“And yourself?”
“Me? I’m not who I used to be, Con. I’m not confused and tormented. Neither do I have the desire to manipulate those things to further my art. I still believe it makes for amazing inspiration, but I’d rather fucking be happy than wallow in that angst. Especially because I have it so damn good.”
That answer had a physical effect on Conor. His entire body relaxed.
Gavin leaned forward in response. “I’ve never once thought about ending my life, you know? Yeah, I’ve been depressed. I’ve been lower than low. But I never had the desire to escape. I thought you’d know that about me.”
“I do, Gav. At least, I thought I did. I never thought Christian would take this way out, though, so . . . .”
“I get it. I see what you’re after. But that’s not something you need to worry about with me. I appreciate all the caretaking you’ve been doing—have done all these years—but I’m good.”
Raising his pint as a toast to that sentiment, Conor smiled. Gavin knocked his glass against Conor’s and they both downed the remnants of the Guinness that had gone warm.
“Look what’s happened to us,” Conor said.
“What’s that?”
“I believe we’ve fucking grown up.”
Gavin laughed. “There’s hope yet, isn’t there?”
Shay had gone from Christian’s funeral in Australia back to San Francisco, but he returned to Dublin a month later. His stated purpose was that he had an opportunity to test a McLaren P1 GTR, a true-life fantasy of a sports car boasting an outrageous 983 horsepower engine, on a closed racetrack in Germany. In a nod to their days of joyriding as teenagers, Shay wanted Gavin to go with him. Gavin knew what Shay was really doing. It was his way of trying to get him to engage in the present. At almost two hundred miles per hour, as it would turn out. The prospect was too thrilling to refuse.
Gavin and Shay traveled to Nürburgring, the motor-sports complex, for three days of testing their driving skills on both the Grand Prix track and the Nordschleife track, otherwise known as the “Green Hell” for its tight turns, extreme crests, inclines, and gradients, and constantly changing road surfaces—all set among lush trees.
They started with a private consultation with the McLaren driver-fitness team and company design director. Shay ate up every bit of information and coaching they shared, and Gavin watched him like a proud father. Seeing Shay this happy put Gavin in a better mood.
The specs of the MacLaren almost made Shay drool, and Gavin was just as impressed. This orange and gunmetal-gray souped up version went beyond the road-legal style, offering specialized aerodynamics and a race-inspired body kit. The steering wheel was designed with all of the mode switches located in the center of the wheel, allowing the driver to make adjustments without having to take his hands off the wheel.
Gavin ended up letting Shay do almost all the driving, preferring to be his passenger and enjoy the ride like he had done back in their school days. The trip accomplished what Shay had set out to do—it got Gavin to appreciate the present and not get mired in what he could not change with Christian’s depression and suicide.
Out of all his bandmates’ efforts, Gavin was surprised that it was Martin’s overture that had the biggest healing effect. Upon his return from Germany, Martin asked Gavin if he’d be interested in going to London with him. Martin was looking to consult on a new bit of ink and his tattoo artist was in town. Interested in getting a new tattoo in honor of Daisy, Gavin readily agreed to the trip, even as he once more knew that there was an ulterior motive to the outing. Martin must have been next on the list of his bandmates designated to distract him.
It wasn’t until they were at the tattoo studio and had spent an hour talking with Tito, Martin’s tattoo artist and friend, that Gavin learned what was really on Martin’s mind.
They sat in the back, Tito having left them to handle a touch up on another client.
“Has Christian dying made you rethink anything in your life?” Martin asked.
The abruptness of the question threw Gavin. As did the depth. He had never seen Martin as an especially thoughtful person.
“Em, I’m not sure what you mean?”
“Life is too fucking short. Yeah, Christian picked his own timing, but we don’t all know ours, do we?”
Something very rare happened: Gavin was speechless.
“When he passed,” Martin continued, “I really started to think over the decision I’d made in leaving Celia. I wondered if I was running in the wrong direction. I actually went by to see her, to tell her about what had happened. And you know what she said?”
“No, what?”
“She said, ‘It’s good he never had children because then they’d have to live knowing he was in hell for his sin of committing suicide.’”
“Fuck’s sake,” Gavin muttered.
Martin laughed bitterly. “That’s my Celia. Judgmental to the end. It backed me off from talking with her more at the time. But I kept thinking about her as the mother to my kids. About the family we had set out to have and how I’d broken that apart.”
“You said the boys had adjusted well. Amazingly so.”
“And they have. As near as I can tell. But it’s still pretty new. Sean’s the most vulnerable, being the youngest.”
“You’re involved, though. You’re concerned. That has to make the difference.”
“Yes. But it’s not the same as being a real family.”
Gavin noticed that Martin was only sp
eaking about his family in terms of his kids. It had nothing to do with his wife. “Do you want to be with Celia?”
After a brief hesitation, Martin replied, “No, I don’t. But that’s what I was talking about when I asked if you’ve rethought anything. Maybe I need to rethink what’s important. Maybe I can figure out how to be happy with her, as long as it means the kids would be happy, too.”
“Marty, no. Jesus, no. That’s not on. Don’t settle. Your kids would know you’re not happy. That’s not the way to go.”
“Rationally, I know you’re right. But my guilty fucking conscience won’t let up. And with Christian doing what he did, I just . . . I’m sorry, Gav, but I think what he did was incredibly selfish. And I don’t want to look back and regret being selfish when I could have done something better for my kids.”
Gavin had to take a moment to compose himself because his first reaction to Martin calling Christian selfish was anger. Martin needed to have empathy about what Christian had been going through. He needed to have some imagination about the depths of pain and helplessness Christian endured in order to get to the point where he felt he had no choice but to end his own life. But after reconsidering it, he knew it was a valid position. And the truth was, he had thought the same thing. But verbalizing it before now would have hurt too much. It would have felt like he was betraying his friend after the fact.
“You’re right,” Gavin said. “What Christian did was selfish. I hate saying it, but I know it’s true.” Admitting it felt like a burden lifted. He had spent so much energy trying to rationalize and empathize with what Christian had gone through. But the bottom line was that he couldn’t help but feel that Christian should have done more to get help. But he hadn’t. Gavin only now allowed himself to recognize the anger he had felt over this, and it was a relief. “But you can’t compare your situation to his. You’re not trying to check out of life. You’re trying to really live your life. There’s honor in that, man. Even if it’s hard and disruptive along the way. You can’t go backwards.”
Martin considered this for a long moment. “No, I don’t suppose I can.”
“I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this, but you’ve always been what I thought a dad should be.”
“I’d do anything for them, that’s for sure.”
“First thing along those lines is take care of yourself. You did the right thing. Don’t doubt it.”
“I really appreciate that, Gav.”
“No worries. You actually helped me clear my own head on things.”
Martin laughed, surprised. “If that’s what I did, you’re welcome.”
“Oh, Marty. You’re ever yourself, aren’t you?” Gavin asked, throwing an arm around his friend’s neck.
“Can’t be anything else, can I?”
“No, and I wouldn’t have it.” Gavin clapped him on the back before releasing him. “Now, which one of us is going first?”
Gavin ended up getting his done first since it was simpler. He added a daisy into the existing “Sophie” tattoo on his chest so that the stem tangled with her name. Tito had added some shadowing on the flower to give it an edge, but Gavin wasn’t someone who worried about appearing macho.
Martin’s addition was also on his chest. It was a Celtic knot that had become known as representing infinite love as the design had no breaks in the links. The names of his sons were written in a circle around the knot.
“Perfect,” Gavin declared when he saw Martin’s tattoo completed.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
With his head and part of his torso wedged under the kitchen sink, John carried on talking as if it was a perfectly normal position from which to hold a conversation. Being a plumber, it probably was. Martin watched the lower half of the man, admiring how he could reach out and blindly select the proper tool for the job. John was doing Martin a favor with this dripping pipe, and enjoying the chance to ask his brother-in-law about Lainey while he was at it.
It turned out that John didn’t just have a celebrity crush on her, he was a total superfan, having absorbed all the minutia of the actress’ career and love life. In that, he knew more about Lainey than Martin did.
“What we could do, is get a lineup of her films and watch them back to back,” John said. “It would be fascinating to see the progression. But I’ll bet you wouldn’t be able to say she’s gotten any better. That’s because she started out so good!”
“It almost seems weird to watch her like that,” Martin said.
“I bet. After getting a look at her in person—what could improve on that?” He laughed and it came out as a smoker’s cough.
“No, like, I mean, it might feel intrusive somehow.”
John slowly pulled himself out from under the sink and sat upright, wiping his hands on a red rag. “More intrusive than having fucked her?”
Martin almost spit out the gulp of beer he had just taken. He had never spoken to his wife’s husband like this. The man had always been the epitome of propriety and decency. He was like Celia in that way. Or so he thought.
“Jesus, John,” Martin said with a laugh.
“Tell me it was good, Marty,” he said with a salacious grin. “Tell me it was everything I imagine and more.”
“Ah, fuck. I can’t talk to you about that. What about Mags?”
“You know I’m with your sister and that’ll never change. But a man can have his fantasies, can’t he?”
Martin nodded. Hadn’t he had countless fantasies himself over the years? “Yeah, it was as good as you’d think. That’s all I’ll say.”
John got lost in a dreamy expression for a minute.
“But she’s not interested in anything more than a shag, it seems.” Martin finished off his Smithwick’s. “Says she doesn’t have the time or interest in any more than that.”
“My arse she doesn’t.”
“Excuse me?”
John slowly got to his feet, his knees cracking and popping as he went. He helped himself to a seat at the breakfast table. Martin joined him.
“You really don’t know all the history of this girl?” John asked. When Martin shook his head, John continued, “Well, first thing you need to know is that she was an amazing child actress. Since age seven, she could command the screen, let me tell you. The kind of performance you couldn’t look away from.”
“Won awards, got a star on Hollywood Boulevard—that I know.”
“And you know about the mother?”
“She told me they had a rough relationship. They still do.”
“The mother was that classic ‘stage mother’ you hear about. Pushing Lainey non-stop, pulling her out of school, with only sporadic tutoring. They say she put horrific pressure on that girl—all the while, spending her film money on a big mansion and parties and the like.”
“Yeah, she had a period of rebelling, right? She said she got into trouble for some silly acting out stuff.”
“The vandalism? Yeah, she and her friends were caught spray painting and other nonsense. The ultimate rebellion happened when she was seventeen.”
“What happened then?”
The creases around John’s bright blue eyes deepened as he squinted at Martin, amazed that he didn’t know about this apparently defining incident. “Well, that’s when she got caught up in the scandal with the married man.”
“At seventeen?”
“Young, right? That was part of the scandal. But it was more that the guy she was sleeping with was some hotshot movie producer with four kids. The wife found out about them and leaked details to the paparazzi, including information on where to find them during one of their trysts. He had taken her to his private beach house in Cancún, Mexico. The press got photos of them getting frisky on the sand, complete with her being topless.”
“Seventeen,” Martin said again, still caught on the notion of her being taken advantage of at such a young age—by the older man and the media.
“Yeah, well, for all the ways she projected being so much older with her actin
g skills, she seemed like a seventeen year old—or younger—when the tabloids published her emails to the guy. The wife let those out, too. They were sappy, sad things. She was under that guy’s spell. Had fallen for a line he obviously fed her about how he would leave the wife and kids for her. But every fella in the world could plainly see the game he was playing. She had it bad for him.”
Martin nodded. “I see.”
“The wife, of course, wasn’t having it. She wasn’t going to let her man walk away from her or the family. And he wasn’t going to cut and run when it meant handing over half of his fortune. So, the guy did an interview with Hollywood Reporter, of all things, talking about how it was all a mistake—but what he was really doing was casting Lainey as some sort of Lolita-style seductress, because he ended up claiming he had been the one manipulated. And to make it even worse, for good measure, he hinted that Lainey wasn’t mentally stable because of how her mother treated her.”
“What a bastard.”
“That’s what did her in. Not just the heartbreak of losing this guy she thought she was in love with, but him destroying her reputation. Because that’s exactly what happened. Oh, boy, the press was a vicious lot. She was an adulteress, a whore, a man-stealer, a homewrecker. Everything you could think of. Mind, the wife and this producer had all the power in this and were pushing all the attention. It was their cowardly way out of the fact that he cheated—with an underage girl, no less.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“Ay, it is. She disappeared not long after. After months of daily stories in the tabloids, it was a relief for people. They said good riddance. Then a couple years later she was at that fancy uni, studying and keeping her nose clean. It seemed like she would do something normal with her life. But a few years later, she was back in acting. Then this superstardom came along with the action hero librarian thing. But never once in all this time has she been seen with a man in public. She is making a very big effort to stay out of the news with her love life.”
Finding Rhythm Page 26