Carnage Boxset

by Jones, Lesley

  My teenaged girl heart just wouldn’t be able to take it.

  I would simply lie down in my bed and die.

  “Do you want someone else to be your boyfriend, G?”

  “No!”

  “Then why can’t you just wait for me?”

  I wanted to stamp my feet in frustration. This wasn’t going as I planned.

  “Why? I don’t get why I have to wait?” I gritted my teeth as I spoke, in an attempt to keep the whininess from my voice. I thought maybe a more assertive approach was needed. I was almost fourteen after all, I knew it all.

  “I’m almost fourteen. My mum and dad have been together since she was thirteen. Why do I have to wait?” I continued to fight the urge to stamp my feet as I spoke. I was the princess of my family and used to getting my own way. ‘No’ wasn’t a word a heard nearly enough.

  He took a deep breath in through his teeth, and then puffed his cheeks, while he let it out through his lips. His perfect, perfect lips.

  “I was just trying to do the right thing by you, your brothers, and your mum and dad, G. Everyone’s been so good to me. I don’t want to fuck things up. I want your family to be okay with this, with us, and I don’t think they will be while you’re so young.” He dragged his free hand through his brown hair. “Let me talk to Marley. See how the land lies. Perhaps if I talk to your dad nicely, he might let me be your—let us be—me be, your boyfriend? I don’t know what we should call it, what he’ll be happy with? If that’s what you want?”

  I sat down on the sun lounger next to him. He still had hold of my hand.

  I nodded my head. “I do want.”

  I did want that. So badly.

  “Jesus you two. Get on with it. I’ve watched the pair of you dance around for the past two years and it’s getting boring” Marley called out from where he had Jimmie wrapped around him in the pool.

  “See, he’s fine, Marley’s fine. My dad will be too.” I pleaded.

  Sean shook his head again. “All this fucking time I’ve waited and he don’t even care.”

  “Just remember, Maca, she’s not fourteen yet and she’s my little sister. You do anything more than kiss her and I will kill you. Then my brothers and my dad will kill you again… then there’s my mum, my uncles…”

  “Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Sean replied to my brother.

  He shoulder bumped me with an even bigger grin on his face than I was wearing. “Just kissing. D’ya think you can manage that, Gia?”

  I shoulder bumped him back. “If you really want me to, I’ll try to stick to just kissing,” I rolled my lips between my teeth and tried not to smile too big as I continued… “but I was just about to show ya me tits.”

  “Fuck… really?”

  I shrugged. Once the words were out, I was instantly overwhelmed with embarrassment and didn’t know where to look. I’d never even been kissed and there I was threatening to show him my tits.

  “I told ya, Gia. You’re a flirt.” He looked over my face while he talked to me, “Can I kiss ya, G. Please?”

  Despite feeling light-headed, I nodded and maintained eye contact with him. We turned and faced each other, and my knees went between his open legs so we could get closer.

  The angle was awkward.

  My heart raced so hard I thought I might be dying.

  My skin prickled and tingled.

  It was the most amazingly, beautifuly, terrifyingly confusing moment of my young life.

  It was perfect.

  His hand came up and cupped the side of my face. His thumb rubbed over my lips like he was testing them, trying them out with his thumb before he went in with his own lips. My heart felt like it was about to pound out of my chest and go crashing into his. He leant in until his lips met mine. They were so much softer than I ever could have imagined. Soft and minty, he must’ve cleaned his teeth right before he came down to the pool. He smelled and tasted delicious, minty fresh, and clean. I was aware of the sensation of stubble around the edge of his mouth, but it was his lips, those soft, soft lips brushing against mine that is the overriding memory I have of that first kiss.

  My first kiss.

  Our first kiss.

  He pulled me closer and deepened the kiss. Without even thinking about it, my hand went to his dark brown hair, and I grabbed a handful. He let a little groaning noise escape from the back of his throat, which in turn made me let out a small sigh of my own.

  “Fuck, Gia,” he said into my mouth.

  Sparks went off behind my now closed eyes.

  I was on fire. Inside and out, I was burning up in the best possible way.

  “So long. I’ve waited so long to do that, G. You have no idea.”

  That year, that holiday, that moment, is still one of my best ever memories.

  My lips and the skin around them felt permanently bruised and sore from all the kissing. Sean never did speak to my dad. He didn’t have to. The fact that we held each other’s hand every second we were together made it perfectly clear what was going on between us. It prompted my mum and dad to sit the pair of us down and give us the ‘we trust you and hope that you’ll be respectful of each other and your bodies. And aside from all that, it is actually illegal for you to be having sex and you could go to jail’ talk. We sat there mortified. Sean squeezed my hand so tight I thought it was going to break.

  Then he did the most amazingly beautiful thing. He let my mum finish her speech about how I was a good girl who was brought up the right way and was going to wait until I was older before taking things too far. During which, I seriously wanted the ground to open up and swallow me whole.

  Why did we have to have this conversation now, in front of Sean?

  Sean took the hand that he was holding and kissed the back of it.

  He cleared his throat before saying, “Frank, Bernie… I know we’re young, but I need you to know that from the first moment I laid eyes on Georgia, I’ve been a little bit in love with her. I’ve wanted to tell her for a while now, but I also wanted to be respectful of you and the boys. You’ve all been so good to me. You treat me better than my own parents ever have. You’ve always made me feel welcome and a part of your family. I wanted to do this right. I wanted to wait until Gia was old enough and until you were comfortable with us having a relationship, but I can’t wait anymore. I love her, and I want to be able to hold her hand and kiss her, maybe, sometimes…” He trailed off nervously.

  Shit, I thought. Don’t say any more, not in front of them. Wait until we’re on our own, and then you can tell me. All the time. You can just keep telling me. Over and over…

  “We’re too young to be thinking about anything more than that, kissing I mean. But I… we… we just want to be together and for you all to be happy about it,” he blurts.

  Fucking hell!

  I loved him. That’s when I knew. That’s when I was absolutely sure that my heart would always belong to Sean McCarthy.

  But let’s face it, I was thirteen, what did I really know?

  I’d never died so many times during one afternoon. We sat there in an awkward silence for a few seconds. Where were my brothers and Jimmie when I needed rescuing? I can bet my parents told them to stay out the way.

  Does that mean everyone was going to know about this little chat?

  “Well, Sean, as long as you respect my daughter and stick to hand holding, I don’t think we’ll have a problem. Would you like a beer Son? You must need one after that little speech?” My dad chuckled, while I sat and suffered death through mortification.

  My dad took on a more fatherly demeanour around Sean from that point on, and during the holiday, he spoke to Sean about his plans after he finished his fifth year. Legally, he could leave school next summer if he wanted, but our school went right up to sixth form, and Sean and Marley were both staying on. I didn’t think either of them really wanted to study anymore, but if they left the education system, they’d be expected to get full-time jobs, and that would leave them with no time for their music. They
had been lucky so far because the money they made with the band meant they didn’t need to get a part-time job. Their popularity grew, and they were getting bookings for Friday and Saturday nights. They even had a regular Sunday lunchtime spot at a pub not too far from where we lived. So, as wages for a group of students went, they were doing okay.

  Chapter Three

  Returning to school that September, I was the happiest I’d ever been in my life. After we’d gotten back from Portugal, Sean and I were inseparable. Luckily, he was always at our house anyway. All that was different now was that when the band rehearsed, I got a kiss every ten minutes between rehearsals. When Sean came and sat next to me after practice, he would hold my hand. He never stopped paying me attention, and I never stopped enjoying it.

  We were very rarely left alone together though. My parents must have drummed it into my brother’s heads that under no circumstances was that to happen, and it was comical at times the lengths they’d go to ensure that it didn’t. Even if Marley was going to the toilet, he would send Sean to fetch something or ask me to pass on a pointless message to one of my other brothers. Anything, just so long as we weren’t left alone, even if he were going to be gone only five minutes.

  What could we possibly get up to in five minutes?

  Well, lots it turned out. Sean was a typical sixteen year old boy who had needs, and despite only being fourteen, he stirred something in me that I have to admit terrified me at times. I wanted sex. I really wanted to have sex with him. I had no idea if it was the raging hormones caused by my age or if it was just him. I was a little bit horrified at feeling the way I did and was totally convinced the feelings I had meant I must surely be a whore, a slut, or a nymphomaniac. But I didn’t care, I just wanted him.

  I spoke to Jimmie about all of this, but she wasn’t quite getting the passion I felt. She and Marley were turning into best friends rather than boyfriend and girlfriend. There was something going on with her that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. She never spoke about other boys and she was at our house as much as she had always been, but things just weren’t happening between her and Marls. It didn’t seem to bother her when he spoke about other girls or when he kissed girls like I had seen him do when the band came off stage. I was pretty sure that a lot of the time, Marley did it to get a reaction from Jim, but she barely seemed to notice.

  My dad had fixed the band up with a transit van so they could get from gig to gig with all their equipment. Despite working at one of my dad’s car showrooms in the day, Lennon was now pretty much managing the band. He took and arranged all of their bookings, managed the money, and as the only one amongst us with a full license, he also did all the driving.

  * * *

  It was Christmas Eve 1982 when I finally worked out what was going on with Jimmie. The band was booked at a local pub they had never played at before. It was a ticket only event, and the night was a complete sellout. We arrived early since the venue would be filled up by seven p.m., and the boys wanted to have a sound check. They’d never played here before. This was probably going to be their biggest crowd yet. According to Len, they sold over two hundred tickets and the boys wanted to impress. Not that they wouldn’t, they were great and getting better with every show, growing in confidence so much that almost fifty percent of their songs were originals written by Marley and Sean. They still did covers, The Clash, The Jam, The Undertones, and The Specials being among their favourites, as well as some old classics by The Who, Beatles, and The Kinks. Whatever they played, they sounded great, and I loved watching Sean up on the stage, especially when his eyes would lock with mine and everyone else would just melt away.

  Me and him. Georgia and Sean. That’s all there is. That’s all that matters..

  The boys were having a run through of their set when I realised I was cold. The hall was at the back of the pub, it was a large room and the heating hadn’t been turned on yet. I decided to go back outside to get my jacket. I walked down the hallway towards the emergency exit at the back of the building where the van was parked, and that was when I saw them. Lennon and my best friend Jimmie. Kissing like their lives depended on it. I stood and watched for a few seconds. My best friend and my brother, and neither of them thought to tell me about it.

  What about Marley? Did he know? Is that why they had kept it quiet?

  This could cause so much trouble between the boys that I wished I didn’t know. I watched as they broke apart, still staring into each other’s eyes. I knew that look. It was how Sean and I looked at each other. This was more than just a kiss, this was trouble and I was thoroughly pissed off with the pair of them. As they turned to walk back inside, I walked towards them looking down at the ground as if I’d seen nothing. Lennon held the door open for me.

  “Porge! Where you off to?”

  “Don’t call me that. I want my jacket out of the van. Is it open?”

  He threw me the keys while he and Jimmie walked back inside. She didn’t look me in the eye when she passed, but I couldn’t miss that her face was flushed. I was angry, and it hurt a little that my best friend kept this secret from me. She knew everything about me. Every look, every thought, and every feeling I had, I shared. This was massive and she’d kept it from me.

  Why wouldn’t she share this with me?

  He was my brother.

  Did she not think I would be interested?

  I grabbed my coat, headed back inside, and looked around for Len. Carrying a full tray of drinks, he appeared through the swing doors leading from the front of the pub. He put them down on the table next to me and shouted for the boys to come down from the stage. Jim appeared at my side first and then Sean. Lennon passed out the beers to the boys and gave me and Jimmie a bottle of cider each.

  “Here’s to Carnage, a great gig, a very merry Christmas, and even bigger and better things for the coming year, 1983, boys. It’s gonna be our year. I can just feel it. Cheers.”

  There were kisses and hugs all round. Jimmie felt stiff and informal when she pulled me into her, and I felt awkward. I hated it. Sean wrapped his arms around me and kissed me like he was never going to let me go.

  “Merry Christmas, G. Stay close to Lennon tonight. It’s gonna get busy in here, so I don’t want you to drink too much.” He kissed my nose and looked over my face. “You okay?”

  Tears stung the backs of my eyes for some reason, and I felt angry with myself for caring that Jimmie and Len were keeping such a big secret from the rest of us. I just nodded my head.

  “What’s wrong? You look upset.”

  I shook my head and smiled up at him. “I’m just so proud of you. You sound so great up there, especially the new stuff. 1983 really could be your year, you know? Will you still love me when you’re famous and your pictures are all over The Face and Smash Hits?”

  He pulled me into him tightly. “I’ll love you forever, G. Wherever I am in the world. Whatever I’m doing, it will always be you. I’m yours for as long as you want me. For as long as I’m good for you, I’m all yours.”

  “What does that mean? For as long as you’re good for me? What does that even mean?”

  There was a hysterical edge to my voice and I hated it.

  Why would he say that?

  He looked around the room before he looked back down at me. “I just worry sometimes. I think your mum and dad and even your brothers would prefer it if you was with someone who wanted a proper job. Who had something more solid planned for when they leave school. Music is all I want, G. Music and you, and sometimes I worry that it’s not enough.”

  A tear rolled down my cheek. I never knew he felt like that. Of course he was enough.

  He is everything.

  “I love you, Sean. No matter what, I love you. I don’t care about anything or anyone else, you will always be enough. Always.”

  The boys were all back up on stage and the place had filled up around us while we’d been talking.

  Marley called out, “Maca, put my sister down and get up here!”
>
  He winked down at me and then whispered into my ear his normal greeting or goodbye, “Show us your tits G?”

  One of these days, I would totally shock him and give him a flash.

  One of these days very soon.

  He left with a grin and a kiss to the top of my head.

  They went down a storm that night, the place was packed and the tunes were tight. Lennon seemed to be on cloud nine with their performance and bought Jim and me another drink every time he went to the bar. By the time the boys took a break, I’d had four ciders and was feeling pretty drunk.

  The alcohol.

  The knowledge that there was something going on between Jimmie and Lennon.

  Sean’s confession about how he doubted he was good enough for me.

  It all left me in a strange mood. My jaw felt tense and my skin vibrated.

  I watched as Sean stepped off the stage and some girl stepped in front of him and wrapped her arms around his neck. I’d seen her before. She was short and blonde with big tits. She was dressed all slutty in a see-through lace top, a red bra, a little ra-ra skirt, and ballet pumps.

  She thought she was Madonna.

  I thought she was a whore who needed to get her hands off my fucking boyfriend.

  I watched as she leant in and tried to kiss him. Sean had hold of her by the waist and leant away shaking his head. He looked up and gave me a truly breathtaking smile. She followed his gaze, looked me up and down and while he was still looking at me, she turned and licked his face. I didn’t see his reaction, because everything became a blur. I flew across the now almost empty dance floor, grabbed her by the hair, and threw her to the floor.

  I don’t know where the anger came from?

  The drink?

  Jimmie and Lennon keeping me in the dark?

  Sean’s words from earlier?

  I had no idea, but it was there, raging and bursting out of me. I was on top of her, screaming and punching, ripping out handfuls of her hair. Then there were hands and arms all over me. Voices screaming my name and telling me to stop, but I continued lashing out until my arms were pinned to my sides and I couldn’t move. I was carried to the small room out the back, which was reserved for the band. Lennon and Marley had hold of me, telling me again to calm down. My breathing was ragged and heavy, and I felt anger like I’d never experienced before. I slapped my brother’s hands away from me.