Carnage Boxset

by Jones, Lesley

  “You’re late, Maca! There are people here already, so we sound checked without you. We need to be tight tonight. We’ve had a lot of interest from the demo tape and about four labels have asked where we’re playing over the next few weeks. So any one of them could have a rep in the crowd.”

  I grinned up at Sean with excitement. He squeezed my hand in response.

  “You’ll be fine, babe. You know the set inside out, right?” I nodded with encouragement as I spoke, but he looked worried.

  “We changed it up a bit for tonight. A few ballads because of it being Valentine’s and added a few of our new songs. It’ll be all right,” he said with a shrug. He was so confident once he was on stage. People would never believe how much he doubted himself before he got up there.

  “He fucking better be,” Marley mumbled from beside me. “And you behave yourself. Haley’s out there.”

  Great, just what I needed!

  Why don’t that bitch just give up?

  I rolled my eyes at Marley and held three fingers up. “Scouts honour, I’ll behave unless she puts her hands on him.”

  “G!”

  “George!”

  “Georgia!”

  Sean, Marley, and Lennon all said at the same time.

  “Okay, I’m joking.” I held my hands up in surrender. “I’ll wait till the next gig before I knock the bitch out.”

  The boys didn’t get my humour that night. Jimmie did, she just laughed and shook her head at me. She was also the only one that actually got that I was deadly serious. I’d had nearly two years of that slut hanging around my boyfriend. She must’ve been eighteen by now. You’d think she would have grown-up a bit and gone and gotten her own boyfriend.

  The boys all helped themselves to a beer from the tray that Billy had come in with. My taste had matured of late. I preferred a Southern Comfort and lemonade to a cider or a beer, and Billy didn’t disappoint. Despite being only fifteen, I had no trouble getting into pubs or being served at the bar. Clubs were a bit harder, but Sean usually wangled it for me. Jimmie never had a problem, she looked at least twenty, and I was so jealous. The boys all headed out to the stage, all except Sean. The rest of the band knew we had a little routine. They just didn’t know what it was, and in all honesty, I didn’t think my brothers wanted to.

  As the little back room emptied, Sean took a swig of his beer. I chewed on the inside of my lip while I watched him.

  “Show us ya tits, G.” He gestured towards my chest as he spoke.

  “You’ve been looking at them for the better part of the day. Are you not bored with them?” I said while I pulled my top up.

  “Never ever.” He bit each of my nipples and then pulled my bra and my T-shirt back down. It was that gesture that made my insides turn to mush. I loved this boy, so much, so, so much.

  “Come and dance next to the stage so I can watch you move. Don’t cause any trouble with Haley and don’t drink too much. I love ya, babe.” He pulled me in for a hard kiss on the mouth. I knocked back my drink as he grabbed my hand and pulled me out to the pub with him.

  The place was packed and hands reached out from everywhere as Sean walked through the crowd with one arm loosely slung over my shoulder. He stopped to high five, fist bump, or shake hands with his fans, but he never let go of me. I noticed how much tighter he pulled me into him when any of the hands were female that reached out for him. He smiled and nodded, but that was all of the attention he gave them. My heart swelled with the pride that I felt at being his girlfriend, but I still hated it. I had to fight my desire to slap each and every one of them around their over made up faces. Some of these women must have been at least thirty.

  Shouldn’t they have been at home with their kids or watching Dynasty or something?

  By the time we reached the stage, I probably had as much adrenaline running through me as Sean did.

  He kissed my temple. “Be good, I love you,” he whispered before he turned to jump up on stage, leaving me with Jimmie and Lennon.

  “Woo hoo, looking hot, Maca!” Jimmie and I turned to stare at Haley the whore. Sean had his back to her and took no notice.

  “George,” I heard Len warn from over my shoulder.

  I turned and glared at him. “What? I haven’t done anything.”

  He shook his head at me.

  The boys kicked off with a version of Queen’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”. Sean goes all out rocker billy, curling his lip and swivelling his hips. The crowd went wild, especially the women. I’d never heard the boys sing that song and as good as the performance was, I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the reaction from the female members of the audience.

  “Good evening, Brentwood and good evening all you lovers out there. Are you ready to rock out with us tonight?” Sean looked out across the crowd as he shouted his welcome in that husky voice of his. There were about two hundred people in the crowd and he managed to get some kind of response from all of them. “This is a new one of ours,” he said as the boys started playing “Hopeless”, one of the new songs they wrote and recorded for the demo tape.

  The crowd went mad. I had no idea how some of them were singing it word for word already. The boys put together a compilation tape when they were in the studio. It contained all of their new stuff and a few covers thrown in. For the last two weeks, they were selling them after their shows. These people must have been listening to them continuously to know the words and love the songs like they did already.

  Over the next hour, the boys played a mixture of their new songs and songs from the sixties, seventies, and eighties. The crowd loved every moment, and so did the band. Sean let them know they were taking a thirty minute break and was about to jump down from the stage when he spotted Haley standing waiting for him. I folded my arms across my chest, stood there, and watched what he was going to do. Instead of jumping down from the middle of the stage and talking to the crowd like he normally did, he moved over to the left and jumped down straight into my arms. I wrapped mine around his neck and gave him a sweaty kiss.

  “Brilliant, babe. You were fuckin’ brilliant.”

  He had the biggest smile on his face as someone passed him a beer. He held my hand while we headed into the back room so that he could change his T-shirt. As we walked in, Lennon was shouting at Marley, who was already smoking a joint. Len didn’t have a problem with the joint, it was the fact that Marls was smoking in the middle of the set and not at the end of the show.

  Jimmie and I grabbed our drinks as Len said, “Girls, can you wait outside please? I need to chat with the boys.”

  Sean kissed my hair as I pulled away from him. No one had ever asked us to leave before, so I figured Len was really pissed off with Marley and was going to give him a bollocking. I was more than happy to leave, whatever Len was going to say, I hoped it worked. Marley seemed to be permanently stoned these days, and when he wasn’t stoned, he was sleeping. He was missing practise, work, and school, and my mum and dad weren’t happy with him. They had even threatened to take his car away unless he bucked up. Whatever it took, I just wanted my brother back.

  Jimmie and I headed back out to the pub and joined Billy and Tom’s girlfriends at their table near the stage. Cheryl and Linda were okay, but they were both eighteen and didn’t really have too much to say to Jimmie and me. I knew that people talked about us and wondered what Lennon and Sean were doing with a couple of fifteen year olds, but they had no idea how it was. They didn’t know our history or the futures we’d already planned. We stood awkwardly and drank our drinks until the boys come back out to join us.

  For the last ten minutes of their break, drinks were sent over and hands were shaken. Marley eventually cheered up when a pretty little dark haired girl came over and chatted to him. They slowed things down a bit in the second half of their set and did a few more love songs. Then, unexpectedly, the boys set about rearranging the stage, and a piano was pushed forward. Marley and Billy sat down on stools with their acoustic guitars either side of Tom at
the drums.

  Sean sat down at the piano, adjusted the mic, and then the whole place fell silent.

  “Okay people, this song is a bit different for us, but it’s something we’ve been working on. Tonight, I especially wanted to be able to sing it for my girl. Gia, this is for you. I love ya, babe.”

  Fucking hell, he’d never dedicated a song to me before. He’d sung songs and stared right at me while he’d been singing, and I’d known that he wanted me to hear the words. I have… I do… I knew we had a connection that no one else understood. We knew that other people thought that we were just a couple of kids, but we knew how wrong they were. My heart was pounding so hard in my chest that I actually stepped back from the stage slightly, in case the mic picked up the boom, boom, boom sound that it was making. Sean hit the first note on the piano, and I knew in an instant what it was. He proceeded to belt out the most beautiful version of “Georgia On My Mind” that I’d ever heard. The whole place was totally silent. I held onto my sob for as long as I could, but it got to the point where I thought I was actually going to puke, so I had to let it go.

  Jimmie put her arm around my shoulder and Lennon stood on the other side of me, slid his arm around my waist, and kissed my hair. We all knew in that moment, that without a shadow of a doubt, the boys were destined for greatness. They were so talented and as much as I loved Sean, the song and the dedication, I had a horrible feeling that I was losing him wash over me. I swiped at my tears, tucked the feeling away, and smiled up at Sean while he finished the song. When it ended, he walked over to the edge of the stage and knelt in front of me with a rose in his hand.

  “I love you, G. I’ll always love you.”

  The whole place went off with whoops and cheers as I wrapped my arms around his neck and told him that I loved him too.

  Once again, he’d given me one of those moments that would stay with me until the day that I died.

  Chapter Five

  The next year, 1984, was amazing for the boys. They landed a recording contract with a small independent label and were in talks to support a big American band on the European leg of their world tour. In the summer of 1985, the record label insisted that the pub gigs had to stop, and they spent the last part of the year in the studio setting down tracks for their first album, which would be released to coincide with the tour.

  My dad got his lawyers involved in the contract negotiations with the label, and the boys secured a pretty good deal with an upfront amount, which prompted them all to focus full time on their music. They were either in the studio in West London or at our place writing new songs. None of this really had any effect on mine and Sean’s relationship. We spent all of our time together, and we were still absolutely in love. The only difference it really made to me was getting recognised as Sean McCarthy’s girlfriend. I didn’t use it as an excuse to be a bitch, but it had pretty much made me queen of the school.

  Perhaps now, on reflection, people did consider me a bitch, but I was never deliberately horrible or spiteful to anyone. I was choosy with my friends, and perhaps now, with hindsight, I was very shallow about who I hung about with. I was still confident about my looks, I didn’t think I was stunning, but I knew I was pretty, my boyfriend was the lead singer in an up and coming band, and my parents were wealthy and lived in a nice house in the best part of town. I had a wardrobe filled with fashionable clothes and never wanted for anything.

  I didn’t actively seek out friends like me. It just sort of happened. That was how Ashley ended up hanging around with Jimmie and me. She started at our school at the beginning of our fifth year and immediately started hanging around with the ‘in’ crowd, of which we were a part of. Jimmie and I were no angels, but Ash was truly wild. We smoked, we drank, and we dabbled in drugs. Our boyfriends were older and involved with a band. They tried things, and we tried them too. Usually after a gig or at a party, but we’d never tried anything stronger than weed or whizz. Ashley, on the other hand, would happily skin up at school and brag that she had tried coke and could get hold of it any time we wanted. She had an older brother that served up for a living and was willing to give us a good deal. We didn’t take her up on her offer though.

  The boys finished recording their album in March of 1985 and spent the next few months doing nothing but rehearse. The tour was going to kick off in May, starting in Italy and they’d be away for four weeks, and then they would be on tour in England for three weeks in July. Jimmie and I couldn’t go on the European leg of the tour. We were in our last year of school and up to our necks in exams until the end of May. Our parents wouldn’t allow us any time off. I was so angry with my mum and dad. I’d be marrying Sean as soon as I left school. I turned sixteen the September before, and once school was over, nothing would stop us from being together.

  He was going to be rich and famous. What did it matter whether or not I passed my exams? But they wouldn’t listen, agreeing only to let Sean pay for flights so I could see him play in Spain at the end of the second week they would be away. I begged, pleaded, and even threatened to kill myself at one stage, but it was to no avail. Thinking back now, I was lucky that they let me fly to Spain with my best friend at the age of just sixteen. But I guess they knew Marley and Lennon would be at the airport to collect us and it was only a two-and-a-half-hour flight.

  Walking through customs and into the arrivals terminal of the airport in Spain was my first realisation that the boys were now well on their way to fame. The reviews had been good for the live shows, and there had been a lot of hype in the music magazines about the album release, which would happen the week before the UK leg of the tour. Jimmie and I had only a small suitcase each since we were flying out again on Monday morning after spending three nights with the boys. But three nights was better than nothing. I had gone beyond butterflies, and now it felt like I had bats flapping in my belly as I looked out for Sean or Lennon when we walked into the terminal building. My heart began to sink as I looked around and couldn’t see him.

  “D’ya see them?” Jimmie asked.

  I shook my head in reply, biting down hard on my bottom lip.

  What if he’d forgotten about me and met someone else, a page three girl or someone famous? What if he’d realised I was just a schoolgirl and he was on his way to being a famous singer? We’d spoken every day, and he said that he loved and missed me, but what if he was lying?

  My head began to spin. I hadn’t been able to eat yesterday, and our morning flight had meant that I hadn’t had breakfast that morning. The airport was hot and noisy. I suddenly felt sick and could feel myself sway. I stopped walking and held onto the luggage trolley while I took some deep breaths. I slowly regained my balance and the room came back into focuThe noise level in the building seemed to pick up and I was sure that I could hear screaming. At first I thought there had been an accident. Police and security guards started running in the direction of the noise and a crowd was forming.

  “George!” I turned to look at Jimmie. “Bloody hell you deaf or what?”

  “Sorry, I feel a bit dizzy. It’s warm in here. What’s wrong?”

  “You don’t think that could be them, do ya?” She gestured with her chin towards the commotion. As we both stared, the biggest, blackest man I’d ever seen appeared from amongst the melee with Sean tucked under his arm. Lennon appeared behind them. As soon as he saw me, Sean broke free from the black bloke and jogged towards me with the biggest grin on his face. I couldn’t move because my legs felt stuck, but I didn’t need to. Sean grabbed me around the waist and swung me around in a circle. He set me down on my feet and then snogged the face off me.

  “Fucking hell, G. I’ve missed ya. Show us ya tits.”

  And there he was, my Sean, his arms, his smell, and his taste. Everything was right with the world. I was back at his side, right where I was born to be. I don’t know why I panicked and doubted him. The way he looked at me and the things he said told me, showed me unequivocally how much he loved and missed me. His eyes told me everyth
ing I needed to hear as they looked into mine, and I dissolved into him.

  We ended up with Milo, the black bodyguard, and four armed police officers escorting us to the car waiting outside. Well, I say car, but it was a stretch limo… a stretch fucking limo. Jimmie and I screamed like the pair of sixteen-year-olds we were, and Len and Sean high fived each other. We jumped inside while Milo and the driver put our cases in the boot. They shouted at a group of about ten girls and a couple of boys that were banging on the window of the car to move away.

  “They are proper mental here, G. We were on some television show last weekend, and ever since then, we can’t go anywhere without being recognised. It’s been mad.”

  He pulled me onto his lap as he talked, “D’ya like the car? We borrowed it from Kombat Rock.”

  Kombat Rock were the American band Carnage was supporting. They were world famous and had five number one albums and about twenty singles in the charts. They’d been around for about eight years. Everyone knew them. They had a reputation for drink, drugs, women, and smashed up hotel rooms. They were the main reason for my little freak out in the airport building. I was much calmer now that my arms were wrapped around Sean’s neck and his arms around my waist.

  “Wait till you see the hotel,” Lennon said. “We’ve been on a tour bus most of the time, but the label booked us into a hotel as we are playing here for two nights.”

  “I booked us into our own room,” Sean whispered into my ear. “I can’t wait to get you naked.”

  “Maca, I really don’t want to be hearing that. It’s bad enough knowing you’re shagging my sister, I don’t need to hear you talk about it.”

  “Well, you’re shagging her mate,” Sean tells Lennon.