Carnage Boxset

by Jones, Lesley

  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 at the shop my dad had bought for her in the local high street. My mum always had a fantastic eye for fashion, and she 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 he happened to mention it was a frock shop, as he called it, and 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, and the stock was not the type of thing the customers of the high-end beauty salon or the bespoke furniture designer on either side of us would be interested in purchasing. It sold absolute crap, including cheap and nasty “fashion” items imported from China. Just the name, Hollywood Style, would be enough to put off most of the clientele that frequented the other shops in the area.

  By that afternoon, my mum had one of my dad’s draughtsmen who worked for his building company, around to give her advice on the changes she wanted to make. It took her around two months to have it re-fitted, re-named, re-branded and stocked with an up to the minute range of designer labels.

  By the time I’d finished with college, the two of us were running a very successful business and had extended into the furniture shop next door. My dad had somehow convinced the owners to relocate to another store he owned farther 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. We were selling clothing, but we also offered a full range of accessories, including shoes, handbags, scarves, and sunglasses, and we had seven girls working for us.

  Despite the fact 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 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 because he had nowhere to go. I apologised to Len and explained I 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 he understood, but I doubt he actually had any idea.

  * * *

  Finally, in the August of 1988, 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 open a fourth in Epping before Christmas. We had managers in all of them, and my mum and I spent most of our time with buyers and some small independent designers who made stuff exclusively for us.

  Our range now included 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 telly, the radio, and anything else that might bring me into contact with Sean and the band. Avoidance had become a complete obsession of mine.

  The band was now world famous. My parents sold our family home and bought a farmhouse in the countryside just outside of Brentwood. Lennon and Jimmie bought their own place and were getting married next year, and Marley bought a place in the city to crash whenever the band was in the country. I very rarely saw him. Jim and Lennon were only living around the corner, so I finally got to see her on a regular basis again. She was working alongside Len as part of the management team for the band, and she travelled with him whenever she wanted to. I had dinner and caught up with them at least three to four times a month and they were always good with regards to avoiding any mention of Sean and the band, if possible. I had called Jim that afternoon and invited her to join Ash and me for drinks that night, and she’d agreed to meet us there.

  My palms were sweating, and I felt absolutely sick when we walked into the wine bar that night. I was glad we’d gone somewhere upmarket and swanky. It was as far removed as you could get from the sweaty pubs I used to go to with the band. It was 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 and who’d broken my heart when I was sixteen.

  I heard a loud squeal as we headed for the bar and noticed that Jimmie was already there. She jumped up from her stool at the tall round table when 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 also knew I’d do it in my own time, and she was right, the time was now, and there I was.

  She threw her arms around me and whispered into my ear, “I am, so proud of you, Georgia Layton. So, fucking proud.” I almost teared up, which was something I hadn’t allowed myself to do since that fuck-awful week when my world fell apart.

  Because Thursday was our late night, we hadn’t closed the shop until seven. By the time we had touched up our makeup, titivated—as my dad liked to call it, and then walked up the high street to the wine bar, it was around seven thirty. The place was packed full of the after-work crowd from the city, wearing double-breasted suits and rocking mullets.

  So not my type!

  We joined Jimmie at the table, and she poured us a glass of wine each from the bottle she had in a cooler. We sat, chatted, caught up, and knocked back the first bottle in ten minutes.

  Ash got up and went to the bar to buy another, and as soon as she left, Jimmie grabbed my hand.

  “George, I really need to talk to you, and it’s about the forbidden subject.”

  My stomach lurched. “Is it about him, or the band, or something different?”

  “It’s about ‘that’ night. I found a few things out today at work, things I really think you should know.”

  “Will it change anything? Will it fix this horrible fucking pain I have in my chest, Jim? Will it make it possible to hear his name, say his name even, without me wanting to pass out?”

  “Oh, George, is it still that bad?”

  I nodded my head. “Yep, every second of every day.”

  She reached out and squeezed my hand. “Then you need to hear what I have to say because he’s in exactly the same state you are.”

  “What?”

  “He’s a mess, G. A complete fucking mess. He gets up on that stage or in front of a camera, and he’s big bad Maca, but as soon as the show’s over, all he wants is you. He does the interviews, smiles for the cameras stays for five minutes at the after show parties, and then he goes home. He still loves you, George, and he misses you, so much.”

  My hand instinctively reached up to the delicate, silver necklace I still wore. It was the only part of him I’d allowed to stay in my life, and that was only because I couldn’t actually see it. Well, I could if I looked in a mirror, but it had been there so long now I didn’t really notice it. It was part of me, of who I was, exactly like he was.

  “Why didn’t you tell me this before?” My head was spinning, and it wasn’t because of the wine.

  “Because it’s what you wanted. Because, until today, I thought you were right. I thought you had every reason to stay away from him, and I thought it was the right thing for you, but now I’m not so sure.”

  Ashley came back at that moment with another bottle of wine and a bottle of champagne, which she waved in front of her.


  “This, ladies, is compliments of the gentleman at the bar.”

  A bartender appeared at our table with three champagne flutes and proceeded to pop the cork and fill the glasses. We thanked him and turned around to thank the blokes at the bar. There were four of them. One looked like he’d just come from the golf course, one looked like he’d just come from the gym, and the other two from the office. Of the last two, one was in a suit, the other in a pair of dark, fitted trousers and a white shirt. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, and he had his back to me. I couldn’t see his face, but I could see he had a lovely arse and shiny black hair. It was quite long, but not cut in the mullet style that everyone seemed to be favouring at that moment. Instead, it was long and pushed back. He was tall, very tall, with a broad back and shoulders. I smiled politely at all the others, mouthed cheers, and tilted my glass towards them. Just as I was about to look away, the man with his back to me turned, and his eyes met mine.

  Fuck!

  My heart gave a little judder. After three years, it was as if it was letting me know it was there and capable of doing more than just keeping me alive. But I didn’t want it to. I wanted it to focus on just one job, doing nothing but keeping me alive. I didn’t want it to feel, and I certainly didn’t want it to react. His brown eyes remained locked on mine while I took a swig of my drink. As I did, he smiled, very slightly at me with his soft, full lips, and once again, my heart stopped for a split second and then picked up its rhythm in my chest.

  Fuck!

  Fuck!

  And, fuck!

  “Fuck, G. He’s nice,” Jimmie nudged me, and I almost spat my drink out when she said that aloud. It was exactly what I’d been thinking.

  I noticed he laughed as he watched me wipe champagne from my chin, and his eyebrows rose slightly when I sucked it off the side of my finger. He shook his head and looked away, and for the very first time in three long years, I felt the stirrings of desire deep down in my belly and knew I had to stay the fuck away from him. There was no way I’d ever get involved with anyone capable of causing that kind of reaction in me again, ever.

  After drinking the bubbly and the bottle of wine, Ashley stayed at the wine bar with some friends, while Jimmie and I jumped in a taxi and went back to her house. Lennon was in front of the telly watching a video of the band, and when I stepped through the living room door, there, filling the screen in all his glorious beauty was the love of my life. The room swayed, and I quickly closed my eyes for a few moments, but something inside me forced them to open and take just one more look. As soon as Len looked over his shoulder and saw me, he ejected the video. Then he stood as I finally dragged my eyes away from the now blue screen. I noticed he was smiling at me, sadly.

  “Sorry, George, I didn’t realise you were coming back here.”

  I shrugged my shoulders and let out a deep sigh. “It's okay, Len. It’s not your fault.”

  He held out his arms, and I walked straight into them. My brothers were all tall like my dad, and I loved how safe I felt when they wrapped their arms around me. Sadly, Sean was the one monster my dad and my brothers weren’t able to save me from. I was just going to have to carry on fighting this one on my own. “How are ya, George? You really need to put on some weight.”

  “Yeah, thanks, Len. Good to see you, too.”

  He kissed the top of my head. “Shut up, it’s always good to see ya. You know that! I just wish I got to see more of ya, more often. How many times a week are you hitting the gym now?”

  I shrugged. “Well, we’ve been busy with work. The new shop opens in Epping at the end of September, so we’ve been buying stock and recruiting new staff. In the last couple of weeks, I’ve only managed a couple of hours three times a week.”

  “Three times a week, is that all? You need to eat more and go to the gym and work a bit less.”

  I go to speak, but Jimmie comes out of the toilet where she’d been since we got back.

  “Leave her alone, Len. She looks fine. You look fine, G. As skinny as fuck, but fine.”

  I sighed wearily again and shook my head as I sat down in the armchair. “So put the kettle on then, Len and get the biscuits out, I’m starving.”

  I kicked off my shoes and tucked my legs under me. Jim sat in the armchair opposite and did the same.

  Their house was an old 1930s detached place that my dad’s firm extended and fixed up for them. It had big, bay windows to the front and the French doors to the back looked out over a huge garden. Their wedding was all booked for June next year and they were going to try straight away for a baby. I hated to admit that I was jealous, but that was the only thing I could think was causing the ache I felt inside when I thought about the domestic bliss they shared.

  “So…” I tried to sound more upbeat than I felt. “What do you need to tell me?”

  Len looked over from the open plan kitchen at Jimmie. “You told her?”

  “Not yet, but I’m about to.” She looked warily at me and took a deep breath.

  “I was chatting on the phone today with a girl from Kombat Rocks management team. Carnage are going to tour the States next year, and the record label wants KR on the bill for some of the shows. Anyway, being the wanker that he is, Rocco refuses to be classed as the supporting act, although technically, that’s exactly what they’d be doing, but anyway, he wants it worded something like a double-headline concert. So, this girl I was talking to on the phone, is telling me how Rocco is such a knob and how nobody likes him and they can’t believe the label would put the two bands together after the way Rocco set Maca and Marley up before. So I’m like, what d’ya mean, set them up?

  “Then, she proceeds to tell me Rocco deliberately got them on ecstasy that day because he knew it would get them horny and off their nuts. Then, he convinced Whorely to get them back to their room so she could cry rape and he would turn up and start taking photos of it all and… It was all to get back at you.”

  I closed my eyes and swallowed down the bile that kept making its way up my throat. Wishing thatI’d drunk more to numb to this conversation, or less so that it didn’t make me feel quite so sick.

  “The rape cry was just to get the police involved so that Carnage would hopefully get kicked off the tour. Whorely never had any intention of going through with it, so when your dad turned up and offered her ten grand to drop the charges, she was over the fucking moon. That was just—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, back up, my dad paid her ten grand?”

  Lennon placed three cups of tea down on the coffee table. I leant forward and picked mine up. I knew it was going to be too hot, but I needed something to do while I tried to absorb all of this information.

  Len stood in front of me with his hands on his hips and said, “Yeah, didn’t you know that?”

  I shook my head. “No, I didn’t. Anyway, carry on, Jim.” I nodded towards her so she would continue.

  “Well, you know the rest. Rocco sent copies of the pictures to the press and assumed the images, along with the rape allegations would get Carnage off the tour and would split you and Sean up.”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Well, he had half his wishes come true, the other half had the complete opposite effect, meaning Carnage is now bigger than KR, and Rocco is thoroughly pissed off.”

  She looked at me and shrugged. I don’t know what she expected me to say. I was well and truly pissed off that Rocco and Whorely plotted, schemed, and got their wish in breaking up Sean and me, but at the end of the day, he did what he did. For me, the issue was never about the rape allegation, I always knew that was a lie, I just knew. But, Sean going back to the room for a threesome was the truth, and her getting naked and letting them snort blow off her body was what I wasn’t able to forgive him for.

  “Well, thanks for letting me know, Jim. I hope if you ever come across either one of that scheming pair of cunts, you will smack them right between the eyes for me, but at the end of the day, he was there. He was in that room, snorting blow off her tits just f
our days after declaring undying love and proposing marriage to me. There are even pictures to prove it, so it doesn’t change a thing. Nothing will change the fact that he was in that room with that slut. All that has changed are the circumstances that led to it. And, yes, I’m angry they set him up, but that just goes to show how easy it was for him to be led astray and how easily he was tempted.”

  I leant forward and dug into the biscuit barrel, found a McVities chocolate digestive, and dunked it in my tea. I actually wanted to curl up in a corner and rock, but I did what I had been doing for the last three years. I shut down my emotions and carried on with my numb little life.

  “Do you know how much he still loves you, George? He’s such a mess on the inside. He hides it well, but I know. I’ve held him so many times now when he’s had a few drinks. The conversation always ends up about you and always ends in tears.”

  I raised my eyebrows and looked at Lennon.

  “And there’s been no other women since we broke up? There’s been no one else?”

  Len pulled his head back and looked at me as if I was mad. “I never said that G. There’s been sex. Of course, there’s been sex, but it doesn’t mean anything, they mean nothing.”

  “Well, that’s where me and him differ, coz those birds he fucks, mean a lot to me. They mean he’s moved on while I can still barely leave the house. Tonight was my first girl’s night out in over three years. I don’t even look at other blokes. I can’t, it’s pointless because all I ever see is him. And that’s okay. It’s my choice, not his, and it’s just something I’m finally learning to live with.”