Carnage Boxset

by Jones, Lesley

  I did very little in 1999, except kick back and enjoy time with my family. We’d stayed on in Florida, loving it so much that we’d bought a house there before we left.

  We had been booked to play at the opening game of a European football competition in September and George and Maca returned from their travels just before then.

  The album we had released the year before had been recorded in the South of France, and the bloke that owned the studio was also part owner of one of the teams that were playing. He’d invited the whole production team to watch the game from a private box.

  Carla was in attendance. It was the first time we’d been in her company since Maca’s wedding and I could tell straight away she wasn’t happy. She’d started the evening ignoring us, but as she got slowly pissed up, she got brave.

  “Dude, you seriously have to get her away from me, otherwise I’m leaving,” Maca told me quietly over his beer. It was the third time Carla had tried to engage him in conversation and he’d brushed her off.

  “I don’t understand what her problem is. You’ve been back with G for years. She must’ve known that you’d get married at some stage.”

  He let out a long sigh before looking me in the eyes. “She didn’t. She’s always thought that G and I were bad for each other, and that she and I should be together.”

  I fucking knew I didn’t like the girl.

  “And how the fuck do you know that?” I asked, sliding from best mate to big brother mode in an instant.

  “Because she’s told me, more than once,” he admitted.

  “And you’ve said what? Told her to fuck off, I hope.”

  “Yeah, pretty much. I love my wife, Marls, you and I both know that. I’m not interested in Carla. She was a diversion. Even when I was seeing her, it was nothing more than sex and a bit of company. I told her from the start that it wouldn’t lead anywhere.”

  “Don’t think she got the memo, mate,” I told him as I watched Carla sway toward us.

  “Maca, can we talk? Can we go somewhere in private and talk please?” She stood in front of him and asked.

  His eyes swung to me, looking for help.

  “We’re here to watch the game, Carla. Call on Monday to talk business,” I told her.

  “I want to have a private conversation with Sean, if that’s all right with you, Marley,” she spat back.

  “No, Carla, we can’t go anywhere and talk. Anything you’ve gotta say, you can say it here.” Maca finally spoke up for himself and told her.

  “You sure?” she asked, and I got a horrible feeling in my belly.

  “Absolutely,” He assured her.

  “Why’d you marry her, Mac? You know how much I love you, so why would you just take off and marry her like that?”

  Maca’s eyes dart all around the room as Carla stands in front of him and cries. Luckily there was a ban on the press in private boxes, so we were amongst friends.

  “Are you fucking delusional?” I asked her. “They’ve been together since she was eleven years old. Whatever made you think they wouldn’t get married?”

  She glared at me for a few seconds. “You have no clue about me and him—no fucking clue—so why don’t you stay the fuck out of our business.”

  “So come on, enlighten me? He’s married to my sister so no, I won’t stay the fuck out of your business when it involves my family.”

  The little bitch was pissing me off and Maca was pissing me off for not shutting her down.

  “Carla, what we had was ten years ago. I don’t know what you—”

  “What we had was a fucking baby, Maca. That’s what we had.”

  Oh fuck!

  “Wh-What d’ya mean, a baby? When? What are you talking about?” Maca’s eyebrows were drawn together in confusion.

  “You fucked me, just before you went off on your holiday to Ibiza. You fucked me and you got me pregnant.”

  My heart beat so loud, I swear it could be heard over the crowd cheering.

  “Well, what happened? Where’s … I don’t understand?” Maca stuttered out. He had beads of sweat forming on his forehead, and I had them running down my back.

  “You wouldn’t take my calls,” she said through gritted teeth.

  “I was back with Gia,” he replied, using the same tone.

  “Yeah, and didn’t I know it. Well, good for you and your happy new life, and tough fucking luck for me and the mess you’d left me in.”

  “I didn’t fucking know,” Maca shouted, bringing the room to a standstill.

  “Well, if you’d replied to any of the messages I left you, then you would have.”

  “So what? What happened? What did you do?” I could hear the panic rising in Maca’s voice as he asked.

  A secret kid is so not what he and George needed thrown into the mix right now—not at any time, really.

  “I murdered it. I went to an abortion clinic and had all traces of you sucked right out of me.”

  Maca’s eyes closed for an instant before opening, filled with tears.

  “Why? Why would you do that?” he asked quietly.

  “Why not? You didn’t want me. I wasn’t gonna be stuck with a kid on my own.”

  “You wouldn’t have been on your own.” He wiped a tear from under his eye as he spoke.

  “No? You would’ve left her and come back to me, would ya?”

  He shakes his head no. “I’ll never leave her, not in this lifetime, and not in the next.”

  “And that’s why I did it. If I couldn’t have you, then why should I have your kid?”

  She is seriously a piece of fucking work, this girl.

  “I would’ve helped, I would’ve been there… I would—”

  “I wanted you.” It was her turn to shout now. “I wanted all of you, not just a part-time dad for my baby. I wanted you, us, together as a family.”

  Maca just stood there, shaking his head no.

  “Mac, come on, mate. Let’s get out of here.” I reached out and touched the top of his arm.

  His brown eyes looked across to mine. “I didn’t know, Marls. I didn’t fucking know.”

  “I believe ya, mate. Come on, let’s get out of here. We’ll see if Len can change our flight and get us home to the girls earlier.”

  “Oh, that’s right, drag him back to wifey.”

  I’ve never hit a girl, but I swear to God I came close that night. I spun around to face her.

  “You little bitch. Just shut your fucking mouth and fuck off out of my sight. You’ve had plenty of chances to tell him all this over the years, plenty of ways you could’ve contacted him and explained. Why the fuck would you do it like this, here tonight, in front of everyone?”

  “Because he should’ve married me, not her, me,” she roared.

  “You are off your fucking head if you think that was ever gonna happen.” I pointed at Macca’s neck.

  “You’ve seen the words! It’s only her, it’ll always only ever be her. Get your fucking head around that, else you can kiss your career goodbye and never work for us again.”

  I grab Maca’s arm and lead him out the doors.

  Milo was waiting for us outside and he called Len, who didn’t come to the game, but lined up a couple of meetings for that evening instead. Len contacted the private plane company, but they couldn’t get us a pilot straight away, so we went back to our hotel where Len met back up with us.

  “What the fuck’s happened.” Was Len’s first response as I let him into Maca’s room.

  We’d had a bottle of Jim Beam sent up to the room and had sat in silence for the ten minutes we’d had alone before Lennon arrived.

  He looked at both of us, and noting our sombre mood, he changed his tone. “What happened … is something wrong?”

  My chest felt tight, so I let out a long sigh before speaking. “Maca had a bit of a run in with Carla,” I started.

  “Carla, producer Carla?”

  I nodded my head, prepared to continue, but Maca interceded.

  “
I was seeing her on and off right up until I got back with G,” he admitted.

  “Well, I think we all knew that, Mac. You never said it but I think we all knew something was going on between the two of you. What’s the problem then?” He asked while pouring himself a drink.

  Maca looked up, his eyes moving from Len, to me, and back again.

  “Apparently, the last time we were together, I got her pregnant and she had an abortion. She’s held onto some misplaced belief that me and her would get back together. Tonight’s the first time I’ve seen her since the wedding. She’s pissed off and decided to tell me and the rest of the room her pregnancy story.”

  “Fuck,” Len stated as he sat down on the sofa next to Maca.

  “I’ve never liked that girl. Now I know why,” I told them both as I sat down in the wingback chair facing them.

  “Yeah, you’ve said before,” Len confirmed what I’d told him a few times.

  “How you feeling, Mac? That couldn’t have been good to hear, or the best way to find out?” Len asked.

  “Like a complete cunt.”

  “You didn’t know, mate. What were you supposed to do?” He looked at me for a few seconds before answering.

  “How would you feel if that was your baby?”

  I got goose bumps. If he’d asked me that when I was younger, I’d have just been relieved it had been taken care of, but now, since Ash? Since becoming a father? I filled up at his question. I could only nod my head, unable to speak past the lump in my throat.

  “Exactly.”

  “I’m sorry, dude, I really am,” Len said.

  We were all quiet for a few moments, none of us wanting to address the elephant in the room. Thankfully, it was Maca that spoke first. “I don’t want Gia knowing about this. I’ll tell her, but just not right now. We’re trying for a baby at the moment and I’d hate for her to doubt my commitment. And I don’t want her flying off the handle either. You know what she’s like.”

  I looked across to my brother and we both shrugged.

  “Your call, mate, but you sure she won’t go public with this?” Len asked.

  “Not if she wants to keep her job,” I told him.

  “Well, they’re signed for the next two albums. We start recording in January. Hope this isn’t gonna be a problem?”

  Maca shook his head no. “I’m pissed off with the way she told me, but I understand why she’s so angry. I’ll talk to her, we’ll keep it professional.”

  I shrugged and shook my head. I personally thought he should stay the fuck away from her, but if he thought he could handle her shit, then on his head be it.

  * * *

  On New Year’s Eve of 1999, we played in New York’s Time Square. Georgia surprised the shit out of us all when she walked out on stage and told Maca that she was pregnant.

  The celebrations that followed were of epic proportions. The babies were all at home in England with my parents, so even Len and Jimmie partied like it was 1999. (You see what I did there?)

  By the time we landed back in England though, things took a frightening turn for the worst, and Georgia was rushed into the hospital.

  Her pregnancy was ectopic and she lost her baby, and nearly lost her life. Maca nearly lost them both, as well as his mind.

  Jim, Len and myself were waiting outside the room they’d taken George into when suddenly all hell broke loose. An alarm sounded, doctors and nurses came running from every direction, and when the shout went out for the crash team, I threw up in the rubbish bin.

  George was wheeled past us on a trolley, a team of medical professionals working on her. I stepped into the room to find Maca in a chair, sobbing.

  “Mac, what happened?”

  He looked up at me, his eyes almost vacant. His face was a mess of snotty tears.

  “The pregnancy is ectopic and they think it’s ruptured. She has internal bleeding.” He couldn’t hold back the sobs anymore. “She went into shock, then cardiac arrest, where they couldn’t get the blood pumped into her fast enough.”

  Jimmie walked past me and wrapped her arms around Maca, holding him as he cried.

  * * *

  The next few weeks were hard. George moved back to my parents’ place so that my mum could look after her. We were busy working on a new album in the studios Maca had had built in the grounds of their home in Hampstead. That’s where we were most days. We had the usual team working with us, which included the delightful Carla.

  George and Maca had bought an old farmhouse just up the road from us and now that George was up and about, she was working with the builders and designers to modernise the place. She still looked pale and was very quiet, but at least she was focused on something, although she still hadn’t moved back home and was still staying out at my parents’ place.

  I’d worked out that things were a little strained. I could understand George going to my mum’s for a week maybe, but this had been almost two months.

  I’d stayed over at Maca’s one night after a late recording session and we’d smoked a little weed and enjoyed a few glasses of Glenmorangie when he said to me, “I think I’m losing her.”

  “Who?” I knew who, I was just trying to gather my thoughts before I spoke.

  “Gia. I’ve asked her to come home but she’s said no. She’s not … we… when I go over and stay at your mum’s, she barely says a word. It’s been over six weeks, Marls. I know that this isn’t something that we’ll ever forget happened, but it’s like she’s just holding onto it, like she’s punishing herself.” He knocked back what was in his glass while I remained silent, letting him talk.

  “She was like this for a while the other year, just after we got back from Australia—distant. I put it down to the fact that she hadn’t fallen pregnant straight away, but then we bought the new house and she seemed happier.” He took in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “I was worried then that there was something going on between her and Cameron King.”

  Whoa.

  “You remember when the girls went to the opening of his new club and ran into Haley White?”

  I shifted in my seat, memories of that weekend making me feel uncomfortable.

  It was the weekend Carla had come out with her little secret. We’d eventually hired a pilot to get us home early that night. The girls had called us numerous times to let us know that there’d been a bit of an incident between Haley White and George. Because of Carla’s revelations, we’d all chosen not to answer our phones, too worried to speak to them in case they picked up on the fact that something was wrong.

  Jimmie was like an intelligence officer in the way she didn’t miss a trick. Ash was like the Spanish Inquisition when she knew she wasn’t getting a straight answer. George … George just had Maca wrapped around her little finger and she’d soon have him spilling his guts. Perhaps that would’ve been a good thing, getting it all out in the open, but that wasn’t what he wanted and so I’d committed to the lie, never speaking again about it to anyone, including my wife.

  “The day after, on the Sunday when we got home, there were all sorts of pictures of them together. I thought that maybe something had happened that night.”

  “Georgia was with the girls all night.” I tried to reassure him. There had been a lot of rumours about those photos and the way Cam was looking at her.

  “And you don’t think they’d back her one hundred percent and lie for her if they had to?” That thought pissed me off.

  “Ash wouldn’t lie to me,” I told him.

  “Na? You told Ash about what Carla said that night?”

  Oh. I let out a long breath and shake my head no.

  “We all have secrets, mate. Even the best of marriages have secrets.”

  It actually caused a pain in my chest to think that. I hated the idea that Ash kept secrets from me. Double standards, I know, but yeah, I’m a bloke. It’s how we operate.

  “She’d told me years before that when we first got together that she was in love with him, but she’d never re
alised it when they were together. When she left him for me, he told her, and he told Ash if you remember, that he loved her, but would step aside if that’s what made her happy.”

  I think back to the day George had disappeared with someone from Cam’s staff and no one could find her for six hours. I remember Ash saying that day that Cam had told her he was in love with my sister.

  “You only had to look at the way he looked at her in those photos to know he still felt the same way, and I’ve got a feeling it’s mutual.”

  He sipped his drink and waited for my reaction.

  “But that was only last year. Those photos were only a year ago.”

  “It was the year before, but close enough. Anyway, after those pictures came out, she was a bit weird. I can’t put my finger on what kind of weird, just ... I dunno? Nervy, jumpy. Then when we found the new house, she went from loving it to not being sure overnight. One minute it was perfect, the next it was wrong. I thought she was just making excuses, and that she didn’t want to buy something new with me because she was planning on leaving me for him.”

  “Fuck, you never said anything. Why didn’t you say? I would’ve had Ash ask her?”

  He looked right at me, “Coz if she was gonna go, I didn’t wanna know about it.”

  Poor fucking bloke. I felt so bad for him in that moment. Between my sister and Carla, I was surprised he had any faith in women at all.

  “Anyway, this, how she’s behaving this time, is worse—much worse. I feel like she’s completely shut me out, Marls, like this has only happened to her. It was my baby too. I thought I was gonna lose them both. While she was having surgery, I actually sat and thought about how I would kill myself if she didn’t make it.”

  I let out a long breath at that. I had no words because I totally understood where he was coming from. If anything had happened to Ash before we had kids, I wouldn’t have wanted to live either. Now, it was different. I wouldn’t want to, but I’d carry on for the sake of our babies. I shuddered because the thought alone was too horrible to contemplate.