by Lesley Jones
“Believe me, dude, it’s really not all it’s cracked up to be.”
Despite Georgia not being there, I enjoyed my Christmas night with my family. It felt like years since I’d spent time with both of my brothers, just chilling and chatting and shit. It just reinforced my determination to set things right with George, no matter how difficult she made it for me to get through to her.
Nineteen Eighty-Seven rolled into Nineteen Eighty-Eight. We toured with the new album for a large part of the year. As with every tour we’d been on, there were parties and there were women, but Maca rarely got involved. He got up on stage, gave the crowds the Maca they expected, but as soon as the show was done, he headed back to his room and when we were touring England, some nights he had Milo drive him all the way back home.
There were a couple of nights when he would show his face at an after-party for five minutes, but generally, because Billy and Tom never hung around, I was there alone.
And it was getting old.
I felt like something was missing from my life, but I had no idea what it was. I had the job of my dreams, more money than I could spend in twelve lifetimes, a family that loved me, and women at my beck and call, but something was off and I hated how empty I felt inside.
A large part of what we do for a living is showmanship. The Carnage that fans see on stage or in front of the cameras is not who me, Maca, Billy, and Tom are as individuals, or even when we’re together out of the public eye. I was constantly putting on the persona of Marley Layton; womanising, hard drinking, drug taking lead guitarist of Carnage. It was wearing me out, and beginning to depress the fuck out of me.
I craved normalcy. I appreciated more than ever my family, and the fact my mum would still bollock me for leaving my cup on the side, or that my dad still questioned how I spent my money, and that my brothers were there giving me shit because I was the youngest out of the three of us and that just meant they could.
We had been living in the spotlight for around four years by that time and I was looking forward to next year, when we had been promised a break; no tours, no albums, just a few commercials to make and interviews to carry out.
We had Jimmie and Len’s wedding to look forward to and time to spend with my family. I didn’t know how I was gonna do it, but I knew I had to fix things with Georgia. I know that I’d said it repeatedly, but now with the wedding looming, I knew it had to be faced. I’m Marley Layton, Rock God, for fuck’s sake. Georgia was my skinny little sister, so what was the problem?
The tour combined with television appearances, the filming of commercials, and magazine shoots, meant that it was August before we were back in England with time on our hands.
Len and Jimmie had bought their first house earlier in the year, but because of our schedule, Maca and I had yet to see it, so a few days after arriving home we were at Len’s door with a couple of bottles of ‘Rare Breed,’ and a bottle of Bollinger to celebrate their purchase.
They had decided to remain in the Brentwood area and were fairly close to my parent’s, and just up the road from where my sister lived, above her shop.
“Jimmie not home?” I questioned as I put the bottles down on the open plan kitchens worktop.
Len shot me a look I didn’t quite understand before saying, “No, she’s out with George, actually.”
Maca turned around from where he was standing and admiring the view of the grounds from the back patio doors.
“Georgia’s gone out?” I asked, “Or d’ya mean that Jim’s just gone to G’s for a drink?”
“No, G’s actually going out with Jim and Ash, the girl that works at the shop for her.”
He looked from me to Maca, who I was already studying to try and gauge his reaction.
“Don’t look at me like that. It’s been three and a half years. I can’t fucking stop her from going out,” Maca stated.
“Pour him a drink,” I told Len. “Your house is cool, by the way. I love it—well done.”
“Thanks. All Jimmie’s hard work,” he said with a smile. My brother had it so fucking bad for that girl. As much as I one day hoped to find what they had, I sometimes looked at Maca and thought, ‘No thank you, very fucking much.’ I didn’t ever want a woman to have the ability to leave me in the state my sister had left him in for the past three and a half years. I was sure when, or if it ever happened, it would be out of my control, but at that moment I most certainly wasn’t looking for anything beyond a one night stand.
Len poured us each a bourbon and we went and sat outside to enjoy the sunny summer’s evening.
“What’s up, Len? You look like you’ve got something on your mind, mate?” Maca asked.
My skin prickled when I looked at Len. Maca could read his tells as well as I could. He’d been as close as a brother to the pair of us for almost ten years, and he’d gotten it spot on that night. Len definitely had something bothering him.
“The four-city tour you’re supposed to be doing in the States next year—” Len started.
“The one we asked you to get us out of?” I interrupted. I wasn’t asking him, just reminding him in case he’d forgotten that the label had promised us a year off from touring and recording.
“Yes, fuckface, I’m aware that you did. Just hold your horses and listen to what I’m about to say, would ya?” I flipped Len my middle finger as he spoke. “The plan by the label was to bill this as a double headlining tour, featuring you and Kombat Rock.”
“No way.”
“No fucking way,” Maca and I said over each other.
“Calm the fuck down, the pair of ya. Just listen to what I’m saying. It’s like dealing with four-year-olds sometimes with you two, I swear.”
Len got up and went back inside, leaving us sitting there.
“Shit! I thought he was gonna tell me G was getting married or having a baby or something. I thought I was gonna throw up there for a minute,” Maca said, raking his hand through his hair as he spoke.
I was shocked by what he’d just admitted to me, especially after being so closed off for this past year. All the colour had drained from his face and he had sweat beading on his newly shaved top lip.
“You really worry about shit like that?” I asked him.
“Only every fucking day. Sometimes all day.” I finished my drink, not really knowing what to say.
Len returned, carrying the bottle of Wild Turkey, a bottle of coke, and an ice bucket. He sat them all down on the table. “You might need refills by the time I finish telling you what Jim found out this week,” he said, topping up our drinks.
“Spit it out then, Len. You’re killing us here,” I nagged.
“Marley just shut the fuck up and listen before I slap ya,” he snapped.
“Just you try it, motherfucker. I’m not twelve anymore.”
“Dudes, where’s the love? We’re all brothers here, so let’s play nice,” Maca interrupted. “Len, get the fuck on with it, will ya? And you, shut it.”
“Kombat Rock are done—washed up old junkies that nobody wants to listen to anymore. The label planned to get them supporting you on this four-city tour of the US you’re supposed to be doing.” Len looked at me as he emphasised the word ‘supposed.’
“That would hopefully bring them the publicity that they need to relaunch their careers. Apparently, Rocco is fresh out of rehab and has been writing again. Anyway, the idea was put to him and he’s thrown a hissy fit, saying that he wants double headlining act for KR, alongside Carnage. Obviously, I’ve said no way is that happening and used it as my excuse to pull you from the tour.” He looked at me again, driving his statement home.
“I’m gonna knock you the fuck out you keep on,” I told him.
“Please, little brother, we all know that’ll never happen.”
“Get on with it,” Maca jumped in, wanting to hear the rest.
“Anyway, Jim’s been on the phone with Alix from the KR’s management team all week and she’s telling Jim that no one likes Rocco, and she can�
�t believe the label would even consider putting them alongside Carnage after what he did to you two boys.”
Maca and I turned and looked at each other at the exact same moment. We shrugged and turned back to Len.
“He set you up, boys … the whole thing with Haley White? He deliberately gave you the gear to get you off your nuts, plotted with her to get you back to your room, and for her to cry rape. The fact that you allowed him in the room with a camera was just an added bonus for him.”
What the fuck?
My mouth opened and closed a few times, but no words came out as I looked at Maca.
“Well, we always knew it was his photos that ended up in the papers,” Maca said before draining his glass.
“But why the rape allegations? What was that all about?” I asked.
“He thought it’d get you kicked off the tour,” Len admitted.
“Fucker,” Maca said through gritted teeth.
Len topped up our glasses again.
“Is there no way we can use this to bring charges against the pair of them?” I was curious.
“No. No fucking way am I having all of that dragged through the courts,” Maca jumped in, guns blazing.
“What they did…” He took a few deep breaths, trying to compose himself. “That pair of cunts ruined mine and your sister’s lives. I’ll find a way to make them pay, but it won’t be done publicly. There’s no way I’m having all the details of what went on that day dragged through the courts and made public. G’s been through enough—I’ve been through enough. No more. No fucking more.”
I threw myself back in my chair like a sulky child, but frustration was my driving force, not sulkiness.
“I mean it, Marls. We’ll get that fucker, but not in a way that’s gonna hurt Georgia,” Maca reiterated to me.
“Yes, Mac, I fucking heard you the first time.”
“We’ll get him, don’t you worry, boys. We’ll find a way and we’ll get him,” Len reassured us. “I’ll call in every favour that I can and he won’t see it coming.”
Not long after that, we left, leaving Len with a video of an advert we’d just filmed in Japan for an energy drink. We headed home, and I was feeling a little less pissed off, thanks to the bottle and half of bourbon we’d consumed.
Within the month, Kombat Rock had been dropped by our label. A plagiarism charge had been brought against them for some song they’d claimed to have written in the Early Eighties, and Rocco Taylor’s Hollywood mansion had been raided, where an ‘undisclosed’ quantity of class A drugs had been discovered.
Did I mention that I loved my big brother Lennon?
Chapter Fourteen
1988 / 1989
Maca and I had invested in a holiday resort in the Turks and Caicos Islands in early ’87. We were invited to the opening in December of that year and spent all of Christmas, New Years, and January of 1988 there. We hadn’t planned on staying away that long, but the weather back home was freezing and the place was like paradise.
We played a lot of golf, snorkelled, and even wrote and composed four new songs. I returned to England feeling relaxed and centred, although I hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that there was a hole somewhere. Something was just missing from my life, but I didn’t know what.
In February we took a skiing holiday with Jimmie and Len, and finally settled back into life in England in early March.
Thinking back on it now, I know that I was just running away from the loneliness I was feeling inside, and I suspect that Maca was doing the same. It had been almost five years since we’d had this much time to ourselves, and if the truth be told, we had no one except each other to spend it with. What a sad pair of wankers we were.
Sundays, when I had nothing to do, were always a shit time for me. I knew that my whole family gathered on a Sunday at my parents’ place, but I was usually travelling, busy, or too hungover to care. But that particular sunny March morning, I woke up feeling pissed off that I couldn’t just turn up there for dinner with Maca in tow like I’d done hundreds of times before when we were growing up.
The girl I’d come home with the night before was still curled up and sleeping next to me. I laid there for a moment, trying to remember her name. I went through the alphabet, starting with A, recounting every girl’s name that I could. I got to L and knew I was close; Laura, Lauren, Linda, Lesley, Louise. It began with an L, I was sure of it.
My bedroom door flew open and Maca stood there, drinking from a coffee cup.
“It’s a beautiful morning. Fancy taking the bikes out?” he asked.
We had bought ourselves a couple Harley Softtail’s last year, but had only been out on them a few times in secret, behind Len’s back. Both he and the label would shit a brick if they found out, so we’d kept those particular purchases quiet.
The blonde sleeping next to me poked her head out from under the duvet.
“Talking of bikes,” Maca said, “how was that one to ride? She made enough fucking noise.”
“Ooooh, harsh dude, and a highly misogynistic assumption.”
“You eat a dictionary along with her fanny last night?”
“Oi. Don’t come in here with the hump, just coz you didn’t get any last night. Fuck off back to bed and rub one out.”
He’d left the club early the night before, getting pissed off with the way the women there thought it was okay to keep putting their hands all over him. I mean seriously, would you go up to a complete stranger and start rubbing their cock through their jeans? No, probably not, so why the fuck do women, and some men, think it’s okay to do it to us, just because we’re in a band? We’re neither pieces of meat, nor public property, at least not once we’re offstage. If we were to approach random women and grab them by the snatch, we’d be locked the fuck up for it.
Anyway, Maca jumped in a taxi and went home. He was going through another withdrawn and angry stage. As much as his mood swings gave me whiplash, he was my mate and I worried about him. I stayed for another hour, talking to a couple of mates when blondie, with the L sounding name, caught my eye and I ended up taking her home. If I remember rightly, she was short, cute, and had a massive rack. The sex was pretty good too, and I seem to recall bending her into a few interesting positions during the night, but what I’d liked most was that she had no fucking clue who I was.
L girl sat up and blinked a few times.
“Oh my fucking, shit, fuck—” She stared at Maca while trying to wipe her make-up from under her eyes and messing with her hair.
“Morning, blondie.” I played it safe, seeing as I couldn’t remember her name
L … Li … Le … Lu … Lucy! Fuck yeah, I’m good. Lucy. That was her name.
She turned to me and screamed. “Oh my fucking god, Marley Layton!”
I gave my best impersonation of her scream and in her voice, I said, “Oh my fucking god, Lucy.”
She looks around the room, frowning. “Lucy? Who the fuck’s Lucy? My name’s Olivia.”
Oops.
“Livy, sorry. I meant to say Liv or Livy, not Lucy.”
“Ooh, nice backtrack, dude,” Maca got in, shaking his head as he walked away.
“Shut the door on your way out, fucker,” I called after him. “Don’t want you getting all jealous coz your right hand is the nearest thing you’ve got to a Lu—I mean, a Livy this morning.”
Shit, just shoot me now.
After another quick roll around with Lucy Livy Lou… yeah, that’s what I’d decided to call her. It gave me a few more options at getting her name right and she was giving me the best blow job, all because she thought I’d given her a ‘cute nickname.’ Everybody won.
She headed off to my bathroom and showered while I went out to the kitchen to find Maca sitting at the breakfast bar, watching an episode of ThunderCats on the television. He had the sound muted, while sipping on another cup of coffee.
“You all right, dude?” I asked him.
“I’m gonna go and see your sister,” he stated while sta
ring at the television screen.
“Why?” I asked, honestly curious as to his reason.
He turned and looked at me. “I need to know, Marls. I need to tell her everything, and I need her to hear me out. Then I need to know if there’s ever going to be a chance for us to sort this mess out.”
I nodded my head, while debating internally as to whether it was a good idea.
“From what Jim and Len tell me, she’s miserable, and I’m still fucking dying here without her.” He rubbed his hand over the stubble on his chin.
“I can’t carry on like this anymore. I’m existing, but I’m not living. Even if she says no, if she tells me straight up that there’s no chance of us ever getting back together, at least then I’ll know. It’ll hurt … fuck, it’ll be agony, but it can’t be any more painful than what I’ve been going through these last few years.”
“When?” I asked. “When you planning on going to see her?”
“This week. I don’t wanna wait now that I’ve made up my mind, and I don’t want Jim or Lennon to know, just in case they warn her. I don’t wanna give G a chance to overthink what she’s feeling, so I’ll just turn up. I know her, Marls, I know her inside and out. I’ll know what she’s really feeling as soon as she sees me.”
As much as I cringed with the knowledge of how well Maca knew my little sister, I also accepted that what he said was true. Those two were inseparable for five years, and were sleeping together for the last year or so they were together. Nobody knew George as well as Maca did, and being the big brother that I was, that was actually the way I’d like it to stay—him being her one and only.
I had no idea if she’d seen other blokes. Jimmie had mentioned that she’d finally started going out with this new friend, Ash, but she’d never mentioned her dating anyone. She did say that she didn’t go to my mum’s for Sunday dinner anymore because she was out most Saturday nights. That was something I hadn’t yet mentioned to Maca.
