Carnage

by Lesley Jones

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

  He pulls me onto his lap as he talks. “Dya like the car? We borrowed it from Kombat Rock.”

  Kombat Rock are the American band Carnage are supporting, they’re world famous and have already had three number one albums and about twenty singles in the charts, they’ve been around for about eight years, everyone knows them, they have a reputation for drink, drugs, women and smashing up hotel rooms and they are the main reason for my little freak out in the airport building. I’m much calmer now, with my arms wrapped around Sean’s neck, his arms around my waist.

  “Wait till you see the hotel,” Lennon says. “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 whispers 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, without hearing you talk about it.”

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

  “Excuse me boys but can we please just stop talking about who’s shagging who. Have we got our own room babe?” Jimmie asks Len.

  “Yes babe, there’s no way we were gonna be sharing with Marley, not the way he’s been behaving.”

  I look up at Sean, then across to Len. “Why, how’s he been behaving?”

  “Like a whore,” the boys both say at once and laugh.

  “What about drugs, has he been stoned all the time?”

  The boys look across at each other guiltily, great; they’ve probably all been stoned all of the time.

  Sean shrugs and pulls me in for another kiss. “Let’s not talk about Marley, you can talk to him later, we’re all going for an early dinner before the show.”

  We pull up at the hotel and Jim and I just stare with our mouths open.

  “We’re stayin’ at the Ritz? Fuckin’ hell, George, we’re stayin’ at the Ritz.” Jimmie can barely contain her excitement as we step out of the limo.

  “Our bags,” I say to Sean as he grabs my hand and starts to lead me inside.

  “Don’t worry about them babe, Milo or the bell boys will bring them up.” Well Sean seems to have adapted to this lifestyle pretty quickly I think to myself.

  I travel up to our room in a complete daze; I have stayed in some nice hotels with my parents but at the time, nothing as swanky as The Ritz. Our rooms are decorated nicely but not over the top; as soon as the door closes behind us, Sean pulls me in for the longest of kisses, then he just holds me for a few moments, kissing my hair, my jaw and my neck, all the while breathing me in.

  “I’ve missed you so much G, I’m so glad you’re here.”

  We spend the next couple of hours reacquainting ourselves with each other, in the five and a half years we’ve known each other this is the longest we’ve ever been apart. Despite the fact that we’ve been having sex for the past couple of years, I wasn’t really sexually aware at this stage of my life. I was sixteen and probably having more sex than your average twenty five year old but that’s only because I was with Sean, if he hadn’t have come along, I’d probably still be a virgin. The boys at school didn’t interest me. Actually most of them gave me a wide birth because they knew who my boyfriend was and of course because I had three big brothers.

  I knew I was pretty, I knew I had a fairly decent figure but I didn’t dress in a sexy way, I wasn’t aware back then that I could turn heads just by walking into a room. I didn’t lust after men or boys, it was just Sean, only Sean, sex for me at this time was only about Sean, one didn’t exist without the other. In saying all of that, I’d bought new clothes and lingerie for this weekend, things that were a little bit different for me. A skirt for one and a leather skirt at that, and a pair of red heels. My Dad told me I looked like a Drury Lane whore in the outfit; my Mum slapped him and told me I looked very sophisticated. I chose to believe my Mum; she had great taste in clothes and had helped me pick the outfit I was going to wear for the show. We had a lovely girlie day shopping and I had confessed to her that Sean and I were having sex; it was a bit of a wicked thing to do to her on reflection. We were sitting in a restaurant in Romford town centre. My Mum wouldn’t go to Macas or a café; she had this favourite little Italian place that we always went to when we shopped there.

  “So you and Sean, it’s obviously still very serious between the two of you, this time apart hasn’t changed anything?”

  I shook my head and looked down at my food, my Mum had poured me half a glass of wine and I took a big gulp, it was past one in the afternoon and I hadn’t eaten breakfast, the wine instantly went to my head. I actually had no appetite since Sean had left ten days ago and my Dad had commented the night before that I was looking skinny. I wasn’t skinny, not by a long shot but I knew that I’d lost some weight, hence the rich creamy seafood pasta dish I was now tucking into under my worried Mums orders.

  “Why would time apart change anything Mum? I love him.”

  “I know you do babe but you are still so very young.”

  “You’ve been with Dad since you were thirteen,” I replied defiantly.

  “That was twenty five years ago Georgia, things were different, lots of girls got married straight from school, we didn’t have the choices you girls have these days, the whole world is so much more accessible to you, so many more career opportunities available to women nowadays.” She took a long sip of her wine and refilled both of our glasses as I watched her, her blues eyes and mine are exactly the same shade nowadays, but where her lashes and skin are fair, mine are dark, she’s beautiful my Mum but right at that second she looked worried.

  “We’ve always treated you like a grown up George, being the youngest, we just expected more from you and perhaps that wasn’t the right thing to do. You and Sean, you seem to be so serious about each other, you know he’s already spoken to your Dad about marriage?”

  I didn’t but I wasn’t going to let her know that. “He loves me, we’ve spoken about marriage, and as soon as he has a deposit saved we want to buy a house.”

  “What about a job, for you I mean, would you not like a career?”

  “How can I get a job if Sean is going to be travelling with the band, and he’ll be Mum, they are going to make it big, I just know, this tour and the new album are just the start and I want to be there to support him. I want to be able to travel around the world with him, I don’t want to be stuck here in some poxy office, waiting for him to call or come home. These past ten days have been bad enough; imagine how long he’ll be away when he’s touring the states?”

  I take a gulp of my wine.

  “Okay, well I understand that you’re in love right now but what if things change, people do you know, you’ll be a different person by the time your twenty, you will want different things.”

  “I will still want Sean, I will always want Sean.”

  “Are you having sex with him George, are you sleeping together.”

  My stomach lurched and I thought for a second I was going to bring up my lunch, my cheeks were burning; my Mum reached across the table and took my hand.

  “I’m your Mum George but I’m also your friend, talk to me.”

  I nodded my head. “Yes we’re having sex.”

  “Are you being careful?”

  I nod again. “I’m on the pill.”

  “How’d you get the pill? When? Why didn’t you ask me to come with you?”

  “About a year.” I lied; it had been closer to two.

  “Georgia, that’s illegal, you should have waited.”

  “I told the doctor that my periods were really heavy and that I was getting terrible cramps and couldn’t leave the house so he put me on the pill. All the girls do it.”

  “Well it’s wrong, is this Doctor Weeks, did he put you on it? I will have something
to say when I next see him.”

  “No Mum, I went to the family planning clinic, they gave me the pill and loads of condoms, they’d rather I was on the pill than pregnant and so would I, we do want babies but not yet, we want to see what happens with the band first, we don’t want to be taking a baby on tour with us so we want to wait a bit but I want to be a young Mum like you were, we both want that.”

  “Got it all worked out haven’t you, you’re too old for your own good George, nobody knows at sixteen how their life is likely to turn out, we all think we know what we want but the truth is, really we have no idea… But, if you are sure Sean is the one and you are already sleeping together then I will support you with whatever choices you make. You will need me in your corner when it comes to convincing your Dad into letting you do anything until you’re at least eighteen, he wants you to stay on at school and do your A levels.”

  I shake my head no. “If Sean’s touring next year, then I’m going with him, he earns enough money to support me. Dad can cut me off, he can do what he likes but I’m leaving school and going with Sean.”

  My Mum takes a deep breath in. “Well, if Sean’s the one, we better go and find you something that will knock his socks off, make him realise exactly what he’s got waiting for him at home and stop his eyes from wandering over all those groupies that follow the bands around.”

  My stomach drops to my feet again, groupies, I hate that word; Jimmie and I have discussed them a few times but we haven’t really admitted to our fears, Lennon’s only their manager and he’s still getting girls throw themselves at him. He’s told her on the phone, Sean has told me no such thing, he knows how I’d react, I had already thought about running away from home and getting a flight to whatever country he was in I was jealous, it was the reason I had been unable to eat since he left, I trusted Sean, it was the women that I didn’t trust and that’s what some of them were, women, grown women, not sixteen year old school girls like me and I hated it. Again, this wasn’t something I was going to admit to my Mum, I wanted her to think that I had every faith in Sean and I did to a degree.

  I stand in front of the mirror in the hotel room looking at myself, I’ve sent Sean down to the bar as I wanted to get dressed on my own, I’ve tried this outfit on three times before I left England but I still wasn’t confident enough to put it on in front of him. I’m wearing a black leather mini skirt, a black and red wide banded striped jumper that hangs off one shoulder, black fishnet stockings and red patent leather heels. My newly permed hair is big and I have a pair of big red hooped earrings in my ears and red and black bangles on my wrists. I spray myself once more with my new perfume ‘Cocoa’ which I had bought at the airport, pick up my black bag and throw it across my left shoulder and chest so it rests on my right hip and leave the room.

  Sean has seen me naked numerous times, we’ve bathed and showered together, he’s kissed every square inch of my body but I had never felt more nervous than I did walking into that bar; that was the first time that I realised I could turn heads. A group of grown men that looked about thirty were all sitting around a table as I walked in and one by one they all looked up at me, one of them winked, which actually calmed me down a bit as I assumed it meant I looked okay.

  “Hermosa,” I heard one of them say. I had no idea what it meant; I would ask the waiter later. I saw Sean and Lennon at the bar with their backs to me but it was Marley that spotted me first.

  “Fuckin’ hell, look at George!” I think is what he says, I feel like everyone in the bar turns around and looks at me at once; Sean’s mouth drops wide open, I think me and my Mum have achieved the desired effect, his mouth closes and he swallows. Jimmie nudges him from the barstool she’s sitting on and he moves towards me, he stops right in front of me and very gently runs his fingertips over my jaw and up across my lips.

  “You look beautiful G, like one of them supermodels they keep on about in the papers, except you’re more beautiful.”

  I can’t speak, my mouth is so dry through nerves and now I feel like I’m going to cry so I say nothing and let him lead me by the hand to the bar. Marley pulls me in for a big hug, he looks terrible, skinny and gaunt, and his eyes look sunken into his head. Mum will go mental when she sees him. “Look at my baby sister, all grown up, we can’t be calling her Porge any more can we Len, can’t even call her George anymore really either, so what do we call you, now your all grown up?”

  “Try Georgia that is my name,” I say to him.

  He sounds like Marley but he doesn’t, he’s talking too fast and too much and he keeps sniffing and wiping his nose and for some reason I feel frightened and I’m not sure if it’s of him or for him. I say hello to Billy and Tom, their girlfriends aren’t here tonight, they’re flying in next weekend and staying for the last week, my Mum was working on my Dad to let me fly back for the end of the tour but I was keeping that to myself, I hadn’t even told Jim as I wanted it to be a surprise for Sean, if I was allowed.

  We all piled into the stretch limo that was waiting outside the hotel for us just fifteen minutes later, I’d had a cocktail at the hotel bar and my head was swimming but it didn’t stop me enjoying a glass of champagne once Lennon popped the cork and filled our glasses while we rode in the back of the car. Ten minutes later we arrived at the restaurant, our doors were opened for us and we were led through the restaurant to a large table in the centre of the room. Lennon explained that all of this had been arranged by the record label, the tour so far was a huge success and Carnage were receiving fantastic reviews and on the back of that any previously unsold tickets were being snapped up because people wanted to see them play as opposed to Kombat Rock.

  We’d only been sat down five minutes when a boy of about sixteen came over and asked for autographs, this was followed ten minutes later by an American girl who was going to the show later. I tried not to let it bother me when she only wanted her photo taken with Sean and not the rest of the band, her Mum finally shifted her fat arse out of my face, after taking a half dozen pictures and Sean reached under the table and grabbed my hand squeezing it tight.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, I shrugged and smiled, he was famous now; it’s what they had worked so hard for all these years. What was I supposed to say? The girl had gone back to her table and I was here with Sean, holding hands, he might be her fantasy but he was my reality, my future and it was me that would be wrapped around him in our hotel room tonight. Besides, we needed girls like her to buy the album so we could save the money for a deposit on our house quicker, bet she didn’t realise that, I should have been grateful to her but I wasn’t, I was jealous and I hated myself for it.

  We arrived at the venue for tonight’s concert an hour and a half later, it was about seven on a Friday evening, Carnage were due on stage at around eight thirty, Kombat Rock at around nine thirty, so we had some time before the show. I’d never been back stage at such a big event, Lennon had offered to get us tickets for the best seats but I hate sitting down at concerts and Sean had refused to let me go into the mosh pit so we would be watching from the sides of the stage instead. I had butterflies as we pulled around the back of the building and saw the crowds queuing to get in, obviously most of the crowd were there to see K R but there were also a lot of Carnage t-shirts and banners that I spotted on the way.

  We were shown through the back doors of the venue and Jimmie and I were issued with back stage passes, the boys were changing out of the clothes they’d worn for dinner and we were shown into a function room as they went off to change. The room was already fairly full of people; competition winners waiting to meet the bands, men in suits who I assume were from the record label, a couple of journalists and photographers and lots and lots of women, it made me feel sick, some of them were beautiful, some of them not so much.

  A waiter appeared at my side and asked if Jimmie and I would like a drink, we both requested a vodka and lemonade and it was bought back to us in just a couple of minutes. Sean appeared back at my side, he had tak
en off his Ben Sherman shirt and changed into a vintage looking James Dean t-shirt but he was still wearing his jeans and Doc Martin boots. He looked gorgeous but then as far as I was concerned he looked gorgeous in anything, obviously I wasn’t the only one to think so judging by the stares he was getting from what I could only assume to be groupies and the dirty looks they were giving me. A really tall woman who looked about thirty five who had been giving me daggers even before Sean had arrived back, made her way over to us; Sean had his arm around my waist and lent in to kiss my temple as the waiter bought him and the rest of the band members a beer.

  “So Sean, who’s your little friend? She’s very pretty.”

  He seemed to stiffen up as she approached; he took a long swig from his bottle before he looked the woman up and down. “This is my girlfriend Gia; she’s flown in from England for the weekend, just to see me.” He turns and looks at me with such a dreamy smile on his face that I almost melt. “Didn’t ya babe.”

  He kisses me full on the mouth and I squirm with embarrassment; as he pulls away, the peroxide blonde is still standing watching us, I look straight at her. “Yes babe, I did.”

  She runs her tongue over her top lip as she looks me up and down. “How sweet. Don’t forget to get a note from your parents when you go back to school next week, I wouldn’t want you getting detention.”

  I smiled nicely at her. “I won’t, make sure you notify the pensioners home that you’ll be out late, wouldn’t want them sending out a search party for a missing resident.”

  She didn’t reply, she just looked at me with her ice blue eyes, like she was trying to think of a reply, Marley appeared at my side. “Fuck off Anna and leave my sister alone, go and find someone’s cock to suck. Rocco will be here soon with all the pretty young groupies and you won’t get a look in then.”

  She gave a sneer and a little laugh in Marley’s direction. “Fuck you Layton.”