Marley (Carnage #3)

by Lesley Jones

  “Yeah, and I missed your smiling face too, brother... a whole lot.” I said, holding my hand out to shake his as I did. He stared at my hand for a few moments, taking it, but then pulled me in so we bumped chests and he slapped me on the back a few times. You know, the way real men do.

  “How is she? Did she get my flowers? Is she feeling better? Did she talk to you?” He fired his questions at me one after the other.

  “Ladies.” Milo called from the other side of the bonnet of the big four wheel drive he was leaning on. “You have to be at the television studios for this lunchtime chat show you’re scheduled to appear on by eleven. Can you have your shag and make up session in the back of the vehicle while I drive, please? I have to get back to the hotel and pick up the rest of the girls.”

  We both flipped him the middle finger, but climbed into the back of the SUV anyway.

  “So?” Maca asked as soon as we were in. He took off his hat and glasses and raked his hand through his hair. I was instantly distracted by the new ink I could see below the V-neck of his T-shirt.

  “You get a new tat?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” He pulled his T-shirt away from his skin to give me a better view.

  “I’ve been thinking about it for ages and someone had recommended a bloke in Dublin, so I called him when we got here Monday and he fit me in yesterday afternoon.”

  I took in the lettering around his neck and recognised the words instantly.

  ‘There’s no one else. There never was. It’s still only ever you.’

  It was taken from our biggest selling single to date, ‘With You,’ and he had written it for Georgia. Obviously he was still totally unaware that she was seeing someone else and there was no way I was gonna be the one to cause him any more heartache. My thoughtlessness had done plenty damage over the years, and I wasn’t about to add to that.

  “Cool. Looks good.”

  “Cheers. Now answer my questions ... how’s she doing?”

  “You gonna cover your whole body in tats dedicated to my sister?”

  He already had a G over his heart that matched the necklace he had given her one Christmas, years ago. I’d noticed last night that she still wore that necklace, but there was no way I was gonna tell him that and give him any kind of hope that she still cared.

  “Maybe. What’s it to you?”

  “I couldn’t give a fuck, but a future Mrs. McCarthy might have a problem with it.”

  He turned and looked at me, biting down on the corner of his bottom lip as he did. “You just don’t get it, do you? Read what’s written on my neck, mate. The only Mrs. Maca there will ever be is her. We will get back together. One of these days, it’ll happen.” He let out a long breath and shook his head.

  “Now answer my questions. How the fuck is she?”

  I let out a long breath of my own and looked out the window at the passing traffic for a few seconds.

  “She’s doing better. She’s been a mess all week, but she was happy to see me and we had a bit of a talk and agreed to put an end to all the shit that’s gone on.”

  His eyes widened at that news.

  “Yeah?” he asked with a smile. “I’m pleased for ya, dude, I really am.”

  My stomach felt a little uneasy. I really didn’t want to fill him with false hope. I knew that he would think that if George could bring herself to talk to me, then she might be on her way to talking to him.

  “Did she say anything ... ya know? Did she mention me at all?” He asked quietly and I caught Milo’s eyes looking at me through the rear view mirror. I shook my head slowly.

  “Na, mate. I’m sorry, but she’d just had a bit of a breakdown after seeing you for the first time in almost four years. I wasn’t about to bring up your name if she didn’t.” I told him honestly.

  He put his hat back on. “Fair enough. I get it, dude, I really do.” Despite his words, I could hear the disappointment in his voice and I couldn’t miss the way his throat moved as he swallowed his emotions down.

  “Baby steps, mate. Talking to me is a massive leap for her, and once she’s back on her feet and feeling a little more stable, I promise—I swear to you that I will do all that I can to put everything right between the two of you.”

  He nodded his head slowly. “I’ll give her a bit of time, but we need to get our shit sorted before the wedding.”

  Len and Jimmie’s wedding was happening in June. When they’d first got engaged, a wedding in two years seemed forever away, but we were down to weeks. Bailey was best man. Myself, Maca, and the rest of the boys from the band were groomsmen, whatever that meant. My knowledge regarding wedding etiquette was as lacking then as it is now. All I knew was that Georgia and Maca would both be a part of the wedding and so, like he had just said, they really needed to get their shit together before the big day.

  “It’ll get sorted, Mac. She’s doing better and she’s already told Jim that she doesn’t want anything to spoil the day for her and Len, but this is George. Let her go at her own pace. You know what she’s like if you push her.”

  The rest of our stay in Ireland went well, and Maca was definitely in a better place when we got home than when we left.

  We had a quiet few months scheduled as Len had wanted time off both before and after the wedding.

  Maca and I spent a few weeks writing before taking a week in Ibiza, and then we sailed with a couple of producer friends of ours on their boat around the Balearic Islands, off the coast of Spain.

  We landed back in England on a rainy May Thursday, just around lunchtime. We had promised to call around to Len and Jimmie’s place that night and so just stopped quickly at our place to shower and change our clothes. We were both tired after three weeks of partying and sailing in the sun, and our day of travelling. We almost called and cancelled, but the promise of a home cooked meal from Jimmie meant that wasn’t an option, so we made the effort, both of us unaware that the decision to drag our tired arses over to my brothers that evening would ultimately change both of our lives forever.

  Dinner was great. Jimmie was an excellent cook and after the roast beef with all the trimmings, we had homemade apple crumble and custard for dessert.

  I’d gotten over my issues with Jim and Len being together years ago. I viewed her as nothing more than a sister and I couldn’t have been happier for her and my brother. They were so good together, that the way they looked at each other, even had me wondering if maybe, one day, I might want what they had.

  We sat around the dinner table, enjoying a few wines and then more than a few bourbons as we told stories of our recent trip away.

  This holiday had been a little subdued compared to our usual trips. We’d partied and clubbed the first week, but Maca hadn’t done more than chat to a few girls and had no interest when a girl called Elanora from Italy or France, or wherever, had asked if she could come back to our hotel and fuck us both. Luckily, we had separate rooms and I’d gone back with her, along with a Swedish, Dutch, or wherever it is they make tall blonde girls that talk like the chef off the Muppets and are called Anna, Arrna or Hannah. They stayed for two days. By the third, I could barely walk and needed them to go.

  The following couple of weeks, we’d spent fishing, snorkelling, and sunbathing while sailing on Max and Nicole’s boat. They had just had their third baby so there was no partying on board. Most of the places we docked at night were quiet little fishing villages. Nic was happy to cook most evenings, as it was hard work taking three kids, including a newborn out to dinner. A few times she sent Max out with us, telling us to go get drunk, which being the good boys that we were, we obviously obeyed. One night, we ended up staging an impromptu concert at a little bar in Palma on the island of Majorca. It was a place where the locals drank, but we had been instantly recognised and the singer from the band that was playing, invited us up on stage to sing a few songs. We didn’t get down for over two hours and it was the happiest I had seen Maca in what felt like forever.

  We helped Jimmie load the dishwas
her and clear up the kitchen before taking our drinks and sitting on the big comfy sofa’s they’d just purchased. I was only half listening to Len go on about how they were custom made when the ring of the front doorbell came. Keen to get away from the riveting sofa conversation, Maca jumped up with an, “I’ll get it,” before I could get a breath out. He winked at me as he headed for the door, probably the first person ever to hope that he was gonna find a large religious cult on the doorstep, looking to spend hours trying to convert him.

  “So yeah, if you’re ever looking, I can put you onto this bloke in San Antonio, Texas.” Len was telling me. I nodded and smiled, feigning interest before knocking back my drink. Imported cowhide? Shoot me now, cowboy.

  I added ice from the bucket on the coffee table and started to top up both mine and Len’s drinks when I thought I heard a woman cry.

  “What was that?” Len asked me.

  “Dunno, sounded like someone crying.”

  We were quiet for a minute, both of us trying to listen over the top of The Jam’s ‘Butterfly Collector.’ He looked around for the remote to the state of the art—for 1989—sound system that he’d had installed.

  “Is that crying?” That was what I’d just said.

  “I don’t know Len, go and have a look.” I suggested. He could do anything, as long as it wasn’t talking to me about furniture.

  “Where’s Jim anyway?” I asked him, hoping that he would at least want to go in search of his wife to be.

  Curiosity eventually got the better of him and he stood, walking out into the hallway.

  “Fuck... Jimmie!” I hear him call out a few seconds later. I stand up and retrieve the remote from the dining table where we had left it earlier. Transvision Vamp’s Wendy James starts belting out ‘Baby I Don’t Care’ and my dick gives a little twitch of approval as I remember the video I’d seen of her singing it, wearing a basque, long gloves, and not a lot else.

  “Shit.”

  That was my sister’s voice I heard as I stepped out into the hallway. Len was standing just ahead of me. I looked around him to see Maca sitting on the floor, his arms wrapped around my sister who was sitting in his lap and looking up at him. Jimmie was on her knees beside them.

  “Who would want to hurt us like that? Who?”

  George looked up at Maca and asked through her tears.

  What the fuck’s happened?

  “What the fuck, George? What’s wrong?” I started to move towards them, a million and one thoughts rushing through my brain. No one spoke. The only sounds were my sister’s sniffs and sobs.

  “Will somebody please tell me what the fuck is going on?”

  Jimmie was crying too and goose bumps prickled my skin. Something bad happened ... my mum, my dad, Bailey? I can’t move. I opened my mouth to again ask for answers, but nothing came out.

  All my mind was acknowledging was the fact that Maca was holding my sister in his lap. After all these years, all this time apart, they were finally here, together.

  It was all gonna be okay. Life was gonna go back to the way it should always have been.

  “The letters, Jim?” Maca questioned. “All the letters. You told me that she got them.”

  Jimmie looked past me to Lennon, then back to Maca. I’m totally lost as to what is going on.

  “She did.” She said to him, then turned her gaze to George. “You did.” The tone of her voice made it sound like she was almost pleading with her to confirm what she was saying. “Your mum said that they upset you so much, that we weren’t to talk about them.”

  Georgia’s mouth opened and closed at least three times. It was almost comical to watch, except there was nothing at all funny about what was unfolding.

  “No, no, Jim.” My sister shook her head. “I never knew. I never saw a single letter.”

  “What?” Maca,, Jimmie, and Len, all seem to say at once.

  George looked wide-eyed at all of us in turn. I’m not sure if she thought that we all thought she was lying, but she continued to confirm her story. “She told me that Sean phoned for a couple of weeks and that my dad threatened him; that he’d then stopped calling and that was it.” Her eyes moved between each of us again. She looked small and fragile sitting in Maca’s arms. He was bigger built than the last time they were together, and she was skinnier—a lot skinnier—and I was only just realising it then.

  “Georgia, I swear to God, I called your house four or five times a day. I begged them to let me talk to you. I wrote letter after letter, begging you to see me.” I was witness to his side of the story and knew for sure that everything he was telling her was the truth.

  So what the fuck happened? Why did G not get any of his letters? There had to be a simple explanation to this because my mum and Dad would never lie about that shit. They knew what they were both going through, what they’d continued to go through.

  I started to feel a little dizzy and light headed as fear unfurled in my belly. Something wasn’t making sense.

  Everyone was quite for a while, all of them probably trying to work out how the fuck this has happened. None of us wanting to think the worst; that it could’ve been done deliberately.

  “G?” Maca said quietly. “I love you, babe, but your arse is fuckin bony and mine is going numb.”

  “Fuck, I need a drink. Shit’s gonna go down if Mother’s done this on purpose,” Lennon said from beside me.

  “No shit,” I replied, following him back to where we had left our bourbons.

  We sit down on the much talked about sofas and each drain our glasses. Len tops them up this time. “I can’t believe this,” he stated.

  “It’s gotta be something simple. Mum’s not a spiteful person. She was pissed off with Maca, but she’d never go out of her way to keep them apart.” I said, unsure of who I was trying to convince more. My eyes met Len’s and he looked as concerned as I felt. “Would she?” I questioned him.

  “I have no fuckin clue, mate.” He took a sip of his drink. “I feel like I don’t know anything right now.”

  My mind starts to race with thoughts of something strange that happened last year. My mum had asked me to keep the address of where we were living from Georgia, which was odd because she still wouldn’t talk to me at the time anyway. Then she’d flipped out when Georgia had apparently found it out. She’d said at the time that my sister had been behaving a little erratically, and that she had been asking for our address. She was worried that Georgia was gonna turn up and cause a scene and it could all end up in the papers. I’d shrugged it off at the time. I assumed my mum was over reacting to something G may or may not have said, but what if it had just been another way of keeping Maca and G apart?

  I had an uneasy feeling in my belly and my chest as I watched Maca carry my sister into the room and sit her in his lap when he sat down of the sofa. The sensation wasn’t caused by watching those two together—that was great to see—it was the thought that my mum could’ve done something really horrible.

  I moved to the armchair to give them some room as Len passed them both a drink.

  I wanted to smile every time I looked at them together but I was feeling sick with nerves that life might be about to come crashing down all around us again.

  Georgia was rambling on about the fact that this must all be some kind of mistake, that our mum knew the mess they were both in and that there was no way that she’d deliberately keep them apart.

  “You okay, big brother Marley?” George asked.

  No, I’m not, really. I’ve finally got my family all back together and it was suddenly looking like it could fall apart again. I didn’t want to tell George what else I knew, but I wasn’t lying to her. I wasn’t losing her again, especially if she and Maca were gonna work things out.

  “Gotta say, little sister Georgia that I’m with you. Mum just wouldn’t do that ... surely mum wouldn’t do that?”

  Please don’t let my mum have done that.

  I shook my head and continued. “I don’t know if I’m overthink
ing things, but now that I’m thinking about it, she has gone out of her way over the years to stop you two from having any kind of contact.”

  There’d been a few occasions when she’d called me to make sure that I knew Maca wasn’t invited to whatever family gathering or function we were attending if George was also gonna be there. I always assumed it was because she was worried about how George would react to seeing Maca, but now I was worried that there was something else going on.

  “I just thought it was to protect you, George, and then after that Sunday the other month...” I trailed off as I watched Maca pull her tighter into him. I think on the memory of that shitty day, yet another one where I fucked up, big time.

  I cleared my throat and carried on, “... After the way you reacted that Sunday, I thought that she’d done the right thing.”

  My heart rate accelerated and my hands felt clammy. I’d stood on a stage in front of thousands of people. I’d performed live on television shows with audiences of millions, but I’d never felt as nervous as I did right then. However, my next sentence could’ve had the possibility of blowing my family apart. I felt sick and absolutely gutted at what I was about to do, but I didn’t see that I had any other choice.

  “I thought she was being a bit irrational when she told me not to give you our address, and then how pissed off she got when you found it out anyway. It makes me think now that she may have had her own agenda—that maybe there was more to it than protecting you? What if it was more about hiding what she’d done? I don’t know, I’m just surmising...” I trailed off again when I took in the look on Georgia’s face. She frowned, her mouth opening and closing again as she shook her head no.

  “I don’t understand, Marls?” I didn’t hear much else for a few seconds after that, realisation crawling up my spine. Could I have unknowingly played an even bigger part in my sister and best friend’s misery over the past four years than I thought?

  “Ours, mine and Maca’s. She told me not to give you our address. She said that she was worried that you’d start stalking him.”