Page 113 of Marley
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 mums 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 on to 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 and 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 having 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.
“Nah? 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 realised 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 its 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.
