Page 36 of Marley
“She’s going to the gym now?” he asked.
“Yeah, she is. Though fuck knows why. There’s nothing of her,” she told him. He nodded his head, not that he knew how skinny she was those days. My sister had never been curvy, but when I saw her at Christmas, she was painfully thin.
“So the shop, it’s going well then?” I asked. My dad had bought a dress shop in the high street and my mum and sister had taken it on as a project, which seemed to have taken off.
“It is. George and your mum have set themselves up as a business and are already looking to expand. They’re selling all high-end designer labels and people can’t get enough. They’re off to Italy in a couple of weeks to a fashion show and to meet with a couple of new suppliers.”
I watched as Maca once again finished his drink in a few gulps. He looked over Jim’s head at me.
“You’re right, mate, it’s time to let go. Let’s get to rehearsals. We’ve got a show to put on later.”
Maca asked for the tab and I noticed he signed the docket,Lennon Layton,and put Len’s room number down. Len was gonna have heart failure when he found out.
CHAPTER TEN
1986
The concert that night was one of our worst and best ever. Maca was drunk, shit-faced, and highly emotional. He constantly changed the set list. As his bandmates, we knew the songs and quickly fell into stride along with whatever he decided to sing, but the sound techs and lighting blokes must’ve been majorly confused.
He broke into one of the best versions of ‘Train In Vain’by The Clash that I’d ever heard, then an extremely sad and random cover of ‘Denis’by Blondie, changing the words ‘Denis’to‘Georgie’and ‘King’to ‘Queen.’He followed this with a haunting version of‘River’by Joni Mitchell. His song choices were erratic, he went from sad and slow into a manic version of the Buzzcocks,‘Ever Fallen In Love,’then slipped into a bluesy version of Dylan’s‘Don’t Think Twice,’which he played and sang alone with his electric acoustic. This was followed by our own‘Seaside Heart,’his usual raspy voiced version of‘English Rose,’and then‘Georgia.’It was possibly the best performance of his life.
He left me to say his ‘goodnight’s’ and ‘thank you’s’ as he exited the stage without a word.
Tonight, there would be no encore.
I watched as he walked straight into Jimmie’s arms and sobbed so hard he could barely stand.
She held on to him tight, stroking his hair and his back. She kissed his cheek and the top of his head, speaking words to try and comfort and soothe him while at the same time, encouraging him to let it all out.
Jimmie managed to coax and steer him out of the venue and into the back of the car that was waiting to take us back to the hotel.
I sat in silence and watched my best mate fall apart. The pain from the guilt and anguish felt as I witnessed Maca break into a million pieces was like being eaten alive, from the inside out, but so much less than I deserved.
So much less.
2014
My eyes fly open and my heart skips a few beats. I must’ve fallen asleep whilst reading. My laptop obviously got bored of waiting for me to scroll down the page and has also gone off to sleep.
I hear a giggle and realise it must’ve been the noise that woke me. Ash must be home.
The door to my office flies open and my sister falls through it. Yeah, she actually falls, or more like, collapses in a heap.
“What the fuck, George?”
She looks up at me with her blue eyes and blinks a few times.
“Big brother, Marleeeeeeey.” She grins as she calls from her position on the floor. She starts to crawl towards me on all fours.
Ashley appears behind her in the doorway, frowning as she looks at me.
“Georgia drunked.” She slurs, swaying as she tries to speak. I realise then she’s not frowning at me but trying to focus. “G, she got-she got drinked.”
My sister is now lying flat on her back, looking up at the ceiling and laughing her head off at what? I really don’t have a clue.
“No,” Ash says. “No, no, no. Not drinked, she’s not got drinked.” She shakes her head, slides down on the floor and joins G, laughing at whatever it is that’s so amusing on my office ceiling.
“How the fuck did you get in this state?” I ask them as I stand up and look over at my wife and sister who are now doing a bang on impersonation of a couple of hyenas.
