Page 96 of The Interview
We all stare at the screen as it continues to show the aftermath of injured people, young kids, some just twelve or thirteen-looking, with cuts to their faces.
“That’s not a side of fame we often see,” Daniel says. “But for all of you, it was part of your everyday lives. How did you cope?”
“It was crazy, but it was never usually that bad,” Marley says. “It never really bothered me until the kids came along.”
“And that’s what made us decide to wait. Literally, that night, me and Sean had a conversation. All we could think about was what if Jimmie and the baby had been caught up in all of that. Then when Paige came along, then Joe, and seeing how hard it was for Jimmie and Ash to wrangle the kids on the tour bus, orflying through multiple time zones, and the kids not knowing if it was bath or breakfast time…”
“It was hard,” Ash agreed. “But it was equally shit not going and having Marley away, because even if I flew in to see him somewhere, I’d have to have had someone fly with me by the time I had three.”
“Or four,” Jim adds.
We all nod, remembering how hard it was for them.
“When the wives and kids didn’t come, and I was the only partner travelling with the band, it was horrible watching the boys. They missed their girls. They missed their babies. They were miserable. Everyone at home was miserable, and so we, me and Sean, just pushed things back even further.”
“I’d like to say you made the right call, George,” Ash says. “Itwashard, but obviously, for you two, we didn’t know, did we? Oh, to be able to tell the future.” She lets out a long sigh. “But then, if you’d have had kids sooner, would they have been standing on the side of the road with you that day?” She looks at me and shrugs. “I’m sorry. Sorry if that upsets you, but that has crossed my mind.”
This time, it’s me who shrugs.
“Mine, too. And who knows, but that’s not what happened, and there’s nothing any of us can do to change a single thing about the way things turned out,” I say.
“We’ve put together a bit of a montage of video footage and photos, both from personal collections and what the researchers have come up with. You want me to run that? We can pause or stop at any time, and we’d love to hear any comments you may have,” Daniel says.
“Go for it,” Marley says. “The family that’s traumatised together, stays together, right? That’s why we’ve all lasted so long.”
I smile but don’t take my eyes from the screen, wondering what we’re going to be shown.
Up first is a video. The boys are on stage, performing what looks like a sound check. Marley’s in his regulation white tee, dark jeans, and Converse, while Maca wears a black tee with bright pink writing saying ‘New York Dolls’ with an image I can’t quite make out on it. He also wears his black jeans, black studded belt, and black DMs. His hair is long and his skin tanned as he adjusts the strings on his Les Paul.
He turns and says something to someone off stage, and Jeff appears, the band’s guitar tech. He kneels in front of Sean and starts loosening and tightening the strings. I don’t know who’s filming, but from the way the camera doesn’t move, it looks like it was set up on a tripod.
“Wow,” Kiki says, followed by a long, loud whistle. “I gotta say, Mumma, you do have exceptional taste in men.”
“Yeah,” H says. “I mean, dudes are not my thing, but he was one good-looking geezer.”
“Nowhere near as handsome as you, though, Daddy,” Lu adds, like I knew she would.
“Thanks, Syrup,” Cam says, making me smile at the use of her childhood nickname.
With my eyes still on the screen, I watch as Jeff finishes whatever he was doing to Sean’s guitar and notice that there’s also someone filming with a video camera on stage with them. The footage must switch to their angle, as we’re now looking at a close-up of Sean’s hands as he busts out “Smoke on the Water” the way he always did during soundcheck. The camera switches from his hands and follows Sean as he looks up. The most beautiful smile breaks out on his face, lighting up his eyes, and I know he’s looking at me.
Then the camera’s on me walking from the back of the venue, down the steps, towards the stage. I’m wearing the tightest,skinny leather jeans, black ankle boots, a white tee, and a black leather jacket. My makeup is minimal, except for my red lips, and my hair has been straightened.
The camera stays on me for a while as I—probably very self-consciously—navigate those horrible one-and-a-half width steps you always get in concert venues.
“Wow,” I hear Cam say, making me both blush and smile.
I hear a wolf whistle, but I’m not sure if it’s Cam, George, or Harry since they all sound so alike.
“Muuuuuummaaaaaa,” Kiki says. “You are such a baddie. Just look at you.”
I say nothing; my eyes fixed on the screen. The camera pans out to take in Sean looking at me, and the words from a letter he once wrote me instantly fight their way to be heard in my head.
He’s the only man I’ve seen look at you in the exact same way I look at you. When he looks at you, he only sees you, and you know what that tells me? If anything ever happened to me, to us, for whatever reason we couldn’t be together, or I couldn’t be with you, and he steps up, steps in, and offers to love you, then let it be him, because I know he’d love you the way I do. He’d look after you if I ever couldn’t.
And he was right, so right, because the way Sean is looking at me up on that screen is exactly the look Kenzie captured in her photo of Cam looking at me last week.
I almost forget to breathe as I process all of this, but then Sean moves towards the mic, and what he’s playing on his guitar changes to something I don’t recognise. Then he starts to sing, and I’m there, in that venue, somewhere in Germany. I’d stayed back at the hotel to help Jimmie and Ash out with the kids because they’d wanted to swim in the pool. Later, I’d caught a cab to the venue to watch the boys soundcheck, and to make sure Sean ate before the show. I can smell it: old carpet, sweat, stale beer, cigarettes.
