CHAPTER FOURTEEN

1988 / 1989

Maca and I had invested in a holiday resort in the Turks and Caicos Islands in early ’87. We were invited to the opening in December of that year and spent all of Christmas, New Years, and January of 1988 there. We hadn’t planned on staying away that long, but the weather back home was freezing and the place was like paradise.

We played a lot of golf, snorkelled, and even wrote and composed four new songs. I returned to England feeling relaxed and centred, although I hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that there was a hole somewhere. Something was just missing from my life, but I didn’t know what.

In February we took a skiing holiday with Jimmie and Len, and finally settled back into life in England in early March.

Thinking back on it now, I know that I was just running away from the loneliness I was feeling inside, and I suspect that Maca was doing the same. It had been almost five years since we’d had this much time to ourselves, and if the truth be told, we had no one except each other to spend it with. What a sad pair of wankers we were.

Sundays, when I had nothing to do, were always a shit time for me. I knew that my whole family gathered on a Sunday at my parents’ place, but I was usually travelling, busy, or too hungover to care. But that particular sunny March morning, I woke up feeling pissed off that I couldn’t just turn up there for dinner with Maca in tow like I’d done hundreds of times before when we were growing up.

The girl I’d come home with the night before was still curled up and sleeping next to me. I laid there for a moment, trying to remember her name. I went through the alphabet, starting with A, recounting every girl’s name that I could. I got to L and knew I was close; Laura, Lauren, Linda, Lesley, Louise. It began with an L, I was sure of it.

My bedroom door flew open and Maca stood there, drinking from a coffee cup.

“It’s a beautiful morning. Fancy taking the bikes out?” He asked.

We had bought ourselves a Harley Softtail each last year, but had only been out on them a few times in secret, behind Len’s back. Both he and the label would shit a brick if they found out, so we’d kept those particular purchases quiet.

The blonde sleeping next to me poked her head out from under the duvet.

“Talking of bikes,” Maca said. “How was that one to ride? She made enough fucking noise.”

“Ooooh, harsh dude, and a highly misogynistic assumption.”

“You eat a dictionary along with her fanny last night?”

“Oi. Don’t come in here with the hump, just coz you didn’t get any last night. Fuck off back to bed and rub one out.”

He’d left the club early the night before, getting pissed off with the way the women there thought it was okay to keep putting their hands all over him. I mean seriously, would you go up to a complete stranger and start rubbing their cock through their jeans? No, probably not, so why the fuck do women, and some men, think it’s okay to do it to us, just because we’re in a band? We’re neither pieces of meat, nor public property, at least not once we’re offstage. If we were to approach random women and grab them by the snatch, we’d be locked the fuck up for it.

Anyway, Maca jumped in a taxi and went home. He was going through another withdrawn and angry stage. As much as his mood swings gave me whiplash, he was my mate and I worried about him. I stayed for another hour, talking to a couple of mates when blondie, with the L sounding name, caught my eye and I ended up taking her home. If I remember rightly, she was short, cute, and had a massive rack. The sex was pretty good too, and I seem to recall bending her into a few interesting positions during the night, but what I’d liked most was that she had no fucking clue who I was.

L girl sat up and blinked a few times.

“Oh my fucking, shit, fuck ...” She stares at Maca while trying to wipe her make-up from under her eyes and messing with her hair.

“Morning, blondie.” I played it safe, seeing as I couldn’t remember her name

L ... Li ... Le ... Lu ... Lucy! Fuck yeah, I’m good. Lucy. That was her name.

She turned to me and screamed. “Oh my fucking god, Marley Layton!”

I gave my best impersonation of her scream and in her voice, I said, “Oh my fucking god, Lucy.”

She looks around the room, frowning. “Lucy? Who the fuck’s Lucy? My name’s Olivia.”

Oops.

“Livy, sorry, I meant to say Liv, Livy, not Lucy.”

“Ooh, nice backtrack, dude.” Maca got in, shaking his head as he walked away.

“Shut the door on your way out, fucker,” I called after him. “Don’t want you getting all jealous coz your right hand is the nearest thing you’ve got to a Lu—I mean, a Livy this morning.”

Shit, just shoot me now.

After another quick roll around with Lucy Livy Lou... yeah, that’s what I’d decided to call her. It gave me a few more options at getting her name right and she was giving me the best blow job, all because she thought I’d given her a ‘cute nickname.’ Everybody wins.

She headed off to my bathroom and showered while I went out to the kitchen to find Maca sitting at the breakfast bar, watching an episode of ThunderCats on the television. He had the sound muted, whilst sipping on another cup of coffee.

“You all right, dude?” I asked him.

“I’m gonna go and see your sister.” He stated while staring at the television screen.

“Why?” I asked, honestly curious as to his reason.

He turns and looks at me. “I need to know, Marls. I need to tell her everything, and I need her to hear me out. Then I need to know if there’s ever going to be a chance for us to sort this mess out.”

I nod my head, whilst debating internally as to whether it was a good idea.

“From what Jim and Len tell me, she’s miserable, and I’m still fucking dying here without her.” He rubbed his hand over the stubble on his chin.

“I can’t carry on like this anymore. I’m existing, but I’m not living. Even if she says no, if she tells me straight up that there’s no chance of us ever getting back together, at least then I’ll know. It’ll hurt... fuck, it’ll be agony, but it can’t be any more painful than what I’ve been going through these last few years.”

“When?” I asked. “When you planning on going to see her?”

“This week. I don’t wanna wait now that I’ve made up my mind, and I don’t want Jim or Lennon to know, just in case they warn her. I don’t wanna give G a chance to overthink what she’s feeling, I’ll just turn up. I know her, Marls, I know her inside and out. I’ll know as soon as she sees me, what she’s really feeling.”

As much as I cringed with the knowledge of how well Maca knew my little sister, I also accepted that what he said was true. Those two were inseparable for five years, and were sleeping together for the last year or so they were together. Nobody knew George as well as Maca did, and being the big brother that I was, that was actually the way I’d like it to stay—him being her one and only.

I have no idea if she’d seen other blokes. I know Jimmie had mentioned that she’d finally started going out with this new friend, Ash, but she’d never mentioned her dating anyone. She did say that she didn’t go to my mums for Sunday dinner anymore because she was out most Saturday nights. That was something I hadn’t yet mentioned to Maca.

“Whatever you feel you need to do, man. I won’t say a word to anyone. Just let me know if there’s anything I can help do to make this happen.” I patted him on the shoulder as I spoke.

We both stare at the television in silence for a few seconds.

“Fuck, I need a shag, I’m actually sitting here with a semi because of a fucking cartoon cheetah cat woman on the telly.” He stated.

“Oh, come on. What’s not to get hard about Cheetara? It’s when you start getting hard over Jaga you need to worry, or worse still, WilyKat. Now that would just be wrong, dude.”

I watched as he smiled and shook his head.

“Seriously though. We have to fly to Ireland tomorrow for that charity, do the interviews Len’s lined up, but we’re back home next weekend. Perhaps I can try and find out what she’s doing next week so you’ll at least know where she’ll be.”

“I’d rather talk to her somewhere private, not at your mum and dad’s in front of everyone.”

“That’s fine. I’ll just find out when she finishes work. She’s living in the flat above the shop now so it shouldn’t be too hard to get her on her own.”

“Thanks, mate, appreciate it.”

“Least I can do brother, the very least.” I told him as I headed off back to my bedroom to shower and get dressed for our run out on the bikes.

By the time I’d showered and dressed, Maca and L girl were chatting and laughing like old friends in the kitchen.

“Olivia wants to know if we could collect her mate from where she stayed last night and give them both a lift back to Chelmsford?” I wasn’t sure if Maca was asking on L girls behalf, or telling me that that’s what we were going to do. He shrugged his shoulders before continuing, “I just thought it might give us a decent run out on the bikes.”

“Can do.” I replied. “I was actually thinking of heading out to my parents’ place ... ya know, to see what I could find out about what G’s up to for the next few weeks.” I informed him, trying not to give too much away in front of our present company.

“I’m not sure, Marls. Who’s gonna be there?”

“By the time we get there, no one you’ll need to worry about, but I’ll check on whose cars are on the drive once we’re there anyway. If there’s a problem, we’ll just keep driving and drop the girls off.” He still doesn’t look too happy, but I continue. “Where’s your mate want picking up from, sweetheart?”