Please pick up the phone and talk to me the next time I call. I’ve had to go back to Europe on this fucking tour, but I don’t want to. I want to be with you. I miss you so much, your smell, the feel of your skin, everything about you; your smart mouth and your sense of humour, and of course, those amazing tits.
I’m so sorry, G, for what’s happened. I would never knowingly or willingly hurt you, you know that, but I also know that’s no excuse.
I know when I saw you I couldn’t tell you for sure what happened, but there were more people than just me and Marley there in that room and they’ve all said the same thing. We were snorting lines off her tits and I know that that in itself is wrong, but that’s as far as it went. She kept trying to get my shorts down. As soon as we got in that room, she was trying to get my shorts down and was trying to suck me off and I couldn’t remember at first. I couldn’t remember if I had let her and I didn’t want to lie to you, but I know now, I know for sure that I pushed her away. I kept pushing her away. I didn’t touch her, G; I swear to you, I didn’t touch her.
I kept calling your house when I was still in England. I came and knocked on your door, but your mum wouldn’t let me see you and then we had to fly back out. I wanted to come home just for the day tomorrow, but they won’t let me. I’ll call you again tonight. Please, G, please tell your mum and dad that it’s okay, that you want to talk to me; please, I just need to hear your voice. I love you like the stars above, baby. Just answer the phone when I call and let me please explain everything.
Sean xxx
* * *
I light another cigarette and read it again; I can hear his voice pleading with me in my head. Why didn’t I just forgive him? Why didn’t I just speak to him? All that wasted time, four whole years. What I would give to have four more years with him now. I was so young and so stupid, but I thought I knew it all.
I suddenly feel very tired, very tired and very alone. I go back to my bedroom, back to my bed, curl up and cry myself to sleep for the next couple of hours.
I’m woken by the sound of someone calling my name, and then someone banging on my bedroom door. I open my eyes and look around at the mess my room’s in; everything from the crate is spread everywhere. I sit up as my bedroom door opens and Jackson’s head appears around it.
“George, sorry, darl; I thought you’d be up and about by now.” His eyes scan over me, then around the room. “What the fuck’s all this lot? Looks like a bomb’s dropped in here.”
I swing my legs to the side of the bed and look up at him. “Go downstairs to the bar and get me a large flat white, please, Jax. I need a quick shower.” He frowns and looks me over again. This boy worries over me as much as my own brothers do; he nods his head slightly.
“You okay, George?”
I nod. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’ll tell you all about it once I’m showered. One sugar in my coffee, please.” He nods again, but doesn’t move for a few more seconds. His eyes scan the room and his hand rubs over the stubble on his jaw.
“You sure you’re okay?”
I nod again, touched by his concern. “I’m fine; now go, before I start getting naked.”
“Ewww, George, that’s just creepy. I’m going. Large flat white, one sugar; I’m gone. I’m gone.”
He heads down to the bar to grab me a real coffee, while I stand under the shower and try to make up my mind about whether I want to read any more of Sean’s letters.
I shower, dress and then head out to the kitchen. Jackson is sitting on a stool at the kitchen worktop and has my coffee sitting in a takeaway cup with a lid on it in front of him. I go straight to the cupboard and pull out a real mug; I hate drinking out of those cardboard things.
“What’s going on, George? What’s all that shit over the bedroom floor?” I pause for a few seconds, considering what lie I can come up with because I know Jax will think what I’m doing is wrong. I take a deep breath, turn around and face him.
“They’re letters and stuff Sean wrote to me when we split up for four years, back when the band first made it big.” I transfer my coffee from the cardboard to the ceramic mug, and then raise my eyes to meet his.
“Why are they here?”
I swallow. I know he’s not going to be happy. Jackson has been like my therapist since I got here and he’s given me nothing but sound advice, but I didn’t tell him I was going to do this.
“I’ve never read them.” I take a sip of my coffee and wait for his reply.
“So, why read them now?”
I shrug and let out a loud sigh. “I just thought it might bring me some closure. Not closure as such, I don’t think I’ll ever achieve that, but…” I shrug and trail off. “I’m ready to read them. I want to hear his thoughts. What he was going through at that time. It’s a part of him I didn’t have, that I didn’t share, and I want it. I want any part of him I can get.” I gulp down the last of my coffee and almost choke as I try to swallow down a sob with it.
“I think you’re full of shit, George. I think you’re snooping through his things to see if he cheated on you. I think you’re looking for evidence that he might have fucked around.” He takes a long swig on his beer, draining the bottle, but keeps his eyes pinned on mine. “All these accusations that’ve been made, it must be horrible for ya. I totally get that, but don’t let them fuckers make you start doubting what you two had. That bloke worshiped the fucking ground you walked on; that was obvious to anyone who was ever in your company, and not a single one of these accusations has come to anything.” He sounds angry but in a calm way, which is quite intimidating. “Sean was a good bloke. He worked hard and he loved, no, he adored his wife. He never knocked up anyone other than you and we both know it.”
I suddenly feel ashamed, and rightly so. Just because I was a lying, cheating whore of a wife doesn’t mean Sean behaved the same way. Marley has sworn to me, over and over again, that there is just no way Sean cheated on me. That one incident in the hotel room in Spain taught them all a lesson, and all of the boys had been careful after that; one, to not mess around on their girlfriends, and two, to always use a condom. Sure, Sean had fucked a lot of women in the time we were apart, but according to Marley, he hadn’t looked at another woman since the night I fell through Lennon’s front door and landed in his lap twelve or so years ago. Marley had told me to watch the videos of all the interviews they had done over the years. That they would give me an indicator of where Sean’s head was at, but really, in all honesty, there was no need for me to do any of that, because I knew; Sean would never do what I did. Sean was a good person. I wasn’t.
“What you not telling me, George?” God, sometimes his intuition pisses me off, so I bare-face lie to him.
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit, you’re lying to me.”
Up until I was ten years old, Marley, Jackson, myself, Jodie and Jimmie had been inseparable. We lived a few streets apart, went to the same preschool, and then on to the same primary school. Our families had holidayed and taken day trips together. Then Kathy and John decided to move to Australia, but even on the half-dozen times we had met up since then, it was like we had never been apart. He knew me as well as my brothers…
“I worshiped the ground Sean walked on, but I still fucked someone else while we were married.” I pull a bottle of wine from the fridge as I speak and pour myself a glass.
“What… you did what?” I gesture towards the balcony doors; I need wine and cigarettes for this confession. Nobody but my mum, Cam and I know what had happened in Cam’s office the night of my run-in with Whorely, and now I am about to confess all to my favourite cousin. Jackson pulls the bottle of wine back out of the fridge and a glass from the cupboard, joining me out on the balcony. He pours himself a glass and watches me from over the top. I wait for him to repeat his question, but he doesn’t, and it just makes it harder for me to start talking.