Page 16 of Marley
“This is George we’re talking about, Marls. She’s never experienced things not going her way in life.” She swallowed and I knew she was struggling not to cry too. “Just give her time, yeah?” I wasn’t entirely sure who she was trying to convince in that moment.
“I’m gonna go and clean Billy’s face up before Linda gets here and freaks the fuck out. I’ll get you some ice once I’ve done that.” She leant up on her tiptoes and kissed my cheek.
“You know you can ask me about George anytime, Marls. If you want me to pass on a message or anything, just let me know, yeah?” Her brown eyes looked over my face while her hand rubbed up and down my arm in what I assumed was a gesture of reassurance, understanding, friendship? Who knew, but in that moment, I felt that it was more than I deserved.
We all ended up back in our room, blind drunk that night. Even Jimmie and Len joined us, as well as some of the crew. Maca spent a lot of the night drinking whiskey and crying on Jim’s shoulder, while I joined one of the lighting engineers in the bedroom with a girl he had picked up. He willingly shared her and his illegal substances with me.
Things changed after that night. We were tighter than ever musically, despite the celebrating we did after each show. Our days were filled with television, radio, magazines, or newspaper interviews. On our nights off, we tended to go off and do our own thing, but it was getting harder and harder to do anything or go anywhere without being recognised.
I loved the attention, the women that threw themselves at us, but the rest of the band, not so much. Tom and Billy were still with Cheryl and Linda, the girls they’d been with since school. They were with us most of the time, both of them forgoing careers to travel with the band. The label insisted they keep a low profile around the fans and the press, but when we were back at our hotels, they were there, waiting for their boys. They partied with us sometimes, but usually they’d just disappear off to their rooms.
Since the success of the album and the fact that the tour was a sell-out, Len had negotiated for us to each have our own rooms and after a few drinks, Maca usually disappeared off to his, alone every night.
We spent some of our days writing, but because the UK was so small, we didn’t use the tour bus like we had in Europe, so the opportunities to collaborate didn’t present themselves as often.
Spending so much time alone, Maca was writing a lot, and although a lot of it was a bit mushy for me and obviously about George, by the time we had worked on it together and tweaked a few things, we were coming up with some amazing stuff. We knew that it wouldn’t be long before we had enough new material to write another album.
Our UK tour was due to end in late July. A couple of festival dates were added to our schedule in August, and studio time was booked for the beginning of September.
Maca finally cracked and ended his self-imposed exile and celibacy on Georgia’s birthday.
I had been home a few times during the tour, but she still refused to speak to me, closing the door in my face every time I went to her room. I don’t know if Maca was still trying to contact her, he never said, and my dad never mentioned he was still being a pest when I spoke to him.
The label rented us a flat to live in close to the studios when the tour ended, so we spent the end of that summer making music, eating, drinking and partying together.
We had found a quiet little pub around the corner from our flat in in West London and had turned it into our local. It was the last place that anyone would think of looking for England’s biggest band, so we could spend our evening having a few drinks, a game of pool, and even grab some lunch or dinner if we hadn’t previously eaten.
I’m not sure how word got out, but when Maca and I arrived at the pub one night, there were four girls standing at the bar and we knew that it was us they were waiting for.
Tom and Billy had headed straight off as soon as we had finished recording. We had a day off the following day, so they had driven back to Essex to see their girls.
I stood at the bar, waiting for our drinks while Maca racked up the pool balls. I watched as one of the girls approached him. She was tall. Even without the shiny patent leather heels she was wearing, she had a cracking pair of legs. Her dress was a royal blue colour, skintight, and made from this stretchy waffle patterned material. Funny how after all these years I should remember all that. I think it’s because Jim had a similar type of dress and we had all commented on how good her arse looked in it, earning me a smack upside the head from my brother.
“They’ve been asking what time you usually get here.” Jock, the landlord told me, placing two beers on the bar. “I told them I didn’t know what they were talking about,” he said with a nod as I handed him a tenner.
Jock knew who we were. His daughter had recognised us when she was working behind the bar one night and sent him over for autographs. We’d asked them to keep it quiet, donated to buy the pubs football team a new kit and given Jeannie, his daughter, a pile of signed merchandise and an album.
“Cheers, Jock. How long they been here?” I asked.
He looked at his watch and gave a small shrug. “Since about six. There were two more, but I had to throw them out for being underaged,” he said quietly in his soft, Scottish accent.
“Those four have got IDs, but they’ve all only just turned eighteen, except for the brunette talking to Maca, she’s older. You boys watch yourselves.”
“We will. Cheers again, Jock.”
I headed towards the pool table, smiling at the three girls trying to artfully prop themselves at the bar and note that they all looked a bit ... soapy, as my dad would say. That didn’t mean they were covered in bubbles if that’s what you’re thinking, it meant that they looked like they could do with a good wash, and I don’t care what ID they’d flashed at Jock. Not one of them looked to be more than fifteen or sixteen.
Now I know I was only just nineteen myself at that stage, and a bit of an animal, but jailbait was not my thing, and something I was extra careful about after Whorely Gate. Not that she’d been underage or anything. She was actually a few years older than us, but after that incident, the label had sent one of their female exec’s to give us ‘The Talk.’ Basically she told us to always practise safe sex, always make sure we’re aware of the age of consent, depending on which country we’re in, (especially places like the U.S., where it can vary from state to state), and never, ever let anyone film or take pictures of you in the act.
It hadn’t slowed down the amount of women I’d slept with, but I was very aware ofwhoI slept with and tended to go with the girls that looked older, rather than younger, just to be safe.
I passed Maca his drink and held mine up so we could say cheers. We both knew what the date was. He’d been very quiet and looked extra sad. I silently wished my sister a happy birthday and took a swig from the bottle.
“This is Siobhan,” Maca introduced her, tilting his beer bottle towards her, then to me.
“Siobhan, this is Marley.” She looked me over, every inch, with the most amazing blue eyes.
“Siobhan.” I nodded towards her. “Isn’t that Irish? Sounds like it should be spelt S, H, E, V, O, N, but instead has a B or some random letter in it?”
