Page 47 of Marley
“But that’s what I am, that’s what you all forget. I may be twenty-years-old, but I’m still a lovesick kid. I always will be for her. When will you all fucking get that?”
We all remained silent, everyone realising in that moment that he was in fact right, even if he’d just behaved like a complete dick. We were still so young, stupid, clueless, horny, and emotional. Our lives had been turned on their heads in a short amount of time, cameras constantly going off in our faces, fabricated stories being written about us.
For us it was, and always will be, about the music first. I didn’t want celebrity status. Yeah, back then I liked the amount of birds it led to me banging, but right from the very beginning, we all hated the intrusion. Billy and Tom had settled down from the very start of the bands fame so it was always Maca and myself the press focused on, especially as we were also seen as the two front men. But we weren’t men, we were still boys—kids playing in a very grown up world. We had no clue how to handle what we were feeling and we didn’t always handle things the right way. Unfortunately for us, every fuck up we made from the age of eighteen was reported on, documented, and sometimes photographed. It was just part of the deal, it came with the territory, and there was nothing we could do about it.TOO MANY SPACESAt the end of the day, I suppose all that Maca was doing with those lyrics was what came natural to him, letting it all out in a song.
Didn’t stop me from wanting to put him on his arse again though. I knew my sister was no angel. I knew her and Maca were getting up to shit when she was far too young, but I honestly thought that they’d be together forever, that they wereitfor each other. At no stage did I ever account for me and my own selfish motives being the instigator in their downfall.
Maca and I didn’t speak for over three months after that. The album was delayed because we couldn’t agree on anything and all our public appearances were strained. Billy and Tom were finally taking over the interviews, leaving me and Maca to blend into the background.
Our studio time was cancelled, the label agreeing to let us have the summer to ourselves. Hoping that some time apart was all that was needed. As long as we agreed to regroup in September and get the tracks down in time for a Christmas release, they left us alone.
After our March fallout, we finally had to meet in June and make a few decisions on the interiors of the apartments Maca and I had invested in together. We actually agreed on most of what we wanted during the meeting with the design team my dad’s builders had set us up with, and we went out and had a few beers together that night.
The place the label had set us up in, near the West London studios, were too big for us once Tom and Billy had moved out, so we had found places of our own. Both of us unknowingly bought penthouse apartments in the same building, just five minutes from where our own place was being built in the Docklands redevelopment area of East London.
We spent a bit of time together through the summer, working on new material, but things didn’t really begin to thaw completely between us until we got back into the studio in early September. Maca was still pretty quiet and withdrawn. I knew just from the limited time I’d been in his company that he was smoking a lot of weed. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to promote drug use. It was something I’d done since I was about thirteen, before I even met Maca I think, but yeah, all things in moderation. You need to be able to function and when we first got into the studio, I really think he was only just hanging on.
And then he met Carla.
CHAPTER TWELVE
1987
The first day in the studio we were introduced to the team. The place Len had found for us was in a leafy suburb of London, not too far from Hampstead Heath. It was a brand new setup and we would be using state of the art digital technology, a lot of which was all new to us. The two sound engineers were a brother and sister team called Max and Lydia. We’d never worked with them before, but Len assured us that they knew our work and were the best in the business with the new equipment now available. Trevor and Nile were our usual producers, and we had every faith in them coming up with the sounds we were hoping to create.
We were introduced to a few office and backroom staff, and then we were introduced to Carla. She was a newly qualified sound and recording engineer who had been taken on by Max and Lydia. She was straight out of university and looked like a pixie.
No tracks were laid down the first week. They rarely were with us. We spent the time getting our sound tight, Maca working on his voice and listening to playbacks.
During that time, Carla was in and out of the live room with drinks and food for us, and I had noticed Maca watching her.
She was cute, don’t get me wrong, just not my type. Short, really petite with an almost androgynous body. No curves, no tits, and spikey blonde hair. She told us that she was twenty-three, but she looked twelve. As far removed from my sister as you could get, really. Perhaps for Maca, that was the appeal.
On the Friday at the end of our first week, Max suggested we all go to the pub together and we ended up at The Spaniards Inn. It was a beautiful evening and we were able to get a table out in the beer garden and enjoy some late summer sun.
Drinks were drunk, conversations flowed¸ and we all learned a little bit about each other.
Max and Lydia were in fact twins. Their dad was a well-known session musician who had played with some of the biggest bands in the world over the years.
Max, it turned out, was married to Nile’s sister, Nicole, who joined us with their two kids an hour after we arrived at the pub.
It felt good to be in a crowd of people who just accepted you for who you were. No bullshit, no pretences. No one wanted to touch us or have us sign parts of their bodies. It was like being with family and I suddenly felt very homesick.
Over the coming weeks, it became a regular thing for us to all have a drink together on a Friday, and at first, I enjoyed sitting back, watching Maca and Carla get closer. After a while though, I noticed that she was a little bit flirty with all the blokes; single, married, she didn’t care. It was almost like she was just after someone, anyone, even me, and it made me uncomfortable. Maca wore his heart on his sleeve and the last thing he needed was to get his heart broken again.
Max, Trevor, and Len had all given Maca the ‘Don’t shit on your own doorstep’ talk. I still wasn’t exactly sure what was happening between the two of them. I’m not sure if it was because of George that he didn’t confide in me, but we could all see that Maca was happier. Despite that, I still had my reservations. Call it gut instinct. There was just something about the girl I didn’t like.
That year, Georgia’s birthday passed without a mention of it from Maca. I sent her a card and a Beastie Boys T-shirt that I’d managed to get signed for her. Jimmie passed on her thanks and a message to say that she loved it.
By mid-October, the album was finished and Maca and I had moved into our new place together in Docklands.
Although I knew he was seeing Carla, he never brought her back to our shared apartment. I’m not sure how serious things were between them at that point, but I knew for a fact he wasn’t seeing her exclusively. She was a distraction, I got it, but I did feel a bit sorry for the girl, even if I didn’t like her. By the end of our time in the studio, it was obvious to everyone that she had a massive crush on him, but I wasn’t sure how deep his feelings went for her, or how at that stage he was feeling about Georgia.
We were lying in front of the telly at home one Sunday night when Jim and Len came around.
“Big brother Lennon, to what do we owe this pleasure?” I asked as he shoved a nicely chilled bottle of Bolli into my hand.
“Come to ask a favour, bro.” Is all he said before sitting down and muting the sound with the remote control.
