Page 17 of The Interview
“So, howdidyou handle it, Marley? Your best mate, bandmate, dating your little sister, who’s not even of legal age.”
“I warned him to keep his hands to himself. I know he probably didn’t.” Marls side-eyes me.
I shrug in response. “We were mostly good. Dad gave him the ‘touch her and die’ speech multiple times. Mum told himshe’d make sure Sean was sent to prison and threatened me with institutionalisation or something similar that they did to what she called ‘loose women’ in Ireland. Which, in light of what the world now knows about what happened to some of those poor women and girls and their babies, was a pretty horrific thing to threaten your child with.”
“I got that, too, and you were in your thirties by then,” Cam calls out, causing laughter in the room. “Even you paid me a visit, Marls,” he adds.
“Yeah, must’ve been high that day, mate, cos what the actual fuck was I thinking?”
“No clue. No fucking clue,” Cam responds.
A few more pictures from that holiday in Portugal pass across the screen before they land on another of Jimmie and me, this time with Lennon between us.
Like me, Jim was almost fourteen, Len had just turned eighteen, and as I look at that photo—really look at it, the way Len’s head is thrown back as he laughs at something I’m assuming I’m saying, because my mouth is wide open, the way Jimmie’s turned slightly into Len, the way she’s looking up at him—how did we not see it?
“So, Jimmie and Lennon?” Daniel starts.
“That’s their story to tell, mate. If they wanna talk, they will. If they don’t, then you won’t be hearing anything from anyone else. All I will say is that the photo’s over forty years old, and those two are as happy and in love now as they were about to be back then. Len just hadn’t realised what was about to hit him up the side of the head when that picture was taken,” Marley states.
“You were the only one left single. How did that make you feel?” Dan asks my brother.
“Like shit,” Marls admits. “I thought,assumed, Jimmie was mine. Nothing apart from a few pecks on the lips and a lot offlirting ever happened between us, but to me, it just made sense for us to be together.”
“And when you found out it was your brother she was into?”
“I threw a tantrum of Georgia proportions.”
“Seriously? I’m still the gauge for this family’s meltdowns?” I question.
“Yes!” voices call out from around the room.
I hold up my two middle fingers. “Fuck you all.”
“So, you weren’t happy?” Daniel questions Marley.
“No, I fucking wasn’t,” he declares. “I behaved like a brat.”
“That night was a shitshow.” I recall how the events of that night would eventually lead to the course of my life being changed forever.
“We talking about it?” Marley asks me.
“Should we?” I question.
“It’s covered in the film,” he says with a shrug.
“Me? Or are you gonna tell it?”
“You’ll tell it better.” Marley winks.
I draw in a breath and recall the night so long ago that none of us knew would bring such ramifications.
“It was Christmas—Christmas Eve, I think. The boys were playing at a pub in Romford somewhere. The Bitter End, maybe. We were there early. The boys were doing a soundcheck, and because the hall was still empty, it was cold. I went out the back to get my jacket from wherever I’d left it, and I saw Jimmie and Lennon together. I won’t go into details here, but with Jim and Len’s permission, it’s all in the film. Anyway, it threw me. I felt…” I blow air out from between my pursed lips as my heart rate picks up. “Betrayed, hurt, angry, and so confused. She was my best friend, and she hadn’t told me. And what about Marley? In my young and still very naive head, we’d have a double wedding, I would marry Sean, and my best friend would marry my brother.”
“Bitch, what am I, then?” Ash calls out, and I smile.
“Which, as we now know, did happen. Not the double wedding, but each of my best mates married my brothers. But backthen, onthatnight… yeah, I was angry. I made some noise, so they’d hear me coming to collect my jacket, then I grabbed it and went back inside the pub. We were fifteen by then, the boys a couple of years older, so they’d buy us a drink whenever they got a round in, but that night, I hit it a bit too hard. Len had given a toast to the band, to the coming year, to fame and fortune, a recording deal, something along those lines, and after, Sean had said something I’ve never forgotten, and it completely threw me.”
“What?” Dan questions. “What did he say?”
