Page 71 of The Interview
I pause as my throat constricts around the words I want to get out.
“I’d been judged my entire life,” I start. “Brentwood’s an affluent area. Was back then, probably even more so now, with a lot of big houses, a lot of nice cars. I didn’t come from that, but you know what. Never once, from that first conversation in the college canteen, to this day, have George, Bern, Frank, any of the boys, and obviously not Marley, none of the Laytons—that includes you in that Jim—ever looked down on me or made me feel less than them.”
Georgia squeezes the hand Marls isn’t already gripping. Jimmie twists where she’s sitting, reaches across, and covers G’s hand that’s holding mine.
“I’m not trying to sound like I’m blowing smoke up anyone’s arse with this, and this lot, the family I was being welcomed into, were definitely not the Brady Bunch. What you see is what you get. The fame, all of their successes, the money, none of it has changed them or their dynamics. You can probably see that from where you’ve been sitting these past couple of days.”
“Very much so,” Daniel agrees.
“Anyway, when I started at the shop, working closer with George and Bernie, I was jealous at first,” I admit. “Watching how close Georgia and Bern were, watching the dynamic between them. I never had that with my mum. Never really had any kind of relationship with her. But watching them twotogether made me miss something I’d never had, and I think Bern saw that. And do you know what she did? She gave me more. More hours at the shop, a bigger clothing allowance, and more responsibility. She encouraged me to speak a bit more proper, not to drop my Hs, and to stop saying ain’t, but she also gave me a chance.”
“You earned that chance. You were bloody good at your job,” Georgia interjects.
I don’t argue because I was good, and I did work bloody hard.
“But she went beyond that, G, your mum. Easter, Christmas, my birthday, any bank holiday, I always got an invite. Even before I was with Marley, you lot made me feel part of the family when a lot of people around here back then wouldn’t have given me the time of day.”
“My mum lovesyouand threatened to castratemeif I hurt or upset you when we got together,” Marley says, making me smile through the tears threatening to spill from my eyes.
“I know she loves me. Your mum madesureI knew, and she made sure Ifeltloved.” I turn back to Daniel. “Getting Marley’s mum, dad, and sister to love me was a lot easier than getting him to love me, or at least to admit to it,” I say while thumbing in my husband’s direction.
“I loved you easily enough. Too easily. After spending years thinking I was never gonna have what Maca and George, and Lennon and Jim had, I was suddenly confronted with the fact that I could, and I had no fucking control over it. I shit myself.”
“No, you got on a plane and got as far away from me as possible,” I remind him.
“That was after I shit myself,” he says, somehow keeping a straight face.
I respond with a headshake.
“And it wasn’tyou. You were great, fucking gorgeous, perfect. It was my feelings and what I felt for you that I wasrunning away from,” Marley admits. “After her twenty-first, she stayed at my place for the weekend. I even cooked her my favourite dish?—”
“Shepherd’s pie,” every member of my extended family calls out.
“It’s the only dish he knows how to make,” I tell Daniel.
“One more than George,” Len adds, making us all laugh, because it’s true.
“Oh, do fuck off, the lot of ya.” G rolls her eyes while shaking her head.
“You can’t cook?” Daniel asks her.
“Put it this way, the only thing we ask her to bring to gatherings is napkins or alcohol,” Marley answers, confirming G’s lack of culinary skills, prompting her to give the whole room each of her middle fingers again.
“It wasn’t then. You didn’t make me shepherd’s pie then. It was the next time I was there, when I got sick,” I correct him.
“Was it?” Marley asks with a frown. “Anyway, she stayed at mine till Sunday night. We met for lunch a couple of times that week. All of this dating stuff was totally alien to me, but I was loving it, anyway… until she just ghosted me.”
“Dramatic, much? I didn’t ghost him. I got sick. Like the worst flu I’d ever had. I called in sick at work but had no number for Marley, so I couldn’t let him know,” I explain.
“I found out she was sick from the girl at the shop, but she wouldn’t give me her address or a number to contact her on, so I had to ask my sister,” Marls adds.
“He forced me to break employer-employee confidentiality and give him her address,” Georgia adds.
“I hardly forced you. You really do exaggerate sometimes,” he argues.
I smile as my world-famous rock star husband bickers with his world-famous sister like any other siblings do on any given day.
“I got her address, went to the shops, got her some Lucozade and flowers, chocolate, cold and flu shit, then took it to hers.”
