Chapter 16 #3
“Fucking hell,” Len silently mouthed to me from beside where Maca was still sitting with my sister in his lap. His arms were wrapped around her like he had no plans of letting her go, ever.
The room was silent as we all tried to get our heads around what was going on.
“George, did you never go to the boys’ place and try and get past the reception area?” Jimmie asked in a calm, even voice. “Did you not go there and scream abuse at the doorman and try and kick the doors in when they threw you outside?”
I’d actually forgotten my mum telling us about that.
Obviously, the drugs and alcohol I’d consumed over the years had taken more of a toll on my memory than I thought.
Perhaps my mum did have valid reasons for protecting George, and then I looked at my sister’s face and I knew in an instant that she was telling the truth, and whatever Jimmie had been told was a lie.
“Are you all deaf or just fucking mad? I have no idea where Marley lives, and I had no idea that Sean lived with him. No fucking idea.”
Georgia’s face crumbled for a minute and I thought she was about to cry. “Where is this coming from? Who told all of you that I had been there causing trouble?”
Her mouth was turned down and her bottom lip trembled a few times, but she held back the tears.
Jimmie looked around at each of us before shrugging her shoulders and saying, “Your mum, George. Your mum told us.”
“Oh babe,” Maca said as he kissed G’s temple. She drew in a few deep breaths before letting out a loud sob.
“Why Sean?” She looked from him, to around the room at each of us. “Why would she do that to me? Why would she do that to us?”
I wish I knew. I wish I’d had an answer to give my little sister. She’d been hurt so much already. I was just thankful that Maca was there that night that they were together, and he was the one holding her and telling her that no matter what, they’d always have each other.
Over the next few hours, an elaborate story of lies and deceit unfolded in Jimmie and Len’s house.
My parents and eldest brother turned up and George had to be held back as she unleashed what she knew on my mum.
I was torn, totally torn in half as I watched my mum shake while Georgia confronted her.
And when she held her head in her hands, I wanted to tell George to stop shouting at her. She was my mum. She may have made an almighty fuck up, but she was my mum and she shouldn’t be spoken to like that.
I’d been in her shoes. I had a fucking good idea of how shitty she must’ve been feeling right then.
“Did you do it?” my sister screamed.
“What’s going on, George?” My dad finally asked. I’m surprised he’d stayed so quiet for so long. “Bern?” He turned to my mum who still had her head in her hands.
My mum looked up and right at my sister. She knocked back the drink Len had just passed to her and said very quietly and with complete conviction, “I did what I thought was right.”
Georgia flew from where she was sitting in Maca’s lap, but he and Bailey caught her before she reached her.
“How could you? How fucking could you?” she screamed, still fighting to get away from Maca and my brother.
“That’s enough, Georgia,” my dad shouted, but it didn’t slow her down.
Georgia must’ve been all of seven stone soaking wet, but the anger that propelled her forward scared the crap out of me. Bailey and Maca struggled to hold onto her.
My dad looked at my sister like she’d finally lost the plot and in that moment, I knew she wasn’t far from it. The last time I’d seen her that angry was when she’d ripped a handful of Haley White’s hair out at a concert we did at the back of a pub about five or six years ago.
“Will someone please tell me what the fuck is going on?” my dad asked again.
“Did you know? Were you part of it?” G turned her anger towards my dad, but I knew that he was clueless as to what had happened.
“No,” my mum shouted in his defence.
“Part of what, George? I ain’t got a Scooby what you’re on about, love.”
“Did you keep Sean’s calls and letters hidden away from me?
Did you pack them all in a box and send them back to him with a note, supposedly from me, saying to not contact me again?
” Georgia took in a few shaky breaths. She wiped her tears and her nose on the back of her hand and it was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that she better not let mum catch her doing that.
“Did you tell everyone that I’d been to Marley’s, and that I tried to smash my way in? Did you? Or was it just your lying, deceitful, spiteful wife?” George spat out.
“Bern?” My dad stared wide-eyed at my mum, as shocked as the rest of us at what he was hearing.
“It wasn’t like that.” My mum finally looked up at my sister.
“At first I wanted you to get back with him … I wanted the two of you back together. But you were so broken, George, and you needed time. I couldn’t let you talk to him.
Whatever you may think now, you just weren’t strong enough.
And in the beginning, you refused point blank to have anything to do with him anyway. ”
Len topped up the glasses of everyone that was drinking bourbon. George took Maca’s glass from him and downed the contents.
“I’m your mum, George, it’s my job to keep you safe.” She had a pleading edge to her voice. She wanted my sister to try and see things from her point of view. I knew my sister well enough to know that she wouldn’t. I couldn’t, so why would she?
“You’d only sent a few letters when I decided to let you talk to her on the phone. I was gonna wait until you were back on tour. I thought the distance would keep her safe,” she told Maca.
Her shoulders sagged and she closed her eyes for a long moment, shaking her head no.
“Then one day, while George was at school doing the last of her exams, a girl knocked on the door. I had no idea who she was.” She said it like she was ashamed, like she should’ve known who the girl was, before looking down into her lap again.
The whole room was silent as we watched my mum stare at her perfectly manicured nails.
“Anyway, it was you she wanted to talk to, George. She said that she needed you to know that Sean had been two-timing you for years with her. She claimed that he had only stayed with you because he was worried about being kicked out of the band if it ever came out, but now that the band was making it big, he’d planned on leaving you anyway and that they were going to make a new life together. ”
Maca was shaking his head, and I was shaking mine.
“Na, no way,” Len said.
“What girl? Who was she?” Maca questioned my mum.
“Sean,” my mum said his name, using a sort of exasperated tone; the way she used to say our names when she was about done with our bad behaviour. I found it a bit condescending. Maca wasn’t a kid. He was a grown arsed bloke who’d been treated like shit, by her.
“You’d just broken my daughter’s heart into a million pieces.
You weren’t exactly my favourite person at that time.
I didn’t … I just believed what she told me.
I didn’t check her story out with Marley, Len, or Jimmie because I was scared of causing trouble with the band.
Everything was just taking off for you, so I simply stayed quiet. ”
Jimmie looked at me, her eyes wide. ‘No way,’ she mouthed while shaking her head, but I didn’t know what it was she was getting at.
“You seemed to be getting a little better at handling the break up, George, and I didn’t want Sean’s letters setting you back, so I set up a post office box and had all your post delivered there.
I thought that they’d stop coming eventually, or at least slow down, but they didn’t.
They just kept coming; letters, cards, parcels. ”
“That’s because I fucking loved her. I missed her. I’ve never stopped, not for a single moment,” Maca snapped out at her. She just looked back down into her lap again.
Georgia appeared to be in a trance, oblivious now to what was being said.
“In the end, I packed everything into a box and sent it all back to Sean with a note, supposedly from you, George, saying not to contact you again.”
Georgia’s eyes slowly looked up to meet my mums, and I thought for a moment that she was gonna launch herself at her again. Her stare was hard, angry, and cold. I felt more than a little guilty that I didn’t actually feel bad that she was looking at her that way.
“I didn’t hear from the girl again until you boys converted the old warehouse and moved in together.”
I looked across to Maca, but his eyes were firmly on my mum.
“She phoned up and said that she’d heard through some friends that Georgia had been asking around for the address. She said that she was concerned that George had found out about them being together and was worried for her own safety.”
“This is un-fucking-believable,” Maca said quietly.
“You were doing so well, George. You’d got your confidence back and was smiling again. I just thought it would be easier to tell everyone not to tell you where the boys were living. I was just trying to do the right thing…” She trailed off once more.
My dad reached across and took my mum’s hand, his actions causing yet another lump to form in my throat.
When you’re growing up, your parents are only ever that, ‘Mum and Dad.’ You don’t think of them as husband and wife, a couple, and definitely not lovers, but as you got older, you appreciated what they were to each other—that once upon a time, they were young and in love.