Chapter 10
CHAPTER
TEN
MARLEY
Everyone’s gathered around the kitchen island when I eventually walk back out to the studio, hand in hand with Ash.
“I’m good,” I say before anyone can ask.
“You sure?” Len questions anyway. “I’m sorry if any of… Ooof,” is the sound he makes when I walk to him and pull him for a blokey cuddle, slapping him on the back a few times like proper geezers do.
“Love you, bro. Nothing to be sorry for. It was my fuck up, and it’s about time I heard the truth and owned it.”
“There’s more,” Len says quietly. “I can’t hold onto it no more, stuff you need to know.”
“Yeah, I gathered. Is it bad?”
“Yeah,” Len replies with a slow nod. “We’ll talk about it later, then you can decide, you and George. You can decide what you want doing with it.”
My skin prickles. From my toes to my scalp, I tingle, and not in a good way.
“You want to call it for the day?” Daniel asks from behind me.
I look at Len.
“Let’s get Paris out of the way, then everyone can move on,” he tells Dan.
“Yeah,” I agree. “Let’s get Paris done and fuck it off.”
Fucking Paris.
“The drive from the hospital to the new Paris hotel was interesting,” Len starts once we’re all sitting back down.
“It was terrifying. There was nothing, not a single interesting thing about it,” I tell him.
“Maca had gone ahead in a separate car because my dad had threatened to throttle him. He told Marley he was going to knock him the fuck out if he so much as breathed wrong, as well as have Haley White buried somewhere on Rainham Marshes, sue the label, the hotel, the tabloids. Spit was flying, and he was on one. We checked into the hotel—the band still had two sold-out gigs to play before they’d get any downtime—and when we walked into the room, Mac was lying on one of the beds.
He flew off it, jumped up so fast, I literally didn’t see him move. ”
I watch as my brother laughs lightly and shakes his head. My heart slows and warms as I recall the events Len’s about to retell.
“If you knew Mac…” My brother sighs. “He wasn’t a fighter.
He could fight, don’t get me wrong. He could fight, but he wasn’t about that.
He’d rather smoke a joint and chill, or write a song about what had pissed him off.
That day, he flew off that bed screaming at Marley, ‘What the fuck did you get us into, you cunt?’ or words to that effect.
Before he could swing a punch, my dad grabbed him, but Mac was so pissed off, he got out of my dad’s grip.
In all fairness, I think the ol’ man let him go. ”
“Yeah, cheers for that, Dad,” I add.
“So, I stepped between them, but the lanky fucker reached around me and somehow still managed to reach Marls and punch him right up the side of the head. Then my dad swung him around and was telling him to calm the fuck down, and that’s when he punched the ol’ man. He fucking punched Frank Layton.”
“Well, my opinion of Sean McCarthy just rose considerably knowing that,” Cam says from somewhere behind us, causing a ripple of laughter throughout the room.
“Dad said something like, ‘I’ll let you have that one, son,’ and he obviously forgave him because Maca asked him on the flight home for Georgia’s hand, and he said yes, so…”
We’re all silent, lost in our thoughts and recollections of that time of our lives.
“Okay, I’m happy to leave Paris there. We can revisit if there are any more questions I can think of, but while I’ve got you all here, can I just touch on a couple of other things?”
“Go for it,” I say, definitely not meaning it.
“Of course,” G says politely.
Looking drained, Len says nothing.
“I’m interested to hear your thoughts, Lennon. Dealing with everything you did, seeing your brother not only arrested but taken to the hospital, did you ever consider quitting?”
“Absolutely fucking not,” Len says without hesitation.
“If that pair of idiots could end up in that much trouble with me in charge, imagine the mess they’d get themselves into if I wasn’t around.
As shit as it was, I think Paris was a big learning curve for all of us.
The boys learned at a very young age to never again put themselves in situations where there was a chance any allegations could possibly be made.
Me, I had to learn to juggle the roles of mate, manager, and big brother.
Because that’s what I was to both of them.
Sean was my—our—brother. Bill and Tommy were older and both in long-term relationships.
They were there to do their job, get paid, then fuck off home to the missus. ”
Len calling Maca his brother creates a lump in my throat, but like I’ve done today and so many other times over the years, I swallow down my emotions with a swig of water.
“And you, Marley. Did Paris have you thinking about walking away from it all?” Daniel asks.
“No,” I reply with a headshake. “I didn’t plan on it, but I thought that’s what Maca was going to do. I always knew he’d choose G over the band.” It’s my turn to sigh. “Obviously, none of us had factored in G’s reaction to events.”