Chapter 21 #4
Sean waves at the crowd, then turns back to the car.
His hair is short, which was unusual, but the weather was hot and humid where they’d been touring in Asia, and I remember he just buzzed it all off one night.
Don’t get me wrong, with that beautiful face of his, he could pull it off, but I still preferred it long.
Dave comes around from the front and waits next to Sean, who’s reaching inside the car for me. I watch as he takes my hand and helps me out. I look up at him as he smiles down at me.
I can watch things like this and not cry, but my breath still catches at how beautiful he was, and my chest still aches with the unfairness of life.
The image on the screen pauses on me and Sean looking at each other.
“When you watch moments like this back, how does it make you feel?” Daniel asks.
“It hurts,” I tell him honestly. “The unfairness of life still causes an ache in my chest. Grief isn’t linear.
It doesn’t follow a set path. I don’t think there’s a day that goes by that I don’t think of Sean, but my thoughts are different every time.
Sometimes it’ll be a song, or one of his songs, and I’ll smile.
Other times, like looking at this, I’m both sad and angry.
Sad that no matter how much love we shared, how worshipped he was by the world, how talented he was, how much he still had to live for, he was killed.
That none of that counted, and he was gone, taken in seconds.
And then I get angry at the unfairness of life, that he died, my baby died, while rapists, paedophiles, and murderers get to live long, healthy lives. ”
“Is it a struggle every day? Is it a struggle to have thoughts like that while moving forward, moving on with the life you have now? Loving your husband, your kids?” Daniel asks.
I sigh heavily. “No, not even a little bit. I’ve learned to compartmentalise… mostly. I loved Sean, but he’s dead. I lived, reconnected with Cam, and now I love him, our kids, and the life we’ve created. None of that detracts from what I had with Sean.”
I don’t know if I’ve explained myself in a way that anyone will ever understand. Maybe when I watch this back, it’ll make no sense, but right now, that’s all I’ve got to give.
Ashley’s hand finds mine and squeezes.
“Fucking hell, G, it’s unfair how pretty that bloke was,” she whispers.
“I know,” I whisper back, huffing out a small laugh.
What she’s said isn’t really funny. The laugh is just a quick release of emotion. At the same time, a tear I didn’t even know was threatening, spills from my eye.
Daniel’s been nodding this entire time, probably trying to process whether what I’ve just said makes any sense or not.
The footage on the screen begins to play again.
Sean, Dave, and I literally only make it a few steps when you can see the barrier up towards the entrance give way, but we’re oblivious.
Milo herds Ash, Jimmie, Len, and the baby inside.
I’m standing in the middle, with fans screaming on either side of me, when Sean’s hand is grabbed and he’s pulled forward.
Dave reaches out to separate him from whoever has grabbed him when the barrier behind me collapses.
People fall forward while others climb over the top of them.
At first, I’m swept along with the crowd, then I just disappear.
Milo and Marley are trying to fight their way back towards us, Dave’s trying to protect Sean from the hands grabbing at him, and Sean’s trying to fight them off and get to me.
“Like, what the actual fuck did they think they were going to do when they got to him? What was it exactly they wanted?” Ash asks.
“This is horrific,” Jimmie states. “Watching it from inside was terrifying, but from this angle…. How nobody died that day, I’ll never know.”
“The organisers nearly did when Mac got hold of them,” Len says. “I literally thought he was gonna punch someone and we’d have a lawsuit on our hands. Which, just for a change, wouldn’t have involved Marley.”
“Oi! I heard that, motherfucker.”
We all turn to see Marley approaching the sofa. One of the sound team mics him up, and he sits on the arm next to Ash, leaning in to give her a kiss before turning to the screen.
“Ah, Tokyo. What an absolute fuck up that was, and as my brother so kindly pointed out, had absolutely nothing to do with me,” Marley says.
I watch the screen as Milo, Marley, Sean, and Dave all converge about ten feet away from where I’d last been standing.
Mi leans in and literally picks a girl up under the arms, lifts her in the air, and hands her to one of the venue’s security team.
Then he spreads his arms and holds people back, and Marley does the same.
With Dave at his back, Sean leans in and picks me up.
I’m sobbing, but the boys don’t even check to see if I’m okay. I’m just surrounded by all four of them, my feet barely touching the ground as we knock people over to get to the doors.
The glass at the front of the venue is tinted so you can’t see in, but despite the pandemonium, photographers still fight their way to the front, press their lenses to the glass, and try to get their shots.
I’m not sure if any of them got anything, but I do remember I threw up in the standing ashtray just inside the doors.
“That’s insane,” I hear Tullulah say from behind me.
I turn to see Cam and the kids are now here. All of them have their eyes on the screen. Cam slowly shakes his head.
“How I escaped that with just two broken fingers, I’ll never know,” I say.
“How any of the organisers escaped with their balls still intact, I’ll never know,” Len says. “We threatened to pull out. Three nights sold out, and we threatened to walk away. They literally had an army of security there within an hour.”
We all stare at the screen as it continues to show the aftermath of injured people, young kids, some just twelve or thirteen-looking, with cuts to their faces.
“That’s not a side of fame we often see,” Daniel says. “But for all of you, it was part of your everyday lives. How did you cope?”
“It was crazy, but it was never usually that bad,” Marley says. “It never really bothered me until the kids came along.”
“And that’s what made us decide to wait.
Literally, that night, me and Sean had a conversation.
All we could think about was what if Jimmie and the baby had been caught up in all of that.
Then when Paige came along, then Joe, and seeing how hard it was for Jimmie and Ash to wrangle the kids on the tour bus, or flying through multiple time zones, and the kids not knowing if it was bath or breakfast time… ”
“It was hard,” Ash agreed. “But it was equally shit not going and having Marley away, because even if I flew in to see him somewhere, I’d have to have had someone fly with me by the time I had three.”
“Or four,” Jim adds.
We all nod, remembering how hard it was for them.
“When the wives and kids didn’t come, and I was the only partner travelling with the band, it was horrible watching the boys. They missed their girls. They missed their babies. They were miserable. Everyone at home was miserable, and so we, me and Sean, just pushed things back even further.”
“I’d like to say you made the right call, George,” Ash says.
“It was hard, but obviously, for you two, we didn’t know, did we?
Oh, to be able to tell the future.” She lets out a long sigh.
“But then, if you’d have had kids sooner, would they have been standing on the side of the road with you that day?
” She looks at me and shrugs. “I’m sorry.
Sorry if that upsets you, but that has crossed my mind. ”
This time, it’s me who shrugs.
“Mine, too. And who knows, but that’s not what happened, and there’s nothing any of us can do to change a single thing about the way things turned out,” I say.
“We’ve put together a bit of a montage of video footage and photos, both from personal collections and what the researchers have come up with. You want me to run that? We can pause or stop at any time, and we’d love to hear any comments you may have,” Daniel says.
“Go for it,” Marley says. “The family that’s traumatised together, stays together, right? That’s why we’ve all lasted so long.”
I smile but don’t take my eyes from the screen, wondering what we’re going to be shown.
Up first is a video. The boys are on stage, performing what looks like a sound check.
Marley’s in his regulation white tee, dark jeans, and Converse, while Maca wears a black tee with bright pink writing saying ‘New York Dolls’ with an image I can’t quite make out on it.
He also wears his black jeans, black studded belt, and black DMs. His hair is long and his skin tanned as he adjusts the strings on his Les Paul.
He turns and says something to someone off stage, and Jeff appears, the band’s guitar tech. He kneels in front of Sean and starts loosening and tightening the strings. I don’t know who’s filming, but from the way the camera doesn’t move, it looks like it was set up on a tripod.
“Wow,” Kiki says, followed by a long, loud whistle. “I gotta say, Mumma, you do have exceptional taste in men.”
“Yeah,” H says. “I mean, dudes are not my thing, but he was one good-looking geezer.”
“Nowhere near as handsome as you, though, Daddy,” Lu adds, like I knew she would.
“Thanks, Syrup,” Cam says, making me smile at the use of her childhood nickname.
With my eyes still on the screen, I watch as Jeff finishes whatever he was doing to Sean’s guitar and notice that there’s also someone filming with a video camera on stage with them.
The footage must switch to their angle, as we’re now looking at a close-up of Sean’s hands as he busts out “Smoke on the Water” the way he always did during soundcheck.
The camera switches from his hands and follows Sean as he looks up.
The most beautiful smile breaks out on his face, lighting up his eyes, and I know he’s looking at me.