Carnage: Book #1 The Story Of Us (Volume 1)(65)

“Mum, what difference does it make what day of the week it is, swearing is swearing, if your mate the Big G Man up there, don’t like it, then he don’t like it any day, not especially on a Sunday.”

“His name is God, Bailey Michael Layton, or our holy father and you should be more respectful. Francis, talk to your son.” My Mum was still a practising Catholic, my Dad not so much, we had all been christened in the Catholic Church and educated through the Catholic school system but none of us went to church, unless it was to make my Mum happy.

Jimmie and Lennon’s wedding was being held at the Catholic Cathedral in Brentwood and I knew from family weddings I had attended in the past that it was at least a two hour ceremony, well at least they always felt that long. This next wedding would be excruciatingly long; Sean and I, both of us, standing in a church, watching two of the people we love most in the world get married. Well it would be agony for me, he probably wouldn’t give a shit but then again, Jimmie did say a while back that he did still ask after me and Len said he’d got drunk and cried. What hurt me more than anything was the way he’d given up. He called a lot in the beginning but only for a few weeks and he never wrote or came round when I knew the boys were in England. Perhaps if he’d tried harder to convince me he was sorry, maybe things would be different, maybe I would’ve come to terms with things a little better. I don’t know, it was all too much to think about, I had gone to sleep last night wondering if my young, immature, sixteen year old self had just over reacted at the time. Were my expectations of fidelity and faithfulness way too high? I just don’t know and for the rest of today at least, I wasn’t going to think about any of it, or at least try not to.

Sunday lunch was as always when my Mum cooked it, absolutely perfect, later in the afternoon, Jimmie and Lennon came over, Bailey was living at my parent’s at the moment as he had recently split with his long term girlfriend Donna and was looking for somewhere new to live.

Despite my brothers all living elsewhere now, my Dad had still had one of the stables converted into a soundproofed studio, it’s where we all sat now. Me lying with my head on Baileys lap as we both sat on the old Chesterfield sofa. Len sat on a bean bag, strumming on an old acoustic guitar that had belonged to one of my brothers and Jim lay on the floor flicking through yet another bridal magazine. Bail’s passed the joint he was smoking down to me and I took a long draw on it, getting stoned and chilling the f*ck out with my brothers was exactly what I needed to do today. Len stood up and came and took the joint from me.

“How about you share the love baby sister?”

“Happy to share big bro, just can’t be arsed to get up and pass it to ya.”

“Lazy cow.”

“Yep, that’s me.”

He plonked himself back down in the bean bag and smoked and strummed, the strumming started to turn into an actual tune. Jimmie rolled over onto her back then jumped up and took the joint from Len, I watched as she took a draw and shook her head at him slightly, the song was probably something by Carnage I assumed by her reaction but I was well on my way to being shitfaced so I actually didn’t care too much. Jimmie must’ve known what I needed and passed the joint back to me, I took one more draw and passed it back to Bails.

“Oh my God, I forgot to ask, how did your date go?” Jim squealed from her spot on the floor.

Bailey turned my head with his hands so that I was looking up into his face. “You finally back in the game and dating George?” I shrug and blush.

“Who was your date with G, anyone we know?”

“I told ya, she had a date with the bloke from the wine bar,” Jimmie replies to Len.