Carnage: Book #1 The Story Of Us (Volume 1)(8)

Fucking hell, I’ve never died so many times during one afternoon. Where are my brothers and Jimmie when you need rescuing, I bet my parents told them to stay out the way, does that mean everyone is going to know about this little chat? Fucking hell.

“Well… Sean… as long as you respect my daughter, I don’t think that we’ll have a problem. Would you like a beer son, you must need one after that little speech?”

My parents treated me differently for the rest of that holiday, almost like a grown up. They allowed Jimmie and I to drink wine at dinner, my Mum asked my opinion on her outfits and told me to try my hair in different styles, she spoke to me like I was her friend, not just her daughter. My Dad took on a more fatherly demeanour around Sean and spoke to him about his plans after he finished his fifth year, legally he could leave school if he wanted but our school went right up to sixth form and Sean and Marley were both staying on. I don’t think either of them really wanted to study anymore but if they left the education system they would be expected to get full time jobs and this would leave them no time for their music. They had been lucky so far, the money they made with the band meant that they hadn’t even had to get a part time job and as their popularity grew they were getting bookings for Friday and Saturday nights and now had a regular Sunday lunch time spot at a pub not too far from where we lived. So as wages for a group of students went, they were doing okay.


CHAPTER 3

Returning to school that September, I was the happiest I’d ever been in my life, after we’d gotten back from Portugal, Sean and I were inseparable. Luckily he was always at our house anyway, all that was different was that now when the band practised, I got a kiss every ten minutes between rehearsals, when Sean came and sat next to me after practise, he would hold my hand, he never stopped paying me attention and I never stopped enjoying it. We were very rarely alone together though, my parents must have drummed it into my brother’s heads that under no circumstances were we to be left by ourselves and it was comical at times, the lengths they’d go to. Even if Marley was going to the toilet, he would send Sean to fetch something, just so we weren’t left alone, even if it was only going to be for five minutes. What could we possibly get up to in five minutes? Well lots it turned out, Sean was a typical sixteen year old boy and he had needs and despite only being fourteen, he stirred something in me that I have to admit, at times, terrified me. I wanted sex, I really wanted to have sex with him, I have no idea if it was raging hormones caused by my age or if it was just him, Sean, what he did to me, what he caused me to feel but I was totally convinced that the feelings I had, meant that I must surely be a whore, a slut but I didn’t care, I just wanted him.

I spoke to Jimmie about all of this but she wasn’t quite getting the passion I felt; she and Marley were turning into more like best friends than boyfriend and girlfriend, there was something going on with her but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what, she never spoke about other boys and she was at our house as much as she always was but things just weren’t happening between her and Marls and it didn’t seem to bother her when he spoke about other girls, or when he kissed other girls like I had seen him do when the band came off stage. My Dad had fixed them up with a transit van so they could get from gig to gig with all their equipment; despite working at one of my Dad’s car showrooms in the day, Lennon was now pretty much managing the boys, he took and arranged all the bookings, managed the money and as the only one amongst us with a full license, he also did all the driving.

It was Christmas eve of 1982 when I finally worked out what was going on with Jimmie; the band were booked at a local pub, it was a ticket only event and was a complete sell out, we arrived early as the place would be filling up by seven and the boys wanted to have a sound check as they’d never played at this venue before and this was probably going to be their biggest crowd yet, over two hundred tickets had been sold according to Len, and the boys wanted to impress. Not that they wouldn’t, they were great and getting better with every show, growing in confidence so much that almost fifty per cent of their songs were originals, written by Marley and Sean mostly, they still did covers, The Clash, The Jam, The Undertones, The Specials being among their favourites as well as some old classics by The Who, Beatles and Kinks, whatever they played, they sounded great and I loved watching Sean up on the stage, especially when his eyes would lock with mine and everyone else would just melt away, me and him, that’s all there was, that’s all that mattered.