The Story of Me (3 page)

I become aware of two things at once: voices whispering in the distance and an absolute pounding in my head. I lay still, debating whether opening my eyes will make my head feel worse. Somebody kisses my lips very gently and my eyes fly open to meet Marley’s, who is sitting in the armchair opposite me. I try to sit up, but my head feels like it’s been punched so I lay back down as Marley darts out of the chair and kneels in front of me.

“Muuuuum,” he bellows. I squeeze my eyes shut, hoping if I can’t see him, I won’t be able to hear him, either. It doesn’t work.

“Please don’t shout, Marls, and did you just kiss me, right on the lips?”

“Fuck off, Porge, you must’ve banged your head. You’re hallucinating babe. Muuum, I think George needs to go to the hospital.”

Mum, Dad and Jimmie come rushing through the archway of my parents’ front room, just as I force my eyes back open.

“Where did you lot all come from?” I ask, totally confused.
How long have I been out for?
My mum comes and kneels next to Marley, taking my hands in hers.

“You fainted, George. Your dad carried you in here just as Marley pulled up. We only just laid you down and were gonna call for the doctor when Jimmie arrived and you woke up. You’ve only been out a few minutes.”

I look at each of their worried faces. “Did someone kiss me? While I was out, did someone kiss me, right on my mouth?”

“Told ya, she must’ve banged her head. She needs to go to the hospital,” Doctor Marley repeats his diagnosis.

“Shut up, Marley.” My mum slaps his arm as she speaks.

“You didn’t hit your head, George. You barely went out. You started to go and I caught you then Dad was there and carried you in here. You weren’t out long at all and nobody kissed you, babe.”

My hand unconsciously moves to my lips and I brush over them with my fingertips as I look at Marley again. “Don’t fuckin’ look at me like that; I ain’t some fuckin’ weirdo who kisses his sister when she’s out cold.”

“That’s debatable,” Jimmie says from where she’s standing behind him. I smile as I look up at her.

“Fuck off, Jim,” Marley says as he stands up.

“Language, Marley Layton,” my mum reprimands him.

“Ha, rock star, you got told,” Jimmie jokes with him. He flips his middle finger at her, behind my mum’s back, of course, and I grin at the pair of them and shake my head. My big brother the Rock God really gets put in his place around here.

My dad passes me a glass of water and kisses the top of my head.

“Happy birthday, princess.” I smile up at him.

“Thank you, Daddy.” I take a sip of my water and sit up. My head feels fuzzy, but at least the pounding has stopped.

I spend the next few minutes being wished a happy birthday while my mum makes a cup of tea. Jim’s sitting on the sofa next to me and Marley is back in the arm chair. Jimmie takes my hand.

“What happened, babe?” I raise my eyebrows and shake my head.

“It was just the flowers. Did you see them? It’s the exact bouquet Sean always sent, the same flowers, the same colour, the same piece of lace tied around them.” I shake my head as I realise I still don’t know who they’re from.

My mum comes in carrying a tray full of cups of tea, my dad behind her with a plateful of bacon rolls. They are a proper little team nowadays, since my dad doesn’t work anymore. Well, he sometimes goes to meetings, but he is home most days; he plays golf a lot and he goes shooting. Other than that, he and my mum are inseparable, and it gives me a nice, warm feeling inside.

Marley reaches for a roll before my dad sets the plate and side plates down on the coffee table. My mum swipes his arm away and slaps him again as she glares at him. “Manners, Marley; you weren’t raised to be rude.”

Marley stands with his hands on his hips and opens and closes his mouth a few times before saying, “I’m not five. Will you stop slapping me and telling me what do?” My dad turns his head slightly and gives him ‘the look’; the look that would instil fear into the hardest of men, the look that has had my brothers and me knowing we had best be quiet now, for most of our lives.

“Sorry,” Marley mumbles and slumps back down in the armchair. I can’t help but giggle.

“What’s that noise, did you all hear that?” Everyone looks at my brother as if he’s gone mad.

“What noise?” Mum asks as she puts bacon rolls on side plates and passes them around to each of us.

“Don’t matter, it’s stopped now.” He winks at me.

We all sit, eat, and drink our tea, chatting about nothing in particular. After answering four phone calls on his shitty phone, Marley eventually heads off, telling me he will see me here for dinner tonight. My dad goes off to play golf, with a promise he won’t be late home, and I go for a shower and pull on some non-coffee-stained clothes. My mum booked us in for a pamper day at a spa somewhere so I make myself look presentable. As I come back into the kitchen, she’s putting my flowers into a vase while she chats to Jimmie. “Was there a card with them?” I ask her.

“No, just the letter. Are you going to read it?” I pick it up from the kitchen bench top just as Ash comes through the front door with Sam. “Happy birthday, slag bag.” Ash pulls me in for birthday cuddles as I hear my mother gasp at her greeting.

“Thanks, slutster; you look good.” She lets go as Sam takes her place.

“Happy birthday, George.”

“Thanks, Sam,” I reply.

“We need to go. We’re booked in for our first treatment at eleven, and you know how much that bunch of stuck-up fuckers moan if you’re late at that place.” I put the thick envelope into my bag.

“Well, I hope you girls are going to tone the language down when we get there; royalty frequent this place, you know,” my mum complains.

“Fuck ‘em. We’re rock royalty, so we can say whatever the fuck we like,” Ashley replies. Jimmie, Sam and I burst into laughter as my mother looks like it’s her turn to faint or have a coronary.

“So, it’s true. Marley just called from the shit phone and told me to listen out for that noise.” We all must wear a confused look as she explains, “He reckons he heard you giggle earlier, George, but thought he must be hearing things. But naah, he was right. You did actually giggle just then. In fact, I would go as far as saying you actually laughed.” I shake my head as we walk to the stretch limo waiting outside for us. My brother can be such a dick sometimes.

* * *

We spend the next few hours drinking champagne, while enjoying manis, pedis, facials and a full-body massage. By the time we head back out to the limo, I’m totally chilled-out and well on my way to being drunk. I reach into my bag to check my phone, but realise I’ve left it at home; instead, my hand finds the envelope that came with the flowers. I’ve been thinking about this most of the day, worrying about who it might be from. Fuelled by my alcohol-induced bravery, I pull the envelope from my bag and tear it open. The conversation going on around me fades away as I try to make sense of the words on the first page.

Happy birthday, Georgia Rae

Show us your tits!

Gia, my beautiful, beautiful girl, I hope you’re well, baby.

If you’re reading this, then I am no longer around, and I hope this hasn’t come as too much of a shock to you.

I made arrangements with my solicitor, that in the event of anything ever happening to me, you would always receive flowers on your birthday. If at some stage you have moved on and this is no longer appropriate or you just don’t want to receive them, then please contact the offices of Fishburn, Colt and Co and they will deal with it.

So, today is your birthday, Georgia Rae, and despite the fact that I’m not there to share it with you in person, I will do my best to be there with you in spirit. I hope today finds you surrounded by the love of your family, of our children and of our grandchildren, and I hope you are being spoilt rotten.

I hope our life together was a good one and that I made you happy, G. I always did my best to try to make sure that was the case.

Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, please think of me, because you can be sure that, wherever I am and what ever I’m doing, I’ll always be thinking of and loving you.

Thank you for being my wife, Gia, and for making my life what it was. Remember, near or far, in this life or in the next, it’ll only ever be you.

Sean xxx

I almost choke on the sobs that escape me. I curl into a ball and hug my knees to my chest as everyone sits in stunned silence. Jimmie takes the letter from my hand and I hear her sob out, “Oh, God,” as she realises what it is and who it’s from. She silently holds me in her arms as the limo makes its way through the evening traffic back to my parents’ home. By the time we arrive, I have composed myself to some degree and am trying my hardest to focus on the fact that I was so blessed and lucky to be loved the way I was by Sean. I don’t want to dwell on the horrible circumstances in which he had been ripped away from me, along with our son, far too soon.

I keep my brave face on all through dinner. I enjoy kisses and cuddles from my nieces and nephews, and when we light the candles on my cake the second time for the children to have their turn, as we always do at family birthdays, I take comfort from the fact that Beau was there with his cousins, blowing them out, too.

I tilt my face up to the early morning sun and let its heat warm me. The water’s not freezing, but it’s cold enough to make the sun feel good. I squint my eyes and look out across the Pacific Ocean; there is a pod of dolphins swimming in the water nearby, appearing then disappearing every few seconds. The scene is surreal, tranquil and as far removed from the mayhem I left behind in England as you could get. I’m suddenly overcome by a surge of complete and utter loneliness. I just so desperately wish Sean was here with me to witness all this.

My tears are instant and overwhelm me.

Some days are just so hard, so fucking hard.

It’s November 2001, and I have been in Australia for four weeks; four weeks in which I have done nothing but surf, ride horses, help out at Worldies—my aunt Kath and Uncle John’s bar—and occasionally on the bookings desk of my cousin’s surf lesson and boat charter office.

I let out a deep sigh and start to paddle in towards the shore where my cousin, Jackson, is already stripping out of his surf skins. He turns and watches me as I walk up the beach towards him.

“You did good out there, George. You’re getting better every day, darl.” He looks me over with blue eyes that are so much like my own; his mum and mine are sisters. We both inherited our mothers’ eyes, but he had gotten his hair colour from his dad. It’s almost white where it has been bleached by the sun, and he looks every bit the Aussie surfer poster boy; tall, tanned, blue eyed and blond. He was a good-looking bloke, and he had looked after me like his life depended on it these last few weeks I have been in Australia.

He tilts his head to the side as he watches me. “Tough day?”

I squint as I look at him and try to swallow down the sob desperately trying to escape my throat.

I fail.

The sob wins and forces its way out. I drop my board and fall to my knees on the sand.

“Shit, George, stupid question, sorry.”

He sits on the sand next to me.

“Look, I know every day is still a tough day. Fuck, every day will probably always be a tough day after what you’ve been through.” I watch as he picks up a fistful of sand and lets it slide through his fingers as he stares out across the ocean. I wipe my tears and my snotty nose across the sleeve of my skins as I listen to him.

“But it does get easier to bear, George. It never goes away, but you do learn to live with it.” He wipes away his own tears and looks down at me. “You’re doing great. Some days will always be shittier than others, but you’re doing just great.” He drapes his arm over my shoulder and kisses the top of my head.

Jax knows all about loss. When he was eighteen, he had stupidly piled into a car with seven of his mates, including his then girlfriend, Melanie. They were drunk and stoned, and the driver managed to wrap the car around a tree on the five-kilometre journey back into town. Only Jackson and one other boy had survived. He was a grown man of thirty-five now and had a hard time dealing with survivor’s guilt. He’d been in trouble with the police for fighting, drinking and drugs and had ended up in prison for three months, followed by a six-week stint in rehab. By the time he was twenty-five, he had turned his life around. He now ran his own surf school and boat charter company, and worked as a volunteer counsellor at a drop-in centre that helped young people in danger of going off the rails. He had finally settled down with the beautiful Emily. I hope and pray that one day I will find the peace he has.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper and let out a long breath. “I’m sorry if me being here has stirred up horrible memories for you, Jax.” He tightens his grip around my shoulder.

“George, the horrible memories are with me every day. I just hope that in some tiny way, you coming here and being able to talk to me about what happened has helped you, even if you don’t realise it yet.”

I stay quiet. I don’t know yet if I feel better, but I certainly don’t feel any worse than I did leaving England under the horrible circumstances that were surrounding me.

* * *

I survived my first birthday without Sean, thanks to his flowers and the beautiful letter he had sent me, but by the following weekend, my world had come crashing down again.

Unusually for me, I had slept in. When I turned in my bed and looked at the time on my phone, it was almost ten in the morning, then my bedroom door opened. Marley walked in, and I realised it was the sound of someone knocking that had woken me.

“Big brother Marley, this had better be good.” I knew as soon as my eyes met his that it wasn’t. “What’s wrong?” I croaked with my raspy morning voice.

Marls raked both of his hands through his short, spiky hair; he walked over, kicked off his boots and lay on the bed beside me. I could tell by the frown he was wearing and the creases in his forehead that he wasn’t happy, and I needed to know why. 

“You’re scaring me, Marls. What’s wrong?” He pulled me to him, resting my head on his chest. I could hear his heart beating rapidly, and I started to get pins and needles in the tips of my fingers and toes, something that happened when I was getting nervous. Marley kissed the top of my head.

“Some bird’s gone to the papers, saying she has Maca’s kid.” My eyelids suddenly felt heavy and I wanted to go to sleep. My stomach roiled and I swallowed a couple of times to keep the bile rising in my throat from escaping. My tears were instant; I didn’t cry, but they were there anyway. They just appeared. Was that still crying? I laid there and wondered to myself: if you didn’t cry but your eyes still leaked, did that count as crying?

“George?”

“Yes, I heard you, Marley,” I snapped, taking in a big gulp of air and trying to steady my breathing before I attempted speech. “Who is she, what’s she saying?” I looked up at him from where my head rested on his chest; he looked down at me and shook his head.

“Her name’s Amanda Jones. She lives just outside of Manchester, and the boy’s almost five.” I sat up and shook my head; now I cried

“No, no Marley; why, why would she do that?”

“I don’t know, George; I don’t fuckin’ know, babe.”

My bedroom door flew open and Jimmie walked in, followed by Lennon.

“She’s a lying fucker, George. I don’t believe a word from either of them.” She threw herself on the bed next to me and gave me a cuddle.

“Please, don’t get yourself in a state over this, G. It’s complete bullshit. Len’s got the solicitors onto them.” I pulled my neck back so I could look from her to Lennon.

“Them?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. “The girl and the newspaper?” Lennon shook his head and sighed.

“No, both the girls. There’s another one crawled out of the woodwork after this morning’s headlines got out.”

I didn’t want to cry, but I did.

“Why don’t they just get in touch with me? If it’s true, why don’t they contact me? Why don’t they come to me privately? If these children are Sean’s like they claim, then why the need to go to the papers, why would you put your own child up for scrutiny like that?”

I looked between all of them, but no one seemed to have an answer.

“I would make sure they were properly looked after. If they are Sean’s children, I wouldn’t keep his money from them.” I looked around the room again; my parents were now standing in the doorway and my mum was crying along with me. I breathed in through my nose and blew out through my mouth as I tried to calm myself down. “Why do they hate me; why do they despise me so much that they would do this? Don’t they get how hard it is? Don’t they get how fucking hard I’m trying to hang on here, to keep going?” Jimmie let out a loud sob from beside me.

“They’ve gone to the papers, babe, because it’s not true. They won’t come to you, because they know they will have to come up with evidence and they don’t have any. There’s no truth in any of this. They’re just a pair of scheming, conniving bitches who don’t take anyone’s thoughts or feelings into consideration, not even their own kids.” She held my face between her hands and made me look at her. “These stories are a load of crap, George. Let Len and the solicitors take care of it. Don’t let any of this set you back. You are the bravest person I know, strong and brave, and we won’t let these fuckers bring you down.”

“But why do they want to hurt me like this, Jim? What the fuck did I ever do to them?” Lennon came and knelt in front of me and held both of my hands; from where I was sitting on the side of the bed, he looked me square in the eye.

“It’s not personal, George. They don’t care about you. They don’t care about Sean. They’re just selfish people out to try and make a quick quid.” He wiped my tears from my face, something my big brother hadn’t done since I was a little girl. “The lawyers are all over this, all over these women and all over the piece-of-crap newspaper that’s run the story. We’ve got this, Porge; it’ll be old news by tomorrow.” He stood and kissed the top of my head.

“Get the bacon on, Ma. I’m starving,” Marley said from beside me on the bed. He cuffed his nose on his sleeve. “We’ve got this, Porge. We’ll sue the shit out of these fuckers, I swear. For you, for Beau and for my best mate, we’ll get this shut down.” He kissed me hard on the forehead. “I love you, little sister, Georgia. Clean your teeth. You’ve got morning breath.”

* * *

Unfortunately, it wasn’t old news the next day. More vile individuals crawled out of their holes and made ridiculous claims about my husband and some made claims about me. It would seem that around nine months is the acceptable grieving time to give women who have lost their husbands and unborn children; then apparently, they were seen as fair game by the press and the public. That was the point at which Jackson contacted me and asked me to come over to Australia for a while and get away from it all. So I accepted, and here I am.

* * *

The bar my Aunt and Uncle owns also serves food and is open from six in the morning to serve breakfast, or brekkie, as the Aussies call it, until late, which basically means when the last person either leaves of their own accord or is thrown out.

I have been eased in gently since I arrived; my Uncle John had warned me, though, that I would receive no special privileges. “I don’t give a rat’s arse how rich and famous you are in London or LA, George; you come and stay with us, then you’ll pull your weight. Brooke and Kathy will teach ya what ya need to know for the bar, and Jax will show ya the ropes for his gig, but I just want ya to know, we don’t pander to princesses around here.”

I nodded, feeling like I was a child being told off. Over the next few weeks, I swept floors, wiped tables, chopped veg and salad, and peeled God only knows how many potatoes. Between all of that, I had taken surf lessons from Jackson and had ridden horses with my cousin, Brooke, who I also worked with at the bar. She is twenty-eight and absolutely wild; she reminds me a lot of Jimmie, Ash and myself when we were younger. Watching her in action makes me realise what a wild bunch we were; Brooke’s twenty-eight and we were up to these kind of things when we were fifteen—fifteen and so indestructible, our lives all planned out. The only difference between us and Brooke was that we never slept around; well, apart from my mad six months before Cam, my ‘BC days’ as I refer to them in my head.

Brooke has a man’s attitude towards sex: straight sex, no strings. If they were good, she kept them around for a while; if not, she kicked them out of bed in the morning and didn’t invite them back for the return ride. She begged and pleaded with me the past few weekends to go with her into Sydney, but I just wasn’t ready and I was terrified of being recognised. So far, not one person has commented on who I am since my arrival; all they know is I am Kathy’s niece from England. They laugh at my accent, want to talk about cricket and tell me how much I look like Kath and are generally genuinely nice people.

Despite the fact it is only early November and still out of season, the bar is pretty busy and all of this means I am fairly exhausted by the time I fall into bed at night. I am staying in the apartment above the bar
with Brooke, so on the weekends when she goes down to Sydney to stay with her sister, my other cousin, Jodie, I have the place to myself and I love it.

Jodie is thirty-three, just a year older than me, and works for a big promotions company. She is currently heading the setup of a new mega-club in Sydney; on completion, it will be the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere. She had flown up to see me the first weekend after I arrived and we had talked, laughed and cried together. Sean and I had stayed with her in Sydney when we took our year out. Jackson was living with her then and we had really gotten along well, but I I’m just not ready to go back there yet, maybe not ever. She told me all about the project she is working on. The club is laid out over four levels and will house a venue for live bands, an ice bar, and three different nightclubs, all catering to different types of music. The fourth floor is a nightclub, VIP area and restaurant, all with a rooftop terrace and infinity pool, from where there are panoramic views across Sydney, the harbour and bridge with just a glimpse of the roof of the opera house. It is due to open on December the first, and I promised her I will travel down for the opening. She hasn’t realised the significance of the date, and I really don’t want to be the one to bring up the fact that the first of December was the day life dealt me the worst kind of blow; one from which I will never fully recover.