The Story of Me (44 page)

I barely slept a wink Friday night. We were both due at West Ham’s football ground at nine for the first of the charity football games that were going to be played over the next two days.

My mum was an absolute legend and turned up at our house at six, she looked after the baby and let us get ready. Cam didn’t want to let Harry out of his sight as Tamara had apparently gone missing and he was terrified about where she might show up. My mum, being the expert that she was, packed everything that was needed for the baby for the entire day and stayed with Cam and I as we travelled from venue to venue, event to event and from interview to interview. By the time Sunday night came around and the grand finale had ended, we had raised over ninety million pounds. Harry had been held and passed around by no less than five supermodels, two England football captains, an Ashes winning cricket captain, two Oscar winners and about twenty members of rock royalty.

Everyone involved was exhausted, but we still managed to keep awake, running on pure adrenalin. We even attended the after party at one of Cam’s clubs until five Monday morning. Cam had finally allowed my parents to take Harry, or H as he had become known over the weekend, back to our house, where they would stay, along with Benny and Scott.

* * *

Cam, Jimmie and I sit in a row, all holding hands, all staring at the screen as the doctor glides the ultrasound wand over Ashley’s belly.

Jimmie has just had her twelve week scan and we got to see the healthy heartbeat of our baby and now it’s Ashley’s turn. The all too familiar whoosh and boom, boom, boom cause my heart to ache. This sound, bringing back such bittersweet memories for me.

Jimmie is the first to comment at what appears before us on the screen. All she says is “Oh,” to have both Cam and Ash saying in unison, “What’s wrong?” I look from Cam to Ash, to the Doctor, waiting on him to comment first.

“Well, we always knew this was a possibility,” is all he says. Ashley closes her eyes as she grips my hand.

“George, please tell me what the fuck’s wrong.” I look at the doctor, who simply nods his head.

“Yep, definitely two in there.” Ashley opens her eyes and stares right at me, then at Cam.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me, twins. I’m having your twins. Two of him are growing inside me. How come she gets away with just one and I end up with two. For fuck’s sake, I’m gonna be as big as the 498 to Romford. This is so not fair. King, you can pay for my tummy tuck.” I turn to Cam. He’s staring with his mouth slightly open. I nudge him, and he turns and looks at me.

“Twins?” is all he says. I smile and nod my head. “Fuck, Kitten, four, we had none, now there’s four.” He throws his head back and gives me his big Cam laugh.

I wake to the sensation of what I assume are teeth biting into the top of my thigh. I look down at Cam, now sucking on the inside of my leg.

“Happy birthday, Kitten,” he says as he starts to make his way up my body, planting little kisses as he goes. He reaches my mouth and kisses me gently, trying to force his tongue inside.

“No, Cam, I have morning breath.” He pushes himself up on his arms so he’s sort of doing a press up over the top of me.

“I kissed you once when you’d just thrown up all over the back seat of my car. Your morning breath really doesn’t bother me.” I stroke across the corded muscles of his arms. He’s so fit and toned and sexy and hot, and mine. “If you won’t kiss me, let me stick my cock in your mouth,” he says quite seriously.

“I thought it was my birthday?”

He winks at me. “It is and allowing you to suck my cock is my gift to you.”

I roll my eyes at him. “Wow, thanks, where do I go for a refund.”

“That’s not nice, Kitten.”

“Neither is sucking your cock. It makes me gag. It’s too big. Your cock’s built for fucking, not sucking.”

He throws his head back and give me his big Cam laugh. “You have such a way with words, Kitten. I love the fuck outta ya.” And just like that, he slides inside me.

We spend the next half an hour having early morning birthday sex. We had dinner out last night and stayed over at the Mandarin Oriental in London’s Knightsbridge. My parents had stayed at our place to look after Harry and we are both keen to get back home to see him.

I’ve never had a living, breathing child of my own, so I can only gauge my love for Harry on what I felt for baby M and Beau, and what I feel for my other three unborn children, which equates to complete and utter, unconditional love. That little boy may not be of my flesh and blood, but I couldn’t love him any more if he was and neither could my family. They really couldn’t care less about his genetics. As far as they are all concerned, he is one of ours and is loved as such.

We haven’t heard from Tamara since the day we brought Harry home with us. Cam has continued to pay money into her bank account and withdrawals have been made throughout London and various parts of Europe. He knows she’s probably spending the money on drugs, but he’s not happy to think that she’s out there without a penny. At the end of the day, she’s Harry’s mum and Cam will always do right by her, and I honestly have no problem with that.

We call my mum and have a quick chat to my parents and H, who at four months old, has very little to say for himself.

I take a shower, and when I step out to the living area of the huge royal suite, breakfast is waiting for me.

“God, I’m starving,” I say to Cam, who’s staring out of the window with a coffee cup in his hand. He turns toward me with what I can only describe as a combination of fear and concern on his face, and I suddenly feel too hot and too cold all at once as panic starts to creep in. “What’s wrong?”

His eyes widen. “Nothing, why?”

“You look really worried.” He gives me a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes and I feel like icy cold fingers are sliding around my heart.

“Sit down and eat your breakfast, Kitten.” He heads over to the table and we both sit down. I watch him as he pours me a coffee, still feeling a little bit unsure. I look down at my plate piled with scrambled eggs and take a mouthful. I look up at Cam, who’s staring at me.

I swallow what I have in my mouth and say to him, “Okay, you’re starting to freak me out now. What the fuck’s wrong?”

He laughs, nervously this time. “Nothing’s wrong, Kitten. Eat up.” I take another mouthful and that’s when I see it.  Buried beneath the pile of eggs is the distinct blue colour of a Tiffany box. I put down my fork and look across at Cam, who right about now is a colour not too dissimilar to the box, perhaps a shade more green.

I pick up my fork and scrape all of the egg from the box and give it a wipe with my napkin.

“I wanted to put the…” He stops whatever it was he was about to say. “Nothing, doesn’t matter.” I take a deep breath and open the box. Inside sits the most beautiful emerald cut diamond ring. The main diamond is surrounded by lots of smaller ones and the band of the ring is made up of diamonds. It’s stunning.

Before I get a chance to speak, Cam slides down onto the floor in front of me and takes my hands in his. The fact he has got himself in such a state over this makes me want to just say yes and put him out of his misery before he throws up everywhere, but I decide to hear what he has to say.

The man who’s usually described in the papers as an East End bad boy and night club Lothario is on his knees in front of me. He takes the ring from the box and looks at it for a few moments and then brings his eyes to meet mine.

“I’ve tried to think of a million different ways to do this. I’ve tried to think of every flash, fancy way that I could impress you, and then we were sitting at home last Sunday and I watched you with Harry, trying to get him to eat all those veggies you tirelessly steam and mash up for him. I watched as you spooned it into his mouth and then laughed as he spat it out. You had as much on your face as he did on his, and watching all of that made me realise, you don’t do flash or fancy. You’re not fussed about unique or being impressed. After everything we’ve been through, the lives that we’ve already lived. What we have survived to get to this point brought me to the conclusion that all that matters, is you, me and our family. I love you, Kitten. I’ve loved you for a very long time. Whether we’ve been together or apart I’ve loved you, and I know that tradition dictates that I get down on one knee and do this, but you deserve so much more than one knee. So here I am, in front of you now, on both knees, asking you, would you please make me the happiest man alive and do me the honour of becoming my wife?” He reaches up and uses his thumb to brush away a tear from my cheek.

“Yes, Tiger, of course I’ll marry you.”

* * *

As we head down the lane to our home, I can see Jimmie’s car at the gates. She’s standing at the intercom box holding her phone. We pull up behind her and both get out of the car.

“Your box is all bashed up, G,” she says with a smile. “This box not that box.” She gestures between my legs. “Although, after spending the night in a hotel with Mr TDH and his famous nine-inches, I don’t suppose that box is looking too pretty, either.”

Cam ignores her comments and looks at the mangled mess of wires hanging next to the electronic gates, gives her a kiss and says, “What the fuck has happened here?”

“I was just gonna call Frank to see if he could open the gates from the inside,” Jimmie states.

“Yeah, do that. I’ll make a call and get someone out to look at this. Probably kids, little shits,” Cam says.

Jimmie calls my dad and as I move around her car to get back into mine, I see her. She looks beautiful in an emerald green maxi dress, her auburn hair blowing back from her face in the breeze. Instinctively, I step in front of Jimmie. Tamara’s standing with her legs wide apart and has two hands on a gun, pointed at me. I don’t know at what point Jimmie notices her, but she stops talking on the phone and says very quietly, “Fuck.” Cam is leaning over the wires hanging out of the wall, slightly to the left of me. Out of my peripheral vision, I see him stand and say, “Well the little fuckers—”

When I watched Cam shoot Terry Riley in a pub car park all those years ago, I realised that guns don’t really go bang. They go pop more than bang and all I can think right now is… that gun just went pop. I wonder why people say bang when really they go pop?

And then I hear it again, pop, and I watch as blood and bones and brain fly out the back of Tamara’s head and she falls in an untidy mess on the ground. Harry will ask me about this moment one day, and I will have to tell him. What will I say? I can hear Jimmie on the phone from either behind or beside me. I don’t know exactly which. I don’t want to turn my head. I don’t want to see what’s going on around me, so I just keep looking straight ahead. If I don’t turn my head, I can’t see him. If I can’t see him, then none of this is real.

“Georgia!” Jimmie screams. I ignore her. “Georgia Rae Layton, get the fuck down here and help me.” I don’t want to, because when I look, everything will change. My world will change. Life will change. Everything that’s been good will come to an end.

My life was once black. I managed to get it to a lightish shade of grey on the odd occasion, but it mostly remained black, and then Cam came along; he came back into my life and very slowly he brought back the light blues and then the whites. He’d done that by rebuilding my heart. He’d been patient and loving and kind, and brick by brick, he’d done the best job possible of giving me back my heart. It would never be whole. It would always be a little jagged, and there would always be a piece of it that was irreparable. The part that would forever belong to Sean and our children. But, from the pile of broken bricks and rubble I’d been left with, Cam had done an amazing job of rebuilding my heart and filling it with love, light and hope, and now, now what? If I turn my head to the side and see what it is I think I’m going to see, I know that it will be too much. I’m just not strong enough, so as Jimmie screams and cries, “George, help me, fucking help me. I can’t stop the blood. I need something to stop the blood.” I shake my head.

“No, Jim, no. I can’t. Not again. I can’t do this again.”

I stand and stare straight ahead as I listen to the music coming from Jimmie’s car. Her door is wide open and an old Bread song is playing and David Gates is singing that he would give up everything he owns and I would too, anything and everything, but I refuse to turn around and look at my world once again come crashing down around me.

I stare at the bricks on the wall, counting them, wondering how many bricks it had taken Cam to rebuild my heart. If Cam is gone, my heart will be irreparable. I will go on. I have to. I have four children relying on me, but never again will I allow myself to love or be loved, unless it is by my children or family.

Chaos surrounds me. My dad appears from behind the gates and sirens blare in the distance, getting closer. The image of what Tamara did to herself is burned into my retinas and I silently hope and pray that Harry never asks me about it.

I ride in the ambulance with Cam, but I have to sit in the front as there is no room in the back while the two paramedics work on him. I don’t look at him. He flat lines twice and I don’t turn to look at him, not once. I can’t, not again. I am terrified of seeing that vacant look in Cam’s eyes that I had seen in Sean’s.

When Sean died, I convinced myself he had told me that he loved me as we lay on that cold, snow-covered pavement, but later, when I spoke to the doctors and from what we were told at the inquest, that was impossible. The blow Sean received to his head as it hit the pavement would have meant his perception, comprehension, alertness and consciousness would have come to an instant grinding halt, making speech impossible.

His eyes were open, of that I’m absolutely sure, but they were vacant. He didn’t see me because he was already gone, and that was the look I was so afraid of seeing in Cam’s eyes.

When we get to the hospital, Cam is wheeled into the trauma unit while his heart is once again restarted and blood is fed into him.

I am moved out of the way and knocked into as doctors fight to save his life. I stand and watch as a young doctor sits astride his chest and holds her hand over the wound, trying to halt the flow of blood exiting his body. Another nurse rides on the side of the bed, squeezing at the bag of blood, hooked on the side, so it will pump into him faster than it is bleeding out. All of this is happening while they wheel him by me and up to theatre.

The trauma room falls silent. I stand and stare at all of the dark red blood on the tiled floor that leads a trail out of the room, following the path of the trolley Cam is on and all I can think is, carnage. Once again, I’m faced with a scene of complete an utter carnage. How ironic that that word has come to mean something so much more to me than the name of my husband’s band during my life. 

I stare at the blood as a doctor or a nurse tells me what’s happening, I don’t know what they are saying. I don’t hear their words. I can hear sounds, doors opening, wheels squeaking, machines bleeping, but I can’t or won’t hear words. And then my dad and Jimmie appear and I hit the floor.

I don’t pass out. My legs just refuse to hold me up any longer. I spend the next two hours in silence, in an almost catatonic state. I wrap my arms around myself, too afraid to let go in case I disappear inside that huge gaping hole that has once again been punched inside my chest, my life, my world. Then Marley appears in the waiting room and puts Harry in my arms and I know that no matter what, I can’t fall apart. I have the support of a large and loving family, but in that moment, Harry has just me. He is all alone and totally dependent on me and me alone. So I sit and I hold him close. I feed and I change him. I take comfort in the warmth and the smell of his chubby little body, and thank God, I at least have this small piece of Cam with me.