“I don’t understand then G, who, who would do that to us? Jimmie and Lennon knew how hard I tried, they knew how hard I tried to see ya, they knew about the phone calls and all the stuff I sent ya. Where did it go? How did you not know about it, surely not your Mum and Dad?” I can’t comprehend this, I just can’t get my head around it, all this time, all this pain and he wanted me back.
Jimmies suddenly at my side, I’m on my knees in her hallway, Sean is sitting cross legged facing me, with his head is in his hands. “Babe, what’s going on? Sean?”
She looks from one to the other of us. Sean looks up, he looks at me, and I think I’m on the verge of an anxiety attack. I’m gulping in air and making sounds that I’ve never heard a human make. “Gia” Is all that Sean says as he pulls me into his lap and holds me so tight it should crush me, instead I start to breathe slower. Air starts to reach my lungs, as I look up at him.
“Who would want to hurt us like that, who?”
Jimmies right down on the floor with us now, Lens pacing the floor behind Sean, then Marley appears. “What the fuck George, what’s wrong?” He moves toward us.
“Will somebody please tell me what the fuck is going on?”
Jimmie is crying too and she doesn’t even know what’s wrong. “The letters Jim, all the letters, you told me that she got them?” Jimmie looks confused and frowns. “She did, you did, your Mum said that they upset you so much that we weren’t to talk about them.”
No, no, this can’t be right, my Mum’s one of my best friends, she wouldn’t do that; she knew how much I was hurting. “No, no Jim, I never knew, I never saw a single letter.”
“What?”
“She told me that Sean phoned for a couple of weeks and that my Dad had threatened him and he had stopped calling and that was it.”
“Georgia, I swear to God, I called your house four or five times a day, I begged them to let me talk to you, I wrote letter, after letter, I begged you to see me.” The hallway falls silent apart from the sound of breathing and sniffing. Sean continuously strokes at my back and my hair with the tips of my fingers and soothes me, calms me. I suddenly feel so tired, like I haven’t slept in four years and now finally, I can.
Sean kisses the top of my head. “G, I love you babe but your arse is fuckin’ bony and mine is going numb.”
I look up at him and giggle. “You love me?”
“Of course I love you, how many times do you need telling, I meant it then and I mean it now, there’s only you G, there will only ever be you.”
He stands still holding onto me and carries me into Jimmie and Len’s lounge; he sits down on the sofa with me still in his lap and says in my ear. “I have been without you for four fuckin’ years. I’ll never be without you again; I might just carry you around like this forever.”
I smile and inside I feel like I did when I first wake up from one of my dreams about him, completely content, cocooned in his arms and his scent but then just like with my dreams, reality comes crashing in, my Mum, my beautiful Mum betrayed me.
Len passes me a glass of wine and what looks like whiskey to Sean. I take a long sip of my drink. “I need to speak to my Mum, I can’t believe she’d do this to me, she knew the mess I was in. We’ve talked so many times and I’ve told her that I still love you, that I will always love you, I just don’t understand.”
I look across at Marley sitting in the armchair. “You okay big brother Marley?”
“Gotta say little sister Georgia that I’m with you, Mum just wouldn’t do that, surely Mum wouldn’t do that?” He shakes his head, and then carries on, as if he’s talking to himself. “I don’t know if I’m just over thinking things, but now I am thinking about it, she has gone out of her way over the years to stop you two from having any kind of contact. I just thought it was to protect you George and then after that Sunday the other month.”
I feel Sean hold his breath and squeeze me just a little bit tighter. “After the way you reacted that Sunday, I thought she’d done the right thing but there have been a few times when she’s sort of been a bit irrational about things, the way she told me not to give you our address and she was really pissed off when you found it out that if she had her own agenda? What if there was more to it than just protecting you? Perhaps it was about hiding what she had done, I don’t know, I’m just surmising.”
I’m totally confused and have no idea what he’s talking about.
“I don’t understand Marls, what dya mean, giving me our address, I don’t understand?”
“Ours, mine and Sean’s, she told me not to give you our address because she was worried that you would just turn up unannounced. She said you’d been trying to find out where we lived so that you could stalk Sean.” I’m floored and now, I’m also starting to get more than just a little pissed off.
“Marley, I have no fuckin’ idea where your place is and I had absolutely no idea that you and Sean lived together.”
Everyone seems to stop what they’re doing, even breathing.
“George, did you never go to the boys place and try and get past the reception area, did you not go there and scream abuse at the security guard and try and kick the doors in?”
I look around the room at everyone; I look up at Sean, who looks at me horrified. “I didn’t know about this babe, you came to our apartment?” What on earth is going on here?
“Are you all deaf, or just fuckin mad? I have no idea where Marley lives and I had no idea that Sean lived with him, no fuckin’ idea. Where is this coming from, who told all of you that I had been there causing trouble?”
There’s silence for a long moment as my brothers and Jimmie all look at each other, Jimmie shrugs her shoulders. “Your Mum, George, your Mum told us.”
My bottom jaw quivers as I try to hold onto the hurt and betrayal that I am feeling inside, this is at least equal or maybe even worse than how I’ve felt about Sean’s apparent misdemeanours for the past four years. I burrow into him and look up into his face. He looks pained and kisses my temple, very softly whispering, “Oh babe.”
“Why Sean?” I look around the room at all of them, pleadingly. “Why would she do that to me? Why would she do that to us?” I can’t control the sobs as I speak and once again, Sean pulls me into him and soothes and calms me down.
Eventually I resign myself to what needs to be done, I stand up and miss the closeness of being next to Sean instantly. “I need to call her; I need to talk to her.”
I look at Len and Jimmie. “Can I ask her to come here?”
They look at each other. “It’s ten o’clock George, dya think she’ll come out at this time?”
I shrug my shoulders. “I won’t give her any choice.”
I have this little ball of anger burning in my belly now; if my Mum did this, if my Mum could have prevented the pain and heartache I’ve gone through for the last four years by even a fraction and didn’t, even worse, if she has in fact been behind keeping us apart all this time, then I think my relationship with her is over, without hesitation, I will walk away from her and the business if I find out that she did this, this hurtful, spiteful thing.
I go out to the kitchen, take the phone off its base and with a shaky hand; I dial my parents’ number. My Dad answers. Did he have a part to play in this I wonder as I speak? “Alright Dad, sorry for calling so late, is Mum there?”
“Hello, treacle, how you doin’? Yeah, she’s right here babe, love ya.”
“Love you too Daddy.”
I hear him tell her it’s me, I swallow and lick my lips but I don’t seem to have any moisture in my mouth. “Evening Georgia, what’s wrong?”
What’s wrong, what’s fucking wrong, where would she like me to start? I want to scream, I want to drag her down the phone line. I decide instead, to get straight to it. “Mum, I need you to come to Jimmie and Lens and I need you to come now, it’s urgent.”