CHAPTER 27
The next few days are insane, the stories printed about us are beyond ridiculous and we have to get extra security at the house to stop the press intrusion. Luckily we issue a trespass warning to all of them and they don’t venture further than the gates but trying to get in and out of the property is beyond impossible. In the end, Sean calls all of my family over on the Saturday, we announce our pregnancy, which makes both of my parents cry, but Sean tells my Mum and Dad how worried he is at what all of the stress is doing to the baby. I’m actually not that stressed, the stories are laughable and I know that Sean and I are solid, we are closer right now than we’ve ever been in our lives and I’ve never been happier or more in love. If only the press would f*ck off and leave us alone. Sean’s main concern is that I’m going to get hurt in the scramble to take our photographs. We’ve issued a statement and invited one journalist and a photographer into our home to give an interview and answer questions on the rumours and to take a couple of photos of us together, but the interest still hasn’t died down. Cam has even made a statement, categorically denying all the allegations.
Then while my family are all at our place on Saturday, Len receives a call from the band’s offices telling him that Haley has crawled out of the wood work and is touting a story around the Sunday tabloids that she’s happy to confirm that Sean is gay and has in fact been in a long term relationship with Marley. Len is onto the lawyers straight away; last year when I had my little run in with her, Sean’s lawyers agreed to pay for her nose to be reconstructed, as apparently I had broken it, in several places and the deal she got meant that she was never allowed to sell a story or talk about us to the press again. The rest of the evening is spent with Len making arrangements for a lawsuit to be filed against her and any newspaper that prints the story. I’m not laughing any more, not now that she’s involved, I want to run away and hide and as if reading my mind my Dad says, “Maca, why don’t you go to our place in Portugal for a coupla weeks, stay out the way till this all blows over.”
Sean is biting down on his bottom lip as he looks across at me. “Is it safe for you to fly?”
I shrug my shoulders. “I can call the doctors tomorrow and find out, but I’m pretty sure it’ll be fine, it’s not like it’s a long flight.”
“You two have a photo shoot Monday don’t forget,” Len looks from me to Sean as he speaks. “I don’t think it would be a good idea to cancel, go and do the shoot, show a united front and then disappear for a couple of weeks, I can deal with whatever else you have booked.”
“Portugal it is then.” Sean smiles across to where I’m sitting in the sunshine, it’s a beautiful day, my family are all here, I’m pregnant with a healthy baby and I love my Husband beyond measure. All of our dreams, everything that Sean and I hoped would happen in our lives, have been far exceeded. Carnage have become more successful than any of us could ever have thought possible, from the four boys in a band, practising in the summer house of our old back garden, they are now known across the world and have had hits right across the planet and we are all basically living the dream and I’m not going to let Whorely and her shit once again spoil my life.
Rather than run the gauntlet of the press at our gates, my family all stay over Saturday night and I love every second of having our home filled with the sound of laughing and talking, kids shouting and screaming, they have put the pool to good use and even the sounds of the splashes as they jump in and out make me smile. By Saturday evening, everyone is in the pool apart from my two youngest nieces who are passed out and sleeping soundly in their baby buggies, right where we can see them. My Mum is in the kitchen with Sam, Bailey’s partner; cooking God knows what to feed us all, we would normally call out for a takeaway of some kind but it’s just too much hassle with the twenty or so photographers parked at our gates.
I climb out of the pool and watch Sean with Ziggy on his shoulders, who’s throwing a Frisbee to his brother Jimmy, who’s on Lennon’s shoulders and his cousin Joe, who’s on Marley’s shoulders. Connie, Annie and Paige are using my Dad and Bailey as a spring board and diving into the water. As I watch, I suddenly see the resemblance between me and Paige that my family are always telling me is there. She’s tall for her age and skinny, she has Len’s dark skin and hair but with the most amazing blue eyes. When I was younger, I always thought my eyes looked odd against my olive skin and chestnut hair but on Paige, they look stunning, my hand instinctively goes to my belly as I wonder what I’m carrying inside me. After what happened with my last pregnancy, I just want a healthy baby and I’m pretty sure Sean feels the same way. I look up as I hear Paige shriek as she is thrown in the air by my Dad and is caught by Bailey, he and Sam have a little boy called Freddie who’s just a couple of months old and in his baby capsule in the kitchen with my Mum and Sam.
As I watch the kids all play, it strikes me that Sean and I weren’t much older than my nieces and nephews when we met, were we really so young? Just children and yet I knew, we both knew, at eleven and thirteen, our eyes met that very first time and we both felt something that neither of us had any understanding of. How many people on this planet find that? How many ever have that connection with another person, ever? Let alone go on to marry, have a family together and live the life that we have. Okay, things have been rough at times, a four year separation; my stupid, stupid mistake with Cam; and the loss of our baby were tough times, but on the whole, we have been so lucky. We’ve survived everything that’s been thrown at us and still love each other in a way that most people will never comprehend, even our families still laugh with the way that we are with each other, how intense our feelings have remained and as if to prove a point, I look up and toward Sean, because I just know that his eyes are on me.
He has a bemused look on his face as he strides through the water, Ziggy still on his back and I can’t help but grin at him. “What you thinking about G, you okay?”
Before I can answer Ziggy shouts down at me. “I wanna get down Auntie George, I’m hungry.”
Sean swings him off of his shoulders and I grab a towel from behind me and wrap him in it as Sean passes him to me, we walk over to a sun lounger and both tickle and dry Ziggy at the same time as he screams and kicks with laughter. “No, no Maca,” he can barely speak, he’s so puffed out from the fight he’s putting up. “Make him stop Auntie G, make him stop.”
He wraps his arms around my neck and clings to me, his cheek pressed against mine, Sean stops and stares at us both. “You’re going to be such a great Mum Georgia.”
Our eyes both fill with tears. “Have you got a baby in your belly Auntie G, must be really little coz your belly’s not big like Sam’s was when Freddie was in there.” We both laugh as we explain that our baby is only tiny and has a lot of growing to do before Ziggy can see him just after Christmas and it suddenly strikes me, that Sean and I have both called our baby a ‘him’. Ziggy escapes us and goes in search of food and as we watch him run away, we both call out to him to walk and not run.
Sean turns to me and says, “Dya think it’s a boy?” I nod, because I do, don’t ask me how but somehow, in the last few minutes, I’ve become 100% sure, that we’re having a boy.
“Me too,” Sean almost whispers. “And I cannot f*cking wait to meet him.”
We smile at each other, his hand on my belly, oblivious to all of the noise going on around us; we lean into each other and kiss, very gently, our lips barely brushing. “I love you so much Georgia Rae, our son is so lucky to have you for a Mum and I’m so lucky to have you as my Wife.”
Before I can reply, my Mum and Ziggy shout at us all to come and get some food so I just smile at him and let him lead me out to the patio where a banquet has been prepared from the contents of my fridge and freezer. We eat, drink and celebrate our pregnancy in noisy Layton style, the kids are put to bed and the adults stay up till the early hours of Sunday, talking, laughing, reminiscing and sharing stories of our lives as we were growing up. I go to bed happy and content, appreciating my fantastic family but not realising that it’s the very last time that we will all be together, that our dynamics will be changed, shattered irreparably before the year is out.