“Are you being careful?”

I nod again. “I’m on the pill.”

“How’d you get the pill? When? Why didn’t you ask me to come with you?”

“About a year.” I lied; it had been closer to two.

“Georgia, that’s illegal, you should have waited.”

“I told the doctor that my periods were really heavy and that I was getting terrible cramps and couldn’t leave the house so he put me on the pill. All the girls do it.”

“Well it’s wrong, is this Doctor Weeks, did he put you on it? I will have something to say when I next see him.”

“No Mum, I went to the family planning clinic, they gave me the pill and loads of condoms, they’d rather I was on the pill than pregnant and so would I, we do want babies but not yet, we want to see what happens with the band first, we don’t want to be taking a baby on tour with us so we want to wait a bit but I want to be a young Mum like you were, we both want that.”

“Got it all worked out haven’t you, you’re too old for your own good George, nobody knows at sixteen how their life is likely to turn out, we all think we know what we want but the truth is, really we have no idea… But, if you are sure Sean is the one and you are already sleeping together then I will support you with whatever choices you make. You will need me in your corner when it comes to convincing your Dad into letting you do anything until you’re at least eighteen, he wants you to stay on at school and do your A levels.”

I shake my head no. “If Sean’s touring next year, then I’m going with him, he earns enough money to support me. Dad can cut me off, he can do what he likes but I’m leaving school and going with Sean.”

My Mum takes a deep breath in. “Well, if Sean’s the one, we better go and find you something that will knock his socks off, make him realise exactly what he’s got waiting for him at home and stop his eyes from wandering over all those groupies that follow the bands around.”

My stomach drops to my feet again, groupies, I hate that word; Jimmie and I have discussed them a few times but we haven’t really admitted to our fears, Lennon’s only their manager and he’s still getting girls throw themselves at him. He’s told her on the phone, Sean has told me no such thing, he knows how I’d react, I had already thought about running away from home and getting a flight to whatever country he was in I was jealous, it was the reason I had been unable to eat since he left, I trusted Sean, it was the women that I didn’t trust and that’s what some of them were, women, grown women, not sixteen year old school girls like me and I hated it. Again, this wasn’t something I was going to admit to my Mum, I wanted her to think that I had every faith in Sean and I did to a degree.

I stand in front of the mirror in the hotel room looking at myself, I’ve sent Sean down to the bar as I wanted to get dressed on my own, I’ve tried this outfit on three times before I left England but I still wasn’t confident enough to put it on in front of him. I’m wearing a black leather mini skirt, a black and red wide banded striped jumper that hangs off one shoulder, black fishnet stockings and red patent leather heels. My newly permed hair is big and I have a pair of big red hooped earrings in my ears and red and black bangles on my wrists. I spray myself once more with my new perfume ‘Cocoa’ which I had bought at the airport, pick up my black bag and throw it across my left shoulder and chest so it rests on my right hip and leave the room.

Sean has seen me naked numerous times, we’ve bathed and showered together, he’s kissed every square inch of my body but I had never felt more nervous than I did walking into that bar; that was the first time that I realised I could turn heads. A group of grown men that looked about thirty were all sitting around a table as I walked in and one by one they all looked up at me, one of them winked, which actually calmed me down a bit as I assumed it meant I looked okay.

“Hermosa,” I heard one of them say. I had no idea what it meant; I would ask the waiter later. I saw Sean and Lennon at the bar with their backs to me but it was Marley that spotted me first.

“Fuckin’ hell, look at George!” I think is what he says, I feel like everyone in the bar turns around and looks at me at once; Sean’s mouth drops wide open, I think me and my Mum have achieved the desired effect, his mouth closes and he swallows. Jimmie nudges him from the barstool she’s sitting on and he moves towards me, he stops right in front of me and very gently runs his fingertips over my jaw and up across my lips.

“You look beautiful G, like one of them supermodels they keep on about in the papers, except you’re more beautiful.”

I can’t speak, my mouth is so dry through nerves and now I feel like I’m going to cry so I say nothing and let him lead me by the hand to the bar. Marley pulls me in for a big hug, he looks terrible, skinny and gaunt, and his eyes look sunken into his head. Mum will go mental when she sees him. “Look at my baby sister, all grown up, we can’t be calling her Porge any more can we Len, can’t even call her George anymore really either, so what do we call you, now your all grown up?”

“Try Georgia that is my name,” I say to him.

He sounds like Marley but he doesn’t, he’s talking too fast and too much and he keeps sniffing and wiping his nose and for some reason I feel frightened and I’m not sure if it’s of him or for him. I say hello to Billy and Tom, their girlfriends aren’t here tonight, they’re flying in next weekend and staying for the last week, my Mum was working on my Dad to let me fly back for the end of the tour but I was keeping that to myself, I hadn’t even told Jim as I wanted it to be a surprise for Sean, if I was allowed.

We all piled into the stretch limo that was waiting outside the hotel for us just fifteen minutes later, I’d had a cocktail at the hotel bar and my head was swimming but it didn’t stop me enjoying a glass of champagne once Lennon popped the cork and filled our glasses while we rode in the back of the car. Ten minutes later we arrived at the restaurant, our doors were opened for us and we were led through the restaurant to a large table in the centre of the room. Lennon explained that all of this had been arranged by the record label, the tour so far was a huge success and Carnage were receiving fantastic reviews and on the back of that any previously unsold tickets were being snapped up because people wanted to see them play as opposed to Kombat Rock.

We’d only been sat down five minutes when a boy of about sixteen came over and asked for autographs, this was followed ten minutes later by an American girl who was going to the show later. I tried not to let it bother me when she only wanted her photo taken with Sean and not the rest of the band, her Mum finally shifted her fat arse out of my face, after taking a half dozen pictures and Sean reached under the table and grabbed my hand squeezing it tight.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, I shrugged and smiled, he was famous now; it’s what they had worked so hard for all these years. What was I supposed to say? The girl had gone back to her table and I was here with Sean, holding hands, he might be her fantasy but he was my reality, my future and it was me that would be wrapped around him in our hotel room tonight. Besides, we needed girls like her to buy the album so we could save the money for a deposit on our house quicker, bet she didn’t realise that, I should have been grateful to her but I wasn’t, I was jealous and I hated myself for it.

We arrived at the venue for tonight’s concert an hour and a half later, it was about seven on a Friday evening, Carnage were due on stage at around eight thirty, Kombat Rock at around nine thirty, so we had some time before the show. I’d never been back stage at such a big event, Lennon had offered to get us tickets for the best seats but I hate sitting down at concerts and Sean had refused to let me go into the mosh pit so we would be watching from the sides of the stage instead. I had butterflies as we pulled around the back of the building and saw the crowds queuing to get in, obviously most of the crowd were there to see K R but there were also a lot of Carnage t-shirts and banners that I spotted on the way.