I'd Like to be Somebody Else

Chapter 65

Liam came over on New Year's Eve, having decided he could convince us to go on a club crawl with him. Maybe he'd hit his head, hard recently or the drugs had finally altered his mind so much he couldn't think rationally.

"Can't you come out at all?" Liam asked, he was ready to party as planned.

It was the first New Year's Eve that I hadn't gone out on since I was seventeen. He wanted us all to go out as normal.

"Not really no... Have you clubbed with many three day olds?" I asked sarcastically.

"One drink, just one."

I shook my head. There was no having just one drink with them and he certainly wouldn't accept one soft drink.

"You can leave him with our Mam." he tried to convince me.

"No, no, no. There's no way. I literally had a baby three days ago." I objected. "Do I really look like I could go out?"

"You look great." he quickly complimented, giving up. "Can I take Noel then?"

"No! He has to stay here and be a Daddy."

"But how am I supposed to celebrate without my brother and my Yorkie? It's just going to be me, Guigs' and Alan." he complained as though it was the end of the world.

"Give Tony a ring." I suggested, none of us had spoken to him since the left the band and split up with Kenzie.

He immediately snubbed that idea, it was a ridiculous suggestion anyway. I didn't know anyone else to suggest to him.

...

At a few minutes past midnight the phone rang, waking Jimmyi up moments after I'd got him back to sleep after a feed. He screamed as I carried him to the phone, trying to settle him.

"Hello?" I answered, letting my irritation be known in my voice.

"Yorkie! Yorkie, ey up!" Liam shouted over the music, obviously drunk and having a good time.

"What do you want? You've made Jimmyi cry." I said impatiently, trying to balance the phone between my shoulder and ear while trying to comfort my son.

"I wanted to say happy New Year '96, so yeah, happy New Year '96 Yorkie." he cheered. "I'm going home with, er... E, Em, er, Em now."

I wished he hadn't felt the need to try to make me jealous on this occasion. He wanted me to miss the music, the drugs, the party atmosphere, more than he wanted me to miss him

"Happy New Year to you too Liam. This definitely couldn't have waited 'til the morning." I said sarcastically. "Oh and it usually helps to remember the girl's name." I put the phone before he could say anything else.

Noel came downstairs, yawning. "What's he crying for? Was someone on the phone?" he questioned, taking him from me,

"Your brother doesn't realise we need to sleep." I groaned.

"Go and sleep, I'll sort him out." he said confidently as he rocked Jimmyi in his arms. "Come on lad, we'll have less of this." he told the baby before attempting to sing him to sleep with Talk Tonight.

...

We drove over to Liam's in the morning, Noel insisted on paying him back for the call.

He pressed the door buzzer over and over again until it was answered while I stayed in the car with Jimmyi to keep us warm.

"Shut the fuck up doing that!" Liam shouted from an upstairs window. "What are you doing here?"

"Come to celebrate the new year with my favourite little brother." Noel said and played with the buzzer again until he came down and let us in.