I'd Like to be Somebody Else

Chapter 84

Noel had a gig on the 17th of May at the Brixton Academy, London.

He was playing with Paul Weller. I didn't go, he didn't ask me and I didn't feel like it. I really should have gone, Weller was awesome, I hadn't been to a gig in ages and I could have done with seeing Noel the rockstar again.

At the beginning of June he went to America. He just packed a suitcase and left out of the blue.

We just weren't close anymore, I didn't know how it had happened. He'd stopped pushing for a baby, we'd stopped doing anything that would lead to a baby, I always thought if we were going to break up it'd be through a massive fight not that our relationship would wither away like this.

I still loved him but I didn't know if it was just because he was Jimmyi's father. I missed him like crazy, I wanted the good old days back.

At the beginning of June he went to America. He just packed a suitcase and left out of the blue. I only knew he'd gone to America because I heard him book the ticket.

...

Noel rang and told me he was in Las Vegas. I had no idea what he was doing there or who he was with or anything.

"You'll never guess what I did the other day." he laughed, sounding like he hoped I'd find it funny or he was in trouble.

"Gambled away all your money?" I suggested, unimpressed with whatever was coming.

"No, something much more stupid than that." he said, still with a nervous laugh to his tone. "I married this lass, er Meg Matthews."

I knew that name, she was someone Patsy knew or someone who'd just always been around but I hadn't taken any notice of.

"You fucking what? You've married some other bird?" I questioned keeping my tone calm, this better be some bullshit joke.

I was mad enough to beat the shit out of him, if only he wasn't half the world away. I didn't understand why he would do shit like this to us, to our family.

"It's not friggin' real. I'm sure it can just be annulled." he pointed out, attempting to be blase about it. "It was one of those cheesy Elvis chapels, can't be real, can it?"

"How the fuck did you marry her?" I asked, I couldn't control my tone but I was yet to raise my voice. "You barely remember her name."

"That's the thing, it's Vegas and I can't friggin' remember anything from the last week or so." he admitted. "So stupid, in't it?"

"Have you shagged her?" I asked bluntly.

That was all all that mattered to me, he could have his idiotic marriage but he wasn't getting away with its consummation.

"I genuinely have no idea." There was the nervous laugh again.

He had to be lying, he never didn't know.

"Why don't you ring me back when you do fucking know? I've got to go look after our baby." I put the phone down on him, not willing to hear another word of it.

I didn't want him to phone me back at all unless he was going to tell me that all that was just lies, a dare or some shit.

...

I couldn't stop thinking about it. He'd had our tacky Vegas wedding from September 1994, with somebody else. I should have just married him when I had the chance, he'd be mine forever then.

Jamie came down to London to help me with Jimmyi as soon as Noel left. He brought his girlfriend Sinead with him, I liked her, she was a significant improvement on Aislin and I had no problem with her being around my son.