The Little Stranger

Chapter Nine

If Gemma had thought the drive to Jakes's father's house had been a little tense, coming away again a few hours later, it hung heavily in the air. Jake was unusually silent as they drove home, Ellie had fallen asleep in the back.

Although no more was said about Caroline, and they passed the next forty odd minutes making mostly small talk with Bob Kavanagh, who decided to be on his best behaviour after his outburst. Jake tried to put on a front, as if nothing had happened, but Gemma could tell now as she sat next in the car with him, that he was not a happy man.

"Sorry, I wasn't such a great distraction after all," she now spoke up with a rueful smile

"It's ok," Jake replied, "You still managed to nip it in the bud, before it got really ugly thankfully"

As much as Gemma was really curious about what Jake had said about Caroline, she knew this was not the time to pry, so she decided to talk about the other thing that was on her mind.

"Can I ask you what happened with you and the band, why you split up? I mean, I read about it in the media, when it happened, but I don't think I can recall if it was for a specific reason" she then frowned

"Well I guess there wasn't one specific reason," Jake looked thoughtful as he decided how to answer, her query, "Just a lot of reasons, different things happening at the time, the stress of being together all the time touring and making albums, it affected us all different ways. Then we all wanted different things which caused arguments and disagreements which way we wanted to go, In the end Ken, decided he wanted to hang up the drumsticks and concentrate on his new wife and family. He couldn't deal with it the pressure of it all, and he didn't think it was worth the hassle anymore. So, after that, the rest of us, more or less decided not to go on together, as we were doing more fighting, than making music"

"Oh, I am so sorry it ended in such a bad way between the five of you, it must have been really hard at the time" Gemma realised sadly

"Yeah, it was," Jake reiterated, "Which I was glad in a way, you were not around to see it. But it's all water under the bridge now, the guys all rallied around me and supported me for Caroline's funeral. So, we kind of made up, and agreed to let bygones be bygones, that was one thing I was happy about, and we are all in talking terms again" he finished in a more upbeat note.

"Well, at least something good came out of the tragic event." Gemma felt a little relieved that at least something was going right for Jake.

"True," Jake forced himself to smile and keep up his cheerful demeaner for Gemma's sake. He had skimmed over a lot of the details that had led to the band's demise, not letting her know how ugly it had gotten at times, between him and some of the others band members, He had particularly left out that Caroline had been the catalyst for some of those problems. After they had married, he thought she might settle down when showed he was committing himself to her, trying to offer her stability. But that was before he knew how deep her problems ran.

She knew the other members of the band were not keen on her, but rather than try and get along with them, she would do the opposite and provoke them. It was like she was always trying to test his loyalty between them. And he probably would have ended up finishing with her, had he not found out during one of their many arguments over her behaviour, about the abuse she had suffered by her father, and what had happened to her.

She had been on the verge of suicide even then, threatening to cut her wrists after Jake told her he couldn't deal with her behaviour anymore. He had caught her in the bathroom and managed to take the razor out from her hand, when she kept babbling and sobbing incoherently about being a bad evil person who was going to burn in hell for what she done.