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Some fucker put the footage up on YouTube.
It went up in the afternoon, on a summer afternoon when there was nothing in the papers and nothing on the telly and the kids weren't back at school. Liam probably saw it more or less at once, because his Twitter messages must have been jammed to buggery with links; but Noel first got wind of it from Anais.
u n uncle liam?? http://youtu.be/P0asihoa2w
The clip was thirty-eight seconds long, and that was more than it needed to show everything to make its point. Its title was:
GALLAGHER BROTHERS MAKE OUT
90s camera footage, blurry and grainy; but there was no ambiguity about what was happening in the anonymous room on Noel's phone screen. Not a hotel room; a recording studio? Backstage?
It cut in on the two of them on the floor in a nest of beanbags. No sound. And it was them, you could see that, there was no denying that it was Noel and Liam on those beanbags, and that Liam was half on top of Noel and their legs had got tangled. That was innocent enough, wasn't it? Liam had his hand on Noel's chest and he was stroking it in little circles and that was innocent too, God knew Liam had come up behind him on stage and pinched his nipples or his arse enough times that there was nothing new or shocking here.
Now Liam leaned over and kissed him, a friendly little kiss. They'd done that sometimes, too. Noel was already composing his response: I always thought 'making out' was American for 'snogging', maybe with a bit of what we used to call 'heavy petting' thrown in - but if that's what we're calling 'making out', now God knows what you'd call a real kiss. Oral sex? Do Americans think oral sex is sticking your tongue in somebody's mouth?
Liam kissed him again, longer this time, lingeringly. The scene pricked at Noel's memory. America? No, home, but it had happened during summer. Liam's hand was still petting circles on Noel's chest, and now he was undoing a button to slip his hand inside to touch the skin. How old were they here? Liam looked maybe mid-twenties, but it was hard to make out on the blurry footage.
Noel saw his own hand come up to wrap around Liam's shoulders, like he was pulling him down. Liam rolled further onto him and then they were really kissing, you could see their open mouths and if the quality hadn't been shite he was sure he'd have seen tongue. He watched himself bite Liam's lip, and was touched by a vivid sense-memory of Liam twitching in his arms. Liam always liked that, being bitten.
The video showed several seconds of this, of the two of them snogging - yes, making out like the video title claimed - and Noel though that was the end of it, that was the worst of it, just the two of them kissing lazily and Liam feeling up Noel's chest - another sense memory of hairy skin under his fingers. It looked intimate. It might as well have a sign pop up: WE'VE DONE THIS BEFORE.
Thirty-five seconds. Four seconds from the end. Liam's hand slipped between Noel's legs. Noel watched his legs spread a little wider so Liam could grope him more easily. They moved together, undulated together.
The video ended. It offered related videos. Seven were interviews and more blurry concert footage. One was some bloke giving an opinion on the band, like Noel gave a flying monkey's bollocks. One purported to be two of the One Direction kids going at it in a hotel room.
Christ alive. Noel rubbed his chin and hit replay.
It was no better the second time round. That was still him, sometime in the nineties, snogging his brother. That was the two of them feeling each other up. There were no other band members around, so he couldn't claim that they'd just been having a few laughs, teasing Guigsy and everybody. It wasn't like they were up on stage, where there was the plausible deniability of performance fever, of playing to a crowd. It was just them, the two of them, alone in some room with beanbags - that he couldn't remember properly, only got weird tilted angles without context that suggested that wherever and whenever it was, he'd been pretty coked up - kissing and touching. Kissing and touching each other gently, intently, the way you did with long-time lovers, the way you did when you knew someone and you were sure of them.
Who the fuck had filmed them? And why the fuck had they waited until now to release it to the world? And what the fuck was he going to tell - fuck, everybody? How was he supposed to reply to Anais' text with anything apart from 'Fucking hell'?
For one mad moment, he considered pretending he hadn't seen it. Just - pretend he'd never got the text. Deny ever clicking anything when ratbag journos asked about it. Say something like, Yeah, I didn't even bother looking at it, it's just the same old shite, innit? Just 'cos Liam and me used to hug, and Liam being a gobshite used to try and kiss me sometimes just to piss me off. Because Liam had tried to kiss him just to piss him off, in front of other people, even tried to grab his cock a few times on stage when Noel was too busy with his guitar to slap his hands away, always trying to get his big brother's attention just like he did now. Always the same way: say something nice about him, then call him a knobhead. Liam never fucking grew up.
"Fucking Christ," he said to the silent living room. What a thing to turn up. And how the fuck had Anais seen it? Somebody had probably sent it to her, or for all Noel knew it was up on music websites by now. Anais lived on the Internet with all her mates. And they would all have seen it now, because the video had been posted - he checked - four hours ago, and had nearly a million views. Everybody must have seen it. He'd be getting call or a text from his agent any minute, because the minute that came to light - a news article, some squealing intern - they'd be out for damage control. They'd need to put out a statement. Fuck.
It wasn't as if there weren't plenty of pictures of them kissing - of Liam kissing Noel, usually. Some American woman had even done a painting of that time Noel had walked on stage and leaned down to kiss Liam who was sitting on an amp, in front of a few thousand people. He couldn't even remember what he'd been thinking, now. He might not have been thinking much, what with the coke. It had felt right to kiss Liam, so he'd done it. He'd say as much in any publication that was stupid enough to ask about it, maybe make some crack about being young and high and mistaking Liam for his missus with that long hair.
There was no way round the video. It wasn't chaste and fraternal, it wasn't having a laugh. It wasn't even making a stupid macho point. It was them, canoodling, like they were - like they were fucking boyfriends or something. Like any two young men feeling each other up, a leisurely kiss-and-grope in a private moment. And that was the damning thing about it. It wasn't even just a bit of randy fun of the kind you could blame on coke and not caring who you were copping off with. An aura of intimacy pervaded those grainy seconds, not even a full minute of footage.
Best thing for it was probably to deny all. Deny he'd ever seen the footage, and act scornful of anybody who brought it up. But there was one person who could usually be relied upon not to keep his mouth shut.
The good thing about Liam having a big gob, no filter and a shitload of loose screws rattling round in his otherwise empty head was, nobody took him too seriously. He could tell the audience they'd had sex last night, and nobody had believed him, because, well, of course they hadn't. They were brothers, so obviously they hadn't. A bit of kissing on stage could be blamed on the coke, and Liam's antics could be blamed on Liam being himself (and coke). But this was - fuck, this was evidence. This wasn't plausibly deniable. And this time, if Liam decided to blab shit, people might actually believe him.
The answer was lawyers, probably. Get the video taken down for something, anything, fuck if he knew what they could claim but no doubt they could claim something. Say it wasn't him and Liam, just some weird lookalikes and besides the picture quality was shit so how the fuck could you even tell? Swear blind there was nothing more to it.
But he already knew, from bitter experience, that not even lawyers would deter Liam from opening his mouth. He'd said nothing, for all the ten years they'd not spoken, because presumably he thought the same way Noel did: it was private. And now, when faced with this video - fuck, he'd probably already seen it - he might well say it was none of anybody else's business, just the two of them having a laugh, course I love my brother don't I? He might say that. Or he might say yeah, me and our kid used to cop off together, what about it? And then Noel's life would just fucking crash. Somehow, he had to keep Liam from opening his fat fucking gob.
Contemplating Liam torpedoing Noel's career, marriage, and reputation in one fell swoop didn't make him feel any more warmly inclined towards his brother. But, Noel realised with a sinking feeling, this stupid fucking video might achieve what Liam had been claiming to want for years. If they were going to get their story straight and keep it all a secret - no lawyers, no family, not even their Mam - Noel would have to talk to Liam again.