Chapter Text
It was remarkably pleasant outside on the day of the St. Peter's Garden Fête.
The year was 1957, and for what felt like the first time in a very long time, summer seemed to be in full bloom. People had grown accustomed to the gloomy, miserable weather that usually covered the skies over Liverpool, but granted, people knew that the weathering conditions could be worse.
Could live in Manchester, for instance.
But for this one day – the 6th of July, to be precise – the weather was completely fitting for the summer-time occasions. The sky was a light blue, almost baby-like, and the clouds had mostly, though not completely, dispersed out of the way; the few that remained were wispy and thin, like a small crowd of primary school children who had wandered off from their designated groups on a school trip. The light, feathery breeze was definitely still there, but it wasn't strong enough or cold enough to negatively affect anybody. If anything, it was soothing. A soft, silk material dancing smoothly around anything it came across, working as a blanket for the people who had contributed to the summer-time feelings by joining in with the celebrations of the season having left the house in short sleeved dresses or shirts, the length of the women's skirts lifted considerably closer towards their knees rather than covering up a good majority of their shins.
In the village where the fête was to take place, in an almost forgotten field behind a practically ancient church, there was a bus stop.
There wasn't anything special about this bus stop. It wasn't even that close to ... well, anything. Odds were, if you got off your ride at that stop, you'd still have to do a good, long walk to wherever you were heading, so it wasn't a 'popular' bus stop, if there was ever such a thing, or a memorial for a local war hero, or a local genius, or anything. And even if it was such a thing, would it really be recognised as anything other than just a bus stop?
But that bus stop did, eventually, matter to one particular boy.
Nothing special happened there, though. Not ever.
But the day Paul McCartney got off a random bus on that bus stop, a bus stop he had never got off at before, he always considered it as a factor in a chain of events that led up to ... well, the rest of his life. He didn’t think about it all the time, mind; the bus stop, that is. But when he sits by himself some days, thinking about, well, everything, it’ll always come up anyway. The bus stop wasn’t the only factor, of course.
For example, he remembers getting on his regular bus to school only a few days prior to the day of the fête.
The weather was gradually getting hotter, and so as Paul hopped on board the familiar vehicle to make the familiar journey to the Liverpool Institute For Boy’s site, he felt particularly agitated and clammy beneath his dark school uniform, his white shirt – hidden beneath a jumper and a school blazer – clung to his skin as the sweat that had begun to build up during his wait for the bus worked as a dreadful, uncomfortable glue between his flesh and the damp fabric of his school shirt.
He took his usual spot on the bus, and that was stood up, clinging onto a metal bar as his only support.
The bus was a little bit less crowded than usual, and it took him long enough to realise it, but when he did he assumed it was because most people would be wagging it; taking the opportunity of a day in the sunshine as a chance for a good day off. The bus had already been driving for a few minutes before an excited yell of "Oi! McCartney!" awakened Paul from his numb daze.
His eyelids flickered, dark lashes batting against the pale skin on his cheeks that were glistening slightly with sweat. His eyes settled on a familiar figure, belonging to a lad he'd not actually been acquainted with for all that long. Well, that wasn't quite true – they had both been in the same school for a good four years or so, and they were good friends, but at the start of their school life, they hadn't been that close. Well, anyway, the tall, lanky body with the bold dark hair sitting smartly on the top of his head belonged to Ivan Vaughan, an exceptionally alright bloke that Paul had grown very fond of over the last year or so especially.
Every time Paul sees him, he's reminded of how curious he had been of Ivan's name when he had first met him. In comparison to the, what Paul considered 'just normal' names he had grew up with – names like James, Mike and Mary – ‘Ivan Vaughan' seemed oddly foreign to him, and once, after a few beers down the local park with a few of the lads from school (ones Paul hardly knew well enough to call 'friends'), Paul vaguely remembers asking something about Ivan's heritage (perhaps not in the most polite way he could have managed, intoxicated with quite a bit more alcohol than his fourteen-year-old body could manage), and recalls – again, only vaguely – being assured that Ivan was born and bred on British soils.
Ever since, he's subconsciously thought of Ivan as 'British Ivan'. Just because it stuck with him, even though he had realised rather long ago by then that it wasn't even that weird a name.
"Aye, Ivan?" Paul replied, his voice hoarse having not spoken properly all morning.
"Sit down, lad, there's plenty of room 'ere," Ivan said as he gestured to the empty seat beside him.
Paul was still in a bit of a daydream, and as he took an almost mindless step forward towards the gap in between the two aisles of seats, he almost lurched on top of a younger looking boy with a lot of brown hair sat atop his head, quiffed back in what you wish you could call a 'ridiculous' hair do, but you really couldn't. Most people only wished they could get their hair to defy gravity in such a way that this lad's could.
Thankfully, before he flew head first into the boy's lap, Paul caught hold of the back of the seat he was sat on.
"Shit; sorry, mate," he muttered as he stumbled against the shake of the bus to sit beside Ivan.
He had just missed the beginning of a quiet giggle from the boy, who had started to say, "Oh, y'alright, Paul?" before he realised that Paul was actually heading towards the seats two rows behind him.
Ivan laughed openly as Paul slumped down lazily next to him. "You're in a fuckin' world of your own, you are, McCartney," he had said, reaching into his blazer pocket to pull out a packet of cigarettes - a packet that Paul figured he had probably nicked from his dad's coat, and he would get a proper telling off for later on in the day.
"Songs stuck in me' head," Paul shrugged as he took an offered ciggy out from between Ivan's fingers and slotted it between his lips, waiting to be handed a match from the matchbox that his friend had just pulled out of his inside pocket.
"Oh, yeah?" Ivan inquired, an eyebrow lifted towards Paul as he struck a match and lit the cigarette between his own lips, making an effort to keep the match lit to hand over to Paul. "Which ones?"
"Oh, no, not hits or anythin'. Had the auntie's around at mine yesterday night, and the old man was on the piano for the length of the day," he paused briefly as he stood up and flicked the match out of the slightly opened window of the bus, before sitting back down and taking a long inhale of his cigarette – he'd kept it well hidden, but he was practically gasping for a smoke by that point. Wasn't supposed to smoke around his family, and granted he'd spent the whole day with them the day before, there wasn't a chance for a cig there at all. He sighed out clouds of smoke, his eyes fluttering shut for a brief moment of relief. "Just little family tunes. Y'know what I mean."
"Yeah, yeah, get it," he replied. "You play alright as well, don't you? Bet you had a go, didn't ya' Paulie?" Ivan grinned knowingly. "You're always havin' a go on any damn instrument you get handed at parties and that."
Paul chuckled. "'course I did, Vaughan. But you're not one to speak; you can be just as bad."
"Piss off, I'm no musician," he paused. "Well, not like you are, anyway."
There was a few seconds silence by that point, in which Paul had simply shrugged his shoulders. A part of him never really knew how to reply to people when they started to talk to him about his musical interests, especially when they complimented him. But that didn't really extinguish the enormous part of him that lit up in a blaze of glory whenever somebody acknowledged his musical ability. He supposed Ivan was aware of it, anyway, because he shot him a knowing smirk before turning his gaze away to the window.
Paul had started to appreciate the silence, as his cigarette started to shrink to a stub, and he embraced the relief it brought to him after being deprived of one for a whole day. But just then, Ivan spoke again.
"Hey, you comin' down to Woolton fête this Saturday?" He asked, rather excitedly, taking Paul off guard and causing him to jump slightly, making some of the ash at the end of his ciggy crumble off and hit the floor of the bus.
Paul scoffed. "Why? What's going on? Dancing around the Maypole?" His mouth quirked into a cheeky smirk. "Singing hymns behind the church with the choir? Ivan, lad, you've gone all soft! Thought you were a part-time rock n' roller!"
Ivan took a very long moment to roll his eyes at his friend's cheekiness. "It's skiffle, actually, but yeah, I am, you twit, and that's what I mean. The Quarrymen are performing there, and I reckon you might wanna' get down there n' all, show them a bit of your stuff. Bring your guitar down with you," Paul recognised the name of the band, and he remembered it as the band that Ivan had explained that he played bass for on occasion. This piqued Paul's interests slightly, so he waited for Ivan to finish speaking. "It'll be an alright day, I reckon, and I bet the lads will like you and all. You're a left-handed legend!"
"Ironic, that. The bird I fingered behind the bus stop the other day said the exact same thing!" Paul feigned a surprised face, and, again, a part of him started to glow with a satisfying, proud feeling as Ivan coiled forward in laughter, dropping his ciggy on the floor as he did so.
Paul chuckled along for a bit, but before their conversation could be resumed, the bus came to an abrupt halt, and Ivan hadn't even had the chance to sit up straight before his head collided with the seat in front of him. Paul let out a loud, quick laugh as Ivan grumbled miserably, rubbing the top of his head fiercely with the palm of his hand.
Most of the boys on the bus stumbled off in a large crowd, and all headed in the same direction towards the doors of Liverpool Institute.
Just before Paul started to walk off in his own direction, Ivan grabbed hold of his shoulder. "You gonna’ pop down then, on Saturday? C'mon, 'Cartney, it'll be a right laugh!"
Paul shrugged, pulling an 'I dunno, really' sort of face. "I might do. I'll talk to you about it a little later on, mate. See you in a bit." Paul waved once and before Ivan could inquire further, he was heading off through the halls of the school.
And that's what got him to where he was on that summer Saturday.
***
Despite the overall beauty of the Saturday day, the walk from the bus stop to the church was far from enjoyable. It wasn't boiling weather, but it was hot enough to be noticed, and for Paul, with the weight of his acoustic on his back, on top of the white jacket he had elected to wear, his body wanted to cave forward onto the – suddenly comfy looking – ground.
But he kept walking, Ivan by his side, until they arrived at the church; it was around half past two in the afternoon by that point, and the first thing Paul remembers noticing as they made their way towards the field at the back of the building, was the music.
It wasn't a familiar tune, mind; it was very ... well, skiffle. It was all really on-the-spot like, but it wasn't bad. Not at all, because Paul felt the need to rush to the source of the scruffy beats, the uncoordinated rhythm – mostly because it was the only thing he was aware he could understand there. If truth be told, he wouldn't hang around Woolton much. It wasn't really his area, so coming down to the fête was somewhat an experience for Paul.
Still, he wasn't eager to spend the afternoon mostly lost, not really knowing what to do with himself.
However, for the most part, they just drifted through the field. The skiffle music Paul first heard was always there, though, in the background; it was very distinguishable from the other sideshows going on; other little groups, the odd banjo player here and there, a choir performance or two.
Paul sniggered to himself at that. The choir work was gorgeous, don't get him wrong. But he recalled teasing Ivan about singing with the choir at the fête on the bus to school the other day, and it pleased him slightly to know that he had been partly right, even though he had only really been joking.
Still, there was always that continuous unchoreographed melody, pouring from a little Tannoy system.
Soon enough, him and Ivan found themselves stood deeper into the field within a small (but honestly still decent sized for a fête) audience, watching the Quarrymen.
Paul remembers being, eh, mildly impressed by them. They were good, and God there was a tune that ended up stuck in his head for a good few days after the whole event.
But he found himself especially drawn to the lead singer.
He held himself very confident, despite the slight trembling of the truck he was stood on as the band around him moved and stomped their feet with the music they were producing. At first, what struck Paul were the laid back clothes he wore; a red and white checked shirt and dark blue jeans, particularly tight around his thighs. The top few buttons of his shirt were undone, revealing the collar bones that seemed highlighted somehow by the way the sun hit them. His sleeves were rolled up lazily, and you could literally see the veins in his hands and arms pulsing as he strummed the sunburst acoustic he played; Paul thought that if he played any harder, he'd find himself with a snapped string or two, and the musician in him desperately wanted to tell him, but he didn't. He stood where he was, just watching.
The fella' had auburn hair, too, which for some reason distinguished him anyhow from the rest of the group. Paul imagined it had something to do with the sun literally glowing off it, reflecting in an almost golden way, the curls that were brought up towards the top of his head, in an obviously desperate attempt to resemble the way Elvis Presley wore his hair sometimes, bouncing up and down with the movement of where he was standing.
In fact, Paul realised he seldom looked away from the boy; he was by far the more coordinated in the group – he definitely knew what he was doing, the way he smirked and winked at the girls watching, and how every now and again he'd take a glance around at the rest of the band, giving them a certain look that instantly worked as an instruction. He was in charge, and it was clear, and Paul was hypnotised by the way he worked. It was different, intriguing, majestic.
And ... hang on a minute.
Paul knew this song. He'd heard it a while ago playing in a record shop (he used to go to them whenever he could, wherever he found them. Most of the time he couldn't afford to actually buy any records, but he could listen to them in the little booths that the stores often had).
…or did he know this song?
The lyrics were a bit off. He doesn't remember them going like that when he'd heard it.
"Love, love me, darling, come and go with me..." those few words confirmed it. Paul definitely knew the song; it was that new one by the Del ... Romans? Vikings? Something or other like that. They were good, nonetheless, and the song was called Come And Go With Me, that much he knew for certain, but...
"Down, down, down to the, penitentiary..."
What?
Those were blues lyrics, absolutely, but they weren't from this song, and...
Oh God. Paul understood then. He can't have known the words; this song was a new release in the UK. There's no way that this lad could have learnt the whole song within a few weeks. Bloody genius. He was making the words up! Paul laughed then, and tapping his foot along to the song, nudged Ivan and grinned, indicating his enjoyment, making it evident.
"Who's that one?" Paul asked Ivan, pointing directly at the singer. "In fact, whilst we're at it; tell us who they all are, will ya?"
Ivan leaned closer to Paul, removing the newly lit cigarette from his mouth to speak. "Well, that one, at the front – that one's John. You know him; I've told you about him loads of times! Fantastic, he is. Crackin' lad. And, uh ... the blonde fellow with the washboard – that's Pete. Uh, the drummer's called Colin but I don't really know him too well. Eric Griffiths is the bloke on the other guitar, and Rod's on banjo. Oh, yeah, and Len's on that tea chest bass. He's the one I cover for every now and again." Ivan paused for a moment as Paul laughed again at another improvised lyric. "You like 'em, then?"
"They're alright," Paul said, nodding in beat to the music.
There was another moment of silence between the two, before Ivan spoke again. "Oh, Phil's over there – you gonna come over and say 'allo or are you alright here?"
"I'm fine here," Paul answered before he could even consider his words properly; he instantly felt rude, not going to say hello to a mate from school, but he was content watching the band go on.
Ivan chuckled. "'ite, I'll come back for you when they finish up; that won't be long, I reckon. I'll introduce you. You just ... warm your fingers up in whatever way you see fit," he said with a wink, earning a giggle from Paul, before he slipped away to Phil who was purchasing a drink for himself and for Ivan.
Ivan was right. The afternoon show ended soon enough, and Paul soon came back to his natural, more focused, senses. He had some lemonade in his hand, that he'd practically forgotten about, and he took a very casual sip from it as he spun around, searching for Ivan.
In fact, he didn't have to. Ivan and Phil were both beside him in an instant, and the Quarrymen were already heading inside the church hall with their instruments as Ivan gripped Paul's arm tightly and started uttering something to Phil, which apparently caused Phil to stop and jog off to a group of girls.
Ah, the pull of the evening, Paul concluded.
They were inside the church hall sooner than Paul could really comprehend and Pete and Rod both snapped their head's upwards, staring at Ivan, and then at Paul, and then back to Ivan, trying to figure out what was going on and who the extra boy was, and why he was walking towards them with a guitar on his back and a half empty cup of cheap lemonade in his hand.
"Alright, John?" Ivan yelled, and John looked up from his guitar instantly.
Snapped string.
Paul, you're the Sherlock Holmes of deduction, he couldn't help thinking of himself, rather smugly grinning as he reached the band, and John stared at him.
With a closer look at him, Paul realised just how suave John really looked. Sideboards and the hair at the sides of his head gelled back almost perfectly; Paul, for a moment, felt the need to silently worship this lad in a way he used to appreciate Elvis Presley.
"How goes, Ivan?" John replied. "Who's your mate?"
Paul's eyes widened and he glanced to Ivan for some sort of protection, waiting for Ivan to explain, but to Paul's dismay, Ivan coolly replied with:
"Well, like you say. He's me' mate." And Ivan gave the same expectant look that Paul had given him a moment ago.
"And who is he?" Paul looked back at John, and Paul's eyes were instantly drawn towards the older boy's and, for whatever reason, it soothed him enough for him to take up the responsibility of introducing himself.
"Paul," he said, his own confidence surprising him as he held out his hand to John, who was sat on a chair, bent over his guitar.
"John," he replied, taking hold of Paul's hand in a shockingly firm grip, shaking it quickly, business-like, before letting go.
Paul suddenly felt very sophisticated.
"Pleasure," he said, a bit too formally.
At that, John snorted, and it started a chorus of laughter from the rest of the group.
Paul cringed madly, and a part of him wanted to turn and walk away, but then John spoke again, his voice still slightly teasing. "Saw you watching us tonight," he said factually as he turned his gaze back to his guitar, desperately trying to fit the spare string into place. "What did you think?"
For some reason, Paul was slightly taken aback by the question. "Oh, I- yeah, you're alright," he said, and regretted it instantly.
"Alright?" John repeated, and Paul wanted to clear up what he meant, wanted to tell John how much of a good time he'd had watching them, having a laugh with Ivan all the while, but instead he shrugged his shoulders and nodded his head, watching cautiously as John stared at Ivan and Ivan chuckled beneath his breath in return.
But John just smirked at Paul – a glowing, powerful smirk that was slightly infectious, but Paul kept his expression as neutral as he could. He just couldn't understand why John was looking ... impressed?
Paul had known this boy not even five minutes, and he was already proving impossible to understand.
"Well, you seem alright yourself, Princess Paulie," he said, and Paul sighed almost inaudibly at the nickname, so John never noticed, but it couldn't have been difficult to notice that it was an agitating comment to make. "You play?" John then inquired, lifting his eyebrows and pinning his gaze on the black of the guitar case peaking over Paul's shoulder.
"A bit," he shrugged again, carelessly, although now there was a confident grin creeping its way onto his delicate features.
Ivan scoffed beside him. "'A bit', he says. Show 'em, 'Cartney."
Paul suddenly felt under pressure, and his cheeks began to burn slightly, indicating the beginning of a blush, but he pushed it aside as much as he could as he looked back to John, and John looked back at him expectantly, smiling almost encouragingly.
"Yeah, show us, Paulie," he said, grinning at the rest of the group, who had remained silent through the whole encounter.
So Paul swiftly removed his guitar from its case, dropping it gently on the floor and pulling the guitar strap around his neck.
"Hang on just a minute, 'ere!" John announced, and Paul stood still, holding the plectrum against the strings patiently. "You're wearing that the wrong way 'round!"
"Leftie," Paul answered nonchalantly, tapping his left hand against the body of the instrument before moving on from the subject. "Requests?"
"Ooooh," John sang in an intimidating high pitch voice, and the rest of the group laughed along with him, but for some reason, it didn't falter Paul much at all. He just raised one dark, sharp eyebrow, waiting for an answer that never came.
So he started playing, and he fed off the power he suddenly felt from the cocky way he had gone on without an instruction or a request.
His fingers glided across the neck of the guitar smoothly, as his left hand controlled the rhythm of the song with the plectrum; the words came to him without even thinking about it, and he just started to sing, letting the music take control of any trace of unease he may have felt within him, taking away any nerves, and he was doing what he was supposed to be doing – performing.
"Well, I got a girl with a record machine, when it comes to rockin' she's a queen..." he sang, and he silently thanked the Lord that that was probably the best he had ever sounded singing this song in particular – he wasn't necessarily Eddie Cochran perfect, but for his own set standards, he was secretly impressed by himself.
And apparently, so were the others.
As he began to sing, John's eyes lit up, his features softening in a way that made Paul’s heart pound, and he sat up straighter, his mouth quirking up into half a grin as Paul played on, unable to contain the smirk that crept onto his own lips in response to John's – evidently positive – reaction.
"But she lives on the twentieth floor of town - the elevator's broken down. So I walk one, two flight, three flight, four, five, six, seven flight, eight flight more, twelfth floor I'm ready to drag, fifteenth floor and I'm startin' to sag - get to the top, and I'm too tired to rock..." he elected to leave the song at that, finishing with one final, harder strum of the strings and leaning back as he finished, staring at the rest of the company, waiting for some sort of inclination of a criticism, or possibly even a compliment – something.
"Well," John began, a little bit too casually. "We better get back on, lads," he said, leaning his guitar down beside him, having fixed the snapped string. Paul felt slightly offended, if anything, because he had just performed in front of them all (and quite well, if he were to say so himself), and he felt very rejected, neglected, that John had basically ignored him entirely.
Then John looked back to Paul. "We've got an evenin' show to do, you see."
"Ah," Paul said, nodding his head, understanding the dismissal with a slightly gloomy feeling brewing in the pit of his stomach. "'course. I understand."
He was just leaning down to pick up his case, getting ready to place his guitar back inside it when he felt John shift downwards to Paul's level, their faces alarmingly close together. Paul wanted to move away, but he felt that everything with this boy was going to be a challenge of proving yourself for a while, so he held his gaze, not backing down. He didn't say anything, just waited for John to speak, but he couldn’t stop his eyes from staring out John’s features further; suddenly, every single pore that made up John’s face was visible, noticeable, right there in front of Paul, and it dawned upon him that there didn’t seem to be a single flaw on this boy’s face. His nose wasn’t big or small, although it craned forward in a beak-like way, it wasn’t unattractive – if anything, it just made him look mature, as though he was looking down at you with authority, even though he probably wasn’t most of the time; one close look at his warm, brown eyes told you so straight away. The shape of them made them seem sharp and glaring at first, but from the angle Paul was at in that moment, John’s eyelashes curved in a delicate way, highlighting the way his eyes glowed autumn colours in the orange of the setting sun beyond the church windows.
It reminded Paul of home.
"Come back after, yeah?" John said, bringing Paul’s attention away from John’s face and back to packing away his guitar. The older boy (John, who Paul had been told was 16 – almost 17 – nearly two years older than himself) pressed his thin lips together in a wide, inviting smile. "We're stickin' around for a bit, ain't we, lads?" There was a pause as the other members nodded and smiled, more politely than Paul could have imagined them capable of. "So you can come back, and we–" he indicated towards the others "–can booze up a wee' bit. What'd you say, Paulie?"
Without hesitation, Paul nodded his head quickly, his mind swooning slightly from being within such close proximity to this boy, who was essentially a stranger, and slammed the guitar case closed clumsily before picking it up and slinging it over his back. "Uh – yeah, yeah – that okay with you, Ivan?"
Ivan had his arms folded, looking rather smug with himself for bringing Paul at all, and for impressing the rest of them with his friend. "Aye, of course."
"Smashing," John said, feigning a strong posh accent, so unnatural to his usual swanky tone that Paul had dubbed as his idiolect already. "Well, ta ta, then."
"O-oh, yeah," Paul stuttered, grinning crookedly. "See you."
As Paul and Ivan walked away, Ivan talking about how 'Great it was that Paul actually knew all the words to Twenty Flight Rock', Paul heard Rod – or was it Pete? – saying something along the lines of "rather him ours than anyone else’s," to John, and Paul grinned smugly, feeling more proud of himself than he had done in a while.
***
Paul stumbled home that night.
Not from alcohol, mind you.
It was mostly from sheer exhaustion.
It was very unlike him, really, to stay out so late; he didn’t drink anything all night other than that cheap lemonade some of the Sisters from the church had got a load of little choir girls to stir up for the fête, so he wasn’t stumbling with intoxication, and he definitely wasn’t thoughtless due to the influence of alcohol when it came to only just returning home at one-in-the-morning, so he didn’t know what to blame, really.
Although a massive part of him wanted to blame that ruddy John Lennon lad.
He hadn’t done anything, though, and that’s why Paul couldn’t bring himself to really get into his head that it was him that had kept him lingering about Woolton all night. Paul had just gotten himself lost, really; lost in this magical night that, to the blind eye, was nothing new or unusual. It was a gathering in a dark church hall after a summer fête, for Christ’s sake. In fact, Paul found himself cringing at himself every time he tried to get his head around what was different about that night, but he would always conclude with the same thing.
It was John.
The way he had gotten so drunk so quickly, yet been able to last the whole night without coiling over in heaves like Paul probably would have ended up doing had he been drinking as much as John did; the way he leaned over Paul’s shoulder, almost possessively, as Paul played a load of thoughtless, doolally tunes on the church piano. Even as he knocked out a go on the organ behind a curtain on the old wooden stage of the hall, John was still there, breathing an alarmingly beery breath down Paul’s neck, sweating ferociously and the both of them beginning to stink of their own body odour as the heat of the many other people in the hall still dancing radiated upwards, onto the stage, finding the two lads and infecting them – that is, if John wasn’t already sweating the outrageous amount of booze he had treated himself to, and Paul wasn’t sweating away his nerves as he felt the intense gaze of the odd boy watching his every move, although Paul could see John vaguely in the darkness, watched him as he chuckled and bobbed his head to whatever meaningless tune Paul thought up; heck, even the way he tried to prove himself musically, Paul was intrigued with. Normally, Paul would roll his eyes and disregard the thoughtless arrogance, but John really wanted to be the best, and that wasn’t very difficult for Paul to understand.
So what Paul McCartney really got himself lost in was the wonderful whirling world of John that seemed to change into a new atmosphere every minute.
But that made absolutely no sense at all to Paul, who was too shattered to really conjure up such in-depth, thoughtful ideas and conclusions from just one night. He might not even see John again, he found himself pondering, but he hoped he did, because Paul knew deep down that he was slightly mesmerised by the whole movement and meaning of Lennon.
He’d also have to find a way to help John out with the guitar a bit; Paul had picked up that a lot of the chords John played on his sunburst acoustic – which only had four strings as it was – were banjo chords, not really guitar chords.
But he’d just have to wait and see, really, and pretend to not be mithered at all if he never even heard of John Lennon again.
At that moment, as he stumbled off the road and onto the concrete pavement on Forthlin Road, Paul had more pressing matters to concern himself with. One being his father, who seemed to still be awake, judging by the light Paul could see seeping through the thin material of the living room curtains of number 20.
“Oh, shit.”
***
The next few weeks all went by in a blur.
Nothing changed after the night at the fête. Paul spent the entire following Sunday locked away in the confines of his home at 20 Forthlin Road, while desperately trying to avoid the disapproving gaze of his father and the patronising smirks of his younger brother.
Mike McCartney was only two years younger than his brother, but that gap was enough for Paul to consider him the most childish creature he had ever come across; in all his older-brother-wisdom, everything Mike did Paul deemed as silly and immature, but as a cheeky thirteen-year-old lad from Liverpool, Mike was getting to the stage where he really didn’t care about constantly impressing his older sibling, and he embraced any uprising possibility he could find to get on Paul’s nerves as much as possible, even if it was just grinning at him every time he saw Paul walk into the same room as him on that Sunday, granted Mike had stayed awake just to see his father’s reaction to his brother’s late return home and was aware of the whole situation.
Paul appeared from his bedroom in the morning at around ten o’clock, rubbing his eyes and scratching his belly through his white pyjama shirt as he stretched and shuffled along the landing towards the stairs.
Suddenly, a feeling in Paul’s gut made him flinch and shiver. The similar frightened feeling of the night before returned as he realised that he would eventually have to run into his angry father again and put up with another telling off and the awful mood Paul knew he would be in, as he always would be after one of his sons did something he didn’t approve of.
Paul peered through the living room door, trying to keep himself concealed behind it, so that he could just about scan around the room for his father, but also so that he wouldn’t be noticed and could make a quick escape if need be.
Luckily, old Jim McCartney was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Mike sat in their father’s favourite armchair, right beside the tiny television and hidden behind the door.
When Paul’s eyes found his brother, Mike was already staring at him, smirking with a knowing look at his older brother, holding his camera in his hands and quirking an eyebrow at him.
“You take a picture of me now, Mike, I’ll cripple ya’, you twat.” Paul scowled before relaxing, comfortable that their dad was nowhere to be seen and revealing the rest of him as he moved away from his hiding place behind the door and sitting on the arm of the brown sofa nearby, folding his arms over his chest. “Where’s dad?”
Mike didn’t answer, just stared at Paul with that same cocky grin.
Paul was growing inpatient and so he shrugged his shoulders, casually as ever, and leaned towards the little wooden table beside where he was perched, picking out a toffee from the Television Selection box that their dad always seemed to have, and pelted the hard sweet at his brother’s face.
“Agh – for fuck’s sake, Paul!” Mike screamed, slapping his hand over his eye. “Ye’ got me in the fucking eye, you dolt!”
“’Ey, watch it, Mikey,” Paul started confidently, having regained control over the conversation. “Dad would belt ye’ if he heard you mouthing off to me like that.”
“Hypocrite,” Mike pouted, rubbing his eye ferociously with his hand. “You swear all the time.”
“I’m older,” Paul said haughtily, picking out another toffee and this time unwrapping it and eating it himself – despite the fact that he hadn’t even had breakfast yet. “Where’s dad?” He repeated, and this time, Mike answered.
“Shops,” Mike said, still pouting and clearly put into a shite mood, but his attention was turned towards his camera again now. “Said he wanted to ‘beat the traffic’ or something; think he meant he wanted to skip the queues in the markets, actually. He left about… what, twenty odd minutes ago…?” he smirked again, chuckling. “Don’t worry, you can grab ye’ breaky without the looming fear of him knocking you out, Paulie.”
Paul glared down at his sibling, clenching his jaw in annoyance. “Piss off, Mike. He didn’t knock me out last night.”
“Nah, you’re right, but you didn’t seem too happy when he got yer’ arse with the dishcloth.”
At this, Paul stood up so quickly that Mike visibly flinched and clenched his eyes shut, expecting a dig in the arm, at least. He was surprised, then, when he heard the laughter of his brother float across the room in an almost soft way, and he opened up one eye, peeking out only to find that Paul had left the room.
“If you’re doing yourself a brew, do us o-!”
“No!” Paul yelled instantly as he filled up the kettle and put it on the stove.