Chapter Text
It was nearly November, but rays of sunlight were already shooting sidelong into the front bedrooms at 20 Forthlin Road. Paul could feel their warmth landing on his face and stretching over his neck and ear. He tried to shield the sun from his eyes with an arm, but his eyelids were glowing red, and so he rolled over and sat up, blinking and running a hand slowly through his hair, like his mother used to do. He’d always liked the feeling of her fingers caressing him, the comfort of being careless, dependent for a moment if only that long.
Those days were done now. Paul needed to be strong: he was the eldest son, and with a little brother and a widower father he could not afford to wish away the situation at hand. There could be no going back. Especially today , he thought suddenly, with a sinking stomach and sudden urge to begin moving, to do anything. He had realised that today, being the day after the 30th, must now be the thirty-first of October, 1957. That meant that as of today, it had been a year since Mary passed away.
Paul threw the blanket off his feet and stood up quickly. His breathing was fast, and he controlled it carefully as he looked around a bit wildly for something warm. A hot burning behind his eyes made him flinch; abandoning the search haphazardly and blinking fast, he snatched his guitar from its spot by the wall and checked the tuning quickly, holding the body up to his ear. When he was done he simply stood in the doorway, closing his eyes and focusing on the feeling of the guitar as he held it closely: the back of the neck smooth in his right palm, the taut metal strings ready under his fingers and the wooden body as it fit under his left arm. Then he opened his eyes marginally steadier, shifted it to one hand and hurried down the stairs.
Paul caught a glimpse of Jim McCartney seated in his chair, good ear towards the middle of the room as usual. He passed the front parlour, however, and made his way into the kitchen, where Mike was dejectedly pouring a cup of tea. Of course he had remembered too. He looked up quickly as Paul came in, but he seemed to read the expression on his face -- I don’t want to talk about it -- and simply continued into the front parlour. Paul followed suit; Jim acknowledged him when he came in.
Paul raised his eyebrows, keeping his father’s attention carefully, and gestured at the small glass of red wine in the shadows by Jim’s feet. ‘But Dad--’ he remarked hopefully, setting down his own tea -- ‘isn’t it a bit early for that? Wouldn’t you enjoy… something a bit lighter?'
There was a suggestive pause and Jim realised what Paul was on about and chuckled at his feet.
'-- ‘Pink Champagne’?'
'Go ahead, son,' answered Jim, softening a little. Paul breathed with relief and smiled proudly at Jim starting ahead with the song without looking at the fretboard. To his delight his fingers were in the right places and the notes came easily. 'How much have you got now, lad?'
'Enough,' Paul shrugged. He let himself disappear into the song, showing off. He breathed deeply and focused again on the feeling of the guitar in his arms. The lump that had formed in his throat when he’d noticed his father’s wine softened; he looked around the room as the song flowed through it. The right hand beat and held strings to wood; the opposite arm felt free as a bird, riding on the wind of his energy and rhythm as the painstakingly practiced notes skipped along. Though the end of the song passed several times, Paul gave no notice and simply joined it up to the first part again, enjoying the harmony.
After several runs he noted the shift in Jim’s eyes that meant he was verging on ridiculous repetition. Skipping to the end, Paul tied the last notes up neatly, satisfied with his playing. Jim liked this, he knew, better than Elvis or certainly the wild Little Richard. It was from his sort of musical era, Twenties.
'Well done, son,' Jim chuckled after he’d finished. 'Good job. Have you gotten ready for school? Would you like something to eat?'
Paul declined quickly. ‘I’ll just have tea, thanks.’ And he picked his cup up.
~~~~~~~~~~~
George Harrison's school cap perched precariously on his enormous dark quiff. He'd arrived humming to school but classes were uniquely boring and he'd come out of the last one sulky and dissatisfied. The guitar he'd started yesterday was nowhere to be found, so he'd started on a new one, but the f holes kept coming out all messy.
In the toilets, standing over one of the sinks along the long, grubby mirror was his friend Paul McCartney, 'nine months' older but put in the Removes for failing Latin intentionally once he found out it might lead him to becoming a teacher or such. Not for the first time he was rubbing furiously at the side of his hand, which was stained black with ink all down to his wrist. His hair was beginning to stray from its quiff, falling in front of those hazel eyes (exceptionally pretty for a boy, and expressive). Birds in town, giggling madly, liked to call them things like ANGELIC and then scamper off, making the backs of Paul's ears flush. He would only encourage them, of course, and had become quite the accomplished winker. HE wanted to look like ELVIS, of course. But then, who didn't? George came up beside him and smirked at the inky water in Paul's sink. He inspected his own hair carefully.
'Watch out, Paul,' he said, 'or it'll never go away. One of those days you'll be stuck with black and greasy hands forever. Disgusting, lad.'
'Hello to you too,' muttered Paul, not looking at him.
'Of course, perhaps the birds might stop bothering you then, eh?'
Paul turned away from the sink, wiping his hand fiercely on the inside of his coat. 'Aw, shut up,' he said shortly and left the toilet without another word. George peered into the mirror again and nudged a hair into perfection, then swung open the door again and caught up with Paul halfway down the hallway, grabbing his arm. Paul turned around, expression closed off. Those normally expressive eyes were unreadable.
'Hang on, don't be short,' George appealed. 'I wanted to tell you that I got that new release-- 'Rock and Roll Music'.'
Far from the expected reaction of interest and curious questions, Paul looked at him a second, and with a sudden, impatient, angry expression he pulled away, wrenching his arm from George's grasp. 'Sorry, Georgie, bugger off,' he insisted hotly.
'Chuck Berry, Paul,' George stressed.
'Yep.'
'American rock and roll song!'
'Just go, will you please?'
Something sharp in Paul's tone shook George, and he obeyed warily, Paul's words echoing repeatedly in his brain. Something was wrong. How had he not noticed anything?
Paul’s voice had been shaking, he reflected now. Something was up. Yes, he’d just seemed at first glance like an impatient prick. Paul could be like that. But this was different somehow. He seemed simultaneously terrified and shocked if you looked very closely, which you had to because he was hiding it as well as he could. For one thing, Paul was always such an unbending optimist that it was easy for him to do as was his nature and put on a cheerful face when he was upset without anyone raising an eyebrow, but somehow today he couldn’t manage it. He’d resorted to making his stubbornly expressive eyes as blank as possible rather than cover it -- whatever it was -- up.
And he’d just been acting so different. Where he was normally an insufferable people-pleaser Paul had seemed desperate to push George away, no matter how he came off. His tone had been clipped and heated, his body tense, closed off. It had hardly been a minute before he snapped, his temper out of control. But the strangest thing was he’d totally lost interest in a new single. Chuck Berry. How could Paul not show any excitement over American rock n’ roll??
Curious and uneasy, George set off in the opposite direction, resolving not to bother Paul again that day. Perhaps it just wasn’t his business to find out.