Shelter In Your Love (Beatles Fan Fiction)

60. Poor Little Girl

Poor little girl, 
With her head in the air,
There's a poorly sick world all around you

'Sorry, love, I didn't mean to wake you. I thought you were up already.'

I open my eyes to bright sunshine and a lady with short, white hair standing over me. She wears a lemon yellow dress, trimmed with white lace and a striped apron over it. She smiles kindly as she sets a cup and saucer down on the bedside table. She wears red lipstick but hardly any other makeup. Her eyes are bright and soft and that same familiar shade of chocolate brown. George's mother.

'Cup of tea for you, love.'

'Thank you,' I reply, embarrassed to meet her like this. I struggle to sit up in the bed, trying to keep the covers pulled up to my neck, although it does little to disguise my shape beneath them. She glances at the bump and then quickly averts her eyes and retreats to the bedroom door.

She pauses as she's about to go out. 'Just come to the kitchen whenever you're ready,' she tells me, and adds as an afterthought, 'Breakfast is cooking.'

After she's gone, I sit up and drink the tea, watching as the pink and yellow floral bedroom curtains flap in the breeze from the open window.

George's parents had already gone to bed when we arrived just before ten o'clock last night. Their house is a cosy little bungalow, surrounded by the Cheshire countryside. The house only has two bedrooms, George's parent's room and a guest room, where I am. George went to sleep on a camp bed, set up in the attic of the house. Something he's used to, apparently.

After I've finished my tea, I get out of bed and dress in yesterday's clothes. I have nothing with me. No toothbrush, no change of underwear. George found me an old shirt to sleep in.

There is a tall, oval shaped, free standing mirror in the bedroom. When I turn sideways, the glass isn't wide enough to fit my entire reflection - my body and my bump - in it's frame. I look drab. My hair is dull and long, without any style. My fringe has out grown. It's down to the end of my nose now, so for the first time in my life I don't have a fringe at all. My skin looks pale. I'm not wearing any makeup. I never used to go out without it, but when I was in Whitby I stopped wearing it and I haven't since.

No wonder George walked past me yesterday, not recognising me. No wonder the doctor looked at me like I was something he'd just wiped off his shoe. No wonder all the people in the prison waiting room stared at me like they did. Pity and disapproval. Despair and shame.

Gingerly, I make my way from the bedroom towards the kitchen, carrying my empty china cup and saucer. The kitchen is at one end of the house and the bedrooms are at the other, connected by a narrow corridor from the front door through to the large kitchen at the back. When I near it, the door is half way open. A radio plays inside, the music from it almost drowned out by the hiss of a frying pan and an old fashioned kettle boiling on the gas hob. I pause outside, trying to steel my nerves to go in.

Through the gap in the door, I see George, partly obscured and angled away from me, so I can't see his face. He sits at one side of a small rectangular table. He's wearing yesterday's clothes as well. His shirt is creased, sleeves rolled up to the elbow and his arm is outstretched, holding a cigarette between his fingers. His other hand cradles a mug. George's mother crosses into view every so often as she cooks.

'...I don't care about that, George,' she says. 'It's not right.'

'Mam,' George moans, sounding tired. 'Please don't go on.'

'You kids, you behave as if you haven't a care in the world. Now look – what a mess. That poor girl.'

He's told them already, I realise. The information hits me like a punch in the stomach. Shame consumes me and I'm rooted to the spot where I stand.