Shelter In Your Love (Beatles Fan Fiction)

Epilogue: After Heavy Rain Has Fallen

October 2009

'...This was the start of my mother's book, the one she wrote about her sister, my aunt,' Bobbie continued, and tapped the front of the notebook.

Steve looks at it, but he's hardly taking a word in. His mind is reeling.

'Though it ended up being a little more biographical than just about Minnie. My dad hated that. He didn't like her writing about us, really. I was only about five, but I remember this huge row they had about it. My dad was furious...' Bobbie laughed. 'Gosh, it wasn't funny at the time though.'

'Uh, sorry... what?' Steve said, putting his hand up to stop her. 'What do you mean?'

'Well, it was okay. They made up again. The book was published and--'

'No, I... If this isn't your mother's house, then whose is it? If your mother - If Hannah didn't die here, then where did she die?'

Bobbie furrows her brow. She casts a look back, over her shoulder at a small blue Vauxhall Corsa parked fifty metres up the road, then looks up at the small house behind them.

'This is - was - my Great Aunt Peggy's house,' she says, patiently, speaking more slowly. 'The one my mother stayed with in 1972, like I was telling you. Then when Peggy died in the eighties, Nancy, my mother's cousin, lived here. My mum tried to contact them a few times over the years, especially after This Time Tomorrow came out. That was the name of her first book, but they didn't want to know. We've not heard from Nancy in years now. That's why we didn't know she'd passed away.'

'Oh,' Steve said, looking up at the house. 'I found these diaries by the chair where Andy said the old woman had been found... I assumed she must have been Hannah.'

Bobbie shook her head. 'No, my mum is... Well...'

*

'This is the young man who found the diaries, Mum. He saved them from the skip,' Bobbie says, leaning through the car window, offering a familiar looking book to me. 'His name is Steve,' she adds in that condescending tone she gets sometimes. 'He works for Lambeth Council.'

I take the book from her, annoyed. 'Yes, thank you, Bobs. I'm a little hard of hearing, I'm not stupid.'

Bobbie straightens her back and smiles at the lad in the orange overalls. 'My mother,' she says to him, like they're sharing an inside joke. 'Hannah Harrison.'

The lad doesn't laugh though. He doesn't even crack a smile. He stares at me, wide eyed, like I have sprouted a second head suddenly. 'Wow,' he says. 'I mean, uh, I'm pleased to meet you. Really pleased.'

Well at least he has better manners. 'Steve?' I ask and he nods. 'Thank you for returning these to me. I haven't seen these books in...' I open the book in my lap. I recognise it immediately. It's my 1966 diary. '...decades.'

I scan my eyes over the pages, flicking through the book, picking out phrases and sentences that I remember writing like it was only yesterday.

....Minnie rolls her eyes. 'What a strange world we live in, where having John Lennon at your housewarming party is impressive....'

'....You are a perpetual pain in the arse, d'yer know that, Spanner?....'

...George is still looking at the ball of paper on the floor. He picks it up again and smooths it out. Studying it, he says, 'Hannah, why do we keep pretending we don't care about each other?....'

'Thank you,' I say again, as I feel tears pricking my eyes. I look up at them both. Bobbie grins at me, laughing quietly in that way her father would, while the young lad still gapes at me in apparent amazement.