Growing Up Beside You [John Lennon/Beatles Fanfiction]

37. The more the merrier (2)

Celia shook her head. "No, I don't think I've seen it."

Julia let out a small gasp, and looked over her shoulder at Celia, bewildered, with her hand still attached to her curls. "Oh, Celia, you must! He looked like a banquet! Mmm, a right dish of a man. King of Kings, he was. Or is, rather. Not that I've seen him lately, actually."

Julia'd said the last sentence as though Charlie Chaplin was merely a next-door neighbour that had moved to another borough.

"Do you think he'll make any more films?" Celia wondered. She was staring at a sepia-toned photograph of two little girls who looked an awful lot like the pretty woman standing by the mirror.

"I bloody well hope so, he's such a joy to watch on the screen, isn't he?"

Celia nodded. She couldn't spot John in any of these photos. "I loved him in The Kid."

"And me," Julia agreed, combing her fingers through her gorgeously shiny locks. "That's one of me favourites! My John loves that one too actually. Oh, and The Tramp. He always used to—" Julia broke her sentence with a chuckle as her mind summoned a memory and her smile grew wider. "For about a week straight he did that funny Chaplin duck walk until his legs gave up on him. I remember him doing it through the Woolton remembrance parade without a care in the world at who was lookin' at him. My sister was fumin' but oh, it was so funny, Celia. He was only about five and he didn't half make those military lads laugh! He brightened all those grim faces." Julia's eyes were shimmering with adoration as she spoke fondly of her son. "I tell you, I was in stitches! He could chortle the cap off the Queen's Guard if he wanted to; my golden boy."

Celia thought that sounded just like John — humouring himself and making other people laugh through the production of his foolery. Like him or hate him, Lennon's ability to entertain came naturally; there was no denying that about him. John managed to entertain those who had no desire to be entertained by him. It seemed like a lifetime ago when he was larking about in the library with his silly thespian performance of Romeo and Juliet. Everyone had flocked around him like a colony of gulls, watching with amusement as he weaved tragedy into comedy. Not everybody had his ability. He possessed an intrinsic wit and comedic disposition that thoroughly captured the laughter of others. At the worst of times, John's humour was acerbic, narrow-minded and just damn right offensive, but when he was clowning around with the intention of making himself the target of laughter, Celia found him rather enjoyable to watch. Even more so, when the humour was for her benefit. Of course Celia wasn't blind to his arrogance and rudeness, but he was funny, and she'd come to realise he was sensitive too. John intrigued, confused and unsettled Celia all at once. Now though, the growing anticipation of coming face-to-face with him was rapidly brewing like a potion in Celia's stomach. Her simmering, bubbling nerves were about to pour over the top of the anatomic cauldron.

Julia tapped Celia on the shoulder, jolting her out of her musing. She turned around to face Julia, her face baring an apology.

"Oh, sorry what did you say? I was just..." Thinking about your son and how much I've actually quite missed the stupid git. "Daydreaming."

Julia smiled at Celia and gave a tender squidge of her bicep. "Not to worry, sugar; daydreaming's good for the soul, I always say."

Celia smiled back at her. Oh, how different John's mother was to Celia's own. Nora was set on disapproving her daughters reveries, whilst Julia was standing here encouraging them. It hit Celia with a quick pang of envy—John having the pleasures of being mothered by such a liberal woman, but then that feeling quickly transcended into guilt, for wishing her mother any different to the loving woman she was.