𝐘𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐃𝐀𝐘 ── PAUL McCARTNEY

XV. A WORLD AWAY

Tuesday the 14th of October 1958

Mrs Harrison had made me scalding hot tea whilst George, Paul and John relentlessly practised. The more I met her the more I grew to see that she was a kindly and sweet woman. She was eager to give me her best biscuits out of the tin and I felt my heart ache. I wondered what it was to have lived in her generation. To have lived through a war and lost and fought for so much. I knew of the rationing and sacrifices, the children playing on the rubble of houses blown to bits, the lives that were lost. It was apart of my own Australian history too.

I could see the struggle for work and to make ends meet shown to so many here in Liverpool. I could not fathom what I would have done if I had not met Paul the day I had somehow found myself back in the past. I was forever grateful.

"You make tea just like my nana," I commented with a warm smile and I ignored the pang in my heart. I really missed home. I missed my time and all those I held close to my heart. I forced away my thoughts and raised the cup of tea to my lips. I could hear the boys laughing in the next room.

In spending my time more and more in the past, I had noticed that the first floor of his house was merely two tight, neat yet cluttered rooms.

"I hope yer not commenting on my age dear," Louise spoke her tone playful with a smile brimming her lips.

"Of course not," I spoke neutrally, despite centring myself to this moment as much as I could, I still felt tremendously distant. I suddenly heard a loud noise from the next room. Those boys. "It just must be a British thing."

My nana's parents were English but I couldn't really suggest that.

"Daisy!" A Scouse voice called. George. "You must listen to this lar."

I rolled my eyes. "Pardon me," I spoke to Louise, stepping away from the kitchen table into the sitting room where the three boys practiced away.

The sitting room was lovely. I adored the floral wallpaper and the crackling fire and the picture frames on the mantelpiece. Bright ochre light shone through the window, casting an evening glow throughout the room. In my time here I could not notice the tight and cluttered oddity of London. It was not what I had grown up with.

I saw Paul first. He sat on the couch, hunched and working through various chords. John sat by him and they were working through it together. I marvelled at the sight. I was really seeing them working together in action. I had a few times before but this resembled much of what they would be in a mere few years time.

"You're lovely," I commented without resort. I was so fond of him, in awe at his very presence every time I breathed.

"Thank you, love," Paul smiled but I noticed a slight blush against his cheeks.

"I think ya meant me," John laughed with a batter of his eyelashes and the adornment that shone in his dark eyes. I felt a nervous sinking feeling. It did not matter how often I was around John or George. I could feel this glooming weight in knowing what was going to happen to them both. A part of me would break, shatter even.

John was hesitant of me in most ways and wasn't very chatty to some degree. I understood that I was some meddling girl that had stolen Paul to some degree away from him. I knew he disapproved of my presence for the most part but I could not help but see his perspective. But more importantly I understood the urgency in the time John and Paul deserved to have with one another. All those who remained would curse the person who took John away.

Yet in this moment in time and as I would forever be, I was strictly declared a 'friend' but how can you be strictly friends with someone you've kissed? I shamelessly still thought of it. Sometimes I longed to do it properly just once. It wouldn't be that bad. Could one simple kiss tarnish history? I would be fleeting, undetectable, forever remembered as a random girl that Paul once knew in his teenage years.