Shelter In Your Love (Beatles Fan Fiction)

38. Tears of the World

I huff and turn round, taking the lid off the teapot and stirring it with a teaspoon. 'Fine. Go then. I'll see yer some time. I don't know why you've bothered coming round here to tell me, anyway. You could have just sent me a postcard with Big Ben on it.'

She laughs, but it's false, hollow. I turn around again to look at her. Her eyes are soft now, like she might cry, but Minnie doesn't do that. She doesn't cry, so that's just a ploy to get my sympathy, to make me bend. Then again, I wouldn't have thought Minnie would ever leave me behind, so how well do I really know her?

'Han, don't be like this. Please.'

It's not surprising, really. I suppose. Minnie does this, doesn't she? Runs away when everything has fallen to pieces. If moving to London might be thought a bit extreme, it's not as drastic as Liverpool to Germany to New York was. I'm jealous, if anything. I shouldn't be here anymore, in this draughty New York apartment. I should be going to London, not Minnie. I should already be there.

'What are you going to do for money?' I ask.

'I've got a bit saved.'

'That won't last.'

'..And I have a job, actually.'

'Really? What? Singing somewhere?'

'It's, um... it's a modelling job.'

'Modelling?'

'Yes, you know, having your photo taken.'

I raise an eyebrow.

She grins. 'With my clothes on, thanks, get your mind out of the gutter, you!'

She's trying. I can see that, and perhaps before it would have worked, but these days, I don't seem to have much patience with anything. No sense of humour, no optimism. I don't seem to have much of anything left.

'You hate your picture being taken,' I tell her.

'Yes, well, this is different, isn't it? This is paid work, and work... work's not something you should enjoy, is it? Otherwise it's not work. Plus, it's hardly difficult, just standing there, posing, prancing about in dresses and crap.'

I turn around again and pour the tea into two mis-matched mugs. The spout of the teapot leaks, dripping everywhere. I don't pause to mop it up. I take Minnie's to her, putting it down in front of her without much care, so it slops over the side. I take the chair opposite her again.

'Who are you going to stay with?' I ask.

She shrugs, averts her eyes and wraps her arms around herself, cagey, suddenly.

'With John,' I say, knowingly, and sip from my own mug.

'John?' she echoes with disbelief. 'No. Where would you get that idea from?'

'Oh, I don't know. It's not like you've had an ongoing relationship with him for the last five years, is it?'

I've seen so little of Minnie, and so briefly, I've not had opportunity to tell her how upset John was when she left Los Angeles. That was strange, seeing John like that. So unlike him. I'd always thought it was John who strung Minnie along. He's the one married to someone else, but perhaps it wasn't as clean cut as that. I can certainly appreciate how you can be married to one person, but in love with another.

'I haven't heard from him,' Minnie says, frank for once, looking down into her cup. 'Not since Los Angeles. I've sent him a letter, or two, but nothing has come back. I think he's pissed off with me.' She smiles sadly, but shrugs again. 'So, no, not John. Not sure his wife would be too keen on putting me up at their's anyway.'