Shelter In Your Love (Beatles Fan Fiction)

105. This Song

'You might have pulled her earlier and then you could have rung her up to say it's safe to come over. Another newspaper said you were with her at rehearsals, when I went to visit Cat or when I was out with Bobbie...'

'They're not newspapers, are they? They're gossip mags and tabloids, and it's lies. No one was at rehearsals except the people doing the concert. What paper was it? Give me the names and I'll have them fucking shut down if it's going to upset you like this!'

Hannah sniffs again. 'No. No, it doesn't matter. It's done now, isn't it? It's already out there. It's too late.'

'Are you crying?'

'No.'

'Han, love, you can't believe that I would do something like that when it wasn't even a day since we...'

'I don't,' Hannah replies in a small voice. 'I don't really. I know it's just stories. They don't know the truth so they make up one of their own. It's just... It's in the news and it's written as fact, and you're so far away from me...'

'I'm not that far away. I'm here, at home, waiting for you, and you can come home whenever you want to.'

Hannah ignores that because that breaks one of her "rules". He's not supposed to ask her to come back. Not until it's over. It might weaken her resolve.

'This isn't good for me, you know,' she sighs. 'I'm here, trying to cope with all this and concentrate on it, and all the time I'm worrying about what you're doing instead.'

'You don't have to worry about anything,' he says, seriously. 'I swear to you. I haven't been with anyone else. I wouldn't. I love you, and only you.'

'Well, I... I love you as well,' she says, then sighs again and adds in a more normal tone, 'You're a bloody idiot, though, George.'

He smiles. 'Is this why you haven't called me?'

'Have you been waiting by the phone?' she asks, sarcastically.

'Yes, every night.'

'Really?'

'Really. I couldn't let anyone else answer it.'

'Why? Who else is there?'

George considers saying, all the other women I've had over here since you've been gone, but he senses the joke wouldn't go down too well. 'Pete,' he says, instead. 'Or Emma, or any of the other staff. Two new ones started this week. A gardener and a housekeeper.'

Hannah sighs. 'I haven't been avoiding ringing you. I wanted to call before now but there's been a couple of unexpected problems. Peggy doesn't have a phone. She's a bit... She's getting on now. I haven't seen her in years. I think she has a touch of senility, but Nancy, her daughter is... Well, they're a little funny. I mean they always were, because after all, they're my family. They're my father's family...' A sardonic, hollow laugh. 'They say they don't trust the modern world, and that means they don't have a telephone or a TV. They don't have a newspaper delivered. There's a little radio, an old one which takes five minutes to warm up, but we're only allowed to listen to Radio Four, so I wasn't even aware what was going on until today.'

'I'm sorry, love. I didn't know what you'd want me to say, so I haven't said anything. It's perhaps made the speculation worse.'

'I should have guessed there was something up. Mr Read was surprised I'd come on the first day. He said "Oh, I thought you'd have other things to deal with," and I thought, well, what could be more important than this?'

George grimaces. 'I'm sorry, but I couldn't do anything, could I? What was I supposed to say? "No, we haven't split up. No, she hasn't left me, but she's not here and I can't tell you where she's gone"?'