Got To Be Good-looking ('cause he's so hard to see)

~46~

Still Clare!!

He smiled like he was frightened and I guess there was reason. Paul went to grab an arm to pull me up but all I could do was sit in the gravel and stare, Paul turned and looked up too.

"Don't just stand there, help"

"Yea ok, help, right" He said with a worried tinge to his voice and I strained to hide the absolute terror that raged. I wasn't flabbergasted just terrified that my inklings had, after all this time, been spot on.

Cap was John Lennon.

Mute and in slowly rising pain, his arm slipped my waist like he was a stranger not someone that I had had intercourse with multiple times. Paul was closer than him, actually Paul was really close, hip to hip in fact, but he was helping me so yeah, ignore contact.

Linda walked out face veiled and hidden by the sunsets' rays that fell over her shoulders. I glanced at Paul and the bloody bloke knew, he knew.

And if he knew Linda most certainly did too.

Left to fend for myself in the kitchen with a face-washer and glass of water, they fled, doors banging and someone yelling in the garden. Stella crawled onto my lap and I leaned over her to adjust the spot the cold cloth lay on.

A door opened then closed and Linda picked up Stella without a word, hurried the other children from the living room and Cap appeared. He sat opposite me, minus gross plastic beard of course. Did I happen to mention he looked exactly like John Lennon .....

We sat and sat and I drank the water, crossed my arms and closed my eyes, he tapped on the table.

Eyes closed I spoke "You look like John Lennon"

"Yea about that"

"Put the beard back on"

"Why?"

"Because I don't like ripping off bandaids!"

"That's not what you said about the glass in your foot" John Lennon remarked.

"Noooo I said to you don't be a namby pandy"

I'm closing shop, I can't deal with this right now my foot is throbbing.

But I can't ignore the Lennon in the room, sitting there like I'm going to devour him in anger.

I had sex with John Lennon, ok that's cool-ish.

I yelled at John Lennon not so cool.

Laughed at him, called him like a hundred nasty names, not so good.

Kissed him, got stoned with him, laughed with him that's ok, ok, ok.

So, on a percentage scale I'm on the side of that's ok but he's married, going to get a divorce.

The longer I stay silent staring at him the more he shrinks into the chair. If I waited all night he would probably end up a puddle on the floor.

He's worried, concerned, scared of me, of my decision on him.

I've told him more about me than he has about him.

"Could you please stop staring through me and kill me quickly, Clare" He rubbed his face and stood taking the face-washer from my ankle and putting fresh cold water on it, squeezing the excess and gently laying over my ankle again, I winced. "Sorry luv"

Did you all have a bloody big laugh over this" I found my tongue and lashed out.

His eyes popped up from his task of cleaning his fingernails "NO, shit no Clare."

"...Some sort of sick social experiment then?" I looked out the window the bonfire was being lit "Beatle millionaire's idea of a gag to stop the boredom?"

"No, don't be silly"

"Don't call me silly, John" I ramped up the sass a notch along with the volume of my voice, I needed to stay strong or I might just sink.

I wanted to throw something hard and heavy enough to wake me up from all of this.

John Lennon, the one in the same John Lennon, that looked down his nose at me a few years earlier, had turned tail and shagged me silly.

"John Lennon doesn't like me" Sadness crept in. Lennon was my songwriting hero, well Paul too but I aligned thoughts more with Lennon, Paul was slightly mush, beautiful golden lovely mush but........

Although I write mush at times I love the play on words, the double meanings, the sarky bits.

Lennon ignored me that morning, or did I just run......

"He doesn't know you"

"Yes he does, he's the one that I poured tea for in Mayfair and he's the one that didn't give me the time of day" I tried to stand and walk to the window to see the bright flames soaring and little angels racing about the yard with dogs at their heels.

His face was blank, he really didn't remember. Perhaps Paul and Lin didn't tell him....or it's my body transformation that has him stumped.

"Mayfair, '67. Sgt Peppers acetates, all eight of them, lying all over my sister's apartment. Windows wide open, waking up London with your bands newly recorded glorious album"

Still blank

"Do I have to hand you a colour by numbers!?!?"

.........

One hand on hip I waited him out. Teetering on one foot, the other resting with no weight on it.

"Cass is your sister!?" Now his face was processing the information like a new set of plans had slid across the table asking to be sorted into order. "You... went out the window. No, she was bigger-"

"It was me you idiot! All me, all portly shaped me. All lumbering me. All pushing past four gorgeous genius guys and Cass as they flooded her apartment- me. Intimidation crawling all over me. Me. Me. Me" I was on a roll.

That moment in time, that morning, was a critical crux, a jettison of the old me to give rise to this person today.

"Clare Elliot, Cass Elliott's sister" Cap John finally added the data up, I nodded and realisation dawned on him "I'll kill him"

"Who?"

"McCartney, he knew and if he didn't know it all, she did"

"You mean you had no idea about this"

"None"

My heart beat a little faster. Could I still be something in this man's eyes.