This Time Tomorrow (Beatles Fan Fiction)

July, 1960

'We are going, and soon,' Minnie says, firmly. She stands and lifts the kettle off the heat with a tea towel wrapped around the handle, leaving it on the side. She turns to the cupboard, raises herself onto her tiptoes and feels for the little red book. 'Look,' she says, retrieving it and giving it to Hannah.

'What's this?'

'A post office account.'

Hannah opens it. Her eyes widen when she sees the balance. There's close to a thousand pounds in there. The culmination of nearly five years worth of savings. Five years of counting pennies, doing without and scratching together any and everything she could get her hands on. Upon occasion they've not had enough money to pay the electric bill, or the tick or even the milkman, but still Minnie's not touched it. There's not been a single withdrawal in the whole time she's had the account.

'Where did you get all of this?' Hannah asks, incredulous.

'Saved it.'

But it's not enough. Not really. It's everything Minnie's managed to accumulate and in the last week she's upped it by nearly another two hundred pounds. If the worst happens, then it will be enough for Hannah to get away from here. Far, far away. Maybe it would be for the best. The money would last longer for without the two of them draining it.

'Waitressing doesn't pay this well,' Hannah says, dubiously.

'I took a couple of things down to Shaws as well.'

'What's Shaws?'

'The pawn brokers.'

'What things?'

'Just some stuff that was lying about.'

'Oh, Minnie, what things?'

'Some of the jewellery out of that box...'

'Mum's jewellery? Minnie, you didn't,' she says, forlornly and Minnie feels a twist of guilt. But only for a second, because Iris is dead. She's no use for rings and necklaces now.

The jewellery made up the bulk of that two hundred pounds. Iris's diamond engagement ring was worth sixty-five pounds on it's own. Or rather, it was probably worth more than that, but sixty-five was the most Minnie could get out of the guy who ran the pawn shop, even when she went down there in a translucent cream blouse with the top three buttons unfastened.

'It's not like she needs it anymore,' she says, flatly, and she might as well do something for her youngest daughter, she adds in her head. God knows, she's done fuck all else.

'Minnie!'

Minnie purses her lips. 'You'll thank me when we're away from here. It wasn't worth all that much anyway.'

'It's not that. It's the sentimental value.'

'It's just things, Hannah. Stuff. We can live without it. We can't take it all with us anyway. We'll have to travel light. If needs be, we will walk out of here with the clothes on our backs and that's all.'

We. Maybe we. Maybe just you, Han.

Hannah gives the post office book back to her. 'Right, well, if that ever happens then, I'll give George the elbow and we'll ride off into the sunset,' she says, sarcastically, annoying Minnie. Still, now she knows where the book is. She'll know what to do.

'You don't believe me, do you?' Minnie asks, slipping the book back into it's hiding place. 'I just don't want to have to drag you away, kicking and screaming, and then have you moping about all lovesick and forlorn. If we hesitate when the time comes then we'll miss the window and...'