And Your Girl Can Sing

Chapter 87: The End of the World: Not January 2000, but October 1961

"I know," I said, moving the vegetables and potatoes around in the pan, prodding at them in frustration, agitated by the thought of the consequences of his statement. "Geo, things won't be any different though. Not if we can help it. You know that?"

He didn't answer me, but kept looking out of the window.

"George?" I switched off the fire and turned around.

"I got a letter from Anna," he said.

"Anna?" I repeated and a spark hissed out angrily at me from the stove. I quickly moved the squeak around. "What did she say?" In her last letter, she hadn't mentioned him at all. This was odd.

"We just told each other about what's happening in our lives. Probably same stuff she's telling ye." George moved to the cabinet and began taking out plates.

"Anna," I repeated thoughtfully. "I thought you didn't want to see her any more. Especially after, well, you know."

"She had to do it, Cora. Ye know that." There was a small smile on his lips. "Macca's getting married."

"I... I know," I said, at a loss for words.

***

I opened my eyes. The air smelled different, somehow, the absence of the smell of strawberries. Funny, whenever I was at Strawberry Field I never noticed how the smell always lingered, even in the dead of winter when none grew. I sniffed again. It smelled like pollution and fancy cafes and the crisp fall air of London.

"Miss, are you all right?"

The world had turned upside down. I blinked.

I suddenly noticed that I was kneeling on the main brick road, suddenly noticed the rough scrape of my bare knee against the brick. I looked up at the man asking me and opened my mouth, but I couldn't get a word out, so I slowly stood up and nodded with an effort.

John?

I frowned, searching my insides for some sort of feeling, but all I got was a a buildup of fear, something that terrified me, so I began walking, autopilot leading me back to my house. Why was I back in the goddamn 21st century?

Where was John?

With every step I took I felt more and more like crying. Where were the quaint little cars of the sixties? The beehive hairdos I had grown accustomed to seeing, matching pocketbooks and heels, boys clad in leather riding motorcycles as if they were trying to recapitulate the fifties? I passed a menu and read out Smoked Salmon on Brioche Bun with Egg—Any Style: $13.50. I almost laughed right then and there because I remembered the fifty pence sandwiches I often shared with the boys. Where the hell were they? The fear plunged deep into my like a knife, but I reached my house and walked up to the front door.

I pulled open the door and stepped inside and the first wave of shock came, sending me reeling towards the kitchen. I felt like a stranger, back among familiar couch cushions and tableware I had grown up with. Mum was in the kitchen, doing washing, slower than I remembered. I ignored the stab in my side and tried to speak but all I could hear was a strange muffled sound coming from the back of my throat.

She slowly turned around and said, "Oh, Cora, oh, please, tell me it's you," and suddenly I was in her arms, and her hands were on my face and I was looking at the woman who was my mother and I still couldn't speak. "It's you, isn't it?" She kept asking me for an answer and I had so many to give but yet still couldn't speak.

Where the hell was John?

A huge weight of dread along with the fear was dripping out in through in the back of my brain, cold drops running down my spine and sinking me deeper and deeper into the ground. I wanted John, I wanted him so badly right then and there but all I could imagine was his face of pain so I looked for a distraction. I nodded assent to my mother, who looked like she didn't know what to do, so she sat me at the dining table and started making some sausages, periodically turning around to make sure I was still there. I think part of her understood I didn't want to talk, and I was grateful she didn't immediately ring and tell everyone I was home. I no longer recognized anyone from home, or didn't want to. What good was it? The best time of my life was spent from the fall of 1960-1961, one year with the Beatles, one year with my love—if this was a dream I wanted to wake u—I speared a sausage and robotically put it my mouth, wishing badly to make my mother feel better. The weight in my shoes was soon encapsulating my whole body and I put the fork down. My mother sat next to me and looked into my eyes and asked me to say something. "What is it that you want, darling? Please, just say something, let me know you're all right. Anything."

A short string of letters was pulled out of my mouth—if this was a dream I wanted to w—if this was a dream—

John.

John!

"Cora?"

My eyes flew open, the smell of John encapsulated my senses. He was here, his arms around me, my eyes wide open. "What is it, love? Was it a dream?"

I nodded, trying to steady my breathing. My trembling hands found his between the sheets. "I had a dream you weren't there. I woke up in 2013 and you weren't there. But you were there in my memory—we were just separated—it was just so goddamn real..."

"Stop." John told me quietly, his hands squeezing mine. "We won't be separated."

A quick, awkward silence descended on the two of us; I remembered Paris was in a few hours.

"I will come back to you. That is a promise." He was completely still, completely focused on me. There was a soft, early morning glow from the light of the upcoming dawn. The world was completely still. I believed it could be still forever.

I leaned in and kissed him square on the mouth, pinning his arms behind him. "Say it again."

"Cora—"

"Say it again," I said, moving my mouth to his neck.

"I will always come back to you—" and then I was on top of him, but the hours were ticking by too quickly and it was morning after and we were jamming his things into bags and things he couldn't fit into bags I would take back to George's, because we were late in meeting Paul and Dot at the station to find a vehicle to hitchhike in because all the vehicles that would take them would only be old men driving cargo trucks in the general direction of Paris, old men who were jolly in the morning but whose jolliness wore off as the afternoon arrived, and that was why we had to be there on time, meeting Paul and Dot at the station, seeing Paul's grin as he presented John with a bowler hat he had forgotten to take, the hat that they had bought a few days ago in celebration at the trip, and they were both on a truck and Dot and I were left holding nothing of Paul's because he was generally incredibly responsible and also John's suitcase of things he couldn't fit and I was thinking this is all going so, so fast.

"Let me say bye to my bird!" John's voice rang out from the truck and there was a slam of a door and a thud of boots against pavement as he reappeared from the other side of the truck. "Cora, love, I'll be back in a few days!"

"Love you," I said, trying to keep back both the tears in my eyes and also thinking, why am I so daft, he is only leaving for a few days, you act like this is the end of the world. But what if it was the end? What if I never saw him again?

"If you want me to get off this truck, I will get off and stay with you," John's voice said, as quiet and soothing as the mornings we spent together.

"No," I said. "Go. You're supposed to go."

"I love you, so much, Cora, I love you you you and I'll be back so soon, writing you postcards and messages and sending you little leather shorts you'll refuse to wear in the mail, ye know and you'll be so glad I'm gone." He kissed my forehead and I squeezed his hands before letting go.

"Sod off, Lennon," I bit back a grin. "I love ye."

Paul stuck his head out the window, holding onto Dot's fingers as she moved away from his window. "C'mon, John, driver has to get his goods a moving-on."

John disappeared round the truck's front and I saw their waving hands as the vehicle carried them away. I glanced at Dot next to me. "I miss the bugger already," she sighed, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. "But maybe it's for the best that we have a bit of time to relax and unpack our thoughts before the wedding. Best for the future."

Michael appeared next to her. "Yes, Cora dear, best for the future." His voice moved from my left ear to my right ear, almost like it was in the space between my ears. "Best for the future. Best for your future."