Wildfire ~ George Harrison

Chapter 20: Time to rattle your jewellery

Kathleen had a lot to say about my date with Henry and she clearly didn't believe me when I told her what had happened and what we had decided. Even more was when our friend Aggie came over, eight months pregnant and all and very judgemental about my messed-up love life.

'How did you get in this situation?' she asked as she stroked her bump absentmindedly.

'I've no clue at all,' I sighed and I took another sip of my tea. Call it a nervous habit but I'd been drinking tea non-stop since I woke up this morning. I was on edge and confused after the dinner with Henry last night and the only thing that calmed me down slightly was tea. The downside was that I'd been to the loo five times already and it wasn't even two o'clock.

'So you finally get a courtship and you turn it into some kind of weird scheme?' Aggie responded.

Of course she would have that kind of view. We'd left school just over a year ago and she was married and very much pregnant. She had started courting when we were still in school. I had been a mutual decision by her and her husband. Next thing we knew was that she got married straight out of school.

It was something she'd always wanted and she'd been happy that it finally happened. It was also something she thought we all wanted, which wasn't necessarily the case. To Aggie it was outrageous that it even took me so long to just start courting someone, let alone turn it into a cover-up for a potential other relationship.

'What's going on with you and George anyways? Have you heard anything at all from him?' Kath asked, saving me from having to answer Aggie's assumption. But whether it was really a save I didn't know.

'George is the neighbour guy you really like?' the pregnant girl intervened and I nodded for clarification.

'Nothing at all. But they've got their Royal Variety Performance next week, so I suppose we'll talk then. We are going aren't we?' I said to Kath.

'You're going to the Royal Variety?' Aggie asked surprised as she raised her eyebrows. 'We tried to get tickets, but Father said they were already gone.'

'Yeah, we got them from the band,' I responded as if it was nothing. It had occurred to me that it was massive for the band and also that those tickets would be hard to come by. I knew my parents liked to go to the show in the past, but they hadn't always been able to get tickets.

I had hoped, in vain, that the Beatles playing the Royal Variety Performance would make my parents warm up to them, George in particular. But it hadn't worked out like that. Just the other day I had received a phone call from Father telling me that 'that stupid little band' was taking down all standards this country had. Yeah, he really wasn't impressed by them.

'Have you told this George boy about Henry? What does he think of you going out with someone else?' Aggie asked when the news that we were going to the Royal Variety Performance had landed. The jealousy, however, was still very clear in her voice. She had wanted to go to.

'I'm not going out with Henry!' I protested. I was getting agitated as she just didn't seem to get it. 'And I haven't told George about him, because what can I tell? When I saw him last, I didn't want to talk about anything.'

'No, you wanted to get into his pants,' Kath teased me, but I couldn't put myself to laugh with her, because it was true. I hoped we could move on from me, but my best friend wasn't finished with teasing me yet. 'Well, everybody loves a film with a good love triangle, Charlotte. So you're in good hands.'

I had to restrain myself to not lash out and to keep my voice clam and level. 'This isn't a good love triangle, Kath. This isn't even a triangle. It's some weird quartet thing with me chasing after a guy that doesn't even want me. No one likes that story!' I said and at the end I found myself sneering after all.