Growing Up Beside You [John Lennon/Beatles Fanfiction]

40. The more the merrier (5)

Sunday 10th February (cont'd)

"Fancy another cuppa?"

Celia stared at John in astonishment, momentarily lost for words. She'd expected something to stutter out of his gob but not that. John's mouth had been idiotically flapping open and closed for two minutes like a fish on dry land and he managed to form those three words out of it. Funny how he'd been so intent on rejecting her company moments before he sent those books flying to the floor, and now he was after more of it.

Celia tilted her head to the side, a teasing smile playing at the corner of her lips. "Is that your roundabout way of asking me to stay, Lennon?"

A pink blush suddenly blemished the middle of John's cheeks. His gaze dropped to the dining table and he started fingering the small crack wedged inside of the wood. His sheepishness was out of character, and Celia wickedly enjoyed pushing it into the spotlight. Besides, it was quite endearing seeing him like that. Quite.

"I don't.." John's voice was hoarse, like a clump of dust was lodged inside his larynx. He cleared his throat and tried again, the taste of dishonesty rolling off of his tongue.

"No, I—you—I mean, me mum wouldn't want you to leave yet, y'know? She's...she's, well you can't break her heart on a Sunday, can ya? It's ungodly."

Ah, so that's how he's playing it, is it? Shielding behind other people.

"And what about your heart?" Celia questioned, in a moment of boldness. She was sitting on the ground now, palms spread out behind her on the carpet.

Celia wasn't daft. She knew John had been trying to tell her something else. Not an apology as such, but something more sincere, words pumped straight from the heart. He'd bottled it all up— she could tell by the slight grief etched into his face that whatever it was he wanted to say to her was suffocating his mind. John had looked as though he were duelling with his own emotions; like his brain was forcing him to contradict his heart to shelter his pride, or whatever it was he was afflicted by. His true words were clotted deep in his chest, nesting inbetween his courage and insecurities that weren't hers to interfere with. In his own time, he would clamber through it. Be more effusive with his own sentiment through some form of articulate expression. Perhaps even open up to Celia at some point, but for now, though, she'd rather tease him about his evasiveness. It's the very least he deserved.

The rain was picking up a bit now. It had stopped briefly but decided Liverpool's pavements weren't damp enough. Celia could hear its heavy pitter-patter from behind the curtain, like little fingertips drumming on the windowpane. It was miserable out there. Miserable, wet and windy, and Celia didn't quite fancy the thirty-minute walk home, drenched and shivering. Another tea would tie her over for a while, warm her insides up. Just until the rain settled, or at least until she had to make that cold, dreary run to the bus stop in half an hour or so. It had nothing to do with John. The company of his mother and sisters were much preferred, yet, her heart beat with the heaviness of a drum at the thought of John wanting her to stay.

Celia glanced up at John. He was awfully quiet. For all his bravado, he seemed to have lost his tongue. He was still messing about with that indent in the table, his eyes seemingly too shy to meet hers. Celia curiously monitored Lennon's expression, hoping an answer lay within it.  He was nibbling his bottom lip, a frown marring his forehead like the pensive thoughts happening behind it was giving him a headache.

"My heart's made of stone," John muttered. "Medusa's  work, that."

Celia smiled at him. "I think Medusa might've deceived you, John."

For the first time in ages, John looked at her. His face had smoothed over, that hard, conflicted look gone, and his brown eyes were twinkling with amusement. "What's yours made out of then?" he asked. "Goblin bogeys?"

Charming.

"They're very hard to obtain y'know," Celia answered, matter-of-factly. "They're expensive, Goblin bogeys. Worth a king's ransom." John gave a hearty laugh and Celia's own goblin-bogeyed heart skipped a beat. "In other words, my heart's something you can't afford, John."

"Try me," John said, jutting his chin towards her. "I can squeeze a few bob out of me wallet."

Celia's stomach jolted as though a firework had whizzed across it. Was he...flirting with her or had his arrogance exceeded him? She folded her bottom lip over her teeth, trying to suppress the smile trying to push through and in a mocking gesture, Celia placed her hand over her heart, her face a feigned contortion of shock.

"Are you saying you want my heart, John?"

Perhaps it was the lighting playing tricks, or perhaps Celia simply imagined the paling of John's complexion. He appeared slightly discomposed like Celia's tease had thrown him off guard. John's mouth opened, but nothing was coming out of it. Why couldn't he snap back with some kind of sarcastic, mean-spirited comment, like he always did? Why was it such a struggle for him to talk? Unless he...no, no surely not. Stupid thought. Penny's proclamation about John having a huge soft spot for her was just...well it was highly unlikely. Utterly ridiculous, in fact. Dafter than daft.

Celia watched as John's Adam's apple bobbed up and down, as though he were swallowing the words, or preparing himself to say them.

Tell me, she thought. Whatever it is, just say it.

John's breathing grew laboured. His lips parted and he gave one more swallow before the words came out.

"Chetch, I—"

The living room door suddenly flew open, startling everyone inside it. Julia stormed in, her red hair soaring behind her like a streak of fire.

"Stupid cow, how dare she!"

"Mum?"

"How dare she!!"

"Mam? Mam, what's wrong with ya?"

John appeared taken aback at the state of his mother's well-being. His words to Celia were left behind, now trailing their way back to the very bottom of his heart, where they'd rust beneath another layer of sentiment that wasn't meant for her. Celia felt something inside of her sag. A sort of sadness, like a loss.

"Honestly, who does she think she is?" Julia was pacing the room, ignorant of her son's concern as her frustration overwhelmed her hearing. "I hope she bloody well steps in it!"

"Mam! Who ya on about? Steps in what?"

"Her." Julia stopped pacing and stubbed her finger towards the curtains. "That flamin' woman next door; Mrs bloody Pigmy."

John grunted. "Ah, 'er. Mrs Piggy." He accompanied her nickname with a piggish snort.

"Always a problem with that one; I've bleedin' had enough of it!"

Julia's face was almost the same colour as her hair, and Celia thought it weird seeing her so angry after the bubbly nature of which she'd presented herself.

"God, I need a smoke," Julia muttered, her eyes scanning the room for her box of cigarettes. They were on the table, behind the salt and pepper shaker. Celia had spotted them earlier when she and John were bickering.

"Where are me bleedin' cigs?"

"They're here, mum." John was holding them, his arm outstretched.

"Ta, Stinker."

"Can I have one, n' all?"

"Uh-uh. Where are the matches?"

"Behind the ugly clown."

Julia tutted as she snatched the box of Players from John's hand. "He's not ugly John, he's different."

"Same thing, in't it?"

"Don't be mean," Julia scolded, holding the cigarette between her teeth. "I've had enough of mean people. Girls, go and play upstairs for a while, would you? Mummy needs a naughty."

"Oh, but mummy—"

"Don't argue. Now, please."

Jackie happily complied with her mother's command. She skipped out of the room humming George Formby, whilst Princess Margey dragged along behind her. Little Julia, however, made a point of stomping her way through the living room, her arms folded and a scowl pruning her lips. Celia smothered a laugh. The little girl reminded her of her young self yonks ago when Marian used to boot Celia out of her bedroom when it came to 'big girl talk.' "Your ears aren't big enough yet, Ceec," Mari used to say. Celia soon learned that big girl talk was the kind of talk that coloured her cheeks bright pink.

"I don't like smokin' around the little ones, y'know?" Julia struck up her cigarette and kicked the door closed behind them. "Bad habits."

"Yeh, yeh, bad habits," John flipped his mother's words away with his hand. "Let me have a ciggy, mum. C'mon."

"I've already told you no, Stink."

The cigarette was poised stiffly inbetween Julia's fingers, the smoke swirling around her pretty, red nails.

"It's not like I ain't had one before," John sulked.

Julia exhaled a breath of smoke and gave John a reproachful look. "And what would yer auntie Mimi say if she found out I've been allowing her sixteen-year-old nephew to puff on one of these, eh?"

John shrugged. "I'm not Mimi's kid, I'm yours."  There was a slight begrudging ache in the way John spoke, but Julia seemed indifferent to it. "She ain't gonna find out, anyway."

Julia sighed and shook her head in the only way that mothers do. "I love you, Johnny, but you're not havin' one. Tell him, Celia. Tell him they're bad for you, sweetheart."

Celia quickly averted her gaze and focused all her energy and attention on zipping up her duffel bag.

"HA! She smokes 'n all!"

Celia almost choked on her own saliva. Her head snapped up, her mouth a perfect circle of surprise. What a little Judas!

"Celia!" Julia stared at Celia in disbelief, a slight disapproving frown twisting at her perfectly shaped eyebrows. Shame clotted in Celia's stomach. It was the type of shame that stirred from motherly disappointment.

"I don't smoke," Celia blurted in a desperate attempt at professing her hypocritical innocence. "I'm not a—I mean not really, I—it's not like I—sometimes, but that doesn't...count." Her eyes fluttered to the ground as her stuttering dishonesty stunk out her mouth.

"Now, now, Chetch, no tellin' porkies."

Celia grit her teeth. "Shut up, John."

John grinned and swivelled his gaze to his mother. He jabbed his thumb down at Celia and said, "Smokes like a chimney when she's been on the whiskey, this one."

Oh, that rat! That stinking little grass. She imagined wringing his little rat tail until he squeaked in pain. It wasn't her fault; she was drunk when she did it! For all Celia knew, she could've been doing somersaults with a fag hanging out of her mouth. It was the whiskey smoking, not her. Alright, so she enjoy a puff from time to time, but a cigarette only touched her lips when she was offered one. Offered one in an environment outside of parental proximity, that is. And Marian was no longer around to sneak her one, or rather, for Celia to steal one from the box inside her knicker draw. Marian always pretended she didn't notice a cig or two missing, but Celia knew she did.

"Smoking is very Sophistiquée, Ceec," Marian would say, her long, milky leg crossed together as she blew impressive smoke rings out of her bedroom window— a skill she'd passed on to her sister a few months later. "Brigette Bardot does it. All the French do."

Celia bet Marian was currently smoking on her little Parisian balcony, looking as beautiful and Sophistiquée as ever. She always did. Marian could wear a bin bag and still look gorgeous. Celia couldn't wait to leave rainy, old Liverpool for a bit when the time came. If Paris was anything like it was in Marian's letters, then she was sure to fall in love with it. Had she met Brigitte Bardot yet? No, she would've written Celia if she did...

"Oh, Cel! You don't, do you?"

Celia swatted away her drifting thoughts like the smoke from Julia's cigarette.

"It's an 'orrible thing," Julia grumbled. "I hate doin' it, but I need one every once in a while."

"Meaning every half hour," John muttered under his breath.

Julia gasped. "That's a fib, John! I have one after me morning coffee. After me tea, sometimes too."

"That must be a candy cigarette in your mouth, then, eh, Mum?"

"Oh, you ain't half a windup, John!" She gave him an infantile pout and proceeded to take a prolonged drag on her ciggy. "Y'know I was the one who got your auntie into smoking?"

"Who, Mimi?"

Julia nodded, smiling and sat down on the arm of the sofa. "She was so against it at first. Her mouth said one thing, but the look in her eyes said another."

"How'd you mean?"

"Well, she'd be scolding me whilst looking at my ciggy like it was a slice of sizzlin' bacon smothered in syrup! This one time, though, your Uncle George had won a bit of money and he wanted to take Mimi to some fancy do across the Mersey—this was when they were still courtin', mind— and she was shitting bricks! Excuse my French, Cel. The poor cow was so nervous."

"Why was she nervous?" Celia asked, hoping she wasn't intruding, and not minding at all if Julia swore. It was refreshing hearing profanities slip from an adult's mouth when in her house, foul language was so frowned upon.

A grin spread across John's face. "I bet you any money it was because Mimi doesn't like boats. Am I right, Mum?"

Julia nodded, her own grin a replica of her son's. "She could never be a pirate, that one. Always turns green when she steps on the water. Anyway, she didn't wanna turn George down because she liked him too much and she'd never really been on a fancy date, but she was dead scared of being sick in front of him."

"So what did ya do? Give her one of your cigs to calm her down?"

Julia shook her head.  "She stormed up to me, and I thought she was about to give me an earful because I was neckin' Danny Green when I shouldn't have been, but she took the ciggy straight from me mouth and popped it in hers! Never seen someone smoke the life out of a cigarette as I did her."

"Who's Danny Green?" John scoffed.

"Did she throw up on the boat?"

"I don't think so," Julia answered, choosing to ignore her son's disdain for one of her former lovers. "Probably because of the pack of cigs I slipped in her coat pocket before she left. Knew she wouldn't be able to resist."

Julia's smile was wide with a combination of pride and mischief, and Celia caught a glimpse into parts of the young girl that Julia once was; a part of her that was so vivid in the roguishly proud boy she'd brought into the world sixteen years ago.

"Don't think she's ever forgiven me for it," Julia said, tapping the ash from her cigarette to the carpet.

"But you helped her overcome her seasickness!"

Julia responded with an airy shrug. "And gave her a faggy breath for the next twenty-odd years."

"Na, Mimi don't have a faggy breath," John said. "Polo mints coming out of her ears, that one."

"Ah, a smoker's best friend."

"See you smoke, Mimi smokes; runs in the family, eh mum? Might as well start 'em young." John jutted his chin towards the cigarette in Julia's hand. "I don't smoke very much you know; I'm a good boy."

Celia rolled her eyes. What a liar he was. John always seemed to have a pack of cigarettes on him. God knows how he got them. Enough times she'd seen him and his cronies sneak away to some foxhole with an inconspicuous ciggy resting behind their grubby ears.

"Christ, John, you're a right pest, you are." Julia sighed and stared at her cigarette as though it were talking to her, persuading or discouraging her righteous parenting.

"Oh alright, then," Julia granted, succumbing to the latter. "Just a puff, alright?"

John grinned.

"I'm serious, John," Julia said sternly, pointing a sharp finger at him. "Don't make me regret it."

"Aye aye, mother, sir!" John saluted her, still smiling. "Danke mother! Danke kindly; obliged I am muchly."

Celia tried not to appear shocked as the cigarette transferred from Julia's fingers into John's. Her mother would rather hand Celia a machete before being responsible for the toxification of her lungs. She couldn't believe how carefree Julia was; how her abundant love for her son made her succumb to his desires. Celia watched as John's freckled throat jutted as he inhaled the warmth of the narrow cylinder, the nicotine swirling about in his lungs. His eyes surrendered to darkness and his head tilted against the back of his chair as though the cigarette had whisked him away on a dopamine cloud. Celia knew the feeling. There was something soothing about puffing on a cigarette. It warmed the insides like an internal blanket. A stimulating comfort to the nerves.

"Do you dare take a drag on the cancer stick, or does Miss Goody Two-Shoes need 'er whiskey to do so?"

John was holding the cigarette south, a fine coil of smoke twisting and rising above him as it whistled out from behind his lips. He had one eye open, as though he'd known Celia had been watching him, like he was rewarding her thoughts with his contribution. Was John toying with her? Testing her boldness? Trying to plead Celia guilty after her proclamation of smoking denial that brought shame to her cheeks in Julia's presence? Or was this a mere token of peace? A pure act of generosity to fulfil the desire that he'd somehow read in Celia's mind? How she wanted to take the cigarette from him; to enjoy it in her sobriety that her last drunken stupor didn't allow for. Celia reached out but hesitated mid-air as though her omniscient mother was in the room, watching her from behind the curtains.

Oh, to hell with her mother.

"Sod it," Celia said under her breath, and quickly nabbed the cigarette from John's fingers. A smile crept onto his lips as she succumbed in the same way his mother did.

Celia quickly inhaled and let the smoke dance around her mouth with its warm feet. God, it felt rottenly good. Like John, she'd floated away for a bit, basking in the satisfaction of toasty bitterness and all the badness that came with it. Curse Sir Walter Raleigh; he was such a stupid git.

Moments later, Celia's eyelids fluttered open to find John gazing down at her. He was motionless as though time had frozen over him, his vision wiped off everything in his sight except Celia, who was blinking back at him, wondering what had mesmerised him so. She felt naked, conscious of her soul being watched as the fervour in John's brown eyes saw through the surface of her skin. A blush tinted Celia's cheeks, and she quickly held the cigarette out to him.

The waft of smoke below John's nostrils succeeded to wake him from his trance and he blinked a few times before returning from wherever he'd been in those few unconscious moments.

"Nothing," John said quickly. He appeared a little flustered, his eyes immediately sliding to the cigarette.

"No one said anything," Celia responded, not bothering to hide her amusement for the transcendental voice that only Lennon seemed to hear.

"What?"

"Here." Celia waved the cigarette in front of him. "They say it's a good cure for neuroticism."

"Yeh, very funny, Pooley." John muttered, a shade pinker in his complexion than before. "Thought you said something." He proceeded to put the cigarette back in his mouth but Julia's hand swiped it away before John had the chance to feel its pleasure against his lips again.

"Absolutely not, Stinker. One puff's enough."

"But—"

"Nein!"

"Off with yer head, then."

"I'm the one who needs it after what Mrs Frizzy Whiskers said to me! Honestly, she's really put a downer on my mood."

Julia started pacing the living room again, puffing away as though her life depended on inhaling as much smoke as she could.

"I have three kids, and yet, she treats me like I'm the child! And you've seen the way she stares at me, haven't you, John? Like I'm Maggie bloody May."

"Sorry, who exactly is Maggie May?" Celia interjected.

"A whore," Mother and son answered simultaneously, with a blasé attitude to such a derogatory term of address.

Oh. How lovely.

"I've been perfectly sound with her all these years, not once complaining about that bloody Italian opera she plays day in, day out."

♫ "IL NOME MI BOLLICI VALATINA CON CUCHI"♫

John slowly rose from his seat, arms elevating above him as he very poorly imitated the dramaticism of an opera singer, whose words were sung in a tenor of complete gibberish.

Julia squeezed her temples. "Oh John, please, don't start with that again."

♫ "ADDIO, MIO AMORE, DEATH-A BECOMES ME IN THE STILL OF THE NIGHT." ♫

"John—"

♫ "MAMA MIA, I CRY CRY CRY, I CRY, BECAUSE-A MY HUSBAND HAS ONE EYE, EYE, EYE."♫

"John, shh!! These walls are paper thin!"

John laughed. "I know."

"They'll hear you!"

"Pshh, let her hear me!" John said, defiantly as he jumped down from the chair. "In fact, I don't think I was loud enough, do you?"

At once, John bounded to the neighbouring side of the living room wall and pressed his cheek against the floral wallpaper as though he were eavesdropping. His throat opened again to produce even more of his terribly cacophonous gibberish, and it wasn't long before Julia ran over and mirrored her son's movements. Now the two of them were like a magnetic force against the wall, harmonising their hearts out in an incomprehensible operatic duet with an interval of helpless giggling.

Celia was still sitting on the floor, marvelling at the two of them through her own amusement. Julia was John, and John was Julia; both of them alike in their absurdity and temptation for mischief. If a person was only half a puzzle, existing in the need of another to complete them, then John had found his other half, and Julia hers. They had a precious connection, that many had not. A bond that was often asked for in wishes and prayers and dreams.

"Come on, Johnny lad, let's leave 'em be." Julia gave a final spurt of laughter before patting the wall as though thanking it for a hard day's work.

"She's an 'orrible old bag," John muttered as Julia pulled the reluctant boy away by the collar of his brown jumper.

"You're telling me," Julia muttered.

"Don't worry, mum, Mrs Piggy's just pissed off 'cause her husband's turned into a cyclops and now he can only see one of her saggy tits instead of both of 'em."

"John!" Julia's laughter sounded like coins jangling. Copper chiming copper. "That mouth of yours will get you into serious trouble one day, Stink."

John shrugged her premonition off and grinned at his mother. "I'm telling the truth, is all."

"Her husband only has one eye?" Celia asked, suspicious of his familiarity. The man who co-owned the butchers with his brother in Rose Lane only had one eye. He'd adopted the name One-eyed Willie, and he usually had it covered with a white cloth which was always tied so tightly, you could see the hollow indent of his eyeless socket. Most of the time it was smeared with the blood of some poor carcass which made him appear even more threatening than he already appeared. Like most of the kids who had been convinced by the silly little rumours to induce fear into their gullible souls, Celia spent most of her childhood afraid of him. He'd play to those fears too with his grunting, snarling and aggressive cleavering. Of course, Celia knew better than to believe she'd be cursed to the slaughterhouse if she so much as looked at him, but still to this day Celia could barely do so without goosebumps surfacing her skin.

John nodded, a fiendish smile spread across his mouth. "Yep. Nazis took it."

"Poor fella lost it during the war," Julia elaborated, her face etched with sympathy.

"Should've looked for it, then," John said, leaning back in his chair with a smirk on his mouth. "Maybe if he eyed the battlefield, he would've found it."

Julia tutted and shot John a reprimanding glare. "John, that joke wasn't funny the first time you made it in front of him."

John shrugged. "Pete thought it was."

"Yes, well, Pete can be as insensitive as you, sometimes."

It's true Pete and John were alike in character. Two peas in a pod, except John was the bigger one. Lennon and Shotton, Shotton and Lennon. The world's most troublesome duo. Or rather, stupidest. One was rarely seen without the other at Quarry Bank. If John said 'jump', Pete would say 'how high?' and then challenge John to jump even higher. Pete was alright on his own, though. Celia hadn't spoken to Pete much, but she knew he didn't have an acerbic tongue or caustic wit, as his best pal did. He laughed a lot, Pete, and what he lacked in sharpness, he made up for in his daftness.

"How is he, our Little Bo-Pete? His nana better yet?"

"Yeh, turns out she weren't dying, she just had the flu."

Julia spun around, her face adorned with joy as her palm pressed against her heart. "Oh, John that's brilliant news! What a relief; I bet Pete's over the moon!"

"I mean, hackin' up half a phlegmy lung ain't exactly a relief, but yeh, at least she ain't boarding the death-mobile to the pearly gates yet."

"Deathmobile!" Julia tutted again and rolled her eyes to the ceiling. "Why'd you have to be so bloody morbid?"

"Nothing morbid about the death-mobile, Mum. It's a shiny white chariot, pulled by a Pegasus and his shiny, golden bollocks."

Celia snorted. "That's not what I heard."

Mother and Son turned to look at Celia and John prodded her input with a quizzical raise of his eyebrows.

"I heard it's pulled by two demons from hell as punishment for all their immoral sins."

"Jesus H. Christ." Julia proceeded to mumble something incoherent and then took a huge drag on her cigarette.

"If it was pulled by demons they'd be going to hell, wouldn't they?" John said matter-of-factly, as though Celia were stupid for suggesting otherwise.

"No, not necessarily. The grim reaper is in control of them."

"And who controls Grimmy, then?"

"God, of course."

"And the devil, what of him? He's hungry for purgatory souls."

"He keeps his side of the bargain."

"Being?"

"Being that once the good lot go through the pearly gates with their welcome baskets—" John interrupted Celia with a snap of laughter. "—the chariot turns black and the demons speed the bad lot down to purgatory at a sickly speed of three hundred miles per hour."

"Well, that I ain't what I heard."

Celia tilted her head slightly. "No?"

"No. I heard that God flips 'em the finger and then boots them off the chariot with his big, golden slipper and they're left to fall through the burning clouds, so fast the skin flaps off their faces."

John's eyes had lit up like an innocent child who was excitedly explaining the appearance of Santa Claus on Christmas Eve.

"Oh yeah, that's right!" Celia said, returning his huge grin and level of enthusiasm. "Think that's in the unabridged edition."

Laughter suddenly shook the gap between them both. Julia's eyes slid back and forth across the two sixteen-year-olds, as though she were trying to interpret a surrealist painting. They were like a pair of naughty youngsters, doing something they shouldn't have been doing, but deriving so much joy from it anyway. Her son and his female companion had seemingly bonded over their sardonic destruction of Catholicism with a blasphemous testimony that amused them to the point of heavy giggling. How fine a friendship it would be if those two could only see how much their hearts had to offer one other. Right now, though, Julia wasn't sure if she should be wholly disconcerted, or positively entertained.

"Bleedin' eck!" Julia chose the latter option, though it was more an expression of shock that had her vocal cords shaking with laughter. "Your imaginations, honestly!"

John's giggling came to a halt. "Imagination?! They taught us that at Sunday school, didn't they, Pooley?"

Celia nodded.  "Oh yes, most definitely."

Celia knew it was wrong, slandering the religion that had been forced upon her for sixteen years. Still, it felt so liberating to do so— like smashing a pointless piece of China against a wall and watching it crumble into thousands of insignificant, little pieces. The Catholic faith was so sure of itself as the one true religion; so utterly prestigious in its worship. A religion that preached about righteousness and morality, yet many Catholics she knew lived in the shadows of their hypocrisy with the constant judgment upon others despite their own imperfections and   unrepentant sins. One's creed and path through life were dictated by the words of a sacred journal, that had supposedly maintained its authenticity for thousands and thousands of years. Still, Celia deemed herself as the hypocritical catholic, fearing purgatory and the importance of repentance to cleanse the soul from its sins.

At least John, too, could see how ludicrous it all was, though. Here was someone who shared her sacrilegious jests and wouldn't judge her for the terribleness of it. It was awfully easy joking around with him when they were on the same side (whatever side that may be upon the subject of religion, that is). She longed for more of it. John as an ally, rather than an opponent.

"Like heck they did!" Julia exclaimed, a rather disapproving frown pulling her defined features downwards. "If father whatshisface heard you talking like that, you'd both be booted off the bleedin chariot."

"Fatherwhatshisface?" John pretended to look astounded.
"How civil of you. Shows how much you go to church, eh mum? You'll be punished for that immoral sin, y'know."

"Oh shut up, you! Look, no one knows what happens after we die, or where we go, or who we'll meet, and keeping up appearances at church doesn't get us any closer to the bloody answer."

"HEAR, HEAR!" John cheered.

Celia too believed in Julia's cynical words as though they were thoughts conjured by her own brain. The part of her brain that forbids public revelation, for the fear of being frowned upon. She prayed in the same way her mother massaged her hands with cream every night; the way her father licked his thumb before turning the page of his newspaper— a matter of habit, more instinctive than faith.

"It's the one thing we'll never know the answer to," Julia continued, with more certainty than a cold, wet day in Liverpool. "And that's the beauty of it. That lot out there can preach all that Biblical codswallop they ruddy-well like, but they're just as ignorant about God as a baby is, fresh out of its mother's aching fanny!"

Both Celia and John erupted into laughter again. She really had a way with words, Julia did. Candid and humorously outrageous in the best way possible without even meaning to be. Oh, they were all gonna be laughing their way down to hell when the time came.

"Come back to Mimi's later, would you, mum? I want her to hear that word from word." John's giggling came to a decrescendo as he wiped the laughter from his eyes.

Julia grunted. "God forbid. Look, you've both got me all riled up! What was I talking about before you two started bashing the bible?"

"Mr Pigmy's empty eye socket," John replied.

"Oh, yes." Julia's face contorted into sorrow again, her agitated temperament mellowing. "Tragic it was, Cel. The Germans bullet exploded the left side of his face."

Celia winced. "Oh, that poor man; how unfortunate for him!"

"Well, I always thought it unfortunate that they didn't re-arrange his nose instead," ridiculed John, tilting back in his chair. "The miserable sod's nostrils are so big, he can smell colours."

Julia gasped. "John!"

An impish grin slid across the cruel boy's mouth.

"Stop with the nastiness, that man has every right to be miserable after all that's happened to him."

"What, like his wife shaggin' the fat, old clergyman down the road when she was supposed to be buying a loaf of bread?"

Julia shot her son a reproachful glance. "Give over, John. Those are just rumours, I already told you that."

"Pete, Ivan and I saw it happen! She walked out from behind the chapel garden with her skirt tucked into her knickers!" John sounded annoyed, exasperated even, that his testimony was dismissed as codswallop.

Julia pursed her lips, still wary of the truth behind her son's protestation. "She was just having a piddle, that's all."

John scoffed. "What behind the bloody chapel? In't it a sin to piss two meters from the house of God or somethin'? I'm telling ya, she had her leg up and a breeze under her skirt."

Julia mused John's words for a second, and then her frown transitioned into a smirk. "I don't think she's that flexible, Stink. The poor cow can barely walk up the doorstep without a puff. You know, I told her that if she talks to me like that again they'd be more than cat poo on her precious lawn."

John let out a dramatic gasp. "Did you threaten Mrs Frizzy Whiskers with a human shite, Mum?"

"Not specifically, no. Although, there's no need for us to excrete in the loo anymore, my dear child." Julia patted John's head, her scouse accent morphing into an aristocratic one. "Be a good boy and execute your business into a page of newspaper so I can have the maids slingshot it into dear Mrs Pigmy's garden."

John's eyes lit up, a grin passing across his face as he was met with his forte for crudity and theatrics.

"And what have you my piss?" He replicated his mother's posh accent, except it sounded believably shaky, like an old master past his sell-by date. "Such a shame it would be to waste the golden stream of goodness when it could be of use to water her botanicals."

Julia suddenly broke character with a fracture of laughter that intertwined with Celia's. It only took her a few seconds to recover, and when she did, her face manoeuvred back into a snobbish guise and with a clearing of her throat, she re-conjured the upper-class articulation that she did so well.

"We'll have the butler fetch you the spare piss pipe—sorry hosepipe, that ought to do it."

Like many masterful thespians, Celia noticed Julia had the masterful ability to transition into someone else without a falter in her presentation. A craft John had too. They were both natural performers, meant to be seen through the eyes of plenty who appreciated something different, something outrageous, something talented and desirable.

The three of them were cackling like three witches stirring up a caldron of trouble.

"Right enough of this rude talk," Julia said, as the laughter died down and the cauldron simmered. Her eyes latched onto Celia, and she blinked a few times as though she was making sense of the vision before her.

"What on earth are you doing down there, Cel?"

It seemed Julia had only just registered that Celia had been sitting on the floor for the last fifteen minutes. She was starting to feel it too; her bottom had become numb, and her hands were tingling where they'd been pressed onto the carpet for so long.

"She was having a tantrum," John quipped.

"I was just packing away these project books," Celia said, glaring at John as she shook the prickling current out of her fingers.

"Ooh, project books! What project is it for?"

"A crap one."

Celia scowled at John, who had now flopped his upper body over the table, his chin resting atop his hands.

"It's a research assignment for our Geography O-level," Celia answered whilst heaving herself up from the carpet. "We have to write about our findings and draw a sketch map, so I thought these books might help us."

"A sketch map!" John sprung up from his sluggish position, his eyes wide with horror. "You never said anything about a bleedin' sketch map!"

"We discussed it in the lesson, John."

"Pshh, not with me you didn't."

"Oh, that's right! Christopher Columbus was sitting next to me as well, must've explained it to him, instead."

A smile pulled at John's mouth. "I was wondering why you were talkin' to yerself. Thought you were just loopy. Or maybe you are, 'cause Columbus is dead."

"You're not funny, John. I don't understand how you haven't grasped the ability to understand what it is we're doing. Also, I literally circled the question and it's re-written in the detailed brief that I made for you last week. What more could you want?"

"To not do it."

Celia was going to throttle him in a minute. She could feel the hot energy surge through her hands, readying themselves to wrap around his throat. Was partner work supposed to be this difficult? Surely it shouldn't be this difficult. She'd sat down opposite him again, forgetting that she was meant to be leaving for the bus.

"Is that it there?" Julia nodded towards the table where a thin booklet was half-disguised underneath John's elbow.

John removed his arm to inspect it.

"Yeh, this is it." He snarled at the question paper like a vicious dog. It was in perfect condition when it was handed to him the week before last. Now it was newly tea-stained and graffitied with his crass doodles.

"Give it us here," Julia requested, her ciggy pursed between her lips. She removed her red-winged spectacles from her pocket and slipped them back on. "I wanna have a nose at it."

John handed it to her as though he were passing over a slice of wet bread. Julia chuckled at the exhibit of drawings and then scanned her eyes over the page.

"Christ, look at the size of that passage! You haven't got to do that one, have you? What a drag."

Celia shook her head. "Thankfully not. Only what I've circled for question ten."

Julia's magnified eyes dropped to the bottom of the page. "Draw one sketch map to show the importance of Copenhagen and Hamburg as ports."

John groaned.

Julia continued: "Write a brief explanatory account of the trade and manufacturing industries of each port."

John groaned even louder and burrowed his head inbetween his arms on the table.

"We have to present our findings to the class as part of our assessment."

Julia's tut was coated in pity. "You poor things. All work and no play, eh?"

John muttered something incoherent, and she smiled at him as though she understood.

"Well, I can't say much about Copenhagen, but Hamburg's pretty swell. A vibrant city full of life, lust...and canals!" Julia chuckled as she placed the booklet down next to Celia. "The architecture's very Romanesque and ooh!— The Reeperbahn! How could I forget? die sündigste Meile."

A devilish grin stretched across Julia's face.

"The Reeperwhat?" John sat up now, watching all the confusing words sail out of his mother's mouth. "What was that you just said there?"

"die sündigste Meile," Julia repeated, her pronunciation no less than perfect. She tapped the ash from her cigarette into the little glass ashtray on the table. "It means the most sinful mile in the world."

"What is?"

"The Reeperbahn! It's a famous street in the heart of St. Pauli."

"I didn't know you've been to Hamburg, Mum."

Julia's smile was almost secretive. "I haven't."

"Why's the Reeperbahn so popular?" Celia questioned.

"Because of the red-light district, of course!"

John's heavy eyebrows pulled together. "What the bloody hell is a red-light district?"

"A thrivingly naughty place," Julia said as she tenderly brushed her hand through the back of John's gloopy hair. "A fun place. A sad place too, I imagine. It's a bit of an everything place, really."

John scoffed. "How can it be fun and sad? Hardly worth goin' then, is it?"

"Well, that all depends on perspective, sweetheart. Who's there for a good time and who's there because life dealt 'em the short end of the stick."

"A'right so what's naughty about it?" John probed, folding his arms across his warm, fair Isle jumper.

Julia gave him a puckish grin as she pulled a chair out next to Celia.

"It's home to the world's oldest profession," she said, stubbing her cigarette inside the ashtray. "Temptations acted upon behind the door of the flashin' neon lights and red-devilled windows seduce the hungry eyes of those that seek to please their sins." Her speech was laced with humour but her eyes shone with sincerity.

"It's erotism at its finest." Julia wiggled her eyebrows up and down just like John did. At that moment Celia thought it uncanny how similar John and Julia were despite their almost dissimilar appearance. Yes, John's features were sharper than his mother's, but they had the same muscle movements in their face and unsubtle expression of emotion. They shared the same need for jocularity and their energy bounced off of each other like two bolts of lightning colliding into one.

As Julia had revealed the salacious secrets of Hamburg, John's eyes were the same as every teenage boy at the mention of sex— ravenous and glazed with desire for something fantastical beyond their reach.

"So like.. strip clubs n' floozies n' all that?" John licked away his sexual appetite, his eyes bright as the red, neon lights flashing in the mirage before him.

Julia nodded. "Brothels..sex shops..adult theatres, all sorts of raunchy stuff."

"Do they have a stuff like that round 'ere?" John asked with his lips slopped upwards."Lime Street's full of hookers with no teeth and scabby fannies."

Celia shot him a look of disgust.

"That's not true."

"Yes, it is."

"Please, like you'd know."

"I do know. Everyone does."

"I don't."

"Well, that's because you're a—"

"—I imagine Soho in London is quite the place for it all," Julia interrupted, wisely destroying the detonator about to explode between them. Her eyes darted across the two bickering teens. Celia was glaring at John, and he in return, was grinning at her. Julia loved her boy, more than anyone and anything in the whole entire world, but sometimes he could be a right little shit, and he knew it too.

"The sense of adventure is far better in Hamburg, I'm sure," she said.

"Hang on, how do ya know so much if you ain't been, Mum?"

John's confusion had Julia's mouth parting with a minuscule breath of hesitation. It would've been easy to overlook it, had Celia not been watching her with her own spirit of interest.

Julia licked her cherry-coloured lips before sharing an answer. "Your father," she said, adverting her gaze to the ashtray.  "He took a trip there long before the war."

The unexpected mention of his dad landed a punch right in the tender part of John's stomach. He wanted to be sick. He quietly sucked in a breath; willing the pain and nausea to pass, much quicker than they arrived.

With an angry bitterness swirling at the bottom of his throat, he watched as his mother's eyes rose and settled on Celia. "Alf used to be a steward for the Merchant Navy before he became a nautical merchant," she said. "He travelled to all sorts of places. Great storyteller, he was."

"Where is he now? Do you see him often?"

Celia's inquisitive spark was met with quiet. Even the extravagant clock in the room seemed to have stopped ticking. A dark shadow passed over John's face, and she realised then, that she'd let her curiosity venture too far. The comfort of the shore was too far away and now they were all swept up in a suffocating wave of silence. She'd asked a question that wasn't easy to answer. A question that, it seemed, had been purposely pushed out of sight, out of mind, and left to coat in a pile of dust until it was no longer visible. Celia had picked it up, blew on it, and booted it back into the limelight, only now, the spotlight seemed to bear down on Julia. Celia suddenly felt embarrassed for walking onto a territory that wasn't hers to step on. She opened her mouth to splutter an apology, but Julia spoke before she could.

"He's around," she said, scratching a spot behind her ear.  A nervous chuckle escaped her lips. "Alf's around somewhere."

All eyes were on John as he suddenly let out a brittle crack of laughter. There was no mirth in it. Only anger and torment. "Oh, bullshit, he's hardly around is he, mum?"

Julia sighed and rubbed her hands over her face. "Please John, don't."

"Why not? You said it."

Celia wasn't quite sure where to look. She didn't belong here in the middle of this feud, yet she'd been the one to instigate it. This was personal and awkward and at a depth beyond her reach. She couldn't excuse herself now, it would make her discomfort too obvious and it would only embarrass Julia, if not herself even further. Instead, Celia turned her head away and made a point of peering out of the window. Bloody weather. It was still crappy out there. The miserable rain hadn't paused for breath and the grey clouds were enough torment on their own.

"John—"

"—Makes him sound nearer than he actually is, though, doesn't it? Down the sofa, is he? How about up the chimney?"

John appeared wounded by the way in which he held himself. His arms were tightly folded across his chest as though barricading the pain in his heart from unleashing. His tone, his brow, his mouth—everything about him had taken on that stone-like quality, and his eyes were flaming with resentment.

"Alf Lennon's spunking his seed all across the country, no doubt; effing everything he sees, in't that right, mum? Or maybe papa's shirking off on the bottom of a ship somewhere, getting pissed up like a free man with no wife or kid to think about, eh? Having jollifications with some other worthless, crummy prick."

John wore his bitterness for his father like a tight veil, suffocating and agonising. There was no point trying to escape it. It was there. Had always been there, like a little creature retreating into the shadows until it was time to attack with every bit of force it had. He'd articulated feelings that he would've been mortified for anyone to hear, had his mother's response not sparked the flame alight inside of him. He knew Celia would judge him for his outburst, but he didn't care. At that moment, he was too worked up to give a shit about what anyone thought.

It was shameful; this helpless hatred, but John couldn't help it. He despised the man who was never there to nurture him; to care for him in the way a father should. Alf hadn't been there to lecture him right from wrong or teach him all the things he ought to know. How to ride a bike without training wheels, how to multiply and divide horribly long sums, how to shave with a double-edged razor, how to set up the wireless in his bedroom. He hadn't taught him how to play the mouth organ, how to smoke a pipe without choking on it, how to whistle with his fingers, or how to do funny voices and make girls blush. It was Uncle George who'd done all that. He'd stepped up and shown him devotion when his father hadn't.

John loathed his strong, physical resemblance to his prat of a dad. He hated how he'd been forgotten about by the one man who should've been there to love him consistently and unconditionally. Instead, John was tossed aside like the last bit of indigestible food on a dirty plate. Left to be thrown away and disposed of. He hated that his existence was an inconvenience to his sperm-donor of a father; nothing more than a cock-up in his life. John would die for his mother, but god, he couldn't help that tiny bit of hatred he spared for her too sometimes. For her lack of fight to keep their family together; for that smidge of wasteful love she still clung onto towards the man who had since abandoned her; for letting John retain a tiny inch of hope that he'd come back into their lives and put things right one day. And most of all, he hated his mother for ever setting her eyes on Alfred Lennon in the first place. There would've been another man out there who would've given her everything she deserved in life and more. John's heart caved in as the painful thoughts washed over him. He'd felt the anger come out of his mouth as he snapped at his mother, coarse and sharp. Hurtful without meaning to be.

The static tension condensed between mother and son, a second, silent language filling the room to the brim. There was a combination of hurt and guilt burning from one pair of eyes and melting into the other.

"I know, John, I know."

Julia's voice was a trembling whisper and for a dreadful second, both Celia and John thought she was about to cry until her expression changed completely. A huge smile swept over her face and she said, "Who needs fathers anyway, though, eh? Rotten, the lot of 'em!"

John knew that was a lie because his mother cherished her own dad. John's grandad, George. He also knew that she was trying to make light of the situation, so he kept quiet about it.

"Mothers are far better at parenting," she said, with a strained chirpiness. "We carried you and gave you life, after all!"

John's mouth twitched into a grimace. "Yeh, just like you said—no need for fathers, eh? Just ditzy mothers with a libido and poor judgment."

Celia winced. Julia reeled backwards as though he'd reached out to hit her. He may as well have done. It was a horrible thing to say, and John regretted it almost instantly. The dark shadow that had briefly loomed over his face had vanished and left him pale like a ghost. He was overcome with shock as the acerbic words had come from a mouth that wasn't his own.

"Mum, I—I didn't mean that." John looked so stung by his own words, it was as though a stem of nettles had wrapped around his skin. "You know I didn't mean that. That was—I shouldn't have said—I'm really sorry I—"

John's fretful apology was lost in Julia's comforting touch. She'd stretched her arm across the table and caressed his trembling fist, which soothed him almost instantly. It was a mother's job to forgive, and to disciple forgiveness into the children they bore. God knows, John had a lot to forgive Julia for. She pulled her son's hand towards her and gently kissed his knuckles. A heavy sorrow had taken over any remaining lustre in her eyes, but still, she smiled warmly at her boy. She'd been the one to birth this amazing, impassioned, young man who'd experienced too much heartache and still loved ever so strongly with it.

The tension in the room was like a pan of water sitting
on a hot stove, no longer boiling, but still gently simmering. Julia removed her hand from atop John's and took a cigarette from the little nautical packet. They all sat for a moment or two recuperating in silence.

John—who seemed to have recovered his normal complexion—smirked at his mum as the first hit of nicotine worked its magic.

"Every once in a while, eh?"

Julia returned his smile, relieved to see him back to his usual, teasing self. Celia, too, was glad to have a change in atmosphere. It felt invasive to sit in the middle of an anguish that wasn't hers to grieve upon. She sat there at the table, keeping quiet as she watched mother and son rekindle with a laugh or two. Celia had seen something new in John's face earlier. Something in his eyes as he spoke of this Alf fellow. Something serious. A begrudging sort of sadness that made John emotionally vulnerable and liable to shatter uncontrollably. Some things were best left unspoken and the curiosity surrounding his father's absence was one of them.

"Hamburg's great, anyhow," Julia commented as she blew out a plume of smoke from the side of her red lips. "Your research shouldn't be too boring."

"I doubt that." John rocked back in his chair as he tapped his fingertips on the table. He hadn't so much as glanced at Celia. "Hamburg's probably riddled with a ton of second-hand Nazis."

Julia rolled her eyes and removed her glasses. "Not everyone was a Nazi, John. A lot of teenage boppers like yourselves weren't. The rebellious Swing-Heinis were all over Hamburg doing their own thing."

John and Celia blinked at her.

"Swing-Heinis?" they both said, looking positively dumbfounded.

"What the bloody hell is a Swing-Heini? Sounds like a shit brand of baked beans."

Celia laughed, having thought near enough the same thing. Julia didn't share their amusement.

"They were a group of spirited jazz and swing lovin' German kids who admired our way of life," she said. "Well, us and the Americans. The Swing Youth, as they're better known."

"Oh! I've read about this!" Celia declared, proudly. "They opposed the nationalist-socialist ideology of Hitler youth, didn't they? They rebelled against the Nazi movement and joined all those Americanised clubs underground."

Celia'd stumbled across a page or two about it upon researching Nazi Germany for her History homework three years ago. She'd received an A for it, as a matter of fact. John chose to draw his impression of Nazi Germany, instead. He received an F and a trip to the headmaster's office.

"They just wanted to have fun during a dark time in their country's history and avoid the war," Julia said. "Well, Hitler, really."

John jutted his chin. "Yeh? And how did that work out for 'em? Bet Addie H didn't like that."

"Not very well, actually. I think a lot of them were arrested for it."

"Yeah, some were sent to concentration camps," Celia added.

John's eyes skittered from Celia to his mother. "How do yous know all this?!"

"Because I actually pay attention," Celia muttered. Julia tapped the side of her nose with a secretive smirk.

"They were quite glamorous, though, those jazzy swingers. The girls used to wear bright lipstick and they'd put tons of dazzle-dust on their—"

"Dazzle dust? What the flying fuck is dazzle dust?"

"Eyeshadow," Julia and Celia said simultaneously.

John grunted.

"And the boys wore their hair rather long, too."

"Like queers."

"They used to dress like American gangsters. Al Capone-ish," Julia continued, ignoring John's snide comment. "Y'know trench coats and double-breasted suits with their trouser legs turned—Ooh! That reminds me! —I've done your kecks for ya, Stinker."

"Oh, ta. You seem to know a lot about Germany, Mum."

"In the early days, I was pen-pals with one of the fellas there for some time."

"You'll be telling me that you're a Kraut next."

A high-pitched laugh sounded from Julia's mouth as she stubbed her barely-smoked cigarette into the ashtray.

"Maybe I am," she said, rising from the table with a grin.

"Am I secretly the kid of some swing-boy sleaze?"

"Oh, Johnny, I couldn't convince you of that if I tried! You look too much like your father."

John's whole body tensed at the mention of Alf again. The muscles in his jaw clenched together like some sort of defensive reflex, and Celia noticed his mouth was working hard to trap the begrudging words inside of it.

"And a very handsome man he was, too." Julia wrapped her hand around John's chin and tilted his face upwards to press a noisy kiss on his forehead. "Aren't I lucky?"

John's cheeks had flushed a little pink, but his face remained stoic as the complement sieved through him.

"I'll go and get ya trousers, so you can try 'em on," she said, excitedly skittering her way towards the living room door. "Bring the little 'uns down too, whilst I'm at it. God knows what they're doing up there!"

And then there were two again. John, quiet and brooding. Celia, quiet and anxious. It was a lethal blunder to leave them in only each other's company. If they weren't prowling around each other, they were pouncing. The last time they were alone, John was trying to speak from the heart. A confession that seemed to have mustered a lot of strength from the emotions that he kept hidden within the deepest parts of himself. Perhaps it was nothing at all, and Celia was simply fishing for something that wasn't there, but almost half an hour later, there seemed to be a lingering ache in Celia's chest for the confessional words that had fluttered on his lips and hovered there. Gosh, why did she care so much anyway?

"God, who would've thought it? My mother—friends with a homo-swing boy kraut." John mumbled to himself as he mindlessly fiddled with Julia's glasses on the table. Celia could've been miles away as he ruminated on the history of his mother's proclivities and his father's whereabouts.

Celia smiled, hoping to lift his mood a little. "Perhaps you should've taken German instead of French, John."

"Pshh, fuck that. That class is a cult of German ancestry. The Third Reich kind."

"Yeah, and Dominic Port-Dickerson is the leader of the new Nazi party."

John laughed. Really laughed. His eyes snapped up to meet Celia's with a teeth-baring grin that caused a little firefly to flutter around in her chest. There was something about making John laugh that felt like an accomplishment. Not because he didn't laugh often— the boy was always laughing at something or another, but because she had been the one to do it.

John took in Celia smiling at him from across the table. She disliked Dominic as much as he did. Her sweet eyes crinkled are the corners as she laughed and her round cheeks, pulled high, were glowing in the lamplight. John swallowed a lump in his throat. It felt dry again, like a ball of dust had lodged itself inside of it. She was still here, sitting across from him in his mother's living room keeping him company as though the previous commotion between the two of them hadn't existed. She'd bore witness to the darkness of his mind that had control of his deceiving tongue. The bitter, cruel words had punched his mother in the gut and made a mark even though she pretended they hadn't because she was too nice of a woman. How was it that she could sit there, smiling at him, larking about with him after the bastard he'd been? John's eyes clouded with remorse and he couldn't look at Celia for a second longer. There was no laughter leaking out of him now, only shame and embarrassment.

He focused on the dent in the table. It was easier to speak when he wasn't looking at her. He cleared his throat, preparing something, but not quite sure what. Forgiveness, perhaps. Redemption of some sort. He didn't know why, only that he needed to.

"Listen, I....what you.." John sighed. Why was it always so fucking difficult to articulate himself in the matter of an apology? He looked pathetic. A pathetic, spineless twat. He rubbed the back of his neck, hoping the words would find their clarity within the next few seconds and dispel the awkwardness he created for himself. He could feel Celia staring at him with that soft, yet inquisitive gaze of hers, and he felt like a squirming bug under a microscope.

"Er, about all that you just saw..y'know with my mum—"

"—You take after Julia with your eyesight, then?" Celia nodded towards the glasses which were spinning around John's fingers on the table. "My dad's to blame for mine."

"Er..yeah." John nodded, slightly dumbfounded. "Yeah. Mum. Mum's fault."

He felt as though a huge weight had been lifted from his chest. Whether it was kindness or pity that took ahold of Celia at that moment, John felt a strong gratitude squeeze at his pathetic heart with all its grievance and undistributed affection. He couldn't quite grasp it. The girl was shrewd and inexplicably considerate towards the likes of him. He looked up at her to find her smiling at him with encouragement for a steer in conversation. John heeded it, despite the compression of internal guilt still sitting atop his organs. Or perhaps it wasn't guilt. Maybe it was a fear of revealing the person he wasn't used to. It was less of a struggle to show off the chunks of him that he kept unguarded all these years, though he wasn't quite sure how far he could go in life by backing his sincerity and sentiment into a corner. John contracted the muscles in his forehead, squeezing the overwhelming pillow-thoughts away. It was too early in the day for it.

"Mum only wears them when she's in the mood too," John said, happy to talk about his mother instead. "Think she likes being filtered in her own world, y'know? Seeing what she wants to see, the way she wants it."

"Well that's understandable, I suppose."

"Yeh, until you mistake a midget for a kid and try and give him a lollipop."

Celia gasped. "She didn't?!"

"She did. I was pissin' myself when she told me. She crouched down to hand it to him and everythin'."

Celia steepled her hands over her face, trying not to laugh. "God, that's awful."

"She can't tell the difference between a dog's arse and a dog's mouth," John said pointedly.

Celia had heard that horrid phrase before. Recently, in fact. It was all too familiar, like humming a song in placement of the forgotten lyrics. Where had she—Celia caught sight of John's face. Hardened around the edges, a sting in his stare. Oh. The recollection swam from the deep and bobbed on the surface of her mind. It was her. She'd been the one to say it. To him. Last Friday, waiting at the Quarry Bank bus stop. He'd been a prick for no reason, she remembered it all now. He'd antagonised her in front of everyone, stretched her patience like a slinky and she'd sprung back with an exposing barb or two. She remembered the sweet satisfaction passing through her when she saw his expression. It had been one disbelief and hurt like he'd been stung.

"That's why you've been so aloof with me, isn't it?"

Lines suddenly bracketed John's mouth as he caved his lips together in a silent protest, his eyes fluttering back to the table again.

"Isn't it, John?" Celia prodded him softly, though she hadn't needed to. She already knew the truth. Everything made sense all at once, like the ending to an Agatha Christie novel. John felt betrayed. She'd betrayed him. Celia had supported his bespectacled vision that morning, only to stamp on it hours later. John was wounded and he'd simply placed a bandage over the weapon that she'd punctured him with.

"I shouldn't have...I didn't mean to discourage you," Celia said, feeling the toil of guilt.

John tugged at a loose thread on the cuff of his jumper, his mouth downturned like a forlorn little boy. He'd been equally as spiteful as Celia had been, but this nagging repentance was at the core of her. Being insecure in oneself, even for the smallest of things, was horrible enough, but having someone else mock it was worse.  

"I meant what I said back in Geography, John. I do like your glasses."

"I don't give a shit what you think," John snapped back.

A stained silence stretched across the room, populated by all manner of unsaid things wafting between them, but John soon broke it with a question wholly unexpected.

"How come you didn't grass on me in detention?"

Celia stared at him, baffled by the nature of the question.

"What?"

"Yer earhole clogged or somethin'? I said how come you didn't grass me up in Toady's detention a couple'o weeks ago. Y'know when I lobbed all those paper balls at him when he was sleeping."

"Oh! Well, I...I don't know, really. Why did you defend me?"

John shrugged, his hands now digging into his jean pockets. "I can't answer that one."

Celia arched her brows. "Can't or won't?"

"Both."

"In all honesty, snitching doesn't really get you very far with people, does it?"

"Might've got you on that bus, though."

Celia smiled at him. "Yeah, well, your way was more..."
Terrifying? Reckless? Thrilling? All of the bloody above. "Unforgettable, I suppose. Even if you did almost get us killed."

John unveiled a tiny, prideful smile at that. He'd enjoyed himself as much as she did that day, and somehow they both seemed to deny the satisfaction of letting one another see the joy they'd created for each other.

Unforgettable was the right word for what that was.

Unforgettable because it was ridiculous.
Unforgettable because Celia had kissed him on the cheek.
Unforgettable because her lips were tingling long after she'd done it.
Unforgettable because she'd never felt as exhilarated as she'd been with him.
Unforgettable because it was John Lennon—the boy whom she had loved to loathe and slowly learned to like.

Celia wanted to take everything from underneath John's gaze and throw it in another direction until there was nothing for him to look at but her. Look up at me! she wanted to say to him. Look into my eyes and see the friendship they're offering.

"I didn't mean it when I said you look like a prat," Celia admitted.

John gave her a look that said he didn't believe her in the slightest.

"I mean it!" Celia protested. "You are a bit of a prat, but you don't look like a prat in those glasses, or a four-eyed fucknut, come to think of it."

John let out an abrupt spout of laughter. "A four-eyed fuck nut! Where the bloody hell do you pull these from? You never called me a four-eyed fucknut, Chetch."

Celia's head cocked to the side like a befuddled puppy. "Didn't I?"

John shook his head, appearing both appalled by the insult and positively amused by it. "No, I would've remembered that one."

"Oh...must've been thinking it, then. Sorry."

John shrugged. "S'right. Almost as good as cockwomble."

Celia laughed. "I meant that one."

John laughed too and they soon recovered in a mellower moment of quietude. John had somehow arranged himself awkwardly in his chair now. His body was almost folded together as one of his legs bent against the dining table in a position that looked no other than uncomfortable. One arm was draped over his knee, whilst his fingers drummed the wood slowly to his own rhythmic beat. He could never sit still, Celia realised, who was so used to observing him, now. He always found a way to fidget, self-regulation he used to either fight a thought or make sense of one. A muscle in his temple ticked slightly as though the current thought swamping his mind was pressing against it. The quietude now became one of wonder.

"Did you see the way, she looked at me? Lizzie, I mean." John glanced up at Celia and back down again, as though he were embarrassed for mentioning it. A frown had replaced the previous mirth they'd shared, and John's speech, when it left his mouth, was a procession of mumbles. "Like I had three eyes instead of two."

Celia had noticed, actually. She'd looked at him weirdly. A bit like she was staring at a hideously out-of-fashioned dress, like the one Celia wore that time to the cinema when Elizabeth's bitch of a friend made a snide little comment on her outfit as she passed by in the car. They'd been a twitch in Elizabeth's striking green eyes as though she were malfunctioning. Like she wasn't programmed to be attracted to boys who wore glasses. As if that even mattered.

"Well, so damn what!"

Celia felt a little hot all of a sudden, filled by a pure, molten detestation for Elizabeth Vanderport. John's head snapped up, his face a picture of surprise at Celia's swift change in temperament.

"What do you mean so what?"

"So what if you wear glasses? Why should that change anything? If Vanderport's got a problem with you looking through a pair of lenses that help you see the beauty in the world a little better—that help you appreciate her face a little better, then she's the problem, not you or your glasses which really, really suit you, might I add, so she can bloody-well clear off!"

Celia freed a huge disgruntled breath as though she'd come up for air after being trapped underwater for so long. She licked the last bit of overdue frustration from her lips and began to recompose herself. She'd ruffled herself in that projectile rant but she felt awfully better for it. Elizabeth was a right cow, and John ought to know it. What purpose did it serve to mope over what Elizabeth thought about him anyway? And then it occurred to Celia, with an odd twist of her heart, that he must really like Elizabeth Vanderport. Why else would he appear so forlorn? And why else would he confront Celia about "Lizzie's" judgment? Because he had eyes for her, that's why. And now he thought he'd ruined whatever they'd had going on between them. No, whatever Celia had ruined between them by mentioning his glasses.

It took Celia a few seconds to realise that John was staring at her now. His pupils had widened as though they'd absorbed all the shadows in the room at once, but the look inside of them was impossible to decipher. His cheeks, too, were tinted with colour, and Celia wasn't quite sure as to whether they'd flushed pink with flattery or something more disagreeable.

John suddenly untangled his limbs from his awkward bodily position, his intense eyes still trained upon Celia, like a red dot on the end of a telescopic gun. He stood up and left her behind, strolling towards the centre of the living room. He was never one to restrain his emotion, and now his lack of comment was rather nerving. She'd only been trying to defend him for goodness sake! Why did he always have to think Celia was against him all the time? All she was trying to get at was that one's appearance didn't change one's worth and his stupid, sensitive brain couldn't seem to grasp that, and now he was—

...back? John was sitting in front of Celia again as though he'd never left, and for a bizarre second Celia thought he never had until he slowly placed something on the table.
His glasses. Celia peered down at the smart, black frames and back up at him again. An understanding seemed to spark between them and she gave him a gentle, prodding nod.

"How's me Buddy Holly look?" John asked, once his eyes were magnified by the lenses that framed his face so handsomely. He wiggled them to make her laugh and she did.

"Very nice," Celia said, a warmth flushing through her chest.

A ghost of a smile graced John's lips. "Not as good as yours, Ingrid."

Celia rolled her eyes. "For the love of God, drop that already!"

"I think they look dead nice on you. Are they new?"

John started mocking their fellow Geography classmate Toby Mulgrew, in the most ridiculously monotonous voice.

"He doesn't sound like that," Celia snapped. He made poor Toby sound as though he permanently suffered from a blocked nose.

"He does." John grinned. "You look just like Ingrid Bergman, has anyone ever told you that? Mehmehmeh."

"Stop it right now."

"My names Toby Mildew and I'm a smelly fungus who can't tell his Bergman's from his Bed Bugs."

"He was just being nice unlike you."

"Oh yeh, and why's that I wonder?"

"Because he's just friendly, John! You might wanna take a page out of his book."

"Christ, Chetch, you're as naive as you are stupid."

Celia threw her chin up, defiantly. "I am not stupid."

"No, usually you're quite smart, but your brain cells have gone walkabout."

"Only quite smart?" Celia quipped, smirking at John whilst ignoring the latter part of his semi-offending comment.

"You've got your head up your arse. The goon was flirtin' with you."

"Oh, please!"

"He was tryna get in yer knickers."

Celia made a startled sound between a squeak and a splutter.

"No, he wasn't!"

"Was." Now John was the one smirking at Celia as her complexion turned against her. "He probably makes himself hard just thinkin' about you, Miss Prim."

Celia's skin flushed like a rash had swept over her entire skin. He sat back and laughed at her; enjoying her chagrin  all too much. He was cruel, he knew it, but a pleasurable thrill was achieved in teasing the girl senseless. She was fierce and bold, yet bashful and modest, a marvel to behold. She asked him what he found so funny. And truly, John didn't know. He was still laughing away. Perhaps because he knew that Toby Mulgrew didn't have a single chance in hell with her. He was punching above his weight. And he weighed a lot by the looks of him. Despite his gaunt-looking face, he was short and stout like the teapot in that nursery rhyme. Celia on the contrary looked like a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and she didn't even know it. Bright and desirable. Beautiful and unreachable. To him at least. Maybe that's why he was laughing. Because deep down, he knew he didn't have a chance with her. He'd seen the disgusted way she'd looked at him earlier after the scenario with his mother. It was a brief expression, but one that pierced him straight through the centre of his heart and deflated it like a balloon. A fuck or a friendship, he'd destroyed the chance of either. If he remembered rightly, which he did, he'd called her a toff and told her that he didn't want to be mates with her, so that ship had long sailed. He'd been the mast, harnessing the power of the wind and propelling her away from him, and he wasn't doing a very redeeming job of steering her back. God, even his own thoughts made him sound like a soft wanker. Anyway, what did all that matter? She was into lanky stick insects with buggy, blue eyes that went by the name of James Marsh— another stupid twat.

John was still laughing when Celia spoke, her voice steely and defiant.

"So what if Toby was flirting with me? Maybe I wanted him to. In fact, maybe I'll ask him to the Valentine's dance next Thursday seeing as he apparently likes me so much!"

At once, John's laughter cut off like a pair of sharp shears had got to it. The lie was easy on Celia's tongue and it was worth it just to see the expression that had crawled onto John's face.

"What's wrong with you, Stinker? You look like you've seen a ghost who's betrayed the literal life out of you!"

Julia had reappeared in the living room with a pair of boisterous girls in tow. Jackie had replaced Princess Margie with a Potato Head who appeared to be on the rough side, and Little Julia was swinging a wicker basket of games in her hand.

"Nothin's wrong" John answered rigidly as he tore his eyes away from Celia's. "Why would anythin' be wrong?"

"Well, I don't know, you just seem a bit—"

"I'm fine," John said quickly, voiding the attention to his current disposition.

"Cheer up then ol' boy; I have a surprise for you—Tada!"

Julia held up a pair of grey school trousers as though she were showing off a big, golden trophy.

John smiled fondly at her. "It's not a surprise when I know what's comin', Mum."

"Spoilsport," Julia replied, with a pout. "I pressed them for ya too. I don't see why Mimi can't do the rest for you. This is the third pair I've done now."

"Because Mimi will have me head if she finds out."

Feeling bold, John had asked his Aunt once and received a twenty-minute lecture as to why the youth of today were nothing but scruffy, uncivilised ragamuffins and to never dare ask to do such a dreadful thing again. All he'd asked of her was to resize his school trousers a little tighter.
Anyone would've thought he'd ask the bloody women to cut holes in them with the way she was going on. Mimi would have John dressed in breeches and tights if she could get away with it. For months he followed through with his sneakily crafted plan, and Mimi hadn't an inkling. Every day John would leave with a standard pair of kecks on, with his mum's tailored ones rolled up in his school bag. As soon as dear Mimi was out of sight, come rain or shine, he'd duck into the neighbour's overgrown hedge, change into them and reverse back again when he got home from school. He was living a life of two identities, like a spy. John still hadn't been caught by anyone, and that was partly because Shotton was a bloody good lookout. It was a damn right hassle but it saved him the everlasting earache from Mimi. Plus, he wanted to see how much longer he could do it before he got spotted and try and beat his keck-changing record whilst he was at it. One minute and seven seconds was the highest score so far, according to Pete's stopwatch which he'd nicked from his dad's shed. Thirty seconds was the goal, and then he'd be a keck-changing champion. John smiled to himself.

"Celia, look what I've got!" Jackie—the once shy little girl—skipped over to Celia with her Potato friend.

"What's she called?" Celia asked as she was handed the ugly Potato against her will.

"Roger."

Oh. 'Roger' with all its plastic components was sporting big black eyelashes, glossy red lips and a bright pink handbag.

"My little brother, Harrison, used to have a couple of these," Celia said, turning the potato over for closer inspection. It felt horrible, as potatoes tended to feel when they were going bad. It was rough and wrinkly and it was sprouting a second pair of arms and legs.

"What was his called?" Jackie asked, watching Celia pull faces at her rotting Potato.

"Mr Turnip Head and Mrs Carrot Head."

Jackie gasped as though she'd heard the biggest scandal.

"Yep! He didn't like the taste of carrots or turnips, so he became friends with them so he wouldn't have to eat them for tea!"

Jackie giggled and Celia grinned at her as she handed Roger back. "Yes I know, silly boy, isn't he?"

"Do you like games? I have lots here, some of them are quite advanced because I'm quite good at them."

Jules had bounced over and stepped in front of Jackie with her basket of board games. Celia spotted monopoly in there— a game that could ruin a family in minutes.

"Hey, I was showing her mine first!"

"Nobody wants to see your shrivelled potato, Jac."

"Don't call him shrivelled!" Jackie protested, holding Roger close to her chest. She was squeezing him so tightly a plastic shoe popped off. 

"Now look!" Jules said, bending down to pick up the small, black shoe. She handed it to her little sister who snatched it from her hand with a pout that looked just like the one her mother did. "And it's Mrs Potato Head, not Mr Potato Head."

"It's whatever I say it is!"

"But she has a bag!"

"So? Men can have bags, actually."

"No, men have briefcases like daddy's one. That one's a handbag."

"Shut up, Julia, otherwise I'll throw all your games in the bin."

Celia put an arm between them, gently pushing Jackie back from taking one of Julia's games from the basket. "Come on girls, there's no need to bicker, is there?"

"Well can you tell her that I was talking to you first!"

"You can both talk to me! An eye and an ear for each of you," Celia jested. The girls weren't amused.

"And can you tell her she ought to throw that rotten potato in the compost and get another one? It's growing legs that aren't plastic and it's smelly too!"

"You're smelly! Maybe you should get in the compost, instead. Anyway, I can't throw Roger in the bin he has feelings."

Jules let out an exasperated sigh of a little girl well beyond her years. "Potatoes don't have feelings!"

"Girls, I'm trying to talk to your brother and all I can hear is yap, yap, yap!"

"But Mum, she—"

"Stop, we've already gone through this," Julia rebuked as she placed her hand against her slim waist. "Jac, I'm sorry sweetheart, but you're gonna have to throw that potato away someday or another before the maggots get it and you, Miss Lippy, stop winding your sister up!"

"But potatoes don't—"

Julia shot her eldest daughter a pointed look which was enough of a warning for Jules to keep her argument trapped behind her mouth.

"Fine," she mumbled as she plopped the basket on the dining table with a lingering scowl. Jules seemed to be finished with Celia's attention now because she stropped her way over to her brother, who was standing over by the coffee table, his tailored school trousers splayed over the arm of the sofa.

"Honestly, these children of mine! Y'know, I've always said Mr Potato Head should be made of plastic instead of an actual spud. Don't they know little 'uns get attached to things easily?"

"Yeh, 'n maggots attach themselves to lippy little girls if they're not careful," John said, as he tickled Jules' neck. She refrained from giggling as she attempted to wriggle free from John's playful fingers, but his strength held her hostage to more tickles A spell of uncontrollable laughter soon broke through the room as John's wandering hands travelled underneath little Julia's armpits.

"Right, c'mon, Johnny-Boo! Take yer jeans off, then!" Julia said once the tickle-tackles were over. She scooted to the left as the girls ran towards her like oncoming vehicles on the main road. They'd decided they weren't done annoying each other yet and started to play a fiendish game of cat-and-mouse through the kitchen and living room. Roger was now sitting on the sofa, upside down with a loss of dignity.

"Let's see these hairy legs of yours, Stink."

"Bloody cheek," John said as he began unbuckling his belt. "Got these hairy legs from you, I did."

"Cheeky git!" Julia threw a cushion at him. "Are ya sure they're comfortable, John? I know it's the fashion with you youngsters but they look awfully tight. You'll get shivery ankles with these ciggy pants."

"They're called drainpipes, Mum, not ciggy pants. Elvis wears them."

"Elvis!" Julia looked over her shoulder at Celia and pretended to swoon against the back of the sofa. "Well if Mr Pelvis wears them then I'm all for 'em, in't that right, Cel?"

"You women, eh?" John grinned as he started pulling down his jeans. "Elvis could start wearing one of those powdered Georgian wigs 'n you'd still be throwing yerselves at him."

"He definitely has the pretty face for a powdered wig, don't you think, Cel?"

Celia hummed in agreement, though she wasn't quite sure what she was agreeing to exactly. Her attention was lost somewhere inbetween John's naked legs. Her eyes were stuck to them with PVA glue. Of course, she'd seen them in P.E. lessons, but the situation was different. Here he was in the shared intimacy of his mother's living room, stripping out of his jeans in front of Celia as though he were simply stripping off an overgarment. She'd never seen this far up. Every inch of John's legs was bare and exposed in front of her. Well, not quite in front of her, that would be...well that would...anyway, they were close enough that she could see the speckling of purply-green bruises. He stretched his leg into one of the holes and Celia caught a teasing snippet of his short, white briefs. Her eyes sealed onto his crutch before flicking back down again. They were a nice shape, John's legs. Not thick and hairless and overtly muscular like those professional swimmers at the Lido last summer, but firm and fleshy with sporadic dotting of freckles on his thighs like a consolation of stars. They weren't even that hairy, either. James's were pale, furry toothpicks, but not John's. He had good legs; attractive legs, like a glorious Roman statue. Celia found herself slowly  opening her thighs like an electric gate welcoming entry as she mindlessly thought about straddling John's own thighs, skin-to-skin.

"Cel?"

"Mm?" Her mouth moved, but Celia was lost in a trance that she couldn't seem to break out of. Julia's voice was simply a muffled voice underwater as she continued to gape at the muscular silhouette of John's calf. As he lifted his other leg to step into the grey fabric, he suddenly lost his footing and Celia—whose eyes were up a little too high again—witnessed the bulge inside of John's tight whites jiggle as he hopped on one foot, trying to regain his balance. Celia's breath hitched. She recrossed her legs, squeezing away the tingling sensation creeping up her thighs and landing in a place where it shouldn't have gone.

"Celia, sweetheart?"

"Yes!" Celia perked up in her chair as though someone had tried to shoot a rocket through it. "Sorry, what?Pardon?"

God, what was wrong with her? She was practically drooling. If any sensation should be exiled from her body and burned to the core it was that one.

"You alright, sugar? You look a bit hot."

Celia slapped her hands to her cheeks. Christ, she was! A furnace had situated itself on her face. She could only imagine the colour of her cheeks—bright red like a juicy tomato tossed onto the grill. Celia stifled a laugh and started fanning the embarrassment away with the flap of her hand.

"My blood gets a little too warm sometimes. It's er—a hereditary thing. Innocuous hyperthermia. Long story."

Oh, Gordon Bennett, what was she saying? A load of bullcrap, that's what. She needed to leave the scene, recuperate with a splash of water, or perhaps a new face. Celia politely excused herself and did a fast walk into the kitchen, not wanting to see the reactions of those she'd left behind her.

She turned on the tap and took the nearest glass from the drainer, letting the cold water run for a bit. God forbid, either of them should ever look up 'Innocuous hyperthermia' in the medical dictionary to find nothing of the sort. She sounded like a stupid berk. No, she was a stupid berk. A little water splashed over Celia's fingers as she clumsily filled her glass to the brim. She tapped her cheeks with her right hand, and it was like a hot pan hissing upon contact of a cool surface as the overspilled droplets mollified her baking cheeks. Celia could tell by the looks on their faces that they knew she was fibbing. How long had they been watching her? How long had she been watching John's body parts? Celia swigged the water down her gullet like a deprived alcoholic in need of a fix. John had been smirking at Celia rather lasciviously as though he'd been up there in her mind with her, watching. Knowing. It wasn't the first time she'd felt him prying her way through her intimate thoughts, either. Why was her deceitful body reacting this way towards him, anyway? God, this was John bleedin' Lennon for crying out loud! The disgusting boy who spat chewing gum across the classroom and spoke with his mouth full. It was as though she'd been put under a spell, hypnotised to focus on nothing but John's stupidly enticing legs.

"You alright in there, Cel?"

"Oh, I'm fine! Be out in a sec!" Celia called back, with a little too much enthusiasm thrown into the mixture of content. She swiftly washed her glass and wiped a hand over the moisture on her mouth. She was hydrated and less tomatoey, but the embarrassment was still peeking through, poking fun at her. No, enough was enough.

"Sorry, what were you saying?" Celia asked as she walked back into the room with another stilted giggle.

"Mum was just saying how sexy these look on me. Don't you think, Chetch?"

John lifted his foot onto the coffee table and started lunging on the spot, smirking at Celia as he did so. Celia wanted nothing more than to go over there and punch him.

"No I never, I said they need takin' in a little more," Julia said. She was on her knees, clamping a chunk of John's trousers as he continued to flex his legs in those daft drainpipes. "C'mon then, sexy beast, take them off so I can do it before I forget."

"Why don't you take them off for me, Pooley? You'd like that," John said, his eyes still trained on Celia's with that mocking glint. "They might slide down easier if you give 'em a good rub." He clasped his thigh like it was a piece of meat and shook it.

Celia averted her gaze, feeling another flush strip across her face like a careless sunburn. A rapid decline in progress. Perhaps she did suffer from some sort of thermal skin disease and John was the cause of it.

"Or would you rather take off Toby's trousers instead?"

"Sod off, John."

The way he said Toby's name caused something to flare up inside of her. He'd thrown dirt at it, painted him as something repulsive and unlikable.

"Who's Toby?"

"No one, Julia," Celia gushed.

"Some dweeby kid who's got it bad for her."

"For the last time, John, no he hasn't!" Celia clenched her fists by her side. They were clammy and hot with anger. His face was likely to explode if her fist was to come into contact with it. "And he's not a dweeb; don't call him a dweeb, John."

"She's got it bad for 'im too," John said, cocking his head towards her as he spoke to his mother. He pursed his lips together and proceeded to make kissing noises like the childish specimen that he was.

"Oh, lay off, John!" Julia tutted and whacked John around the shin. His leg buckled. "Can't you see you're embarrassin' the poor girl?"

John grinned down at his mum. He knew exactly what he was doing, and oh what fun it was. Anyone would've thought Miss Blondie had never seen a fella's legs before. He did have quite decent legs though, not to toot his own horn or anything. With all that biking about, he was bound to have put on a few pounds of solid muscle. Girls liked all that, didn't they? Muscle-men like Ed Fury. Gave 'em something else to gush at. He liked catching Celia out, making those cheeks of hers blush. Oh, the things he could tell her that would make her flush all the way down to her cunt if she'd let him. His imagination was going at a hundred miles per hour.

Having her against the wall, the two of them alone,
her Bardot breasts willingly pushing against his chest.

Her heart racing as he whispered all the ungentlemanly things he'd like to do for her with her back pressed against the wall like that.

The desperate warmth of her hot, jagged breath, pleading against his mouth as he toyed with the hem of her knickers.

A teasing caress of her throbbing clit. Feeling her come undone against his fingers. A beautiful fucking sight to behold.

Pshh, he'd be so fucking lucky. Anyone would. The mere satisfaction of imagining it all was enough to cause a stir in his pants.

Fucksake.

He thought of dentures.
Granny whiskers.
Crusty bunions on cracked feet.
Fat Mrs Pigmy and her miserable one-eyed husband.

His cock stayed asleep.

"No, it's fine," Celia said, as she pushed herself off the wall. "I should be making a move now, anyway."

"Ta-ra then, yeah?" John refused to look at her as he picked his jeans off the floor.

"Nooo, don't go yet!"

Jules had run up to Celia, her face a definition of panic.

"We haven't played scrabble yet," she said, rushing to the table to pick up.

"And you haven't tried mummy's jelly yet either," Jackie followed, her cute face flushed from running around like a loon with her sister.

"Yes, don't go, Cel. The girls are right." Julia came up behind her eldest daughter and leaned forward to settle a kiss atop her head. "I couldn't possibly let you leave this house without playing a bit of scrabble or having a bit of me famous apple jelly."

Julia's smile was rosy and hospitable, the face of someone who'd grown very fond of the young woman she'd not long welcomed into her home for the first time. The pretty young woman whom her son was totally and utterly smitten with even if he refused to believe it.

John groaned and mumbled how much he hated scrabble.

"That's only because you're bad at it," small Julia confessed over her shoulder.

"I'm not bad at it, yer little troll. I get all the crap letters and you cheat."

The little girl spun around and gasped at her big brother.  "I do not cheat!"

"Yeh, you do. Liar liar, pants on fire!"

"I don't! Celia, I don't cheat, honest. John's just a sore loser at every game he loses which is most of them. Please can you stay for a bit longer?"

"Yeah, please, please, pleeeeeasse!"

Celia laughed as her hands were squeezed by the sweet young things in front of her. She hoped someday that the fruit of her womb would long for her company as much as these children did. How could she possibly say no to them with their puppy dog eyes and hope-filled hearts?

Celia crouched down so she was level with them and whispered loudly, so John could hear: "Is your brother really that terrible at scrabble?"

Both of them giggled and nodded.

"Atrocious," Jules said. Julia grinned down at them, shaking her head.

"And is the jelly really apple?"

"Only the best kind," Julia answered.

"Right, well all the reason to stay a little while longer then!"

Screw the bus. The three Dykins cheered, whilst the Lennon one at the back huffed and puffed like the big bad wolf.

Celia stood up and cautiously made her way over to John. They'd had enough disputes for one day, surely? But this was his place of comfort, wasn't it? His family. His time with them before he was back under the supervision of his illiberal aunt. And who was Celia to continue to intrude if he didn't want her to?

"John?"

He was sitting on the sofa, his back to all of them as he buttoned up his jeans.

"What?" he snapped.

"Do..do you mind if I stay for a bit? I don't want to impose on—"

"It ain't up to me. Couldn't care less if you stayed or pissed off."

"Oh."

John turned around and looked at Celia. There was something in his eyes that was trying to reach out to her but didn't quite make it. A recompense of some sort. An internal handshake. His voice, when he spoke again, had lost a layer of its animosity.

"It's up to you," he said.

Celia gave him what she hoped was an appreciative smile.

"Well then, I'd like to stay."

At once, John shot up from the sofa and marched over, a solid resilience in each step. Celia thought perhaps it had been a test. That it wasn't up to her at all. He wanted her to decline the invite and leave his family, never to come back again. And just as she thought he was about to shout at her to do so, he stormed past her. The scrabble had left Jules' hands and was now in his. Everyone stood and watched him as he shook open the box on the table, not with hostility but with purpose.

"I hope you can spell more than three words, Chetch."

Celia's eyebrow ascended her forehead. It was like this  then, was it? Competition ran through her blood, mixed with the minerals and calcium in her bones. If he wanted to compete, then compete they shall.

"Me? Aren't you renowned for being bad at it, Johnny-Boo?" Celia taunted as she strode over to the family. "The only word you can spell is looser, I hear."

"Ha-ha, me sides are splittin'. Don't think you're gonna beat me, Pooley, 'cause you're ruddy-well not." A tiny smile teased the corner of his mouth as he placed the wooden scrabble racks on each side of the table.

He looked at Celia, and this time his brown eyes were welcoming and filled to the brim with determination for a challenge. There was a little bit of happiness in there too, glittering around the edges. The girl he liked, the girl he relentlessly teased had decided to stay under the same roof as him for a little while longer. That was a game in itself—how much longer Celia could put up with John before the timer ran out.

"I wouldn't be so sure about that, Lennon."

John reached out his hand. "Game on, then."

Celia shook it.

"Game on."

To be continued...

Footnotes

Alf Lennon, 1944, age 32. Detained from marine travel for his alleged involvement in a plot to broach the cargo of beer, spirits and cigarettes to sell on the black market. He was sentenced to a month in prison.

Alf (centred) or 'Good Ol' Lennie' as his Liverpool mates knew him. Date not known.

The original 1950s Mr Potato Head!
Due to complaints regarding rotting vegetables and new government safety regulations, the company include a plastic potato body with the toy set in 1964.

A 1955 advertisement for the newly UK-marketed scrabble!