The clang of my coffee cup rang out against the saucer as I replaced the ceramic cup.
"Oh, I forgot to ask ye all on Friday! Was it a good night?" George asked into the silence. Paul sniggered and then turned it into a cough, hiding his rosy cheeks behind his napkin.
I didn't look at John. "Had some Chinese, it was nice. John hasn't had it in a while; said it was exactly what he needed."
"Was the dessert nice as well?" Pete slid in.
"Best, ask me once more about the dessert and I'll beat yer arse," John said in a single breath as he raised his coffee cup to his lips.
The bell tinkled in the little coffee shop and a petite figure walked in. She slid into Paul's lap and he wrapped his arms round her waist and kissed her cheek. "Dorothy Rhone."
"Hi love," she breathed as she kissed him in return. I noticed Pete's glance (he was gagging behind them) and I gave him a half knowing look and half well-you-shagged-three-girls-in-the-past-week look. To my right, Dot gave me a grin. "Hey, Cora. How has it been?"
"All right," I told her. "The band's the same; everything's pretty much the same."
"The same..." she said, sighing. "Must be nice."
"Sometimes you want something out of the ordinary to happen, though," I thought aloud, thinking of the other night.
She gave me a look, her eyes darkening and I thought I saw the corner of her mouth twitch before the look passed. "Yes." Paul's hand around hers tightened under the table and I looked away, feeling the need to change the subject.
The group broke up soon after that, going home in each of our separate ways. John offered to walk home with me, but I wanted to go home with George, whom I hadn't seen in a while. A scowl appeared on John's lips, but after a few minutes he relented and George and I went to catch the bus home. The second we got on the bus, huge drops of rain started from the sky.
"That'll fit Dot's mood all right," George commented.
"She looked a little upset today."
"Eh. And you too, now that I think about it." George looked at me closer, squinting at me like I was a science experiment and I giggled. "Stop it, George." There was a silence, punctuated by the mumbling and shuffling of fellow passengers and the drops of rain in the sky.
"Oh look, it's cleared up," George said, looking out of the window in surprise. The sun that came out was an orange, strange for an afternoon, more suited for a morning dawn or an evening dusk. "That was fast."
"Here it comes, George." I said softly. "Here comes the sun. It'll all be all right in the end."
***
I ran the bath in the little washroom upstairs, turning on the golden light by the tub and making sure my towel and outfit were sitting by the tub. Standing in front of the tiny mirror with floral trim over the sink, I started to undo my ponytail and then squinted at myself in the reflection looking back at me, tentatively reaching out and tracing the outline of my face in the mirror.
"So different," I whispered, taking my finger away and gently running it through my hair, completely undoing the ponytail. "Cora, how you've changed." The expression of the girl in the mirror changed to a slightly worried glance, and I consoled myself. "You've done a good job letting yourself let go a little." I stared for a while longer, keeping perfectly still as if the girl opposite me would come alive but I heard a splash behind me and yelped, going to turn off the water.
I lowered myself into the warm water, sinking into it like a blanket until my chin was barely above the water. Looking above me, I saw the white ceiling of the washroom and a little stain in a right hand corner. It looked like a boat. Like one of the boats in the North Sea where John and I had fallen into the docks and then we had taken a bath together. Except now I wanted the whole bath with him, right here, right now, absent of the clothing I had insisted on keeping on those few months back.
I shifted slightly in the tub, feeling the waves lapse around me, releasing new heat. I was scared before, of losing myself, of losing the part of me that I thought was the only thing I had left. But I felt that fear was gone now. I didn't know when I lost it. Part of me suspected it had gone that night where John and I took Martin back to his house.
After a few minutes I drained the tub and toweled off, putting on my clothes and walking back to my room.
"Cora?" Came a male voice from the living room.
"Harry? Yes, I'm here," I said, hurriedly throwing the damp towel on the bed and going down the stairs. Harry and George were the only ones home presently, with George having done the same as I and taking a bath.
"You have a visitor," he said. His newspaper lay on the coffee table and I could tell from his expression he wanted to continue reading it than entertain Dot, who was sitting on the couch next to him.
"Hello, Dot," I said, surprised. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"I do hope I'm not interrupting anything."
"It's fine. I just finished my bath," I explained, gesturing to my wet locks.
"I just wanted to... talk to you, if it's all right." She let out a nervous laugh. "Please, of course," I said. "Let's go upstairs to my room. George is in the bath, as you might have guessed."
She slipped in my door like a shadow and took a seat on my bed against the wall, drawing her legs close to her chest. I closed the door and sat in my desk chair facing her, absentmindedly picking up a pen and twiddling it between my fingers before I noticed what I was doing. "Sorry."
"I came here from Paul's," she said, resting a cheek on her knee.
"He lives quite close, doesn't he?"
"Yes." Dot had been mentioned in the past among the boys, a gray shadow of something I wasn't supposed to know about. "I know we're not really that close, but I just have to talk to someone about this, someone who knows Paul."
I nodded.
"Honestly, he's probably told you all about the birth, what with your being close and all—"
"Wait," I said, the word birth rolling around in my brain. "Bir—birth?"
"Paul didn't tell you?" She said.
I looked up, surprised. "No—I—uh..."
"I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed. "I didn't mean to shock you. Well, I suppose now you know." I got off the desk chair and joined her on the bed, sitting to face her. "Paul got me pregnant a couple of months back... I was a month or so in when we first met, I think. You haven't been seeing me for the past few months because I... I went away to have the baby. There's no way Paul and I could raise a child so young so we put it up for adoption." Here her lower lip quivered and I reached out to comfort her and after a few moments she spoke again. "We named her Mary after Paul's mother. I just hope someday I'll get to see her." She rested her head on my shoulder and I put a hand on her knee.
"Of course you'll see her," I consoled. "You know the adoptive parents. And besides, Mary will want to know later who her birth parents were and she'll find you."
There was a silence and a bird chirped in the distance. "Yeah," came from Dot.
"Blimey, that all must have been a huge ordeal for you to go through. I'm so sorry you're going through a hard time... but you and Paul created something beautiful."
"He was so... so cut up about it," she remembered and so did I. Paul looking stressed and anxious and me thinking it was about the shows and Jim, but here he was about to become a father—of course he was stressed out. I felt a pang of jealousy that Paul didn't tell me about this but it was met with an equal wave of shame. He told his lad friends and telling me was different; I didn't doubt our friendship for a minute.
"You and John," Dot suddenly said. "Aren't you afraid of a pregnancy?"
I had to turn away; my expression of widened eyes and an amused laugh had to be hid at the moment. "Um... yes, yes of course we are—"
"Because I know that you're often in the same boat as I am, you know, being with your boyfriend and have you really thought about it before? No one really told me about how easily one can get pregnant, you know. It's really very crazy." She paused. "Thank you for listening to me about the birth. It's nice to talk to someone who can relate to me. You know."
Now didn't seem like a good time to tell her. "Yeah," I mulled for a little. "I'm nervous about that as well. I mean, it could happen so easily, like you said."
"Did you have adequate information on this?" She asked, and we delved into a conversation. It was Dot's questions and her honestly, as lovely as it was, and my fumbling around pretending I knew everything that made up the remainder of our time together before she said she had to leave.
After she left, it was like I released a breath I didn't know I was holding. My room swirled before my eyes, the desk chair seeming to be in two places at once. Birth, birth, birth, the words swam in my field of vision. Sex ed in 2013 was miles more informative than in 1961, where I don't think it even existed. Dot went away to have the baby, sacrificing so much time and emotional energy. I made my way to my bed and sat down on it, my fingers tapping on the quilt. But of course she couldn't raise the baby. She was so young!
An ahem sounded behind me and I whipped around, expecting to see George but it was Michael himself, leaning against my door, holding a sports drink. "Hello, dear."
"Michael."
"Are you all right?"
"Dot just told me she was pregnant and had Paul's baby," I blurted out, feeling the need to tell someone, but I was sure that an imaginary angel wouldn't tell the secret. "It's just a lot to process right now." I glanced out at the sunny sky outside, and when I looked back at Michael, he looked angry. I would have expected a sarcastic joke from him. "What?"
"I'm sure he'll do the same with you."
"Michael—" I started, uncertain whether to be confused or angry; this wasn't like him whatsoever. "You're not talking about John."
"Yes I am. If this ever happens to you, do you think he'll leave you or stay with you? Need I remind you of what happened before at Ringo's? He thinks he has more freedom than he actually does, than normal people in a relationship do."
"Michael, what the hell?" I spoke sharply.
"The man has no feelings," Michael said softly, looking at me. I bristled. How dare he talk to me this way? "You were never there when John was there for me. You have no idea how he is. Seriously, mate, naff off if you're going to talk about him that way."
"How do you know I wasn't there?" Michael asked in a voice so quiet I had to strain to hear him speak. His thin lips barely moved, his eyes focused on mine below his blonde hairline. I felt a prickle run up my spine and burrow itself somewhere on my neck. "What... what do you mean?"
"Forget it." A look passed between us and he drummed his fingers on his sports drink.
"Who... who are you?" I asked. "You're the only thing that reminds me that this has the possibility of being a dream, which I..." The prickle which had sat on my neck shivered and I did with it. "No. No, it can't be a dream."
"Don't worry. This isn't a dream, dear." He pushed his fingertips together, looking at me expectantly. "I'm just having second thoughts about this."
"About what?"
"About you and John."
"And what does that have to do with anything? What does your opinion have to do with anything? You first show up in Germany and tell me I've got to get together with him, and then when I do—which by the way is not anything of your accord—you tell me he's not good for me, like you know something about him! The man has no feelings. Ha! That's what everyone thinks about him. No one knows John has been there for me in ways you'll never know about. I don't have to take this." I pushed past him and went for the door, unsure about where to do, but I thumped down the stairs to an empty living room. Michael followed close behind me, trailing alongside me like a ghost. "It's not just John, Cora!" he yelled. "It's you too. You think he's the reason it won't work out? Look at yourself. Too calculating, selfish."
"What the bloody hell have you been drinking?" I said quietly, burning inside, pulling my coat on and heading for the door. "You speak all lies. I'm bloody sick of this. I don't have to sit here and listen to you."
I shut the door on him, shoving the keys back into my purse and strode to the bus stop, now sure of where it was exactly that I was going.