𝐍𝐨𝐰 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐧

1 - Love Like Yours Will Surely Come My Way

3 December, 1960

"Every day, it's a-gettin' closer,

"Goin' faster than a rollercoaster,

"Love like yours will surely come my way..."

The soft voice and tingling bells made Fiona Twickenham stir in bed. She stretched her legs beneath the warmth of the blanket, one pale hand and then the other reaching up to rub her brown eyes.

Buddy Holly woke her up most mornings, his sweet melodies and simple rhymes being the first few sounds she heard when she opened her eyes. That was the way she liked it. She'd rise early enough to make sure her best friend Meg was awake in the other room, then the two of them would make their way to the small kitchen, where their third flatmate Ray was usually done cooking breakfast for the three of them.

Fiona and Meg had had no complaints about that - neither one of them being culinarily inclined, it was a sigh of relief when they'd learned their flatmate was somehow fond of cooking. It was unanimous, then, when they'd decided amongst themselves that Ray would be the designated chef, Meg would clean the bedrooms and Fiona the rest of the flat. Frankly, though, there was never much mess to clean, because the three of them spent the majority of their waking hours out. Meg left first for her photography apprenticeship; Ray left soon after for his job as a primary school teacher, and finally Fiona would head down to Remy's cafe a block away, where she'd spend the morning trying to write and the afternoon and evening waiting on tables.

It was a sturdy, consistent schedule - 'absolutely foolproof' in Ray's words. But it felt dry, and day after day of working the same bustling shift left Fiona hardly any time to think of ideas. Her progress each morning slowed more and more, until there were some days where she could think of nothing to write at all.

She'd known a career as a writer was never going to be easy - it was the only thing she enjoyed enough to dedicate herself to, but sometimes she felt invalidated in her dream. If this was what she really wanted to do, why wasn't she rich with storylines and characters begging to be put in print? Why did she feel so exhausted, yet so under stimulated at the same time?

On her worst days - when it rained, or she met a particularly unpleasant customer, or when she came home with blank pages - Ray would tousle her hair and Meg would rub her shoulders, and they'd both tell her it would all get better soon, soon she'd come up with something big. Affection didn't give her ideas, though.

Every time her father and stepmother Lynn had telephoned, Fiona had had to lie and tell them everything was going great. She didn't want them to know of how her dream had soured here, especially after the two of them had been so supportive and encouraging of her move. But just the same, she wished she could tell them all about everything. She missed being herself around them. She missed being in Liverpool. But, despite her woes in London, one thing was keeping her away from home.

It had been a little over three months since the Silver Beatles had left for Hamburg. A little over three months since Fiona had run down the street after the van that carried John and the others around the corner and far away.

They'd promised to write (every day, John had insisted) - and for a good while they'd kept it up. Fiona told John all about the flat in London, how Meg was making art and she was writing stories. She told him all about Ray, and her job at Remy's, and joked about how much better the weather was down south. And in return John had sent her his own poems and stories, garnished generously with his outlandish illustrations, in addition to some of the longest letters Fiona had ever read. She took her time going through them, everything from quick notes scribbled hastily before a show to devoted love notes in carefully swirled cursive. Some letters were even rhapsodical, starting out with chicken scratch talking about the boys' show that ran till 7AM and moving instantaneously to a detailed account of how desperately he wanted to shag her. Fiona always made sure to remove John's letters from the shared envelope first, in case of that.