The Certainty Of Chance (Beatles Fan Fiction)

7

The city seemed to explode out into green countryside without warning. George was no sooner past Hampstead than he was out among country lanes and fields. A sense of release came with leaving suburbia and it felt like a huge weight had been lifted from George’s chest. He swore he could even breathe easier.

At first he toyed with the idea of going back up to Liverpool but quickly decided there would be as much fuss made over his black eye up there as there would be back in London, and fuss was not what George was looking for. Plus, there were about thirty thousand unopened birthday cards left from his twenty first waiting up there for him. He remembered when he was younger and his mother had made him write thank you notes to everyone after each birthday. Well, she probably wouldn’t make him write out all thirty thousand… Better not risk it, George thought, amusing himself.

Instead he drove west, picking out the way as he went along and getting lost a couple of times, looping back on himself. How nice to be able to get lost, George thought as he arrived at the same roundabout for the third time. It felt almost liberating.

By the time he reached his destination it was getting late. George had forgotten how dark and still it was out in the countryside at night. It made him uneasy at first, as even the thoughts inside his head seemed to echo, but then as he glanced up at the sky through the windscreen, he gasped. Inside the city it was near impossible to see anything but the very brightest stars, but out in the countryside, the whole universe appeared to be laid out in front of him, almost close enough to reach out and touch.

He parked the car on the driveway and stood next to it for over ten minutes, just staring up at the night sky. It was completely clear, not a single cloud and the moon shone hypnotically bright and large. It transfixed George momentarily as he wondered at it. Everything was so silently infinite. This is what the doctor ordered, George thought, and after locking the car, trudged through the pebbles towards the big white cottage.

The house belonged to a school friend of George’s mother who had been lucky enough to marry a rich Liverpudlian entrepreneur. The Harrison’s had been lent the holiday home for a few weeks almost every summer of George’s life, but he hadn’t been here for quite a while. Probably not since I was fifteen, George pondered. Then more alarmingly, I wonder if the spare key’s still kept in the same place?

He reached up and felt on top of the doorjamb in the porch. Sure enough, the key was still there. He took it down and opened up the house, half-expecting a flock of disturbed bats to come billowing out, but nothing met him except the mustiness of a house that hadn’t been aired in a long time.

George went in and flicked the light switch. Nothing happened.

“Bugger,” he muttered to himself, and felt his way into the kitchen. Under the sink he found four large candles, and taking two out, he lit one with the lighter from his pocket. The flame danced up, casting bizarre shadows across the walls.

George retreated into the living room and sat down in one of the high armed, straight-backed chairs. He lit a cigarette as he pondered his next move. Foolishly he hadn’t thought to stop for any food on the way, and his stomach was starting to rumble. He doubted he would find anything in the kitchen, and even if he did, it was probably ancient and mouldy. There was a small town near by, but the likelihood of finding even a corner shop open was slight. George had come accustomed to the supply and demand lifestyle fame and the Beatles had brought him and this was the first time for a long time he hadn’t been able to ask Mal or phone room service when he wanted something.

A few moments earlier, as George had been standing in the garden gazing at the wide wonder of the universe, May had been lying under a thin sheet on a bare mattress, gazing at a large crack in the ceiling. She had staved off crying for as long as she could manage but now even George’s reassuring face on the picture beside the bed couldn’t halt the tears from rolling down. She turned onto her side, looking at him in the dim light from the bedroom window, and the water from her eyes dripped down across her nose.

“What am I going to do, George?” she asked him, “Maybe I should go back to Jack tomorrow? I can hardly go home looking like this,” she indicated to her black eye. “Dad would have the police out and everything. That’s if he could even bare to look at me.” She sniffed and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “Oh, George, I wish you were here. You’d know what to do,” she said mournfully.

A sudden noise made her sit bolt upright. She could have sworn she had heard a door. Her bedroom was at the back of the house on the opposite side to the porch, but she was sure she would be able to hear someone come in. She sat motionless in the dark, listening hard. Nothing came back. It was probably just the house creaking, she decided lying down again, Old houses like this are full of creaks.

Downstairs, George finished his cigarette and resigned himself to the fact he was probably going to go hungry tonight. He looked at his watch. It was almost ten. He wondered what the others were doing back in London. Brian would probably be beside himself, having all of Scotland Yard out looking for him. George would go into the town tomorrow and call him from a phone box. He’d just say he’d gone away for the night and that he was sorry, but he needed a rest and that he’d be back in plenty of time for filming. And if they were angry with him, well, that was just hard cheese because he was here now and what were they going to do? Come out to Wales and drag him back to London?

Maybe. Better not let on where I am, George thought in all seriousness.

With a bit of luck his black eye would fade soon and he wouldn’t have to explain about the lunatic who gave it to him. He touched his eye absentmindedly and grimaced with the rawness of it. The filming was the day after tomorrow. Maybe it’ll take a bit longer than couple of days.

He yawned. Back in London ten o’clock would be about the time he would hit the clubs but the long cross-country drive had taken it out of him. Should find a bed and get a bit of kip, he decided. This will be the best night’s sleep I’ve had in ages.

George climbed the stairs cradling the flame on the candle and trying not to get his fingers on the melted wax. When he was a boy, he and his brother, Peter had shared one of the mid-landing rooms. He pushed the door open quietly and crept in. There was no need to be so quiet, but then people always are in silent houses.

George propped the candle up and he made up the bed that used to be his when he was little. Next to it was the same old broken chair, still propped against the wall, as it had been for the past seven years. The leg that needed fixing back on was on top of it, gathering dust. George found a blanket from the wardrobe and lay under it, still in his clothes and shivering. The heating, of course, had been turned off with the power.

He blew the candle out and closed his eyes, listening to the deep silence that surrounded him. I could be a million miles away from the nearest human being, he thought happily, a million miles away from the nearest crazed, screamingfan! He smiled to himself in the dark and breathed in deeply as he waited for sleep to come and take him away.

“Oh, George,” a voice sighed out of the blackness.

George was out from under the blanket in a flash, fumbling for the lighter to reignite the candle. He stood in the middle of the room, wide eyed and alarmed.