The Certainty Of Chance (Beatles Fan Fiction)

25

George spent the lion’s share of the afternoon with May’s parents, patiently looking at photographs of May as a child and listening to her mother’s stories of May growing up. By the time he managed to get away it was too late to return to London so he made the drive over to Liverpool, just to the left of Manchester on the map, and less than an hour away.

His mother was, as always, delighted to see him and fussed around ‘her baby’, feeding him and making him cups of tea every twenty minutes.

“Enough, Mam!” he laughed, as she offered him a fourth cup refill.

“So, Georgie, what brings you up this neck of the woods?” she said, sitting down on the opposite side of the fireplace, in George’s father’s chair.

“Can’t I come and see me Mam now?” George replied.

“Of course you can, but you don’t normally come via Manchester.” He had accidentally let it slip that he had been to Manchester when he had arrived. He thought he had gotten away with it, but nothing got past his Mother. “So what’s in Manchester? Or who? I thought you were making a film at the moment.”

“I am. There’s nothing special in Manc, just a lot of Mancunians,” he said, trying to make it sound light.

“Oh, George, always so independent. Ever since your first day at school!”

George could see she wasn’t going to give up until she got an answer. He sat back, cradling his mug of tea and crossed his booted foot onto his left knee. He watched the fire a moment. His mother waited patiently.

“I did something I shouldn’t have, and I wanted to apologise to someone, but she wasn’t where I thought she would be,” he explained eventually.

“Oooh,” his Mother replied understanding. “A girl? Who is she?”

“No one important.”

“No, no one important enough to warrant a trip up to Manchester,” she said wisely. George didn’t say anything, lost in his own thoughts a moment. “I remember when the only thing you thought about were guitars,” she added, with a wistful smile.

“Mam, how do you get to Aberystwyth from here?”