Eddie ~Paul McCartney Fanfiction~

Chapter 10: Letters

April 19th, 1961

An fancy gold ornate set of china was set over a neat  white table cloth Mimi ironed in the afternoon. The middle aged woman was running to and from the kitchen, making sure everything was perfect before the arrival of her guests. She stopped in the middle of the kitchen and took a deep breath and wiped her hands on her light pink apron before removing it. She meticulously folded it and laid it on the counter beside the sink filled with dirty pots and pans. 

Her nervous hands grabbed her packet of cigarettes in the pocket of her long sleeves black dress, frantically looking around for her lighter, not remembering where she could have left it. With a firm step, she walked to the bottom of the stairs. 

"Eddie, have you seen my light?" Mimi shouted , placing a hand on the railing. 

"No." Simply answered her niece. "Use the matches on the mantelpiece"

Mimi looked in the living room behind her, relieved to see a box of matches where Eddie indicated her. She walked to the fireplace and opened the box. 

"The Phillips will be there soon, Eddie. Hurry up!" Mimi shouted again. 

***  

Sitting on a thin mattress directly laid on the floor, Paul wasn't as lucky as George who picked out the bed with the flimsy metal bed frame that makes the loudest noise at the slightest movement. Pete's loud snoring could be hear through the thin walls of the old ans musty hostel they were staying at, just above the Top Ten Club. 

Paul yawned loudly, resigning from a much needed sleep he couldn't get thanks to all the noises around him. He exhaled, looking at George who was peacefully sleeping in front of him. He could not understand how he could do it. He stood up from his bed and dragged his feet to the dirty sink in the opposite corner of the room.  He picked up the glass resting on the floor and filled it with water as he heard John's loud swears and moans from across the hallway. It was a common thing for the residents to bring prostitutes in. Given the rooms were so inexpensive, it was an easy choice for a quick and cheap shag. 

Holding the glass, Paul walked back to his bed, put down the glass on the small nightstand before opening  the bottom drawer and pulling out a few envelopes all addressed to his name. They were a lot less than the last time around. Dorothy used to send him 2 to 3 letters a week, mostly describing her mundane life with every possible detail she could remember. Sometimes, he would just pretend to read them. "It was better to put an end to it." He thought to himself. He truly loved her...at some point he guessed. 

He shuffled through the envelopes until he saw the one he was thinking bout for the last 2 weeks. She smiled faintly as he saw his name written in a delicate and beautiful cursive handwriting before taking the two-paged letter from the envelope. He skipped the first page to directly read the last part of the letter. 

"My evenings are empty now that you are gone again. I miss your sets at the cavern. I miss the rehearsals in John and Stu's crummy flat. I miss the chords you strum on your upside down guitar. I miss your soft voice singing Besame Mucho. I have to admit you are a better singer than my brother. Don't tell him. It'll hurt his huge rocker boy ego. I hope you are getting enough rest through all this circus. I remember when you came back from the first trip. You were so pale, I could have lost you in my sheets. I can't wait to come, to finally see what this is all about. 

Your friend, Ed"

'Your Friend'. Paul sighed. She wont say it. Nothing in her letter was hinted with either romance or lust. No mentions of any feelings but she was slowly breaking out of her shell. Paul smiled tenderly thinking back at all these moments where Eddie clearly made an effort to fight her shyness. Her clapback towards him  about boys the first night they played at the cavern, when she accepted the cloakroom job, when she came alone to his house to show him guitar chords, when she walked up to him at the train station after being ashamed by her brother...when she wrote this letter...