Wildfire ~ George Harrison

Chapter 7: A night to walk

As we nibbled on our chips, we walked towards the river Thames. In my mind I was thinking of places I could show George. If he wanted to see London and if he was willing to walk across the city, then I was going to take him there too.

'I guess you already realised this, but this is where I grew up,' I told him as we got closer to Green park. 'Right here in Mayfair.'

'I reckoned something like that, yeah,' he answered. 'You work at a law office, right?'

'Yes, but it's not a great job.' I shook my head. It was far from a great job. 'My father is a banker. He works with Kathleen's father, which is how we met, actually. Some of his friends are lawyers or judges and one of them happened to look for a typist when I left school. But like I said, it might not be a great job, but at least my boss won't try anything fishy either. My dad will see to that.' I shrugged my shoulders to see that I was indifferent to it. I was lucky and I knew I was, some of my friends from school had far worse experiences with their bosses than I had.

'I remember you saying something like that,' George frowned. 'Are you worried that he'll try something with you?' He surprised me that he even remembered me saying that. I didn't. 'I think most people are fair, aren't they? As long as you do a good job and you work hard, they won't try to one up you.'

I wanted to argue with him for my own honour. He might believe it and, as a guy, it might've even been true for him. But to me, as a girl, I knew it wasn't true. A hard knock life and all.

When I opened my mouth to state my case, George spoke himself, changing the subject. 'I never even made it far enough in school to get a job like that. Never finished,' he admitted. 'Though I don't think I would've become a lawyer, either. My ma would've had a field day. She would've either been really proud, or she would've disowned me.'

'No lawyers in your family?' I asked with a little laugh.

'No, not that I know of. My dad's a bus driver, which is not that dangerous of a job. Though he did punch one of my teachers once, so there was a little danger after all.' He let out a bark of a laugh, a sound so beautiful that I took a moment to take it fully in, before I joined him in his laughter.

'You're joking!' I exclaimed, my voice laced with laughter too. 'You're father punched a teacher? I can't imagine something like that happening at my school, too many people that'll tell the rest of London and before you know it, you're out of a job.'

George seemed to ponder on this for a minute and then suddenly let out a low whistle. 'Shite, that's gorgeous,' he said, pointing to the building in the distance. We had made our way to St. James Park and you could just make out the lights of Buckingham Palace between the trees.

I chuckled. 'Yep, that's where the queen lives. At least, when she's working,' I explained. 'Imagine living there, though. To have all these people staring at your house all day.'

'What do ya think it's like inside? Straight out of the middle ages?' he grinned, cheekily.

I felt the heat of a blush rising to my cheeks. 'Something like that, yes,' I stammered, a lot quieter than I was comfortable with. Why was I ashamed to know this? It was what I had always known and what all the people I grew up with, knew too. But maybe it was because I knew that this northern lad didn't know that.

'How do you know that? Have you been inside or something?' he laughed, clearly not believing me. But when I shrugged and didn't answer, he raised his eyebrows. 'You have, haven't you? Dang!'

'It wasn't really anything big or something,' I defended myself. 'My father was invited to some kind of gala a couple of years ago.' I felt myself go possibly redder with shame. Because yes, I was ashamed.