No One Can Suceed Like Dr. Robert

In the kitchen in the house at Mendips, John Lennon was in the process of scarfing down the eggs and tea that I had made the two of us for breakfast. It had been roughly two months since I'd come to live with Mimi and John. Today was a rather warm March day. Today was also the day that John and the rest of the boys in his skiffle group had been looking forward to for weeks; the Woolton Parish Church Garden Fete.

“John, you’re going to be late if you don’t get dressed now.” I ran into the kitchen, laughing as he shoveled his food into his mouth, most of it missing by a landmark. “Hurry, before Mimi catches you.” John stood up, egg yolk spread over his mouth and his cheeks bulging, saluting me and then running up to his room to get changed. I heard John trip on the stairs. “God forbid he forgets his glasses and can’t see a thing to play.” I began cleaning up the mess John made with a wet wash rag when Mimi walked through.

“Was John playing with his food again?” She smiled a bit; I found that these smiles were private ones. Mimi always acted tough around John. The more time I spent with her, the more I understood the way she thought. John had an unstable home life when he was young so Mimi made up for it by being a stone. An extremely un-malleable, unbreakable stone that did not budge except when in private.

“Only a little bit.” I smiled up at her and handed her the messed rag.

“That boy…” Mimi helped me up on my feet then put her head to her forehead as if to wipe away sweat that wasn’t there. “Well hopefully he gets cleaned up in time for the Church Fete today. I was thinking of taking the two of you.”

“NO!” The one job I had been given by the boys was this: keep Mimi away while they were playing at all costs. How could this be achieved with success while she was there in the audience?

“What?” Mimi looked positively freaked out by my explosion.

“What I mean is, is that I wanted you to take me out to look at fabric for a new dress!” I pulled her hand into mine and twisted her around once I saw that John, now fully dressed, had climbed out of the window and into the yard. He was now in the window giving me two thumbs up. Once Mimi moved past me to the tea pot I returned the gesture.

“Sophie, you just made yourself a new dress. Do you really need more fabric? Besides I want to go see the ladies from the neighborhood and all of the church members.” I struggled to think of possible reasons why Mimi should stay away from the fete.

“John is…um…he…we can window shop! Please! Yes! Let’s just look at the fabric for next time!” I begged, prayed to Jesus that Mimi would stay away from the event. However, as people often do, I found out that some people are determined to do certain things, such as going to a church fete.

‘Sorry John. Guess that this fete might get a little unpleasant.’
I had an awful sinking feeling as I followed Mimi over to a picnic table under a canopy in full view of the small stage set up.

“And now performing for the very first time on this stage, The Quarrymen!” I felt my blood pressure rising as John and the boys got up on stage in full view.

“I’ve lost ya,” John joked with the crowd, though locking eyes with his mother, Julia. I still
didn’t understand their relationship; I guess I hadn’t been around her enough. Still, John loved her, I loved John; I loved her. These things were just a given. “Oh there ya are.” I smiled as The Quarrymen went into a rendition of Come Go With Me by the Del Vikings; Mimi noticed fairly quickly that it was John up on stage. I shrieked and followed her as she marched up through the grass to the front of the crowd. I stopped just short of Mimi by a boy I’d known from John’s group of friends, named Ivan. In between us was a lanky boy with fat cheeks who wore black slacks, a plaid shirt and a white overcoat with a pink rose pinned to the pocket. A guitar was also slung over his shoulder with care.

“Aye, Sophie. Is that Mimi?” Ivan asked in horror; I reluctantly nodded. “John’s in for it when he gets home. It’ll be as if he took the Queen’s knickers, or some’t.”

“Who’s Mimi?” The boy asked. He looked to be about as old as me, if not older.
Ivan informed the boy while laughing as we all looked on at John who, despite not knowing any of the words to the song, looked extremely cool.

“She means well, though. You have to admit.” I looked over at Ivan and smiled. “John is going to be so mad at me.” I turned to the boy. “I’m Sophie by the way; for all intents and purposes, John’s cousin.”

“Paul McCartney. Are you American?” I stared at the boy who was smiling at me with curiosity. The name brought on such memories and such love within my heart that I almost wanted to tackle him to the ground or scream and pull my hair out. I reasoned that this was my natural response to meeting boys because I remembered feeling the same way, except different, when I met John. The more that I thought about it, I couldn’t remember before I met John. I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten here or where the necklace around my neck hailed from.

My face must have looked utterly devastated, because when I finally came to Paul was waving his hands around in front of my face.

“Are you sure she’s all there?”
Ivan defended me, letting him know I must have just gone off into a deeper train of thought than they could understand. His awkwardly warm stare made me fiercely aware of his fancying me.

“I’m sorry; what were you saying Paul?” I tried smiling again, but it came out forced and unnatural.

“Ivan is going to introduce me to John and the rest. Do you want to come?” I needed to buy myself some time to think about my realization.

“Well, I like to think that I’m the better of the two Mimi is raising, so I’ll go talk to Mimi for a second and tell her where I’m going before I head on back. You guys go ahead of me; I’ll be there later.”

“Alright; we’ll be waiting Soph.” I waited until both boys had their backs turned, then headed for the hills-or in this case, the nearest tent. I sat down outside of one and collapsed, confused and angry at myself for only remembering bits of my life before Mendips. I just knew there was so much more.

After a few minutes I heard the voice of none other than my dearest John making crude remarks. I smirked; you never could get him to shut up. John was very unafraid to let the world see who he was-yet he was terrified. I could tell by the things he said to me in the privacy of his room. John was my best friend, if not my only. I assumed that the tent that I was sitting outside of was also the tent the boys were in when I heard 20 Flight Rock being played. I assumed right and walked in long enough to hear Paul play the last of it. I had to admit; I was impressed. Paul was better at guitar than John was, or anyone in the Quarrymen for that matter.

John watched Paul for a moment. “How old are ya?”

“Fifteen.”

“When?”

“Last month.” Paul scratched his cheek with his middle finger as John continued to observe him. “I can do the-” John turned away cruelly.

“Tick, tock. Nice to meet you an all, but we’ve gotta rehearse for our evening gig.”

Paul took this in stride, though a bit deflated. I couldn’t have been madder at John. “Oh, well I’ve gotta get off then,”

I stayed in the background until Paul and Ivan left together, both smiling sad smiles at me as they passed.

“John Lennon, you’re such a prick!” I yelled at John, coming up to him.

“Cor’ Sophie, what makes you think I give a damn what you think?” It had started; we were fighting like brother and sister. I loved the boy, but he was so mean sometimes.

“He’s really good, John. Just because he’s a better player than you doesn’t mean you’ll lose your ‘alpha male’ position.” By this time I’d counted to ten and had let go of my anger.

“He’s really nice too. He could teach you more about guitar.”

“Relax Sophie. I was gonna let him in the band anyway. Whatever happened to keeping Mimi busy?” I smiled at this, a, for lack of better terms, shit-eating grin.

“I could say I tried my hardest to keep her away which would involve flashing my underwear to sailors and going to Catholic school, or I could say when the fabric idea flopped I was just along for the ride.” John ruffled my hair and commended my weak efforts despite the fact that we all knew he would be dead by tomorrow.

“You want a beer, Sophie?” One of the boys asked; I could never keep their names straight. I personally didn’t care to.

“No, she doesn’t. Sophie, you should probably go on home or some’t.” I frowned at John, but said goodbye to everyone and walked outside the tent. I tried looking around for Paul, but he was nowhere to be seen. He and Ivan must have gone home. I found Mimi told her I was going to walk home; the walk wasn’t very far, and besides I needed the fresh air and exercise. I decided on taking the scenic route home, which was considerably longer. In fact, the only thing scenic about it was that someone had a really nice tree in their yard. I once again tried to reason out some logic as to who I was and where I’d come from, but could make none.

About a quarter of the way through the walk the clouds in the sky went from fluffy and friendly, to deadly. Within fifteen minutes rain came pouring down out of the sky, drenching me and my carefully sewn clothes. My first instinct was to dance around. I didn’t care who was watching; I didn’t care that my dress was soaked through so that you could see my undergarments. I was just expressing myself.

My body froze when a crude whistle broke through the steady rhythm of the rain that I had been dancing to.