“George” she hissed, whipping around. Unfortunately George was standing right behind her peering over her shoulder so she hit him in the face with her keys. George swore and then stumbled backwards and went down the stairs. He then landed, quite gracelessly in fact, against a few garbage cans which rattled together and made about as much noise as is humanly possible.
Gabrielle sighed and put her had to her face, not wanting to watch him try to right the cans and then tip over something else, knocking everything over again. A man from a few stories up stuck his head out the widow and yelled for them to shut up. She was going to yell something back but then thought better of it.
“Ow” George said, with one hand still clapped to the left half of his face. He sat back against the brick wall and wrapped his other arm around himself. “I’m just going to sit here and try not to move”
“Oh,” she went over to him and tried to pull him up by the arms. “Get up, you lazy git”
George stood up “I hope you’re happy” he told her “I’m probably blind now, you know”
“You’re not blind”
“Yes I am!” he insisted “I think you’ve damaged some sort of nerve with your bloody key flailing ways. Look I can’t open my eye,” He demonstrated by squeezing one eye shut and then slapping his hand back over his face “I think this whole side of my face is dead now, you know. I can’t move my lips on this side. Or smell for that matter, look what you’ve done. I’m imbalanced and unnatural and only half my face is working. I’ll be George, the kid who can’t move half his face. That’ll be what everyone calls me. George the kid who can’t move half his face. Everywhere I go It’ll be, ‘oh there goes George, the kid who can’t move half his face. Look at him with his only half face working ways. How unnatural’”
Gabrielle raised her eyebrows questioningly, trying not to burst out laughing at his rant. It made no sense, what-so-ever. “Couldn’t you have come up with something better?” she asked “Like, George the halfie?”
“Halfie!” He exclaimed, almost squeaking “Halfie! They call me Halfie!”
“How many pills have you taken George?”
She tried to get her key in the door again. It didn’t help that George was pressed up behind her with his chin resting on her shoulder, muttering about odd things. Like string.
They finally got the door open to the small kitchen. Light was pouring in through the cute little curtains Astrid’s mother had made for her, casting tiny shadows and patterns against the kitchen table. Gabrielle spotted a phone and resolved to call her parents, it was still her birthday for another eighteen hours yet. They would probably like to hear from her. It seemed like ages since she’d spoken with her mother. And they didn’t even get on very well. It was like Gabrielle was too much like her mother for her own good. Joyce Gallagher was a housewife. Not that she was knocking that or anything.
You could put Gabby into any fraction of young people, Edwardians, Ex-y’s, Beatnik’s, anything. Whatever she felt like at the time. The thing was, she, like most young people at the time, wanted more then what their parents had. She didn’t just want to be a housewife, and have four babies for someone and spend her life raising them. That didn’t seem to be the path that she’d chosen anyway. It was bad enough she was hanging out with the Teddy-boys, let alone going to someplace like Hamburg.
It all came back to her mother though. Gabrielle inherited her mother’s looks, her intelligence and her stubbornness and refusal to be hurt. Cynthia once said, that when it came to closing people off, Gabby was as bad as John was. She didn’t think that was necessarily true. She could see it in her mother though. Closing herself off to the world and just going through the paces. Things that were trivial mattered to her. Things like gravy. But gravy did matter, didn’t it. Didn’t it? It did.
Or maybe not.
The table and the floor which she’d been staring at suddenly blurred together and made a wavy picture of all that was real and solid. She could feel herself fading out.
“Gab?” George caught her by the arm as she started falling forward and pulled her towards him. She snapped back into reality almost immediately, her eyelids fluttered open and the stared at one another for a bit. His intensely dark brooding eyes searching her large glazed over green ones.
“George, lemme go, I can stand mate” she said softly.
He nodded and released her, letting his arms hover though, incase she fell. Gabrielle spread her arms out wide to show that she was alright. “See?” she laughed “I’m fine, just need to have a little something or other later on”
George nodded
“Wanna get some kip?” she asked
“Mmm, yeah, let’s do that” He slung his arm around her shoulders and they moved towards the stairs.
* * * * * * * *
George watched Gabrielle sleep. She was all curled up cute-like into his side. It felt nice, to hold her that is. They seemed to be doing a lot of that lately, just laying about with each other. But it was nice. It felt right and he wasn’t going to look into it any further then that. Why should he?
Gabby rubbed her face into his shirt, and made a little sleepy sound. George pulled her closer and rested his face in her hair. Was it weird that he didn’t feel anything for her? Yeah of course. And at the same time it made total sense to think of her like a sister. Only you generally didn’t like hugging and cuddling with your sister. Didn’t matter. Sleep wasn’t coming and he wasn’t going to dwell on this. Best to go through chord triads until something like fatigue swept over him.
No, he wouldn’t be going to sleep. Damn. The sun was coming up, he needed to do something productive like pull a bird today. But this was so comfortable, he could lay here and hold on to Gabby for days. It wasn’t just that it felt nice to hold her. It was more like he got a warm tingly feeling, as daft as it sounds, that was like, well nothing else. Except for maybe that feeling you get when your mum makes a big fuss over you and tells you how much she loves you and you’re actually in the mood to listen to her adoration. Was it like that? Was Gab like a mother to him? No that couldn’t be the relationship parallel either.
Chord triads….
“George?”
He jerked his eyes away from Gabrielle. She was still sleeping. But Astrid was peering in from the hallway. Her short strawberry blonde hair was standing up and looked very messy and sleepy. Yet another reason for George not to get her stupid hair cut. You always looked messy. He may not have been analretentive but he wasn’t PAUL for Christsakes.
“George?” she tried again, he motioned for her with his hand and she snuck over to the edge of the bed.
For a second, Astrid watched as Gabrielle slept and George cuddled up next to her. It seemed almost to cute for words. And damn it, she didn’t have her camera with her. Damn.
“How long have you been here?” she whispered
“Bout an hour” he murmured softly “Oh Astrid? Would it be ok for Gab to call home to Liverpool later….”
Astrid nodded “you sleep and then I’ll come back and wake you up before I go to school, Ja?”
“Ja, and Ta very Much Astrid”
She nodded and slowly crept out of the room again.
It seemed like only minutes later but about two hours later Astrid was shaking George and Gabrielle awake.
They trouped down stairs, rubbing sleep out of their eyes and trying to straighten rumpled clothing. The sun was now fully up and the patterns on the orange tablecloth had disappeared. Gabrielle flopped down at the table and grinned appreciatively up at Astrid
“D’you want me to pay you for the long distance charges, I can of course.” she said
Astrid shook her head a brought the telephone over “No, talk to your family. You must miss them. Ja? I must leave now, for school”
Gabrielle nodded and waited for Astrid to collect her things and leave before dialing.
It rung, once, twice, a few more times. Why wouldn’t they pick up?
“Hello?”
“Daddy?”
“Gabby!”
“Daddy!” she imitated him
Gerald Gallagher laughed heartily in that jolly old man sort of way, “Darling, how on earth did you manage to call us?”
“My friend” she said “Astrid, she let me use her phone”
“Oh, that was absolutely lovely of her, darling. How the bloody devil are you then? It’s your birthday today, innit?”
“Yeah” she laughed and rested her face in the palm of her hand, letting the phone lay against her face easily. “It was great fun”
“Is George taking care of you?”
“Mmm, Hmm” she grinned up at George, her eyes sparkling “George is taking care of me”
George rolled his eyes and sat down in the spare chair next to her, listening to her uh huh such as her father went on about this and that.
“When are you coming home then?” he asked
“Er…” Gabby but her lip and shrugged “Maybe in a month or so, I’ve only been here a week. But it’s a great place and I love it”
“Oh, well have a good time. You know your mother isn’t to happy about you being there. But you’re eighteen, we can’t stop you. But we miss you.”
“I miss you too Dad” Gabrielle said softly, she tried to make her voice happier “How’s driving a bus then?”
Mr. Gallagher laughed that hearty laugh again “Oh it’s fine. You know, as bloody great as driving a bus can get.”
“And mum? How’s she?”
“Actually” he paused “Having a bit of the flu we think. Yeah, been a bit under the weather for a while now. Dunno why. Maybe it’s all this rain we’ve been getting”
“Dad,” she laughed “It’s Liverpool, it *always* rains”
“Oh, aye. Weather’s been a bit gray lately, had to get out me winter coat it’s so cold. And it’s August too luv! You know, maybe we should take your Auntie Irene up on her offer…”
“Dad” Gabrielle sighed “It’s bad enough that she paid for me education and all. You *know* how Mum will feel about it. She doesn’t like asking her sister for *anything*. It’s horrible. How would you feel if you were her?”
“Darling, I know this. But we’re getting old. Your Auntie is right in saying we should all move to Windsor.”
Gabrielle made an aggravated sound “The only reason she wants us in Windsor is because she feels like we’re some sort of bloody stain on the family or something. Because Mum married a bloody scouse lad”
Gerald laughed his hearty laugh. Only it sounded tired. Like he’d been over this to many time in his head and with his wife and daughter to count. “You’re right. I know you are darling. But wouldn’t it be better?”
“We don’t belong there, all our family is in Liverpool,”
“No, *my* family is in Liverpool Gabrielle. Look, I could understand that you didn’t want to move house when you were young. And your Mum is just being fucking stupid and stubborn to prove her sister wrong as usual.” He sighed “You know I think your Auntie loves you more then she does her own sister”
“Oh dad, don’t say that.” Gabrielle dropped her voice down a few notches and looked up at George, he was giving her a surprised look. A very surprised look as this was one of the few things Gabrielle had never confided in him and this was the first he’d heard of it. As far as George knew, Auntie Irene was a stuffy old woman who came around for Guy Fawks Day to get away from the ‘bloody hooligans’ in London and to see her extended family. She’d always been very nice in that old lady sort of way to George at least.
“Dad” Gabrielle was saying “Let’s not discuss this. I don’t want to get all upset”
“Nor I, darling”
“Good. Ok. Is mum around? I need to ask her a few things”
“Sure Gabby. Take care of yourself. Be a good girl and mind what George says”
Gabrielle snorted and caught George’s eye “Sure dad, I’ll mind George”
“Gear, as you young kids say” Hearty laugh “Here’s your mum Gabby, Goodbye Darling”
“Bye…” she started to say but then her mother’s voice filled the line
“Gabrielle! Sweetie Darling! You’ve finally given us a ring have you?”
“Yes mum”
“How is everything in Germany?”
“Fine”
“How’s George?”
“He’s fine. Sitting right here actually”
“Ooooh” Her mother cooed “How is the band doing?”
All very routine and standard questions. And not at all what either of them wanted to talk about.
“The Beatles are fine” she said “And how are you? Dad said you have a bit of a cold?”
“Oh just a bit” she said conversationally “Just a little cough is all. You know, I think it’s all this rain!”
“Rain?”
“Oh yes” Gabrielle knew her mother was probably making drastic hand motions and nodding her head vigorously “It’s absolutely raining cats and dogs you know. How’s the weather in Hamburg?”
“Oh” Gabrielle said tonelessly. They were talking about the weather Why were they talking about the fucking weather. “It’s sunny”
“Darling I must ring off. I don’t want to keep you any longer”
“Yes mum”
“Give George a kiss for me?”
“Yes mum”
“Tell Paul I saw his father at the grocers and he looks in excellent health”
“Yes mum”
“And John’s Cynthia came around to the Harrison’s a few days ago. She’s a lovely young lady. And you wouldn’t even know by her accent that she’s a scouse girl”
“Yes mum”
“Tell him I give my approval”
“Yes mum”
“Give Pete and Stu a Kiss”
“Yes mum”
“Tell Astrid thank you for having you”
“Yes mum”
“Brush your teeth and….”
“MUM!” Gabrielle snapped
“Er… yes sweetie darling?”
“Don’t move to Windsor”
There was an unusually long pause on the other end of the phone. She heard her mother suck in a deep breath and then let it out again before deciding on what she would say. “Darling, nothing short of death would have me move to my sisters”
Gabrielle sighed. That was all she needed “Thanks mum”
“Darling, don’t you worry your pretty little head over it. We’re fine, I’m fine. We aren’t listening to your Auntie Irene. She loves you to bits, just remember that. She just wants the best for you”
“I know mum”
“All right, sweetie Darling. See you on the ice in the fish market as the say?”
“Yeah mum. Goodbye”
“I love you darling” there was a note of serious the wasn’t usually present in anything her mum said.
“I love you too” Gabrielle replied seriously
“Bye”
“Bye”