I Saw Her Standing There Chapter 1/?
I Saw Her Standing There Chapter 1/?
Alice McDougal sighed, running a hand through pre-maturely greying dirty blonde hair, as she flipped through yet another pile of bills on the kitchen table. “Do we ever get anything but bills, Nell?” She asked rhetorically of her partner of the past five years- they’d met two years after Alice had been transferred to the Seattle branch of her company, where she worked steadily as the administrative assistant to one of the vice-presidents, at the Christmas party held at the hotel ballroom of Nell’s place of employment - Nell's sure and solid footsteps came in from the living room where she was preparing for her work as a night audit clerk at that same hotel. “No, not really, my dear.” She wrapped her arms around her girlfriend's waist, pulling her close. “Either them or charity pleas. They've gone all out for a personal touch this year.” Nell pushed a strand of her dark auburn hair away from her face, (with a mumbled remark about needing a hair cut and 'freaking soon') and dug a letter out of the bin. It was from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. In very neat perfectly old fashioned script addressed to Ms Alice McDougal.
Alice barely withheld a gasp. She knew that hand writing. That M was curled too perfectly to be anyone else's. She managed a small smile and laughed. “Yeah, really trying at something personal.” She watched as Nell took the letter once more to the trash can and tried to keep her pulse from racing.
“Don't wait up, hon.” Nell kissed her girlfriend softly, and grabbed her keys from the table and was out the door.
Alice still stood rooted to her spot until she was sure that Nell was gone at least five minutes. She hurriedly dug through the trash, and ripped open the letter with shaking hands. She skimmed it, it was short but all hand written. All her eyes could focus on though for the moment was the signature:
Yours very sincerely,
Maureen
She sank down in the chair and traced her fingers over the signature. The words blurred as she remembered the first time she'd properly met that woman that had ultimately changed her whole idea of herself.
She’d been seventeen, a budding secretarial student , determined to marry a lovely business man and start a family. It was all planned out for her and she had thought she was content with it. Like most of her generation, she was absolutely heads over for The Beatles, and she was besotted with Ringo Starr. To the point of spending many hours, almost every day of the week either after getting out of her classes, or days when she didn’t have any classes, most of her free time really, outside the gates of his home in Surrey. It wasn’t far from where her school was, no more than a bus or two with a bit of a hike from the last stop. It was a nice distraction and gave her a place of belonging, a purpose, a goal. She never had figured out what that goal was, even after some 25+ years. It got to the point where both Ringo and his lovely wife Maureen knew her by name. Even the small staff that consisted of a gardener and devoted nanny Stella would occasionally talk to her. It was never anything much, just small talk. But one day all that was so sure and steady was stirred up and became very murky.
“Soddin’ Hellfire!” Maureen called out to the heavens, as the clouds that had been gathering all afternoon finally broke, spilling rain down on her and her garment bags from Harrods as she climbed out of her car.
Alice couldn’t help but giggle a bit; in all her time watching at the gate, Maureen had always been the picture of a perfectly soft spoken wife, clutching Ringo’s hand, eyes only flitting up occasionally. Charming and when she did smile, though it was often that she had a fairly intense look about her, it was sweet and honest. This Maureen, stripped of all of the chains of public expectations, was interesting to watch but something about her intrigued Alice.
Suddenly aware that she wasn’t alone, Maureen turned to the gate. Her dark eyes flickered back and forth, staring at Alice with that vague recognition of a face she knew but couldn’t name.
If she looked hard enough, Alice was sure she could see the process in Maureen’s head. “Alice, right?”
Alice nodded, gulping and going pale. “Y-yes. Yes ma’am.”
“Oh don’t ma’am me. I’m not even quite twenty yet” Maureen teased, smiling slightly, though not enough to ease Alice’s nerves, though that must have been her intent. “But what are you doing out here by your lonesome, sweetheart?” Maureen stepped a bit closer to the gate, accepting her fate of being soaked with a grace of someone that had gotten caught in a great deal of rainstorms.
“I…I wasn’t by my lonesome, not at first.” Alice stuttered, moving back as the other woman stepped closer. An odd sort of dance between them there in the rain soaked front yard. “But the other girls ran off when the clouds really rolled in.”
Maureen stepped even closer, enough that she wasn’t feeling like she was shouting to speak and having to strain to hear. “And you didn’t? I’m afraid he’s gonna be a late study tonight…” She trailed off, clearly stopping herself from saying more. Alice wondered what that more was, not knowing that she’d soon get a chance to find out.
Alice found herself shrugging at the other woman’s half-finished sentence. “Just something I do out of habit. Maybe it’ll lighten up soon and, he might come home, I mean, doesn’t he come home for tea sometimes?”
“Rarely.” Maureen spoke matter-of-factly, but her eyes were briefly shadowed. So briefly that Alice was almost not sure she’d seen anything at all. She didn’t have time to think of what that could mean or anything of the sort.
For suddenly, the gate was open and there was no barrier between her and Maureen.
“I’m probably completely out of me head, but …you’ll catch your death out here. And I don’t want that on my nor his conscious. Come’ead, come in, and have a cuppa until it clears up.” Maureen grinned, a bit wider and gestured beyond her to the great Tudor style home.
“You mean it?” Alice squealed, eyes widening to their limits. She could scarcely believe it, and felt as if she might fall over.
Maureen must have seen the younger woman’s face. “It’s quite alright. Don’t have a fit on me, I’d rather not have to call 999 and explain you fainted dead away because I invited you in for tea.” She gently smiled, but her eyes were genuinely concerned.
“I won’t faint, Maureen, I promise, I just…”
“Come’ead” There was a finality and almost command to her tone for a moment, which Alice took to have something to do with the fact that this wasn’t a wise idea nor something she wanted to repeat for other fans. “It is quite alright, really and truly. Just let’s go get you dry and warm.” Maureen started to walk in toward the house, clutching her dress bags close. Once Alice stepped in, the other woman closed and locked the gate tightly and made her way across the lawn, steps quick and with a purpose, the rain picking up steadily
Alice followed at her heels, teeth chattering from cold somewhat but mostly nerves. She didn’t say a word, convinced it was all a dream, that she would be woken by cold reality, even as the house got closer, as Maureen unlocked and opened the door and they stepped inside. Even as she stood dripping wet on the front mat, as a very excitable poodle came and sniffed her from toe to, well, mid-calf really and Maureen snapped the ball of peach fuzz up with a soft ‘Tiger, not now. Be nice’. It all felt unreal.
Only when she was stood there in the front corridor, with the other woman gone off for just a moment to get a towel for them both, with Tiger still curiously sniffing and standing guard as much as it was possible for a little poodle to do so, did it really dawn on Alice that this was happening. Really and truly happening.
“It’s really and truly happening.” Alice murmured to herself as she traced her fingers over the familiar handwriting, shaking her head. “How can it be happening?” With shaking hands, she got up and wandered down the hallway to the bedroom she shared with Nell, clutching the letter tightly, falling into bed, not even bothering with the covers, and slipping into a restless sleep, tossing and turning with half dreams and half memories of a life that seemed like it had belonged to someone else.
Thanks so much for reading! Comments are MUCH appreciated.