July 11, 1957. Less than one full دن left to get Paul and John to meet each other.
I had been quiet all morning, alternating between hoping things would work out and hoping I wouldn’t randomly get sucked back into the present in front of Paul and his family. Paul had told his dad and brother at breakfast that I was leaving today, and they’d کہا polite goodbyes (or what I presumed were polite goodbyes; I still wasn't entirely used to nineteen fifties etiquette). Paul made it all sounds very normal, and nobody questioned me. I was relieved to see that Paul seemed to have accepted that I came from some unknown, mysterious place, and even seemed a little مزید interested in me at the thought.
Around noon we got on a bus for Oxford. سے طرف کی now I was getting used to these nineteen fifties vehicles, and didn’t even think about crashing as we were riding. Of course, I was mostly just feeling relieved that my Time Traveller app hadn’t sucked me back into the present before I was finished here. If I was nervous at all, it was about the concert. This had to work, right? It was the last day! If Paul and John didn’t meet today, they might never get another chance! I certainly wouldn’t be able to push them together anymore.
I tried not to think about it and just talk to Paul. Everything would be fine. Of course it would. I knew that once Paul saw John in concert, he’d be so intrigued that he’d have to talk to him. That was what he’d done before. A week wouldn’t make any difference to that. Whether it was July 6 یا July 11, John’s playing would still be original enough to catch Paul’s attention.
Except that when we got there, we couldn’t get near the stage.
“George only got the tickets last minute,” Paul explained to me, raising his voice slightly to be heard above the crowd and the band. “There wasn’t much choice of seats.”
Actually, the seats didn’t seem to make a difference, since everyone was standing. The کنسرٹ was open air, and the audience gathered round on wooden benches after دکھانا their tickets and being let through a gate. I couldn't help thinking that it was all very low-tech, and it seemed like it would very easy to sneak in without paying. But I had proven مزید than enough this week that sneaking into places without paying was harder than it looked, technology یا not.
But that wasn’t important right now. What was important was that Paul and I were stuck with benches way at the back, while everybody around us stood up and sang along and danced and cheered and blocked any good view of the stage Paul and I might have had. How was Paul going to see enough of John to realize he wanted to talk to him?
“Can’t we get closer?” I shouted back over the crowd noises.
We tried to push our way closer, but everywhere we turned, we were blocked سے طرف کی people. It flashed through my mind that I was glad we weren’t doing this at a full Beatles concert. Then I felt a chill as I remembered that if this didn’t work, the full Beatles concerts might never happen.
The thought gave me strength, and I pushed through the crowd with renewed determination, dragging Paul along behind me (as usual, we were holding hands.) Some of the شائقین in the crowd protested loudly as I bumped into them, others were too caught up in the event to really notice. But I didn’t stop. I only had one thought in my mind now, and that was getting Paul McCartney and John Lennon together. I was too close to fail now.
We were almost at the very front of the crowd. Paul would definitely be able to see and hear John properly. “This is a much better spot!” I shouted over the noise.
“Hey, stop pushing me!” Paul complained.
I was confused for a moment, before realizing he wasn’t talking to me. A rowdy group of three یا four boys had pushed in front of Paul, one of them stepping on his toes without seeming to care, taking up their newfound spot in the front row, completely blocking out our good view. “Yeah, she’s right, this is a better spot,” one of them کہا to the others. “Thanks for getting everyone out of the way for us,” he added to me with a smile I didn't think was quite pleasant.
The boys began jumping and laughing and horsing around – right in front of my, and probably Paul’s, view of the stage with John on it. They were so noisy we could barely hear the way John was replacing the lyrics he didn’t know with ones he’d made up. The boys even stepped on Paul’s toes a couple مزید times, without ever bothering to say they were sorry. I glanced at Paul’s face, and he did not look happy. Even if he caught any of John’s performance, he wouldn’t be able to focus on anything except those rowdy boys and how much they were annoying us.
Suddenly I got angry. I had something important to do here, and I might be sucked back at any moment before I had time to do it. I hadn’t come this far only to have the Beatles’ entire existence be stopped سے طرف کی a group of – of impolite teenage boys!
“Excuse us,” I کہا loudly, elbowing my way between the boys, “we were here first. Let us through!”
The boys turned round and looked at me. There were mocking smiles on their lips; none of them, I thought, was taking me seriously. “No, we don’t want to,” one of them replied, in what I was sure was an impolite tone of voice. “We like this nice spot at the front آپ found for us.”
I felt my hands balling into fists. “I found that for me and my boyfriend,” I informed them, voice shaking. “Let us through!”
“No.”
“At least quiet down and let us listen, then!” I was getting desperate. I felt Paul coming up beside me, ready to defend me, I think.
“What are آپ going to do about it, girl?” one of the boys taunted. “Ask your little boyfriend to make us move?”
I swallowed. The boys were all moving towards Paul and me, shoulder-to-shoulder in a threatening line. Were they going to attack us? یا maybe just Paul, since they hadn’t کہا anything about fighting me? Was that because I was a girl? I thought maybe it was. In my time, girls were supposed to be able to take boys in a fight, but then again, in my time, most people weren't very active and they would probably be evenly matched. Even though none of these boys looked exceptionally strong, I was sure they were all stronger than me. I knew I could never take them in a fight if it came to that, and I didn’t want Paul to have to either!
“Just اقدام before it comes to that,” Paul advised them, bravely, I thought. I didn’t know if he could take all four of them... and I sure wouldn’t be much help....
“What’s all this, then? Are we at a boxing ring ’stead of a rock and roll concert?”
The high, irreverent, male voice startled all of us, and we whirled round to face the stage. This voice was also tinged with something mocking, although not in a bad way like those mean boys’ were. In fact, I was sure I knew that voice... and as soon as we turned around, I saw I was right. John had stopped playing, the other Quarrymen following his lead, and now he was standing just in front of the stage, taking us all in with his narrow, laughing eyes.
Even though I had met John already, my دل pounded as I saw that iconic John look.
“Haven’t آپ heard of peace and love?” John went on, addressing the rude boys. “Hi again, Gloria,” he added to me.
“You know him?” Paul whispered.
I didn’t answer, watching John as he turned back to the boys and began firing insults at them in earnest. “Why’d آپ have such a hard time gettin’ to see him if آپ know him, then?” Paul persisted with a bit of a laugh in his voice, but also real curiosity.
“You want to have a fight, آپ save it for the arena,” John was now telling the boys, مزید sternly than before. “Maybe we can arrange it so’s آپ can all fight each other and see who the winner is.”
The boys were slowly backing away now as John fired مزید along these lines at them. سے طرف کی now the crowd was beginning to notice that the موسیقی had stopped playing, and eyes were turning towards the spectacle of John telling off the rude boys. The crowd parted, giving the boys a path to get out, which they did, suddenly turning round and running out of the کنسرٹ as fast as they could go.
John turned back to us. But before he could say anything to me, Paul spoke to him.
“That was brilliant, what آپ did,” he کہا with an impressed laugh.
“It’s all in a day’s speeching,” John replied with a grin, looking straight at Paul. “I’m not having a fight at my concerts.”
“At least now we can listen to آپ properly,” Paul agreed. “What was that last song آپ were doing there? I think I know it.”
“Come Go With Me, the penitentiary song.”
“What? Come Go With Me’s got nothing to do with a....”
“Let me get back on the stage and I’ll دکھائیں you,” John cut him off, with a don’t-argue-with-me sort of grin. “Unless آپ think آپ know our set فہرست better?”
“I might!” Paul replied with confidence. “I play گٹار too, آپ know. I can play Come Go With Me!”
John gave him a long, narrow-eyed stare, and then he said, “Prove it.”
Paul blinked. “Prove it?”
“Come up on the stage and play it with us.”
“I – well... yeah, sure! Only have آپ got a گٹار I can use? I might have to turn the strings around on one....”
آپ can imagine, while all this was happening, I was staring speechlessly, absolutely thrilled. Paul was talking to John! They were hitting it off! I hadn’t even had to introduce them!
And now as Paul was walking back towards the stage with John, explaining about being left-handed and how that affected the guitars he could play, they both seemed to have forgotten I was there. I had a feeling I knew what that meant, and sure enough, as I watched them, I could feel a strange sensation as if some force inside my core was tugging me backwards, and the world of the nineteen fifties faded around me.
I felt something soft and cushiony underneath me as the world faded back into focus. I was in my own room, sitting on my own bed, with my phone clutched in my hand. It seemed like such a long time since I’d had that phone, but the Time Traveller app was still open, the screen not even blank. I had arrived ہوم at the exact instant I’d left.
The first thing I did was to تلاش on my phone for the Beatles’ story. My fingers fumbled on the touch screen as I typed in their name. I needed to see for myself that they had gotten together. I had to be sure.
“On July 11, 1957, Paul McCartney met John Lennon at the latter’s کنسرٹ in Oxford. Paul’s گٹار playing impressed John greatly, and he asked Paul to شامل میں his band. In 1958, they were joined سے طرف کی George Harrison....”
I let out my breath. Except for the تاریخ and place where the کنسرٹ had happened, everything was exactly the same as it had been before.
I couldn’t help but تلاش around to see if there was any mention of me – it would have been great to be a part of the Beatles’ story – but there wasn’t, and I supposed that was just as well. It might have really messed up time if a girl who wasn’t born until 2141 had played a big part in the Beatles’ story in 1957.
I had to wonder about that. There was no mention of me in the Beatles’ story, even though I had been hanging around Paul all week. It was almost as if I hadn't affected things that much at all – and when I thought about it, I actually hadn’t had that much to do with Paul and John finally meeting in the end. Sure, maybe it was because I had کہا I needed to see the Quarrymen so badly that George had got us tickets, and it was me who had encouraged Paul to get closer to the stage, but I hadn’t even had to introduce them یا anything. All week, I had been trying so hard to push them together, but in the end, Paul and John had just hit it off – and history had gone on from there in the exact same way it had before I had gone back and changed it. I wondered if it was even possible to change time. Maybe we were all wrong about time. Maybe time would just go ahead and do its thing no matter what we did to it. I wondered whether, if that turned out to be the case, I would ever be able to go back and visit the nineteen fifties again (maybe with less stress this time!) Maybe it would be possible, one day, to travel to other eras all the time, without having to be all careful about what we did while in them.
But I did know one thing. Even back in my own comfortable time, I thought I would go outdoors more, follow some sort of guidelines اگلے time I went on a date, to try breaking a few مزید rules and taking a few مزید risks. If only I could have eaten like they did in the nineteen fifties, too. From downstairs, I could smell my father cooking رات کے کھانے, شام کا کھانا – soy burgers, a dish I used to like. I didn’t think I would ever be able to look at a soy burger the same way again.
Maybe, I thought, I would grow up to study time travel. I could go on even مزید trips to the past, especially if I didn't really have to be so careful about what I did یا didn’t do while I was there. And maybe – just maybe – in all my time travels – someday I would get to see Paul again.
END
I had been quiet all morning, alternating between hoping things would work out and hoping I wouldn’t randomly get sucked back into the present in front of Paul and his family. Paul had told his dad and brother at breakfast that I was leaving today, and they’d کہا polite goodbyes (or what I presumed were polite goodbyes; I still wasn't entirely used to nineteen fifties etiquette). Paul made it all sounds very normal, and nobody questioned me. I was relieved to see that Paul seemed to have accepted that I came from some unknown, mysterious place, and even seemed a little مزید interested in me at the thought.
Around noon we got on a bus for Oxford. سے طرف کی now I was getting used to these nineteen fifties vehicles, and didn’t even think about crashing as we were riding. Of course, I was mostly just feeling relieved that my Time Traveller app hadn’t sucked me back into the present before I was finished here. If I was nervous at all, it was about the concert. This had to work, right? It was the last day! If Paul and John didn’t meet today, they might never get another chance! I certainly wouldn’t be able to push them together anymore.
I tried not to think about it and just talk to Paul. Everything would be fine. Of course it would. I knew that once Paul saw John in concert, he’d be so intrigued that he’d have to talk to him. That was what he’d done before. A week wouldn’t make any difference to that. Whether it was July 6 یا July 11, John’s playing would still be original enough to catch Paul’s attention.
Except that when we got there, we couldn’t get near the stage.
“George only got the tickets last minute,” Paul explained to me, raising his voice slightly to be heard above the crowd and the band. “There wasn’t much choice of seats.”
Actually, the seats didn’t seem to make a difference, since everyone was standing. The کنسرٹ was open air, and the audience gathered round on wooden benches after دکھانا their tickets and being let through a gate. I couldn't help thinking that it was all very low-tech, and it seemed like it would very easy to sneak in without paying. But I had proven مزید than enough this week that sneaking into places without paying was harder than it looked, technology یا not.
But that wasn’t important right now. What was important was that Paul and I were stuck with benches way at the back, while everybody around us stood up and sang along and danced and cheered and blocked any good view of the stage Paul and I might have had. How was Paul going to see enough of John to realize he wanted to talk to him?
“Can’t we get closer?” I shouted back over the crowd noises.
We tried to push our way closer, but everywhere we turned, we were blocked سے طرف کی people. It flashed through my mind that I was glad we weren’t doing this at a full Beatles concert. Then I felt a chill as I remembered that if this didn’t work, the full Beatles concerts might never happen.
The thought gave me strength, and I pushed through the crowd with renewed determination, dragging Paul along behind me (as usual, we were holding hands.) Some of the شائقین in the crowd protested loudly as I bumped into them, others were too caught up in the event to really notice. But I didn’t stop. I only had one thought in my mind now, and that was getting Paul McCartney and John Lennon together. I was too close to fail now.
We were almost at the very front of the crowd. Paul would definitely be able to see and hear John properly. “This is a much better spot!” I shouted over the noise.
“Hey, stop pushing me!” Paul complained.
I was confused for a moment, before realizing he wasn’t talking to me. A rowdy group of three یا four boys had pushed in front of Paul, one of them stepping on his toes without seeming to care, taking up their newfound spot in the front row, completely blocking out our good view. “Yeah, she’s right, this is a better spot,” one of them کہا to the others. “Thanks for getting everyone out of the way for us,” he added to me with a smile I didn't think was quite pleasant.
The boys began jumping and laughing and horsing around – right in front of my, and probably Paul’s, view of the stage with John on it. They were so noisy we could barely hear the way John was replacing the lyrics he didn’t know with ones he’d made up. The boys even stepped on Paul’s toes a couple مزید times, without ever bothering to say they were sorry. I glanced at Paul’s face, and he did not look happy. Even if he caught any of John’s performance, he wouldn’t be able to focus on anything except those rowdy boys and how much they were annoying us.
Suddenly I got angry. I had something important to do here, and I might be sucked back at any moment before I had time to do it. I hadn’t come this far only to have the Beatles’ entire existence be stopped سے طرف کی a group of – of impolite teenage boys!
“Excuse us,” I کہا loudly, elbowing my way between the boys, “we were here first. Let us through!”
The boys turned round and looked at me. There were mocking smiles on their lips; none of them, I thought, was taking me seriously. “No, we don’t want to,” one of them replied, in what I was sure was an impolite tone of voice. “We like this nice spot at the front آپ found for us.”
I felt my hands balling into fists. “I found that for me and my boyfriend,” I informed them, voice shaking. “Let us through!”
“No.”
“At least quiet down and let us listen, then!” I was getting desperate. I felt Paul coming up beside me, ready to defend me, I think.
“What are آپ going to do about it, girl?” one of the boys taunted. “Ask your little boyfriend to make us move?”
I swallowed. The boys were all moving towards Paul and me, shoulder-to-shoulder in a threatening line. Were they going to attack us? یا maybe just Paul, since they hadn’t کہا anything about fighting me? Was that because I was a girl? I thought maybe it was. In my time, girls were supposed to be able to take boys in a fight, but then again, in my time, most people weren't very active and they would probably be evenly matched. Even though none of these boys looked exceptionally strong, I was sure they were all stronger than me. I knew I could never take them in a fight if it came to that, and I didn’t want Paul to have to either!
“Just اقدام before it comes to that,” Paul advised them, bravely, I thought. I didn’t know if he could take all four of them... and I sure wouldn’t be much help....
“What’s all this, then? Are we at a boxing ring ’stead of a rock and roll concert?”
The high, irreverent, male voice startled all of us, and we whirled round to face the stage. This voice was also tinged with something mocking, although not in a bad way like those mean boys’ were. In fact, I was sure I knew that voice... and as soon as we turned around, I saw I was right. John had stopped playing, the other Quarrymen following his lead, and now he was standing just in front of the stage, taking us all in with his narrow, laughing eyes.
Even though I had met John already, my دل pounded as I saw that iconic John look.
“Haven’t آپ heard of peace and love?” John went on, addressing the rude boys. “Hi again, Gloria,” he added to me.
“You know him?” Paul whispered.
I didn’t answer, watching John as he turned back to the boys and began firing insults at them in earnest. “Why’d آپ have such a hard time gettin’ to see him if آپ know him, then?” Paul persisted with a bit of a laugh in his voice, but also real curiosity.
“You want to have a fight, آپ save it for the arena,” John was now telling the boys, مزید sternly than before. “Maybe we can arrange it so’s آپ can all fight each other and see who the winner is.”
The boys were slowly backing away now as John fired مزید along these lines at them. سے طرف کی now the crowd was beginning to notice that the موسیقی had stopped playing, and eyes were turning towards the spectacle of John telling off the rude boys. The crowd parted, giving the boys a path to get out, which they did, suddenly turning round and running out of the کنسرٹ as fast as they could go.
John turned back to us. But before he could say anything to me, Paul spoke to him.
“That was brilliant, what آپ did,” he کہا with an impressed laugh.
“It’s all in a day’s speeching,” John replied with a grin, looking straight at Paul. “I’m not having a fight at my concerts.”
“At least now we can listen to آپ properly,” Paul agreed. “What was that last song آپ were doing there? I think I know it.”
“Come Go With Me, the penitentiary song.”
“What? Come Go With Me’s got nothing to do with a....”
“Let me get back on the stage and I’ll دکھائیں you,” John cut him off, with a don’t-argue-with-me sort of grin. “Unless آپ think آپ know our set فہرست better?”
“I might!” Paul replied with confidence. “I play گٹار too, آپ know. I can play Come Go With Me!”
John gave him a long, narrow-eyed stare, and then he said, “Prove it.”
Paul blinked. “Prove it?”
“Come up on the stage and play it with us.”
“I – well... yeah, sure! Only have آپ got a گٹار I can use? I might have to turn the strings around on one....”
آپ can imagine, while all this was happening, I was staring speechlessly, absolutely thrilled. Paul was talking to John! They were hitting it off! I hadn’t even had to introduce them!
And now as Paul was walking back towards the stage with John, explaining about being left-handed and how that affected the guitars he could play, they both seemed to have forgotten I was there. I had a feeling I knew what that meant, and sure enough, as I watched them, I could feel a strange sensation as if some force inside my core was tugging me backwards, and the world of the nineteen fifties faded around me.
I felt something soft and cushiony underneath me as the world faded back into focus. I was in my own room, sitting on my own bed, with my phone clutched in my hand. It seemed like such a long time since I’d had that phone, but the Time Traveller app was still open, the screen not even blank. I had arrived ہوم at the exact instant I’d left.
The first thing I did was to تلاش on my phone for the Beatles’ story. My fingers fumbled on the touch screen as I typed in their name. I needed to see for myself that they had gotten together. I had to be sure.
“On July 11, 1957, Paul McCartney met John Lennon at the latter’s کنسرٹ in Oxford. Paul’s گٹار playing impressed John greatly, and he asked Paul to شامل میں his band. In 1958, they were joined سے طرف کی George Harrison....”
I let out my breath. Except for the تاریخ and place where the کنسرٹ had happened, everything was exactly the same as it had been before.
I couldn’t help but تلاش around to see if there was any mention of me – it would have been great to be a part of the Beatles’ story – but there wasn’t, and I supposed that was just as well. It might have really messed up time if a girl who wasn’t born until 2141 had played a big part in the Beatles’ story in 1957.
I had to wonder about that. There was no mention of me in the Beatles’ story, even though I had been hanging around Paul all week. It was almost as if I hadn't affected things that much at all – and when I thought about it, I actually hadn’t had that much to do with Paul and John finally meeting in the end. Sure, maybe it was because I had کہا I needed to see the Quarrymen so badly that George had got us tickets, and it was me who had encouraged Paul to get closer to the stage, but I hadn’t even had to introduce them یا anything. All week, I had been trying so hard to push them together, but in the end, Paul and John had just hit it off – and history had gone on from there in the exact same way it had before I had gone back and changed it. I wondered if it was even possible to change time. Maybe we were all wrong about time. Maybe time would just go ahead and do its thing no matter what we did to it. I wondered whether, if that turned out to be the case, I would ever be able to go back and visit the nineteen fifties again (maybe with less stress this time!) Maybe it would be possible, one day, to travel to other eras all the time, without having to be all careful about what we did while in them.
But I did know one thing. Even back in my own comfortable time, I thought I would go outdoors more, follow some sort of guidelines اگلے time I went on a date, to try breaking a few مزید rules and taking a few مزید risks. If only I could have eaten like they did in the nineteen fifties, too. From downstairs, I could smell my father cooking رات کے کھانے, شام کا کھانا – soy burgers, a dish I used to like. I didn’t think I would ever be able to look at a soy burger the same way again.
Maybe, I thought, I would grow up to study time travel. I could go on even مزید trips to the past, especially if I didn't really have to be so careful about what I did یا didn’t do while I was there. And maybe – just maybe – in all my time travels – someday I would get to see Paul again.
END
