Chapter Text
“Al, wake up. You’re all covered in sweat. You feeling all right?” Nell’s concerned voice broke through Alice’s frantic and bizarre dreams. Alice woke up with a start, eyes not focusing for a few seconds. When she finally was able to focus on Nell, she drew a few shaky breaths, and shook her head. “I’m just having a hard time shutting my brain off, got a headache or something.” She easily, well, didn’t lie exactly; she couldn’t shut her brain off. She evaded the truth. It was something she hated doing but she wasn’t ready to confess just yet. She wanted to sort through all her memories a bit longer by herself. “What time is it?”
“I just got in, you were thrashing around in bed something fierce and mumbling and moaning loudly. It’s about 7:30.” Nell sat down on the bed as Alice sat up and instantly curled up into her girlfriend’s lap.
Nell’s eyes widened; Alice wasn’t a cuddly type. It must have been some hell of a dream or nightmare to make her normally slightly hardened (Nell always wondered about her current lovers previous lovers because of that) girlfriend as desperate for affection as she seemed at that moment. “What’s gotten you so worked up?”
“Nothing. Really.” Alice shrugged. “Just one of those dreams that makes me realize what I have. How good I have it now, here with you.” She glanced at the clock. “I think I’ll call in, I’m not feeling all that good.”
Nell nodded. “You are still sweating. Maybe getting a good rest will do you wonders. Want anything, tea or something?”
Alice nodded. “Maybe. Just a little something to take the edge off.” She gave a forced smile and climbed off Nell’s lap so her girlfriend could get off the bed, settling under the covers, finding the letter on the side of the bed where she must have tossed it in her restless slumber.
Against her better judgment, she leaned down to pick it up. She only let herself read the first few lines, somehow convinced that if she didn’t read the whole thing at once none of it would be actually happening. Only the bits she chose to focus on.
My Dearest Alice;
I certainly hope this letter finds you well. I’ll apologise in advance for my brevity, I’m afraid I’m not well at the moment. Hence why I’m writing you after all these years. I’m doing a fair deal of thinking on my past these days. I don’t know what the future holds for me and I can’t risk not getting a chance to right wrongs. So that’s why I’ve written you at all, in hopes you’ll remember me…
That was all Alice let herself read.
“Of course I remember you. Always do.” She whispered to herself. “How could I forget you?”
“Forget who?” Nell had shown back up with a steaming cup of tea.
“I um…I should come clean a bit. That letter from that cancer research center there in Seattle, it wasn’t from the hospital wanting money. It was from an old friend of mine. We lost touch and she’s poorly it seems. That’s what’s put me out of sorts.” Alice knew she couldn’t lie to Nell forever but that didn’t mean she wanted to tell the whole truth. It would come like Alice wished to process the whole thing : in little bits and pieces and slowly.
“That would be off-putting.” Nell agreed, holding out the cup of tea. “Just as you like it : Earl Grey, and two sugars.”
“You’re so good to me.” Alice whispered, taking the tea cup and getting a scent of bergamot and black tea, a smell that always brought her back to that first time she set foot in Sunny Heights, soaked to the bone, not dreaming that her life would be changed drastically. That her entire perception of self would be challenged. “You must be tired though.”
Nell shrugged . “Not too tired to talk if you want. It has been a bit crazy recently, though .”
“Go to bed, love. I’ll go downstairs, make my calls, watch bit of telly.” Alice smiled, hoping she didn’t seem too eager to slip away. She wanted to sort through her jumbled thoughts and memories that kept flooding through her mind and had been since that envelope had made its ruddy way to her mail slot. And she wanted – no needed – to do so alone. At least for the moment.
“You sure? I know it can’t be easy to get that kind of news. Even if you haven’t been close in a while, if she was important to you and she’s in that poor of health…” Nell shrugged, trailing off. Alice was shaking her head no.
“No, you go to bed. I’ll make a special breakfast for you have it ready when you wake up” Alice was already halfway out the door, banking on Nell’s habit of sleeping for a bit when she got home, then waking up for a few hours, then sleeping again until time to get ready for work.
Nell nodded, looking not at all convinced but knowing that whatever was on her girlfriend’s mind, it would come out when she wished it to. It was how Alice had worked since day one.
Alice practically ran down the hallway into the living room, turning on the TV, watching the morning news or rather not watching and having it on as background noise for pretense sake. She held the cup of tea tightly, occasionally taking sips of it as her thoughts drifted back to that day in Surrey.
“I’m sorry if the kitchen is a mess, I’ve been out and about most days and Zak keeps Stella on the run.” Maureen, having successfully sequestered Tiger in a little room off the kitchen.
“I-It’s fine, really.” Alice stuttered as she stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame.
“Have seat, love. I promise I won’t bite.” Maureen gestured to the kitchen table, and went about filling the kettle and setting it to boil. “Can I get you anything to eat or something?”
“No thank you, ma’am…erm, Maureen.” Stammered Alice who scarcely could believe still that this was happening, even as she held the towel she’d been drying her hair off with, as she looked around at the house she’d only seen from the inside, as her gaze flitted across the room and she saw toddler toys all about, even as she watched Maureen flit from kettle to cabinet to icebox and back, preparing a tray. Even with all that evidence, it still felt like a dream. Like a very elaborate dream.
None the less, Alice quietly made her way to the table and pulled out a chair, sitting very still and straight, trying to take deep breaths as her heart was pounding away at what seemed like the pace of a hummingbird’s wings.
When the kettle was finished heating up, Maureen brought over a tray filled with all sorts of things to make tea : two small creamers – one with milk one with cream- a sugar bowl containing cubed sugar, a pot of honey, some lemon, and an assortment of tea bags. Along with the cups and a tea pot of warm water. And a plate of shortbreads.
“I know you said you didn’t want anything but I’m absolutely famished. Shopping takes it out of you, y’know.” Maureen smiled at the younger woman as she poured water in two cups and set one in front of Alice, and gestured to the tray. “Take what you want, as much as too.”
Alice nodded and smiled back. She watched as Maureen prepared a cup of Earl Grey and took two lumps of sugar, and Alice, who’d never had a preference, but even if she had one it wouldn’t have mattered, mirrored her hostess.
“Y’know, we call this- sugar cubes- funeral sugar back home in Liverpool” Maureen mused, watching with sharp dark eyes. Alice still looked pale and shaken but as each moment passed, color came back to her face and she looked less likely to pass right out on her.
Alice couldn’t stop a small snort of laughter at the Northern slang. “S-sorry. It’s just …o-odd…” She blushed deeply. “I mean not…you’re not…and of course Ringo isn’t…but…I’m just sorry.”
“No worries.It is odd. Most slang from back home is a bit off, but it’s what I knew. It’s fairly expensive, cubed sugar,and most of us up in the North are working class and poor, but it’s very important – admittedly oddly- to have the best for funerals and wakes. So cubed sugar is ‘funeral sugar’.” Maureen didn’t seem offended and for that Alice was grateful. She did bury her face in the tea cup, taking an unnecessarily long sip.
“That’ s not odd. That’s really fascinating.” She managed to get out , still stammering a bit but flitting her glance up to actually meet Maureen’s eyes. She found them to be fascinating : dark and deep, not missing a trick either.
“Fascinating might be a bit much, but ta, none the less. Now, enough about me and home. Tell me about you. What do you do when you aren’t outside of me gate?” Maureen’s eyes were gentle and her tone inviting and she seemed at least somewhat genuinely curious.
“Nothing major, not really. I’m finished with my compulsory schooling, and I’ve started at secretarial school. It’s not glamorous or anything but it’s steady work and going to uni wasn’t gonna be for me.” Alice spoke softly and her cheeks flushed again.
“Sounds perfectly alright. I was a hairdressing apprentice before I met Ritchie- er, Ringo…sorry, I ‘most never call him by his stage name… so I see nothing wrong with entering a trade. I personally think it’ll serve you well.” Maureen nibbled on the short bread and pushed the plate toward Alice. “Get something in you, love. You’ve been standing out in the front of me house for hours, you can’t have had anything to eat since…breakfast I’m guessing?”
Alice nodded sheepishly and took a shortbread and nibbled on it a bit, swallowing before speaking. “I just wanted to see him so badly. I know he works late and I know I’m here a lot, but it’s something I just like doing. I feel like I’m part of something. That I’m someone special. At school, I’m just average. I’m not top of the class, not pretty nor popular. I just am looking to get through it. But when I’m part of those girls- I’m older than a lot of them, and that makes me important to them, and then even your gardener speaks to me. Stella always says hi to all of us, but she sometimes talks to me and some of the other regular girls specially, and then you and Ringo are always kind. You remembered my name today. Who can say that?” Alice felt herself blushing as she rambled on with her little monologue but as Maureen didn’t try to stop her, and seemed genuinely interested in what was being said.
It was a nice feeling, Alice decided. A bit of a lonely sort- she never felt like she was just like the other girls she knew, something felt off- she found it was nice to have someone that cared what she said.
“Well, in all reality, I’m no one special. I married my first true love, and me husband has become famous but all in all, I’m only, at me core, Maureen Cox, apprentice hair-dresser from the council flats in Liverpool. I’m no one special, but I do think everyone should feel noticed.” Maureen rested her elbow on the table and her chin in her up-turned palm. “You’ll be someone special to someone one day, believe me.”
“And I found her, Mo. I did. And here I am, hiding so much from her.” Alice was brought back to reality by the sound of one of those day-time game shows starting. With the cheering and pinging and horrible announcer voice, it was hard to ignore. Plus her tea had gone cold. She pulled herself off the couch and walked into the kitchen.
Only to find Nell waiting there, eating a bowl of oatmeal. She looked pensive and it made Alice’s stomach twist.
“I’m sorry, I got…” Alice stammered, trying to think of how to explain.
“Distracted? Way too distracted for an old friend, Al.” Nell spoke evenly but her tone was one of hurt as she lay down her spoon.
Alice sank down across from her girlfriend and took the other woman’s hands in hers. “You’re right. She…Maureen is her name. She was the woman that …she changed my whole view of myself. My first sexual encounter with a woman. I was seventeen, she was nineteen and a mum and wife already…”
“So your first woman was an affair?” Nell backed away.
“Technically, but you don’t understand. Her husband was away, and he wasn’t always kind to her and he drank a lot, though I guess with his job and his life it would make sense…”
“What kind of job and why would she stay married to him? If he was that horrible, and that much of a drunk, and she was at least into experimenting with women, why would she stay?” Nell clenched her jaw, trying to process all she’d heard. It seemed so common a set of circumstances, and it wasn’t like she was a virgin when she’d taken up with Alice, but the idea of it all just didn’t fit with the Alice she’d known for five years. What did it say about her fidelity if she could be the other woman especially with a kid involved?
“I loved her, or I was …infatuated maybe. Either way, it wasn’t just a one off affair. And she didn’t leave him, cause she loved him for certain, but also …” Alice bit her lower lip. “Never mind. It was a very bizarre set of circumstances and we’ll leave it at that.”
“No we won’t. What was it that was so bizarre?” Nell narrowed her eyes.
“Her husband… he was….” Alice swallowed hard. She knew Nell wouldn’t believe her and she was afraid of what kind of reaction she would get. “I swear it’s true. He was …is still…Ringo Starr. My first female love was Mrs. Ringo Starr. Maureen Cox Starkey.” Alice bit her lip.
Nell turned pale then red with anger and stormed off, heading to the bedroom, muttering something about honesty and ‘at least don’t start so high with your lies.’
Alice lay her head on the table, wishing all the more that she just hadn’t opened that letter. Wondering why she hadn’t just let the past be what it was.