She's Leaving Home

‘Well shake it up, baby, now!’

‘
Shake it up, baby
!!’

‘Twist and shout!’

‘
Twissannshout
!!’

‘C’mon c’mon c’mon come on, baby, now!’

‘
Come on, baby
!’

‘Come on and work it on out!’

‘
Workitonnaaht
!’

In excited unison Helen and Colette dutifully screamed the responses. Two heads, one dark and curly, the other black Irish glossy, bobbed and weaved in time to the thundering beat. On the tiny cluttered stage thin leather-clad youths shook their guitars with mock menace. A gaggle of the most daring girls, their faces white in matt Pan Stik, eyes stark with eyeliner and mascara, mouths open and moist, reached up to touch their heroes who wriggled away. To each side rose banks of amplifiers, barricades between the musicians and their fans; chords powered up to the low curved ceiling, bounced back from the sweaty walls and drove into the audience like missiles.

‘Wanna dance?’ a voice yelled in Helen’s ear. The music was so loud her eardrums had gone numb and her brain rattled, but she could lip-read the offer. At her side Colette was approached by his companion and with a shrug accepted.

It was too dark to identify what the lanky boy wore but that was probably a school tie – the Institute, at a guess. A sixth-former if she were lucky, nipping down like herself to spend his midday break at the Cavern’s cheaper sessions. One hand held a half-full bottle of Coke while the other gestured away towards another aisle, where couples were frenziedly jiggling in time to the overwhelming beat.

‘Yeah, why not?’ She would have preferred a Coke but he was probably as poverty-stricken as she was. A dance, provided she didn’t get too hot, would be marginally less tiring than that steamy crush so close to the stage. To be honest, she couldn’t see what was so marvellous about John Lennon. Everybody knew he was as blind as a bat without his spectacles and his reputation was unreliable. Paul with his angelic face and sweet voice was more to her taste, but he’d been in a foul mood since the first note and wouldn’t smile or fool around. George had bad teeth and seemed forever preoccupied with intricate riffs on his instrument as if the paying punters were entirely incidental.

‘Wassyername?’ The boy yelled again in her ear in a pause between phrases of ‘Long Tall Sally’. He was a determined and vigorous dancer, his tie flapping against his white shirt. That was definitely a school blazer.

Yet his youth was a reassurance. Dockers came in sometimes when bad weather had stopped work. To beat the no-drinks rule they would get tanked up beforehand in The Grapes pub nearby or a Yates Wine Lodge, then leer at the girls. The alcohol emboldened their hands, too, though often they were barely older than the schoolboys. Occasionally there would be fights. They didn’t understand or appreciate the music either.

‘Helen!’ she shouted back. She had left her navy duffel coat rolled up tight under a chair in one of the darkest corners – what wasn’t visible was less likely to be stolen. Her blazer, like Colette’s, was still on its peg at school. The black polo neck sweater which concealed the rest was stifling; she tugged ineffectively at it.

‘Hello, Lynne, then. My name’s Jack.’ Or it could have been Mack. Or something quite different: it didn’t matter.

‘Yeah!!’

The final notes twanged. Without bows or further ceremony the foursome jumped down from the stage and headed towards the food hatch which passed for a bar. Colette was already there, Coke in hand, talking to John’s girlfriend Cynthia. Rumour had it they had had to get married the previous summer – she was clearly pregnant. Given the way some fans ogled John and their hostility to their favourites’ girlfriends, Cynthia was brave to come at all.

A tubby man climbed up in their place and picked a microphone off its stand. His greasy leather jacket gaped over a red tee shirt; in the red spotlight perspiration stood out on his forehead and his eyes bulged.

‘We’re very grateful to Liverpool’s fab four – the Beatles! A big hand for them, ladies and gentlemen,
pur-lease
!’

The applause was acknowledged with a wry wave of a hot dog by John. George turned his back on the crowd and lit a cigarette.

‘And I hope, ladies and gentlemen, that all you good people who have seen the boys live at the CAVERN’ – wild cheers on cue from the audience – ‘have put your names down for their next disc “Please Please Me” which is due out in February. With your support their first, “Love Me Do”, sold the massive total of
one hundred thousand
copies and made it to the charts to number fourteen in November. It even beat – wait for it – Pat Boone!’

Yells of derision greeted the name of the sanitised American crooner. Although the Beatles’ music derived directly from American soul and country music a huge gap existed between what was cool and what wasn’t for aficionados – which every Cavern Club member would claim to be. Their preferred singers were mainly black and had been poor: the blues were genuine enough. An exception would be made for a superior white like Jerry Lee Lewis. But Boone stood with Doris Day and Guy Mitchell in the hierarchy of the despised, as far as Helen and Colette were concerned.

The DJ, sweating freely, rubbed a podgy hand over his brow. The fans were becoming restless. Behind him another band had started to erect their equipment. As plugs were tested intermittent squeaks and yowls punctured the remainder of his speech.

‘And don’t forget your copy this week of the
New Musical Express
and our local music mag
Mersey Beat
– on sale round the corner at NEMS as usual!’ Another cheer. The North End Music Store in Whitechapel was the city’s largest music shop, owned by the Epsteins; it had been opened in a great flourish four years before by Anthony Newley. In the window gleaming Fender guitars and Hoffner basses tempted schoolboys to abandon their studies. A grand piano filled the foreground, with sheet music (‘Hits of Russ Conway’) draped artistically over the keyboard. At the back were the precious racks of records where light-fingered truants hovered. The record department had been the brainchild of young Brian Epstein, an idea dreamed up in despair and boredom while running their other shop, a furniture store in Woolton. In a modest upstairs office above NEMS Brian had agreed to represent the Beatles and several other bands.

‘And now – the Big Three!’

The lead singer, who was also the drummer, looked and performed as if he had been a docker quite recently: big, rough, loud, tuneless. But he laid down a beat that could be heard across the Mersey and was much imitated.

‘Yeah – some other guy now…’ he chanted aggressively into the mike. He was singing in a different key to his lead guitarist.  Neither seemed to notice.

Colette was gesticulating towards the exit. Helen peered at her watch. ‘I have to go. Sorry.’

‘Me too.’ Jack finished his drink, put the empty bottle at the base of the wall alongside a dozen others and moved with her towards the stairs. At the entrance she stepped aside to the dark corner, found a couple snogging on the chair under which her coat was hidden, ignored them as she bent down in retrieval and was rewarded with an oath and a poorly aimed kick. Upright once more she
rejoined her escort. He glanced at the ‘Ladies’ sign in polite inquiry, but the toilets here stank of carbolic and effluent and were best avoided. As they pushed their way across the dance floor he put an arm around her.

As they emerged into Mathew Street the sudden cold made them gasp. A path had been cleared in the snow: it was said by the newspapers that this could be the worst winter for years. Breaths hung in the frosty air. The queue had lessened somewhat compared with an hour earlier. The boys were of all sizes but their haircuts were similarly slicked back, Elvis-style, with a flick up at the front wherever Nature permitted. The more daring sported check jackets with blue velvet collars and shiny winkle-picker shoes with a tendency to curl at the toes. The women stood in clumps chattering like sparrows, bodies encased in long fluffy sweaters and tight skirts just above the knee, feet cramped and frozen in pointed white stilettos. Again their hairstyles conformed rigidly – either straight as a die, a silky frame for the face or else backcombed, piled high on top in imitation of Dusty Springfield and fixed with stiff lacquer with its unmistakable cheap scent. Helen could do neither with her naturally curly hair, which caused her grief every night. Before any big event she would sleep in rollers to straighten it. Lucky Colette, when she bothered, could achieve that sleek look which enhanced her green eyes. Every girl wore the same shade of pale pink lipstick, the colour which Helen now quickly removed from her own mouth with a handkerchief.

‘Can I see you again?’ The boy shivered on the pavement.  Helen fastened the toggles of her coat. Behind them the music rose, diminished and distorted, from the dank warmth of the staircase.

Helen looked him once up and down. ‘Which school are you at? I may see you around.’

‘Merchant Taylor’s. Crosby. You won’t, I don’t think. We don’t go to the same dances as you because we’re not in Liverpool. I only came into town today because I’m supposed to be going to the hospital. Bunked off,’ he grinned sheepishly. ‘Like you, I suppose.’

Helen half smiled. ‘Then there’s not much point, is there? Thanks for the dance.’ She exaggerated the accent, as if she were an ordinary scrubber casting off an unwanted beau. All he could see was the black sweater and the duffel coat: surely it wasn’t so obvious that she herself was still at school. It might have been different had he bought that drink – made an effort. She walked away.

The two girls strolled arm-in-arm down John Street to Lord Street, past the big shops towards Lime Street Station. The 79 bus stop was by the Adelphi Hotel. Helen’s father told lurid tales of the Adelphi, the city’s sole smart hotel, whose management were among his better clients. Its heyday had been in the years before the war when the huge Cunarders were the only way to cross the Atlantic. On embarkation eve, limousines would draw up to its broad steps and disgorge stylish women in furs with mountains of leather luggage. Men in topcoats with white silk scarves would follow, cigars clamped between their teeth. Its sumptuous lounge was a copy of the first-class ballroom of the
Queen Mary
and had been decorated by many of the same craftsmen. For the three-day Grand National event at Aintree the entire place would be taken over by racehorse owners and trainers; on the Saturday, the last night of the meet, the top floor penthouses were the scene of wild parties, including (it was said) cockfights with hooded birds smuggled in via the service lift. Her father would get tips on the day of the big race, but never seemed to win anything.

When the green double decker bus arrived the two climbed upstairs and headed to the front. For the moment, the songs still jangling in their heads, the girls were quiet. It was chilly and the floor was littered with cigarette butts, but from there Helen could drift away, could gaze into back yards and upstairs windows, could fantasise on the lives so briefly observed. Why did people in tower blocks keep lace curtains at their windows, even on the tenth floor – who was there to look in? Why did others, close to railway lines or cheek-by-jowl with nearby properties, have no curtains at all? Helen glimpsed unmade beds; in one a man was still asleep, his face turned away from the light. A shift worker, perhaps – but he would have ensured his rest in a darkened room. A layabout, more likely. She frowned.

The vehicle halted by the bombed-out church at the bottom of Leece Street. Five people had been killed there the night it had been destroyed in 1940. Its blackened spire had been made safe and a memorial garden laid out where once had risen nave and choir. There was no money to replace it, and no call for its services as a place of worship. The neighbourhood had long since been taken over by Chinese.

‘They were in a bad mood, today,’ Colette mused as the bus began to grind uphill.

‘Weren’t they just? Must be a bit tense for them – that new record could be really big. Scary.’ Helen crossed her legs. ‘Pity they lost Stu Sutcliffe. He was the best-looking one: they shouldn’t have left him in Germany. Golly, it’s only a few months since he collapsed and died. And I still can’t figure out why Pete Best was ditched last year. Ringo is so ugly and he has no personality.’

‘That was Brian Epstein,’ Colette answered authoritatively. The nuances of the group’s lives were followed assiduously by their fans. ‘D’you know he went to see the boys’ parents when he signed them up? In a suit, with his posh accent and tidy hair. Even John’s Aunt Mimi was impressed. He was the one who ditched Pete.’

‘D’you remember the punch-up at the Cavern after that? Pete’s mates were livid. George got a black eye.’ The bus lurched and Helen clutched the seat for support. ‘Something odd about Brian, don’t you think?’ she added. ‘What’s the word – effete? Though he’s supposed to be courting. But I’ve seen him look at John in an odd way, sometimes. Almost yearning.’

Colette did not respond for a moment then returned to the earlier subject. ‘They’ll cope with fame, if it comes. I was talking to Cynthia. She says the boys learned a lot in Hamburg. John reckons they were innocent little kids when they arrived, but a few sessions in strip clubs down the Reeperbahn left them with no illusions.’

Details from the gossip were repeated. The girls giggled at the image of boys virtually their own age struggling to find the notes as red lace panties were flung over the guitars.

‘But you can see why they’re so good,’ Helen persisted. ‘I mean, you can sing everything they play – the tunes stick in your head. They’ve started to write their own music and it isn’t like the stuff anybody else does. I think they’re fantastic. What’s amazing is that hardly anybody’s heard of them outside Liverpool.’

‘If they’re a big success, they’ll pack up and leave.’ Colette spoke softly. Her friend gave her a sharp glance but the Irish girl was staring out of the glass.

‘Typical. Everybody does.’ A pause.