• "Vicky! Read this!", she told me. She handed me the Daily Mirror, the national paper. In big headlines there was an article about John. I read aloud:

I looked at Edu.

• "Bob was a bastard, Edu. John told me. He sent him a telegram and apologised. What else does he want?"
• "I suppose he wants some money". I thought. Edu was right, John would have to pay quite a lot of money to Bob. But then another thought came to my mind. "But, Edu, have you realised? They’re in the papers!! I mean, they’re popular!"
• "Yes, Vicky, more than I first thought. Everybody knows them here in Liverpool, and a few girls stopped George and me in the street yesterday!"
• "Yes, the same happened to John and me... Oh, Edu, do you think they’ll be famous some day?"
• "Well, the way things are going, I dare say they will. I don’t know if they’ll be as big as Elvis or Buddy Holly, but they might acquire some popularity".

That was not what I wanted. I was so deeply in love with John, that the only thought of some other girls watching John, was too much for me.

• "I don’t want them to be famous, Edu".
• "Don’t be soft! Why not?"
• "I don’t know", I shrugged. I wanted John all for myself. Egoism? Maybe, but I couldn’t help it.
• "But that’s what they want, Vicky, and what they have fought so hard for. George is quite happy now, he told me".
• "I suppose you’re right, but... will they still be thinking of us when they have conquered the whole world?"

• "The whole world? If they conquer the world, I will have to marry George". We both laughed but the prophetic words were not that far now.

June passed by quickly. Edu and I decided to explore Liverpool and have fun while we could. I sometimes had the idea of going to Mimi’s and have a chat with her. I supposed John had told her about me, but I never dare. George and Paul had frightened the world out me about John’s aunt. If I ever crossed Cynthia in the street, I never knew, because I didn’t know what she looked like.

John and George phoned us the first week they were away. They had been doing lots of things. They had been recording some programmes for the BBC radio that Edu and I listened when it was broadcast. They were also playing several theatres in England. John also told me Billy J. Kramer was finally recording Bad to me. John didn’t attend the recording session, I think he felt a little bit guilty at having got rid of his first composition to me. Paul went, thought. And finally he told me they were going to tour Britain on the seaside.

Edu and I tried to have as much fun as possible. We wanted to enjoy ourselves before getting serious about finding a job (in Edu’s case) or finding a flat or somewhere to live in London (in my case). We decided to do that in July. So, as soon as the month started, we bought a pair of tickets to London.

The city was amazing, so huge... We looked like two little ants in the middle of an immense garden. First we went to find a flat for me. We went to the university and started to look for something near that area. There were a couple of students who wanted to share the flat, so Edu and I decided it was quite good and we could live together during the autumn and winter. We took it. Next step was to find a job for Edu.

We spent a couple of days in London and then returned to Liverpool. When John and George phoned us the second week of July, they told us they had spent quite an amount of time in London. Oh, God! We could have stayed with them, then! I swore at myself at not being able to see John being so near him. They also told us they had recorded a new single and that now they were in Margate. Neither Edu nor me knew where Margate was, but we didn’t care, just to hear the lads’ voices, brightened up our days.

And by the end of July, we received a surprise visit that we didn’t expect. We were both having dinner and watching TV, when we heard the intercom ring. Edu and I looked at each other and both went to the door. When we opened we found two smiling Beatles with a box of chocolates in their hands. I don’t know what happened in my mind in the two little seconds before rushing towards John and kissing him like mad. In the short time he had been away from me, he had grown his hair a little longer, and I found him irresistible. John took me in his arms and walked in to the sofa. I saw Edu and George kissing each other passionately too, and George closed the door with his foot so as not to separate from Edu’s mouth.

After some trivial chat, they told us some anecdotes of their touring.

• "Macca’s been fined for speeding, hee hee!", that was John. I couldn’t care less about Macca, I wanted to know things about John. "We’ve also recorded our new single, like I told you on the phone..."
• "She loves you side A I’ll get you side B", George butted in. We laughed. She loves you was a nice title for a song. I’ll get you sounded more like something aggressive.
• "And we’ve also been thinking of new songs to record on our new album".

I questioned John with my eyes. Could he advance me something? He smiled at me and kissed me but said nothing of it.

• "We also went to this pub in the Soho to see the Rolling Stones, didn’t we George?", said John.
• "Oh, yes, we did, John!", that was a funny way of talking and Edu and I couldn’t do anything but laugh with them. We also told them we had been in London for a couple of days and that we finally got a flat. Gorge and John’s faces turned form happiness to frustration, but said nothing of it either. And then we couldn’t wait any longer. John got up and offered a hand to me. I immediately knew what he was up to, so I took his hand and cuddled together, with his arm around my waist, we went towards my room.

Once again John’s way of making love to me took me by surprise. After kissing me in the way only him could do it, going all over my body with his tongue, his hands and his lips, he surrounded me with his arms and made me kneel on the bed. I was really worried, because everything was quite new for me and obviously John had much more experience. He put a hand on my back and stroke all my spine with his fingers in a way that I could hardly keep my position on the bed. I was kneeled and leaned with my hands on the bed, in a way that I resembled I was going to crawl. John leaned towards me and made love to me from behind, holding me strongly with his two arms by the waist, pushing me forward and backward. I heard him moan and I moaned too. I was really enjoying it that night. Maybe the surprise visit. But I couldn’t help but crying John’s name: "Oh, John, Oh ohhhh, John, John... babe, yes... OHHhhh". John also was crying: "Yes, oh, yes, ahhhh, ohhh, luv, keep moving... ahhhh OHHHH", and he finally came. Never never did it occur to me that I might get pregnant. I thought that only happened to the other girls, not me. I just got carried away by the passion of the moment, and that night, really was special. John pushed me towards him and kissed me. While we were kissing each other, we heard some screams come from Edu’s bedroom:

• "They’re also having a great time!", laughed John. I slapped his shoulder nicely and kissed him. I lied on my back on the bed and John did the same next to me. After lighting a cigarette and taking a few drags, John told me: "I would like you to meet Mimi and Julian".

The idea didn’t appeal to me. Julian, being a little baby, couldn’t be that much pain, but Mimi...

• "Are you sure?"
• "Of course! I love you, Vicky, and I want you to meet my family. Mimi and my little sisters. You can also meet Twitchy if you want".

Uff!! That was serious, then. I don’t think it was a good idea. Maybe I could be seen as the bad girl for taking John away form Cynthia, but I didn’t know he was married when I met him, and obviously, it was him who decided to dumb her. I didn’t say anything about it. Ok, I would meet his relatives.

• "Ok, John, when?"

He thought a little bit. They were touring Britain and also recording some new tracks for their new record, but as soon as they stepped on Liverpool, she will come with me to Mimi’s and Cynthia’s. I must admit that the idea of meeting Cynthia was even worse than the idea of meeting Mimi. Oh, why had everything to be so difficult? He finally said:

• "I’ll ask Brian".

And that is how it was. In between touring, the Beatles came to Liverpool at the beginning of August. They had to play at the Grafton Rooms and then at the Cavern, the next day, for what John told me it was to be their last concert there. So, before playing at the Grafton rooms that night, John came for me to make visits to his family. I wasn’t very keen on it and felt uncomfortable. John noticed it and kissed me softly:

• "Everything will be alright, luv", but I wasn’t so sure. John decided to start with the easiest part: meeting his two step- sisters and Twitchy (John Dykins, his step dad). John was really upset when we reached Twitchy’s house, for there was where he had been when he received the news that his mum was dead. He shook his head when he thought I wasn’t looking, but I saw him. I stopped him and passed my fingers through his hair:
• "Do you think it is a good idea, John?", John forced a weak smile.
• "Of course!", and so we rang the intercom. A very lovely and youngish voice answered:
• "Who’s there?"
• "It’s John, Julia, open!"

The door opened and we saw a very young woman with features quite similar to John’s. She should be about 16 or so but rushed towards John and hugged him passionately. John kissed her happily. Another young girl, younger than the first one, came trailing behind and joined the hugging.

• "Oh, my baby Jackie, how are you?", the young girl should be about thirteen or so, but I couldn’t say because they were quite tall, almost my size and I was 21! After then came a very smart and elegant man, with sort of an antique moustache. I assumed that was Twitchy (oops! John Dykins, I was so used to John’s calling him Twitchy...). John Dykins closed the door and shook John’s hand.
• "John, John... How are you?"
• "Very well, thank you, and how are the girls doing?"
• "Oh, John, we’re not girls any more. We’re little women, you see...", said the older one. John smiled and then looked at me.
• "Oh, and this here is Vicky. Say hello to her!"

The girls came to me and kissed me. The old one was called Julia, just like John’s mum, and the younger one was called Jackie. Julia was old enough to know things better so she looked at me suspiciously. We went to the dining room and Dykins offered us Coke to drink (no alcohol drinks in front of the girls, he said). John and Dykins chatted a little bit while I was with the girls, especially with Jackie, who was showing me all her drawings. They were about to go on Holidays to Scotland, so she had drown all the mountains and even what the lake Ness monster looked like for her. But suddenly, Julia, who hadn’t stopped looking at me in an embarrassed way, asked John:

• "John... Is she the new woman in your life?". We all stopped short in what we were doing. The question was more suitable for someone older than for her. John looked at Dykins:
• "Can you take the girls to their rooms?". There was no problem with Jackie, but Julia wasn’t keen on it, so she insisted on staying. John gave in. "Ok, yes... Vicky is the new woman in my life, and I want you to respect her, OK? I’ll always love Cynthia, she’s the mother of my child, but now Vicky is who I love", he paused and waited to Julia’s reaction. Julia looked at me and I tried to smiled at her so as to win her confidence. I must have something for kids because he smiled back and said:
• "Welcome to the family, then!", and then she kissed me. I sighed of relief. It hadn’t been so difficult. But the most difficult part was still to come.

We stayed a little bit more, once the girls had gone to their rooms. John Dykins was a very smart and polite man who still loved Julia madly. His eyes became wet at the mere mention of her and John, who was desperately in love with his mother and avoided talking about her because then he wouldn’t know where he was, stood up and grabbed me by the arm before it was too late:

• "Take care of the girls!", he told Dykins. "We’ll keep in touch!" and we left. Then we phoned Brian Epstein because John wanted a car to be driven to Cynthia’s. It was obvious, we could not go by bus since John was quite a celebrity in Liverpool by then. Brian sent a young guy, more or less the same age as the Beatles, called Neil. I realised it was a close friend of the Beatles when John started talking to him about things they had shared in touring. So Neil, or Nel, like John called him (why on earth did John never call anybody by their real names? I wonder what he called me then!) drove us to the Wirral and decided to wait in the car when we reached Cynthia’s flat ( her mum’s actually).

I felt quite uncomfortable. This situation was not easy, I didn’t want to see her. I was dying to meet Julian, but Cynthia... Oh, my goodness, this was going to be hell!

John knocked on the door and a beautiful blonde opened the door. She smiled when she saw John but I was behind him and as soon as she spotted me, she became quite serious.

• "Hi, Cyn. Everything OK?", John told her. Cynthia was angry and didn’t stop looking at me. I knew this was going to happen. Only John could think of something of this sort working out. "Where’s my Julian?"
• "Julian is sleeping, John. I don’t want to wake him up".
• "There’s no need, Cyn. We’ll go smoothly to his room and see him. That’s all!"
• "How do you dare bringing her to my home, John? Are you out of your senses?", Cynthia was almost yelling at this point.
• "Oh, come on, Cyn, don’t make a scene. I want her to meet Julian and she’s gonna do it. Just don’t keep us here longer and everything will have finished in a couple of minutes".

Cynthia was almost crying. She made room for us to enter and I tried not to look at her when we passed her. We went to Julian’s room and saw him sleeping in his pram. He was lovely and looked like John a lot. He had sort of a mole with black hair on his head, that’s why Cynthia kept him with caps. John took smoothly his cap out and that’s when I saw it. John kissed him softly and put the cap on again. Cynthia hadn’t followed us. When we went out of the room, she was sitting on a sofa sobbing silently. When she saw us, she pulled herself together and John sat beside her. I was really worried for her, honestly. I put myself in her shoes and had I been her, I wouldn’t have resisted it. But there I was, the lucky one.

• "Cyn, we must go now", John was telling her. "Just tell me when you’re ready to sign the papers, OK? Cyn..."
• "Please, John, go!", she said in a calm way. John shrugged and went to me. He took me by the hand and went out. That was the first and only time I saw Cynthia in my whole life.

We went to the street and to the car where Neil was waiting for us. John told him to drive us to Menlove Avenue and so I could meet his aunt Mimi. John took a deep breath:

• "Luv, I need to warn you. She’s not easy to deal with. Just be patient, Ok." That frightened me. Why did everybody was so frightened of her? She couldn’t be that bad.

Well, obviously she was. When we rang the doorbell a middle aged woman opened the door. John and her couldn’t deny they belonged to the same family. Both had the same sharp features, including nose and eyes. She smiled at John but definitely not at me.

• "Hi, Mimi, how are ya?"
• "Come in, John". Still not a glance at me. I followed John. I saw a very huge house, ver clean and tidy. We entered the living room where there was the TV and Mimi sat on one of the armchairs. John and I sat on a big sofa. She didn’t beat about the bush. "What the hell are you up to now, John? Who do you think you are breaking young girl’s hearts all over the place?", John looked at me.
• "Mimi, let me explain... I love Vicky... You know, she’s very nice and lovely and...", I had never seen John so short of words. "She’s studying at University", that seemed to like Mimi.
• "Where did you meet?"
• "In Spain, she’s not English. She’s Spanish". Mimi gasped.
• "Spanish!!?? Are you crazy or what, Lennon?", she then looked at me. "So, Spanish, eh? Just like the Germans, had you been part of the war, you would have fought against us like Germany and Italy. It’s people like you we are proud to have won the war for!"
• "Oh, Mimi, come off it. What does she have to do with the war?" I admit I was astonished. Me? Accusing me of being a nazi? I couldn’t believe it, Me that I could hardly kill a fly. I was really hurt and John realised. He took my hand and squeezed it in confidence. Mimi realised.
• "So this is serious, isn’t it?", John nodded. "What about Cynthia and Julian?", John looked unusually uneasy.
• "I’ve talked to her. I want the divorce".
• "She won’t give it to you", we both knew that. I had resigned, but John kept insisting. Anyway, that was not our priority right then. First, we wanted Mimi to accept our relationship. There was a couple of seconds of silence and then she got up. "What do you want to have for dinner?", John’s face brightened up. I could see that was a good sign.
• "Oh, Mimi, just what you want. Just one thing, uh... You know, I have this concert at Grafton Rooms... It should be a quick dinner, then." She went to the kitchen and John and I were left alone. "Everything is going well", he informed me. To break the tension a little bit he wanted to show me round the house, especially his bedroom, which was upstairs.

It was all full of paintings, records and notepads with short stories on them. John lived there when he wasn’t touring, so there were also a couple of guitars and mouth organs. We sat down on the bed. I was afraid of touching anything, but then John took a guitar and sat down behind me with his legs all around my waist leaving me in between them. He made me take the guitar. Well, the only think I could do was put it in the right position, but that was the end of it. So John put his arms around me and started playing a few notes while poking his head from my right shoulder. He kissed my neck every now and then and suddenly he started playing softly and signing to me:

We were interrupted by Mimi’s voice calling us for dinner. The magic was broken but I had loved the way John had sung to me. I kissed him in gratitude and he wanted to make it longer kissing me passionately, but I just couldn’t do it. Not with his aunt downstairs and when we still had to work things out with her. So we went downstairs and John went directly to the phone:

- "I’m going to phone Brian, you see... Nel is picking up the others so I want him to come for us, take Vicky home and me to Grafton Rooms". Mimi nodded. After that John came back to the table and we ate in silence. John sometimes said something to his aunt:

• "We’re playing the cavern for the last time tomorrow, you know, Mimi?"
• "I know, Brian told me". Silence.
• "And then we’re touring Britain again". She just nodded. But then she looked up from her plate and looked at me.
• "What is she going to do?", well, that was a very clever question. I hadn’t thought of that. I suppose Edu and I would spend the rest of the summer in Liverpool and then move to London to study and work. I saw my opportunity of saying something.
• "Well, I have to study my fourth course at University, and my friend Edu is coming with me", before Mimi could say anything John butted in:
• "Edu is dating George, you know, Mimi?", she laughed. Well, finally, something had made her laugh.
• "Well, I can only hope it is for the better". That broke the ice a little because after that Mimi was a lot more relaxed.

When we finished eating, Mimi took all the plates to the kitchen and I offered to help her. Mimi also liked that. I offered to wash the dishes but Mimi refused. She made some coffee and we all went to the coffee table to have it. She now smiled at me every now and then which was perfect by me. Then she turned to John:

• "John, how serious is this? I mean, do you love her?"

• "Yes, Mimi, I do love her".
• "And do you love John, Vicky? Are you sure it is not a little crush on a pop star?"
• "Mimi, I knew John before I even knew who he was. And I love him madly", I looked at John and he smiled at me.
• "Ok, I can only say I hope you’ll be happy together". I thought I heard John sigh in relief. I smiled. Everything had worked out fine in the end. And yes, now I knew why everybody was so afraid of Mimi. After the coffee, just when Mimi was picking up the things from the table, we heard a knock on the door. John opened it and there was Brian, perfectly dressed as usual. Mimi came and greeted Brian, then he turned to John: "But you’re spending the night here, aren’t you, John?" John looked at me and said:
• "Mimi, I’ll see you before going to Jersey", he kissed her goodnight and we went out.

• "Wanna come to the concert, luv?" I would have loved to but I was far too tired to keep awake. The day had had too many emotions.
• "I’m tired, John, I wanna go to sleep", he seemed a little bit disappointed but yet smiled at me and kissed me:
• "What about the Cavern concert tomorrow?"
• "Yes, I’ll go to that one. After all it’s your final concert there".

• "Good luck with the concert today", he smiled at me and I closed the door.