Chapter Text
The morning light crept over Liverpool in streaks of grey, the kind that made the terraced houses look as though they were cut out of soot and smoke. On Menlove Avenue, the windows rattled faintly as a lorry trundled by, its wheels splashing through yesterday’s rain. John sat at the small table in the kitchen, hunched forward, his chin resting on his fist, a cigarette burning to ash between his fingers. The newspaper was spread before him, the black ink smudged from his restless hands.
He wasn’t really reading at first. His eyes wandered, leaping from one headline to another without catching hold, as though he were waiting for something—some secret, some spark—to leap off the page. Then it did. The corner of his lip curled upward, not in humour but in that crooked way he had when something unsettled him.
“Man Killed in Road Crash — Car Fails to Halt at Traffic Signal.”
The words clung to him. He read them twice, then a third time, as though each repetition might alter the fact. The description was blunt: a young man in his twenties, smartly dressed, driving home from a late night shift. The light had changed from amber to red, but he had not seen it. Another vehicle had struck him broadside. Dead on arrival.
John tapped his ash into the tray, stared at the grainy photograph beside the text. The man’s face was blurred by the print, but there was something haunting about it—youthful, unprepared, unfinished. “Didn’t see the bloody light,” John muttered to himself, almost amused at the fatal absurdity of it. All it takes, one missed signal and you’re gone. The thought lodged in his chest like a sour note.
From the next room came the clatter of china, Aunt Mimi tidying up with her usual briskness. John lifted the paper closer, letting the rustle drown out her footsteps. His mind, as always, slipped sideways. He imagined the man, perhaps humming along to the radio in his car, thoughts elsewhere—on a girl, on his supper, on nothing in particular. Then gone, in an instant. A red light, ignored.
It was the sort of story he couldn’t look away from, because it felt like a mirror of his own reckless heart. He fancied himself invincible, striding through life with a crooked grin, but the truth was never far: You could vanish in a blink, and the world would keep turning. John took a long drag from his cigarette, as though smoke could fill the emptiness of that thought.
Later that afternoon, he went to the pictures with a mate. The air outside smelled of coal dust and fishmongers, and the posters by the cinema doors promised “NEWSREEL — VICTORY AT WAR.” John tossed his ticket stub into his pocket and followed the others into the dark.
The newsreel flickered to life, black-and-white images dancing across the screen. Soldiers marching, tanks rolling, the Union Jack raised over foreign soil. The narrator’s voice was crisp, triumphant: “Our brave men in uniform, standing firm for King and Country…” John slouched in his seat, arms folded, eyes narrowed against the light. He’d been a child during the worst of it, and his memories were fragments—the distant howl of sirens, the heavy hand of fear pressing down. Now, here it was again, polished into glory for the masses.
He couldn’t help but scoff under his breath. Brave lads, yes, but what of the ones who never came back? The grainy footage didn’t show the mothers weeping, or the broken bodies carried home. It was a show, neat and proud. He glanced at the faces around him, all watching solemnly, some nodding with pride. John’s mouth twisted. He felt the urge to laugh, loud and sharp, just to slice through the reverence. He didn’t. Instead, he pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth and tasted the bitterness of it all.
As the reel ended, applause scattered through the room. John clapped once, slow and mocking, though no one heard above the swell of music. His mate nudged him. “What’s that face for, then?” But John only shrugged. He didn’t bother explaining. He rarely did.
When he left the cinema, the late afternoon air was damp and cool, the sky a heavy lid of clouds pressing down on Liverpool. He walked with long strides, coat collar turned up, the image of the newspaper headline still floating in his head. That young man, gone at the switch of a light. Those soldiers, marching on endlessly even when the war had already ended. The world seemed full of endings dressed up as beginnings, or beginnings cut short before they had a chance to matter.
He lit another cigarette and watched the smoke twist upward, his eyes following it as though it might write something meaningful against the sky. The truth was, he felt restless, like he was waiting for something unnamed. Music was there, of course—always buzzing inside him, riffs and words colliding—but it was more than that. He wanted a counterpart. Someone who could catch the sparks he threw off, maybe even throw some back.
He didn’t know it yet, but he’d already met him. A boy with wide eyes and a sharp grin, the one who knew too many chords for his age. Paul bloody McCartney. John remembered the first time he’d seen him with his guitar—how his fingers moved quick and sure, how he seemed half-shy and half-brash all at once. There was something in him that irritated John, but in the way a magnet irritates by pulling you closer whether you like it or not.
He kicked at a stone on the pavement and muttered under his breath. “Didn’t see the light…” The words tangled in his mind, part headline, part lyric, though he didn’t know it yet.
That evening, back at Mendips, the radio played faintly in the background. Mimi was in her armchair with her knitting, the fire sputtering low. John sat by the window, notebook open on his lap, pencil tapping without purpose. He wasn’t writing yet—just letting his mind wander. He could still hear the newsreel’s narrator, still see that blurred face in the newspaper. Death and war and traffic lights, and all the tiny moments that decided whether you carried on or didn’t.
He thought of Paul then, though he wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone. Paul with his neat hair and his quick smile, who was probably at home now, combing through melodies or pretending to study. John wondered if Paul ever thought of him, if he felt the same tug when their eyes caught for a beat too long. He shook the thought off, scrawled a few lines on the page that didn’t make sense, then scratched them out again.
The house was quiet, but John’s head was loud. He leaned back in his chair, cigarette dangling, and let his eyelids fall half-shut. The images blurred into dream: a car rushing past a red light, soldiers marching in endless loops, and somewhere in between, a boy on a bus, running late, hair combed neat, hat in hand. John didn’t know yet that Paul was real in that dream, that he was on his way even now. All he knew was the restless pull of something just beyond reach, waiting to strike like a chord not yet played.