He's So Fine [Beatles / George Harrison FanFiction]

Chapter One: 29th August 1959

'I can't be arsed with this.'

Della ignored him, pretending she hadn't heard. She turned her head away and looked down the queue of people. It stretched the length of the driveway, around the stone pillars on the corner and disappeared off up Hayman's Green. It was such an odd place to have something like this. The house was tall and slender with bay windows and an asymmetrical shape, walls and porches jutting out all around the square of the building. Unlike its neighbours, it was set back from the main road, with a large, overgrown garden at the front and more land at the back, crowded with leafy bushes and trees.

'I said, I can't be...'

'I heard what you said,' Della muttered. 'I can't make the queue go any quicker, can I?'

Jim huffed and shoved his hands in his trouser pockets, kicking at the pebbles on the stony driveway to scuff his shiny black brogues.

Della suspected that was what was wrong with him, although the extended wait didn't help. Jim wasn't the most patient of people and they'd already been queuing for forty-five minutes, but he was uncomfortable too. He was wearing a grey pinstripe suit. God knows where he'd got it from, Della had never seen him in it before. It must be borrowed as it was too big on him. The jacket was too boxy and it hung on him like a bedsheet on a washing line. The trousers were cinched to his waist with a belt but looked liable to fall down no less. He had smart leather shoes on his feet that he'd already complained pinched his toes. He was desperately overdressed. No one else was dressed like this. Around them all the other would-be club members were casual in shirts and jumpers and jeans. Della wore a fawn tartan skirt with a black short sleeve turtleneck. She'd questioned if that was over the top until she saw what Jim was wearing.

'If we don't get to the front in the next five minutes, I'm leaving,' Jim grumbled.

'It just took us an hour to get here and you want to leave before we've seen inside?'

'I didn't even want to come to this.'

They were only about half way down the drive. There was no chance they'd reach the front in five minutes. Della and Jim had caught a bus from Speke into town, changed at Paradise Street, and then gotten lost walking around West Derby. When they finally arrived, the queue was already the length of the driveway. They should have gotten here earlier, but Della had been surprised by how popular this club was proving to be. Opening time was seven o'clock and it was already past eight.