In My Life - George Harrison/The Beatles

Chapter Fifteen: Birthday

May 1960

The morning of her eighteenth birthday, Connie woke up with the worst headache in her life. She'd drank before, but never to the point of a hangover, and the splitting pain across her head that made it agony to even open her eyes fully made her decide she never wanted to drink again. It was a self-inflicted rule she would soon break, but at the time she had every intention to live up to it.

She'd woken up on the sofa downstairs with the curtains wide open, letting in the bright sunlight right over where she was sleeping, though as she pulled herself up with a grimace, stretching her legs out, she realised she wasn't the only one who'd passed out on the sofa. George had curled up against the arm of the sofa, his arms wraped around a pillow and his hair ruffled in his sleep. Trying her best not to wake him, she swung her legs down from the seat, only for them to hit something rather solid, something that let out a pained grunt. Glancing down at the floor she noticed John had spread out on the floor in front of the coffee table, his glasses askew on his face.

"Alright, Johnny?" she asked quietly in an attempt not to wake George, her voice hoarse. He let out a small groan, rolling onto his back as he straightened his glasses, holding his forehead in a way that told her he had a hangover to rival hers.

"Make us a cup of tea, would ya', Con?" he sighed in exhaustion, and as she heaved herself up onto her feet, she kicked him gently before padding off into the kitchen. "Bloody hell, what happened last night?"

"I don't know," Connie admitted with a shrug as she leant against the kitchen doorway, admiring the state the house was in. "I can't remember past my third pint if I'm honest,"

The night before had been a blur, but she could remember the basics. To celebrate her impending birthday she'd met the lads at the pub with Florence and Cilla, before the group headed back to a small house party. Well, it was intended to be small, but it soon escalated. Paul and John both insisted that their girlfriends come along too, not that Connie minded considering she liked both Dot and Cynthia and was certain that 'the more the merrier', a mantra that seemed to kick in more as the night went on. Soon, Pete and Stuart, the newer members of the band, ended up meeting them back at the house, shortly followed by Ringo and Rory Storm, who dropped by bringing the gift of cheap alcohol. Connie's father had been there too, for a while, though Connie's memory of the night seemed to falter after her father left for work.

She knew that after a while the group began to reduce in numbers. Pete was one of the first to leave, only really appearing in the first place to be polite because as much as Connie thought he was a nice guy, she only really tried to be his friend for the sake of the other lads. Cilla, Florence and Cynthia all left around a similar time, all needing to get home before the last bus or the last train, though not before John had taken his girlfriend off upstairs for a while. Ringo and Rory left together too, though part of Connie could recall seeing Rory Storm flirting with Florence before he left, not that she cared considering there'd never been a second date and her best friend had confessed to her she was quite smitten with the singer. Dot and Paul kept disappearing throughout the night, until they never came back, and Connie just assumed the two of them must have gone next door. As for where Stuart had gotten to, she wasn't sure, and she wasn't sure about how she, George and John ended up falling asleep in the living room either.

All she could really remember was drinking... a lot. She'd drank before, but never that much. There was empty bottles and cans strewn across the front room, half drunk pint glasses sat atop the mantel next to her father's old war medals, an empty bottle of whisky laid by John's head from where they had all taken a swig out of it. She was surprised she hadn't been sick from it all, but as soon as that thought crossed her mind the memory of Paul running out to her garden to throw up came to the surface, and she found it hard to stop herself from laughing.