An Adventure In Ireland

Friday 27th March 1964, evening.

A blanket was spread on the carpet. A double size blanket from John and Cynthia's room. In the centre of the blanket was an ice bucket in which chilled a bottle of white wine, and two bottles of red stood nearby. Two more bottles of white stood in the bath in cold water. All around the bottles were dishes of food, all the courses together, as the group had decided that they didn't want people knocking at the doors all the time to take courses away and bring new ones. The order to bring the entire three courses all at once apparently required repeating to the chief flunky on the phone, who seemed to be a little slow in understanding, but the message was got across in the end and the meal was served as required. It was quite exciting really; the dish of beef bourguignon was next to the sticky toffee pudding and the vegetables were right across the blanket next to the cheese board. You never knew what you were going to come across. The temptation to mix was irresistible. With enough wine it worked very well.

The four were having a delightful time.

Pattie sat cross legged, her plate held underneath her chin so as to avoid custard spills, and George crouched next to her working his way through some tender meat and gravy. The difficulties involved in eating such a meal neatly only added to the hilarity from the word games they were all playing together; they had just finished one where you had to think of a word within a category within ten seconds or you were out, and they were just beginning the one where you had to think of a word that had nothing to do with the word someone had just said. Cynthia proved extremely quick at challenging and finding associations between words, and John managed to make everything obscene but in the context of a private and drunken picnic it didn't matter to anyone. Pattie was wiping a dribble of custard from her chin as she waited her turn to come round again, John was leaning forward on hands and knees to grab the dish of peas, George was arguing that fireplace had nothing to do with cylinder and...

CRASH.

Something, something that sounded very large, had crashed against one of the windows of their suite, just across the room from where they sprawled with their picnic.

Pattie shrieked in terror; Cynthia's hands were clamped over her mouth. Both John and George were on their feet, reflexively ready, fists clenched, John already halfway towards the window. George raced ahead of him and wrenched the floor-length curtain aside. There, on the ledge outside, was a man, who looked very cold and very frightened and very alarmed. He stared in, wide eyed.

"Who the fuck...?" was all George could manage.

John continued the question, at closer quarters. He had run to the window and now flung it open. "Who the fuck are you?" he yelled.

If the man had looked frightened before, faced now with a furious and alarmed Lennon in full spate he progressed into full rabbit-in-headlights freeze. "I... I... I..."

"Come on!!"

The frozen invader rallied somewhat, enough to be able to utter more than one word. "I'm sorry... I didn't..." He paused, and swallowed. "I nearly fell off."

"I don't give a fuck what you nearly did – who are you?"

"And could we close the window? It's getting really cold." This calm request was from Cynthia; John turned back to her, looked again at the man and made a decision.

"Who are you? And come in so we can close the window."

The man nodded, and carefully clambered over the window ledge and dropped down onto the floor. "I'm so sorry..."

"Listen mate," George's calm voice joined in as John closed the window behind the intruder. "If you don't just tell us who you are, and right now, I'll kill you."