Within You Without You ~ George Harrison/The Beatles

Chapter Twenty Three: Family

August 1968

The pains had been slowly getting worse all afternoon.

Connie felt the first contraction that morning in bed when George brought her breakfast before he left for the studio, but she'd not said anything. He had a busy day at the studio planned and there was no point worrying him unnecessarily. It was probably just a false alarm, her midwife had told her that it was only natural at her stage of pregnancy to start feeling occasional aches, and she still had a few more weeks to wait before her due date. If she told George that she felt something he wouldn't have gone to work, and she didn't want to deal with the irritated phone calls from the other Beatles complaining about George's absence. Tensions were rising enough as it was, she didn't want to risk making things worse with them all. So she kept quiet, only finding it a little uncomfortable, and the moment he left the house after kissing her on the cheek she tried to get on with her day as normal.

Being heavily pregnant wasn't going to stop Connie from doing the things she needed to do, so she did their essential housework, tidying up their breakfast pots, and the moment she got it all done she got ready and started working. She'd decided not to officially go on maternity leave until the baby came since it wasn't too strenuous to just write articles, deciding to work at home rather than trek into the office each day, and Ruby had been round the day before with a list of some content for her to write. After having her book published it was weird to go back to writing non-fiction, but at least it was something to focus herself on.

She did miss going into the office, but mostly because she missed seeing people that weren't George or the other Beatles and their wives. Ringo and Maureen had been round to visit a few times, and so had Paul and his new girlfriend Linda, who Connie absolutely loved. Paul had started joking that Connie preferred Linda over him, and he wasn't entirely kidding as the two women got on so well. The people who visited least were John and Yoko, which upset Connie a little until she realised it was because Yoko didn't like her, and then it became amusing. Of course she didn't like her, not when she kept visiting Cynthia and Julian, not just because they were still her family regardless of the divorce but because she felt guilty about John's behaviour. According to George, John mentioned coming to see her a few times, but only when Yoko wasn't around.

She tried not to think about that too much, not wanting to think about John or his girlfriend when she was meant to be working, but no matter how hard she tried to concentrate, the Beatles was all she could think about. She knew things weren't going great with the band. It had been fine while they'd been recording the demo tracks at Kinfauns, apart from the odd disagreement, but now they were back in the studios it was as if they'd abandoned all the serenity that they'd found in India. George didn't tell her much, not wanting to upset her while her hormones were still all over, but she could tell things weren't right. He was quiet whenever he came home from work, only wanting to talk about her day, and whenever he did start to open up he immediately stopped himself, as if shielding her from the touchy details.

Not that she'd tell George, but she was worried about it all. She could barely remember a time before the Quarrymen, before all her friends were together in one band, and it was strange thinking that maybe it was all falling apart. It was also terrible knowing her husband was having a hard time and not talking to her in the hopes to protect her from their drama. The thought of it all led her mind down an endless rabbit hole, one which stopped her focus on the article she was working on completely. It was a train of thought so deep that the only thing that pulled her out of it was the strong cramp that creased across her stomach.

It was worse than any period pain she'd ever felt, and Connie always got the worst cramps. There'd been times where she thought she was properly ill but it turned out she was just on her period, so that cramp made her panic just a little. She tried to tell herself that it was nothing to worry about. She'd only seen her midwife for an appointment a few days before and she'd mentioned the false pains and how she might experience them soon. It was nothing to worry about, she repeated to herself as if it was a meditation mantra, but a dark corner of her mind kept shouting out contradictions to the calmness she was trying to instil.