Chapter Text
Plonking herself down on a circular picnic table in the grass green area of the school playground, a girl with a classic, blond beehive- not too high, not so low that it was indistinguishable as a purposeful hairstyle- joined her friends with a loud huff, before dramatically burying her head in her crossed arms. As though that were not enough, she also let out a muffled cry and looked up with her blue/green eyes begging for help.
The long, sharp-faced girl sitting diagonal from her stretched out her hand to hold her friend’s comfortingly, “Pattie, are you ok?” She asked quietly.
“No!” Pattie cried, her lips then turning up in the corners as she shook her head, “Its him again. The boy in 6th form.”
“Eric?” Chimed in the red head who had been re-arranging the badges on her black newsboy hat, “Him again, really? I thought you were all for George?” She checked that all the badges were on and checked both sides before placing it stylishly on her head. Boys were not really her strongest subject, but she tried to make conversation as best she could.
“I love George, but every time I see him in school, he’s hanging around with Paul and Eric, then Eric wants to see me and…” She threw herself back into her arms and gasped.
Then the girl opposite her with thick, dark hair, heavily applied eye make-up and a rounded jaw sighed in frustration, “Must we really lower ourselves to common female stereotypes and talk about boys constantly?” She got several mocking looks her way as well as a high pitched ‘oooo get her’ sound from the red-head, “Look Niki, just because you’re off trying to get guys 10 times your age, you Phyllis have been running off to see that moody thing from 6th form and Jane is all love struck over Paul, doesn’t mean we have to talk about it all the bloody time.” The three girls she mentioned hid small grins as they did not have any grounds to deny it.
“Well that’s decided then, what should we talk about?” asked Jane with a distinct amount of sass in her voice as she knew that Maureen, the dark-haired girl, wouldn’t have any better ideas. Dropping back into silence, Maureen shrugged her shoulders and started idly tying up her great mass of hair with a white patterned bandana. She swore that break times had never been this long before. She really wanted to just go to lessons now, rather than talk about banal boys or dull ‘what are we going to do after school’ type things.
“We could talk about the talent show thing they’re doing again in school.” Suggested Niki, bringing the attention of several of her friends, “I’ve always wanted to do it.” She looked around the circle of girls in hope that there might be at least one other that wanted to do it too. She already had talked to Eliza, her friend who sat next to her in quite a few classes, about it. Neither of them did music as a subject, but they both loved it. They often talked about what they listened to on the radio and they’d gone to the school Battle of The Bands together twice in the passing years. This year, though, they both had wanted to be a part of it, instead of just being another two screaming fans for The Beatles.
Thankfully, Jane sat forward with immediate interest, “Are you saying you want to start a band?”
Niki’s eyes lit up in delight, “Do you play anything?”
“My brother taught me a bit of bass. If you tell me a song, I could learn it for the show.”
The two then swept their eyes around the other girls with an encouraging gaze. Their sole purpose: recruitment. Remembering about Eliza, Niki said that they already had a singer, so they didn’t need another front man. She then stared at her friends intensely, attempting to creep them into joining. When she did so at Phyllis, who was a sweet, shy, young girl that really didn’t like letting her friends down, she made the excuse that she couldn’t play an instrument.
“Backing singers are welcome, you know!” Jane exclaimed with a cheery slap on Phyllis’ back.
She ended up nodding at the ground, “Ok fine,” She whispered, smiling, “But you know that Sam plays guitar, she would be pretty good to have too.” Sam was in their year. She had huge blue eyes and was Phyllis’ opposite. She was pretty wild and out there, a social butterfly. That’s why the two got on so well. Niki enthusiastically agreed, then said she’d go and find the other girls to tell them that they would be signing up. Before she could go, though, Jane tugged her wrist to bring her back to the group.
“What’s our name going to be?”
Ah, a name. They hadn’t considered that part of it. The Beatles had their memorable one. Rory Storm and the Hurricanes was a good formula to follow, but there would always been the problem of choosing who would be the main girl and what they’d call the rest of them. Sitting back down, Niki assumed an over the top thinking pose making the other girls giggle.
“What about the Lonely Hearts, seen as you all are chasing after boys like they’re going out of fashion?” Maureen quipped flippantly, but neither Niki nor Jane took it as anything other than a serious suggestion. They looked at each other for confirmation as though they could talk telepathically and, when they seemed to have reached an agreement, did the same to Phyllis to ask with their eyes whether she thought it was a good name too. Maureen realised that she had actually had a good name and laughed, “You lot owe me 50% of all the earnings you make.”
Boys and girls usually had their separate groups at school. They’d each travel in same sex packs, rarely approached huge groups alone and hardly talked unless they were forced to in their lessons. The exceptions were those cool boys who stalked up to any chick thinking that they were the most desired character in school and would gladly take every rejection with good cheer. There were those girls who ignored the laughs or stares they got when talking to boys they considered as friends outside of school. Then there was the rule of ‘singles.’ It wasn’t officially named that, or ever officially referenced by either gender, but if someone was alone, anyone could talk to them. It was the only way you wouldn’t get laughed at, the only way you might join an opposite-sex group in the long run, the only way you might get a proper conversation out of a person.
For Eliza, she fitted into the category of the girl who ignored people. She was quite close (as friends) to some of the boys, so she would happily wander up to any group had she seen someone she wanted to talk to there. In this case, she saw her friends Paul and George standing with a 6th former, so she went over to talk to them.
Niki was never that confident. She saw Eliza leaning on the school’s brick wall opposite George and had to pluck up the courage to go over there. It wasn’t George that she worried about. George was quite a passive kid, reasonable smart, and anyone with half a brain was alright in Niki’s book. It also wasn’t Paul, the cute one in her history class who had helped her when she neglected to revise on more than one occasion. Her problem was the shaggy-looking boy rocking a layer of stubble better than some of the teachers did. That was Eric, the one that made Pattie a little crazy.
It took quite some time, but she ended up striding over to them, her eyes set on Eliza so that she might forget about all the boys surrounding her. It would’ve been easier had Paul, always kind Paul, not greeted her first, “Hey Niki.”
“Hi Paul,” She muttered as she nervously grabbed her arm for comfort. Without a pleasantry to anyone else, she turned to Eliza, whispering, “We’re on for the show.”
“What show?” Eliza overenthusiastically yelled, knowing full well which show, but couldn’t quite believe it. Niki anxiously glanced around her, forcing an awkward smile at George when he met her eyes.
“Battle of the Bands.” She stated. Eliza instantly looked beyond thrilled. She seized Niki and began to drag her off to discuss it further when Paul’s voice paused them.
“Wait, who’s going to be in your band?”
Eliza glared expectantly at Niki, waiting for her to reply. It took a second to gain the confidence to address the three boys whose attentions were now solely on her, but she managed, “Jane Asher,” the name made Paul smirk, “Phyllis Barbour, Samantha Juste and us two.”
“Pattie isn’t doing it?” George asked, but Niki didn’t answer. She was beaten to it by Eric.
“No, she’d never.”
George shot Eric a filthy look of confusion. Niki and Eliza knew what was going on, making it a really awkward situation for them to be in. They slowly turned away and began talking all about their band on the way to the sign-up sheet. Once there, they noticed a lack of students. There was just one teacher standing, scrutinising the names. They panicked, thinking that they might have run out of time to join.
“Mr Epstein,” Eliza said as she walked towards him with a pen poised in her hands, “We can still sign up, right?” She accidently gave him a bit of a start, but in seeing that it was only her wanting to put her name down, he relaxed as he handed as sheet of paper to her.
“Of course you can, Miss Barnes.”
“Wow,” Niki exclaimed when filing through the 5 or 6 pages worth of other entries, “There’s… a lot of people who want to do it…” She felt nervous. She really wanted to do the show, but she had lost a bit of faith that the band would get past the auditions. Being a newly formed one that had never played a song together before, she doubted they’d have the time to learn before Mr Epstein would judge them, then they’d fall at the first hurdle without a chance of a second go.
Mr Epstein, however, saw the obvious doubt on her face and tried to encourage her, “No need to look so worried. I’m sure you all will be fantastic. And people sometimes don’t turn up or pull out before the auditions. Just… don’t be that girl and you’ll probably do very well, what do you say?”
She beamed kindly and promised, “I won’t be that girl.” And with that, ‘The Lonely Hearts’ were all signed up.
