by Kal Smagh
From there I walked with my bag back to my home and opened the front door, fighting with my bulky blue suitcase at the threshold.
My mother was in the kitchen. I heard her before I saw her come around.
"Helen! My Helen!" She rushed up and put her arms around me, "How was your trip? Where did you go? Was it with your band? Do you have a boyfriend, is that where you were staying? Naughty girl."
I was unable to even get a word in.
Setting my bag down I said calmly, "What I can tell you mother, is that London is a beautiful city. And The Royal Variety Show will be on television next week, and you’re going to enjoy it."
"London! Is that where you were? What were you doing there?"
"The Beatles, my employers, the ones I work for, played the Royal Variety Show. I was helping."
She gasped, putting her hand to her collarbone, "The Royal Variety Show? The one that the Queen goes to?"
"She wasn’t there. It was the Queen Mother, and Princess Margaret."
Her shoulders did not slump as I expected, not even a little. "Well at least you got to be there to see some royalty. The Queen not even close? Morning sickness?"
"Busy being pregnant."
"The poor woman, due in March. She must’ve needed an evening off." She shrugged, "Oh well, it was nice to be with the other Royals. As close as people like us can get, I guess."
There was a knock at the door, and I turned around to see Freda.
Opening the door, I let her in, making introductions, "Freda, this is my mother. Mother, this is Freda. This is the girl I work with, at the fan club."
My mother almost shouted, "Another mail girl. Answering mail all day. Did you go to London also?"
Freda shook her head, "Stayed here in Liverpool. I was wondering if you had noticed the newspaper, Helen. Have you?"
"I haven’t seen a newspaper since the morning."
"I have brought several along to show you."
She opened up her bag, and pulled out newspapers from Liverpool, Birmingham, and London.
Each one was emblazoned with headlines about the Beatles.
Bold letters above the fold identified what a rousing success the Royal Variety Show had been, and eagerly pointed with anticipation to its broadcast on television in the coming days.
My mother looked on as we spoke, her eyes seeing the headlines.
I said, "You have done amazing work! This is what you were working on, right?"
Freda was beaming. She shook her head yes, and her dopey grin was infectious.
I found myself smiling stupidly, too.
How lucky were we?
My mother said, "It’s too bad the Queen couldn’t be there."
I said, "That is the truth. And that is what the Queen would want us to speak."
Freda said, "Ay! That’s the rhyme."
"What rhyme?"
"Please Please Me...BBC...and, ’the Queen speak’."
I shook my head and put on a fake distressed expression, "Really?" Putting my hands on her shoulders, I whispered, "Let’s leave the rhyming to the professionals."
Mother, not knowing any context added, "How about ‘The Queen Bee? That rhymes."
Freda looked from me to her, her smile growing, "I like your mum."
"Don’t encourage each other," and I meant it.
#
Over the course of the next few days Freda and I got back into our routine in the office, picking up the enormous mail bags, dumping them out to spill all over the floor, sorting them into piles for John, Paul, George, and Ringo.
We had a collection of rings awaiting Ringo to wear them.
We had requests for photographs, we had requests for hair clippings, and any other items that the Beatles could pass on as souvenirs.
The enormity of the mail had grown exponentially following the Show’s broadcast. What used to be two or three bags was now five and six bags a day.
We had no way to be able to store all of this and comically we ended up building a makeshift fort out of unopened mail bags as a pseudo-shelter from falling mail.
A Beatle Bunker...of sorts.
Freda held an envelope to me, "Look at this."
"A weird one?"
"You have no idea."
I glanced in and there was a photograph and a short note.
Freda asked, "What was that about?"
"I’ll read it later."
She stared at me steadily, awaiting a reaction that I would not give.
I liked knowing something she didn't know.
She waited another twenty seconds, ending by shaking her head in a low voice, "Whatever."
Brian came in the door fresh after the Ireland tour smiling at Freda and I.
He moved some mail onto the floor with a plop and sat in a chair.
He was beaming, "You’ve both done so marvelously. The boys are on an incredible high and we’re preparing to release their next record. The Royal Variety Show was expertly orchestrated. Thank you, Helen for heading off any troubles so that it could occur. And thank you Freda, for your work with the newspapers. The publicity has been enormous and I am expecting that there will be many sales of their new album."
I said, "You’re welcome. It was fun, after all of the consternation."
Freda added, "I think I might have a future in communications. It was easy to do the work with the newspaper men."
Brian paused for a second and then he pulled out the checkbook.
I felt my eyebrows raise in surprise, and Freda’s shot up at the same time. Our eyes met as we glanced at one another.
Brian spoke while writing with elegant cursive in his checkbook, "You each deserve a bonus. With Christmas coming up and all you’ve done."
With a flourish he placed his signature on one blue check and then the second check and handed them to each of us.
My jaw nearly landed full force on the desk. I opened my mouth and no words came out.
Freda stared at the check, her mouth open, holding it in two hands.
Brian smiled, "You both deserve this. You’ve done excellent work. I’m proud of you, and proud of the team that we are."
He got up, "I’m sorry I can’t give you the rest of the day off, there’s so much mail in here. And there are calls for setting up more Beatles fan clubs all over the country. They’ll be asking you questions, even more than you get now. So, hang in there, and continue doing great work."
I hopped up and gave Brian a strong embrace, I’ve never seen so much money written onto a single check in my life.
Granted this was not a life-changing sum, but it was big dollars to an 18-year-old girl who wanted so much to be a young woman.
Freda gave him a hug after I did, their bond working together having been longer than mine.
"One more thing. The boys will be going to France, and if their songs continue doing well, I am hoping that one day, maybe somehow, we will be able to go to America."
"That would be wonderful."
He added, "But I don’t want to get my hopes up."
Brian excused himself and the door closed lightly behind him.
I listened for a second to see if they were any other sounds from outside, and all I heard were his foot falls as he retreated to his office, doubtlessly to engineer more tour dates.
Freda and I sat back down in our chairs, equally stunned.
I asked, "What are you going to do with your money?"
"Haven’t the faintest idea. Perhaps something will come to me in a dream."
"I know what I’m doing."
"You do? What is that?"
"I’m going car shopping with my father."
#
At home the next morning, my father was reading the newspaper at the breakfast table. My mother, in her house coat of white cotton with pink roses, was finishing making scrambled eggs and toast, and came to the table and set the dishes down.
I put butter and strawberry jam on my toast and took a crunchy bite. My father also buttered his toast and at
e it that way.
He didn’t look up and kept glued to the newspaper.
I saw again his eyes glance at the headlines, and then dig into the news stories. He was a very quick reader; he scanned the front page and began working his way through the front section.
Then he discarded the front section and went on to look at the results of the football matches.
On the front page across the top in bold letters was Beatles Touring France. The subtitle was Staying At A Ritzy Hotel.
Tucked away under the fold at the bottom of the front page was a small article. I recognized only one word and it was enough for me to reach out, Guilford.
Mother was reaching for the same section, no doubt to see what the news would be about the royal family.
I reached it before her and pulled it close.
"Lord Heath Guilford, in the Office of the Exchequer, has been reassigned to a new role in Asia. He has been appointed a position on the board of trade, and will represent Britain’s interests in Burma. He is expected to depart within the next several weeks for Rangoon, and does not intend to be accompanied by his wife. The Exchequer had no further comment on the posting, which some view as a surprise."
Silently I pumped my fist under the table, awash in this victory.
Father asked, "What are you reading?"
He was looking at me, looking into my eyes. I had never known his attention to be drawn away from his own newspaper reading, not in all my eighteen years.
"This man," I pointed at the Guilford article, "he was in London."
My mother said, "Of course he was, he’s a politician."
My father asked, "Guilford? Did you see him? Meet him at your show?"
"Not really. But I know a lot about him."
Father asked, "What do you know?"
"That he deserved this."
Mother offered a guess, "He probably made someone in the Royal Family angry. You don’t want to do that. They ship you off.
Inside my brain I said, "Or you spur people to get you back for blackmailing and then drunkenly crash your car and get arrested for being belligerent about it."
Outside I said, "I don’t know about that. They seemed nice."
She lifted her head up with skepticism showing in her squinted eyes. "What would you know of the Royals?"
"I know."
"How? From being across a large auditorium from the Queen Mother?"
I pulled the envelope from my purse and gave it to her.
Keeping her eyes narrowed she considered it, and me, suspiciously. She read the outside, "It's from Buckingham Palace."
She plucked it from my hand.
Opening it she pulled out the photograph.
She glanced at the black and white photo, her jaw falling open, which I admit made me feel triumphant.
"That’s you, with a uniformed man and the...?"
I nodded, silently relieved she hadn’t seen the note still in the envelope.
Still incredulous, "...Who is the man? He sent it?"
"Yes. He’s my friend, Archie."
My father reached for the photo and my mother relinquished it reluctantly, still staring at me, mouth open, trying to process what she’d seen.
My father said, "Is that Queen Elizabeth? And you and a Footman talking to her?"
I nodded. "She was very pleasant."
"Who took the photo?"
I picked it from his hand, "From the angle it looks like it was someone from an upstairs window."
Mother pounced, unleashing a flurry of questions, "What did she say? Why were you there? How do you know this Archie? He looks so sharp in his uniform, is he your boyfriend?"
"She complimented my shoes."
"She did?" Plucking the photo from my hand she pulled it close to her face, "Were those my pearls?"
"Yes."
A misty look came over her face, her bottom lip quivering in the realization of what she was seeing. Her eyes were suddenly brimming with tears.
She gazed from me to my father, "You see, Henry, our daughter and my pearls met the Queen."
She put her hand to her breastbone.
I plucked the photo back and was glad it was in black and white.
It was taken when we were both blushing and the same color as Archie’s red coat. That would have been another twenty questions from my proud mother and father.
Then my mother looked into the envelope and saw the note.
#
In my Florida room, in my cozy Florida cottage, Inspector Tuffle exclaimed, "Utterly amazing. Is that all true?"
"The Queen said to speak the truth."
He smiled. "Astounding. What did the note say? The one that came with the photo of you and Archie talking to the Queen?"
"That’s private."
His question was fair but I didn’t want it to come out. Not now.
"Even after all this time?"
He had a point. "I’ll tell you. But don’t laugh."
He leaned toward me, sitting up in his chair.
"It’s going to sound wrong. Since you know the full story, you won’t misunderstand like my mother did."
"You showed her? The note from the envelope?"
"She went digging through the envelope and found it."
"And?"
I breathed out a sigh, recalling my mother’s face as she’d read it, and the grand inquiry that followed. "It simply said, ‘thanks for breakfast’."
Tuffle looked at me, a quizzical expression coming over him.
Then in another second he doubled over in laughter, losing his breath, almost wheezing with how it struck him.
I said, calmly, "It’s not that funny."
"Yes...ha!...yes it is!...your mother and father must have flipped out!"
"Understatement."
"Asked you about your boyfriend?"
"Yes, and when I denied it gave the impression I was a floozy who’d only had him spend the night."
Again, with his doubled-over hysterical laughter, slapping his knee.
It was another minute before he slowly regained his composure, coughing a few times into his hand along the way before settling down.
Now I had him. He was weakened.
At last.
I stated flatly, ready to spring my long-sought collection on him, "And it was a little while later that I saw your father."
He shifted in his seat, "Where? Really? You really saw my father again?"
"Yes. I absolutely saw him again. And that’s when I stopped liking him."
"Why? Did it have something to do with the Beatles?"
"Absolutely not."
"Then what was it?"
"My father and I went out car shopping. And I picked out a beautiful used 1959 blue Singer Gazelle."
He leaned in, "Saloon or convertible?"
It struck me as odd, but typical; he knew more about 1950s cars than the 1960’s Beatles.
"Saloon. Even my father was jealous."
"Of a sedan?"
"I loved that car, I enjoyed driving to work, zipping around town. Freda and I would go for drives together and I would find or make up excuses just to get behind the wheel and motor about."
I let my smile fade, leveling my eyes on Inspector Tuffle, "And then your father happened."
He smiled, "He ticketed you. Is that it?"
"You’re a very smart man, Inspector. That’s exactly what happened. He cited me for speeding, and I expected that since we had known each other he would let me off with a warning. But no such luck. By the side of the road, as much as I spoke, until I was blue in the face, he would not listen to my pleadings.
He shrugged, incredulous at my latent venom.
I remember your father saying, "If I let you go, I will need to let everybody go. You were clearly breaking the law, and I am helping you to be a safe driver."
Inspector Tuffle, the younger, chuckled, not sure if I was really serious.
"I remember crying as I was driving home because I knew how my father would react
."
"Sounds like you deserved it. How did your father take it?"
"Well, he was furious, as you would imagine. He said my insurance would go up by at least two pounds per month."
"Ha!"
"And it did. And I have thought about this at least once a year for the last fifty-seven years."
"You have?"
"Your father not letting me off with a warning has cost me two pounds per month for fifty-seven years."
Inspector Tuffle let out a laugh, "I had heard that he was a stickler for fundamentals. People said he could be very stubborn about matters of the law. I guess you could say it’s a double-edged sword. Sometimes it supports you, sometimes it doesn’t."
"I wish your father was here so he could apologize to me. But I guess that’s never going to happen. Also, fifty-seven years at two pounds per month means your father has cost me 1,368 pounds over the course of my life."
He burst out, "Hee!" Slapping his knee, "You’ve actually calculated it?"
"You're damn right I have. If you would like to make amends on your father’s behalf," I smiled, "you are free to write me a check equal to what Brian Epstein wrote in that check that allowed me to purchase my car."
He stopped laughing and looked at me, trying to suppress a smile.
He asked, "That was a lot of money back then." He leaned forward, "Can I ask? Is that how much Brian Epstein gave you?"
"Slightly more. It was a very good year. But not nearly as good as 1964."
"When they came to America?"
"Absolutely yes. And then it all became pandemonium every single day, everywhere they went, and I knew my life had changed completely. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure I would make it through the year. But I can tell you, the first look at California is absolutely beautiful."
"The Ed Sullivan Show was in New York, right?"
"Yes, but the Hollywood Bowl is in California."
Leaning back in his chair he took a sip of what had to be cold tea, "I will be back on business in a few weeks. Perhaps we could join together again and you could tell me that story. Would that be possible?"
"Talk about my visit with the Beatles to southern California in the summer of 1964? I’d love to."
"You traveled with the Beatles, then?"
I smiled; this man was so naive. "I was a fan club girl, answering mail, stuffing envelopes and meeting other fans."