Chapter 1, The Beginning

It sounds funny when I say I can't really remember the days before yesterday. Okay, maybe I can remember one week before. The rest of my life is in a sort of haze. With yesterday I mean the yesterday everyone knows. Yesterday by Lennon/McCartney.

I am cellist. My name is Nim and I don't have many friends. Well, I didn't have many at school, I wasn't very popular.

Anyways, this is my story:

My cello teacher Mrs Gluth was strict. She was a women around 50 and I liked her. One day in mid 1965 when I had another lesson she suddenly said:

"You might be the right one."

"For what?"

"I was asked if I had a good cellist for a sring quartet. I have even the sheet music here. Yes I think you'd be the right one. You also like playing in ensembles, don't you?"

"Yes"

We went on with the lesson and played the new piece so often that I knew it by heart afterwards. It was a sweet little melody not longer than four minutes. I wondered how it would sound with violins and viola...

I was told my first meeting with the other three instrumentalists should be the next day. I was really excited and went home to my flat. I live here in London since one year. I moved here from a provincial very, very small town in Yorkshire, that had around 500 people living there, to study the cello. So I had to rent a flat. I love my flat, it is like my child. I've got to look after it and so.

When I was home I made tea. It was just so relaxing to do nothing and drink my hot Yorkshire Tea. This tea always reminds me of my lovely home, I drank it since I was a little child and I always feel secure when I drink it.

The next day I got up by eight o'clock. It was a fine summer day. At ten o'clock I was supposed to meet my mates. When I finally arrived at the address Mrs Gluth had given me I recognized it was EMI-Studios Abbey-Road. I nearly fainted: the Beatles' studio. I couldn't believe it.

I went in and was greeted by an ederly secretary. She told me we would practice in Studio 4.

I went there just to find another girl sitting there.

"Are you a member of the string quartet?", I asked her.

"Yes and my brother, too. He is on the toilet at the moment. He left me here to look after his violin and stuff. My name is Martha"

"I'm Nim. Do you know the last member?"

"Yes. He's a real show off and I can't stand him"

"So the boys are on violins?", I asked.

"Yeah. Haha, women on deep instruments. We're a funny group."

"Let's go in"

Studio 4 was a rather large room. There were lots of instruments lying around, electrical as well as acoustics. After we had tuned our instruments we waited for the boys. Suddenly Martha's brother came in. He was a good looking young man with brown eyes and dark hair.

"Hey, Martha, who's that?", he asked pointing at me.

"I am Nim. I'm gonna be your cellist", I answered.

"Nice to meet you, Nim!"

Finally everybody was there so we could start. The last one, Kevin, was in fact a real show off. I hated him from the moment I saw him. He was big and fat and thought he was the best. But the piece was so sweet I forgot aboit everything and just played. Until...

BOOM! The door was opened rapidly and guess who was standing there.

Paul McCartney himself.