Thanks to everyone that's reviewed so far, including guest Johnny Luv. This next chapter jumps back to the 1950s, where we'll get to know Joan Lennox and how she first encountered her future bandmates. Keep in mind that several events in this story are very AU, and therefore aren't fully consistent with biographical facts about the Beatles. These time jumps will continue throughout the story, so expect me to be returning to 1980 in chapter 4.
Liverpool, England 1956
Robinson's Records was always the place for young people to get their favorite music, but in the past year, the small business was booming. Mr. Jim Robinson, the middle-aged owner, would later claim he once believed that if the current music scene stayed the same, he might have been able to retire as a millionaire.
In just two years, the music scene had changed drastically, with radio stations across Britain going from playing ballads and jazz to a new style the teenagers were calling rock and roll, which all started because of a big American hit from Bill Haley and his Comets called "Rock Around the Clock" in late 1955. The song had resulted in a shift to a lively beat in music which sometimes scandalized the most prudent adults but which young people had instantly fallen in love with. And with the latest big name in music being Elvis Presley, a man who shook his hips on television with little shame while singing about jailhouses or hound dogs, rock and roll was bigger than ever, and the desire for this rebellious music style filled teenagers with a form of zeal they would carry on for the rest of their lives.
But for Jim Robinson, who preferred the music of Glenn Miller and Bing Crosby, this music was mostly part of a fad that was good for business. "I never had anything against Elvis or any of the other American blokes, but at the time, I saw them as just new popular singers who made fun music that would probably fade away in a year or two. I never could have predicted that people would go around dressing like Elvis for fun twenty years later, or that they would eventually inspire some of my young customers to become just as big, if not bigger, than they were," he said in a 1982 interview.
And one of these young customers was none other than Joan Lennox, who came in faithfully to the store every Friday afternoon along with her best friend, Sharron Stevens. Her uncle Mike gave her an allowance at the end of the week if she managed to get through school without getting into trouble. His expectation was that she'd save the money for school supplies and clothes, given how the family had to make good use of whatever savings they had.
However, Joan always had a habit of putting the things she wanted ahead of the things she needed. And so, instead of putting what she called her "good behavior allowance" into the money jar Uncle Mike had made her keep since she was eight, she hid it away in her small brown purse, left the house with Sharron, claiming that they were heading to her place to do homework, and go instead into Robinson's Records, where there were always crowds of teenagers digging for the best deals on the latest records. Although she didn't always buy something, she had to keep track of everything new so that she'd have some idea of what she should be listening to.
But one Friday, Joan came in much earlier than usual with Sharron. It was around nine o'clock, and Jim Robinson was drinking a cup of Earl Grey Tea while reading The Guardian, with a Frank Sinatra record being played in the background. He looked up from the newspaper in surprise when he saw the two girls, whom he'd gotten to know and like over the years, walking in. However, because of his typical hospitable personality, he didn't want to lecture them for not being at school. Instead, he gave them a warm smile and said, "Good morning, girls. There's no better treat for a man like myself than to get early morning customers."
Joan smiled back at him. "Good morning, Mr. Robinson. Given how bad of a cold I got earlier this week, Uncle Mike wouldn't let me even consider going to school. But since this place is only a block away and I'm feeling a little a better today, he figured there was no harm in me coming over if Sharron would keep me company."
There was some truth to what she was saying. Joan had caught a bad cold around Tuesday, and so Uncle Mike had let her stay at home for two days. But the day before, seeing how much better she'd gotten, Mike had dragged Joan out of bed, saying to her when she'd protested, "I'm not having you stay lying around doing nothing when you're perfectly capable of walking over to school, young lady!"
"Well, you do seem to have gotten better, given how you're looking today," Mr. Robinson said. Then, placing the red basket of sweets all the teenagers loved on the front counter, he said, "Why not get a piece of chocolate for all your troubles this week?"
"You don't have to ask twice," Sharron said, smiling as eagerly as a puppy upon seeing the basket. But Joan beat her to it, grabbing four pieces of bite-sized chocolates before Sharron could get her hands on them. Joan was only ever allowed to have sweets two times a week at home, a rule mostly enforced by her Aunt Gretchen, an avid nutritionist, but which Uncle Mike had been slowly buying into in the five years since he'd married her. However, as with her money, Joan always found a way around the rules, whether by eating leftover pastries from Sharron's lunch or by buying chocolate bars at the drug store close to school.
Sharron had frowned in annoyance upon seeing Joan getting something before herself once again. "What will it take for you to wait for something at least once in your life, Joan?"
Joan smiled mischievously. "You know I can never wait for anything, Sharron. My patience level is very low."
"Just as you can't wait to meet your…"
"Shut up!" Joan said in as low a voice as she could muster. "Nobody can figure that out, okay? Let the secret out and I'll never speak to you again."
The real reason the girls were playing hooky was because last week Joan had gotten a letter from her American mother, who'd been raised in New York state, saying that she planned to stay in Liverpool for two weeks with the intention of seeing her. Joan had begged Uncle Mike to let her spend this afternoon over the Holly Hills Inn, where she'd be arriving at around eleven this morning, but he'd refused.
"It makes no sense for her to just pop up in England again for the first time in Lord knows how long, after not having written a letter to you since you were eight or nine or sending in a dollar of support, and automatically have you as part of her life again. There's just no way I can accept that," Uncle Mike had told her.
"And from all your uncle has told me about her, she sounds like a bad influence. The way I see things, that woman should never have been allowed to have children in the first place. Women like her are the reasons we've got asylums, after all," Aunt Gretchen said, seeming all too glad to dismiss Joan's mother so easily.
"Don't you dare talk that way about someone you don't even know!" Joan shouted. "And it's just unfair for you to not let her see me at all, Uncle Mike! Perhaps then I wouldn't be as bad as you both claim I am."
"Joan, we've discussed this before," Uncle Mike tried to explain. "Your mother was emotionally unwell for years, which was the reason your parents separated. She'd tried forcing you to choose between her and your father when you were only five, something a good mother would never do to a child. She'd kept in contact with us for several years as she was going through treatment in New York, which was a good thing, but the moment she told us she was well again, we stopped hearing from her at all. You just can't trust someone who does this, even if she is your mother."
"But if she was mentally ill, then the way she treated me wasn't her fault," Joan protested.
"That may be true, but that still doesn't excuse how she stopped contacting you after she got well again. It will take more than just a letter sent in six years too late for her to make up for that," Uncle Mike said.
"Besides, isn't it enough that we're letting you see your father again every other weekend?" Aunt Gretchen cut in again. "He's been giving you guitar lessons, introducing you to all the bloody rock and roll singers out there, and pretty much encouraging all your reckless behavior. I can only imagine how much worse it would get if you saw that mother of yours."
And those weekends were probably the happiest times Joan had these days. Unlike all the other adults she knew, her father never endlessly lectured her for her mistakes, even if was something as bad as getting into fights with girls at school. Instead, he patiently listened to Joan's side of the story and gave her advice afterwards on how she could fix things. When that was done, they both took out their guitars and he would teach her how to play some of the latest rock hits or some old folk song he'd been listening to lately. For a man who made a living through three odd jobs, he knew more about the arts than anyone else Joan knew, and constantly encouraged her to pursue her music and art ambitions. "You'll never know if you can be successful in anything unless you try it," he liked telling her, and Joan took this advice to heart.
But like his older brother, Jesse Lennox avoided speaking of Joan's mother at all costs. If Joan ever asked about her, he'd respond by saying, "That was a long time ago, Joan. I now have about as little memory of her as you do," or "You don't want to hear me talk about that. I'd go into a long story that will bore you in seconds." It was the one thing Joan didn't like about her father, and his reluctance to ever bring her up was the main reason she was so determined to see her mother on that day.
As they were looking through some of the latest British records, including the hits of Jimmy Young and Vera Lynn, Sharron asked, "So, it's just British artists we're looking for, right?"
"Of course. Mum probably owns every Elvis record that's been released so far. I can just imagine opening up her suitcase at the hotel and finding every record of his inside, with all of them meant to be gifts for me," Joan said, already thinking about what surprises would be in store for her when she and her mother finally reunited.
"Or maybe she'll just give you a sweater and socks like every other mother does," Sharron said.
Joan scoffed. "I doubt it. From the few stories Uncle Mike's told me about her, she doesn't seem like the kind of woman who just gives kids boring clothes as presents. Did I ever tell that some of her relatives have connections with the Rockefellers, and she once attended one of their parties when she was a teenager?"
Sharron frowned, shaking her head. "If anyone in your family was that posh, Joan, I'd think I'd know by now."
They were interrupted when Mr. Robinson came over to them carrying a box. "Excuse me, girls, but are either of you close to some of the other girls who come here?"
"I know quite a few," Sharron answered. Joan, who had a reputation as the school's bad girl, wasn't the sort of person who regularly hung out with large groups of girls. Sharron, on the other hand, had several connections with popular girls thanks to her involvement in the school band and theatre program.
"All right. Do you happen to know a girl named Paula McGuire?" Mr. Robinson asked.
Sharron immediately shook her head. "There's a girl named Paula in our history class, but her last name is Carlson and she doesn't come over here regularly. So, no, I have no idea who she is."
"Well, Paula's a regular customer who comes over on Saturdays with a school friend, just like you two. Her father's undergoing treatment for lung cancer, and she recently requested me to have a record delivered over to him at the hospital where he's been staying for the past couple weeks. His condition keeps getting worse, and according to Paula, all that ever seems to make him happy is hearing the current rock hits with her," Mr. Robinson said.
"I can see why. Rock always seems to make the most miserable upon us happy," Joan said, feeling a little down upon hearing this information about a girl she had yet to meet.
"What I was wondering was if you girls wouldn't mind going over to the hospital and delivering the package. It's only a few streets away, and I'll even pay you both for your trouble. That is, if you have extra time on your hands."
"Why, we have plenty of time on our hands to do a favor for you, Mr. Robinson," Joan said. It would be two hours before she had to meet up with her mother, so it could be done. "I'm sure this Paula girl will be more than pleased to see that you've been thinking of her and her father during such a hard time."
"Thank you very much, Joan," Mr. Robinson said with a smile. "I'm pretty sure you girls will like Paula, by the way. She has nearly every rock song out there memorized, and once showed me that she can play them very well on the guitar as well. She's very pretty, too, with her smile being just as charming as her personality."
Joan wasn't very impressed by the beauty remarks, but to hear that Paula loved rock was just enough to get her interested in meeting her. "I'll keep that in mind if I see her, Mr. Robinson," she said.
"I second that," Sharron said. "But first, here are some records we'd like to buy."
Mr. Robinson took in their purchases, just glad these two girls were eager enough to pitch in.
But twenty-six years later, he understood the significance of what he'd done that day. "Years later, when I got records with those four girls' faces on the covers and heard their voices coming through the radio nearly every day, I always smiled with pleasure upon knowing that I was at least partially responsible for their success," he said. "I may have never become a millionaire for that, but I did get the pleasure of having all four Belles return to my store at different times, with each of them bringing in their little girls to buy music of their own. Of course, they were all into stuff like the Archies, the Osmonds, and Disney soundtracks, and were probably more delighted to see my candy than myself, but their mothers were sure to pay me my dues. Paula gave me a signed Sinatra record, Gina a first edition of Great Expectations, which I once told her was my favorite book, Rhiannon a state-of-the-art fishing rod for my holidays at Scotland, and Joan, bless her soul, gave me a book of the music and lyrics of all the Belles' greatest hits, which was signed by all four members of the group. In it, she'd written, 'To Jim. Our errand went better than you could have ever expected. Love, Joan.' I don't think I could have asked for a greater reward."