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What did they say in a tale of two cities? The best of times, the worst of times, the age of wisdom, the age of foolishness. Et cetera, et cetera. Heaven and hell. England and America. How could a few lines in black ink read business as usual on side of that narrow ocean and read bonfires and death threats on the other? The best of times. The worst of times. At the moment, the latter seemed more apt.
Why ask questions? Why think about the world? Why not appreciate the little things in life? Take this Newton's cradle sitting on Brian's table: watch as the two beads at either end dart out from the pack and swing back. Left, right, left, right. In, out, in, out. Fascinating. Isn't this enough? Why say words like 'society' and 'religion'? Why did he have to open his big mouth?
The magazine had put Paul's cow-eyed mug on the cover ("Because they want to sell more copies," George had joked), but it was John's quote that everyone ran off with. America is a lousy country? Of course, that’s no trouble at all, Mr McCartney. The man went and said the N-word and no one cared. Oh, but what's that, Lennon, you sly dog? You made a point about how The Youth Of Today are more interested in pop culture -- for example, your highly successful rock and roll group 'The Beatles' (really, it could've been anything, anything at all, he just happened to say Beatles) -- to illustrate a point about the flagging popularity of religion? Now you've done it. Beatle John Lennon says Beatles are bigger than Jesus! Blasphemy! Heresy! Extra! Extra! Read all about it!
But he shouldn't have been shocked at all. Forget the deejay. This was always going to happen simply because he was John Lennon and this was the sort of thing that happened to him. Not to Paul, and how was he ever going to show his face in front of the others if they had to cancel the shows because of him?
"He's not going to apologise," came George's voice from behind the door. "Why should he? He's done nothing wrong. This is all just because some disc jockey wanted to plump up his popularity."
The flick of a lighter. "He will," Paul said.
John twisted the damp tissues in his hands. Earlier, he had caught his reflection on the coffee table and the tears looked like cracks running down his pale face. Tony sat at the other side of the room, hiding his eyes with a newspaper. In the left corner of his periphery, Brian's head was bent over the desk. Pen scratching on paper. He was thankful that both men were studiously ignoring him, even now that only salt remained of that embarrassing episode, leaving his flesh raw and dry, though his eyelashes were still damp — he felt them against his skin when he closed his eyelids. A dull, throbbing ache sat behind his eyes and ran along the bridge of his nose, and he pinched the end of it.
He had to face this. If he had to be crucified (don’t even think like that — next thing you know, it’d be coming out of his mouth and — presto! — another thing he had to apologise for), at least he could wear a clean shirt, at least he could do it with some dignity. At least he could take it like a man. On top of everything, the last thing he needed was for the reporters to be wondering if he was some sort of faggot. And, well, worst comes to worst, being dead couldn't be so bad. Some of his best friends were dead.
He stood. Brian gripped his shoulder and went with him to the door.
Paul opened his mouth to say something that died when he looked up. George's eyes widened.
Shame seared down John’s sternum. He knew they would be shocked. Look at witty, caustic old John Lennon with his face red and blotchy from crying like a little girl. Some leader he was -- if he’d ever been one. But of course, the crying in itself couldn’t be enough humiliation, it had to be clear to every person in the damn group, too. He wanted to break down all over again. This was it. It was all over. None of them would ever respect him ever again.
Brian led him to his room by the arm, like he was a child. At the end of the hall, he looked back at the other two. George was lighting another ciggie. Paul's face bore no expression at all. He just stared at John and kept at it until the ash reached the end of his cigarette and he dropped it with a yelp.
In the room, Ringo was on the phone, twisting the cord and examining a spot by his foot. John went into the bathroom, washed his face, and when he came out Ringo sat in a crouch on the floor, pouring two glasses of whiskey.
"Mr Starkey, are you trying to loosen me up so you can have your wicked way with me?" John said, trying to for a camp effect. He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. "What sort of girl do you take me for?" Ringo handed him his drink and tried for a laugh. Tried for a laugh, not a real laugh, one given out of pity -- which was worse than if he hadn't laughed at all.
•••
A few familiar notes sounded across the suite. Pet Sounds again. It was a good album, alright, it was a good album. That much John had to give the tubby Yank (tubby! Hee hee! Look who's talking!) But was it imperative to spin the bloody disc every time they came across a turntable? He'd be hearing sleigh bells in his nightmares after a few more days of this.
It was bad enough that there was nothing worth watching on the TV except for Johnny Carson and Eva Gabor (Gabor -- hadn't they been staying at a Gabor’s mansion sometime last year? The woman's name was like something he would make up when he was getting desperate during a game of Scrabble. Paul had fucked off with that actress and there was that little ninny Peter Asher, but at least the trip was alright) playing some game that involved contorting themselves over a sheet with dots on it while being gawked at by Oleg Cassini and his trim little Hitler moustache and Decca Records' own Charlie Manna.
At least Ringo had left the bottle of whisky outside. Saved him the trouble of turning on the light and rooting around for it. The man himself was fast asleep in his twin bed by the window, as was the rest of their entourage, in all likelihood. But Paul wasn't. He would know that man by sleighbells alone. John wondered if he had heard the TV and if he had stayed awake on purpose. Why? He couldn't imagine why.
It would do nothing. He knew as soon as the press conference began. The words he said no longer mattered. It was like George had once said, people just used them as an excuse to go mad. Screaming one's head off had to be fun, otherwise, why would people go to football games or Beatles concerts? Maybe burning records was fun, too, in that same way. Everyone loved a good bonfire.
He really had to start drinking more and thinking less because as the night drew on, he got to thinking about the summer of 1958, of August in particular. Of long nights spent wide awake, wondering the streets blind drunk, flicking mindlessly through the wireless -- anything to delay the coming of dawn, to delay crawling out of bed to shave and see his face in the mirror, to delay the coming of yet another day when his mother was dead.
One morning he rowed with Mimi for an hour because he still reeked of beer, slunk off to Stuart's in defeat, and went to the Walker with him and Rod. What was the exhibition on? He couldn't remember now. Stu and Rod left after a while but he, still too proud to go home, stayed till closing time. The coffee he had at Gambier Terrace mingled with the beer from the museum gift shop, and he wandered the rooms for another few hours till the pictures blurred into Rothko nightmares (crying again — he really ought to put all these instances in a greatest hits compilation.) The night watchman found him under a bench and asked, a bit bored by the whole thing, if he really thought he was the first person to have a breakdown in the abstract expressionism exhibition. He supposed not.
Well. As they say: she's got a ticket to ride, and she don't care. C'est la vie.
•••
When he woke, the other bed was empty, sheets left rumpled, and sunlight streamed through the windows. He was in bed, which was odd because -- as the shallow brown lake at the foot of the armchair attested to -- he had not been there last night. When did he get here?
"Did you wake him?" Paul said, somewhere outside the room.
"We have to leave soon." That was Mal.
"But he's tired!"
"We're all tired." Brian this time. "He can sleep on the way over if he needs to. Come on now, lads."
The door squeaked open and three different pairs of feet padded on the carpet, the dark moptops circling in his periphery. A weight was thrown onto the left side of the bed and the head of a guitar jabbed into his shoulder. John groaned and rolled to his back.
George looked down the fretboard -- unreasonably chipper, considering the time of day. "Johnny!" he said.
"Wha?"
"B Goode."
George rocketed into the beginning of a familiar song. John, smiling despite himself, sat up.
"Well, aren’t you up early," said Ringo, dragging a table to the end of his bed. It was loaded with a continental breakfast fit for a king -- tea, toast, scones, and all the rest.
George jerked his chin at the door. "This one made me sneak all the jammy bits in my jacket pocket, can you believe it?"
By the door, Paul stood with his hands clasped tightly together in front of him. There was a little hair by his eye that kept moving because -- John realised -- the man was slightly, almost imperceptibly, shaking. His lips were red and shiny from being bitten too much. A filthy habit. John swallowed.
"They didn't have any green grapes left over by the time we got down there," Paul said. This small voice wormed into John's heart. "I know you don't like the red ones so much. Sorry."
Paul and his big wet eyes. Why the hell was he apologizing for anything when John was the reason they were in this mess? He lowered his gaze to the table. "S'alright."
Ringo put his arm around John and squeezed his shoulder. "Should eat something, son. You'll need it."
"I sacrificed my own jacket for you to have this meal, you know," George said. He put the toast in John's hand. "So you'd better eat it. Or else."
John brought the toast to his mouth.
"Delectable, lads." He made a show of licking his fingertips. "Send on the recipe to Dot, this is all I’ll be eating for the next quarter.”
They laughed, thank God (Er. Or maybe not.) They wouldn’t be sending him down to the glue factory quite yet.
•••
When John came out of his room, bags packed, the main suite was deserted except for Paul sitting compactly on the settee: cleats on the cushion, brow furrowed in concentration and mouth fallen open as he ripped strips out of a magazine centrefold.
Of course, the sight softened John completely, and he wanted to tell him to stop catching flies, and then he wanted to tell him he loved him, but he couldn't. Not in so many words. One never came straight out (in his mind, the words came out of some dowdy old dowager) and said those words, not without prompting. Laziness, perhaps. Or embarrassment. It was alright to be soppy with a girl and say things like 'I love you' because it was understood that the soppiness would result in sex, which justified the means. Yet why not say it? He and Paul said the words all the time in songs: I love, he loves, she loves, yeah, yeah, yeah. But he could not say that he loved him, not in so many words. Because once upon a time, they had been friends, but today they were Lennon and McCartney, world-famous songwriters, who famously got on quite famously, and these days when ol' Paulie took a moment's break from swinging around London to get together with him and give an interview for the BBC or what have you, he could never tell -- did he smile at John because he wanted to, or because he thought that was what people wanted to see?
John crossed the distance between them and sat beside Paul on the settee. Paul, finally noticing him, slotted his thumbnail between his teeth and said, "Alright?"
"That's me. And you're all left."
"Funny." Paul assumed a plummy, BBC-esque affect and drawled, "Have you ever thought of a career as a standup comedian, Mr Lennon?"
John pursed his lips. "Might have to start considering it."
"No."
He quirked an eyebrow. Paul was gnawing at his nail like a mad, half-starved man. Once again, he said "No. Come on Lennon, where’s your bloody head when you’re saying things like that?"
He tapped his temple. “Right here.”
Paul rolled his eyes, smiling. Bloody Paul McCartney and his bloody babyface. His eyes were always wet but now they quivered, the little creases under them taut as piano strings. Without thinking, John took hold of his wrist and, thinking quickly, guided his fingers out of his mouth to justify that move. Running his thumb over the bone of his wrist was a little harder to explain, but Paul didn’t ask. He only looked at John. Fucking Paul McCartney. Goddamn Paul McCartney. Paul McCartney. Insert expletive.
John sighed theatrically. "You know what's wrong with you, Paul?" he said.
Paul leaned back, frowning."No."
"Nothing. Absolutely nothing."
He bit his lip, clearly biting back a smile, and poked John’s thigh. “Soft.”
"Soft," John parrotted back. "Soft." He jabbed Paul on the arm and, in his best impression of Jim McCartney, said, “Men don’t have best friends, Paul. What are you, queer?”
Laughing, Paul kicked at his shin, seconds before John caught him under the ribs with a two-fingered poke. He cried out and attempted to scramble back, but John's grip on his wrist stayed fast. Defeated, he made a half-hearted attempt at a shove with his captured hand, wriggling like mad. John held him still. After a moment, he fluttered shut his eyes and buried his face in the crook of Paul's arm. Don’t say it.
Feather-light, Paul's fingers threaded into his overgrown hair.
•••
The four of them were quiet in the car. It was strange: during the press conference all the journalists wanted to talk about was their supposed flagging popularity -- for example, did he come up with that little quote as a publicity stunt. A publicity stunt! He, who could garner publicity playing at the park with his little son, needed to stage stunts for publicity. Like everything, this seemed to be an invention of the media, but even then, they surely hadn't conjured up those record burnings, those young, apple-cheeked faces contorted in hatred. But the screaming of the girls had hardly lowered by a decibel. The girls and their ecstatic faces mirrored on his round sunglasses. He thought, face leaned on the window -- with a little reverence, a little awe, yet more fear still -- that not even God could take down this group.