Chapter Text
All items listed above belong in the world
In which all things are continuous,
And are parts of the original dream which
I am now trying to discover the logic of. This
Is the process whereby pain of the past in its pastness
May be converted into the future tense
Of joy.
– Robert Penn Warren
--
Paul spat into the toilet one last time before flushing and pushing himself up to stand on unsteady legs. He looked in the mirror and saw what he’d seen every morning for the past month: red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes, pale skin, dry cracked lips, and the stubble he only intermittently had the energy to shave. He sighed and started getting ready to leave the house, peeling off his sweaty pajamas and splashing cold water on his face to wake himself up. Sleep had left him. He woke up two or three times in the night, in between dreams so vivid he could almost smell them, and every morning he was soaked in sweat and with his stomach churning like a hurricane. This record was going to kill him.
Everything had started going wrong in India. Paul had such high hopes. They would go like a group of boys heading to scout camp, spending time in the warm sun and learning how to meditate and become one with the vibrations of the universe. Paul could write to his heart’s content and spend time with his beautiful fiancee. John would get off drugs and remember that he had a wife who loved him. And it seemed like that was how it would go, at first, until John decided that he should sleep in a separate bungalow from Cyn to better help his spiritual mission, and Richie left after ten days, and George was in no mood to do anything but meditate, and Jane was getting further and further away every day even though she was right there. The only thing that did turn out in Paul’s favor was writing, and with John no less. They would sit in Paul’s room and whistle at each other for hours, just like the old days, and it was the best thing about being there until John asked for something Paul realized later he never should have given. If he hadn’t, maybe things wouldn’t be falling apart in his hands.
John confessed that he was worried - about the direction of the group, and his relationship with Paul. He was afraid that they were growing apart and soon the chasm between them would be too wide to jump across. But he wondered, had wondered for a while, if perhaps taking their relationship to the highest level wouldn’t help? There are seven levels, Paul thought, remembering the first time he’d gotten high. “An affair,” John said, spitting the word out like it was clinging to the back of his mouth. “Get it out of our systems, like. It’s more than just wanking together but we don’t have to get married after.”
Gingerly brushing his teeth to keep from vomiting again, Paul thought that if he could go back to that night and decide all over again, he would say no. Get up and walk away. Figure out some other way to assuage John’s fears that didn’t involve having sex with him. He didn’t know what would have happened but it couldn’t have been any worse than what he’d been stuck with ever since he’d said yes.
Paul spat, gagged, but took several deep breaths through his nose and the wave of nausea subsided. He started shaving. They’d only been back in the studio for a few days, and he wanted to look his best, or at least like he was still in control of his life. The problem wasn’t that John thought having an affair would magically solve all their problems, and Paul admitted that there were problems. It was that Paul had always been envious of John’s girlfriends, of his wife, of his mistresses. They got to have the last piece of John that Paul was never allowed to grab for himself. Even after they wrote hit songs beloved by the world over, and conquered America, and ruled the world, bedroom doors always closed with Paul on one side and John on the other, and it drove Paul mad. He wanted to see John at his softest, after he’d slept with a woman he loved or liked or at least thought was pretty, and lie next to John to bask in the heat that came off his naked body. At his loneliest moments, when Jane was away and the dolly birds just weren’t enough, Paul would lock himself in his bedroom and have a wank while imagining that it was John’s hand wrapping around his cock, that he could slip between John’s legs and put his mouth on John’s hot skin. Paul had wanted an affair for years. Wanting made him weak. He said yes.
Paul managed not to cut himself too badly as he shaved, and despite his red eyes and general pallor he looked good enough to be in a closed session all day. He picked his clothes for how forgiving they were. He wasn’t eating well, ignoring meals until late at night and then sending Mal out to get him fish and chips or a takeaway, something fried and greasy, and his new diet was making him bloated and putting weight on his waist and belly. He told himself he’d start eating better once the recording got underway and he wasn’t worrying so much about it. He was focused on surviving, not living. He’d done it before. He always came out the other side.
The horrible thing was that having sex with John was better than Paul had let himself imagine. How could it not be? It was like wandering through a desert for ten years and then drinking all the water he could ever need. If he had more of a say in it he would have asked John to kiss him, to hold him, leave a mark on him somewhere so he could prove to himself that it wasn’t all a dream. Even so, just lying on his back and letting John press his fingers around his hole until he was hot and relaxed enough to take John’s cock released the pin holding it all back. Paul gasped, and moaned, and even cried a little as he came, feeling the flooding warmth spread inside him. He’d gotten what all the girls had gotten and he was sure he wanted it more and deserved it more and appreciated it more. John had fucked him and now he would never again be someone John hadn’t fucked. They fell asleep tangled together, John’s head on Paul’s chest, and Paul knew that it had been worth waiting for.
When he woke up in the morning John wasn’t in bed with him. He was stepping into his trousers quickly, stumbling as he pulled them up. “What’s wrong?” Paul asked.
“I still feel the same,” John muttered. He looked up and his eyes were like the windows of an abandoned house. Nothing inside looking back. Paul was suddenly chilled. John was right - he still felt the same. Always needing some no-name girl to comfort him, and never wanting the touch of his best mate. “Nothing’s changed. Nothing’s different. Might as well go about like this never happened.”
“John, wait.” Paul reached for him. “Stay a little longer. We can talk.”
“I’m going to meditate,” John said, and he was gone.
Paul went home a few days later, a date that he’d planned before leaving home, but for those few days John ignored him completely and Paul felt like he was drowning. The sun shone on his head, and the breeze wafted over him like a gentle touch, but he might as well have been in a grave for all the warmth he felt. John wouldn’t look at him and Paul thought he was going to disappear. Who was he without John, the other half of his coin? Leaving the ashram felt like a relief at first but England was cold and gray, and Paul had changed in ways he never imagined. Home didn’t feel like home without John. There was no color in it, no music to lift him up. He broke it off with Jane and didn’t feel much of anything when her mother came to help her pack her things. The best thing, he decided,was to act like nothing had happened. Not that he could tell anyone. Part of him hoped that John would do the same and when he came back they could pick up where they’d left off, and leave the one night they’d shared in the past.
Time passed, slowly. John came home and moved back in with Cyn. He played his new songs at George’s house, and they were good, but with a bone-deep sadness in every word. John longer for his mother, for peace in his soul, for someone to come along and save him - but Paul had tried, he thought, and John had pushed him away, so there was no point in trying again, at least not with the rest of their usual circle in orbit around them again. John brought the weird artist over to the house and fucked her while Cyn was away, and it was clear that Cyn was out and Yoko was in. When it was decided that John and Paul would go on the trip to New York to promote Apple, Paul wondered if it was the right time to offer an olive branch. On the flight, he sat down next to John and said, like he was picking up the thread of conversation John had left in India, “You know that you can come to me for anything.”
“Oh, can I?” John said, sharply. “Could have fooled me.”
“What are you talking about? Ever since India - “
“Ever since India I’ve realized who I’ve needed all this time,” John countered, and Paul’s heart sank. “Not Cyn, not any of the slags who begged me to fuck them, and not you. You know what your problem is? You always want to prance along like nothing’s ever gone wrong in your life. You could watch the love of your life get run over by a speeding bus and you’d write a song about it and go walk the dog and call it a day, and all the while it’s tearing you up inside, but God forbid you ever act like a fucking human being and shed a tear.”
Paul imagined John in the path of a speeding bus, and held back the shiver. “You wouldn’t speak to me,” he snapped. “What was I supposed to do, scream for you under your balcony like Marlon Brando?”
“Even a raised eyebrow would have stunned me.” John stood up. “As far as I’m concerned, we’ve got nothing to talk about besides the group and the company. So if you have anything you’d like to share, you can keep it to yourself.”
Paul started throwing up on the flight home. He spent half the trip in the toilet and half with an air sickness bag in his lap, sweating through his shirt, praying that he hadn’t caught anything funny in New York. He wondered if his body was just fed up with the silent treatment he’d taken from John and the paranoia he’d suffered under as he and John were prodded and pulled at by the reporters. The one bright spot Paul had was when he rang Linda Eastman and met her for dinner one night. For an hour she talked about her child and her photography, and she let him forget the wall of ice John had put up between them. She was so lovely that Paul invited her to the press conference, and the Tonight Show taping, and to ride in the car with them to the airport. John had glared daggers at her and didn’t say a word whenever she was around. Paul got a speck of mean satisfaction out of it. If John wanted to dump everyone and pick up with someone new, Paul was well within his rights to do the same. He was pleased with himself until the moment his stomach turned.
It wasn’t that Paul’s body was sick of John, and he wasn’t sick in general. He threw up once or twice every morning, just after he woke up. His joints were sore, and felt loose, like the pins holding them together were twisting out. He assumed it was stress wearing him down; what he wasn’t worried about could fill a thimble. The group, the album, the business - if he wasn’t so tired all the time it would have kept him up at night. He held body and soul together, as he always did, and didn’t say anything. There was no use in complaining if he wasn’t going to do anything about it, so he soldiered on. He worked on his music. He walked his dogs. He gathered his courage and drove out to visit Cynthia and Julian, bringing her flowers to try and soothe his guilt. She would be fine, he thought - probably better without John around to make her miserable. He felt so bad for Julian, though, losing his father in dribs and drabs before he walked out for good. He started putting the song together in the car as he drove home. It made him feel a bit better, knowing that even as his life was falling apart and he was heaving his guts up every morning, he could still write a song. At night, when he felt most alone, he pulled the blanket over his head and lulled himself to sleep with memories of when he and John were joined at the hip: hitching around the country together, running away to Paris, living together the past golden summer. It felt like he’d been living on a different planet for all of it, and now he was stuck in this cold, unforgiving wasteland, where John didn’t care.
Paul walked to Apple. The cool morning air helped to wake him up, and lately he’d started feeling sick when he was in the car. Something about the smell of the leather on the seats - he would have to have it cleaned. He’d ask Mal to find someone, or just do it himself. Mal would do it, he decided, as he opened the door and stepped inside. He was the first one in, he knew, and he got himself sorted in one of the live rooms to work and wait for the others to arrive. He didn’t mind being by himself for a few hours. They were still chipping away at John’s song about revolutions, and Richie’s country song. Paul took every chance he got to work on his songs without anyone around to sniff at them. He tried not to think about the others as he got himself settled. He had to get it done anyway. Mike’s wedding was at the end of the week and Paul was the best man. He was going to have a good time and forget the tension.
The other lads drifted in over the course of about an hour. Richie first, arriving with his eyes covered by dark sunglasses, taking a cup of tea from the tray and sitting down at his kit. There was something in the air around him that Paul didn’t like, like the feeling of a storm coming. George was next, then George Martin, and Mal, and then they were all sitting around plinking away on their instruments waiting for John to show up. When he did, Paul looked up like a puppy waiting for its master, but then felt a wave of white hot loathing crash over him, because John had Yoko with him. Of course he did. She was his new security blanket. He couldn’t go anywhere without her.
Paul knew he had no reason to dislike Yoko, much less hate her with a passion so fierce he sometimes frightened himself. He covered it in a thick layer of pleasantries and smiles that left his lips chapped and dry. He had spent hours picking over every aspect of her appearance and personality but it all came back to the fact that John was lavishing attention on her and talking about her like she was the second coming of Michaelangelo. Why her? Just because she’d forced her way into John’s life, and she was there when John was looking for something to throw himself into? It wasn’t like she was much of a prize: two ex-husbands, a child she didn’t have much to do with, a career that made no sense. All that, and John looked at her like she was the one who turned the sun on every morning. John had looked at Paul like that, before they’d ruined it by sleeping together.
They got to work on the song, George Martin in the control room and Yoko in the corner whispering into a small tape recorder. They weren’t playing right, Paul knew. Something was out of joint. Before they’d all been in time with each other, no need to play catch up or ask where they were supposed to be, but now there was a gap between all of them and it made them play clumsily. It wasn’t all Paul. Just because he hadn’t eaten anything all day, and he thought he might be running a fever from the way he was sweating bullets, and his stomach was roiling like the ocean in a storm. Richie was the first to notice, after another take that went nowhere. “You feeling alright, Paul?” he asked, in his gentle way. “You don’t look well.”
“I’m fine,” Paul muttered, as another wave of vomit assaulted his esophagus. “Let’s keep going.”
“We can take a break,” Richie added. “It’s not a problem.”
It would be, if it gave John a reason to look over at Yoko. Paul swallowed. It didn’t work. Just as Richie was saying he could ask Mal to bring a glass of water, Paul pulled his bass off and threw it to the ground as he bolted up the stairs from the live room into the control booth, where he knew there was a wastepaper bin. Everyone in the booth jumped back as he burst in, grabbed the bin, and started throwing up. He couldn’t have imagined anything more humiliating. Sweat ran down his forehead and the tip of his nose, darkened under his arms and stuck his shirt to his back. He coughed, and retched, as his stomach seized. How could he still be throwing up? Hadn’t he emptied himself that morning, and hadn’t he not eaten anything since the night before? “Fuck me, mate, you look like hell,” Geoff said, as Paul lifted his head and looked at the gathered crowd through his streaming eyes. “You ought to see a doctor.”
“I’m fine,” Paul slurred, through burning lips. His stomach cramped to let him know that it was empty but it still wanted to expel. He stood up on shaking legs, and was about to say that it was probably a touch of food poisoning from whatever takeaway he’d had the night before, but then he remembered the night he gave everyone a fright by passing out in front of them. Why was it coming to mind, he wondered, as his knees buckled and the floor started rushing up to meet him.
Paul opened his eyes to see a halo of worried faces over him: George Martin, Geoff, Mal, Derek, George, Richie. Everyone but John and Yoko. John didn’t care. “If Mal hadn’t caught you, you’d have bashed your head open,” George said.
“The session’s canceled,” George Martin declared, hands on his knees as he straightened. “We’ll try again tomorrow. Mal, take Paul to the doctor.”
“I said I’m fine,” Paul protested, even though he knew he wouldn’t be able to stand up on his own. He had been wrung out and left to dry.
“You clearly are not fine,” George Martin said, and there was going to be no arguing with him. Someone had to be in charge of them, since Brian wasn’t there to insist. It might as well be the other person who’d been with them since before the beginning. “Mal’s going to bring the car up to the door.”
There was an internist five minutes away. Mal drove Paul over in concerned silence, both of them afraid to say anything, and Paul still thinking about how John hadn’t cared enough to come look at him after he’d puked his guts up and passed out. He was never going to live it down. Maybe later he would be glad that John hadn’t seen him in such a state, but at the moment it was just another way he knew that John didn’t give a shit about him anymore. Mal pulled the car up to the curb at the doctor’s surgery. “I’ll wait here,” he said, and his tone was so kind and loving that Paul wanted to cry.
It all happened so quickly that Paul hardly had time to think about it. The doctor listened to Paul describing his symptoms, and made suggestions as to what it might be: chronic digestive issues, a parasite picked up in India, or something more serious. The nurse drew blood and sent Paul to piss in a cup for testing, and he spent the wait by sitting in the exam room and trying not to fall asleep. He was so tired, and the day wouldn’t fucking end. When the doctor came back in, he told Paul that it wasn’t a problem with his digestion, and it wasn’t technically a parasite, and it wasn’t as serious as it could have been. It wouldn’t kill him, at least. Then he gave Paul a business card for a midwifery clinic in Harley Street and told him to make an appointment. “You’re telling me I’m pregnant?” Paul said, trying to process the words in a mind that felt as thick as frozen mud.
“Yes, you are. Everything checks out. Do you remember when you may have fallen pregnant?”
End of March, Paul said. It was the only time it could have happened. They always said that the rumor you couldn’t get pregnant your first time was a lie. “You’d better get cracking on seeing them, then,” the doctor said. Paul wanted to kill him, or sue him into the ground. This was his life they were talking about. “You’re due in December.”
The doctor did give Paul some helpful information: the vomiting and the exhaustion would resolve in a few weeks, most likely, and he could expect to have his energy back to normal levels, but until then he could try peppermint candy for the nausea and naps whenever he wanted. Paul got his legs to bring him back to the car, where Mal was waiting. “Well?” Mal said, as Paul closed the passenger door. “What did he say?”
“Food poisoning,” Paul said, slipping the card into his pocket. “I should take a few days off and recover at home. And we’ll never get from that chippie again.”
“I thought it looked dodgy,” Mal agreed, pulling into the street to take Paul home.
Paul spent the time until he had to leave for Wales at home, sleeping until noon and throwing up at odd intervals. Mal wanted to come round and nurse Paul, but Paul told him not to bother, he could make his own toast and tea. He busied himself with packing and repacking his suitcase, making sure his suit was pressed and smart, and staring at the card for the clinic. Pregnant, and John didn’t care about him anymore. Paul couldn’t expect that John would marry him and set up house with him like he’d done with Cyn, but John had loved Cyn once and Cyn needed that security. Paul had money, and a house. Paul could stand on his own, if he had to. Just like he’d always done. He’d stayed in London while the rest of them went off to the suburbs, stayed single and tomcatted around while the others married and at least looked like they were settling down. He had set himself apart, and now he was alone, after one swing at what he really wanted.
He knew, deep down, that if he didn’t want to have the baby he didn’t have to, and John never needed to know. He could take himself up to Scotland for a week and come back, and no one would be the wiser. It was enticing, doing the easy thing, even though Paul had never tried to make life easier for himself, and when he fell asleep thinking about it he woke up knowing that he didn’t want to do it, but he’d done plenty that he hadn’t wanted to in his life and it hadn’t hurt him. What was he thinking, having John’s baby when John wouldn’t even cough in his direction? It was bad enough to have John dump him for the exis in Hamburg. John had washed his hands of his family; he hadn’t seen Julian in weeks, and didn’t seem terribly excited to have him around when Yoko was there to fill his vision. John wasn’t going to want another baby to distract him from his new relationship, and his new life as someone who did things that were far more important than a little pop group.
Paul brought a box of bin bags with him as he drove out to Wales. He could snap them open with one hand as he drove, and dump them at the rest stops, thinking that the girls who’d once rooted through their rubbish bins would go potty at the idea of Beatle vomit untouched somewhere along the motorway. The rehearsal dinner was tough, going far later than Paul wanted and leaving him so tired he fell asleep in his clothes after lying down to pull his shoes off, but the wedding was beautiful. He was so happy for Mike, marrying such a sweet and beautiful girl, and he hoped they would be together for the rest of their lives. At the reception Paul found the piano and started playing, like their father and uncles had done at the family parties, and he led a singalong of the old tunes everyone knew. It was good, reassuring and gratifying, to be around people who wanted to be around him and play music that no one was complaining about. It was good to be back in the embrace of his family, all the nice and lovely people he’d left behind when he moved down to London.
Paul excused himself and went out onto the back patio behind the restaurant. He didn’t feel sick but he still didn’t feel exactly right, like he’d been spun around too many times and was still getting himself steady. He looked up at the cloudy sky and wondered what John was doing at that moment, then told himself to stop because John wasn’t asking himself what Paul was doing. The door opened behind him, closed softly. “Having a bit too much fun inside?” Mike asked, at his side. “Can’t say I blame you.”
“What are you doing out here? It’s your wedding.”
“I just wanted to check in. And get away from Dad for a minute. He keeps trying to give me advice on handling a wife.” Mike made an exaggerated shudder. “No thanks.”
They sat together on a low wall separating the patio from the garden. “So how’s married life treating you?” Paul asked.
“Well, it’s only been three hours, but so far it’s been fabulous. As long as we have a party with all our friends and family wishing us well every night I think marriage will be a walk in the park.” Mike gave Paul a gentle shove. “Surprised you didn’t get there first. Sorry about you and Jane not working out.”
“Thanks,” Paul said, rubbing his palms together. “I suppose I loved her, but I wasn’t really in love with her. Couldn’t make the leap, you know?”
“You don’t need to explain it to me. Someday the right girl will come along and you’ll want to jump across an ocean for her.” Mike sighed. “Besides, I know you. You’ll get back on the horse soon enough, and you’ll be so set on finding your wife she’ll just appear. You’ll be married and raising a passel of babies before you know it.”
Babies. One baby, that Paul still didn’t know what to do about. He could find a doctor in the morning and stay on in Wales for the weekend. The words were tumbling out of his mouth before he knew it. “About babies,” Paul said, realizing that he had just made up his mind. “I might as well tell you now. You’re going to be an uncle around Christmas.”
“An uncle?” Mike was smiling but he looked confused. “But you’re not marrying Jane.”
“Don’t have to.” Paul swallowed. “It’s me. Not Jane, or anyone. Just me.”
For a split second Paul thought he’d made a terrible mistake, and he would have to backtrack or lie, and if Mike wasn’t in his corner there was no point in having the baby, but then Mike smiled and Paul was so relieved he thought he would lose consciousness for a moment. “Look at you, getting what you want, aren’t you brilliant,” Mike said, slinging his arm around Paul’s neck and pulling him in for an awkward hug. “Never wants to wait, our kid, always has to go out and do exactly what’s going to make him happiest.”
“I always said I’d have kids,” Paul said, not knowing if it made him happy at all to be in this situation. “But keep it to yourself for now, yeah? I’ll tell Dad and everyone soon, I promise.”
Mike swore that he would before going back inside. Paul watched the party through the windows. Mike was dancing with his new wife, twirling her until the hem of her dress lifted and curled like the edges of a flower’s petals. His father had taken his place at the piano, playing one of the old standards or perhaps one of the songs he made up for his own pleasure, and his stepmother was dancing with one of his cousins, and Ruth was twirling around with an uncle, and it all looked so beautiful and kind that Paul had to swallow his tears. He wanted to be in there with them, or in a parlor at Christmas or a dining room at Easter, but not by himself. He wanted to be holding a baby against his chest, or bouncing a toddler on his knee, or running around with a child in the back garden as his aunties cooked and fussed. His baby, his toddler, his child. He wanted the child John left him with because he wanted his family to know them. John wasn’t there, it didn’t matter - there were dozens of people who would love them anyway.
Paul woke up early the next morning to be sick, as usual, but that day he had the benefit of getting to slide back into bed and sleep for a few hours, until the sun was high in the sky. When he woke up again he didn’t feel sick at all. He rolled over onto his back and stretched until he felt a deep pop in his spine and the rush of blood in his ears. Hopefully he would be waking up refreshed and relaxed from then on, since making his decision. It wasn’t just that he wasn’t tired - he felt stronger. Like he could stand up straight for the first time since he’d left India. He had chosen his direction instead of being pulled along by the currents. Paul got out of bed and opened the drapes, letting the sun into his room. He wouldn’t be staying in Wales for a few more days, or taking a trip up to Scotland. He was going to go home and phone the number on the card the doctor gave him. He was looking forward to seeing a midwife. It would remind him of being with his mother.