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Derek nearly didn’t recognize him, curled up at the side of the road like yesterday’s trash. If it hadn’t been for the stage-light glow reflecting off his black hair, Derek would have walked right past him, but as it was, he stopped and took a closer look. The flower pattern on the man’s semi-sheer blouse made him think of dishtowels, and his red velvet pants, half unzipped and left open like a disappointing present, had seen better days.
As Derek’s memory was weaving a tender web, jumping from the pants and the blouse to a crowded inn in Bedfordshire and the first notes of Hey Jude, the man groaned and turned onto his back, leaving his identity as naked to the world as his dirty orphan’s feet.
The man was Paul McCartney. Barefoot and unconscious and abandoned by all.
Derek squatted by his side, trying to decide if this was a case for an ambulance, the police, or more drugs. As if responding to Derek’s worry, Paul’s eyelids parted with alarming briskness, like a doll’s. “Hello, Derek,” he croaked.
Even flat on his back, Paul managed to sound annoyed, as if he’d expected someone else. It reminded Derek of why he didn’t like him at the moment. Hated him in fact.
Oh, he loved him, too. After all, he was a Beatle: responsible for the rush of life that had revived the country, the spiraling incense of the summer of love, and the snowflake harmonies of Pet Sounds; bringers of joy as private as the popping seeds in Derek’s heart the first time he heard them play in the Spring of '63, and as public as the mighty noise of Monterey. But since Derek’s return to England, Paul had not been himself, his kind nature warped by spells of paranoia and manic productivity. Even the other three stayed away.
John stayed away.
No one had an explanation for the rift, at least not one they dared say out loud. Derek could guess what it was; he just hadn’t expected it to happen to these two. And since he was powerless to intervene, he could only hope the magic would figure itself out and flow back into the right channels, so all of them could breathe again.
In the meantime, McCartney without Lennon was something to endure.
Paul sat up, knees wide, and pouted.
Probably thinking, I’m hurting, this isn’t right.
Probably thinking, where is Martha?
The memory of Paul tousling Martha's fur softened Derek’s mood. Paul was going through it—but who wasn’t? The Spring of 1968, so far, was not the best of times.
“Fancy seeing you here, Paul.”
Paul blinked. “Derek!” he said again, as if he hadn’t said it the first time. “Fancy seeing you, too.” His cheerful voice briefly restored Derek’s belief in the Beatles’ immutability, but the pockmarks riddling Paul’s face where he’d rested it against the road quickly put an end to the illusion. The world could touch him.
----
Now Derek is taking Paul home. Paul’s home, that is: the bachelor villa behind the black gates not even pretending anymore to be the future residence of Mr. and Mrs. McCartney. Where is Jane these days? Immersing herself in the wholesome pleasures of the theatre, if she knows what’s good for her.
Sometimes Derek wonders what his life would be like, had he remained a journalist covering the theatre, and all he sees is Eleanor Rigby’s old hands picking up the rice —not that he would ever tell Jane.
Paul’s naked feet slap on the sidewalk. He’s a shapeshifting presence at Derek’s elbow: Slim, glowing, dark-haired boy screaming for an audience receding into the distance. Solitary Beatle visiting the States in 1967, mustachioed and thin and graceful like a paper crane, playfully hanging off Mal Evan’s arm and destroying Brian Wilson’s genius with the wave of a hand holding the acetate to She’s Leaving Home. Handsome sprite shaking Lennon’s hand at the Pepper listening party, reassuring the world that all was well, that the couple at its center were still writing, together forever, like the record’s final groove.
Wouldn’t have it any other way.
And now this. The version of Paul walking by Derek’s side is longer traveling alone, he is alone. Paul has been cut off by the other three—or maybe he twisted himself off the branch. He’s a gorgeous red apple, ready to spill rotting mush into the face of anyone touching him.
Also, he’s just a man, who’s a star, who is having a rough night. If people will call Apple the next morning to inquire about Paul’s deeds and shenanigans in the past hours, Derek will need to have a story or two at the ready.
That won’t be a problem. Words live inside him like music lives inside...
…Paul…
…who rests his chin on Derek’s shoulder as they walk, infusing both of them with his body warmth. He smells of freshly cut grass and lemon juice, but also of gasoline and dirt and cigarette smoke. It reminds Derek of Californian acid casualties, and of fans and reporters clinging to him during Beatlemania, burning up with something out of control.
Groups of girls and boys are starting to follow them, quiet and light as tumbleweed. Derek picks up the pace, dragging Paul along with him. At the gate, Paul takes his time digging into his pockets, searching for the keys.
“Go on, let us in,” Derek says, “unless you want to spend an hour signing things you wouldn’t believe can be signed.”
Paul’s horror-eyes shine with anticipation. Derek picks the keys from his small, hairy hand, and opens the gate. The moment he leans into the door, Paul leans into him, and kisses his neck. Before he can say anything, Paul skips ahead to his front door. Derek follows, aware of the telltale rustling and scratching as the fans climb the wall on which they routinely sit to spy on Paul’s curtained windows when he’s home. The imprint of Paul’s lips lingers on his skin. He doesn’t wipe it off.
----
Paul darts through the living room. He lights an orange lamp and a red lamp and a green lamp. Shadows chase him around as he opens drawers, puts on a record of electronic instrumental soundscapes, and picks through the pockets of a vest someone left on the back of the sofa. The place is tidy enough, relatively speaking, and cold. The back door is ajar—not safe, but necessary, given Paul’s long nights and Martha’s needs. The enormous sheepdog is sleeping on the kitchen floor, a monument to peace.
“What happened?” Derek says, still standing.
Paul makes a questioning sound as he unwraps whatever it is he found in the vest, then throws it to the ground.
Derek insists. “How did you end up on the street like this?”
“Like what?”
“Unconscious.”
“I was tired.” Finally, Paul stops moving. His pants are still undone, but they cling to his hips regardless.
“And before that?”
“I don’t remember.” He laughs nervously, and starts snapping his fingers to a rhythm at odds with the beeps and chirpings emanating from the speakers. “You hear that? Wild.”
“Very.”
“Took it home from Apple. The things people send us…!”
“I know.” Apple is already under siege from artists, leeches, and madmen of all stripes, looking for money and a home. “Better turn it off.”
“You do it.”
Derek lifts the needle off the groove. He can feel the presence of the fans perched on and accumulating outside of Paul’s walls, and the world’s desperate belief that the Beatles turn everything they touch to gold. And also, the green snake of jealousy with its beady eyes, waiting for it all to collapse, so it can swallow and digest it with cynicism.
Do the Beatles still exist? Derek wonders. When he moved back to London to become the head of the Apple press office, John and George had still been in India and Paul had acted as if he ran the place. At present, their relationships are a cipher. They’re no longer an inseparable band of boys, that’s clear enough. But they’re still a unit no one else can enter.
Paul is pacing again. “We need to get things under control. We’re spending too much. You, especially.”
“Me?”
Paul twirls his hand. “You know what I mean. You and your staff. The booze and the pot and the hippies and the pretty secretaries.”
The translators and the fixers and the accountants, Derek thinks.
“Some of them can stay. It doesn’t matter who, does it? Most of them aren’t any good.”
“You said.”
Not long ago, in fact. Two weeks prior, Paul strolled through the offices and ad-libbed an angry rant with the persistence he normally reserved for carving out a song from mere sounds. Every time the flood abated, it started over again. It was like a seizure, like seeing him possessed by a demon. How Derek hated him! Hated him like spoiled food he wanted to spit out. And he pitied him, too. Where were the six arms to hold him and shake him back to his senses? None of you are any good. You must remember. It’s all coming from here, Paul had said, pointing at his head. Everything in this room! Every penny you earn! It’s all coming from here!
He was right, but also very wrong.
After Paul’s tirade, Neil Aspinall sat on Derek’s sofa for an hour without saying a word. The toughest of them all, broken like a rejected lover.
“We’re running a company now,” Paul says, striding across his living room, lit in red, orange and green, red orange and green. “People need to know where they stand.”
Derek has to laugh. “That’s not what you and John said in New York.”
Paul whips around. “And where is John now? Do you see him anywhere?”
The last time Derek saw him, John had calmly declared he was nothing, and nothing he did was any good. His words were the opposite of Paul's hollow pride, but just as wrong, their delusions identical on a profound level. Derek felt like a failing doctoral candidate scraping together arguments opposing John’s thesis, playing him songs and explaining how good they were, how lovely, until finally, the tension leaked from John’s face and he said, yes, maybe, I think you’re right, you know.
What is happening to you and Paul, Derek had wanted to ask back then, but he knew doing so would be deadly. Would it, though? Maybe he’s just a coward. Right now, he's thinking, What is happening to you and John, and he's not saying that out loud, either.
Paul leans against the wall and looks Derek up and down. There’s something off about him, the way you can tell sometimes that milk will be sour before you taste it. “Tell me why we should keep you.”
"That's the kind of game Brian would play, before I quit the first time.”
Paul’s face hardens.
“Go ahead,” Derek says. “Fire me. Fire everyone. But ask the other three first, if you dare.”
A film of sweat forms on Paul’s upper lip. His hair, thinning ever so slightly around his forehead, falls around his face in greasy tangles. He nudges the wall with his shoulders and opens his beautiful, scarred mouth.
Derek knows he crossed a line when he brought up Brian. He has no choice but to forge ahead. “I make you look good,” he says, hearing himself from a distance. Being this close to Beatle Paul pulls him away from the world. He feels like he's facing a cosmic tribunal. He shudders. “I’m answering all the questions. Everyone is in love with you, and what they get is me.”
“Tell me what you tell them.”
“I talk about the love between the four of you, and how splendid it is, and how true. I tell them about the songs that are flowing from the spiritual heights and the darkest cellars of your soul. I tell them about Indian wisdom and growing pains. About the death of the father, and the hard task of growing up. As if you knew what that is.”
“Yes,” Paul murmurs.
“I tell them you boys are men, including business men, and the men are all right, and Lennon and McCartney are as tight as ever, or even tighter if that were possible, which is not for mortals like us to say. I tell them you are working class visionaries, all around artists and grown up and groovy, and bringing different music to Apple like hip spacemen trawling the universe. I tell them stories about the future. I tell them that everything that ever happens, either next year or in the year two thousand, you will have done first. You will never fade into the past. I tell them there is never going to be a time when the Beatles are not contemporary. And they believe me, because they feel it, too.”
“You’re serious.” Paul closes his eyes and lets his head fall against the wall. His pulse rushes up his throat.
“It’s a lot,” Derek says, “All this love?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a lie, though. The truth is, the vibes are bad, and you’re a cunt.”
I know,” Paul murmurs, gazing deep into Derek’s eyes. Oh, these shell-shaped portals into a mind filled with music, inhabited by a muse forever willing to fuck. Slowly, the Beatle takes hold of Derek’s wrist, and shoves his hand down the front of his pants, into the warm folds of his underwear. His prick nestles into Derek’s palm like a newborn fawn finding its legs.
Derek caresses the hardening line with his thumb, and nudges his balls with his fingertips. McCartney is a living, breathing surprise, his moods both fickle and overpowering. But Derek has ten years on him, and he’s seen enough to stand his ground. A blunt heaviness inside him tells him he’s needed.
“You’re not shocked,” Paul states, slightly short of breath.
“Should I be?”
“Well…” Paul shimmies his hips, pushes down his underpants, and folds Derek’s fingers back around, thrusting and grimacing at the friction. “I’m surprised, is all.”
“No need.” Derek spits into his hand and strokes him confidently. He’s always liked it, with men. There’d been encounters—as he labelled it in the privacy of his mind—before he started working for the Beatles, and later an eye-opening night out with Brian, but it wasn’t until he and Joan moved to the West Coast that things started opening up within him, and within their marriage. Sex with a man is something he enjoys, even pursues, when the mood is right.
But his wet right hand and his own increasingly insistent hard-on aren’t about a mood, and the moon, and a handsome lad being up for it. This particular encounter is shaping up to be darker—a thunderstorm trip. A test of the soul. Within the dream-logic of the moment, his own life is panting against him; his life and religion, Paul of the Beatles, needing a quick hand job in a room smelling of overripe bananas and cheap incense. It has to be more than this, Derek thinks. He shoves his hands under Paul’s blouse.
“What if I died?” Paul says. But Paul’s skin is warm as candle wax, and just as soft.
Some say you already did.”
“I know how to disappear.”
Derek presses his mouth to Paul’s. He might feel as real as anything, Paul, his ribcage expanding and his heartbeat threading a rhythm all the way into the tight buds of his nipples— he is still a magical creature, more so than the other three, and when he says he knows how to disappear, it’s possible he does. That’s why Derek kisses him as if to stop his soul from escaping.
Paul slides his long and narrow tongue against his, demanding and rough. It’s a fight from the beginning. Paul wants him in his mouth, and Derek withdraws. He suckles on Paul’s stubbly chin and plants a chain of light, teasing kisses along his jawline before nuzzling into the damp mess of his neck. Paul’s pulse is racing, his throat a handful of loose parts floating and shifting under Derek’s right hand. Derek tightens his grip.
“Yes,” Paul whispers, “that’s it.” He rubs Derek though his pants with true, rhythmic artistry. His own cock is leaking against Derek’s stomach.
Suddenly lonely and terrified, Derek pulls back. He cradles Paul’s face in both his hands, the darkness and worry, the bloat and the sweetness, all rolled into one, and into nothing. Yes, Paul knows how to disappear. A glued-on moustache, a different name—it won’t take much. His hazel eyes copy the color of what they see.
When Derek first met him, they copied joy, and the horizon. Music, and John.
It’s simple, really, what Paul needs. Derek has all the words for it; there is nothing about any of the Beatles he can’t express. What Paul needs is not here. The attention of the fans outside is creeping closer. Martha is here, the wall is here. A painting of two demons top and tailing it on a bed is right here, mounted on the wall. Derek is here.
----
They’re standing naked in Paul’s bedroom. Downstairs is for weed and guests and wine and fame, and the cleaner’s soap. Upstairs is for Paul and his shaving cream, his books and candles, his wooden floors and his lavender, his cigarettes and his laundry hamper: the smell of home. Derek recognizes it immediately. The windows are ajar to let in the air and the whispers of the overgrown garden. In the dim mixture of moonlight and curtain-filtered city, Paul’s skin takes on a milky sheen. The wet head of his cock is shimmering.
Derek drags his knuckles along Paul’s warm, scratchy neck. His erection is urging him towards Paul like a divining rod. He wants to sink into this strange, hot body he found on the street. Possessiveness thrums through him from soles to crown. The whole world wants them. Now it’s my turn. He kisses Paul hard, finds him willing, his taste sour and good, like the late-night beers they had at the pub in Harrold. We should have fucked there, Derek thinks. I loved him that night. We all did.
Paul’s hands wander to Derek’s shoulder blades, where an angel would sprout wings. But there is nothing angelic in the harshness that drives Derek to yank at Paul’s hair and suck at his neck. Paul laps against him like water, humming and sighing for more. The more Derek tries to claim, the less of Paul he can reach. Paul needs to be reached.
Without a word, Derek takes him by the shoulders and turns him around. He wraps his arms around the chest containing a thousand voices, and crosses his fingers over the soft polygon where Paul’s rib cage splits into two, like a butterfly of bones. He crushes himself against the backbone holding them all upright.
After Hey Jude, that trippy party in Harrold almost ended in violence, with Derek and the local dentist circling each other in an acidic rage. Who knows what would have happened, had Paul not descended on them with his soothing words and a funny face, ready to buy another round and sign for all expenses. Insufferable, but fuck him—he had saved the moment, and so many others.
Derek scrapes his teeth along the vertebrae of Paul’s neck. He won’t be allowed to own even a fracture of the night outside of his memories. It’s for himself he takes notes, silently speaking dictation into the recorder he hopes is running.
His darkly hot prick is pointing at the smooth cheeks of Paul McCartney’s arse. Grasping himself firmly, he slides the tip across to mark the skin on both halves with a trail of slick. Then he nudges the crack a little. Paul giggles, a bright flame between them. Emboldened, his heart in his throat, Derek feels for the hidden trail of pelt leading down, and deeper. Paul joins their hands, and helps him find his tight, sweat-slick opening.
He doesn’t enter Paul, not yet. They both stand still. The cool bedroom air, the heat against his fingers, and the sound of Paul’s quick, shallow breath descend on Derek like pain. Pressing against his rim without breaching it, he walks Paul to the bed and bends him down. Paul settles on his hands and knees before him, face hidden in the shadow. Derek kneels behind him. He drinks in the sight of Paul’s curves and the soft curls on the back of his long thighs, and inhales his soapy wild honey smell.
Shifting his weight to his right arm, Paul reaches for his balls and closes his hand around them. It’s fascinating, fragile, the sight of a needy man in distress comforting his body.
“I hate to be direct,” Paul says, “but you need to get a move on, please.”
There’s not much lube left in the rolled-up tube, but plenty for tonight. The gel is warm, as if expecting to be used.
“Ah,” Paul moans when Derek works his finger inside him, and a second soon after. “God, yes.” He sounds…what’s the word, Derek? Young? Honest? He’s trembling, and Derek keeps massaging him as if he doesn’t care, as if can only do it like this, no faster, no more—except another finger—Paul needs a solid rhythm to lose himself—strike that—
Paul isn’t quite ready, but Derek enters him, just the tip. They wait, warming to each other. Derek can see the change in Paul when his body admits him, the ring of muscle loosening and sucking him inside. They reach for each other’s left hand, meeting on top of Paul’s hip. What happens now will be theirs, together.
Derek swallows. He pushes inside until he can’t go further, and for a moment he’s falling. Black fuzz of Paul’s clings to his slickness where he’s pulling out a touch, and it makes him think of the skinny arms of fans waving at them, their insatiable desire.
“If that’s what you want,” Derek says, and he can't hear, and then he stops caring and starts to move. Careful at first, like a child blowing dandelion seeds, but soon he’s fucking Paul at a good, hard pace.
He’s been wondering what it would be like for ages, him and Paul, but he'd never imagined anything like this. Animal growls from both of them, soft and menacing, call and response. Derek’s arousal tightens like a coil. He needs to come like a glowing whip, hard enough to jolt Paul awake, hard enough to cut himself in two for his cowardice, and for taking Paul for himself when he should have said—fuck—he needs to come, now—and he will—he can’t not—but he doesn’t. At first, it’s almost good, these sloppy and obscene near misses, each turn of the winch a promise of a greater release, but it doesn’t happen, and it keeps not happening; it eludes him, like a curtain opening to reveal another curtain, teasing and fluttering, and there’s nothing, only a spark, you’re close, this close, just fuck him, just fuck him, do it, do it… it’s as if his body has forgotten how to come—
He slows to a halt and hovers over Paul, praying for something to set him off. He bites into the blank page of Paul’s back, tears off his skin in his mind as his cock is jumping without relief. Deep inside and as hard as death.
Paul grinds against him, cursing into the nest of sheets he gathered with his free hand. Then he turns his head and comes up for air. His wet face contorts into a silent scream. He looks exactly like he used to look on stage in the early days, and the sight drags a painful tenderness from Derek’s heart.
“No,” Paul groans, “don’t make me…,” but Derek reaches around and finishes him. It takes nothing but the touch, the connection. Paul trashes and bucks underneath him in silence, the inner eruptions of his climax surprisingly tender.
“There,” Derek murmurs, scared by how long it takes, and stroking Paul’s hand clutching his, “there…easy…”
When it’s over, Paul collapses onto his side and sobs, howls, into the pile of sheets. It’s so raw Derek can’t touch him, or himself, even though he selfishly yearns to. Instead, he watches. In the end, he lays his hand on top of Paul’s and encloses it completely, like he would all of him, if he could.
Having calmed down, Paul turns on his back and opens his arms. “Come.”
Carefully, and still exquisitely hard, Derek climbs on top of him. To whispered pleas of “yes, yes, please,” he hoists up Paul’s legs and plunges inside and comes hard almost right away, from a place so deep he didn’t know, a place where he’s not himself.
----
They share a joint afterwards, facing each other on the bed. Paul is leaning against the headboard, his right calf crossing his left leg like the long lines in the number four, or like the twelfth of the Major Arcana: The Hanged Man. His hair is standing up like a crown, wild and black as his unruly bush framed by cum-glistening thighs. It’s not impossible that this is Paul’s secret, right there: the primitive fur at his center. His reddish, soft prick is leaking a clear thread of spunk.
Derek wants to snap the thread of spunk with his tongue. He does no such thing.
Paul takes another hit. His chest rises and falls. Then he crushes the joint in a saucer painted with goldfish and crawls towards Derek. Looking up through his messed-up spider lashes, he says, “I’m going to lie next to you, I’m cold.”
They settle against each other. Paul rests his head on Derek’s shoulder and puts his legs across his lap sideways, so they’re connected, but facing the same direction. The flickering nerves and crackling dark magic have cleared from Paul’s aura.
“You’re back,” Derek says. “You’re staying.”
“Looks like it.”
“I’m glad.”
“Oh yeah?”
Not long ago, all of them had been singing together, with Paul at the center, launching pain and death further away with each repetition of the new song’s endless refrain, knowing without knowing it would persist through time. Even then, Paul had stopped playing at one point, and looked at the place next to him on the bench, where John should have been.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” Paul says, gesturing vaguely at them, naked, in bed.
“It was good.”
“That it was.” Paul shifts his legs, damp skin sliding against Derek’s thighs. “I don’t know anymore. I’m saying these things…I don’t mean them. Maybe I’m losing my mind.”
“You said so. In New York.”
It had been a late night, and they ended up next to each other in the back of a limousine, and Paul had smiled like a mannequin and said, I’m going crazy, and no one takes notice. I don’t even know if the sounds I’m making right now are word-sounds or gibberish.
Paul had always been prone to the horrors. Usually, the other three were there to help him, but not this time. To his shame, Derek can’t remember what he said in reply. It must have been a platitude.
“I thought it would pass,” Paul says. “But it never stopped, except when we’re making music, John and I.” He gazes at Derek. “And this helps, too. You’re right, this was good. Did you like it, too?”
Pensive, Derek says, “Did you?”
“I needed a good cry. Sorry, that sounds a bit daft.”
“No, no. Sometimes that’s what’s needed.”
Paul continues slowly, on guard. “You’ve quite a story to tell now.”
“I have a vault of stories.” Derek turns so tap his finger against the tip of Paul’s nose. “I’ll treasure this one.”
Paul blushes.
After a pause, Paul says, “I miss Brian.”
“I do, too,” Derek says, surprising himself. Over the years, he loved and hated Brian, same as Paul. But in the end, he’d seen what Epstein had done for the boys, and how much he cherished them, with a purity not often found in the business.
“John wouldn’t leave if Brian were still around,” Paul says. Then he amends, for precision: “He wouldn’t want to leave.”
“I think you're right."
"You do?"
Paul sounds dead-tired and fearful more than hopeful, but the hope is there also, and so Derek continues. "Brian talked to me about you and John.”
It had been in 1964, when Derek and Brian had holed up in a hotel to write A Cellarful of Noise. As they descended into a tunnel of pills and memories, tape recorders shut off and minds still running, Brian said: John and Paul don’t know how to call what they have. You’re a writer, Derek, you know how important it is to name things.
Yes, said Derek, there is, but there are simple words for complicated feelings, and Brian said, you can say that again, before adding, as matter-of-factly as he’d ever said anything: It’s my job to protect them.
“And then he did this,” Derek demonstrates, shaping a dome with his hands. “I couldn’t help seeing the two of you underneath, all small and helpless. But you’re not that small anymore, and not that helpless.”
Paul gives him a shaky smile. “It feels like it, though. Sometimes.”
They’re silent for a while, remembering Brian. Then Derek picks up the thread of their conversation. “You think John wants to leave?”
“I don’t need to think it. Everything about him…It’s obvious.”
“It’s sad to see the two of you so out of tune.”
“Feels worse.”
Derek treads carefully, the way he’d move in a pitch-dark room filled with traps. “I talked to John when he came back from India.”
“You did?” Paul sounds calm, but he’s vibrating with something, protective panels sliding into place. “What did he say?”
I had sex with him, John said, not referring to Paul. It was late, both of them were high on acid, probably at Peter Asher’s house, though Derek isn’t sure; all he remembers is John and himself, wide awake in a field of grass, a moon so bright it hurt, and the smell of soil.
John, blaming himself for past mistakes but packaging them like something worth bragging about, was talking about men he’d been with in various capacities. Brian, obviously, but he wasn’t talking about Brian, either. He was talking about Stuart Sutcliffe.
Derek never met Stuart, but he knows his name and entire being don’t sit well with Paul, who always hurries to assure him they became the best of friends, in the end. He and Stu. It’s just that, for the most time while Stu was alive, he and Paul did not get along. Pity.
He went down on me, John said about Stu, and I on him. That must have been in Hamburg. I’m sure it was. I fucked men, Derek. What does that tell you? And I let them fuck me. What say you? Won’t the public just eat it up?
I think there’s no such thing as being completely straight, Derek said, and John laughed. I kissed them, too, he said. I kissed many a bloke.
There was an edge to his voice.
And I liked it, he said.
Good for you, Derek said, wondering briefly if John was coming on to him. No, he decided: he was depressed. And angry.
I fucked them all and I kissed them all, John continued. I don’t know what I was trying to find.
Except…, Derek prompted, sensing something else was coming.
Oh, but Paris, John said. Did Paul ever tell you about that time we went to Paris?
No, Derek said, not in great detail.
I took him to Paris. Or should I say, he once took me? Like a proper couple.
Were you? Derek said. A proper couple?
Oh yes. Yes, John said. But we had to come back to Liverpool, didn’t we.
John! Derek said, growing impatient. I don’t know what it is you’re trying to tell me.
John brushed a strand of hair out if his face with the back of his hand, so pale and elegant. There’s nothing to tell, John said. We couldn’t make it, is all.
He’d become frail in India, and for a moment Derek could see through his skin to the spirit inside of him. From the very beginning, John's face has been the first to call out to him from the crowd, a bright flame alerting him to the Beatles' whereabouts. When the flame was strong and clear, all was well, when it flickered, less so. Now, under John's luminescent skin and sharp eyes, it was guttering.
It’s simple, John said. I started it, and I’ll finish it. It’s over.
John could make anything sound like the truth. But Derek, soaked in theater and Hollywood and Journalese and off-the-record confessions, literary schooled and dimension traveling former straight Derek Taylor, suddenly knew with absolute certainty that John Lennon did not mean any of the words he had just said.
And he told him so. He said, John, you’re wrong. We all love you.
He should have said Paul’s name; he realized as much when John withdrew behind a facade of cool politeness.
That's good, John said. That's kind of you to say.
“He’s drifting away,” Derek says to Paul, remembering John’s pale face floating in the dark, a solitary flower petal curling up on itself. “I think he feels the four of you are losing each other, because your universe is expanding, and there’s no way to stop it, not with Brian gone. And maybe he’s correct about that, and you are feeling the same thing, and it makes you a bastard. And maybe all of us,” he touches his chest, “must accept that there won’t always be The Beatles. You don’t owe us anything.” It hurts to say it, but in a good, clean way. The truth always does.
Paul just listens.
“But there’s the group and fame and Apple and all that, and there is you and John. These aren’t the same thing, no?”
In a hushed voice, Paul says, “No.”
“I remember on tour, how no one would give the two of you a moment of privacy. The whole world wanted a piece of you. The entourage, and the journalists, and the fans…”
“The policemen…”
“They, too. Incessant demands. And you would always be chatting with someone, and bouncing around for the cameras. And Brian knew the agenda by heart, and he was always on the phone.”
“Always.”
“But sooner or later, John would be off somewhere to work on a song. And at some point after that, like clockwork, he’d be calling out for you. Remember?” He imitates John: “Paul! Come here! Now!”
Paul smiles to himself. “I remember.”
“And Brian would make sure no one disturbed you. We all made sure. It was our mission.”
“Lucky us.”
“Lucky you.” Derek turns serious. “It’s still you he wants. Even if he’s leaving the Beatles, and everything you built together. He wants you with him.”
Paul shakes his head, stubborn.
"Yes," Derek insists.
"He wants to be with Yoko."
"Not as much as she wants to be with him."
Paul takes this in. Derek wants to prod him, state his case until Paul agrees, because he knows he’s right. But Paul is not a man you can force into things, not without causing a disaster, and so Derek lets him be, and imagines his words sinking in and taking root.
After a while, Derek says, “You’ve a heart-shaped face. Did anyone ever tell you?”
Paul’s mouth falls open. Derek leans in to kiss him, calm and slow this time. Gentlemanly, almost formal, as if they were posing for a portrait. But it’s sweet nonetheless, and when it’s done, something in Paul’s expression has shifted. He is shining.
Martha chooses this moment to round the bedroom door. Unimpressed by Derek’s presence, she lugs all 100 pounds of herself to Paul’s side of the bed and looks up at him, beady eyes sparkling under her shaggy fringe. Paul turns towards her and vigorously scratches her head and flanks. Martha yelps with happiness.
“You’re very good with her,” Derek says.
“Do you hear that, Martha? You hear that, girl? I’m good with you. Do you agree?”
Martha whines.
“You’re hungry,” Paul says. “Yes, you are. You know what? I’m hungry, too. Shall we eat a late night snack?”
Martha shakes her head like the early day fabs.
“Is that a yes? Yeah yeah yeah?”
He continues petting her, barking softly in response to her.
“It has to be you who goes to him,” Derek says. “He’s too far gone to come to you.”
“I know.” Paul turns and looks at Derek over his shoulder. The movement you need… “I know.”
-----
April 1970
Derek is proofreading the final draft of the Apple Press Release he wrote in answer to the barrage of questions about Paul’s solo album. Everyone is wondering if the string of solo records from Paul and John and George and Ringo means there are no more Beatles.
It doesn’t.
What these albums mean is only that they managed to let go without losing each other. There will always be Beatles. There will always be The Beatles.
It's just that being the Beatles is very hard, and to carry on like before would have meant the end of them. So, they didn’t. They’re doing this instead, for now, each of them a solitary voice, supported by the others. But secretly, they are already planning to play gigs in London by the year’s end, together with a rotating cast of guests. Apple is in good hands, managed by a law firm all four of them can live with, with Neil and Derek facing the public and the four Beatles selecting and recording and sometimes producing the music (others and their own). Each Apple record has been a success so far, the world doesn’t know what’s going to hit them in the form of the Zapple spoken word catalogue that’s currently being edited in their state-of-the-art studio, and John and Paul have written more songs than would fit on all of their albums, so they’re giving them away under bizarre pseudonyms. The royalties come right back to the four of them, eager as a mountain stream.
Next week, Paul will come down from Scotland to do some publicity for his solo effort, a triple album given (against Derek’s advice) the title McCartney Rams On, but for now, this short text will have to do.
Spring is here and Leeds play Chelsea tomorrow and Ringo and John and George and Paul are alive and well and full of hope.
The world is still spinning and so are we and so are you.
When the spinning stops – that’ll be the time to worry. Not before.
Until then, The Beatles are alive and well and the Beat goes on, the Beat goes on.
Derek is grateful. The Beatles exist, and their love exists. Life is worth living. And he knows he’s not alone in feeling this way. Not at all.
This morning, a postcard arrived. He’s collected a stack of those over the last years, most of them sent from Scotland. This one has a picture of two copulating bugs on the front. Typical. The backside is a piece of art, too. There are two stamps surrounded by a wavy frame. His address is there, in McCartney’s pretty handwriting. A drawing of two figures on top of a hill full of flowers with a sheepdog jumping around them. One of the figures is bearded, one is wearing glasses. The figures wave at him, and you don’t have to look closely to see they’re holding hands.
Dear Derek: From our hearts to the Apple, with love. John and Paul, (still) publicly traded Beetles.
Derek admires the postcard for a little while longer. Then he asks Mavis, one of his secretaries, to frame it.