Yeah Yeah Yeah (Beatles/Paul McCartney)

Interlude: A View From The Gate

December 1966
London

Veronica

St. John's Wood High Street was bustling when Veronica stepped off the 114 bus. She nearly slipped on a patch of ice but quickly righted herself and pulled on thick woolen gloves. It took her 47 minutes and two transfers to get from her tiny flat in Camden Town to St. John's Wood, but it was a trip she'd made nearly every day since Paul had moved there.

The wind whipped around her as she walked towards the small residential street. As she approached 7 Cavendish Avenue, she quickly scanned the facade of Paul's house. The milk tray was still by the gate, which was promising. If she was lucky, he was still inside. If she was even more fortunate, he'd chat with them whenever he left for the studio.

Across the street was a low wall where the girls liked to sit. It belonged to an elderly neighbor who initially had called the cops on them several times a week. More recently, she'd given up and just called up Paul to complain, forcing him to come out to make a show of scolding them. The girls didn't mind, though, because it was better to be told off by Paul than to not see him at all.

On one side of the wall sat five English girls, who had a perpetual air of being too cool for school. Huddled together on the other side were four Americans. For over a year, they had been referred to as--rather unimaginatively, Veronica thought--"those bloody Yanks." But then, one day, Veronica had overheard Paul make a passing comment to George about his "gate birds." She'd claimed the title for her ragtag band of merry Americans, never looking back. The English girls had--again, rather unimaginatively--claimed the name the Regulars, and thus the Anglo-American schism was cemented.

Standing nearby, unable to get a coveted seat on the wall, were the one-timers: girls who came to London and wanted to check out a Beatles' house. It was universally accepted amongst the Gate Birds and the Regulars that one-timers showed neither discipline nor sufficient dedication and therefore weren't real fans. The only time the two sides worked together was to run off the one-timers so that they didn't hog precious time with Paul.

"Hey, Suzie," Veronica said to a petite blonde as she hoisted herself on the wall.

"How's it going, Ron?" the girl replied in her flat, Midwestern American accent. "It's brass monkeys out here, isn't it?"

The American girls had picked up little bits of English slang during their time pursuing the Beatles. They insisted on using phrases like "mate," "cheers," and "ta," even though they sounded ridiculous doing so. One of them, Plain Jane--who was from Cincinnati, for crying out loud--had recently begun dropping her H's like she was born and bred in East London.

"Oh, look," said one of the Regulars in a snooty voice from the other side of the wall. "It's Roly Poly Ronnie."

Veronica gave her the middle finger. She mumbled something along the lines of whatever, Jessica but inwardly fretted that it was indeed true that Paul called her that behind her back. But she just couldn't imagine him saying something like that.

"Ignore her," Suzie murmured. Then, more loudly: "You're a sodding slag, Kathleen."

"Sorry," replied the ginger girl. "I can't understand what you're saying because your accent is so ghastly."

"Have you seen him yet?" Veronica asked Suzie, who shook her head.

"Think they're still asleep," she replied. "Rachel said that Paul worked late last night."

"What about her? Is she there?" Veronica asked.

They rarely said Alice's name aloud, as if to do so might conjure her up. She was annoyingly pretty and infuriatingly pleasant. It was difficult to find fault with her, except that she was with Paul and they weren't. Not that they wanted to be with him necessarily, not in that way, but he'd changed ever since Alice had entered the scene. He used to spend much more time outside the gate chatting and signing for them. And he used to pose for photos with fans all the time, but recently he'd requested that they ask permission before taking a picture.