Yeah Yeah Yeah (Beatles/Paul McCartney)

40. And In The End

August 1967
London

Paul's smile dimmed when he saw the look on Alice's face.

Suddenly, it felt terribly important to faff about with the t-shirts in the drawer, unfolding and refolding them like a salesperson at Selfridge's. His stream of consciousness froze, and any remotely helpful thought or strategy scattered well out of his reach.

"Is it true, Paul?" Alice asked softly from where she stood by the bedroom door. "Did you sleep with Maggie?"

He stared down at the shirt in his hands, which was from the'63 UK tour. Alice looked sexy as hell when she slept in it. Placing it in an open drawer, he turned toward her. But he couldn't meet her eyes. He couldn't meet her bloody eyes.

"Did you sleep with her?" Alice asked again.

There wasn't a good answer to the question. His mind hummed a mile a minute: How did she know? What did she know? And what the fuck was he supposed to say?

Paul's silence said more than his words could have, and she took an involuntary step backward. Her pupils were slightly dilated, but her expression didn't otherwise betray the fact that her brain felt like a 707 nose-diving into the sea.

"You slept with her."

It was no longer a question but a statement. Paul swallowed and stared at the green-and-white rug for a moment before finally looking up. Alice's eyes were focused just past his shoulder as if his face posed too much of a challenge for her.

He paused for another moment, frantically debating how to reply. How she would react. How this would play out.

"Yeah."

His voice was louder than he'd intended, and Alice flinched. Her eyes flicked between his as she struggled to process what he'd said, and then her face crumpled.

"When?" she whispered.

Paul swallowed again and finally had the decency to look chagrined, like the enormity of the situation had finally hit him.

"The night after Brian died."

A wave of nausea overtook Alice; she couldn't remember ever being this physically affected by someone's words. Surely she was stronger than this. Surely someone couldn't make her physically ill.

He instinctively took a step towards her, needing some sort of contact. She looked so vulnerable and alone, and his entire being screamed out that she needed looking after. She winced and edged away like she couldn't bear the idea of him anywhere near him.

For days, he'd been telling himself that if the thing with Maggie ever saw the light of day, he'd somehow be able to talk his way out of it. And why wouldn't he think that? Beatle Paul lived a charmed life; there was very little that a cheeky smile and a well-timed quip couldn't fix. But, at that moment, he had the sickening realization that he might not be able to get out of this one unscathed.

Something about the expression on Paul's face reminded Alice of the day she'd found the earring on the floor amidst the sandwiches. Had that been Maggie's? Had he brought her to their bloody house? Had John and Ringo known all the dirty details, or had muscle memory caused them to close ranks around their scrubber of a friend?

She closed her eyes and let her emotions swirl around her, forcing herself to count slowly to 10. It was a relaxation technique that had worked when her flight to Bueno Aires was nearly hijacked, so surely it would work now. But, apparently, a fucking hijacker couldn't compete with the havoc that Paul McCartney could cause.

She looked so broken when she opened her eyes that Paul would've done anything to make it go away. The fame, the Beatles, the fucking ability to pull songs out of thin air, he would've given it all up if they could just rewind a week.