Before the movie, we all had these silly bowl cuts that we called mop tops, that Paul and I had gotten cut on our trip to Paris.
My eyes widened as the blade neared my face.
Nooo… I shouted in my mind, narrating it dramatically. Not my sideburns!
I watched as the razor painted thick stripes of smooth skin and my sideburns were eradicated, cut off and washed away along with the thick foam.
The barber wiped off the blade, and washed my face away. My face looked odd like that, like the sides of my face were oddly naked.
“Alright, time for your hair now.”
I gulped.
I cut my mop top for the movie.
Paul ran his hand through my new, shorter hair. His eyes had something like sadness in them, and he looked as me as though he were searching for something. I reached up to cup his chin, before letting my hand drop, remembering that we’d left each other on a sour note. Old habits die hard.
I suppose absence makes the heart grow fonder, because I desperately wanted to kiss Paul at the moment. But we were still getting used to each other again, now was the time to court him, to say the right things to fix us.
Paul stepped away, remembering himself. George and Ringo were watching, most likely expecting a shouting match of cataclysmic proportions, but nothing happened. We were oddly… quiet. Muted.
“I’ve got an idea for the next album,” Paul said, finally tearing his eyes away from mine, and ending the sort of internal battle the two of us were having, using only our eyes.
Later that night Paul and I got a motel room.
We said nothing, an unspoken agreement forming, based on our mutual need. We weren’t emotional or tender like we could be when we wanted, but instead urgent and physical.
Paul was always the most vocal, and I was glad we’d chosen such a secluded location.
“John—bloody hell—oh, oh, oh—“
I stayed quiet, aside from the occasional gasp, wondering if this was where we were now, going to motel rooms. I held Paul as his body shook, and his toes curled into my back. Later I found myself up late, smoking a cigarette in silence, looking at his still form, bundled beneath the sheets on the other side of the bed, facing away from me.
We weren’t even touching.
We started our new album, entering our first year without touring since, I think, the beginning of the band. Paul and I would write songs together just like before, but it wasn’t really the same.
I ached for him to say it again.
He hadn’t said he loved me in months, and I was starting to think that maybe he didn’t. That maybe we were growing too far apart, changing too much, and that all we had left was the decaying rests of our old desire.
I didn’t know if Paul loved me, but he still wanted me.
He pushed me to the floor wordlessly, his eyes red and watery, probably seeing me in wavy colors by now. I let him press his mouth to mine, but it no longer held any meaning; he was just exploring with his tongue, laughing slightly in his altered state.
His fingers worked down my shirt, unbuttoning it completely. I let him slip off my shirt, probably acting dispassionately but still looking at Paul with hidden a spark of emotion. It hurt that I was just a body to him; shit, it hurt me so much.
Paul slipped his furry arms behind my exposed back, lifting my torso up to his and I holding me as he trailed a hand down my spine. He kissed his way down my jaw and I shivered, letting him handle me as though I were a puppet.
We were rich and enjoying it; we even considered buying a Greek island. A whole island to ourselves. We had a crazy plan to turn it into a personal Beatle world, with a central gathering area, under a glass dome that connected to the four living areas for each of us; so we’d have somewhere to live, away from the fans. Now that I think of it, what would I really have done with a big great island?
I know that you’d want an island for yourself—we could fill it with cats and swimming pools and crayons. I think I know what I’ll be getting you for your sixth birthday.
I had a ukulele in my lap and wasn’t sure how I’d gotten it, but I played it softly, watching the rainbows slowly stream from the strings as they reverberated, their vibrations getting bigger and bigger, and disturbing the fat daisies that were growing out of the wood.
The instrument that was suddenly becoming small, so small it could sit in my hand. I laughed in delight, and heard another voice next to me. It was George, but his mustache was growing too long for his face, though he kept grinning widely. He was laughing too, his voice coming out as a smell of dark coffee and a faint fruity mix. The waves lapped at the sides of the boat, fizzing like orange soda, and George’s ukulele was in deep conversation with mine.
Hours later we’d come down from our trips and were in a village by a beach, standing under pouring rain. Paul looked decidedly unhappy, and he stood next to me, wearing his best bitchy face, while the only legitimate Greek in our ranks, Magic Alex, tried negotiating with an old fisherman.
Alex emerged from the old man’s home, wearing a triumphant expression, his hair plastered onto his forehead giving him a funny look. “I’ve done it, we’ve two rooms, the man’s going off to his brother’s to leave us the place,” he said.
We stepped in gratefully, and watched the fisherman leave, the unmistakable bulge of money in his shirt pocket. Two rooms was actually a living room, with a couch, a rug, and a burning fire, and a damp back room, with a small bed.
“Oh, George and Alex can have the bigger room,” Paul said. Magic Alex might have taken this as a sign of generosity, but George knew what Paul’s ulterior motive was, and seemed to roll his eyes briefly before opening a cupboard and taking out a ratty old blanket.
Ten minutes later, I was sitting on the bed, waiting for Paul to come back into our shared room. He came in drying his hair, apparently having found some towels, and tossed me one. I took it gratefully and started drying my face and neck. I tried having a go at my soaked clothes, rubbing at them, but Paul was done drying by then, and wouldn’t wait for me.
He started peeling off my shirt, which was stuck to my chest completely, all while nibbling at my ear. Resigned, I whispered: “Don’t be too loud, or they’ll hear.”
That was also the year that Brian went on his trip.
“Oh—oh my god,” Jane said, covering her mouth.
She was the only one reacting appropriately to the news. “What?” I said dumbly, while Paul opened and closed his mouth like a deranged goldfish.
“Mr. Epstein… seems to have overdosed… terribly sorry for your loss…”
Only a few of the words floated over to me.
Overdosed. Loss.
“Where’s… where’s the body?” I heard myself say.
“The funeral home is holding the body.”
I thought of Brian, lying there, crumpled on his bedroom floor, choking on his vomit; no one there to see, to help, to notice.
“You must not let this upset you. It is the natural way of things. We are born, and then we die,” the Maharishi told us.
I shook my head slightly. Why had we gone on this weekend trip? We could’ve stayed… maybe then it wouldn’t have happened… he wouldn’t have felt so useless…so alone.
That was what led us to the grave, one wet Saturday morning, well after the burial had been done and over with.
“What now?”
“I…I…don’t know.”
Paul always fucking knew everything. He was always telling everyone what to do, how to do this better, how to bloody exist to fit his perfectionist view of the world.
“How can you not know?”
Paul looked at me with empty eyes.
It was hard for us, when he left.
I lay passively on the bed at the back of that grotty room in the Greek fisherman’s home, while Paul held onto my neck, arching and moving, apparently not noticing that I was still.
He wasn’t looking at me at all; in fact, his eyes were loosely focused onto the window, or something.
I wished I could say something to make him come back, but by this point I was out of words.
We were running off of memories of a dead relationship, and saying it out loud would burst our little bubble, ending what we had left. What I had left of Paul.
He didn’t tell us, didn’t leave us a letter; just went and picked up his suitcase one day. We didn’t find out until later that Brian was traveling.
We missed him terribly, Sean. Nothing was the same anymore—Brian wasn’t there to tell us what to do, to help us decide things, to be there in his office, signing papers…
That was part of what made us fall apart, and sometimes I do still get angry at Brian, for chucking everything away like that. Didn’t he think of us before he went around the world?
Over the years, I’ve come to the conclusion that he didn’t mean to upset us; and that he really didn’t see any other solution for him than to go away. I’ve learned to forgive Brian Epstein.
“How can you not know?”
Paul looked down, as if holding my gaze was too painful for him.
“Well,” I said. “I suppose we continue. We…we do something else. We move on.”