St. John's Wood, 5 October '67, 9:28 AM
It was the first Thursday of October when the temperature finally dropped. The garden was white with frost and I could see my breath fog up in front of me with every exhale. It wasn't early anymore and that was obvious with the flock of girls that had gathered in front of the gate of Paul's St John's Wood home. Some of the girls were actually in school uniform, but had decided to take the detour on their way to their education. I shook my at them as I unlocked the gate. The difference between upbringing was striking. Ma would've had my head, had I even thought about doing something like that.
Because I had been on night shifts all week and knowing that I probably wasn't going to get a lot of sleep at the Cavendish, I had stayed my own flat for those days. But now that the week of sleep deprivation had ended, I made my way back to Paul's, as that was exactly where I wanted to be. With him.
Paul himself had only finished in the studio at four and had waited up for me with a cup of warm tea which was more than welcome. After we had drunk our tea, he took me to bed.
What started as a sweet and soft goodnight kiss, quickly turned into something much more. A deep, loving kiss that was heavy and lustful and filled with desire. We had been apart for six days, only able to talk to each other on one hasty phone call.
It was making love, it wasn't just sex anymore. That was something I was more sure of than that my name was Archie. His touch had been so sweet and loving. He had made sure I had felt over the moon and I did. Man, I was over Mars. I loved him and was happy it was Paul taking me to nirvana and back. I was sure that I didn't want it to be anyone else. No, the only person that could do that to me, was Paul.
He held me close as I regained my breath. Paul wasn't quiet, however. He talked in short intervals, kissing the side of my head every now and then. We took the time to catch each other up with our lives, not that a lot had happened to either in the past days.
'Shall I make us some beans on toast for supper?' he offered and I agreed with a chuckle. It was absurd how off cycle we were compared to the rest of the world. I had been on the bus home from work with people who had just started their morning commute. We were having dinner at half nine in the morning, when people would have their first tea break of the day.
What was even crazier was that it somehow worked for us. Dating anyone had always been a tough one for me, as I could have night shifts for weeks on end and I wouldn't be able to see the other one for so long. But Paul was on the same messed-up cycle as I was; recording in the studio at all hours of the day, whenever it felt right. It matched with each other.
'Sounds perfect. But I'm going to take a shower real quick, first,' I told him as I untangled myself from him. 'I'll be down in a bit.' I made a beeline for the bathroom, only stopping at my overnight bag in the corner to take out some clothes. The chilly morning air sent shivers down my bare backside as I moved around the room.
It was warmer in the bathroom, where Paul hadn't left the window open. I don't know what it was, but somehow he found it a good idea to keep the bedroom window open for the bigger part of the year. Only when the temperature dipped below zero, did he finally shut it and because that hadn't happened yet, it was freezing cold in the bedroom.
I hummed softly, not any song in particular, as I stood under the warm stream of water. My mind wasn't with anything worth mentioning as I slowly washed the sweat off me. The warm water relaxed my muscles in a way nothing else could. Okay, maybe Paul could make me relax like that.
Downstairs, the front door opened and then closed again. I didn't think anything of it at first; Paul had probably just stepped outside to retrieve the post or the paper or something. But when I heard shouting and someone running up the stairs, I realised something else was going on.
I turned off the shower and was wrapping a towel around my body when I could finally make out who was shouting and more importantly, what was being called out. It was Paul yelling and it was, unmistakably the name of his girlfriend he was shouting. 'Jane!'
Before I even had the chance to make up a plan to escape or hide, the bathroom door was pulled open and there she was, so angry that her face was as red as her hair. Jane.
'Get dressed!' she sneered at me, her voice dripping with venom, after which she shut the door with such forcefulness that the mirror rattled.
Shit, this wasn't good. Jane wasn't supposed to be back for another week; that was the entire reason I was here. What was she doing back so early?
There was no time to worry about that now. I dressed in the clothes I had taken with me; a sundress not at all appropriate for the weather outside, but I hadn't planned on going anywhere today. I didn't want to leave the relative safety of the bathroom, but I knew I had to face what was awaiting me outside, sooner rather than later.
'Who the fuck are you?' cried the girl when I finally gathered enough courage to open the bathroom door. She was standing in front of the hallway door, the only way out of the bedroom, the only door to safety, away from the situation.
Paul was trapped too. He had followed Jane upstairs, trying to keep her from going to the bathroom, but had failed. And when she had given me the chance to get dressed in privacy, she had kept him from leaving the room, their bedroom.
'Archie,' I said, not sure if she actually wanted me to respond or not. For some reason, I felt like I wasn't supposed to be part of the conversation she would no doubt want to have right now.
She huffed loudly. 'For crying out loud, of fucking course. This is the famous Archie, Paul? The one that got away?' she called, her voice betraying a hint of hysteria. She clearly didn't know what to do with this information.
Neither did I, for that matter. The one that got away? That was a title no one had ever given me, let alone Paul. This past month I had realised that that was how he had viewed me for so long, but he had never actually called me that.
'Jane, I'm sorry,' he started, but his girlfriend didn't listen. She didn't want to listen, was done with his excuses.
'Save it!' she interrupted him angrily. 'I don't want to hear it. And to think I was fucking competing with someone in your past.' She shook her head.
'It's not what you think,' Paul tried again, but to no avail.
'It's not what I think? Then what is it? Because it looks like you've been playing house with this tramp, while I was at work? If not that, then what's going on here? Why is she showering in our home?' she asked, pointing furiously in my direction.
'Hey, don't call me that!' I protested, but the look she gave me, made me shut up instantly. This was clearly not something I was part of. It was Jane and Paul's conversation and I was just here to be insulted. Noted. Good to know.
'How long has this been going on?' she wanted to know, directing her glare at her boyfriend again. 'Was she ever in your past? Or have you been lying to me all these years and just decided that you could have another girl on the side?'
'It's not like that!' he answered, taking a step in her direction, but Jane dodged him by stepping closer to the door. When he wasn't able to get closer to her, he answered her question with more truth than I had expected him to. 'Since February, but then we stopped in May.'
'And after that? Am I supposed to believe it just started up again last night? This has obviously been happening longer than that,' she noted. She was a clever girl, I realised. Smarter than I had given her credit for.
'It's not,' I admitted, mingling myself into the conversation again. I shouldn't, but I couldn't help myself. I felt terrible for ruining her relationship. Because I wasn't foolish enough to think that it was going to be the same after this. Paul would likely choose her over me, but it wouldn't be the same. She was only twenty-one and I had just ruined the first real relationship she had ever known.
'It was me that got it started again,' Paul interrupted. Though, technically, he was right, he didn't have to take all the blame, which was exactly what he was doing. 'I knocked on her door, the morning after Ritchie's party.'
'When you said you were with John?' she realised, speaking very quietly. The emotion was very audible in her voice, even if she tried to disguise it by speaking so low.
'I'm so sorry, Jane,' he apologised again, but Jane only shook her head.
'No,' she stopped him. 'I can't do it like this, Paul. I can't go off to film, worrying who I'll find in our bed every time I come back!'
'I know, I know,' he said hastily, trying to get the message across and to stop her from saying the words that were unavoidable at this point. 'I'm sorry, Jane!'
'No you don't know. Do you want to be with me still?' she asked him, looking him straight in the eyes.
Paul stalled, taking a sharp intake of air. 'Jane...' he started, not actually answering her question.
She realised it too and shook her head at him again. 'If we were to be together, I need you to be faithful to me. I've been more than understanding, but you're touring days are long over and so is my leniency towards you cheating on me!'
Her words dug in me like knives. She threw them at him with venom, but somehow they landed in me too. I knew it was cheating what Paul was doing, what I let him use me fore, but I had never actually called it that. I had called it an affair, that I was his mistress, but not cheating. Yet, there was no difference, was there? He was cheating on her. With me.
Her words, which had cut me like knives, seemed to spark anger in Paul. He decided that he wasn't letting her get away with calling him a cheater and threw something right back at her. 'I need you to be home with me!' he accused her of the only thing I had over the actress. She was much prettier, more successful, richer than me. She was an actress, in every way better for the Beatle. Except for that one thing. She wasn't home much. She was away to film for the bigger part of the year, while I was right here in London, a twenty-six-minute bus ride away from him.
'You know I can't, Paul,' she cried out. I could see the glimmer of tears forming in her eyes, but I wasn't sure whether they were from sadness or anger. It could very well be the latter. 'I have a career too!'
But he wasn't done. 'How come, you were always home when I was on tour, but now that that's over, you are suddenly away all the time?' It was such an unfair accusation that the hairs in my neck actually arose. He wasn't fighting fairly. She knew it, I knew it and I think even Paul knew he wasn't.
'I can't win, can I?' she exclaimed, her voice definitely thick with emotion now. 'Loving you is like a losing game. There's no point in playing it, because I always end up sharing my prize with someone else!'
This was definitely a dig at me, but I knew better than to respond. I wanted to tell her it was going to be alright. I wanted to help the poor girl, but I couldn't. Because I also didn't want it to be alright. I felt terrible, but I wanted this to climax and for her to end up with the losing hand. I wanted to win the game.
Paul didn't say anything, which Jane took as a chance to move the final piece, making the game come to a standstill.
'I have to know, Paul,' she said, much calmer this time. 'Do you want to be with me still?'
Check.
Our run had been great. Especially this last month had been magical. It had given me a taste of what life with Paul was like. What would've been, should've been mine. If I hadn't gone to London, all those years ago. If I hadn't pulled the plug on us. If I had sat the long distance out, even if it was only a year.
But it had finally caught up to us. It had surrounded us, slowly trapping us and here it was. Life, time, Jane. They had finally caught up to us.
Our story was like a game of chess. He was the king with his queen and I was a pawn. Whenever I was with him, I felt like I was the queen. Only this king already had a queen. A beautiful red queen, while I was a mere pawn, of the wrong colour, the antagonist of the story.
64 squares to start with. 32 light as the day and 32 dark as the night. Each time, a square fell away. Each fight and our board got smaller. Every time I pushed him away, we got trapped more and more. Until, finally the game was over and there was no more space to play. Just us left on a small board, no way to go. The king, the queen and the pawn.
Check.
Paul had promised me he was going to break up with Jane as soon as he saw her again, but never once had I fully believed him. There was no way that was actually happening. He was too hung up on her. If faced with the choice, the chance to make that final, all depending decision, he would cower and pick the easy way. He would choose her. And that was alright.
The game of love had been great. I had had the time of my life, playing it with Paul. But at the end of the day, the sun had come up and we had moved on. It was over now. Once again, Paul McCartney was the one thing that I couldn't have in life.
Check mate.