Linda McCartney took a deep breath, glad that was all over. 

Unlike everyone else in the studio, if she’d made a mistake while laying down the track, the last person who she would have had anything to fear from was her husband Paul.  He could be abrasive, more so the last few months as their band Wings started to take off, but he’d been nothing but supportive of her.   No one else in the band, not the two Dennys, Seiwell or Laine, nor Henry McCullough, would have given her grief either; those months during the summer on the bus doing Europe had been a great bonding experience, and the other musicians came to respect her trying.

Her reverie ended when she heard the booth click on the speaker.  “Uh, we’ve got a problem,” the engineer said to the group.

“Oh, bugger,” said Paul, “what now?”

“We’ve got a hiss on the track,” came the voice from the booth.  “I think we’ve got feedback showing up.”

Linda allowed herself a small smile on the inside.  No matter how much her playing improved, there was always the doubt about being here.  Part of her would rather have just told Paul to find himself a real keyboardist, and give her the role of band photographer. 

Sometimes she did tell him, and he’d insist she be up there with him.  Even after the first concert back in February in Leeds, when she’d frozen on stage right at the start of the show, he’d simply put his arms around her and told her in a low voice what she meant to him.  Being in his arms, taking in his sweet smell, made her feel she could be a rock star, not just a rock star’s wife.

“Any idea where it’s from?”  Paul asked.  Everyone around him seemed relieved that he wasn’t taking this too badly.

“We’ll have to run a few checks,” the voice from the booth said.  “Might just be something plugged in where it shouldn’t be.”

Denny Laine looked at the clock on the wall, which said the hour was just after two in the afternoon.  “Pub’s still open for a bit,” he said, “give us a place to kill time till three.”

Paul looked at the wires strung through the studio.  “Right,” he said, “you’ll have it all straightened out before the pub closes for dinner.” It was less a question than a command.

“We’ll get it looked at.”

“You’ll get it fixed,” said Paul said to the booth.  He then told the band, “The Cromwell at the corner looks inviting.”

***

Pints, rum and Cokes and the like at hand, the band took a back table at the Cromwell and discussed the progress on the tracks so far.  More precisely, Paul gave his assessment of how things went, and the others chirped in here and there. 

Linda watched with fascination how Paul took command of the band.  She remembered a few times when she got to see Paul discussing band matters back with the Beatles, and how his interaction with John, George and Ringo was entirely different.  No less driven, but not with the same push she watched him give this lot.  She watched as Paul gave the new band a lot less wiggle room than the old mates in how to go about laying down the tracks.

The references to musical terms, however, made Linda’s head hurt.  She’d gotten rather good at just nodding here and there as needed, knowing that later Paul would take her aside and give her a word or two in private to get her up to speed on what had been discussed.  When it got to be too much, as was happening in the Cromwell, Linda would try and notice other things going around them and try and rely on the head bob to stay at least tangentially connected to the conversation.

It was as she was looking around that she noticed the gent on the other side of the room.  He had a pint before him, but he seemed to be talking into his jacket.  His head would go down a little, his lips would move, and then he’d take a drink, then repeat a few minutes later. 

It was the third time he did this that Linda caught sight of the little bit of the microphone that was sticking out of his lapel.

The man spying on them didn’t seem to catch on that Linda knew he was observing and reporting on her.  She did not, however, realize that she had forgotten to nod at the right moments until Paul asked, “Hello, Earth to Linda; you there, luv?”

“Oh, um…  sorry,” she said, surprised.  “I was…distracted-“

“I just was saying,” said Denny Laine, “about the chord change on ‘Little Lamb Dragonfly,’ just wanted to throw that out there.”  He added, “Nothing important, though.  We can bring it up later.”

Linda wondered if Denny knew about her means of coping with hard band talk; if he did, he was too much of a gentleman to bring up his suspicions here.

The publican rang the bell.  “Off for dinner, ladies and gents,” he announced.  “Be back after supper.”

As they rose to go, Linda regained her composure and said, “Paul, did you notice that man over there?”

“Which gent?” he asked.

Linda started to point him out, but the table was empty.  “Well, there was someone there.  Looked like he was talking into a hidden microphone.”

“Think they want to see if we’re dealing as well as growing?”  Paul asked.  “Want to see if the grass they found last month on the farm is being offered about, I gather.”

“I thought the solicitors were handling that,” said Linda.

“Can’t blame them for old habits, luv,” said Paul.  “Having the police not go after a rock musician on possession of marijuana would be a serious breach of order, you know.  You can’t throw off tradition like that.”

Denny Seiwell and Henry chuckled at the joke as they left the Cromwell and headed back to the studio.  Paul kept a look about, as did Linda, while they made their way through the London mid-afternoon rush.

“Any sign of our spy?” Paul asked, some of the humor diminished.

“Not that I can…” Linda started to say before her eyes settled on another man.

That the man across the street was taking their pictures did not make her stop.  What caught Linda’s eyes was the SLR camera with an extended lens, and the way he popped the camera up and down to snap them. 

“That gent there,” she said.  “The one with the camera, who’s taking a combat stance.”

“A what?” asked Henry.

“The way he’s shooting us, getting a quick shot with a close to the body hold.  The man’s a definite pro; I’ve used that trick a lot to shoot subjects quickly.”

“Looks like they really want to keep tabs on us,” said Denny Seiwell.

Linda turned to where Paul had been, realizing too late that her husband had stormed across the road to where the photographer was.  The gent with the camera seemed pretty collected, compared with the flashes of anger that leapt from Paul.  From what she could see, Paul was doing all the talking, while the gent was trying to ignore him and slink away.

When Paul came back, Linda asked, “So who was he?”

“Didn’t say much,” said Paul.  “Figured him to either be with the Yard or from Fleet Street.  The way he went off, I think the latter.”

“Well it’s a damn good thing he wasn’t a cop,” said Linda, “or we’d have to bail you out for yelling at a policeman.”

She watched Paul wince slightly at the look she gave him.  He regained some of the slacked swagger as he replied, “Now that would have been a sight, eh?”

She just shook her head.  “After that questioning we got because of the pot they seized in Sweden, you’d think the thought of jail would be enough to…”

Linda never finished her sentence.  Paul had the annoying habit of killing of troubling questions about his behavior by kissing her.  Once again, he displaced her words in her mouth, and once again, she surrendered.

Paul didn’t need long to get back on top of things.  Before he could follow up the kiss with more, Denny Laine noted, “We’d better see if they got things re-wired back at the studio.”

***

“You seem tense, luv,” said Paul as he drew Linda over to his side of the bed.  “I thought the sessions went well today.”

“It’s not the music,” she said as she reached over to turn out the light and adjust the blankets over both of them.

“Oh, yes, me almost getting knacked,” said Paul.

“Are you sure you didn’t almost get busted for that?”

“I bet you we look in the Daily Mail tomorrow, and right there in the paper, it reads ‘EX-BEATLE GOES BERSERK!’ with a shot of me getting ready to put the boot to him.”

“And if it was the police?”

“Then they’d probably be coming round to ask a few questions.  It can’t hurt the band, getting publicity.”

Linda sighed.  “Maybe it’s just the way things have gone.  Hitting the road, working on another album, it’s been a shock.  Like so much has happened so fast.”

Paul chuckled.  “You think this is fast, you should have been here ten years ago.  Now that was fast, I’ll tell you.”

There was a small silence before Linda asked, “Do you miss the old days?”

Another small silence hung in the dark room before Paul replied.  “If you mean, do I miss them, well, sometimes.  It was a lot of laughs, the four of us together.  And some of what we were doing and all…”

“But?”  Linda finally asked.

“But I was almost out of me teens, just a kid really, when we did all that.  And a lot of it, it was ‘You’ve got to do this, and you have to go there,’ and we were running from place to place because we had to.  It’s different now, in a good way.  We set our own hours, do what we want, go where we please, and that’s all fine.  To have it all for yourself, to actually be in control of it, that’s what’s making this good.  And I’m glad it’s not so far on that I’m still able to enjoy it.  It’s a big difference, between ’62 and ’72, because it’s us calling the shots.”

Linda put her hand on Paul’s chest.  “Us, huh?”

“I couldn’t do it without you there.  It’d just be a sodding drag without you round.”

***

Linda took another sip from her tea as she watched the sun rise over the roofs of

the city.  The men with the mike and the camera all seemed such a long time ago; a good night’s sleep next to Paul, of course, made everything for seem a few months in the past.

She closed the door to the bedroom to let Paul sleep a little longer.  After last night, when they finished talking, he more than earned a few moments rest…

Linda checked the copy of the Daily Mail, hoping Paul was right, expecting to see his angry face in the paper.  She stared at the headline:

PLO OFFICIAL KILLED IN ROME; REVENGE FOR MUNICH

Linda looked at the pictures from Italy, the body of a man identified as Wael  Zwaiter, tied to last month’s attack on the Israeli team at the Olympics, drowning in his own blood.  Her eyes quickly moved from the shock of the image, hoping more so than before to see the item about Paul.

When the Daily Mail had nothing, Linda turned to the other papers and went through them, looking for the story.  The rest of the world seemed to have forgotten them from what she read; President Nixon was confident about winning a second term next month, clashes continued between North and South Vietnamese forces, another round of shootings hit Belfast, the Queen was looking forward to visiting Yugoslavia in a few days…  Nothing on Paul at all.

Linda was finishing up reading a few hours later when she heard Paul yawn like a lion as he staggered into the kitchen.  He kissed her and asked, “How we feeling?”

“I didn’t see you in the paper,” she said.  “I looked, and the shots by our friend the photographer aren’t there.”

Paul picked a few of the papers up and glanced at the headlines.  “With all the troubles the world’s in, maybe we didn’t rate,” he said with a half smile.

“But what if it was the police, then?  Did we get into it deeper?”

Paul looked at the clock.  “Ten thirty,” he read.  “I suppose if we had, they’d have come ‘round by now.”

Linda said nothing as Paul finished getting the kettle on.  He asked, “So why the long face, luv?”

“So maybe it wasn’t the police,” Linda said.

“Right.”

“And it may not have been the press either.”

“Eh?”

“So if it wasn’t them, who the hell was taking our pictures and spying on us?”

The kettle whistled as the two of them failed to find an answer.

***

The walk to the studio was slow.  Neither Paul nor Linda were moving at more than a crawl, keeping their eyes opened wide, looking at every corner as they went down the quiet streets.

“Feels creepy,” said Paul.  “Like someone’s in the shadows ready to pounce on you without a fair warning.”

“More like a something,” Linda added.  “If you don’t know why, they become even scarier.”

“Aye,” said Paul.  “Press we know about, and the coppers we’ve gotten to know too.  So who’s left?”

“Spies?” asked Linda.

“Why spies?”

“I mean, it does sort of feel James Bond-like.  People in the shadows keeping an eye on you.  It’s like in one of those bad spy films, someone has a secret recipe or information, and one side’s trying to tail them.”

“Maybe the KGB finally wants to ask me about ‘Back In The USSR,’ you think?”

“Paul, that’s not funny.  What if when we were on the bus last summer we did get involved in something like that?  And Sweden’s neutral, a great place for spies to pass things from side to side, you know…”

The wind left Linda when she glimpsed a young man on the other side of the square.  He wasn’t looking at them directly, but he did have in his hands an SLR camera with the same attachments she’d seen yesterday.

Paul followed Linda’s gaze to the man and squared his shoulders.  “This time,” he said, “I’m not going to let him just slip on out…”“

“No wait,” said Linda.  “That may not work.  Remember the last time?”

“So what do we do?”

”Let me try something,” she said as she started walking towards the man.

Paul stayed at her side as they came up to the man with the camera.  “Nice one you got there,” she said.  “That’s a Zeiss, right?”

Instead of turning to go, the photographer stood.  He said nothing, but looked at his equipment and then at them.

“I hear the SPF is phenomenal, especially if you use an auto-winder,” Linda went on, her technical discussion of his camera keeping him there.

As she got into the hard details of photography, she saw Paul blinking harder and more often as she went on.  Part of her wondered if he was trying to find ways to deal with the technical talk about photography in the same way she had to when he got into the details on the music around her.  She tried not to gloat too much, concentrating on keeping the man with the camera enthralled long enough to have him slip her a detail of some sort.

Finally, the man surrendered.  “Oh, right,” he said finally when Linda paused to take a breath.  “Well, I really must be off.”

“We should pick this up again later,” she said.  “I’m Linda, by the way.”

“Uh…”

“Oh, and this is my husband, Paul.”

Paul stopped blinking long enough to pile on as much charm as he could.  “Pleased, mate.”

“Eric…” he started to say, then turned and ran.

“Funny,” said Paul, “never seen a bloke seem that upset to tell you his name.”

“It’s a start,” said Linda.  “It’s more than we had before.”

***

“Right,” said Paul with a sigh as Linda came in.  He was in the booth with the rest of Wings, a track from the new album playing.  From the look on Paul’s face, she assumed that there was something he didn’t like in it.

”I don’t like that mix,” Paul said.  “The drums just overwhelm it.”

Denny Seiwell just looked down.  He tried to keep his reaction to himself, but Linda saw he wasn’t doing that well keeping it down.

Henry said to Linda, “Finish powdering your nose?  We’ve played back most of the cuts.”

”Had to do some other stuff,” she replied.

“Maybe we could all use a break,” said Denny Laine.  “This couch is not that friendly to me backside.”

“Yeah,” Paul said, “let’s take five.”

The other members of the band got up to leave, and Linda sat down next to Paul.  When they left, he said to her, “You were gone quite some time.”

“I followed up our lead,” she said.  “There’s no stringers at any of the papers named Eric, and when I tried to casually ask for an inspector whose first name was ‘Eric,’ I got nowhere with Scotland Yard.”

Paul nodded slowly.  “So he’s definitely not press or copper, then.”

“And I have no idea what’s left.”

The phone buzzed as the square intercom button lit up.  “Yes?”  Paul answered.  “Who?  He’s from the Crown, he says?”  He took a few seconds before he said,  “I guess he’d better come on in, then,” before he hung up.

“What was that?”  Linda asked.

“Gentleman at reception.  Said he wanted to see us, and that it was very important.”

”But what’s this about the Crown?”

“Business of the Crown, he said.”

At that moment, a gentleman with graying hair and a mustache came into the studio.  “Mr. and Mrs. McCartney.  Charmed,” he said in a smooth yet commanding tone.

They looked at the gentleman in his impeccable Bond Street suit as he took a seat on the other end of the couch.

“And you are…”  Linda asked.

“Rather amazed to be here,” he replied.  “I have to say, it is funny how it all came to this.”

Paul looked at Linda with a totally blank expression.

Linda asked their visitor, “Is this about Eric, the photographer?”  She quickly added, “And the other two men before?”

Their visitor inhaled before he said, “Rather.  The problem with celebrity, it is sometimes hard to do what’s needed in the face of it.  And the amount of celebrity you’ve engendered, Mr. McCartney, is a bit of a challenge.”

“Wait a minute,” said Linda.  “Just who the hell are you?  And where are you from?”

“The Security Service,” he replied.

“You mean MI-6, like James Bond?” Paul asked.

He chuckled.  “Not quite, MI5.  We’re responsible for defense of the realm at home, but we at Thames House do her Majesty’s bidding with as much… spirit.”

“So you’re with the government,” said Linda.  “But why are you spying on us?”

“We live in difficult times, Mrs. McCartney,” he replied.  “I’m sure you’ve seen the papers or heard on the radio what’s going on about us.”

“I don’t think you’re doing this to protect us, are you?” asked Linda.

“No, quite right.  These have been difficult times, especially this year.  But then, I need not remind you, after your reaction to the events in Londonderry earlier this year.”

“What?” said Paul.  “You mean because of ‘Give Ireland Back to the Irish,’ we’re suddenly criminals?”

“Mr. McCartney,” the visitor replied, “we believe full well you’re not criminals.  At least not political criminals, although questions concerning your recreational habits do draw some suspicion.”

Paul and Linda exchanged glances and gulped a little.

He went on, “What we needed to know, though, was if anyone who shared the sentiments of your song’s politics was willing to associate with you.  Personally, from the files we have, I can state that’s not likely, though others needed to be reassured.”

“Others?”  Linda asked.

“Tell me, Mr. McCartney, about your current relations with your ex-band mate Mr. Lennon.”

Linda saw where this was going and hoped it wouldn’t get there; she remembered the loud tirade Paul went into over ‘Luck of the Irish’ when John released his track back in July.

“We haven’t really spoken much,” said Paul.  “I’ve got me own band now, and a wife.”   He drew Linda closer.  “I can’t really live in the past anymore.”

“I see,” the visitor said.  “I understand Mr. Lennon has been contacted by people representing themselves as important to the cause both you and he sung of.  Have any parties claiming to represent unfriendly groups contacted you as well?”

“Unfriendly groups?”  Paul started to say, but Linda gave a very sharp squeeze to his wrist to stop him.  She didn’t much like the phrase either, or the implication that people opposed to British soldiers firing on and killing protesters like they did in January were somehow enemies of the state, but debating the point with this man seemed a very, very bad idea.

“No,” said Linda.  “As Paul said, we’re building a band and getting an album together.  Maybe you’d read about Wings’ European trip this summer.”

The visitor nodded.  “Yes, well.  Times like this, when standard procedures on behalf of others are not going to work as well as the direct route, to get this all over with…”

“You don’t mean the Americans asked you to check us out because of John?” Linda blurted out before she could stop herself.

The visitor stopped and gave a slicing, analytical look at her before he said to them, “People all over the world listen to the music you have produced, both now and with your former combo.  And many people have cited your songs as spurs to action.  We could discuss the unfortunate incident in California, for example.”

Linda gripped Paul’s hand more to support than suppress.  She wondered how this man could be so cruel as to bring up the Manson family as casually as he did.

“Nonetheless,” he went on, “it’s one thing to have a song taken out of context, and quite another for it to explicitly provoke further tensions.  Of course, I don’t need to expound upon our view of the practice, I hope.”

There was nothing said for what seemed like years to Linda.  It felt to her like the words hanging over them could fall and cut them to pieces.

He looked at the two of them like a cat that pounced on two mice at once, and got up to go.  “Well, must be moving on,” he said.  “I think that should do it for here.”

“You didn’t say who you were, squire,” said Paul.

“No,” he said before leaving, “I didn’t.”  And he walked out the door.

A good five minutes after he left, Paul and Linda were still sitting on the couch stunned.

Linda spoke first.  “Paul…” was all she could get out.

Paul got up and entered the studio.  Linda followed him as he got to the piano.

Paul started out with a few simple chords, then started a piece he’d been playing around with for a few days.  This time, Linda watched as he added words while playing, then shifted into strong chords that he almost whacked out of the piano.

“Wow,” said Linda.  “Should I get the rest of the band in here?”

“Yes- and see if George is about.  George Martin. let’s see if we can get this scored too with a full set.  Maybe more strings that horns, but that’s more George’s…”
She didn’t hear the rest as Paul went back to the piece on the piano.  She loved him when he got inspired like this, watching the sweat on his brow as he worked out the new piece.

She remembered again what it was she loved him for.

James Ryan isn't worried at all, really; he's just stocking up the bomb shelter out back because he "is in desperate need of a hobby"....  His work has appeared online at both Rational Magic and Pyramid, and in print in Dragon, Lacunae, the Urbanite, The Dream Zone, the New York Times, and some of the better men's room walls across the state of New York.  His wife Susan and son Jamie just nod and smile when he starts to rant, which, all said, makes things that much easier.

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