It was easy to love Paul. I’d seen his picture hundreds of times before, just like everybody else. Really, it was hard not to see him everywhere. His face was on record sleeves, magazine covers, gossip column spreads. Literally, everywhere. But that’s how I began to learn what makes photographs inferior. You’ve always heard, just as I have, that you can’t get any real idea of how powerful a work of art or a natural wonder is unless you see it up close. With your own two eyes. Being present in its presence.

The first time I had an inkling of that sort of power was the first time I’d actually seen a Jackson Pollock painting. I’d seen his work in books, with all their swirls and spatters in drips and whirls. Bizarre, I thought, outlandish. One afternoon, I’d ducked into the Tate, running from the perpetual London rain, and decided to have a look around. There I saw one of his canvases, longer and wider than a man, as big as a wall. What I had thought to be monochromatic shades of gray were actually colors of the subtlest shades: blues, greens, browns, creams, whites. Wild trails of color traced the steps Pollock himself had taken, where he’d looped paint all over the place, not randomly as I’d once thought. There was a rhythm to it all; he’d captured the steps of an invisible dance and made them fluid and tangible at the same time. He preserved a symphony of his own making, a crazy jazz movement only he could have composed and conducted.

All I could do was stand there and remind myself to breathe.  It must have been at least ten minutes before I came to myself. Footsteps echoed in the long marble hallways and reminded me of my original intention.

I had to get back across town to answer an advertisement I’d seen in the paper. Anybody with any knowledge of London or current events knew the address given was for Abbey Road Studios. I suppose someone had attempted to be clever and mysterious by not listing exactly what the job was for, but given its inconspicuous spot in the long columns of job listings, I figured it was nothing more than tidying up at night, The way my career was going, it was truly my best option.

So I caught the tube, rode it across town and picked my way through the streets to the simple doorway. I went in and met a woman who explained what I had imagined. They needed a maid someone to come in and sweep up early in the morning, not for much pay and I’d be by myself, but that was the job. She assured me that I’d have to be trustworthy.

“And we can’t have you lurking about, you know.” She looked at me keenly.

“Yes. I understand. I’m not here to have some run-in. I just need the money.” She smiled back at my unaffected tone and asked for my telephone number. She’d ring me whenever she knew for certain if I’d landed the job. She rummaged through her desk, searching for a pen, hardly glancing up when a voice interrupted our small talk.

“Any mail for me, Lou?”

“Not yet. You’re ‘round early.” She laughed a bit, as it was nearly four, but he answered her with all sincerity.

“I know. Can’t sleep these days. Oh, hello there.”

“Hello.” I answered. I looked Paul McCartney full in the face, and he nodded back at be before disappearing into the dark hallway from whence he came.

I shook Louise’s hand and left the studio. Outside, the rain fell steadily. I’d never been one to follow what the media told me was popular or good. I stuck to what I liked and carried on, which explained my nonchalance. Most other people would go out of their way and be over the moon just because they’d spoken with Louise. But something came over me when I’d seen that man. When I’d actually looked at him, an image flashed so briefly, but so distinctly in my mind. I saw myself, months later, holding a brown-eyed, dark-haired baby. As if the lifetime responsibility of raising his child would be worth a few hours of being next to him. Those eyes, that face, that body. It would be so easy to love him. But like so many things in my life, loving him would not knit so neatly.

I turned my collar up and headed back out in the weather, welcoming the cold, hoping it would clear my mind.

***

When I first saw her, I thought it, but didn’t say it. Not out loud at least, because I said it to myself countless times. How could I not? The fact was as plain as her being there.

I can’t remember what day it was; things were, and still are, rather jumbled. I’m not quite sure what’s going on with us—or me—these days. But it was late. And I couldn’t sleep. Mostly because my house and bed had grown too cold, but I’d also had some songs circling in my head. Nothing really, just trifles. Little bits I could make into something later, when the dust settled and we could get back to making music. I thought I’d be productive and drove down to the studio. Do some fiddling about and perhaps get bored and sleepy and then be able to get some proper rest.

I let myself in and noticed a couple of lights were switched on, but thought nothing of it. None of the cars out front were familiar, so I assumed Lou had left the lamps on. I walked right into the recording room, looking for a cord to plug into the board. The stools and chairs were in their normal order and the piano’s lid stood open, as if someone were preparing to play. I practically jumped a foot when I saw her sitting on the piano bench, eating an apple.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“I just didn’t expect anyone in here,” I answered.

“I’ll be out of your way then. I’ve just got to empty the bins.”

“You’re not in my way. By the way, I’m George.”

“Yes, I know,” she said as she crossed the room to shake my extended hand. “I’m Valerie.”

“Hello, Valerie.” She met my eyes, smiled back, just slightly, and seemed completely unaffected by who I was and why I was there at 5 am. That’s when I made the connection; she looked just like Astrid in photonegative. Where Astrid was blond, Valerie was dark; her black lashes looked like brushes. I hadn’t seen Astrid in so long, but I was brought back instantly when Valerie touched me. It was like being haunted. “A little late for you to be working, isn’t it?”

“I suppose. But these are the hours I was given. You, however…” she began.

“Yeah, most normal people’d be in bed, eh?”

“That’s what I was thinking.” She shrugged her shoulders and tossed the apple core in a dustbin. “Well, looks like you have work to do, and I’ve got to finish.”

“There’s no rush. Who wants to work really?”

“I don’t want to bother you. Louise told me not to—how did she put it?”

“Lurk about?”

“Yes! That’s it.” Valerie laughed a bit and I think that’s what started our friendship, a chance meeting early one morning. We talked for a while before she left, easy, as if we’d known each other for a long time.

I stayed until dawn broke. It had been raining for so long, which was typical for an English autumn, but that day brought a change. Valerie had arrived and accomplished what Lou had asked her to do, and I did what I’d been hired for. That’s how I felt, really. Like I’d been hired, some bloke off the street to play a guitar part on someone else’s album. Half the time my efforts weren’t good enough, though I worked hard to get them right.

Right then, I realized these early sessions would become routine for me. It was quiet and I could be alone to focus on my music. That morning, I remembered the sunrise and just how bright it was. Clouds scattered and things looked warm, even thought I knew outside it was freezing. But that filtered pink light creeping in the corners was a promise of something better.

“George?”

“Mmm?”

“I’m leaving now. Shall I lock up?”

“No, leave it open.”

“Okay. Get some sleep,” she said.

“You should too.”

“Can’t. My day’s just beginning. I’ve got more work to do.”

“Same here, I’m afraid.”

“Well, then, have a good day.”

“Ta. Valerie?”

“Yes?”

“Have you ever seen any of the others here?”

“The others in your band, you mean?”

I smirked at that. My band “Yes. Them.”

“I met the one called Paul once. That’s all.”

“Well, then, perhaps I’ll see you later. Maybe I’ll be lurking about.”

“Maybe. Goodbye.” She waved back at me, silhouetted by the new sunlight pouring in from the open door.

***

The cool wet clay, not quite brown and not quite gray, slid through my fingers. I couldn’t sleep very well, so I headed to the studio near my flat. A short walk up the block and I was there, thinking that I’d be able to expend some creative energy rather than tossing and turning.  Minutes later, I was bent over the wheel, pulling the walls of the pot up between my two hands. I pulled slowly and gradually, pausing periodically to set the lip. To do this, I wet my hands and held the rim between my forefinger and thumb of my left hand as if I were holding a tiny green pea; my other hand covered the groove between my fingers and I pressed firmly and evenly. If I didn’t set the lip of the pot, it would collapse, for the walls would be too the thin and the force from spinning would split it apart.

I kicked the wheel a couple more times to keep the revolutions smooth as I took the vessel between my two hands, cupping them and pulling inward until at last I had the shape I wanted. Finally, I was finished for the day. With a wire I cut loose my latest piece and transferred it to a nearby rack to dry.

“Lovely,”I said, quietly to myself. My shoulders ached and my neck had grown stiff. Throwing pottery was deceptive.

The clay, in one aspect, is so pliable and soft. All it takes is a bit of water to make it smoothing less than earth, and I can change it to what I want it to be—a bowl, a cup, a pitcher or a vase. It comes up so nicely once you start pulling the walls. But in order to work at the wheel, you must prepare the clay, spending a full ten minutes kneading and wedging it to eliminate all the air pockets. My wheel wasn’t electric either, so I had to push it with my foot, working at my own rhythm to control the speed. When everything was spinning properly, I could begin shaping, using the heel of my hand, pushing hard against the clay with steady pressure. 

Despite all the physical work I had to do, I loved it. For me, being able to craft the shapes I saw in my mind into something real was all I wanted to do. I could see a cracked acorn hull or a bent leaf, and it would spur something in me. A new form would emerge on my wheel days later. My diligence had gotten a pieces displayed in a locally run art shop and I was vying for a spot in a gallery. Sometimes, my things would sell. Sometimes they’d gather dust. I simply loved creating, and that’s what I did.

That’s also why I had to take this early morning job. Emptying ashtrays, picking up paper scraps and the ends of guitar strings, and sweeping up the trash musicians left about wasn’t ideal. But the job kept me alive and allowed me to do what I wanted to do.  The clock on the wall read 4:30. Shit! The time had passed so quickly and now I was afraid I’d be late. I knew Lou came in early and wanted everything spic and span and like I’d never even been there. If she caught me, she’d accuse me and turn me out. My hands were coated with dry clay and so were my clothes. I didn’t have time to change, so I dashed out anyway, pulling on my coat and counting my fare for the tube. Hopefully, I’d beat the crowds and make it across London in less than half an hour.

***

“Go ahead, then. Do it yourself, if you don’t like what I play. I’m sick of hearing you complain.”

“Eh, shove off. Maybe I will do it myself. At least everything will sound as it should.

“That’s your trouble Paul. Everything’s got to be done your way, like you want it. No one else’s opinion matters. You won’t even listen.”

“John, I don’t care.”

“I don’t know why I came down here to meet you anyway. I’m going home; I’m tired. You fuckin’ wear me out, McCartney.”

“Fine. I’ll stay on. Tomorrow, then?”

“Whatever you say,” John sighed.

I stood frozen in the reception room, still clutching the key in my hand. Their voices reverbed in the stark studio hallway. I shouldn’t be hearing this, I thought. I should have been in and gone hours ago. Should I turn and leave? Would Lou let me go for being here? For not doing my job? My breath caught in my throat. The approaching footsteps didn’t even register and I didn’t speak until John addressed me.

“How long have you been standing there? And who are you anyway?”

“Louise hired me to tidy up. I was late today. I didn’t know anyone would be here. I’ll leave now.” My words came out in the start-stop rhythm of a telegram.

“Ah, so you’re the scullery maid. What happened to you? Did you fall in a puddle or something?” He smiled at me as he scanned my clothes and the flecks of clay covering me. I’m sure there were bits of it in my hair too.

“Well, not exactly. I was working and lost track of time. That’s why I’m late and look like this.”

“You’re a busy girl then. What do you do?”

“I’m a potter.”

He spoke more softly this time. “You’re an artist.”

“If one can be an artist without a patron.”

“One can be, I’m sure. I’m on my way out, as you may have heard. I’m sorry you had to hear all that rot.”

“I shouldn’t have been here.”

“Don’t worry,” he said and then leaned in closer.

“Valerie.”

“Yes, Valerie. We shouldn’t be here either. Your secret’s safe with me. Maybe I’ll see you around.”

He left without another word and I got to work. Paul must have left by another means, because when I walked in, the recording room was empty. Another day at the office.

***

The keys clunked on the piano, ringing dissonant and tuneless. I leaned back in my chair, nearly tipping it over before I snubbed out my cigarette as it burnt down to my fingers. To my left, George tweaked a knob on the soundboard. Paul’s voice came through in stereo, through the headphones and through the glass that divided the sound booth from the recording spaces.

We’d been listening to him pick through a tune for forty-five minutes. When I say listen, I don’t mean something I was doing actively. His work filled the spaces between our jokes. I’d already put down a guitar track earlier that day, and George and I were helping Paul with a new song.

“George?”

“Yes?”we answered simultaneously.

“Not you George. You, Harri.”

“You think we would have learned the difference by now.” He clapped me on the back good-naturedly.

“Yeah, you’d think so. What do you want, Paul?”

“Come and listen to this.”

Paul had made a mess of the studio. Papers lay in scattered piles on the floor and on the piano’s music stand. He left his acoustic guitar propped against a chair. I returned it to the case and sat behind him.

“You know, you shouldn’t leave your toys lying about,” I said. He smirked, but said nothing.

I knew he was frustrated and annoyed. That’s something you could tell from looking at him. He looked somehow smaller, deflated, and he kept running his ink-stained fingers through his hair—habitually, obsessively. I decided he could use a little provoking.

“Yeah, Paulie, you’ve let this place go to hell, haven’t you? And that song…”

He spoke without facing me, “I don’t want any of your shit today, George.”

“Temper, temper,” I warned, wagging my finger at him. Suddenly, he turned and I flinched, caught off guard by what he might say or do. But instead, he laughed, quietly at first.

My friend Paul, he was best when he laughed. A kind soul, but a perfectionist too. I could barely be in the room with him when he was fixated the way he could be over some songs or when we went back over recordings to edit them. He demanded things be just so, even when we were touring and no one could really hear the music. When Paul was determined to have things his way, there was no use in resisting him. He’d make it unbearable if you did. But I suppose that’s what we needed as a hand, and because of that diligence our music shone the way it did. His way of looking at things was like a prism refracting all the light inside the four of us.

But Paul was best when he was just Paul. Not singer Paul or bassist Paul or producer Paul. Just the person who was and is my oldest friend. Up for a pint or two any time. We all liked that Paul best.

“This song is making me crazy. I can’t get it right. Listen,”he said as he banged out the chord. Paul hardly ever wrote his music down, but I could see his progress in the papers. Bits of lyric, chord progressions all scrawled in his loopy handwriting, marked through, changed around, but still not right.

“Eh, I think it’s lovely. Leave it like it is.”

“It doesn’t sound like anything you’ve heard?”

“Nothing I’ve heard. Have you played it for John?”

“Not yet. I haven’t seen him today.”

“Me either.”

“Hey fellas?” George’s voice came over the intercom. “I’m going home. I’ve earned my pay today.” He smiled brightly as he left.

“Ta, George. See you tomorrow.”

“He’s got a good idea, doesn’t he?” I asked.

“How’s that?”

“We’ve worked enough today.”

“With nothing to show.”

‘Is it as bad as that, then? Let’s go.”

He smiled and nodded. I’d left my coat in the sound room, and as I went to retrieve it, I noticed a red leaf among the papers on the floor. I wondered to myself how it had gotten inside and at the same time, I marveled at the brightness of it. I went to sweep it away with my hand, but when I touched it, I found it wasn’t a leaf at all. It was made of clay. Intrigued, I picked it up. No larger than the span of my palm, it appeared as natural as any leaf on any tree in the park.  It was thin and lithe and its ends curled up, like the prow of a boat.  I rubbed my thumb against the glazed surface, examining the tiny grooves its maker had carved so it would mimic life as closely as possible.

“Paul,”I asked, “Is this yours? What is it?”

“That? That’s a leaf, George.”

“Yes,” I said, rolling my eyes. “But I haven’t seen one like this before.”

“It’s mine. I got it from Valerie.”

“You know Valerie?”

“Yes,” he said as he looked back at me, his mouth a flat line, his tone hollow. “Let’s go then. You said yourself you wanted to get out of here.”

“Yes, I did,” I replied. My curiosity raged, trying to figure how Paul had met Valerie. Mostly likely he met her the same way I did. I burned to know, but my instincts told me to keep silent.

***

I glanced at my watch and noticed it was late. We all sat around a small table, our cards in random piles, the score pad shoved under a chair leg to keep it sitting even. At least the chair was balanced. In the background, over the muddled conversation we tried to keep alive, I heard my record player ticking. The record had played out and now the scratchy no-sound, the end of a song, the end of an album, droned behind us, barely audible.

“Put on a new record, Val.”

“One step ahead of you, “ I answered as I stood. When I got to my feet, I noticed I’d been sitting too long; when I attempted to cross the room, I swerved and tripped. George caught me by the arm on my descent.

“Easy there.”

“I’m all right. I think I haven’t moved enough.”

“That’s half your problem,” interjected Paul.

“And what’s the other half then, Smarty?”

“Possibly that half bottle of wine you drank.”

I tried to think of a retort, but my mind wouldn’t quite work rapidly enough. Perhaps Paul was right. I sank back down on the sofa beside George and scowled back at Paul. That would have to do for now.

“Careful. She’s surly when she’s drunk,” George informed Paul. “Right?”

“If you say so,” I replied, wishing someone would have the motivation to fix the record himself.  But that didn’t matter now. I suppose I was drunk enough; my face felt warm, right to the tips of my ears, but I wasn’t out of commission.

All afternoon and most of the evening, I’d been in my flat, cleaning up some pieces that had been through the first firing, smoothing out all the imperfections before I glazed them and got them ready for the final stage in the kiln. I’d missed tea and dinner by the time someone knocked on my door.

I went down to meet to see who had arrived and George’s familiar figure filled my doorway. Even though he wore a heavy coat and a hat pulled down over his face, I easily recognized his smile. Needless to say, I wasn’t expecting him. We’d joked several times in the past few weeks about his popping over for a visit; I never thought he’d take me up on it. Sure, he was my friend, and when I invited him to come by, I meant it sincerely. On the other hand, I hardly knew him; just a couple of run-ins at Abbey Road, a little chitchat by the piano and nothing more.  But here he was, smiling that wry smile up at me and asking to come upstairs.

“I brought a friend, if that’s all right,” he said, and stepped aside, revealing Paul.

“Of course. Hey, Paul.”

“Hello, Valerie. We’re not interrupting anything are we?”

“No, I was just cleaning up some things. Trying to decide whether or not I was hungry. “

“How about a drink then?” Paul pulled back his coat to reveal a bottle of Merlot. He winked at me as he smiled.

“I told you I had a standing appointment with Val.”

“Come on, George. You and Paul get out of the cold.”

We spent the next few hours playing a game of cards; I tried to teach them to play whist, but with only three people it was more than a little difficult.  George was on my right and Paul to the left.  We crowded on my sofa leaving the opposite end of the table empty. I dealt a dummy hand and tried to show them how to bid.

“Now, let me see your hand, George.” He flashed me his cards and I pointed to the three he could win. “You can carry three books, I think. Paul, your turn. Show me.”

“Why?”

“So I can show you how to bid.”

“But don’t you work for the other team?” he said conspiratorially

“Yes, but-“

“Then you can’t see them.”

George and I both laughed with Paul and gave up on my teaching them a new game. We stuck with gin rummy, which didn’t really hold our attention. They were more interested in talking to each other and to me. Before I’d realized it, we’d drunk ourselves slightly drunk and had forgotten about cards entirely. I had long passed coming up with good conversation. I could hardly stay awake.

“That’s our cue then, eh, Val?”

“Hmm?”

“You’re falling asleep and we’re leaving.”

“Oh, you don’t have to go, George.  Stay on, if you like.”

“I don’t think that’d be the wisest thing. Don’t you have to work tomorrow? “They were on their feet and getting their coats.

“I suppose.”

“Yeah, and his missus wouldn’t like him staying out so late,” Paul interjected. I watched as George’s eyes went dark. He was half way down the stairs and to the door before I stood.

“Thanks, Valerie,” George called up. ‘See you around.”Paul lingered near the door.

“I’ll walk you down.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to, though.”

“No, I’ll just say goodbye and let myself out, if that’s all right.” He shook my hand and thanked me for having them over.

“It’s no trouble,” I said, “It’s not like you all can go have a pint at any old pub any more.”

“Yes. That’s true. Thanks very much.”

“I told George my door’s always open.”

“Even for me?”

“Yes, Paul. For you as well.” We stood there in the half dark. In our quiet, I could hear the record player still hissing and even more softly, I could hear Paul’s breathing.

“I found one of your leaves. You left it on the piano bench.” He produced a red clay leaf from his coat pocket and reached to return it to my hand. I was afraid to touch him, afraid of what might happen.

“You keep it,”I said.

“I’ve got to go, Valerie.”

“I know.”

“Thanks very much.” His words filled the room and no sooner had he said them had he gone. I waited until I heard the click of the door before I switched off the player.

***

Today, when I woke, I thought it would be an open-window day. The sunlight streamed in brightly and no clouds were in the sky, not even ones clinging to the horizon like errant children, lingering in the gloaming, waiting for their mothers to call them in. Today was my favorite kind of day. Brilliantly clear, the sky an otherworldly shade of blue. When I touched the windowpane, I remembered it was November. The glass was cold and in the shadows the roof cast, ice crystals frosted the plants. I dressed quickly, skipped breakfast and dashed out to get a few things finished before I met my appointment for lunch.

When now that I’d returned to my flat, I couldn’t keep still, even after going across town and back, lugging some of the pieces I’d made from one place to another. It seemed now more than ever, I had thrown more plates and bowls, more vases and free-form objects than I ever had. Constantly, more shapes were turning somewhere in my mind. My hands ached to mold.

But a different sort of energy stirred me now, something like the nervousness one feels after being away from home for a long time and then suddenly returning. You’re not sure what to expect. Has your old bedroom become an office? What will you have for dinner? Will your parents suddenly look old? When you finally arrive, you are comforted that all the bric-a-brac is in the right places, Mum still makes mashed potatoes on Tuesdays and the paper arrives later than what your father wishes.

Everything’s the same. Well, everything but you. No matter how much your old room looks like what it did when you left, there’s something different that you just can’t pin down. That’s what it was like waiting, so many feelings swirling inside, so when the bell finally rang, I bounded downstairs, taking them two at a time. I flung open the door.

“Oh, Val!” she shrieked as we embraced.  She held me at arm’s length and looked at my face carefully. “Your hair, it’s lovely.” My sister, Maggie.  I hadn’t seen her in almost a month, but it felt like years.

“You really like it?”

“Course I do.  Now we can see your face. I love it. Now are you going to invite us up?”

“Do come in, madam,” I said, “I didn’t think you needed an invitation, but now that you’re a proper married woman, I suppose things have changed.”

“Some things have, but some haven’t.”

“Come on, then. Don’t stand out in the cold. You’ll catch your death.”

“You sound like Mum.”

 I screwed up my face at her as we climbed the stairs, talking all the way.  To look at us, an outside observer wouldn’t think we were sisters. Maggie was tall and blue-eyed with a cloud of curly blonde hair. She laughed loudly and talked loudly and could find her niche in almost any situation.

Once when we were little girls, our mother dragged us to a tea with some older ladies who lived near by. Mum dressed us smartly and warned us that any infraction on the manners we were taught would result in the severest punishments. Being the younger sister, I was terrified of Mother, so I sat quietly through the whole tea, thinking it better to say nothing and risk nothing. But not Maggie. She chattered on to the nearest biddy as if she were our closest playmate.  And the old battleaxe took to Maggie like she was her own, making me horribly jealous for some reason I couldn’t really explain. She didn’t behave that way to earn favor from anyone, certainly not our folks. That’s just the way she was, amicable and easygoing, never meeting a stranger.

But the longer that outsider was with us, he could easily discern we were sisters.  Both of us had our father’s nose and a hint of a dimple in our chins, and we both had the fairest skin, marked here and there by the occasional freckle. The pitch and verve our voices were so closely matched that we would often try to trick our mother and most of the time it worked. We could finish each other’s sentences when we talked. But lately things had changed. I’d moved right outside London, and Maggie’d gone and gotten married.

“Your place is nice, Val. I like it; it’s a little small, but nice.”

“I like it too. It’s a drafty little shoebox of a place, but it’s mine.”

She wandered over to my bookcases that were pushed against one wall. My newly fired pieces replaced the books that should have been on the shelves. Maggie ran her fingers over the surface of a bottle I’d made. The neck was slender, no wider than the circumference of a single stem. The round bowl swelled and was fluted. I’d coated it with a copper-based glaze so when it came out of the kiln, it was fiery with a swirl of color—iridescent greens and blues, shimmering.

“Do you like that one?” I asked.

“I’ve never seen anything quite like it.  But, no, I don’t really care for it. It looks like a knob of tree blight or something.” She looked at me earnestly; I could always count on Maggie to give me her real opinion.

“I knew you’d hate it.” We both began to laugh as I continued, “But here, I’ve got something for you.”

I lead her over to my tiny dinette table where I’d left an old milk crate, filled with newspapers.  She hovered over the box, not quite knowing what to do.

“Well, go ahead and open it,” I directed.

She lifted an object from its nest in the crate and pulled away the paper from a dinner plate. It was simple, no scalloped edges, just plain white except for the pink rose pattern I’d painted in the center.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a plate, silly.”

“Yes, I know that. But did you make this?” She turned to me looking more than surprised.

“Yes, a whole set. There’s bowls, mugs, and saucers too.”

“But this is nothing like what you always make. Nothing like your work. Ah, it’s still warm”

 “I know; I fired them last night and I just got them from the kiln. I made these for you. I figured you deserved a real wedding present.”

“Val!” she exclaimed, her eyes brimming with tears.

“Now don’t go getting soft, Maggie. You’re my sister.”

“I adore them. Dave will too, I know. Thank you.  What’s that noise?”

“I don’t hear anything.”

“Be still and listen.” She put her hand over my wrist and we stood there, holding our breaths. In the quiet, I heard the tiny pings I had grown to ignore. As they cooled, the dishes contracted and so did the glaze. But the glaze wasn’t porous, so it cracked and when it did it produced a sound, not a harsh, but in tiny tones, like miniature chimes, a melodic static. I’d heard them so often I’d forgotten about them.

“Oh, that. That’s your dishes. They’re singing to you.”

She smiled even broader.  “Thank you, Valerie. It must have taken you a long time to make them all.”

“Ah, not so long.  Let’s have a cup of tea before we go to lunch, all right? I hadn’t planned on cooking”

“Okay. I’m glad you’re not cooking.”

“Have a seat,” I called over my shoulder as I put the kettle on the burner.

“You’ve made some friends in London already, I see,” Maggie said from her perch on the sofa.

I sat beside her and handed her a cup, “How’s that?”

“Well, unless you’ve been playing cards by yourself.” She tossed the score sheet from last night’s game to me.

“Oh, that. Yes, I suppose you could say they were friends.”

“So, who are they? I want to know everything about my little sister and her new friends in the big city.”

“There’s not too much to tell really. Just some friends over to play whist. That’s all.”

“How’d you play with only three people?”

“It’s a long story. One I won’t tell you now. I invited you over to listen. Tell me what it’s like to be Mrs. David Sumner.”

“Val, you’ve known Dave as long as I have. If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you were trying to change the subject.”

“I really want to know how France was, to tell the truth.” That was all it took to divert Maggie. The past few times I’d phoned her she’d chirped on and on about her and Dave’s honeymoon. I’d heard it twice before, and though I was truly interested, I wanted to turn her attention. How else would I have explained to her about my visitors? I was having trouble reconciling it with myself.

We spent the afternoon talking away, like old times. I suppose a sister is someone you can always talk with, someone who will always listen, no matter what you had to say. Maggie’s always been there for me, whether it was to go for an ice cream or to play a prank on a boy who’d broken my heart. Anyway, I was grateful for her and grateful for her coming. She left around four and forgot her purple scarf. My whole flat smelled of her perfume for hours after she’d gone.

***

Have you ever felt as if you were pulling apart? That what you once knew was slowly changing shape, like blowing sand?  Things constantly shifted; that’s something I’ve learned. It’s the nature of life. Nothing’s certain and nothing’s guaranteed. But this was different somehow. I felt like I was retreating, withdrawing into myself, into a quiet I didn’t know was there. I didn’t know why really. It just seemed like the events of my life recently caused me to do so. It was like being stuck inside a cloud.  I didn’t like it necessarily, but it was happening nonetheless. Sounds echoed hollowly in my skull. Everything I touched was cold. I couldn’t sleep and the conversations I kept with people just seemed like scripted pleasantries. Everything was becoming that way, a string of mere formalities. I didn’t feel like myself, except for last night with Valerie. And now.

John and I had been here at the studio for the past three hours, singing and talking, jamming and telling stories.  We’d finished singing an old song we’d sang a hundred thousand times. I think it was a tune Paul and John had written when they’d first met, and we actually used to perform it when we were playing every coffee house from Liverpool to Hamburg. The two of them taught it to me one afternoon at John’s Aunt Mimi’s. We had stood in the bath and shut the door, so we could hear our voices better, the harmonies bouncing of the tile and right back to us.  He sat opposite from me and propped his feet on the piano bench.  If it weren’t for our longer hair, this could have been 1962.

“Is that how the chords go? I didn’t remember that last change.”

“You don’t remember a lot, Harri. But I wrote it, didn’t I? I should know. Oh hell, who knows? It sounds good though, eh? If we ever get hard up, we could stick it on an album. ‘The One After 909.’ That’d be the day,” he said, laughing to himself.

“It’s not that bad of a tune. Bluesy.”

“No, it’s not. But not good enough, I don’t think.” John’s pupils were dilated enormously, the black crowding out the green.

“You all right, John?”

“’Course I am,” he said as he smiled back at me. He could have winked at me, but the movement was so quick, like the beat of an insect’s wing, I wasn’t sure it had really happened. “Just haven’t slept.”

“I’m sure not,” I said dryly.

“Looks like the same for you, Georgie.”

“Yeah, maybe, but for different reasons than you.”

“Oh, that so?” He flicked a guitar pick at me and I caught it as it whizzed by my ear. “I don’t think you’re telling the truth.”

“Let’s just leave at that, John. I don’t want to argue with you tonight.”

“Yeah, leave that for Paul.” He sighed and began rummaging through his pockets. I tossed him a cigarette. “Ta. I wasn’t driving at anything, you know. I just wanted to know how you are.”

“Most people ask, Johnny.”

“Well, I’m not most people.”

“That’s for damn sure,” I replied. And it was true.

Of all the people I’d met in this world, and there were a lot, I’d never quite met anyone like John. Sure each person is unique in his own way, but think about the people you’ve met. Many times, most of the time, you’ll meet someone and think: this person reminds me of my third grade teacher or he’s a lot like my brother. But with John, no one was like him. There are plenty of clever people in this world, plenty of insightful, creative people. But not in the same ways as John. He sees things differently. Like he’s been other places, like he’s been on the other side of the looking glass, on the other side of himself. He can be so many things at once—spiteful and vengeful, gracious and selfless. Whatever he was, he was always loyal, to us at least. Still, the longer I know him, the more sides to himself he reveals, but somehow, I feel like I know less of him, that there’s this vastness beyond him I can’t begin to understand. God help the woman who loves him.

“So, George, how in the hell are you?”

“Fine, I suppose.”

“Ah, I’m not convinced. I rang you last night. Patti said she didn’t know where you were.”

“She wouldn’t. I was with Paul”

“Yeah, I figured.  I rang him too and he was gone.”

“He was with me.”

“I think you’ve already told me that bit. Anything you need to reveal?” he asked.

“Not really. We went to Valerie’s, played cards, got drunk.”

“Valerie? Do I know this bird?”

“She’s the cleaning girl.”

“Oh, right. I believe I met her the other day. Nice girl?”

“Mmm, yes. From what I can tell.”

“From what you can tell? Well, tell us!”

“There’s really nothing to tell, apart from what I just told you. She’s a nice girl. Talented, from what I’ve seen. She’s a potter, you know.”

“Yes, I think she told me that. So you and Paul went visiting?”

“I’d told her one day I might show up on her doorstep, so last night was that day.”

 He stared back at me, waiting on some ridiculous climax to the story. His eyes flashed and his mouth was pulled up in a sly grin.

“That’s all there is, John. She’s not like that.”

“Oh, how wrong you are, George. I saw her, and she is like that. And she looks like someone…I can’t remember who.”

“But you don’t know her. “

“And you don’t either.”

“I know her better than you. But really, it isn’t like that. Well, I’m not like that with her.”

“I knew something was wrong with you.”

“That may be. But it’s got nothing to do with her.”

“And everything to do with you, my friend.”

 “What I need is sleep.”

“Probably, but you look like you won’t be getting any soon.”

From the looks of him, John hadn’t slept in days. “The same can be said for you.”

“You’re very observant, George.”

He beckoned me to follow him to the soundboard where he’d left his overcoat. I shouldn’t have asked. I knew what he was going to say and do. He handed me a tiny box to open. I slid back the lid; inside there were several sugar cubes, but I knew why John kept these away from his kitchen.

“So what’s the good doctor got in store?” I asked.

“Sugar in your tea?”

“Where’d you get it?”

“I’ve got my ways. Now take your medicine like a good boy.”

I lifted a cube, no bigger than my thumbnail, held it up in the glaring studio lights. How could something so tiny be so powerful? I thought as I placed it on my tongue.  I knew I’d do what I usually did: I’d sit around with John until I couldn’t sit any more, let the energy inside me build to the point of bursting. Then I’d write, or I’d walk.

Today seemed like a walking day. The sun was skimming the horizon, dying its slow bloody death, throwing little bits of itself all over, like a ruined balloon. Scraps of light clinging to building edges, individual grass blades, making everything glow coldly.

“I think I’ll go for a walk.”

“Here?”

“Maybe. I think I’ll go home, though. Walk about there.”

“Sure?”

“Yeah. Nobody’s home anymore, John. Not me. Not Patti.”

He clamped his hand on my shoulder. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I thought I was asking you that. I’ll be fine.”

“Suit yourself. Be careful.”

“Ta. See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice edgy, metallic. I grabbed my keys and left for the night.

***

I heard one door shutting as I pushed another open. People assumed there were many ways inside Abbey Road.  I just happened to be trusted with a key. The lights were on in the hallways. Someone strummed an acoustic guitar. This time, for once, I wasn’t surprised. Each time I had come into to work, I was met with something different. More often than not, someone was here working on his music or working something out with his band mate. Sometimes they’d be in pairs, but most of the time, each man was alone. At first I was shocked. Louise warned me thoroughly not to be a pest, to be vying to meet one of my famous employers.

When I did run into George that first night on the job, I was more than surprised. I was frightened. Imagine being in my position. Someone paid to keep quiet and do her job. Nothing more and nothing less.  Not only was George where and when he shouldn’t be, he talked to me. Me. Valerie Moore. Being addressed by George Harrison himself—a person I’d only read about in the gossip columns or seen flickering on my TV screen. He was one of the four people Lou had forbidden me to see, much less make contact with. It was like being tempted by the devil himself, an encounter I just couldn’t avoid or turn down. My gamble had paid off in the end. It seems I was making at least one friend in George.

Oddly enough, that was the strangest part. I suppose none of us really knows what it’s like to be a known name. Someone instantly recognizable. We’d had our glimpses into the Beatles’ lives and seen what it was like to be scrutinized the way they were. But I never examined my own perception of them. I had swallowed what the press and the music critics had fed me. I’m sure I was clever enough to know that George and the others weren’t cardboard personalities. They were people. I knew this on a surface kind of level, but for some reason, I’d never thought anything more about it until I’d actually engaged in conversation with him.

So when we did talk that bitterly cold night in the recording room, I was taken aback in actually absorbing the fact that George was indeed a person. Just like my experience in the Tate. The logical part of me knew that Pollock’s painting deserved to be in a museum, if only for its concept. But I didn’t realize the fact until I saw it up close. After our brief conversation, I began to understand on a very surface level what the price of George’s talent and his burgeoning fame was. He’d ceased to be a person, an honest to God human, to the people who professed to love him the most—his record buying fans. The same was true for the rest of the band. It’s strange now that I think about it. Of all the millions of people who’d recognize his face, know his birthday, pitch Jelly Babies at him and buy anything he’d touch, the tiniest fraction could actually be a friend to him. Maybe that’s why he talked to me in the first place—to meet a friend.

“Hello? Anybody home?” I heard John call from around the corner.

“It’s Valerie. I’ve come to tidy up. Get this place ship shape, you know,” I yelled back as I leaned further into the broom cupboard.

“Oh, good. This place is a wreck.”

“I know,” I replied, as I emerged empty-handed, “Don’t let me bother you.”

I headed down a dimly lit hallway and stood in the doorway to the recording room. Even though I might have been getting used to running into the Beatles, I could never get used to the lights in the recording spaces. Harsh and fluorescent, they threw a garish cast on anyone sitting under them.  “Say, you wouldn’t know where I could find the broom, would you?”

John sat across the room in a metal chair, bent over his guitar, tuning it meticulously. “Shhh!” he warned, holding up a hand. I froze.

“Do you hear that?” he asked. He strummed the low string with his thumbnail. The note resonated clearly in the studio. For what it lacked in pleasant lighting, it more than made up for in acoustics. “Listen,” he insisted and produced the same sound again. “There’s a buzz in one of the strings.”

“I can’t hear it. But I don’t have that good an ear.”

“We all have our faults. And no, I don’t know where a broom is. You’re awfully concerned about your work, aren’t you?”

“What should I be concerned with? It’s what you’re paying me for.”

“I guess you are right, Valerie. You’re not like other girls. They’d be more concerned with talking to me or Paul or somebody. But you keep your mouth shut. I like that about you.” He spoke with an unnervingly even voice. I wasn’t sure is he was joking or not. I stood there silently, staring back at him, trying to discern what he was driving at. I couldn’t see his eyes that well behind his glasses, and his expression betrayed no emotion.  “Paul and George like you for other reasons, I’m sure.”

“How’s that?” I asked, trying to keep the fire out of my voice.

John smiled at me kindly. “Nothing, love, don’t get your feathers ruffled. George told me they came round your flat and had a game of cards.  That’s all he said. You’ve got nothing to lose anyway if he said he fancied you. Right?”

I felt my face flush and my stomach turned. Something that crept into his voice told me he knew something I didn’t. I stood dumb, unable to answer him.

“It’s just a hypothetical situation, Valerie. I didn’t think you’d be so easily shook.” He still smiled, but somehow differently.

“I-I should be getting to work.”

At this he chuckled and raised his eyebrows. “Southerner. You think you’d let me play cards with you one night?”

“No,” I answered flatly. This time, he was the one who didn’t know what to say. He still held the pick limply in his left hand. “You cheat at cards.”

“Do I?”

“I saw you do it once. An ace up your sleeve in a film I saw.”

He lowered his eyes. “That was a long time ago. I’ve since mended my ways.”

“Maybe I’ll let you prove it one day. Until then, I really do need to get cracking.”

“And I need to be going. It’s like a revolving door, this place. One of us comes, someone else goes. I don’t think people stay put anymore.”

“The evidence supports your theory, I’m afraid.”

“Well, I’m off,” he said as he rose.

When John left, he neglected to put away his acoustic guitar and it remained on the floor as if that’s where it belonged. The metal of the chairs and music stands gleamed fiercely, but strangely enough the guitar almost glowed. The blonde wood of its body seemed warm and alive.  I wanted so badly to touch it, but I knew I shouldn’t. My cautious side told me to leave it.  The stronger part of me wanted to hold it and that’s what I did. I lifted it from the floor and sat with I across my lap.

Lightly I ran my hands across the strings, from the headstock to the bridge. I’d never touched a guitar before, much less played one. I didn’t expect the strings to be rough and so thick. I shifted the instrument as if to strum it, the body in my lap, its slender neck in my left hand. My right arm sheltered it closer to me. I didn’t realize it would be so light, and I sat for a long moment, holding the mute instrument against my own body. Finally, I plucked a string and a soft note emanated. How strange, I thought.  All the notes to every song written were inside it. If someone had taught me, I too could play those same progressions. But no matter what I did, I couldn’t make it sing like them.

“Didn’t know you could play too.”

“Jesus Christ!” I interjected, “You startled me.” I leapt from my seat, clutching John’s guitar by the neck.

“Oh, sorry, Val! You didn’t hear me come in?”

‘No, Paul.”

“That looks like John’s guitar.”

I must have looked utterly ridiculous, standing there, holding the thing as if it were a hot poker, my eyes wide. “It is. I was just…Oh, I don’t know what I was doing. He was just here and he left it on the floor. I’m not sure where the case is anyway. I only wanted to touch it. But--”

“It’s all right. He shouldn’t have left it there anyway.”

I thrust the instrument at him and he took it from me. “I’ve been here for half an hour and have got nothing accomplished. I’m sorry. Now I’m afraid I’ll be interrupting you.”

“You’re not interrupting me. I came to get something I’d left. Why are you always apologizing? You’re not in the way. Lou has no idea what you do or what you don’t do. And frankly, we couldn’t care less if you clean or not.”

His words stung me for some reason. I heard what he’d said perfectly and knew that it didn’t have any effect on me personally. Paul hardly knew me anyway. Why should I care? I shouldn’t, but I did. I turned my back on him and walked to the door, “I’ll be going then. Nice to have met you.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

 I stopped before turning the knob. “What did you mean, then?”

“I meant that, no one expects you to work as hard as you ought.”

He wasn’t explaining himself very well. I crossed the room and bit my bottom lip to keep voice steady. “What are you paying me for then?”

“I meant…” he began. He clenched his fists exasperatedly. “I’m not sure what I meant.  Do the job you were hired for. But don’t follow all of Lou’s advice. I didn’t come to work on any songs or anything like that. I knew you’d be here. It sounds ridiculous. I don’t know you in the least, but I wanted to see you.”

Paul stood before me, his eyes shut, almost wincing, waiting on the reaction his words would cause. My limbs felt heavy and I heard nothing. I did what I’d wanted to do since the first time I’d seen him. I kissed him and felt him pull me closer to him, the soft brush of his hair against my cheek, his breath inside me.  He stepped away and held my face between his two hands.  We said nothing.

“I’ve really got to be going.” When I finally spoke, my voice was barely a whisper.

“Okay,” he said softly.

“Remember what I told you before. My door is always open.” He nodded and this time I did mean to leave. As I did, I glanced toward the sound booth, trying to remember where I’d left my coat and gloves. A tiny shimmer in the blackness caught my eye, like light moving across glass. I thought it odd , but dismissed it. Nothing stranger than anything else that had occurred that night. I told Paul goodbye and slipped out of the back door, forgetting my coat and not noticing the cold.

***

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. If there’s any truth in that statement, Ringo’s got a pretty important papa. He’d been here on and off for the past few weeks, but I hadn’t run into him. Finally we’d hammered out an organized practice schedule everyone could make. I stood to stretch and I noticed Ringo had abandoned his seat behind his kit. Instead he sat in the back corner, silently playing cards with Neil and Mal.  I wasn’t quite sure how he could tune out the noise.

“Would you please sit down and listen to me, John?”

“I have been listening to you, Paul. And you’re not making any sense.”

I glanced back over my shoulder to see George’s reaction to it all, but he had grown tired of us earlier in the evening and left. I didn’t blame him really. There seemed to be no consensus among us. Paul and John bickered over chord changes. Neither of them would like the solo I played over their material. I wasn’t bold enough to show the two of them anything I’d written; I’d only shown Ritchie. If someone had told me that our band would change so dramatically in a matter of months, I’d have never believed him.

Before we’d broken out, we spent so many hours working together. In Germany, we spent every waking moment together, slaving through four-hour shows and then getting into God knows what later. We were all there, even Ringo, though not directly with us. I’d grown up with these people and they were my brothers in a real sense. I didn’t think that then in those dark dank rooms spaces on the Reerperbhan that we’d become who we had become.

Even a couple of years ago, when we’d literally become household names in most countries on earth, things were manageable even if Brian and the press had orchestrated our every move. We performed like well-behaved dogs, cracking every cheeky comeback for every reporter, smiling at nothing, but always singing and playing like it was the last show we’d ever do. Despite our frantic lives, we were happy. I can certainly speak for myself, but I could speak for the others as well. You could see it in their faces.  When we made the decision not to tour again, I figured that would ease everything. We’d go back to the way we once were. In many senses, we did.

In the studio, we were allowed to do whatever we wanted. Anything we wanted, and it was both a blessing and a curse. Paul and John sometimes had such dramatically different visions of what the band was to sound like. Most of the time things went well. The two of them would agree to disagree or their collaboration would produce a sound so beautiful and strange that when I heard the song, it was almost like being struck.  However, other times when they got together their creativity was like static, palpable and volatile. What we had before was coming apart, not suddenly like a rent veil, but slowly, like an unraveling hem. Some days, I thought it best to shut my mouth and do what I was told. But other days, I got right in the mix.  That could make a right mess out of our afternoon, unless Ringo was there.

Something about his presence calmed everybody. When Paul or John wrote a song, they always let him hear it and offer his opinion. Though they might scoff at what Ringo had to say, more often than not they took his advice. He caught my attention and flashed me a knowing look. He was tired of sitting in a corner. Angry enough, I’m sure. We all knew it as well as he did. Sometimes, after Ringo went home, Paul would overdub the drum track with his own playing. But Ringo never said anything. He took like a man, and waited patiently, with that blue hangdog look of his, for his time.

“You birds going to argue all day, or are we going to play?” Ringo had returned to his seat.

“Yeah, we ought to do some work,” I said,  “Don’t want to be here all night.”

“All right then, we’ll play it through once more, and then we’ll go home. All together now,” Paul called, and we followed.

It was rare now that we all got together and recorded as a unit. Now that we’d learned more about the studio and its technology, we mostly recorded separate tracks and then spliced them together. But tonight, we played for a while, extending the middle eight to a long jam, John and I taking guitar breaks, Paul following on piano. We wrapped up and took our time leaving. Despite the harried beginning of the session, we enjoyed ourselves. None of us seemed to want to leave.

“You should come round the house, boys. See what we’ve done with the place,” Ringo offered.

“I’ve got nothing to do. Well, I suppose I do, but it’s not worth doing,” I said as I smiled.

“I’m in,” answered John. “You coming too, Paul?”

“Thanks, but no. I’m a bit tired.”

“Too tired to come with your mates? You’re soft.” Ringo playfully shoved Paul, who offered no riposte.

“He’s got something up his sleeve. Don’t worry about him.” John grinned as he spoke.

“Do I?”

“You do. And you know you do.”

Ringo continued to tease him, “Ah, Paul. This really hurts me that you’ve turned me down. I’ve cleaned the place and everything.”

“I don’t know what John’s talking about, honestly. I’m tired. But if you want, I’ll come by around six tomorrow morning. Wake you and Mo. Make sure I have a proper breakfast,” said Paul, with a wink. None of us had seen 6 am in years, unless we were still blind drunk from the night before.

“I’ll count on it, then,” Ringo replied.

“He’ll be sleeping,” said John, “You forget, I know Paul better than he does himself. I see things other people don’t. Right, Paulie?”

None of us knew what John hinted at, at least I didn’t. Paul certainly appeared bewildered when he told John to shove off. But something in his face betrayed his actions. He looked hollow and distant, like he was wearing a mask. We flipped off the lights and headed into the dark streets. Three of us together and Paul alone.

***

I woke to silence. No cars on the street, no bird songs, no sounds of a city shaking off sleep—people scuttling to their cars, to the bus stop, to catch the train. Women pulling on their coats to walk to market seemed not to exist. I heard no doors slamming, no footsteps on stairs, no locks clicking closed for the beginning of a workday.  The absence of sounds is what I was first acutely aware of.

I had no idea what time it was, but I knew it was morning. The light slid in dimly in the space between the window shade and sill.  I lay still, not wanting to move and not wanting to emerge into the cold of my bedroom.

When I’d first moved into this flat, it was late spring. One of the first things I’d done when I woke was open the window. Fresh air poured in, making my tiny room feel alive and more like my parents’ house further west, closer to the country. I hadn’t expected the place to be so cold in the winter. Actually getting out of bed became a task of sorts for me. The floor was frigid and it seemed to take an eternity for my kettle boil. I didn’t feel thawed until after I’d had a shower and a cup or two of tea.

Finally, I mustered my convictions to lean over and push back the shade All I saw was snow. Only a few inches had fallen, but I could see the tiny flakes streaking down, powdering everything clean and new. The sun was a hazy spot in the blue gray sky. A small flock of starlings crowded around a few stale breadcrumbs someone had tossed into his garden. They looked like animated silhouettes against the whiteness.  No wonder I had heard nothing this morning. Each time snow fell, I had the feeling of being inside something. Snow muffled sound and shrouded everything in this light that made everything so fiercely distinct, much like those lights in Abbey Road studios. But unlike that harsh light, this was warm and comforting, in a way.

 The few times it snowed when I was a girl, our mother would let us play outside until we were numb from the cold. Then she’d call us in and feed us something warm. At bedtime, she’d tuck Maggie and me into the same big bed and brush our hair until it gleamed. I hardly ever remembered falling asleep on those nights. It was more like a crossing over, the edges of my consciousness blurred.  I thought snow was lovely and great fun, but I think now staying inside and watching snow must be better. I flopped back onto the bed, still mostly asleep, when his voice brought me fully to my senses.

“What’s the matter?” Paul asked.

 What’s the matter? I couldn’t believe he was asking me that. There were a lot of things I couldn’t believe on this strange morning. I opened my eyes and consciously focused on my surroundings. My bed was here, the door leading to the other room stood slightly ajar. The blankets I had piled on the night before were still here, and so was Paul. That fact was one I could hardly grasp.

“Nothing,” I replied, “It has snowed, is all.”

“It has? I’ve seen enough snow in my life,” he said dismissively, “What time is it?”

“I don’t know. Ten?”

“Mmmm, I’m not usually dressed before noon,” he said, and turned to face me. I think I was holding my breath, trying to shake what I thought might have been a dream. He smiled at me, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Val?”

“Yes?”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine. I just find this— all this-- a little disconcerting.” I covered my face with my hands and rubbed my eyes.

“Don’t worry, love,” he said softly as he held both my hands between his own strong hands. I could feel the calluses at the tips of his long, elegant fingers. Despite the temperature in the room, his hands were warm.  His voice, so gentle, was like music.

“Do those hurt? Those calluses?”

“They did at first. When I first met John, we both were going to play guitar. I don’t know what sort of band we’d have with both of us playing lead. You know we’d have argued all the time about it. But when I was first learning to play, I played all the time, until my fingers bled. Then you build a callus, and you can’t feel anything there anymore. Makes you a better player in the end. But I’m sure you don’t want to hear this.”

“I do. I don’t know anything about you, Paul.”

“Sure you do, Val. When’s my birthday?”

“June 18.”

“And where do I come from?”

“Liverpool.”

He frowned at me, “More specific, please.”

“Speke,” I said, laughing.

“See, you know plenty about me. I don’t know anything about you.”

“It’s not the same. I know what everyone else knows. Nothing that you do.”

He was quiet for moment. “There will be time for that.” He pushed my hair away from my face and looked at me. “We make a pretty pair, Val.”

Indeed, we probably did. I studied him, lying there beside me in my own bed. His dark hair contrasted against the white sheets, his eyes, so brown they looked almost black. I wasn’t quite sure what he meant by what he said. All I knew at that moment was that my life was about to change dramatically.

“You hungry?” I asked, because suddenly I was aware that I had missed the past few meals.

“No,” he said, smiling devilishly. “I’m not sleepy either.”

I thought better of breakfast and kissed him. He was like eating fresh strawberries.

There are scores of words. I know people have catalogued them and defined them, counted them, and explored their histories. Each one varying in degrees and subtleties. Out of all those millions of words strung together in patterns of letters and sound, only one word came to my mind. I turned it over and over in my mouth. Good.

That’s all—nothing more or nothing less. Being with Paul was good. It conquered and filled out every meaning of that word. Good.

***

That night seemed to last forever. We were at Ringo’s until the sun began to rise—just the three of us. Maureen had gone to bed earlier with the children and we sat around. I don’t remember the last time we’d all sat together and talked. Of course, there was the obligatory music discussion, and one of us had mentioned a card game, reminding me of all the games we’d played thousands of times before in every generic hotel room from here to the corners of the world. The only thing that was missing was Paul.

Lately it seemed as if things were running in circles. Maybe the things I’d read about were true: time isn’t linear; we only force it to be. These cycles are endless like a turning wheel, creation giving over to destruction only to be made new once again. I looked at the faces of my friends that night and began to believe, if just for a moment, that cyclical time must be real. John and Ringo were both married, both fathers, but in them I saw the boys I grew up with. They were always the ones I was frightened of, being older and apparently tougher. But they had become my friends and still were. For all the quarrelling we’d been doing, I resolved there never to get tired of them. A man can always count on his friends.

As dawn broke, John and I realized we probably had better be on our way. We had planned to meet in the studio around two in the afternoon. Ringo walked us out and when we opened the door to leave, we saw the beginning scraps of snowfall.

“We’re in luck, fellows. Looks like snow.”

“Lucky? John, I thought you were finished with snow,” Ringo commented.

“I lied,” he replied.  “Maybe I’ll walk part of the way.”

“Probably the best idea you’ve had in awhile,” I remarked. None of us were in any condition to drive, especially on a slippery street. “We’ll ring you later,” I called back to Ringo.

John and I were going to walk as long as we could stand the cold and then figure out what to do then. Not the cleverest plan we’d devised, because before we gotten off the steps, John had cranked his car.

“You really didn’t think I was going to walk, did you?”

“No, you crazy bastard. Let me in. You’ll give me a lift?”

“Anything for our George.” I slid into to the passenger seat and gripped the door handle. John had taken an abnormally long time to earn his driver’s license, so I was always wary riding with him. “Relax, I’m not going to kill us. Where am I taking you?”

“Home,” I said.

“You sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. What’s gotten into you?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Whatever do you mean?”

“That’s what I mean. You asking me these questions, you bugging Paul. Our talk the other day.”

“Can’t a man ask his mate questions? And when have I not bothered Paul?”

He had a point. “You have a point.”

“You’re reading too much into things.”

“It’s hard not to these days. Half the time I don’t know what’s going on with me and the other half the time, I don’t know what’s going on with everyone else.”

He glanced at me, and I could see behind his eyes the genuineness only John could convey. He looked at me like that when he told us we were going to be famous. That’s the look he gave that reporter when he told us we’d be more popular than Jesus. He looked at Cyn like that long ago.  “I know what you mean. Don’t worry, George. No one’s mad at you. Not me, and not Paul. And no one’s mad at Ringo. Like I said, when have you not known Paul and me to argue? It will pass, as it always does. I just wish he’d stop being so stubborn and listen to me.”

I smiled to myself. What John had said were probably the words Paul would use. His words comforted me. At least John saw things getting brighter, coming together instead of unraveling. That reassurance solved half my problems.

John let me out at the gate and I took my time walking to the door, watching the sky change colors as the snow continued to fall. I let myself in the back door and stood quietly. Leaving my coat in a heap by the door, hearing my footsteps echo down the hall, I thought I’d surprise Patti. If I snuck in quietly, she would be startled, surely, but then she’d laugh. Then she’d smile broadly and pull me close, yield to me and tell me she loved me.

I pushed the door open slowly and crept up next to the bed in the blue-black dark before I realized she wasn’t there. I didn’t bother looking about the rest of the place. The sheets were smooth and taut; no one had been lying in this bed tonight. I tried hard not to do anything, to let the nothing I felt inside take control of my being. But I couldn’t. I crawled into bed, still fully clothed and prayed for sleep to come. It didn’t. I lay completely still for hours, frozen and immobile, listening to the silence outside and in, making love to her shadow.

***

The next few weeks were like a dream, a dream that strayed into daylight. Time moved fluidly. Days merged into nights, marked only by the times I saw Paul.  I never knew when to expect his arrival, but as time progressed he was there almost everyday.  I can’t say that ours was a normal relationship. Given who he is and who I am, I knew that what happened between us couldn’t go any further than the walls of my flat. That was hardest to do.

I can’t count how many times I wanted to scream out to world that Paul McCartney was my lover. Not for the attention it would get me, but for the sheer joy of it.  When one is happy, she wants everyone to know. Logically, I knew what to do—to keep my mouth shut and to take Lou’s advice, to stop lurking about where I wasn’t meant to go. But where exactly was that?

I’d already trespassed so many boundaries. Anyone who was alive knew that Paul had been carrying on with Jane Asher for years, that they were destined to marry and all that. He still saw her rather regularly and talked of her often. But Paul said they had drifted apart, and he couldn’t find a way to properly leave. Everything now was just for show. He fed me the same nonsense every cheater ever tells all the “other” women. Did I actually believe he would leave her for me? Not really. And besides, what could he gain from a relationship with me? I wasn’t sure. I based my judgments on two things: what he told me and the way he behaved when he was with me.

What he told me was everything. I’d asked him that first night to tell me everything, things that other people didn’t know, and that’s what Paul did. As easy as it was for me to imagine his fame and the ways his life had changed because of it, I never really knew what it was like until he told me. That vast catalog of grievances he recited to me like a confession. He listed so many things—some wonderful, some mundane and some terrible. I was there to hear it all and to hold him afterwards. He always spoke with such honesty, and I was unable to identify or offer any real comfort. But still he talked.

The worst things for me to hear were about the others: about John, George, and Ringo. Paul’s conflicts with them were ripping him apart. The way he saw it, he was becoming someone else while they remained static.  As hard as he tried to mend things, slowly, he knew some of the damages were irreparable, damages he couldn’t bear.

“Why do you tell me these things?” I asked one night.

“Because you listen, Valerie. Because you don’t know them and you only know me. You take my side regardless. I’ve got no one else to tell. They will never understand. Jane couldn’t care less unless it involved her.”

“I wish I could help you,” I said.

“You do. You don’t think so, but you do.”

I listened, feeling all the more helpless, but some how, I suppose I did reach him. I thought to myself how much men are like children. The pettiest issue could drive them to hatred, and a kind word from a woman could soothe them into contentment.

But all our nights weren’t all like that. Most of them were nice and warm. Pretty trite words for a description, but that’s how it was. Paul would come to me when he could, sneaking up the stairs in the middle of the night or sitting on my sofa when I’d come back from the studio or from throwing.

“I can’t believe you’d ride the train out here, just for me.”

“I didn’t. I drove. I have a car, remember?”

“I forget just who you are sometimes, Paul.” When he was here with me everything seemed everyday, domestic even, but I think that’s what we both wanted. We’d eat dinner or watch television. He’d bring me a new book someone had recommended to him. Sometimes, if he read long enough, he’d fall asleep before me, and I’d leave him be. Eventually he’d wake and come to bed. I’d watch him sleep, peaceful and rested at last. The next morning he was always reluctant to leave, satisfied with drinking tea at my table or lying in my arms.

Each time we made love, it was like that first night with him, like something new was created every time. He taught me what no other person could, touched me like no other man. He left me shuddering for days. I loved being with him, in every way, but mostly when we made love. He gave himself completely to me; the whole world was nothing if but for those moments. My name in his mouth was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard. I was right when I assumed my life would change, and change it did.

For one thing, I was always rushing about, more so than normal. I still went to Abbey Road to clean up, still keeping up appearances. I’d finally met Ringo and occasionally I’d see John. All my encounters with him were normal on the surface, but he looked at me queerly, as if he knew something I didn’t. I spent as little time with him as I could, a brief exchange of pleasantries and nothing more.  Paul must have forgotten George was my first friend there, and I did enjoy seeing him. Lately, our conversations were short, because I always had something else to do and somewhere else to be.

My pottery still took up a great deal of my time, and my mind was burgeoning with ideas. I’d spend hours over the wheel, forgetting how long I’d been there, forgetting to eat. When I first began to throw, that’s how it was. My mother, fearing something awful had happened, would send Maggie to fetch me. I’d come home, coated in clay and worn out. I was driven practically to obsessiveness, learning exactly what I could do, winning the praises of my teachers and classmates. They said I had no rival.  Thank God I had developed some sense and learned to keep my passions in check. I was all prudence and level-headedness. Maggie had once called me boring. But I wore my good judgment like a crown; I still tried to.

Tonight, a Wednesday, I came straight home after picking up some pieces that had just been fired. I plunked the crate on my table and decided to fix myself some tea. Before I had time to sit, someone knocked at my door. Paul usually let himself in, but I could never guess what he’d do next. I bounded down, trying to pretend to be surprised to see him standing on the other side.

“Go away, I don’t need any—” I broke off. This time, I was genuinely surprised. “George!”

“Hello, Val. Don’t look so disappointed.”

“I’m not, I wasn’t expecting you.”

“Door’s always open, right?”

“Of course. Come on up. I was just about to have tea. Want to join me?”

He smiled and accepted my invitation. I had some not quite stale biscuits that I brought to him. “Sorry,” I said, “Not much of a cook.”

“That I can see. Besides, I wasn’t really interested in eating.”

“Oh, is that so?” I said in a mocking tone.

“No, I was thinking more along the lines of getting very drunk, actually.” He smiled again, this time a little less broadly.

“That kind of night, eh? What’s the occasion?”

“My wife. I think she’s left me.”

My mouth must have fallen open. “Oh God, George. I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry.” I reached to touch him, but he waved me away.

“There’s nothing to say. I don’t even know what to say. I’m not sure why I’m here either. I just hadn’t seen you in a while, and I can’t talk to them. Not now anyway.”

I shook my head to clear my thoughts. “I’ll suppose you need a glass then.”

“Ta. You joining me?” He produced a bottle of whiskey.

“I don’t think so.”

“Good girl. Keep your head clear.”

I brought him a glass and he poured a tall drink. “It’s freezing in here.”

“I know,” I sighed, “Unfortunately I had no idea it would be this cold as my lease began in spring.” We made small talk about the weather and business in the studio. I showed him the new things I’d made.

“You’ve got company coming later?”

I looked at him in all seriousness, but my heart was pounding. I pretended to be interested in something across the room. “No. Why do you ask?”

“Ah, Val. Are you sure?”

“Yes, perfectly sure.”

“Good. I have missed talking to you.”

 “I’ve missed talking with you as well. One second,” I said. I went into my bedroom to get my coat. “There, that’s better.”

“Christ!” George exclaimed. He stared at me wide-eyed and pale as if he’d just seen a ghost. 

I lay my hand on his forearm, “What’s wrong?”

“Sorry, Val. You startled me. It’s just—where’d you get that jacket?”

Unconsciously I pulled at the lapels of the beat-up leather coat. “This? Someone gave it to me as a present long ago. I never wear it out. Just in here sometimes when it’s cold.”

“It’s just that you look like a girl I used to know. You look very much like her.”

“Who is she? Tell me,” I suggested. Earlier I didn’t know how to respond to George. He was usually quiet or joking in that mocking sarcastic way of his. I’d never seen him like this, so candid and broken. I thought it would help to get his mind off his wife and onto something else.

“I met her a long time ago in Germany. We’d gotten some crazy tour that Alan had set up in the Reeperbhan. Not the nicest of places. Full of drunk sailors, rats, and the clap. Tons of booze and anything else you’d want. Then, Astrid stumbled into the Kaiserkeller with her boyfriend. She was the first bright thing we saw there. She was kind and smart, beautiful and creative. Astrid was probably the first girl I loved –not in a romantic way –who wasn’t my mum or sister.” He smiled again, but this time George seemed happy.

“What happened to her?”

“I’m not really sure. I know she’s still in Germany, but I haven’t heard from her in a long time. Not since Stu died. Ah, you didn’t know Stu. One of John’s old friends. John had convinced Stu to be in the band, even though Stu couldn’t care less and was a lousy musician. He went with us to Germany and fell in love with Astrid. And John did too.”

“Did what?”

“Fell for Astrid. I think we all loved her, in some way. But Stu stayed in Germany and we all left. Paul and I got deported and John to come home by himself. That must have been a long, lonely train ride for him. He would never say it, but Stu staying was as bad as Astrid turning him away. That’s how he and Paul got to be such good mates. With Stu gone, there was only me and Paul. Pete was never like us. Just us three,” his voice trailed off.

“George?”

“Hmmmm?”

“You all right?”

“No, Valerie, I’m not. And I need to be going. I didn’t mean to wreck your evening. Your company should be here soon.” I looked at him bewilderedly. What did he know?

“Paul is my friend, Valerie. We do talk. He’s only told me about you. No one else. And you, I’d like to consider you my friend as well.”

“I am your friend, George.”

“Just be careful. There’ve been other girls,” he warned. I wasn’t sure how to take what he said. On one hand, he did know Paul better than I. But on the other hand, I wasn’t sure he knew enough about Paul. George rose to leave and I followed him to the door.

“I know. He’s told me. I know what I’m doing.”

“I thought you would. Thanks, Val.” He kissed my cheek.

“Be careful, George, and stay warm.”

“That’s not bloody likely. Goodnight.” The door slammed behind him, echoing dully. I switched on a lamp and looked for the book I’d mislaid. I waited for Paul in the chill of my apartment.

***

After George had gone, I tried to read, but something wouldn’t let me. I fluttered in between the kitchen and my sofa, rearranging my things, tossing away old things in the cupboard, trying to decide if I were hungry or not. The clutter on the table kept drawing my attention. In my haste to put it away, I knocked over George’s glass.  It smashed into a thousand bits, the sound making me flinch.  I fetched the broom and swept the shards into a pile and pushed them into the dustpan. I bent to pick it up and as I did, the tiniest sliver of glass, almost invisible, pricked my hand. Immediately I dropped the pan.

“Hello?”

“Kitchen,” I called back to Paul. “I’m afraid I’ve made a mess. I’ve broken a glass”

He stepped around the corner.  “Broken a glass? Yes, I see. This is a right proper mess. What’s wrong? Have you gotten glass in your hand?”

“Just a tiny piece.”

 “Let me see.” Paul held my hand flat. I could see a thread of blood tracing the line of my palm. “I can get it, I think. Hold still.” I gritted my teeth and braced against him. I had no idea something so small could hurt so badly. He grasped the glass between his first two fingers and slowly removed it. “There. I think I’ve got it. You wash up and I’ll get rid of this.”

I let the cold water pour over the cut. You’d have to look carefully to see it, but it burned. I watched as my own blood changed from bright red to a washed out pink. Finally the water ran clear.  I returned to the sofa where Paul had sat. “All better?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Brought us these.” He had a giant tin of biscuits, chocolate and all kinds.

“You read my mind,” I said. “Busy day?”

“Sort of. I’ve been knocking around in the studio for a few hours. Just by myself. Didn’t really come up with anything actually. I was working on the mix. Boring stuff really. But it looks like you’ve been busy.” He pointed with his chin at the various vases and bowls I had brought home.

“Yeah, you could say that. I did those two weeks ago. I had a few more, but they were sold before I could collect them.”

“Really? That’s great, Val.”

“Sometimes I hate to see them go, you know? Especially before I’ve gotten to see them. But that’s the business, eh?”

“I think I know what you mean. But I’m glad for you, that your works are selling. It’s hard not knowing how good you really are unless someone else tells you so.”

I thought about what he said, and I suppose there was some truth to it. Some of the things we revere as art-- whether it’s a painting, a song, a building, a symphony or a tapestry—we revere them because someone else labels them artistic. Whoever they are, be they critic or fan, tell us these works are important and worth paying attention to. The result is a raging popularity or good reviews, which can lead to more important things.

But another part of me disagreed with Paul. I didn’t make things just so someone would pat me on the back and say, “Good show. It will look perfect in my guest bedroom.” He didn’t make music just so someone would buy his records. I created because I had to; an almost primal urge drove me to do it. There were times when I couldn’t sleep simply because I ached to be in front of the wheel. I couldn’t rest properly until the form was out of my head and in my hand, a transubstantiation of ideas, robing in matter what was once a thing only in my mind. Maybe I’d spend hours or days on it and no one would know or care how much work I’d put into it, what inspired me to make it just so, why I chose the colors and forms I did. But that didn’t matter much. I made something, if only for myself.  That’s what kept me going and pushed me onward.

“You’re half right, Paul. But I think I’d still throw, even if no one else ever saw a single thing I’d made. Wouldn’t you keep writing?”

“Yes, I think you are right. I would keep writing. I did write, long before I met John. It was like these scraps of words and shreds of music came together in my head and made a song. I used to think that I’d heard those lyrics or that tune somewhere else. I’d play it again and again in my mind, trying to place it.  I still do it sometimes and I’m always amazed that this, this song or whatever, came from me.”

“Yes, that’s happened to me, too.”

“And when I met the others, it was like meeting complements to myself, people who knew what I was talking about. John has always been my foil. Telling me what part needed to be fixed, what was too sappy. It’s always worked.” He fell quiet and looked a little sad.

We talked a little longer about all things. I remember talking for half an hour about what we’d like to eat right then and there, but we lacked the motivation or means to do something about it. Finally, I told him about George coming over and what he’d said. His visit had spooked me somehow.  “He warned me to be careful,” I said, but I still hadn’t known what he meant.

“About what? Me?” Paul looked at me puzzled.

“Yes. I think so. That’s the way he said it.”

George, after all, only knew part of the story and saw it from another perspective. My mind wouldn’t settle. Questions that I had thought of asking a thousand times before wouldn’t lie still. Why did Paul keep coming back to me? What would happen to us? Would he ever tell the others? Would he ever come home to me and me only? Did Paul love me? Would I ever wear his ring?

I tried to stifle the thoughts as I’d done each time before. I told myself again and again not to question what would happen, to take things as they came. I wanted so badly to follow the unmarked path; that same attitude had gotten me this far. I was never one to behave foolishly, but I did take chances. My parents thought I was crazy for moving away; they never thought I’d make it. I didn’t either. And here I was. For the life of me, however, I couldn’t turn those questions about Paul away. It wasn’t my head that asked, it was my heart. Trying to rule it wouldn’t work this time. For the first time in my life, I didn’t know what to do.  I had fallen in love with him, and that fact trumped everything.

“Yes, I thought it was rather odd, unless you’d told George something,” I said.

“It is strange. I haven’t said anything to him about you.”

“But it made me think,” I continued. The question that wouldn’t go away burbled in my mind. It had never become incarnate in words. I wanted to know, but dreaded saying what I was about to say. “Do you love me, Paul?”

He studied me carefully, his brows bent, and paused, measuring the weight of his words. “No, Valerie. I don’t. I don’t think I love you, not now.”

Something like physical pain shot through my body and caught my breath. Tears sprang to my eyes, but I would not let them fall. My face became a mask, concealing the storm inside me. I made my mouth smile. “There will be plenty of time for that. Right, Paul?” I said, repeating the words he’d said to me so many days ago.

“Yes, love! Yes, there will. Don’t worry.” He folded me in his embrace, his voice barely a murmur next to my ear. He was being nothing but earnest and sincere with me; he meant what he said. I let Paul hold me, but felt stiff, like a doll. I lingered for a moment. “Let’s go to bed, hmm?”

I nodded, still unable to speak. Before long, he was fast asleep; his body had a luminescence all its own, like some sort of living, breathing stone, a slumbering god. I watched him, envied him, and loved him still. My one questions turned into thousands more, none of which had answers. How could he act as if what he’d said was nothing? Like dinner party prattle.

Something inside me changed; a blackness began its invasion. I felt something like the weather of the morning. When I’d rose, a low hanging fog clouded everything. Gray wisps spun out thick hung like a curtain. The fog wasn’t quite sky and wasn’t quite earth. It hung in a sort of limbo, clinging and swirling, obscuring street signs and making the familiar foreign and something to be feared. I didn’t know what to make of what I’d just heard. I was caught like that mist, a shade hung somewhere between Paul loving me and another place that had no name. 

***

Around midnight, I had given up on them. They weren’t coming, so I began the process of putting my house to bed. Every night, I did the same things. I switched off the lamps and washed the dishes. Somehow I collected several teacups over the course of a day. I’d have at least three of them in the kitchen or left about the house, on windowsills or by the bath. Little bits of leaf clung to the inside, remnants of what I’d done that day, reminders that some parts of my life would always be normal and regulated. Eventually in the quiet, I heard it, even over the running water, the insistent shuffle, the scratching and commotion behind the door.

They tumbled in, the three of them—John, Paul, and George—laughing loudly and red-faced from being in the cold so long.

“Don’t you have cars?” I asked.

“We walked about half the way. Got tired of driving,” said George. From the way they wore their matching grins, I could tell they’d gotten a head start in celebrating.

I imagined them and what they’d been like as schoolboys, giddy and silly—like this-- as they moved in three circles: George went straight to the kitchen and rummaged through the cupboards, looking for glasses. John silently roamed my flat, examining the books stacked on the floor, my ceramics on the shelves, the record albums leaning against the player. Paul sat beside me and kissed my cheek. He spoke softly, “I missed you today. Can I stay?”

I pressed his hand, as I answered, “You don’t need to ask, Paul.”

“Some music?” called John.

“Anything but that,” replied George, “Haven’t you had enough?”

“I think he’s right, John.”

“Eh, just a suggestion. Oh, but I do have a better idea. How about that card game you’ve been promising me, Val?”

George joined us, balancing the now full glasses in his hands. “Here’s to a job well done.”

“At least it’s a job that’s done. We’ve still got to finish mixing.”

John cut him off, “No shop talk tonight, Paul. Let’s have a good time, hmm? And where are those cards?”

I’d almost forgotten; I did promise John when I’d first met him that I’d teach him to play whist. After a bit of digging, I found my deck buried in bottom drawer. I went to work, explaining the rules and how score is kept. They seemed attentive and eager to learn so I continued with my lesson, thinking to myself all the time that this is the way things ought to be.

All my life, I’d had what I needed. My family was the good sturdy sort: always there when I needed them to be and always loving me, expressing it in the ordinary ways—my father holding the umbrella over my head while getting soaked himself, my mother’s careful way of folding laundry. Maggie could always tell me what I looked best in wearing. She sent me cards and telephoned me every Wednesday, even though I knew it cost her and Dave too much money. For all the fantastic dreams I’d had of leaving them and becoming more than me and for all those outlandish dreams I still cultivated, that night I reveled in the ordinary. I was struck with thinking that nothing could be better than what I had then and there. The companionship of friends and the love—the affection—of a good man was all I wanted. I realized that in the quiet, love grows most fervently.

I looked at their faces and wondered if all the things they’d gained were really worth their costs. They’d been marked, indelibly, by a life almost too vast and tangled for most to imagine. They seemed happy now, smiling easy and talking loosely. Old mates. Good friends. They had come into the quiet. As I dealt the cards and began to play the game, we all existed on the same level. If it were mine to give, or to restore, I would have doled out the life I had to them—reissuing anonymity or giving them viable other lives, just for a moment’s peace.

Paul looked at me, caught me for a fraction of a second, his sad eyes fixing on mine. I’d been thinking of all the things he’d told me of and had been trying to make sense of them. Truthfully, I didn’t really want to think about it, but I kept stewing over it. What he’d said and what he was doing became two different things. Despite what he’d said, I wanted evidence to the contrary, to think that he did love me. And from what I’d seen, he would come to love me. He was here, wasn’t he?  He had come back and I knew he would keep returning. I could see that in his face. Love isn’t just words, something you could push around on a page and make solid just by writing it down or saying what your heart spills over to say. It’s what you do—faith with works.

On the other hand, I couldn’t ignore the hollowness inside me, the aching shard of doubt lodged in me. I felt divided between my hopeful wishes and the reality of it all. As much as I wanted to believe Paul would return, I had no guarantee. That fear would catch me at the most inopportune times: when I brushed my teeth, when I bought a newspaper, when I heard the radio click off. It was almost as if someone was reminding me of my pain, refusing to let me forget how much he hurt me. But tonight wasn’t that night. I focused on the game and forbid that gnawing to surface.

“Anybody following this? I did say I’d teach you, but you’ve got to play fair, John.”

“I’m bound to you by my word.”

“Which he hasn’t given you, by the way,” said George.

I offered an alternative, “Okay, why don’t we play something simple? I haven’t the patience to teach and you haven’t the patience to learn.”

“Patience has nothing to do with it. It’s an inability to concentrate.”

“Gin rummy, then?”

“Precisely,” said John, taking a long swallow of his drink.

“Gets him every time,” replied Paul. We all laughed as we tried to begin a second game.

Before long, we abandoned the cards all together. The boys were too drunk and jubilant to carry on and I was too drunk to mind. George and I sat on the sofa; Paul and John had drifted into the kitchen and stood by the window.

“Val?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry I came over the other night.”

“Don’t be sorry. I didn’t mind. Really, I didn’t.”

“I shouldn’t have told you the things I said.” He’d told me a few things that night, and I really wasn’t sure what he was referring to at all.

“It’s no trouble. You needed someone to talk to, and that someone happened to be me.”

“I can be a bother at times, you know. That’s something I’ve come to learn.”

“Not you, George. You’ve never been a bother to me. A drunken fool, maybe, but never a bother.” I elbowed him in the ribs and he laughed with me. My head felt heavy and all the sounds in the room seemed muddled.

“I believe you’re drunk, Val.”

“And I believe you’re right. Hey, what do you suppose they’re talking about?”

“John and Paul? Who knows? They’ve always been like that. I can’t count the number of times we’d all be in a big group. Having a party or something. Always, with the two of them. They’d end up together talking about something. It could be something stupid or insignificant or it could be one of those questions you’ve got rattling around in your head. But always talking.”

“Like brothers?”

“Something like that. I’ve known Paul for a long time. I can hardly remember a time when I didn’t know him really. We’ve had some long talks about anything you could think of or stuff you may never had thought of. And it’s easy to do that when you’re mates with someone like that.

“But it’s different with John and Paul. Sometimes they don’t even have to say anything. When we were touring all the time, in one place one day and halfway across the world the next, all we had was each other: me, Paul, Ringo and John. I had never spent so much time with them before. Whatever happened, the two of them were together always. It didn’t matter if they bickered or fought or if they were mad at each other. They were still together, still mates. Used to make me feel apart, shut out, you know?”

“I can see what you mean.”

“Even if they wanted the same things or were competing to make the best song or whatever, they never lost that connection. It’s something like being brothers, I suppose. But it’s more like being two pages in the same book. Always facing each other, always different. But there’s a link, one is the continuation of the other. One can’t exist with out the other. And I think I’m part of that set too, but it another way. Am I making any sense?”

“Sort of,” I said quietly. I saw them framed by the window; the streetlight’s blue glow cast them as cutouts, blurring their distinctions, making them into a doubled lithograph of the same person. They stood staring into the darkness, talking and laughing in muted tones.

“See, they don’t even know we’re talking about them.”

George was right; they did seem oblivious, but eventually they returned to us, crossing the room crookedly.

We talked so long about so many things, I began to lose the thread of the conversation. Paul had fallen asleep long ago and the rest of us seemed to be swiftly headed to the same fate.

“Who drove?”

“Don’t you remember, Harri? Paul did.”

“He’s not going anywhere. I suppose I’ll walk.”

“Are you mad? It’s freezing out there. And what are you going to do? Ride the tube home?”

“Maybe. Maybe I’ll just head back to the studio. I can take care of myself.” He rose and went straight to the door, down the steps and outside. Nothing we could have said would have stopped him.

“He’ll be back. Give him ten minutes. He probably can’t find his way to any kind of station anyway.” I collected the cards and put them in a neater pile. John went to the window again, seeing if he could catch a glimpse of George

“Can you see him?”

“No, don’t think so. I bet he’s waiting in the doorway downstairs.”

“Like young Oliver Twist, huh?”

“Yeah, the lousy beggar. I should go fetch him and walk him home. Be a proper friend to him, don’t you think?”

“Maybe you should.” I waited for John to respond, but he, instead, was silent. He stood staring, his fingertips resting against the frosty glass. “You all right?” I asked.

When he didn’t speak a second time, I crossed the room to see what he was looking at. A lone blackbird crouched in the shelter made by the eave over hanging the roof. “That bird is always here. Sometimes at night I even see him. I usually feed him scraps of bread or something like that.” My words took too long to say, like I was searching for ones that didn’t exist, just to fill up the space.

He turned to look at me and to speak his part, to take up his end of the conversation. When he did, the lamplight from outside gleamed across the surface of his spectacles. Just as quickly as the light moved, I knew. I remembered months ago, when I’d first kissed Paul, that glimmer of light shining from the studio’s cavernous dark. It was John. He had watched us and now, fixed in his gaze, I felt trapped.

“Val,” he began as he stepped toward me.

“Stop,” I said, my voice sounding ancient and far away. He ignored me and came closer.

The next moments are fractured and jumbled, but I remember them in clear pieces, a tapestry of my own weaving. I see him, the way he looked at me, as if he’d wanted me from the second he saw me, the same way I’d wanted Paul.  I feel his lips, lighter than a breath on my throat, the desperate way he touches me, the smell of him.  I see the thousands of pale freckles scattered across his arms and shoulders. But mostly, I see Paul, lying prone and vulnerable on my sofa, sleeping soundly when I shut my bedroom door.

After John left, I heard Paul stir in the darkness. I wanted to invite him in, to make things go back to the way they ought to be, but I hesitated and stopped myself. Had I been a part of the same old game between the two of them? If so, I wasn’t any more. I wanted them to hurt as much as I did, to fling them back to a place of nothingness, to banish them from the light.

I tried to sleep, but couldn’t. Strangely, my hand throbbed. The wound had reopened where I’d cut it before. A bright streak of blood stained my palm, the stigma of my sin.

***

Somewhere in the back of my mind it echoed-- reverberated in some darkened corner, an inkling of a phrase. I’d heard that a chord of three couldn’t be broken. Where two were good, three were better. And I knew that three notes made a harmony in its pure and truest form. But I’ve discovered that old phrase is nothing more than that—empty words.

John and Paul had their differences and they fought practically all the time, but this was different. I’d thought they could keep their heads, that they’d resolve this schism. Valerie wasn’t the first thing they’d fought over and I knew it wouldn’t be the last. But this time, everything seemed different. Valerie had cleaved them in two, two completely separate parts that would never go back together just the same.

I’d entered the studio in the midst of one of their rows, this one worse than any other I’d seen. Pieces of a broken teacup littered the floor. The studio buzzed with the echoes of their screams. I couldn’t tell just what they were arguing about. It was about nothing I know—about the wrong lyric or a shoddy mix. Something inconsequential. But the way John shouted at Paul, I thought his throat would tear. Paul’s voice was laced with the same venom. Their teeth were bared like wild animals and I remember thinking that I was witnessing wrath that could breed murder. Everything turned then, became off kilter, like I was looking at the scene through the wrong end of a kaleidoscope.

I wanted nothing more than to leave, or to say the right words, the proper incantation to make them stop.  I watched it unfold in front of me, alone and silent, not part of the act. Their words blurred into a garbled mix of sounds, all harsh, clanging. There was nothing I could do or say, so I stood immobile, trying to will it all away.

Then it came, the low sound, cutting through the noise, making even them stop—a razor’s edge, Ringo’s voice.

“I quit,” he said.

I watched him turn and leave, hardly glancing at me, freezing out the others, ignoring them, forgetting they are there, that they ever existed. I wanted to speak, but my mouth wouldn’t form the words. Paul and John looked through me, the fire behind their eyes extinguished, leaving them looking like empty husks. We three are left, severed, broken, apart. 

Britt Terry-Smith is a graduate of Winthrop University with a masters degree in English. Currently, she works as a full time admissions counselor and a part time writing professor. Since she was small, she's been a Beatles fan, when her mom turned her on to them.  She also loves to read, attend concerts, tutor students, and spend time with her husband and dog. She also considers herself a raving Anglophile. 

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