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Jimmie Nicol wondered how real life had morphed into a dreamscape, whether he was actually dreaming at the moment. That almost seemed more plausible to him, even though then there was the question of when he’d finally wake up back in his bed in London, where he’d been having a kip when the phone had rung, or how he could’ve slept for so many days’ worth of dreaming. What he was sure of, somehow, was that pinching himself wouldn’t do the trick.
As it was, he was sitting in a hotel room with the Beatles, an honorary Beatle himself—or, more like, a temporary Ringo-replacement (he’d even worn Ringo’s suits, though the trouser legs were too short). A cardboard figure with a developing moptop (best he could get on such short notice), drumsticks, and, when the occasion called for it, a set of vocal chords. Not that it did too often; he was more than happy to sit in the background and let things proceed as usual. It wasn’t that the band was unwelcoming to him (not particularly, at least). They were just a bit…a bit…Well, they were the bloody Beatles, and Jimmie knew that was reason enough.
“We ought to clear up the set,” Paul McCartney said, “with Ringo gone and everything.”
Jimmie quite liked Paul McCartney. Or rather, Paul, as he’d no doubt insist if he was privy to Jimmie’s thoughts. He’d been friendly from the word go, all smiles and earnest attempts to make him comfortable, and, whenever he’d remember Jimmie was there, the constant question, “How are you getting on?”
John Lennon asked him that quite a bit as well, but it wasn’t the same—there was something almost mocking about it, as if he was having a bit of a laugh at his expense. He couldn’t quite explain it; he supposed it was the way Lennon was in general. Having a smirk at the whole bloody world, like. What’s more, he cut an intimidating figure, the way he carried himself and talked and looked.
“I thought it was official already,” Lennon said. John said. There was suppressed irritation in his tone.
“Well, y’know,” Paul said, vague but firm, then took a drag of his cigarette. He was like that a lot, Jimmie found, especially with John when he was in one of those moods. The first couple of times it had forcefully reminded him of the way his mum would press his father when she wanted him to have a talk with the son or smarten up a bit more Sunday morning, but Jimmie had been quick to push that into the back of his mind, because obviously that was a wrong way to think about the two of them.
It always worked, too, as far as he could see; had worked this time. Lennon huffed out a bit of a sigh but in his way humored him, “We’ll have to drop the lot—Ringo sang lead for all of ‘em, practically.”
Paul gave a snort of laughter, a bit reluctantly, but George Harrison didn’t. If John was intimidating, then Harrison was just plain unfriendly. They might’ve exchanged four or five words since they’d been on tour. It made Jimmie acutely aware that he wasn’t a Beatle, that he wasn’t Ringo.
“We’ll just cut ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’ then,” Paul said once his smile had faded, as if John had said as much. There was a pause as he hunched, resting his face on his hand and gazing across at him. “We got on all right without Ringo in Hamburg.”
He seemed to be reassuring himself of something; he might as well have been talking just to John.
“Got on all right without a fuckin’ thing,” John said at once, then smiled, a dark, nostalgic little curl of his lip. “God, remember Hamburg? Now, that was a fuckin’ set.”
“Not any of our stuff, though,” Paul said, then rushed to concede as John opened his mouth, “Well, just a bit.”
“Yeah, but we were our own back then,” John countered, strangely, deadly serious as he looked over at Paul. Jimmie hadn’t a clue what that was supposed to mean, put it down as Beatlespeak, or rather, JohnandPaulspeak. George looked up from where he was tuning his guitar.
“With that fuckin’ Koschmider orderin’ us about?” Paul scoffed lightly, strained. Jimmie was struck with the impression that Paul was trying to stifle the topic he’d started, wasn’t keen to talk about Hamburg much.
“Him or a poncey Jew, take your pick,” John said, grinning blackly; he was fully into the spirit of it now. “We were the real thing back then, mate, none of this suit-and-tie shit.” He suddenly turned to Jimmie, gesturing widely. “You wouldn’t have known us for the sodding Beatles, Jimmie old boy! Right old teddy boys we were, son, down to the fuckin’ leather get up. A bloody scandal, I tell you, swearing and eating on stage and fuck all—” He subsided abruptly, moodily, and the way he was looking at him, the weight of his stare, Jimmie had no trouble picturing John Lennon as a teddy boy.
“Never had a problem pulling birds then, either,” George added, unexpectedly. It seemed almost as if he was intruding in on a private conversation to Jimmie. But then, he was a Beatle when Jimmie wasn’t, so it wasn’t the same for him. He fiddled with his guitar a bit more, and then snorted. “Even with old Pete mooning about.”
Paul relaxed even as John’s mouth twisted, imperceptibly. Jimmie thought he might’ve imagined it in the next moment.
“Ah, Pete,” Paul said musingly, and he and George sniggered. Jimmie wondered who this Pete was. “What’s he got up to, I wonder.”
“He’s got his own band, I think,” George said, squinting as though he were trying to recall the face of a mate from grammar school. “Pete Best and the Stars, or summat—Pete Best and the All Stars.”
“Pete Best and the All Stars,” Paul repeated as he and George shared another laugh and a smile hovered on John’s lips.
“Some fuckin’ journalist asked me about him the other day,” John remarked at length, then strained his voice shrilly, “Why haven’t you asked Pete Best to stand in for Ringo?”
“What’d you say, then?” George asked.
“Well, he’s got his own band, hasn’t he?” John answered impatiently, though Jimmie wasn’t sure if that was directed towards George or the absent reporter. “Besides, it would’ve looked as if we were bloody taking him back, y’know.”
“We’re quite happy to have you, Jimmie,” Paul said quickly, a little too concerned that all this talk might’ve made him uncomfortable. George shifted a bit but Paul ignored him. “You’ve done a grand job of it, so far.”
“So far,” John echoed, glancing over at him again. “How’re you holding up?”
“Getting better,” he said. He cleared his throat, as his voice came out hoarse with disuse.
“Getting better, eh?” The smirk was back; his voice took on a bitter, amused quality. “On my end it looks like things are getting fuckin’ worse.”
George laughed at that, the sound hard and tinged with an odd sort of cynicism, the way someone much older ought to laugh, but Paul frowned. John caught the expression and sneered.
“But it’s all sunshine and roses for Paulie, of course.”
Paul sighed. “You should make the best of it, John,” he said plainly.
Jimmie knew then that their conversation had circled back to whatever it had been about before, back to the silent battle of wills between them.
“Paul loves being the Cute Beatle, y’see,” John said, as though for Jimmie’s benefit, and underneath the cheerfulness there was something razor-sharp and cruel. His eyes were fixed on Paul’s face once more. “He’s in love with the whole fucking world.”
George played a jarring chord on his guitar and cursed under his breath as he went back at it vigorously.
“Go on,” Paul sneered, and then turned to George, stubbing out his cigarette. “’ere.”
George surrendered the instrument, clearly sick enough of it, and observed closely as Paul fiddled with it expertly, as though he were watching someone else hold his newborn baby. John was watching Paul, too, eyes spiteful and insistent as he was ignored.
Jimmie felt the full awkwardness of the situation hit him, wished he could slink away into one of the bedrooms. Or wake up from this mad dream back in his flat.
“Tell you what,” John said loudly, gaze burning into the side of Paul’s face, “How about we scrap the whole set and you get up there and sing ‘A World Without Love?’”
Before he could stop himself, Jimmie strained to think of what that song was as a dull flush crept up Paul’s pale cheeks and his eyes narrowed, then remembered it’d been a hit by Peter and Gordon earlier in the year, in the winter. A bit sappy, really. He hadn’t realized it’d been a McCartney song until he’d heard his sister mention it (“Oh, Peter and Gordon are wonderful, but it’s only because of Paul!”).
“But then, you’re locked away, regardless, Paul,” he pressed when Paul made no reply, liberally twisting the knife in the wound, snorting (The opening lyrics, Jimmie caught on—Please, lock me away, and don’t allow the day to come…). “A princess in a bloody tower! Let your long hair down out the window, though, and maybe one of your lovely fans’ll come up to rescue you.”
If they don’t claw it out of your head, was the first thing that came to Jimmie’s mind. He was surprised anything had come to mind, frankly, given the mortification that was searing its way through his system as Paul resolutely ignored John, expression shuttered after a flash of something in his eyes, as John’s mouth twisted and George sat quietly, ready to seize his guitar back the first minute it was either fixed or violated, as the Beatles sat around him and he tried to reconcile the four of them with the cheery, clever foursome (threesome, now) the world knew and adored.
Jimmie looked out the window as John smoked across from him, perversely grateful for the shaded windows in limos, which obscured the weak morning light of Amsterdam. Perversely grateful, really, that he’d had a limo ride to a brothel, wouldn’t have been possible in his past life.
He did wish he were a bit more pissed, though, at least halfway there. As it was, he was acutely aware of being alone with John. It was unnatural to see him apart from the other Beatles, but somehow it didn’t make him seem anymore human. Unconsciously he studied the firm set of his jaw, the dark, brooding look in his eyes as they glittered with from the embers of his ciggie. Even enough alcohol to knock out a bloody Irishman couldn’t glaze his sharpness over, at least from where Jimmie was sitting, especially when John glanced at him.
“What d’you s’pose the other two are up to?” Jimmie asked, because the silence was getting to him, and really, there was no reason he should be afraid of talking to John Lennon. It seemed like a safe topic, the other two.
John snorted and blew smoke out his nostrils. “Probably asleep, the choir boys.”
Maybe it shouldn’t have. Jimmie made an indistinct noise in his throat.
John glowered out the window for a while, then turned back to him suddenly. “So, how’re you getting on?”
It was strange timing, considering they’d just come from a night at the whorehouse. He thought about mentioning that, but fell back on, “It’s getting better.”
John seemed to read his mind, however, regarding him shrewdly, sneeringly. “Should think so, eh? That was probably more pussy than you’ve had your whole life, just now.”
Jimmie felt the sting of the insult but knew he shouldn’t have, coming from a bloody rock star, a Beatle for God’s sake; if what they’d just done was routine then he was fairly sure that in a year John could’ve had more girls than he’d had hot dinners.
“See anything interesting?”
The question struck Jimmie as odd—what was interesting? The girls, or what they—? He felt a flash of embarrassment. He certainly wasn’t a prude, was the farthest thing from a bloody blushing virgin—look where he’d just been, thank you—but somehow he’d never gotten the hang of the whole whoring with mates bit. Seemed a bit…filthy. Especially when it came time to discuss, afterwards.
“Just a lot of blondes,” Jimmie said uneasily, then rushed to add, a bit lamely, “Y’know, huge tits, and…and everything. Blondes, yeah…”
Jimmie saw a flash of the blonde girl with the sexy lingerie and the perfect arse, bouncing on his lap, breasts jiggling, face too made up, too young or too old, he couldn’t tell. In the sterile environment of the limo, the picture seemed wrong, and he suppressed a slight wave of nausea. Casting about frantically for something else to say, he managed, “And you?”
John grunted noncommittally, taking a long drag of his cigarette. He hadn’t thought to offer Jimmie one, and for the first time Jimmie wished he had.
“What about that one who caught your eye at the beginning?”
“Which one?” John said sharply, too soon for his affected indifference, as his shoulders tensed slightly.
Jimmie bit his lip, thought back. “The brunette with the pixie cut,” he said at last, struggling to describe her further. “A real looker, but not like—I mean…not like a prostitute, exactly.”
John scowled, subsiding into moodiness once more, and there was a long silence between them. The girl filled up his thoughts, driving out the blonde. She had been beautiful, not really the type he’d look for at a whorehouse (her chest was something to sneeze at, for one, considering the other girls), but there definitely had been something about her. John had zeroed in on her straight away and Jimmie, not wanting to step on his toes, had never entertained any real desire to sleep with her. Thinking about her now, though—huge dark eyes, soft, full little mouth, smooth pale skin, lovely long legs…
Jimmie swallowed, knew that if he hadn’t blown his load twice already tonight things might’ve gotten decidedly awkward right about now.
“She wasn’t near as good as she looked,” John said, long after Jimmie had given up on him answering. His tone was strange; there was something indefinable, dark, bitter almost, that Jimmie couldn’t credit. “Fuckin’ uptight cunt, that one.”
Which left Jimmie to wonder just what he could mean by that, when the birds he’d been with had been up to the wildest, craziest things he could imagine, and all the things he couldn’t, as well.
“What d’you reckon the main difference is, then?” George said.
They were sitting around on the plane, having another round of scotch and coke, another pack of cigarettes, en route to Hong Kong—Jimmie could remember that destination, if not the previous ones on the tour, because it was so different. Asia, and everything. That, and the fact that the others had spent the better part of the last hour discussing the comparative virtues of Asian and European birds.
“That one’s Asian and the other’s European,” John said immediately, clearly running out of patience with the circular conversation.
Paul let out a giggle as John looked on, adding for himself, “That, and the slanty eyes, I s’pect.”
George grinned reluctantly but Jimmie could tell he wasn’t going to let it go. “I dunno…I heard that they’re more flexible, like—smaller bones and all that—”
Paul hummed blandly in agreement, in appreciation. John was still looking at him.
“Well, if they can’t twist ’round so as to avoid looking at your bloody mug in the sack, then that’s useless, isn’t it?”
He looked inordinately pleased when Paul chortled again.
“I heard that they haven’t got hair down there,” Jimmie ventured. He had realized in his time with them that it was Ringo’s capacity to moderate the sharper edges of the band, John mostly, or John and Paul when they got swept up in their own thing.
George’s eyes widened at him. “Y’mean, down there—? Bloody hell. Weird.” He looked at John and Paul, and then frowned at their lack of interest. “What’s with you lot?”
“Eh,” Paul said noncommittally. “I fancy English birds just fine, is all.”
“Is that right?” John said, looking down his nose at him. “Well, you’ve slept with half of Britain, anyway.”
“Might as well call it two thirds,” Paul retorted through a yawn; it was hard for Jimmie to tell if he was amused or annoyed.
“God, Paul, that’s starting to count some of the old biddies,” John said, grin hard and gleeful. He poked him in the side and Paul barely reacted except to sway with the force of it. “Had a toss with Aunt Mimi, have you?”
Paul groaned in disgust, helpless to stop the hoot of laughter that escaped him, hitting John on the arm. Jimmie had no idea who Aunt Mimi was, thought it must be a relative of one of them.
“How about that woman who cut our hair on the film—Mary, Margaret…?”
“You’re a sick bastard, you are, Lennon,” Paul said, crinkling his nose up at the thought. “And it was Brenda, her name was Brenda.”
John grinned at him delightedly. It was his Paul smile, the one Jimmie had grown to recognize as his Paul smile, at least, because he’d only ever seen it directed at Paul—it was a bit softer, somehow, than the usual one, the one he’d use with George, or the one he’d occasionally crack at him.
“Two thirds of Britain,” John repeated slowly, voice lowering oddly, delicately. “You haven’t started in on the lads, have you, Paul?”
Jimmie was sure that had gone too far that time—to even suggest buggery was disgusting, it wasn’t the way to talk to a mate, even—Jimmie knew he’d never, not in a million years, say that to bloke, didn’t matter how close they were, or how much they weren’t close, come to that—
Paul’s eyes narrowed and he opened his mouth to reply, but just then a reporter popped up next to them—
“Could I have a word with one of you, perhaps?” he asked, looking a mite anxious, but mostly assured that he could drag one of them off for a bit. Jimmie wondered how many reporters a day came up to them like that, knew that if he’d been the real deal, he’d have been sick of it after the first week. He felt more than heard George sigh next to him.
“Take Jimmie,” John said without batting an eye.
The man had the good grace to look uncomfortable. His eyes traveled over the lot of them (John hadn’t bothered to look round) before he settled on Paul. “Well…no offense, I’m sure he's a nice young man—but I was rather hoping one of you could—”
“George, then,” John said, only reluctantly looking over the reporter now.
George scowled, brow contracting heavily as a slightly strained pause followed.
“I’ll go,” Paul cut in gracefully, at length, and giving the man a charming little smile. John’s gaze instantly returned to him.
John started to say something in protest, but Paul had already stood up and was walking off with the reporter to the seats a few rows back, already smarming up to him with practiced ease.
John craned his neck to watch them for a moment.
“Good job, laying it on me,” George hissed angrily at him. “Just go yourself next time, won’t you?”
John turned back around slowly, slouching in his seat and lighting a cigarette.
“There he goes again, our Macca,” John muttered through clouds of grey smoke as he took a quick drag and gestured broadly, cigarette in hand. “Never met a camera he didn’t like.”
Jimmie took a sip of his drink and settled in, staring out the window and wondering, not for the first time, where the hell he was and what the hell he was doing there, wherever it was.
Jimmie was on his way to the loo a few hours later; the Beatles had scattered to various ends of the plane, the drinking party having been abandoned some time ago for sleep, or some equivalent of it. He had experienced a spot of trouble sleeping himself, was too tired to sleep, if that made any sense; then the scotch and coke worked its way through his system and he’d needed to piss for about a half hour before he’d dragged himself back.
On his way, he passed George folded up in some bizarre position that couldn’t possibly have been conducive to sleep, yet he was snoring softly, so so much for that.
Then, a bit further down he’d run into John and Paul. It was Paul’s departure that had ended the drinking and nattering more than anything; Harrison wasn’t much of a conversationalist when he was in a mood, Jimmie had learned that right off the bat, but then John wasn’t either when he didn’t care to be. He’d been bored and cutting in his remarks, and had abandoned the set up altogether to throw pillows at Paul and then drag him away from the interview after he’d apparently decided the man had kept him for long enough.
Jimmie didn’t care about all of that. It was just, when he passed them, Paul was sleeping, head resting on John’s shoulder, and John was gazing at him with such a soft look on his face that Jimmie’s breath caught in his chest, at the utter…wrongness of it, of that look applied to Paul, to another bloke—
Jimmie rushed to the loo, jerking a nod towards John in case he’d noticed him, and then sat on the toilet after he’d relieved himself, trying to come to grips with what he’d just seen. Or thought he’d seen. Yes, that was it, he might well have imagined it, misread John’s expression—trick of the light, perhaps—and then, he was exhausted and a bit drunk…
Jimmie buried his face into his hands and gripped his fringe, the make-do moptop.
Even before he’d met them, he’d had the impression that John Lennon and Paul McCartney were close, hadn’t given it a second thought, barely a first one, at that. The pictures of them together his sister had snipped from magazines and cooed over endlessly showed best mates having a good laugh being the bloody Beatles. Nothing else. Not…this.
Not this close.
But then, it wasn’t his business to make a judgment of their relationship, was it? He was getting paid good money—fucking fantastic, actually—to fill in for Ringo. So what if he’d gotten a taste of the Beatle world, so what if he’d become a Beatle in his own (very very slight) right. This wasn’t his life, wasn’t him.
And besides, it wasn’t like…He’d spent the whole night together with John at a whorehouse in the Netherlands, for God’s sake, and had certainly seen enough of Paul with girls (George too, for that matter, though he didn’t enter into that equation).
No, it wasn’t like. Not like that.
But still, when Jimmie finally exited the lavatory and made his way back up the plane, he carefully avoided looking in John and Paul’s direction again.
Jimmie walked slowly down the hotel hallway. The Beatles had their own floor because of the whole security issue, but on the whole he didn’t think that was such a concern here. The fans weren’t nearly as crazy. He attributed it to Asian culture, that they were so much more orderly, though the lack of screams (and there were still quite a few) had been eerie, at first.
On the other hand, the Beatles were confined strictly to the hotel—no jaunts to clubs and brothels here. They were a bit more cheerful for a while on account of some news from Ringo. Apparently he was feeling much better and would get out of the hospital in the next few days.
“About bloody time,” George had said, surly face cracking into a grin. Jimmie hadn’t even thought to be offended; he couldn’t fill Ringo’s shoes forever, couldn’t fill them at the moment either, it seemed.
The news had been like the first touch of ground to his feet he’d had in a week or so. His life had become an astonishing whirlwind of sex and alcohol and rock ‘n’ roll; he’d never had so much easy pull in his life—there were girls all over suddenly dying to get a piece of him now that he was a Beatle.
He’d be lying if said he didn’t like it. And he’d probably be lying if he said he could settle down to his old life straight away when the time came. But he wanted the time to come. He needed out from this glorious, hellish, mad world the Beatles lived in.
He wasn’t the smart one or the cute one or the quiet one or the cuddly one, or what have you—he wasn’t John or Paul or George or Ringo.
He was Jimmie Nicol. One of these days he was going to wake up and that would be the whole truth of it again.
That was why he’d gone to the night club, to remind himself that when he was alone he could have his freedom, could walk around unnoticed, be another face in the crowd. He could get pissed from something other than ruddy scotch and coke, and could get laid on his own.
Or not.
Jimmie sighed as he traipsed down the silent hall, still pleasantly buzzed, shadows playing on the doors to empty rooms. At length he reached the door.
He rummaged through his pocket for the key and then promptly dropped it. As he was bending down to retrieve it, he became aware of the sound of voices. He stopped, stooped, listening in spite of himself.
“It’s been too long, Paul. I can’t—I need…”
John’s voice. Jimmie froze—there was something peculiar about it. Too intimate.
There was a pause, a vague rustle.
“Not now, John,” Paul said. His tone was pregnant with meaning, with warning.
He thought he heard John snort, or maybe he’d just imagined that’s what he’d do. “You’re the only one who gives a fuck, Paul—Ringo doesn’t, George is asleep—”
There was another rustle.
“Jimmie—?”
Jimmie straightened sharply at the sound of his own name, key safely in hand. His heart pounded in his chest.
“Buggered off somewhere,” John said, clearly irritated. “Christ.”
There was a long silence. Figuring that was the end of it, Jimmie jiggled the key into the lock, fumbling to unlock the door and get to bed, when he thought he caught another rustling noise, like someone was moving in there.
And then there was a sharp gasp and more rustling, and then Paul said in a strange, dark tone, half a plea and half a warning, “John.”
“I’m going fuckin’ mad here,” John said. And his voice was strange, too—hoarse, deeper than normal. And sharp, angry almost. “You’re a fucking little tease.”
Paul laughed oddly at that. Jimmie was sure he must’ve misheard them, this couldn’t be—they couldn’t be—no way they could be saying this stuff—
Then there was a slight, wet sound, and Jimmie couldn’t stand it, didn’t want to hear anymore. In that moment he didn’t care what he walked in on, just knew he couldn’t stay out there listening.
Jimmie fumbled with the key and in a split second there was a click and he was in the room, stumbling over the threshold.
There was a moment as his eyes adjusted to the dark, and then he could make out John and Paul, sitting too close on the sofa; Paul turned to stare over the back of it, eyes finding him in the black, wide eyed. Then he stood up, legs slightly unsteady from the looks of it.
There was a short, electric silence.
“Hullo, Jimmie,” Paul said in a falsely cheery voice. Jimmie winced at the sound of it, thought he saw John make a movement on the couch. “How was…where did you…?”
“Night club,” he said helpfully, because it was too awkward to watch Paul flounder, when—when—
“Ah, good on,” Paul said, expression clearing somewhat. “Have a good time, and all?”
John rose beside him, looking ominous and strangely disheveled. Actually, they both were—mussed hair, buttons undone here and there; Paul’s mouth was swollen and bruised, red against his milky skin.
Jimmie stared, forgetting himself.
Then John shifted and Jimmie hastened to make some reply: “Yeah, great, great—night club and all, y’know.”
“Congratulations,” John said bitterly. “You’re not a fuckin’ Beatle then, are you?”
There was a tense moment; Jimmie had no idea what John had meant by that but at the same time he knew just what he’d meant by that.
“Guess not,” Jimmie said simply, stupidly, not knowing what else to say, needing to alleviate the pressure somehow, to keep from silence, which was far, far worse.
“You turnin’ in?” Paul asked him uncertainly after a minute. It occurred to Jimmie that this was the first time he’d seen him at a loss for words. “S’pose we could do a nightcap, if you…”
Jimmie glanced swiftly at John. He realized his palms were sweating. “Ah, better not. Long day. Er, long night—bed, I think.”
“All right then,” Paul said, smiling at him with a strained sort of brightness. “George’s already asleep, so…”
“Yeah,” Jimmie said hurriedly. “Yeah.”
“Well, run along,” John said sharply, then flashed a smile at him, quick and sweetly mocking. “Sweet dreams and all that rot.”
And Jimmie fled from the room, leaving the two of them standing there together. His bed was wonderful and welcoming. He dove into it without bothering to undress, then thought better of it and jerkily stripped off the Beatle suit and yanked on his pajamas, trying with all his might to ignore the soft, discordant murmur of voice from the sitting room. When he finally settled down to sleep, he clapped the pillow securely over his head so all that he could hear was the vague, clogged ringing of his ear. But then there was soon silence, anyway, so it didn’t matter.
He was almost asleep when John finally walked in to go to bed, a few hours (an eternity) later. In with him came the tense, wild, insatiate air of a caged animal.
Jimmie readjusted the strap of his bag; it was cutting painfully into his shoulder, a constant reminder the sudden parachuting into real life he’d just gone through (was going through): carrying his own luggage.
Melbourne Airport. The end of his stay in Australia, and the end of his life with the Beatles. He’d seen the four of them together for a bit, and knew that that was as it should be.
It didn’t matter that he was left feeling like a shitty little footnote to their lives—to history. It was time to go home. He’d had enough. The run was over, he’d have the money to prove it soon enough.
What would come next, he wasn’t sure. What could come next, after this? He’d touched the sun. Had he gone blind?
“Well, Jimmie, this is it, I’m afraid,” Brian Epstein said. Jimmie quite liked Brian, whatever John Lennon liked to say about him. “I don’t quite know what to say. Well, thanks should suffice, I suppose.”
“Yes, thank you,” Jimmie said, causing the other man to chuckle. They shook hands and then Brian gave him the bonus check. He looked at the amount and had to tell himself that the amount was enormous. It was enormous. Enormous.
Didn’t seem that way, not anymore. His time here had thrown his sense of these things a bit wonky. No matter. Jimmie took a deep breath.
Reality would set it right.
“Oh, one more order of business,” Brian said, as if he’d almost forgotten. “Not business, per say, but…” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a small box, which he handed over as well, nodding at him encouragingly when he just stood there. “Go on, open it, I dare say you’ll find it to your liking…”
Jimmie lifted the lid of the box and found a heavy, expensive wristwatch inside.
He slid his fingers through the band and lifted it up gingerly, staring down at it before he remembered his manners and hastened to smile politely up at Epstein.
“Thank you,” he said.
“It’s engraved,” Brian pressed, smiling in turn.
Jimmie examined the watch more closely and found that he was right.
“From the Beatles and Brian Epstein to—Jimmy…with appreciation and gratitude,” Jimmie read aloud, fumbling over the words briefly as he hit his misspelled name. He hitched the smile back on his face, more forced this time. “Thank you, Mr. Epstein.”
He thought that the misspelling, in contrast to the fancy watch, was a good summary of his time with the Beatles: quite the ride and all that, but he’d lost touch with himself, his real self, amidst all the grand shit that had gone done.
“Oh no, you mustn’t call me that,” Brian said, though it hardly mattered at this point. “Brian, please, Mr. Epstein is my father—but no matter, no matter. Shall I tell the boys you liked it?”
“By all means,” Jimmie said, adding after an awkward instant, “Brian.”
Brian’s features smoothed once more. “You’ve done a terrific job—they were quite pleased with you.” He paused and tilted his head towards Jimmie. Behind him he heard the plane’s engine roar to life. “I suppose you had the chance to say goodbye to them?”
“Uh,” Jimmie said, the sound of the plane distracting him, but also the flash of memory from that morning, “Well, no actually—they were sleeping when I left, you see. I didn’t want to wake them…”
A small, white lie that didn’t cost anyone anything.
Brian frowned in sympathy. “I’ll tell them goodbye for you as well, then,” he said, raising his voice to speak over the engine noise. “Goodbye, Jimmie, for myself!”
“Goodbye,” Jimmie said. He picked up his bags; Brian asked him if he needed help but he refused, thought he needed to get used to this again. At the steps of the plane, he turned to wave hesitantly to Brian Epstein, the last figure of Beatleland, the last remnant of his dream world, standing on the tarmac to see him off.
Life was going on already, both here in reality and there with the Beatles.
When the plane took off, he thought it was strange that the ascent should be such a descent.
Jimmie walked through the hotel common room. He thought it strange that it was so empty, deserted. Devoid of life. This was the fucking nerve center of the Beatles.
It was early in the morning. Mal, the roadie of the Beatles, was going to drive him to the airport, and Brian Epstein was going to meet him. A slow goodbye then, orbit to orbit, until he was released into the far flung reaches of outer space once more.
He’d seen George and Ringo were fast asleep when he’d woken up; the reinstated drummer had been snoring loudly, no doubt a side effect of a nose like that, and George had been scrunched up into a scrawny ball, glower firmly in place—so much for people looking peaceful in sleep.
He assumed John and Paul were asleep in the other room. So, he’d never see them again.
Something in him rebelled against that—figuring it was worth a try, he crossed the room and rapped gently at their door. No answer.
That was it, then, wasn’t it?
He hesitated, and then pushed the door open gently. It was unlocked, and opened silently, easily. He stepped on the threshold.
Froze as he processed what he was seeing.
They were in bed, on the bed, rather. Together. Asleep. They might’ve stayed up talking late into the night; they were dressed more or less, in t-shirts and trousers, with one guitar on the bed with them and the other propped up against the side of it. Their feet were tangled together, bare skin on bare skin, and Paul was curled up in John’s arms, pressed back against his chest, hands entwined where John’s arm was slung possessively over his waist.
Spooning. They were spooning.
Jimmie’s eyes popped and he forgot to breathe.
He needed to get out of here, he needed—
Just then John let out a snuffling snore into Paul’s hair, his neck.
Silence. Peaceful for them.
For them.
Jimmie backed out of the room quietly, all thoughts of goodbye gone, all notions that he had ever been a part of their world leaving his head.