The next morning was crazy as we rushed to get ready. Between laughter and
horseplay, I got John's exercises done, suitcases packed, carry-on bag
loaded with essentials. I grabbed a bite to eat, and we were out the door.
After a mob scene in the parking lot, there were limos and a police escort
to the airport, more reporters, and finally a moment of relative quiet
waiting in a room for the other passengers to board. I had never given any
thought as to how the Beatles traveled while on tour, but apparently, it
wasn't on commercial flights. They were all grumbling about not having the
plane to themselves.
“It's just a few hours to New York,” Mal kept saying. “You'll be in first
class and I'll make sure no one bothers you.”
After all the other passengers were on board we were given the go-ahead to
board. The fans behind the fence were screaming as soon as we were spotted
stepping out of the terminal and heading out onto the tarmac. The sound was
distant and muted by the wind but still there. John managed the stairs up
into the plane without too much difficulty. I hadn't even thought of trying
him out on some steps at the hotel so I was very relieved that it wasn't a
big problem.
Once onboard, I saw that the little curtain between first class and coach
was pulled shut. The four other passengers already in first class all sat
open-mouthed as we joined them. Ringo did an elaborate pantomime of
tiptoeing to his seat, holding a finger to his lips and saying “Shhhh” as
he pointed to the coach section.
I got John situated in an aisle seat so he could stretch out his leg, then
took the window seat next to him. I think the fact that I actually listened
to the stewardess as she went through her oxygen, emergency exit, seat
cushion routine is what gave away the fact that I had never flown before.
John was grinning at me. I smiled weakly back. We taxied out on the runway
and he took my hand in his. Even with the hard cast that extended partway
onto his hand and looped around his thumb, it felt good. For all the times
I had touched his hands to check his circulation and such, this felt
different. It was nothing more than an offer of a friendly hand to hold on
my first airplane ride, but I couldn't help the little side trip my mind
took.
The engines revved up and my goofy daydream about walking along a beach
holding John's hand disappeared. The plane was lumbering down the runway,
picking up speed, but enough speed to make us airborne? It didn't feel like
it! As the plane left the ground I was probably doing more harm to the
circulation in John's hand than the cast ever had. Improbable as a huge
flying hunk of metal seemed to me, it did continue to climb. I stared out
the window, not sure if doing so would make me airsick or not, but unable
to resist watching Minneapolis unfold below me. We left the city behind and
a patchwork of farmland spread as far as I could see. It wasn't until the
captain came on to welcome us that I realized I was still holding John's
hand. I let go reluctantly and watched the country pass underneath us until
it disappeared in the haze.
John's head was hurting worse than usual, probably from the steady noise of
the plane. I gave him a pill as early as I could. The stewardess served
lunch around twelve. It was airline food, but it was also another meal I
didn't have to pay for so I enjoyed it. After lunch, John put his seat back
and fell into an uncomfortable sleep. I tried to read, but that made me
queasy. I tried to sleep, but that was impossible.
Paul was sitting behind us. He got up to get something out of his carry-on
(the blue TWA bag!) in the overhead storage and saw that John was sleeping.
“Wonderful traveling companion,” he said. “Here, I'll kick Neil out and you
can sit with me.”
“Or I could kick Paul out so you could sit with me,” Neil said. Paul gave
him a laughing, surprised look that also asked if he was sure he wanted to
try that.
“But, I need me job,” Neil laughed and got up.
Paul helped me to climb over John's leg, and John opened his eyes just long
enough to see what was going on and say, “Behave yourselves, it's a public
conveyance.” I turned off the light and pulled the window shade down so
John could sleep, then settled in the seat next to Paul.
When he asked what I wanted to see while in England, I named the usual
sightseeing things and then told him that what I wanted to see was the
English countryside, to see the heath and moors I had only read about.
“Jane Eyre?” he asked, grinning.
“And Return of the Native.”
“Ech. I hated that book!”
“I loved it! Maybe because Mr. Zimmerman, my English teacher, helped us see
all the symbolism, not just the story. Or maybe because I had a crush on
that teacher!”
“Ah hah! Maybe that was what was missing for me. I just could not take
seriously a book with a character named Diggory Venn the Reddleman.” The
way he said the name, almost singing it, made me laugh.
“But Diggory was wonderful! True and steadfast in his love for Thomasina!”
“And so pure that he never made a move on her. Not very realistic or
interesting. I preferred Lady Chatterley's Lover.”
“You read that in school?” I asked, shocked.
“It wasn't required reading,” he laughed, “but one of my teachers suggested
it as important literature of the period and of course we all read it just
for that reason!”
“Oh, sure!” I laughed.
“Actually, we did discuss it in class.”
“Where did you get a copy of it?”
He looked puzzled at my question. “The school library, I guess. I don't
recall. We passed it 'round a bit.”
“I don't think our public library had a copy of it, much less the school
library!”
“I suppose not,” he said. “It was banned in the States last I heard.”
“I don't know if it still is. One of the girls in my nursing class had a
copy of it. We passed it around too!”
We laughed at that and he asked, “What did you think of it?”
“All that garbage about social class and playing stupid games with her
husband? I finally gave up and just read the dirty parts!”
He laughed delightedly. “And it was better than anything in Return of the
Native!”
I knew I was blushing, but this was a literary discussion. “No, I still
liked Return of the Native better. Lady Chatterley is more explicit, but I
didn't like any of the people in the book. I loved Hardy's line about
Eustacia; ‘To be loved to madness was her one desire.’”
“Is that what girls want? Is that what you want?” He was still smiling but
there was real curiosity in his expression.
“Yes! ... No! ... Loved to madness and then married and living happily ever
after!”
“With a bunch of kids and a house in the suburbs?”
“Kids definitely, suburbs I don't know about. I like living in the city now
but I hate to think of raising kids in town. I grew up with woods to
explore and creeks to wade in. In the city, all a kid has is sidewalks and
traffic and little tiny yards. Yuck.”
Paul was listening with an amused look and I remembered I was talking to
not just a city boy but one from a big city that I visualized as being
industrial and grim. I stuttered, “Of course city kids can ... ah... ” At
that moment I couldn’t think of a single advantage to growing up in town
even though I had spent most of my school years being jealous of city kids.
“City kids can lift ciggies and sneak into the movies,” Paul said with a
grin. “Pick up deplorable habits and grow up to be rock ‘n‛ rollers!”
“A mother’s nightmare,” I laughed, realizing he was teasing me.
“And what do little country girls grow up to be?”
“Crazy about the bad city boys!”
“A father’s nightmare—and with good reason!”
We laughed together and then Paul said, “So a house in the country a brood
of barefoot little woods sprites? That’s your dream life?”
John would have said that with a challenging note but Paul was simply
curious and added a touch of whimsy, not sarcasm, with the woods sprites.
“Yeah, something like that,” I nodded. “Boring, huh?”
“Not with the right person.”
I looked at him with some surprise. I was tempted to ask if that was what
he wanted, and if he had been John I would have felt free to ask a question
like that, but Paul looked away and changed the subject. I thought about
his broken engagement to Jane and wondered why she hadn’t been the right
person.
“My mother was a nurse,” he was saying. “She was in home health. Delivered
babies. Couldn't walk down the street without someone with a baby in a pram
coming up and showing Mom how little Alfie had grown. And always the ugly
little buggers! What do you say for politeness when precious little Alfie
looks like a gargoyle?”
I was laughing, partly at the image but also because Paul looked so
serious. He didn't want to offend little Alfie's mother.
“So what kind of nursing do you want to do?” he asked.
I wasn't sure. “Not pediatrics, too sad. Not obstetrics, at least not until
I’ve had kids myself or I would probably never get up the nerve to have
any. Maybe orthopedics. This bone connects to that bone. I could understand
that. Not complicated like lungs and brains, and pancreases, and definitely
not psychiatric nursing!”
“Why?”
“Well, I like the book stuff. Sociology, psychology stuff—”
“Freud and Pavlov?”
“Yeah. It's fascinating to read about things like schizophrenia, but to see
it—ugh! It is so scary to see that you can have a whole reality in your
mind that isn't true.”
“Sounds like an LSD trip.”
LSD had just come on to the scene and although I knew that when John had
mentioned tripping, he meant LSD, all I had heard about it was that it
involved vivid hallucinations and jumping out of windows.
Boldly I asked, “Have you…?”
“Not my thing,” It was an ambiguous answer, but there was a slight emphasis
on the “my”.
I already knew about John and wondered if it meant Paul was the only one of
the four who hadn't tried it. What was it John had said the other night
about Paul not being too keen on the new? Was that about his not taking
LSD? Paul was saying,
“Strange, incredible stuff. Everyone is raving about it”
“I don't know, but imagine a trip that lasts for years and gets weirder all
the time, and all the while you are trying to live in a world that operates
with different laws of physics.” I told him about my experience at the
state mental hospital where we spent several days as part of our Mental
Health training. We were supposed to practice the therapeutic conversation
principles we had been studying; active listening, confirming, restating.
To do so, we had to interview a patient. I ended up with a
seventeen-year-old schizophrenic who told me how the world and people were
all mechanically controlled in some way that was perfectly clear to him,
but I couldn't follow his explanation even when he drew me a diagram. I
couldn't even understand the basics of his reality much less the way it
felt to him. His belief in it was total. It was like opening a door and
looking into a Salvador Dali world. Frightening.
Paul listened intently. (I loved the way he listened!) “Bad trip forever!”
he said when I had finished.
“Yes. I couldn't deal with that.”
“Well, I don't think LSD is that bizarre. It is more a visual thing. Colors
and all that. Even so, you've got to wonder if it doesn't leave something
permanent behind. All the flashbacks... " He shrugged. “Well, I can see
where seeing a kid like that would turn you off working in psychiatry.”
I nodded. “And the rest of it, the simpler cases, I'm afraid that after a
while I would lose patience and just tell the patient to shape up and get
on with it!”
He laughed. “Soldier on! Stiff upper lip!”
“Right!” I said laughing with him. More seriously, I added, “Bad things
happen but somewhere along the line we have to pick up the pieces and move
on.”
“And getting on doesn't mean you don't care," Paul said quietly, looking
away for a moment.
“Or that it doesn't still hurt,” I said, wondering if he was thinking of
when his mom died. He looked back at me, studying me for a moment, then
smiled.
We went on to talking about my roommates, his roommates. He and John were
both really bad about picking up after themselves, George and Ringo not
much better but eventually, they would at least shove stuff into a corner,
but it had never really mattered. They lived in dumps when they were
together in Hamburg and one hotel after another after that.
We compared notes on living on a shoestring. It meant a steady diet of
cornflakes in Hamburg for him and food care packages from home in
Minneapolis for me, spending money we couldn't afford to spend on nursing
books and new guitars. On to family—my brother and sisters, his brother
Michael and new five-year-old step-sister Ruth. We both had lots of aunts
and laughed to find that we both had one known for gossip, a pretty one, a
crabby one, a family matriarch one. Aunties are universal.
New York came way too soon. Or maybe too late. I didn't want to do anything
for the rest of my life but sit there next to Paul. But I wasn't here for
fun, I was working. I moved up to sit next to John and managed to climb
over him without waking him. I looked at his sleeping face, the strong
features that were such a contrast to Paul's and thought that I had
stumbled into some kind of gold mine. They were both incredible, and from
the time I had spent with George and Ringo, I had a feeling that if I sat
next to either of them on the next part of the trip, I would be split three
ways, not two.
John, under the influence of the Darvocet, had slept through the captain's
first announcement of our upcoming landing, but when the captain came back
on with chatter about the weather in New York, John woke up.
“New York already?”
“Yeah, here, let me fasten your seat belt.”
“I trust you had a good flight.”
Something about that made me stop and look at him. He was smiling at me.
“'Loved to madness?' You wanton hussy. Here, give an old man a thrill and
hold me ... ” He stopped to look meaningfully down at his lap. “... hand,”
he said in his best lecherous old geezer voice.
I clicked the seat belt into place and grinned at him. “Hold your own
hand!”
I lasted until the plane was nearly on the ground. At that point where it
feels like they throw the engines in reverse and the plane feels like it is
hanging in mid-air for that final, fatal plunge to the ground, I grabbed
his hand.
We got off the plane, into a private waiting room, then out to the limos
without any problem, and I got a look at New York as we sped off to the
hotel. John laughed at me as I craned my neck trying to see what I could of
the Big Apple. “Just think,” he said to Mal and George who were in the limo
with us. “she'll get to see the same freeway only in reverse on the way
back to the airport in the morning!” They laughed heartily and I began to
get a feel for the “A train and a room and a room and a car and a room”
line from A Hard Day's Night.
The hotel was classic New York with a big canopy, red carpet, and doorman,
and the reception was classic Beatlemania. “I thought tonight would be
different,” George grumbled, “Just in and out of the city to change
planes.”
“Forget the chair,” John said as we got out. I thought he meant he didn't
want to use the wheelchair in front of the crowd, but I quickly realized
that there wouldn't be time to get it out. Paul and Ringo had gotten out of
the limo ahead of us, and the crowd was pushing at the barricades,
screaming for John as if they wouldn't believe he was all right until they
saw him with their own eyes. Mal and George got John out of the limo and
into the lobby faster than I would have thought John could move.
The lobby was marble and brass and even the elevator was fancier than any
room in any house I had ever been in. Upstairs John and I were given
connecting rooms. Our rooms were very nice, but not suites like we had at
the Radisson. Apparently, that luxury was more the result of the Radisson
wishing to avoid a lawsuit than expensive tastes on the part of the
Beatles.
Brian announced that the record company and the promoters were throwing a
big party in their honor up in the ballroom that evening, but I had things
to do first. John's stitches were supposed to come out today and the tape
on his ribs could come off. We had an audience for the occasion. I snipped
the sutures and tugged them out with no problem. The observers were
disappointed but hoped the tape removal would be more interesting. It was.
Even though the acetone helped, John furthered my vocabulary in case I
should ever play cuss word scrabble. It was no wonder. The tape left red
burns along the edges, and underneath, where gauze padded his skin, the
skin was indented with the wrinkles and lines of the padding. The bruises
on his ribs were purple-black and everyone was suitably impressed.
He begged to let him take a real bath, and we compromised with a shower. I
got a patio chair from the balcony and put it in the tub, then called room
service and got a plastic bag to tape up over his cast. A handy thing, room
service! I washed his back and shampooed his hair, then got him out, dried
him off, used the blow dryer on his hair, did his exercises and got him
dressed. He was ready and eager for a big evening and I was sopping wet and
tired out. I turned him over to Neil, then retreated to the bathroom for a
quick soak myself.
I took my time getting my hair dried, makeup on and put on what I hoped was
my most fashionable dress. Well, Sandy's most fashionable dress. It was
pale blue with sheer sleeves that were soft and full, high waisted with a
round neckline that although not low by Hollywood standards was a new, sexy
low for me. What had been short on Sandy was really short on me. I looked
in the mirror at a stranger. I never wore anything like this! I took a deep
breath and opened the door. There was a full room waiting for me, John,
Paul, George, Ringo, Brian, Neil, Mal, Terry. I had never felt so
self-conscious as I did walking into that room. They all stared at me and,
to a man, gave me a top to bottom once over, and smiled. Instant
self-confidence!
It was time to go so I pulled the wheelchair over for John. Predictably, he
refused to use it. There were going to be reporters and he was going to
walk in on his own. He had done well coming up to the room, so I figured he
would be fine without it as long as I stayed close.
I was walking with John to the door when he stopped cold and said “Nobody
move!”
I was bewildered. Everyone else groaned and when I turned around they were
all carefully getting down on their knees.
“Christ, John,” George said. “Shag carpet!”
They were now crawling around on hands and knees, searching the floor,
grumbling. “Every damn floor in every damn city in every damn country in
the world.”
“How come you can't walk across a room without losing them but you could
dive off that ledge and keep them in?”
“Call the maid. This rug is filthy.”
“Tell me again. What the hell is wrong with glasses?”
“He looks quite lovely in glasses.”
“Studious.”
“Intellectual.”
“What does he need to see anyway? You've seen one hotel, you've seen 'em
all.”
“Found it!” Ringo got up and handed the contact lens over to John while the
others got up and brushed off their knees.
“Very well trained,” I said admiringly to John.
The party was a blur of New York models, rich record company executives,
fast-talking promoters, businessmen and hustlers. Aside from someone from
Buffalo Springfield and Joan Baez, the music industry was represented by
businessmen, not artists. There were plenty of other celebrities present,
however. Woody Allen, Johnny Carson, Ethel Merman, Carol Channing, and the
mayor of New York, John Lindsay. Lots of gossip columnists schmoozed
through the celebrities. Aside from Johnny Carson, the Beatles were not too
impressed, but I certainly was. Later, Bob Dylan and Peter Fonda showed up
together. In spite of the presence of the show biz crowd, it was
a very different party from the after-concert/pre-orgy party of a few
nights ago. A live band played unobtrusive elevator music while waiters
served champagne and caviar. There was a definite feeling that this was as
much business as pleasure. Attendees would be listed in the gossip columns
in the morning, and if your name wasn't there, you were not part of the
“in” group, and who knows what a social contact made here could mean down
the line? I listened to million-dollar record contracts being discussed,
and, following Neil who offered to introduce me to Dylan and Fonda, I heard
Peter Fonda tell George and Paul he “could get them some” if they wanted.
That conversation abruptly ceased when he realized I was right behind Neil.
I talked briefly to them, having little to say to Fonda who I knew only as
“Henry's son,” this being pre-Easy Rider. I mentioned to Dylan that I was
also from Minnesota, a fact that impressed him not at all. I excused myself
and went to check out what trouble John was getting into. None it appeared.
No alcohol, regular cigarette. I moved on, got some punch and watched as
Paul and Joan Baez settled down on one of the half dozen small sofas in the
room, deep in conversation.
I was talking with Neil when Mal came over and told him John wanted to
speak with him. He excused himself and he and Mal went into a brief huddle
with John. After a minute, Neil helped John up and he limped over to me.
John took my arm and steered me over to the big picture window overlooking
the city. He wanted me to go out with Neil and see some of New York before
it got any later. I was happy right here and didn't particularly want to go
out. He saw the hesitation on my face.
“This is my third trip to New York, and this is all I've ever seen of it,”
he said quietly, looking out the window. He turned back to me. “So go. I am
fine and I won't drink. Go on.”
How could I refuse? I believed he wasn't kidding about the drinking and
wanted me to go. Neil was smiling broadly. “OK,” I said.
Minutes later Neil and I were in a taxi headed for the Empire State
building. We took in the view, then headed for the Statue of Liberty. We
couldn't go inside at that hour but it was really impressive. We found a
little restaurant and had something to eat, drove down through the bright
lights of Broadway, and walked around Times Square. I asked him very
straight out if he was married, and he grinned.
“John told me you asked him if I was.”
“He wouldn't give me a straight answer. So are you married or seeing
someone?”
“No. I just hang around and comfort the birds who don't get to meet the
Beatles,” he laughed. “Tough job!”
We talked for a bit about how he had started out as a driver, hauling their
equipment around for them back in Liverpool and ended up being a kind of
personal assistant. We talked about heading back to the hotel but neither
of us really wanted to go back to the party. Neil was enjoying his night
off from the Beatles and I was enjoying Neil's company much more than I had
the guests at the party. The next thing I knew I was in Central Park in a
horse-drawn carriage and Neil was kissing me.
I don't know which part was more unreal, being in Central Park in New York
City, taking a carriage ride with a guy—the most romantic thing I could
ever imagine—or the fact that Neil Aspinall, a guy whose name was mentioned
in every Beatles article I had ever read, was kissing me. I hadn't dated
much in the last two years, but I certainly had been kissed before and on
my rating scale of good kissers, the guy was right at the top. It was a
great ending to an incredible day, and I was sorry when the carriage pulled
up in front of the hotel.
We headed back upstairs to what was left of the party. Only Dylan, Peter
Fonda, and a few others were still there and the band was packing up. Neil
and I walked in, Paul looked up and saw that Neil was holding my hand. The
look on his face was fleeting, but what I saw or at least thought maybe,
just possibly, saw, was yet another thrill. A frown. Just a little,
fleeting forehead crunch of a frown, but it sent my imagination soaring.
We joined the group and as Mal pulled Neil aside to talk briefly to him.
Ringo asked about where we had gone, what we had seen. Mal left and Neil
came back to me. He put his arm around me as he talked about the view from
the Empire State building. Paul was looking at me and I knew it and was
having a hard time focusing on the conversation. It was several minutes
before I realized John was not with them.
“Where is John?” I asked.
“He was tired. Turned in a bit ago,” George said with a quick look at Neil.
I thought he probably would need a pain pill by now, so I said, “I'll go
check on him.”
“Let me,” Neil said. “You are off duty this evening.”
“It's OK,” I said. “I'm ready to call it a day, anyway.”
Neil looked strange. “I think—” He stopped abruptly as Mal came back into
the room. Mal nodded at him as he walked in.
“John is fine,” Mal said. “I gave him a pain pill and he is out like a
light.”
We stayed a bit longer but Neil suggested, “It is going to be another long
day tomorrow, and it is getting late.”
I agreed and he said quietly, “I'll take you up to your room.”
I managed to avoid looking around for Paul as we left the room. Neil was so
nice and I was expecting some goodnight kisses, so it wasn't that hard.
Neil and I took the elevator upstairs and he walked me to my room. “I had a
great time tonight, Neil,” I said. He smiled and kissed me. This wasn't his
Central Park carriage ride kiss, this was a “don't leave me standing here
outside your door” kiss. Any thoughts of Paul, or John, disappeared. Neil
was here, and Neil was worth thinking about. If I had been at home, I would
have invited him up to the apartment and we would have spent some time
necking on the sofa before I sent him home, but asking him into a hotel
room furnished primarily with a bed was a whole different thing. I was
trying to think of how to send him on his way without discouraging him from
trying again later and finally said, “It is late, Neil, and I am dead
tired.”
He accepted that with an understanding smile and said he was going to take
advantage of the early end of the tour to spend some time with his family
in Liverpool, but asked if he could call me when he got back to London.
“I'd like that,” I said happily, and this time his kiss was a gentle
goodnight kiss.
In my room, I undressed and got ready for bed, trying to be quiet and not
wake John. I opened the connecting door between our rooms just a little so
I would hear him if he needed anything and went to bed. Once in my bed, I
was wide awake. Even when you are used to sleeping alone, there is nothing
like a sterile, impossibly neat hotel room with cold sheets to keep you
awake. Besides, my head was full of men. John who fascinated me, Paul, to
whom I was finally reacting with my head and not just my hormones, Neil who
somehow seemed the most suitable—part of the hired help like me! I laughed
at myself, lying here juggling the images of the three of them in my head.
Well, at least I left George and Ringo alone because they were married. As
soon as I said that to myself, I realized that John was married too but
somehow that didn't stop me from thinking about him. Disturbing thought!
With that, I decided to check on John anyway and got up and opened the
connecting door to his room. He was sprawled on the bed, sheets tangled
around him. No shoulder splint on, no leg brace, no tape covering most of
his chest—and no underwear. I had seen him naked just hours before,
scrubbed his back, toweled him off, but then he was a patient, someone who
needed assistance with a bath. I was standing here looking at a barely
covered male body on a rumpled bed in a room where the scent of perfume
mixed with another scent, an unfamiliar one, but one I recognized
instinctively. I slipped out of the room and back to mine and got into my
big, cold bed alone. “Nobody is married on tour,” I thought without much
surprise but with a little sadness for the wife I had yet to meet.
There was another thought, one that was a little silly since I wouldn't
have done it anyway, but it was there nonetheless. I wished he would have
invited me into his bed instead of sending me off with Neil. I was a virgin
and, because of school, probably behind other young women my age in
experience, so I wouldn't have done it anyway, but it would have been
wonderful to have been asked! Although I was far from conceited, neither
did I have an inferiority complex, at least not a major one. I rejected the
idea that he found me repulsive in favor of “I'm not his type.” Or “He
knows I wouldn't have done it,” and, “He thought it might get a little
awkward with him taking me home to Cyn after.”
Another night of restless dreams.
Neil had John up already when I woke up the next morning, ostensibly to let
me sleep in, but I figured it was just to make sure there was no evidence
of the real reason John had wanted me out of the hotel last night. I played
dumb and we got ready to go. The airplane for the flight across the
Atlantic, the big, wide, deep, wet, cold Atlantic, looked ridiculously
small. The others were impressed though. Somehow Brian had gotten someone
to loan the use of a private Lear Jet. “The only way to travel!” John said.
Lear Jet or not, it looked small. Once inside, I was impressed. There were
roomy seats that really reclined, not just the token tilt of airliners, and
a comfortable sitting area at the back, complete with a bar.
Take off was smooth, and in minutes we were out over the ocean, the big,
wide, deep, etc. ocean. In case you haven't noticed, I do not like water.
We settled in for the long trip. George and Neil started up a card game in
the back and I went back to watch. Paul came and sat next to me on the sofa
and we talked. The card game broke up but Paul and I weren't paying much
attention.
Lunch was served and we ate and talked. Someone started up the in-flight
movie. Paul and I watched, whispering comments to each other and laughing.
Afterward, everyone else went back to their seats and settled in for a nap.
We talked.
How could I have ever thought this guy was nothing but another pretty face?
OK, so that wasn't all I had been attracted to. I know it sounds stupid,
but just talking to him was warm, and comfortable and exciting at the same
time, with something new and different at every turn of the conversation.
When I talked, he listened, really listened. Like John, Paul was great with
quick, funny answers, but his sense of humor was more low key, almost
whimsical, poking gentle fun at things John would rip apart. I always felt
I had to be on my toes around John but Paul was easy to talk to. Time went
by and somewhere along the line he put his arm across the back of the sofa,
and now his arm was touching my shoulders, his fingers resting lightly on
my arm. He was turned toward me and I was absolutely lost. I'd have spent
the rest of my life over the big, cold, deep, wet Atlantic if he had
promised to stay that close.
When the others began to stir, we were talking about how we ended up doing
what we were doing, being a rock and roll star and being a nursing student.
Roads not taken kind of thing. The others wandered back to sit with us, to
get drinks from the bar, use the bathroom. I was soon telling them stories
about all the jobs I'd had in the last few years to earn money for school.
They were all laughing because I'd had more different jobs than the four of
them put together. None of them had stuck to a job for more than a few
weeks, and John had never had a real job.
“At least none of us ever sunk as low as you have, Tess,” George teased. “A
reporter!”
I wasn't looking at Paul, but I knew something was wrong before he ever
spoke. Something in the touch of his hand, his arm across my shoulder
signaled tension.
“What is he talking about?” he asked and tension was there in his voice,
too.
“The job Brian arranged for me with Tony Barrow,” I said, turning to look
at him.
“I thought you were going to work in the office?”
“Not exactly,” I said, unsure what the problem was and not knowing what to
say to the frowning face.
To my relief, Brian spoke up and explained it. “She is going to write a few
pieces for the fan magazine. The reporters are already after her. This way
she'll earn some money and Tony will have control over her story.”
“It's the only way I could afford to come,” I said. If it came out sounding
like pleading, it was. He turned back to look at me, looking upset, even
angry, but as he caught the dismay on my face his look softened.
“Come on, Paul. It's just a few stories for the fan mag.” Brian said.
“It's not you she'll be writing about, now is it Brian?” Paul snapped at
him, no softened look or words for him.
“No, it is me,” John said. “and I don't have a problem with it.”
Paul looked at him, John looked back, daring him to push it.
“OK,” Paul said finally. “Anyone else want a drink?” he asked as he got up
to go to the bar. The awkward moment passed. When he sat down again, he
didn't put his arm back around me. The spell was broken, and after a few
minutes, I got up to help John into the bathroom. When I got him settled
again, they were talking about their plans for the next few months. A few
week's vacation was all anyone would commit to. Ringo was taking Maureen to
Greece, George and Pattie were going to India.
As we talked, the weather got bad. The plane began to do unfunny little
shudders and lurches. The pilot came on and informed us we were headed into
“a spot of weather” and instructed us to return to our seats until the
weather cleared. We got John back into his seat. Mal told me to sit with
Paul and took my place next to John. Without being told, I knew Mal was
thinking that in case of trouble someone stronger than I needed to be next
to John to help him. I moved up the aisle with Paul behind me. The plane
did a roller coaster dip and he caught me and put me in the seat. I was so
flat out terrified, I wasn't even aware of his touch as he grabbed me and
steadied me. He helped me fasten my seat belt as the plane shuddered it's
way back into level flight. I hadn't been airsick at all before, but
between the lurching of the plane and the fear, I was wondering where the
paper bag was. I was so scared I didn't even think about the fact that I
would be barfing in front of Paul McCartney. He smiled and chatted
reassuringly about how this was typical weather off the coast. The plane
bounced again and he buckled himself in. Then he pried my white knuckles
from the armrest and held my hand in his. He was telling me that they had
been through worse flights than this when there was another big lurch and
shudder of the plane. As the plane righted itself again, from behind us
came the voice of Buddy Holly.
“Peggy Sue, oh Peggy, my Peggy Su-ah-u-ah-ue.”
Pillows, paperbacks, and half-eaten sandwiches flew through the air in the
direction of John's seat.
“Shurrup, you bloody idiot!” George yelled.
“Lennon, you are a sick man!”
“Shut your gob, John!”
“Mal, shut him up!”
John laughed like a maniac. “If it's good enough for Buddy, it's good
enough for the lot of you!” He followed up with the sound effects of an
airplane in a death dive and exploding as it crashed. I was about to go to
a watery grave in the icy North Atlantic but I was laughing like crazy.
Invoking the name of Buddy Holly seemed to help. The weather eased abruptly
as the plane began its descent to London and I managed not to throw up, and
this time I got to hold Paul's hand as we landed.