It was only about 6:00 p.m. for us, but it was midnight in London. Heathrow
was quiet compared to the airport scenes of the last two days. We were met
by a smaller crowd of die-hard fans who wanted to see with their own eyes
that John was alright, but there was still a full complement of reporters.
They repeated the same questions I had heard so many times in the last
week.
In a private room, Cyn, and Pattie and Maureen were waiting. Pattie laughed
and threw herself into George's arms and he picked her up and swung her
around, kissing her and laughing. George was glad to be home. Maureen and
Ringo just came together in a kiss that seemed destined to set an airport
record. Cyn bent to John and he held her awkwardly, his casted arm around
her. He kissed her briefly. They looked at each other and she reached out
and touched his face. “Let's get you home, then Luv,” she said. He nodded.
“You must be Terry,” she said to me.
“Tess,” said John.
“Anything but Theresa,” I said.
Cyn laughed. “Thank you, Tess. I feel like I know you already. You were
wonderful explaining things on the phone. I was so worried. He didn't want
me to come and it was good to know that you were taking care of him.”
“I tried,” I said.
John grinned up at me. “And I can be very trying.”
Cyn and I both laughed. Pattie came over and kissed John, and George
introduced her to me. She was so cute and looked like a model. I ordinarily
disliked such girls immediately just on principle, but she was so open and
friendly that I couldn't imagine disliking her. She promised to take me
shopping and show me around London. Ringo and Maureen finally surfaced, and
there were more introductions. Airport security was ready to move us out to
waiting cars. I looked around for Paul, but he was gone and I left the
airport wondering when I would see him again.
John's car was a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce and his home was a Tudor
style mansion out in the London suburbs, surrounded by a high wall and huge
wrought iron gate with a security system that allowed it to be opened from
the car or the house. John greeted his mother-in-law who had stayed with
Julian, then sat in the kitchen having a cup of tea and filled Cyn and her
mother in on events of the tour. He wound down quickly on that topic. Cyn
filled him in on a few household goings-on while he was away which didn't
seem of interest to him, and then he sat quietly while Cyn and I talked a
little. I thought perhaps he was worn out from the long day and suggested
he might want to go to bed. He agreed to that indifferently but said he
wanted to look in on Julian first.
I helped him up the stairs and he sat at his little boy's bedside watching
him sleep while Cyn and I went back downstairs for the suitcases. She
showed me my room and then I helped John to their room. We did his
exercises, making Cyn cringe when she saw how they hurt him. After I
explained when he could have another pain pill, I helped him get undressed.
Cyn started to cry when she saw the bruises. I faded out of the room,
closing the door behind me.
Even though it was only early evening for me, by the time I unpacked I was
tired enough to go to bed myself and sleep dreamlessly.
The first few days I was in a fog of jet lag. John slept for nearly two
days straight and spent the next few days dozing on and off on the sofa in
the sunroom. Cyn told me he often slept for three or four days after a
tour, then laid around for a week. I slept a lot the first day, but after
that I wasn't so much tired as just all turned around, hungry at the wrong
time, sleepy at noon and wide awake at midnight.
My fears about Cyn not liking me were ungrounded. She was a shy but warm
person and after the first day, we spent hours in girl talk. Nothing deep,
nothing very passed between us, but it seemed that we could have gotten to
be good friends if I weren't going to be just a temporary intrusion into
their lives.
She proudly showed me the house. It was really impressive and she was
slowly finding the furnishings she wanted.
“It's hard to fill such a big house,” she laughed. “I can't bring myself to
spend all that money.” She said John wasn't particularly interested. “Once
the pool was in, he was satisfied. Now he just buys gadgets. Like this.”
She pointed out a suit of armor whose chest opened to reveal a telephone.
We spent a lot of time in the kitchen, a big modern room just recently
finished after nearly a year of remodeling. John complained that it had
cost twice what it should have, believing the project had run into all
kinds of problems simply because he had money. It was Cyn's favorite room
and she did most of the cooking even though a housekeeper was there every
weekday.
John's favorite room was the sunroom overlooking the pool and he seldom
ventured into the huge living room. The sunroom was basically what was to
be named the family room in years to come. The TV, a stereo, Julian's toys,
Cyn's knitting, John's books and newspapers were all there. In that huge
house, it was where they lived. More noticeably, it was one of only two
rooms in that huge house that felt like John. Except for the presence of a
lot of television sets throughout the house and the occasional gadget like
the suit of armor and a big layout of toy cars on a racetrack, the house
reflected little of John’s personality. I wasn’t sure any of it was Cyn
either. It was probably more of the decorator’s ideas than hers. An
elaborately wallpapered and very formal dining room seemed odd for a couple
who would never invite guests to a sit-down dinner, as did a big living
room with high priced designer chairs for visitors who preferred bean bags
and throw pillows on the floor. By contrast, the sunroom was a mix of
unusual furniture, posters, photos and mementos on the walls, overflowing
bookshelves, newspapers, records. I wasn’t sure what I expected John’s home
to look like inside, but this room was the one where John seemed most at
home. The other room that fit my image of John at home was on the third
floor. With his bad leg, he didn’t go up there then, but it was a room full
of John's recording and musical equipment. Huge speakers, reel to reel tape
machines, microphones, a piano (bet the movers loved hauling that up
there!) guitars, some sort of electrical organ thing and gizmos I didn't
recognize. John gave me a copy of Revolver which was just about to
be released, but since he didn’t go up to the music room, I didn’t go up
there either. Instead, I spent hours in the sunroom playing it over and
over.
So many things that happened in the weeks to come were encoded in my memory
to the accompaniment of the music of Revolver. When things
happened, a song or a line or phrase would run through my mind. Sometimes a
whole song fit, sometimes it was just a line taken out of context. It was
years before I could listen to the album and hear it as it was written, not
as I heard it through the events of that summer. One of the songs, “I'm
Only Sleeping”, took on a new, different and special meaning from the way I
had heard it on Yesterday and Today because now as I listened the artist
was demonstrating the song on the sofa across the room.
I spent a lot of my time making friends with Julian while “Yellow
Submarine” played in the background. He loved the song, even though he had
no idea that John had anything to do with it. Julian was adorable. Just
past three, he was, shy, serious at first, but in a few days, we were good
buddies.
John's Aunt Mimi came to spend a couple of days with us and she was an
amazement to me. Nothing like John, she was very proper and very
upper-middle class. John prided himself on being improper and would never
admit to being anything but working class. He refused to take any advice
from her, delighted in shocking her, and if she said the sky was blue, he
would insist that it was orange. She nagged him, advised him, argued with
him, and the love on his face was not always hidden.
Besides John, Cyn and Julian, the Lennon household included a rather
grouchy chauffeur named Les Anthony, a gardener who was seen and not heard,
a housekeeper named Dot who obviously adored John, three cats who also
adored him as much as any cat will let on they like anyone, and,
intermittently, a mother-in-law who did not. She was otherwise a perfectly
nice lady, but, just as Cyn turned a blind eye to John's faults, Mrs.
Powell turned one to his virtues. Granted, his faults tended to be major;
screwing around, drinking, drugs, and foul language. He deleted this from
his usual speech when Julian was around and toned it down for Cyn's Mom,
the housekeeper, and other females. He didn't have the same concern for my
tender ears, though. I considered it a sign that he liked me, trusted me,
counted me as one of the guys so that when we were alone together the words
slipped back in.
If his faults were major, so were his virtues. He was warm, honest with
everyone except himself, loved Julian, could laugh at himself as easily as
he laughed at others, generous (he had bought his mother-in-law a house
nearby and she had a monthly income from him) and amazingly tolerant of her
presence. She never said anything, never argued with him, in fact, rather
pointedly avoided talking to him, but her good manners couldn’t keep her
facial expressions from revealing her disapproval of him. He generally
ignored her but couldn’t seem to resist baiting her with an occasional
outrageous comment intended to elicit those expressions. I was always
relieved when she left. So was John, and then he usually indulged in a
muttered, “Old cow!” under his breath.
Although not part of the household, the girls who hung around at the
driveway gate were a constant presence. From the time I got up in the
morning until late afternoon when the buses to and from London made their
last run, there was always someone there waiting for a glimpse of John. For
the first few days, they were joined by an occasional reporter, but for the
most part, it was just moony-eyed young teenagers. “Gatebirds” John called
them.
The second day we were back, a doctor came to the house to check John over.
As he examined John's shoulder and knee, I explained what pain pills John
was on and how often he took them, described his headaches and the balance
problem that, although less severe, were still present. I explained the
exercises we had been doing and the doctor said he wanted a physical
therapist to see him. He also wanted a whole new series of x-rays. That
meant a trip to the hospital the next day. I didn't think either the
therapist nor the x-rays were necessary but figured that the doctor was not
taking any chances with his most famous patient. John was not at all
pleased about the fuss.
Cyn and I went with him to the hospital to have the x-rays done, only to
find ourselves sitting for hours in a hospital cafeteria, hiding in a
corner booth, while they redid his entire series of x-rays. Three girls who
looked suspiciously like student nurses came into the cafeteria and I
couldn't resist talking to them. I went over and introduced myself as a
nursing student from America on vacation in England and explained that I
wanted to meet some English students to hear about what nursing school was
like in England. They were indeed nursing students and said they would love
to get together. We talked for a bit, and they gave me phone numbers. When
I went back to Cyn, she surprised me by saying it was fine if I wanted to
invite them to the house. She thought it would be a great joke. Show up for
a social evening with a new acquaintance and find yourself in John Lennon's
living room!
When we finally got back together with John, we sat for another half hour
waiting for the doctor. He arrived and announced that the x-rays were fine
and a physical therapist would be in to see him shortly. An hour later we
were on our way with John griping because we now had exercises to do for
his knee as well as his shoulder.
We went from there to the Beatles offices. John introduced me to all the
secretaries, then went upstairs to talk to Brian. The secretaries surprised
me. I had expected a crew of sweet young things, but these were real
secretaries, women of all ages, all types. They showed me around the two
main rooms of the secretarial area. Behind them was a room for receiving
and sorting mail and they showed me some of the information that was
recorded about fan mail; country, age, and sex of writer, general topic.
All of the mail addressed to any of the Beatles was read and sorted. Some
of the more interesting and a sampling of typical letters were put into a
bin for each of the Beatles. Brian and Tony's mail was not read, just
delivered to their offices. There was also a bin for Mal.
“Doesn't Neil get mail?” I asked, thinking it odd that Mal had a bin but
not Neil, who was at least as well known to fans.
“Some,” the woman showing me around said, “but that bin is for Mal.”
I looked at her, still not understanding.
“Mal is responsible for security,” she said.
“Oh!” I said, the words and the look on her face finally telling me that
bin held the crank letters. I was chilled to note that there were several
letters in it.
There was a separate room for packages and it was crammed full of things
that teenagers all over the world sent their idols. From hand-drawn
posters, paintings, trendy shirts, knit sweaters, wooden shoes, boomerangs
and cowboy hats to just plain junk. The secretaries said they threw away
any food, and they took great delight in showing me a basket of lacy
underwear that had accumulated in just a few months. They said that the
Beatles had at first stopped in regularly to see what had arrived but now
waited for a secretary to let them know if there was anything worth looking
at among the paintings, sculptures, hand-knitted sweaters and oddities that
arrived.
George was upstairs too, and when he and John came back down with Brian, he
called Pattie and told her to meet us for dinner at a restaurant. As we
were leaving the office, Paul came in. He kissed Cyn and smiled at me. They
invited him to join us for dinner and he hesitated, but when he looked at
me, he smiled and said he could come with us for a drink but couldn't stay.
I was walking on air and my mind was racing ahead, picturing Paul and me
spending time together sightseeing, spending time together alone. I slammed
the door on the images crowding my head, afraid to get my hopes up.
Just after we were seated, I looked at Paul and found him looking intently
at me. My heart did a little somersault, but when I smiled at him, he
looked away quickly. We ordered drinks, and he asked me what I had been
doing and made polite small talk with me, but that was it. It was so
superficial, nothing like the way we had talked on the plane. He talked
with the others about events in the London music scene that had happened
while they were away. I didn't recognize the names of any of the groups he
was talking about but apparently, they were part of the London underground
/psychedelic movement. He was so distant and impersonal with me that when
he said he was having a bunch of people in on Friday evening and he hoped
we would come, I wasn't sure if that invitation included me. So much for my
daydreams about spending my weeks in England in his company. Then he turned
to me and said “I hope you'll come. You'll get a chance to meet a lot of
people. Marianne Faithful is coming and Mick says he will drop by.”
“I'd love to come,” I said politely. I wanted to go, wanted to be able to
say I had met Mick Jagger and all the others, but the offer of the party as
an opportunity to meet people was not nearly as appealing as it would have
been if he had just said, “I hope you'll be there.”
Paul left right after that, saying he had a date. He had said nothing about
showing me around London and I wondered if he had forgotten that he had
ever said he would. I could understand that, but the sinking feeling I had
was more than that. He was so warm and friendly on the flight over, had
held my hand, had seemed to like me, and now it was as if we had barely met
before. I didn't know what to think. By the time he left, I was feeling
very confused and more than a little embarrassed at how far my imagination
had taken things.
On Thursday, I had an appointment to meet with and Tony Barrow and the
editor of the Beatles Monthly, Nigel Holmes, to talk about the articles.
John, being the central character in the articles, was asked to join us. I
showed them a few pages that I had started on, describing how I found
myself at the hotel that day, my reactions to meeting John, how scared I
was that he was seriously hurt and I might miss something, John's concern
about the crying fans as he was put in the ambulance. Nigel asked me to
outline the rest of the article for him, so we worked on that for several
minutes. Tony asked John if there was anything he did not want to be said.
John just looked at me and said, “Tess knows.” I tried not to show any
reaction to that beyond a smile of acknowledgment, but those words, that
trust, meant more to me than anything else he could have said.
As I went over the outline with Tony and Nigel, they decided that all the
stuff about the hotel and the hospital and Paul trying to decide about the
concert would go in one article, and the stay at the hotel in a second. For
the third article, my stay in England would be limited to a brief
description and used mainly to introduce some information Tony wanted to be
included. I was to interview each of them and talk about touring and why
they didn't want to do it anymore, how they wanted to concentrate on the
music. I wasn't to say that too directly in the article though. No
announcement about stopping touring was going to be made. He just wanted
the fans to recognize that in the future the emphasis would be on recording
because the music was changing. If fans read between the lines so much the
better.
I was worried enough about turning out the story of meeting them, and this
twist to the assignment was daunting. Tony and Nigel quickly assured me
that I would have any help I needed in getting it written. Tony would
explain to each of the Beatles the purpose and the direction he wanted the
interviews to take, and work with me on it.
When we finished, Tony took me down to the secretarial area and explained
to one of them, an older lady named Liz, what I was doing. She got me a
tape recorder to use for the interviews and instructed me to bring the
first draft to her for typing.
Ringo came in and Tony explained to him that I needed to interview him for
the third article and what the intent was. Ringo smiled at me and said,
“Anything you need, Luv. Come over to the house some evening next week and
I'll pour my heart out to you. This article will finance a degree in
medicine for you if you want!”
We sat and talked for a while as John and Ringo went through their mail. It
was fun to watch the secretaries interact with them. They were just Richie
and John to them and they had a good time with each other. The girls asked
about Maureen and the baby, and John and Ringo asked about families and
boyfriends and generally caught up on office gossip. It must have been nice
for the Beatles to come into the office and interact with people who
treated them almost normally.
We were talking with the secretaries when Paul breezed in with Martha who
dispensed furry, slobbering, “I may be huge but I am really still a puppy”
greetings. I didn't know what to expect from Paul, but that didn't keep my
pulse from racing. The secretaries fussed over Martha, bringing her water
in a big ashtray and scolding Paul for making her walk so far in the summer
heat.
“You walked to the office?” I asked in surprise.
“I don't live far,” he said as if that explained it.
“But what about the fans?” Within minutes of John's arrival anywhere, a
crowd of fans was waiting for him to return to the car.
“I stop and say hello and then walk away.” He said it as if it were the
simplest thing in the world.
I looked at him in disbelief. He grinned, glanced over at John who was not
paying any attention to us, busy going through a huge stack of mail with
Cyn. Paul beckoned me over to him and whispered conspiratorially, “Don't
tell John, but it is the Rolls Royce that gives him away. If he would
travel in an ordinary car, he could go anywhere.”
I laughed at the simple truth of that. “Act like a big star and they treat
you like one. Act normal and they treat you normal?”
“Yes, that's about it. As long as no one knows we are going to be someplace
and we don't stay in one place too long, we can get 'round quite a bit.”
“I'm glad,” I said. “From everything I've seen so far you seem to be
like... " I hesitated, realizing my story of lightning bugs in a mayonnaise
jar might not make sense to an Englishman.
“What?”
“Lightning bugs.”
A few minutes later we were sitting side by side on one of the desks as I
told him about summer nights spent catching lightning bugs and how they
stopped flashing when they realized they were prisoners. He told me about
his summer nights catching frogs and stealing apples, and somehow we were
back on track. He wasn't just being polite, a good co-host for my visit to
London, he was looking at me with interest and warmth, as tuned into me as
I was to him. A half-hour later we were still sitting there talking, only
vaguely aware of the other people in the room, when Ringo came over to say
he was leaving.
“Just give me a call next week for the interview, Tess,” he said.
“What interview?” Paul asked. I looked up at him and the smile was gone.
“I have to interview each of you for one of my articles,” I said feeling
quicksand under my feet. “Tony asked me to add it to the others.”
Paul looked down at me. I wasn't sure what I saw in his eyes. It didn't
look like anger, but his jaw was clenched.
“Sorry, Tess. I didn't want you to write for him in the first place,” he
said with what seemed to be real regret. “No interview.” He got up and
headed for the door.
“Aw, come on Paul,” Ringo said. “It will help explain—”
Paul stopped in the doorway and turned back. “No interview. Tony knew I
wouldn't do it. He shouldn't have set it up!” Whatever regrets he had felt,
his tone reflected real annoyance now.
“Don't be a pain in the ass, Paulie,” John said. “Just give her fifteen
minutes of your charming bullshit.”
“Give her an hour of yours and call it even!” Paul said coldly and walked
out.
The room was silent for a long moment then Ringo said, “I'll talk to him.
He'll come ‘round.” He saw the tears in my eyes and put an arm around me.
“It's not you, Luv. Paul is a bit on the outs with the press these days.”
John said, “Let's go. I'll explain on the way home.” Once we were in the
Rolls and headed home, he told me that just before they left for the
Japanese tour early that summer, Paul had broken up with a woman he had
been dating for about two months. Ellen was a very wealthy London socialite
and when they came back the gossip columns were full of stuff she had said
about Paul.
“Don't even ask what kind of stuff,” he said. “A pile of lies and
exaggerations. She's a first-class bitch. Brian and Tony were working
overtime to shut her up.” He told how she had worked on a deal to publish a
tell-all article in one of Britain's big magazines and was talking to
Playboy about another. Using a promised future exclusive on some as yet
unknown Beatle event, as well as threats of libel lawsuits, they managed to
convince the UK publisher that it wasn't in the company's best interests to
go ahead and they backed out. Playboy did a little investigating and
decided that she wasn’t up to centerfold quality and since celebrity gossip
without skin wasn’t their style, declined.
“He has refused to be interviewed since,” John finished. “He's got a sulk
on with the press for printing any of it. He's furious with her and with
himself for getting involved with someone everybody knew was hard as
nails.”
I didn't know what to say. I sat back and watched London pass by, trying to
tell myself it didn't matter. After a bit, John said, “I'll talk to him if
you like.”
I smiled at him gratefully. “No, leave him alone. He's got a good reason
for feeling like he does. Besides, I came to England to make sure you made
it home OK, and to do some sightseeing and to earn money for school. He
wasn't part of the deal.”
He looked at me but, for once, elected not to say anything.
I spent most of Friday working on the first two articles. Julian sat next
to me at the kitchen table turning out two pages of scribbles for every one
of mine. John wandered in and read over my shoulder.
“Where's the bit with you dripping all over me shirt?” he asked.
“Can't have the fans knowing what a bunch of sex maniacs you are!”
Julian clamored for John to read his story, so John sat down and, very
seriously, read Julian's manuscript. It turned out—much to Julian's
surprise and delight—to be a story about a little girl who took a big thorn
out of a fierce lion's paw and protected him until he was strong again. The
fierce lion became her friend for life. He tried to protect her from the
other lions who pretended to like her but only wanted to have her for
lunch, but the girl thought the other lions were cute went out to play with
one of them anyway. The big lion worried and worried about her, but she
came safely home. She had eaten the lion for lunch!
John proceeded to tell Julian it was very good and he would be a famous
writer someday. Julian beamed with pride and ran for his crayons to
illustrate his book.
“And the moral of the story?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Everybody wants lunch. The trick is to walk away afterward.”
Pete Shotton arrived and John introduced him as his best friend. Pete was
the only person I had met who had no fear of John.
“So you are Winnie's nursemaid,” Pete said to me.
The fact that Pete dared use his middle name, much less the childish
version of it, and got a laugh from John was surprising enough, but then
Pete started teasing John about becoming one of the cripples he so
delighted in making fun of. I hadn't realized it, but John did seem to have
a thing about physical deformities. His cartoon drawings and the characters
in his book were often cripples of some sort. From what Pete was saying,
John often made hysterically funny but not very nice comments about
people's physical problems. Some kind of compensatory mechanism for being
nearly blind as a bat, I guessed. Even Paul and George who had known him
forever had not teased him about being a cripple himself now, but somehow
Pete got by with it and John laughed with him. Within minutes they were
headed out the door together.
“Up to no good, as usual,” Cyn laughed.
The last words we heard as they went out the door were Pete's: “You are a
lousy driver whole! As a cripple, it's bloody fuckin' likely I'll let you
drive, mate.”
I spent the next couple of hours agonizing over what to wear to Paul's
house that evening. Dressy? Casual? I asked Cyn's advice and she assured me
that as long as it was short enough to make bending over impossible, it
would fit right in! I settled on Sandy's wine-colored mini-skirt as the
shortest of the skirts available. It had a pink knit pullover shell top and
pink cardigan with a wine and hunter green paisley border.
Pete brought John home about an hour after Cyn had asked them to be back
and an hour before she expected them to be back. John was in a good mood,
and it struck me that it was the first time since we had been back in
London that I had seen him really laughing, really animated.
The party was in full swing when we arrived at Paul’s home on Cavendish
Avenue. As with John’s home, I knew what the house looked like on the
outside from pictures in fan mags, but was curious to see what it was like
inside. I knew Paul hadn’t lived there for more than a year and rather
expected to see a sparsely furnished bachelor pad but was startled to be
ushered into a rather traditionally furnished house. I caught a glimpse of
a lovely cherry dining room set as we went past to the big living room. If
John’s house had been surprisingly devoid of any mark of his personality,
Paul’s house was every bit as surprising to me, not just for the presence
of such things but for the range of them. There were eccentric pieces of
antique furniture combined with a comfortable looking traditional sofa and
chairs, a variety of paintings on the walls, some modern sculpture, a
collection of crystal and glass in a cabinet. Dominating the room right at
that moment was a big movie projection screen that was pulled down from its
permanent mounting between two bookshelves. The projector was playing from
a cabinet across the room, not a temporary set up to watch movies but a
planned part of the room.
My fleeting impressions of the variety of interests reflected in the decor
were abruptly overwhelmed by the movie that was started just a minute after
we walked in. The kindest way I could think to label it was “artsy.” It was
weirdly filmed with odd camera angles and lighting, what looked like
overexposure, underexposure, and double exposure flashing by. There was no
dialog or discernible plot, just people and things moving around
disjointedly. The accompanying soundtrack was just as weird as the film.
Odd sounds were amplified and repeated between discordant flashes of music.
In short, it was a headache in the making.
I watched with amazement as the short movie played and was even more amazed
when someone said, “That light dancing ‘round her—that is fantastic! How
did you do that Paul?”
This was something Paul had filmed! If I had been surprised by the decor of
the house, I was even more surprised by what I was learning about the man
who lived there. Reflections on that ended abruptly when I realized that
there was one more bit of decor I had overlooked even though few of the
other guests had. In addition to helping themselves to the food and drinks
abundantly available, people were casually going over to the fireplace,
helping themselves to something from a big jar on the mantle, picking up
some of the papers supplied, and nonchalantly rolling their own smokes.
I took one look, grabbed John's arm and said, “I've got to get out of
here!” I’d never seen marijuana but didn’t need to inspect the contents of
the jar to know it wasn’t tobacco.
John was already lighting up and I suspected he and Pete had more than beer
under their belts already. “It's all right, Luv,” he assured me. “No one is
going to burst in the door and yell ‘Hands up!’”
I was not reassured and Cyn knew it. She took me aside and explained it to
me. The police were well aware of the extent of drug use among the people
in the music industry, but only hassled the people behind the scenes, the
sessions musicians, struggling newcomers, agents, writers. The authorities
would not walk into a house where the top names in the only industry that
was currently making a go of it in the depressed economy were all smoking
pot. The Beatles did not have to buy off the police, someone up the line in
the government was keeping them off. Someone big was going to get busted
one of these days to warn everyone that they would not continue to look the
other way while rock and roll led the country's youth astray, however, when
they did, they wouldn't start at the top. It would be someone big enough to
make their point but it wouldn't be a Beatle or a Stone. “We'll know when
it is about to happen,” she reassured me. “We have someone who keeps us
informed of the mood of the local constabulary.”
I decided it made sense, and it was pretty obvious that no one else here
was worried about posting bail, but they did crack jokes about it. One of
the guys present was one of those newcomers who had gotten busted and he
took a bit of razzing about his criminal ways.
For all their joking on the subject, I was still uneasy and glad I wasn't
going to be staying late. I was supposed to meet with Sally and another
student early the next morning for a tour of the hospital where they were
in training, so I had arranged for Les to drive me home at eleven.
In the meantime, this was a fantastic party. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards
were there, along with a lot of other rock and roll people whose faces
weren't familiar, but whose music was. I met the drug fiend in question, a
beautiful young man named Donovan whose music was to hit it big in the next
couple of months. I also met Paul's date. I took one look at her in her
Carnaby Street clothes, perfect hair, moving around with these people with
the confidence that she belonged, and I felt like “Minnesota Hick Visits
the Big City”.
John introduced me to a guy named Tara Browne. If the name wasn't
surprising enough, John informed me right in front of him that Tara was
filthy rich.
“At least I come by it honestly,” Tara responded. “Family money, not the
allowances of thirteen-year-old nymphets!” John laughed and Tara pulled me
away to dance with him.
Cyn introduced me to a few people but most of them seemed to be high on one
thing or another and none of them questioned how this American girl got
there. They just wanted to party. I danced with a couple of guys I didn't
know and even sort of danced with Mick Jagger himself. I was in the middle
of a bunch of dancers, and he cruised through, doing his skinny hipped
gyrations with me for a few seconds before moving on.
There weren't huge numbers of people there but enough that the party
expanded up to the music room up on the second floor. Pattie and Maureen
pulled me aside. “You have got to see Paul's bathroom,” they told me and we
ducked through the doorway at the top of the stairs. I was impressed with
the stereo system and dimmer lights in the bedroom and the big bed with a
velvet headboard, but the bathroom was incredible. A huge bathtub sunken in
a big platform was surrounded by candles and incense burners.
“So who is the girl he is with tonight?” Pattie asked Maureen.
“Lord, don't ask me. I can't keep up with him. Didn't he bring this one to
something out at Brian's earlier this summer?”
“Maybe. She looks a little familiar.”
“I wonder just how familiar she is!”
I could have told them. While they were talking I had noticed a woman's
robe on the back of the door and matching pink slippers on the floor. Was
the girl a date or something more? No one, least of all Paul, had ever
mentioned that he was involved with anyone. Well, everyone wants lunch, and
Paul's lunch was none of my business, but, oh, couldn't I at least be an
appetizer?
The evening rocked on and at one point I was downstairs and noticed Martha
pawing at the door to go out. I spotted Paul across the room and went to
ask him if she could go out.
“Let her out in the back garden. Through the kitchen,” he said so I took
her into the kitchen. When I opened the door, she rushed out.
The breath of fresh air and the promise of quiet in the garden felt great
after the smoke and the noise inside, so I followed her out. It was a warm
night with a beautiful full moon. Martha did her thing and then roamed
around the garden. I laughed a little at myself for thinking of a yard as a
garden, but it felt like an English night, smelled like an English night
with roses heavy in the air, therefore, it was not a yard but a garden. I
sat on the back step and watched Martha. Music and laughter escaped out
around the door behind me and spilled from the living room windows and
interfered with the mood the moon was creating. I got up and wandered after
Martha, looking for the roses. I found a rose bed along one wall of the
garden and the line “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may” popped into my head.
I was wondering if I could manage to pick one without getting stuck by
thorns when I heard the kitchen door open. Martha went bounding back to her
master. Paul rough-housed with her for a minute then walked over to me.
“They are really blooming this year,” he said.
“They smell so good. I grew up where summer nights smell like growing corn.
This is incredible.”
He laughed and reached out a hand. “Come 'ead. Let me show you something.”
He led me to a corner of the garden where a climbing rose with scarlet
blooms ran wild over the wall. “I was told this rose came from the gardens
at Kew. Katharine of Aragon supposedly planted them,” he said.
“They are beautiful,” I said, very much aware that he was still holding my
hand.
“I really should get someone in here to tend them. I get someone to cut the
grass, but that's about it. Dad has a fit every time he sees what Martha
has dug up.”
We walked along the edge of the garden and he talked about his Dad’s pride
in the little garden he’d had when Paul was young, and we went on to
swapping stories of summers spent building tree houses and forts and
hide-a-ways. That was nice but all I could think about was the fact that he
was still holding my hand. Once again my imagination was charging ahead,
thinking he hadn't followed me out here for no reason, hadn't led me to the
privacy of the far side of the garden for no reason. We strolled on, now
moving back toward the house, but without stopping for any of the things my
imagination was hoping for.
There was a stone table and benches on a small patio to the side of the
kitchen door. Paul let go of my hand as he boosted himself up to sit on the
table. I stood alongside him, leaning back against the table and looking
out across the moonlit lawn, feeling silly about misreading his intentions
but still glad he was in no hurry to go back into the party.
“How is the writing going, then?” he asked.
“Nearly done.” I was surprised he brought it up since he had made it very
clear what he thought of the whole idea.
“I was hoping you would think the better of it and just forget the idea.”
He didn't sound angry now and I took the opportunity to try to explain.
“I can't afford that. I really need the money for school. It is more than I
could make working two jobs the rest of the summer.”
“Tess, forget the article. I'll pay you whatever they were going to not to
write it.”
I knew when he said it, the way he said it, that it wasn't a sudden
thought. This was why he had followed me out here. He wanted to talk me out
of writing it. He probably had his checkbook in his back pocket. I had been
amused at myself for thinking he had followed me out here for a little
romantic dalliance, but this took the humor out of it. That must have shown
on my face and he misread my disappointed expression.
“Tess, I am really about messing up your chance to earn money,” he said
with real regret and concern. “Please, let me help you.”
“I can't take your money not to write it,” I said. “That's like some kind
of blackmail!”
He smiled but there wasn't much humor in it. “No, it's not like that at
all,” he assured me gently. “I just don't want you to write it.”
“Are you really that worried about what I might say?” I asked. He looked
away. I hesitated, but he had to hear that I wouldn't write anything
personal. “Paul, I know about the stuff Ellen wrote.”
“Who told you about that?”
“John did. You were so angry when you found out what I was doing. I
couldn't understand why until he told me about the lies and rotten things
she said.”
He sighed. “Tess, it wasn't just that she lied. The lies and stories—Hell,
we've almost gotten used to that. But she took the truth and twisted it
'round into lies that had enough truth under them to hurt.” He stopped,
looking down at the ground. When he lifted his head, he looked directly
into my eyes. “It wasn't just the lies. She wrote about things I had told
her. Stuff about when I was a kid, about my mum, my dad, Jane. Things I
told her when I thought... ” He stopped. When he went on, he sounded more
bewildered than angry. “She just gave it all away.”
I moved to stand in front of him and face him. “I am sorry, Paul. I am so
sorry. I can't imagine how she could do that.”
“It wasn't even for money,” he said bitterly. “Attention, I guess.”
His hands were gripping the edge of the table on either side of him and
without thinking I just reached out and put my hands over his, wanting to
somehow reassure him that I wouldn't do that. “Paul, nothing like that is
going to be in this article,” I said. “You can read it before I show it to
Tony. Anything you want taken out, I'll take out. I promise.”
“What if I leave big gaping holes in it?” he asked with a little smile.
“You won't have to. The hardest thing about writing the article is talking
about the little things. I can write about what happened, ‘Just the facts',
but to tell them any more. I don't want to share it.”
“So where do you draw the line?” he asked.
I laughed a little because I really did have a rule. “I ask myself if it
would have been different if someone had been there taking movies. Would
John have said that? Would George have done that? Then I file it. One file
for the article, another file just for me, and one file of stuff to tell my
grandchildren about someday when I'm old and gray and want my grandchildren
to know I wasn't always an old lady with varicose veins!”
He laughed and slipped his hands out from under mine, not to pull away but
to take my hands in his. He squeezed my hands and pulled me a little closer
to him, between his knees. “And if I kissed you right now, where would you
file that?”
I knew it was not “if.” He wasn't smiling as he said it, wasn't teasing. He
was going to kiss me. I wanted a way to tell him that it would be more than
an item to sort and file. Lifting his hand, I held it against my heart.
“Here,” I said, looking into his eyes.
He leaned forward slowly and touched his lips to mine, a warm mouth, a
gentle kiss growing harder. He let go of my other hand and put his arm
around me, pulling me to him. It was a long kiss, and I could feel my heart
hammering against his hand. With our hands locked together between us and
him still sitting on the table, we weren't pressed against each other but
even so, it felt like the most intimate embrace. It closed out the rest of
the world. When he finally stopped the kiss, it was only to push himself
off the table so he could pull me up against him. He wrapped me in his arms
and kissed me again and I kissed him, feeling nothing except the warmth of
his mouth, his body and his arms around me, wanting nothing else, just
more. The kiss melted into soft gentle kisses around my mouth, my cheek, my
eyes. His arms relaxed and I opened my eyes and looked up at him.
“I knew it,” he said softly.
“Knew what?” I asked, amazed that I could manage to say any words at all.
“That when I kissed you, it would be perfect.”
Even in my twitterpated state, I knew a line when I heard it. “How could it
be anything else?” I laughed shakily. “Moonlight and roses. Perfect
setting, perfect kiss.”
He smiled gently and shook his head. “No. Tess, It's not the moonlight or
the roses. It's you and me,” and he pulled me close again, this time the
kisses beginning on my neck and traveling to my mouth. I followed him kiss
for kiss until our lips touched and then neither of us was following or
leading. No thought, no hesitation, just a need to be closer, to let the
tip of my tongue touch his lips, to taste him, as he did the same to me. He
tipped my head back and I opened my mouth to him for deep exploring yet
gentle kisses.
Time slipped away, the kisses escalated from gentle to hungry. His hands
moved to touch my face, my neck, to slide down my sides to my hips and pull
me even closer. I clung to him, unable to pull away even though I felt him
growing hard against me. Especially then. That had always been where I
backed off. Cool down time. Don't give the wrong message. Anything more was
a tease. Even so, I reached up and put my arms around his neck, stretching
up, not to reach his mouth but to fit my body to his.
He held me tightly, my cheek against his and every curve of my body pressed
against him. I could feel his heart pounding and I knew it was time to
stop. I knew it, but when his hand slipped up from my waist and touched the
bare skin where my top had pulled up in back I didn't stop him. Instead, I
found his mouth and gently, so gently, kissed him, afraid to take it any
further but not wanting to stop. His hand slid up under my blouse and was
warm on my back as he held me tightly against him. His kisses were long and
slow as his other hand moved to my side, lingering at my waist to hold me
tightly to him, then sliding down over my hip, then lower still until his
hand was on my bottom, lifting me against him, locking us together exactly
as nature intended. I forgot about cool downtime, about the message I was
giving and just let the feeling take over. Hungry was escalating to
feverish.
If Martha had not decided she had waited for us long enough, I don't think
the fact that we were standing out in the garden in moonlight nearly bright
enough to read by, or that there was a houseful of his guests—and his
date!—probably wondering where he was by now, would have occurred to me,
and apparently, none of that mattered to Paul. But Martha was insistent,
moving from an impatient whine directly to a front paws on the chest
request.
Paul pushed her down, and she danced and ran around us, woofing happily. He
tried to kiss me again but she came right back, insistent on pushing us
apart.
“All right, girl,” Paul finally said the third time she jumped up to stick
her cold nose in between us. We walked back to the house in silence.
Pattie was in the kitchen. She glanced up from the table where she was
refilling a bowl of potato chips and her eyes immediately took in the fact
that Paul's arm was tight around my waist. “So, you two finally quit
talking!” she laughed.
I looked at her, bewildered.
“George said that if you two ever shut up, watch out!” she said to my
unasked question. I was astonished. George had never given any indication
that he was paying any attention to Paul and me.
Paul just smiled at her and hugged me a little tighter.
It was nearly eleven. I told Paul I had to leave, explaining about meeting
the other student nurses in the morning. “Les is probably waiting. I have
to go.”
“I rather think Paul's date will be glad of that,” Pattie giggled.
Paul made an “Oops, forgot about her!” face and we all laughed.
“I'll walk you to the car,” he said.
Les was waiting. Why couldn't he have been late? A big group of gatebirds
had gathered when word got out that Paul was home and having a party. The
wooden gate was open so party goers could get in and out, but Mal was there
keeping the fans back. With the gate open, the fans quickly spotted Paul in
the driveway and a cheer and excited cries started up.
“Damn,” Paul muttered. Les opened the car door for me, Paul stood back, and
I got in. He leaned down and gave me a quick kiss and shut the door.
For all the sleep I got that night, I might as well have stayed at the
party. I went over and over every minute of the evening, every smile, every
kiss, every touch. It was unlike any first kiss I had ever known. No moment
of hesitation about whether to let him kiss me, no last-second course
correction to avoid nose collision, no slightly off-target landing. No
doubt of whether I wanted him to do it again, whether I should let it
become a French kiss, a prize usually reserved until the second date and
used as a bribe to get the third date. No hesitation, no thought. I had
just responded to the intoxication of his mouth, his tongue, his touch,
responded to something deep inside of me. It was hours later, but just
thinking about it brought the feeling back for a too brief, too tantalizing
moment. Curled up alone in my bed I trembled, amazed by the feeling and by
the ease with which Paul had triggered it.
I had felt something like it at times with other boys, and certainly with
Gary, the boy I had dated all summer the year I graduated from high school,
but with him, it was the end result of a long session of necking in a
parked car. With him, it was sexual desire due to dogged persistence on his
part but laced with guilt on my part because I knew I wasn’t really in love
and shouldn’t be pretending I was, much less taking it any further. With
the guys I had met since it seldom got to that point. I didn’t date anyone
steadily so make-out sessions were limited and usually the result of an
overambitious young man, rather than encouragement on my part. The turn-on
and temptation to go further just wasn’t there. But tonight had been ...
what? What had happened tonight?
Magic. Moonlight and roses and—Holy Cow! Paul McCartney! I had kissed Paul
McCartney! I pulled a pillow over my head to stifle the squeal that
accompanied that realization, then collapsed in a giggling fit. Theresa
Marie Martin had stood in the moonlight and kissed a guy that a million
girls dreamed of kissing! As quickly as the giggles came, they evaporated.
I hadn't just kissed him. He had kissed me! Enthusiastically, and tenderly.
Heart pounding, I gingerly approached the subject of what it might have
meant to him.
“I knew that when I kissed you it would be perfect.” The fact that it was a
perfect line, as well as a perfect kiss, did not escape me. It had been so
sincerely delivered. Could it have been as unrehearsed as it sounded? Dream
on! “So what if it's a line?”, I thought. “It is still the most wonderful
thing anyone has ever said to me!”
The voice of common sense, sounding an awful lot like my roommate Brenda,
had a few things to say: “He is gorgeous, and you have thought about
nothing else since the day you met him, and he kissed you and kissed you
good and if you are hoping that it was any more than moonlight and
opportunity, heaven help you because you are in for a rude awakening!”
But Paul's soft voice was talking to me too. “It's not moonlight and roses,
Tess. It's you and me.” Not a line, at least not one he could have planned,
but the man was experienced. And good. How long had we spent together in
the garden? Or, more to the point, how long did we spend kissing? Two
minutes? Five? Ten? I had no idea. All I knew is that he had me as turned
on as I had ever been after any hour-long, back seat make-out session at
the drive-in, and definitely more willing to go farther.
Wait a minute. We hadn't “gone” anywhere. He hadn't done anything but kiss
me and hold me. Even the fact that his hand was under my blouse was somehow
innocent. He hadn't pulled my blouse out of my skirt, it just pulled up
when I reached up to put my arms around his neck. He hadn't even tried to
take advantage of that opportunity to feel me up. I had certainly been
further than that with Gary; heavy petting above the waist. (That term was
quite clear to ‘'60s girls. Petting was touching with clothes intact. Heavy
petting was under clothing.) Paul had just held me. Granted, the way he
held me, the way we fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, every
curve locked together, was somehow closer to having sex than any necking
session I had ever participated in, but there had been no groping, no
calculated moves, and that meant no defensive reaction on my part. Just his
mouth and his body telling me what he wanted and making me want it too.
What he wanted or what he expected? Did anyone ever say “No!” to him? Which
led to another question: What if Martha had not interrupted? Would I have
said no? Of course, I would have.
Maybe.
Easy to say now, but at the time... No, at some point, common sense would
have had to interfere ... err, intervene. Going all the way was wrong, out
of the question. Maybe not exactly wrong, but not exactly right. I wasn't
sure what I thought about the morality of the situation.
It was very clear to me that sex was a basic biological drive and very
right, very normal for that reason. Society superimposed a lot of
restrictions on it, but they made pretty good sense to me. Keeping sex
inside marriage made things neat and tidy, and two parents for any
resultant kid made a safety net in case something happened to one, sort of
like having two kidneys. Even so, somehow society's rules seemed at odds
with what nature intended. Nature had made sex such a strong drive and so
pleasurable for a reason. Maybe society was wrong about putting a moral
judgment on something so basic, necessary, compelling. Society's ways were
not always right. Some wrongs were condoned by societies for generations
such as slavery and the murder of girl babies in China.
Lying there thinking about Paul, remembering the way I felt with him, most
definitely had me siding with nature over nurture. Something that felt that
good couldn't be wrong! Regardless, right or wrong was secondary to the
simple fact that it would be stupid. Last semester's OB-Gyn rotation had
introduced me to the reality of sex, specifically to the shortcomings of
most methods of birth control. I had read the textbooks and met the knocked
up teenagers. The only acceptable level of risk was with the pill and I
wasn't on it. So if I found myself with him again? What then?
Common sense answered. “Use your head, Terry. Fun is fun and that is fine,
but this is nothing more than a summer fling—for you and for him. You found
someone exciting to talk to, to laugh with, to kiss in the moonlight and in
a few weeks you will get on a plane and go home to your real life. Enjoy it
but don't get carried away.”
As I drifted off to sleep and the female equivalent of wet dreams, a
thought drifted across my mind. Why would anyone who had spent the last
five years with girls literally breaking into his bedroom ever bother to
develop a line?