Chapter Text
Turning on the radio does nothing to soothe George's simmering anxiety. Of course the first song to come on is "Taxman," right in the middle of Paul's guitar solo. A frisson of irritation travels up George's spine. It's a fucking good lick, blistering and ironic, but it's George's song, and Paul just takes over, the way he DOES.
George switches the radio off with more force that is strictly called for. He puffs grouchily into his moustache. Why is he driving all the way to London just to console the bastard who has been driving him insane for years?
Me mum's dead...
The focus of George's annoyance abruptly switches from Paul to John. Screw London. What he ought to do instead is drive to Weybridge and give John a good thumping. Knock some sense into that heroin-addled head.
Julia, Julia...
Fuck.
He clutches the steering wheel tighter. There's scenery rushing by him but he pays no attention, just drives faster and faster. Fragments of memories flash through his brain. He shakes his head as if he could dislodge them, but there's one that insists on playing itself in pristine Technicolor.
***
He came home from school, frowning and distracted, too gloomy for his tea. Louise felt his forehead. "You're not coming down with something, are you?"
"No." He pushed a piece of toast around on his plate. "Paul's mother passed away."
"Poor boy," sighed Louise. "So that's why he hasn't been about these last few weeks?"
George nodded. "He said he got sent to his auntie's. They didn't tell him how sick she was. They didn't tell him anything until she was gone." He looked up at his mother. "That's not right, is it?"
She shrugged and gazed into his eyes, meaningfully but with wry humour. "It's not for me to say what's best for someone else's children. There's plenty of mums who'd like to give me an earful about your trousers and your hair, but that's none of their business, either."
Hunching defensively over his plate, George picked up the toast - it had gone cold - and tore out the center where most of the butter had pooled. "I couldn't think what to say. I feel like I ought to do something." He popped the bread in his mouth.
He wondered if Paul still had tea in the afternoons. If he had to make it himself. If it hurt, not having a loving face nod at him from across the table.
"We'll think of something. What does he like?" Louise asked.
George answered without hesitation. "Music."
Music was forever and forever. Music couldn't be taken away. Music didn't die.
***
Didn't it, though?
The closer he gets to London, the more George finds himself mourning the loss of the band. It had been his band, damn it, as much as it was John's or Paul's or Ringo's. They were a four-headed monster and now they were...John, Paul, George, and Ringo, Unincorporated.
He pulls over in a little thicket and relieves himself behind a tree. He wonders what Brian would have made of this disaster. He wonders if Mal is still taking care of Paul. He wonders what their lives would have been like without Yoko in the picture.
Wouldn't matter, he thinks as he zips up and ambles back to his car. They would've managed to fuck it all up one way or another.
And yet, he contemplates as he guns the engine, he still loves them. Of course he loves Ringo - who couldn't? - but he loves the others as well. He's still fond of John, still admires his talent even though he's driven them all mad with this Yoko infatuation. And, wonder of wonders, he still loves Paul.
I'll play whatever you want me to play. Or I won't play at all if you don't want me to play. Whatever it is that'll please you, I'll do it.
He relaxes his grip on the steering wheel and smiles.
***
Harold offered to drive George to Paul's house, but he insisted on taking the bus. He was going to do this on his own. It was important.
He didn't bother trying to knock: too difficult to explain why he was here at this hour of the evening. Instead he crept quietly around the side of the house to the garden. He turned over an old pail to use as a seat, then swung his guitar around in front of him.
Paul's window was open. That was going to make things easier, George thought as he lightly tested each string to make sure he was in tune. After a few quiet adjustments, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and started to play.
They'd each taken a stab at this Bach piece, fingers straining across fretboards too uneven for the task. Paul's first attempts had been pretty good, but it was George's perseverance that won out in the end. The notes flowed freely - most of the time, at any rate - and each phrase mirrored a little bit of George's soul as he quietly played for his friend.
The unexpected aroma of pipe tobacco startled him. He blinked and looked up. Jim McCartney was looking down at him. There was enough moonlight for George to see the way his lips curved up around the pipe stem and the glimmer of tears in his eyes.
Jim was holding a blanket, which he wrapped gently around George's shoulders. "Can't have you catching your death out here, lad," he said without a trace of irony even as George shuddered in response.
"I didn't mean to disturb you," George began, but Jim shook his head.
"Just the opposite." He took the pipe out of his mouth and motioned toward the window. "He's fallen asleep, finally. Thank you for that."
George wanted to say something comforting, something clever and grown-up, but no words came. He gazed mutely up at Jim, who astonished him by reaching out and ruffling his hair. "Come in for a cup of tea? Warm you up?"
He wanted to. He wanted to sit in the quiet kitchen and be treated like a man instead of a boy. He wanted to bound up the stairs and see for himself that Paul was all right. But he'd set a goal for himself, and had succeeded, and it was time to go back home.
"Thanks, sir, but I'd best be on my way."
Jim put his hand in his pocket as if to offer bus fare, but George pulled out the change his father had given him.
"Next time, then," Jim said with a twinkle in his eye where the tears had been. He helped George to his feet. "You can bring the blanket back when you come by for a cuppa, all right?"
He'd never felt welcome in the McCartney house before, but something had shifted because of the music, because of his gesture, and when he said good night he felt ten feet tall.
***
His first stop is at EMI. The stairs are amazingly free of fans, so he's able to rush into Studio Two and grab one of his acoustic guitars. He is halfway out the door again when he hears Geoff Emerick's voice. "Your wife's been ringing. Best call her back, eh?"
Damn.
He sets the guitar down and goes into one of the offices to use the telephone. It takes a moment before he hears Pattie's voice, breathless and a little timid. "Hello?"
"Didn't you get my note?"
"I did, but you had me worried sick." He can hear the strain in her tone. She loves Louise, after all, and this situation is almost as hard on her as on the rest of the family. "What happened?"
Frowning, he looks around the room at the people who are waiting for him to shed some light on the rumours that have been flying around all day. Fuck. "It's nothing earth-shattering, love. I promise. I just...I just need to see Paul about something."
"PAUL?" He's been halfway bitching about Paul for months now, pulling himself up short before saying anything too damning, but Pattie's no fool. "You drove all that way to see Paul? But..."
"I can't talk about it now. I'll come back up early tomorrow. I promise." He blows a kiss into the phone - and blushes when someone snickers - and goes back to where his guitar is waiting for him.
His legs ache from long hours of driving. Paul's house is a quick walk, so he sets out on foot instead of getting back into the car. The air is getting damp already but it feels comforting. It's almost like autumn in Liverpool with the sea breeze blowing into his face.
When he rounds the corner and sees Cavendish he understands why there were no Scruffs at EMI. They're all here, hugging and comforting one another. So much grieving today.
His mother used to let them in, the bedraggled girls who haunted their garden. She'd give them a cup of tea and some tiny memento. They're harmless. They just love you too much, is all.
The girls acknowledge George's presence so respectfully that he feels a wave of affection toward them. He strolls closer and offers a gentle smile. "Have you been out here all this time?" They only nod in the affirmative. They've clearly been crying and they look weary.
"Is Mal still with him?"
One girl, a tall blonde with a thick Mancunian accent, speaks up. "He left an hour or so ago. Asked us to be quiet, for Paul's sake."
George pats her on the arm, then reaches past her to press the buzzer. He's not sure who this housekeeper is - Paul had to dismiss the last ones for selling bits and bobs of his possessions - but he knows she'll recognize his voice. "It's George," he says into the speaker.
The gate creaks open. He turns to the girls and waves his thanks, then bounds up the steps. The door is only slightly open, just enough for a white-haired woman to lean out. "He won't see you. He won't see anyone," she says apologetically. It's a whisper, the same ones the doctors have been using to talk about his mother.
It was cancer.
She looks so worried, bless her. People love Paul. It's part of who he is. "Mr. Evans telephoned Mrs. McCartney. She's coming down from Scotland with Heather and the baby, thank God. He says he wants to be alone, but...he shouldn't be."
George takes her hand in his and holds it for a moment. Her fingers are plump, like his mother's, and her eyes are kind as she peers up at him. "I won't intrude," he promises as he inclines his head toward the back of the house, where the garden and the geodesic dome are nestled.
She grins at him then and waves him away. He trudges through the yard until he finds Paul's window. No light shines from behind the curtains, but at least the window is half-opened.
There's no pail in Paul's tidy garden, nothing he can sit on but the grass, so he lowers himself to the ground and opens his case. He hasn't played the Bach in years. Hoping that muscle memory will kick in, he fumbles with the opening bars.
Suddenly he's thirteen again, hands striving to say what his lips cannot. I'm sorry. I'm worried.
I'm here.
When he runs out of Bach, he switches to something he's been working on: little falling lines on the guitar that compliment the rising melody he's humming. For an instant he thinks he sees something moving behind the curtain, then his attention is diverted by a dog's footfall.
He's more of a cat person than a dog person, but he has a soft spot for Paul's patient sheepdog. "C'mere, girl," he sings, then he bursts out laughing when he sees that Martha is dragging a blanket in her teeth. She drops it at George's feet and curls up next to him.
George stops playing long enough to spread the blanket across his lap to protect the guitar. In the silence that follows, he hears the squeak of a window being opened and Paul's voice calling to him. "It's for you, you numpty, not the guitar. Can't have you catching your death."
He sounds awful, his voice thick and raspy. George looks up and is shocked at how pale he is. His swollen eyes have no light in them. There was a time - there were dozens of times, if George were honest with himself - that he'd have been glad to see Paul suffer the way he'd made George suffer. But now, faced with the wretched reality, he feels nothing but pity.
He's losing his band, but Paul is losing both his band and the love of his life.
"Paul, listen..." But Paul shakes his head, pressing the back of his hand to his mouth as if holding in a sob.
George knows he should look away and give Paul some privacy. He can't, though, so he stares helplessly up until Paul collects himself.
"I heard about Louise," Paul says. "I'm so sorry."
Swallowing hard, George gives him a tight smile.
Paul points toward the guitar. His hand is trembling. "That's pretty. Does it have words yet?"
It does, but George doesn't want to tell him. They're not pretty words. "Nothing much yet. A bit, uh, run of the mill, this one." He coughs to clear his throat. The night air isn't doing him any good. "I'm sorry about John," he offers even though it sounds ineffectual.
He remembers one afternoon when they were kids, lazily jerking off in John's room at Mendips. George had opened his eyes for some reason and saw John reaching for Paul with his free hand, straining toward him until their fingers locked. That was the moment when he knew, he KNEW. And his world was never exactly the same, afterwards.
Paul rests his elbows on the windowsill and buries his face in his hands, fingers tugging at his disheveled hair. His pain and misery are more than George can bear, even after all these years of being shunted aside by the JohnAndPaul juggernaut, even after all the arguments and resentment. He starts playing again, the fragments of song coming alive under his skilled hands.
Above him, Paul folds his arms on the windowsill and rests his head on them. The tension in his shoulders relaxes. George can't see his mouth but he could swear that Paul is smiling.
He uses a corner of the blanket to wipe down his strings. He takes up the Bach again, its complicated patterns requiring him to concentrate on the music instead of thinking about Paul, and John, and the Beatles, and his mother, and everything that's slipping away from him.
"What does he like?"
"Music."
George doesn't completely understand how he came to be sitting on wet grass with a wet dog curled up at his side, but he knows it's where he is meant to be.