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Henley on Thames, 10th December 1980 (1)
The fire was dying down now, but it was still good to watch the red/gold glow of the small branches and embers in the depth of the wide grate. George Harrison was sitting on the sofa facing the fire, one leg curled underneath him and the other with the knee raised up so that his chin could rest comfortably on it. He was nursing a half full glass of red wine, and his wife thought that he had forgotten it and was even thinking of crossing the room and moving it from between his fingers and setting it down on the table next to him, but then he took another sip. So Olivia continued to hover. She heard from the hall behind her that the last of their guests had finished packing his things and was ready to leave, so she quietly left the room and joined him in the hall. “Thanks… for…” but their friend, Ray Cooper, waved her words aside.
“Will he be ok?” On the face of it a ridiculous thing to ask. For one thing, how could she or anyone know? For another, no, of course he wouldn’t. Who would be? Yet, in fact;
Olivia nodded. “He will be. In a while.” She gave Ray a small tight smile, and he reached out towards her with his free hand and drew her to himself for a quick embrace.
“Look after him.”
“Of course I will.” She opened the massive front door and Ray slipped outside into the December night. “I’ll see you to your car.”
“No.” He shook his head. “Stay with him.” And he disappeared into the dark, leaving Olivia to move back into the hall, close the door and lock it firmly behind her. To her surprise and annoyance, she felt the prickling of tears behind her eyes but she suppressed them firmly as she made her way back to the sitting room. Stupid. She hadn’t even known him. But then, neither had the thousands of grief stricken people gathered outside the Dakota during the day and they were crying. It wouldn’t help George if she descended into that sort of sentimentality. She took a deep breath, and then stepped back into the sitting room.
George hadn’t moved. The fire had got lower still. She crossed the room and sat next to him on the sofa. “Can I get you anything?” she asked.
George looked at her, and shook his head. “I’m ok.” Another improbable statement, but she let it go. “What’s the time?”
Olivia twisted round so that she could see the large ornamental clock on a sideboard across the room. “3.15.” He nodded, but made no attempt to move from his niche on the sofa. “George, I think I’m going to bed. But…”
“I’m fine. You go.” He looked into her eyes, and she studied his expression. He was tired – not surprising, it was nearly twenty four hours since they’d had the news – but calm. Perhaps a little deadened. Sad. But, as he’d said, ok. “I’ll just sit, for a while.”
She nodded, and leaned over and planted a soft kiss on his forehead. “I’ll check on Dhani. I’ll see you.” A squeeze of his shoulder, and she left the room again.
It was quiet. The fire was crackling slightly if you concentrated on it. There had been people there all day, playing music, working out tracks for his album, peering at him surreptitiously when they thought he wasn’t looking, eating, drinking, but for the first time since he’d got out of bed there was silence. George stared into the fire. He was trying to work out how he felt but he couldn’t. It was strange. When he looked inside his mind, all he could see was grey fog, nothingness. Maybe it was shock. Shocked and stunned. He thought that actually might have been what he’d said, when they’d demanded a statement from him earlier that day. Well, the day before of course, it was tomorrow now. His mind was going round and round. Would he really have taken the piss like that? Well maybe. Why not. It was all daft, wasn’t it.
He took another sip of his wine and looked at the diminishing fire. All those years, gone in one crazy moment.
All those years.
He couldn’t stop the memories. Corny, that. But they came…
After the dentist. Esher, Spring 1965
George was sitting on the diving board when John came out to join him. He sat down on the grass, and then shuffled closer to where George was sitting staring at the water. He looked carefully at his friend’s face. George’s eyes were open, still, staring, staring. He didn’t move or acknowledge John’s arrival at all; John didn’t really know what to do. So he sat and looked at George, and then at the pool. The surface of the water was still. It was half past four in the morning and the birds were waking up. John listened to them and wondered what they were saying to him.
He had to know. “George. What are the birds saying?”
George blinked slowly, and the long eyelashes stroked his cheek. He turned to look at his friend, and a smile began to light his features. He paused a while, as though to consider his answer, and then looked up at the sky. He was looking for the birds. He didn’t see any. He looked back at John. His smile grew wider, his teeth white in the dawn light. “They’re saying they love you.” His smile rested on John’s face. Even in the height, or depth, of his LSD excursion he could reflect that John looked a complete mess; unshaven, his smart clothes from last night’s dinner party at the dentist’s town house crumpled shambolically, and his face drawn with as yet unrecognised exhaustion. George wondered if he looked as bad. Probably. Fucking dentist. Dosing their coffee; but…
But…
A whole new heaven, all around him.
The two young men sat together in the growing light and looked at each other. George looked at John; the abrasive, defensive leader of the gang was no longer there. And John looked at George, and the immature sulky guitar fanatic had likewise gone. In the places of those two real and unreal personas were instead two old and dear friends who were now joined together by a golden thread of new understanding, and deepest love.
They saw no need to speak or move, and just sat by George’s swimming pool in his Esher garden, each relishing their new existences. The moment extended for untold time – until a quiet meow behind them brought them out of their new world and back into the old one. George turned around and saw his Siamese cat sitting neatly on the grass, regarding him sardonically with blue slanting eyes. John turned to look in the direction of George’s gaze.
“What does it want?” he asked
“Breakfast.”
“Is it breakfast time?”
George looked up. The sun, he saw, was high in the sky. He wondered how long they’d been sitting there. “It might be,” he said.
John thought about this, and reached a conclusion. “I could do with something.”
George nodded. “Okay. We’ll go in.” He pushed himself up, but only got as far as kneeling up before turning to John again. “None of it’s the same any more.”
John looked at him again and paused a while to think. As he took in what George had said, he found himself filled with a feeling of complete joy. He smiled, he grinned, he shook his head. “It isn’t,” he proclaimed. “It fucking isn’t.” He clambered to his feet and looked up at the sky, he arms opening wide as though to encompass the whole different world he’d just glimpsed. “It’s all different! We’re all different!” Another pause, and then the greatest thought of all. “We’re not just Beatles now!!”
George too clambered to his feet and he too beamed broadly at this most astonishing concept. He laughed out loud in sheer joy, and the two turned and set off, in step, towards the long brightly painted house. “Hey!” he exclaimed. “They’ll be thinking this! They’ll be feeling this!”
“Who?”
George laughed again. “Pattie! And Cyn.” He grabbed John’s arm and quickened his pace. “C’mon! We’ll find them. It’s morning! It’s a new day!”
The two new soulmates pushed open the back door and stepped inside, to explore their new life – and feed the cat.
It didn’t start that way. There was no love at the start. It was hard to know if John had any love in him, at the start.
Kids. Sometime in 1958
Paul didn’t pause in his tinkering on his guitar when he heard the back door slam open, nor when John Lennon strode into the sitting room. “Okay?” said Paul, without looking up from his fretboard.
John strode over to the armchair in the corner and plonked himself down. He fixed Paul’s friend with a steady and challenging stare. The friend ignored both him and the stare, and continued to pick out the chords that he and Paul had been working on. John waited a while, and when no reaction came he spoke up. “Didn’t know this was a baby sitting service.”
Paul looked across at him, the frown of concentration still on his face. “Eh?”
John nodded his head in the direction of George. “What’s he doing here?”
Paul shook his head. “We said. You said. He’s in. You remember.” Paul smiled at him; John responded with a scowl.
“Not really.”
“Yeah, you did.” Paul extended his smile to George, who was still picking at the guitar strings. “Plays better than you, any road.”
At this point, George looked up from the strings across at John. “Alright?” he said, with a curiously lopsided smile. John glared.
“What the fuck.” No answer seemed to be required to this so none was attempted. George went back to his careful fingering of the chords so, leaving his tormenting for the time being, John lifted his own guitar into his lap and he too began to strum the strings. Paul and George looked over at him and, to the surprise of both John and Paul, George started to laugh. “Wassup with you?” John demanded.
George continued to chuckle.
“He’s remembering one of his Noddy and Big Ears stories, that’ll be it,” John said harshly.
“You can look at your own Noddy books,” George suggested confidently, “while I string your guitar properly. What d’ya think you’re doing?”
“Eh?” John peered down at the strings of his guitar, while Paul paused in his own strumming and looked on in interest.
“You’re only got four strings!”
“Yeah, well…” John’s belligerence increased in measure with his discomfort.
“It should be six.” “George shook his head. “You did know that, yeah?”
“Yeah, of course…” Aggressive confidence.
“Paul, you got any more strings?”
“Ah… I might. Hang on. Mike’s got a guitar…” Paul put his own guitar down next to his chair and jumped to his feet and trotted out of the sitting room. He left behind him a silence laden with antagonism, a silence only broken when he returned with his younger brother’s guitar, filched from their shared bedroom. “Here y’are.” He held up the guitar, but wasn’t at all sure who to give it to; lamely he passed it to John.
“Give us it here,” said George, and then, to John’s astonishment, he pushed himself out of his armchair and crossed the room to where John sat, uncomfortably aware that he was in danger of being made a fool of. George held out his hand. When John made no move, George reached towards the guitar, which John found he was clutching tightly. “It’ll only take a minute.”
John handed his guitar over, dumbly. George took it and returned to his chair. Quickly divesting Mike’s guitar of two perfectly good strings, he laid John’s instrument over his lap and began to restring it. He ignored John completely.
Paul filled in the otherwise uneasy silence by strumming and singing along. “What’s ‘at?” asked John, sharply.
“Thought of it this morning. Me and George were working on it before you came.”
Paul had probably not intended to irritate John even further with this remark, but nevertheless that was what happened. “Funny – it didn’t sound like a nursery rhyme.” Paul offered a dutiful grunt of amusement. George continued to ignore John as he worked on the guitar, finishing the stringing and starting to twang the new strings into tune.
“Paul, give us an E.” Paul played his E string and George tightened the new string. “Again.” George was satisfied with the first one and went on to the next, again using Paul as a tuning fork, and then crossed the room and handed the guitar back to John, who grasped it expressionlessly. “You’ll need to check the tuning when you get ‘ome,” he said sunnily, as though the expression on John’s face didn’t suggest that he was breathing sulphur. “It was…”
“Yeah, ok,” John snapped as he laid the guitar on his lap and began to strum. Again, George ignored the black atmosphere as though unaware of it, and returned to his seat across the room; but he was back on his feet moments later when the sitting room door opened and Paul’s father stepped inside.
“Hello lads,” he greeted them. “Alright?”
“Hello Uncle Jim,” beamed George, and Jim McCartney smiled warmly at him.
John wasn’t going to let this go. “”Hello Uncle Jim,” he lisped in a high falsetto in an inaccurate but deliberate imitation of George. “Ith it teatime, Uncle Jim?”
“I’ve got some of yesterday’s shepherds pie left over if you’re hungry. Mine won’t touch it the day after – I don’t want it wasted.”
There followed a fierce struggle within the Lennon heart. He had never been offered leftovers at Paul’s, though it was clear that George was accustomed to this service. He had only made the silly remark about teatime because he’d wanted to make George sound childish. The temptation of a helping of homecooked shepherds pie now battled with his perceived need to maintain his aloof disdain, particularly after his ill-judged scorn at George’s greeting and its complete failure to humiliate the younger boy. His expression went blank as he grappled with the conundrum.
George was watching from across the room. His eyes were cool and appraising. Jim waited for a reply, completely unaware of the drama being enacted in his small and now crowded sitting room.
John reached a decision. “Yeah,” he mumbled, gracelessly. “Thanks.”
“Fab, thanks!” said George enthusiastically, and started to follow Jim out of the room. He and John reached the door at the same time. George paused, and met John’s gaze head on. He nodded at the door, as if to say, “After you,” and John, aware, on a level he wasn’t prepared to examine too closely, that he had been truly bested, slouched through towards the kitchen.
The memory had not faded by the time the three friends were due to meet up again to practise, but it felt even more irritating to John when Paul announced at the last minute as John arrived at his door that they couldn’t stay at his house. “Me dad’s got me auntie round.” It was therefore a glowering and resentful Lennon who stood behind Paul as the latter knocked sharply on the door of 25 Upton Green.
“Fuck’s sake,” John was heard to mutter.
”Get over it,” Paul was heard to retort with a grin.
The door was opened immediately by a smiling, blond, plump, beaming lady who held out her arms towards Paul and drew him in for a hug. “Paul love,” she said. “How are you?”
“I’m fine, Louise,” answered Paul and started to move through the door. He turned around and gestured with his head towards his companion. “This is John.”
Louise Harrison’s broad and welcoming smile encompassed the newcomer. “Hello John. Come in!” and she moved aside. John confidently stepped forward to enter, but his grand entrance was spoiled when he managed to catch his foot on the threshold. He lurched forward and bounced into his hostess, his weight pushing her back against the wall of their hall. His guitar clanged, he said “Ooof”, and she shrieked with laughter. “Eh, watch it! We’ve only just met you know!”
“I’m sorry…” John began, but she waved his words aside, still laughing so much she had to wipe a tear from her eye. She flapped a hand in the direction of a door opening off the hall.
“In you go,” she said, as the door opened and George appeared.
“You met me mum then,” he said to John with an amused grin and then turned and went back into the sitting room. The others followed.
“Very much so,” John managed, as Paul too gave a peel of laughter and settled himself on the sofa. George took the seat nearby and the two settled into an easy familiarity. John chose a chair nearby and he too sat. He looked up as Louise poked her head through the door.
“Would you like a beer?” she asked the assembled company. Paul looked up at her with a smile.
“Ooh yeah, please,” he said, before returning his attention to his guitar. It was clear to John from Paul’s casual response that it had not been an unusual offer. He also realised that his mouth was hanging open. Involuntarily, he glanced over at George.
Was that a smirk on the thin face?
The next second, George’s expression was as guileless as before as he said, “Thanks mum.” He looked over at John and smiled at him. “And one for John, yeah?”
John met his gaze. “Yeah,” he said to the waiting Louise, who disappeared to get the drinks. John broke the gaze and focussed down on his guitar.
Game and set to George… for now.
Henley on Thames, 10th December 1980 (2)
The fire crackled and a log fell into the embers. The sound brought George back to the present; the early morning hours of a bleak December day and a nearly empty wine glass in his hand. He looked blankly at the glass for a moment and, after a pause and an apparent decision, he reached over to the low table in front of him, picked up the bottle and emptied it into his glass. He left the bottle on the carpet by his feet and leaned back with the glass and took a sip. A tiny smile tugged the corner of his mouth as he recalled all the teenage power struggles and tussles and squaring up which had punctuated those early days; they’d been so all engrossing and important then, but had soon passed. In a way. He wasn’t in fact sure whether John ever had stopped posturing and locking horns - with the others, with himself, with anyone who may have threatened to see past his guard. Which was actually everyone. But the strutting and bullying when he’d first got to know George had dwindled and more or less stopped once they’d served their purpose – John had to be the leader, and for years George was happy to let him be there. Not for nothing had George grown up as the youngest in a big lively family, and he had learned from the earliest age that if you didn’t mark out your territory and stand your ground you lost. It was just the way it was. John pushed, George pushed back, and in the end John sort of gave up. By the time they got as far as Hamburg, George had grown up sufficiently to be able to hold his own and it meant he had passed John’s test. He was worthy.
It also meant he was trusted. And that was all important.
Adelaide, 12th June 1964
George opened his door and looked back at the blonde who was pulling her dress down over her head. She was, George reflected, taking too long to get dressed. They often did that. It was sometimes annoying. Right now he felt relaxed and uninclined to be annoyed, but that might not last too long. “Alright luv?” he said, by way of a suggestion that, for her, the evening was over. “Yer ready?”
She obviously wasn’t ready, as her tight dress was only halfway down her curvaceous hips, but there was no harm in hurrying it along a bit. She looked across at him, and gave a little wriggle which may have been meant to be appealing, or may have been her way of saying that the dress was hard to get back on, but whatever it was George was having none of it. He stood, his hand on the handle of the open door, and his dark eyes fixed on her. “Okay then?” he said, implacably.
The nameless blonde finally took the hint. She yanked the dress down, looked for, found and slipped her feet into her shoes and grabbed her bag. She gazed at him, eyes limpid.
In answer, George opened the door a little wider and put his head on one side.
She gave a small sigh, and walked towards him and he stepped aside to allow her to move past him, the movement emphasising that she should do just that, and that this was definitely goodbye. “Thanks luv,” he said cheerily and then, looking over her shoulder, “Mal!”
Mal Evans appeared from the hall at the other side of the large main room of the suite, and beckoned her to come with him. She crossed the large room, looking back at George before she left but George wasn’t even looking in her direction any more. He was heading toward the drinks table, where he poured a large rum and coke and took it to one of the large arm chairs and plonked himself down opposite John Lennon, who was slumped in the chair opposite, his legs dangling over the arm of the chair. “Could have got me one,” said John.
“You should’ve asked.” George took a slug of his drink and settled back comfortably into the cushions.
“Hmmmf,” John grunted, but it was only the effort of getting out of the chair. He sloshed a random amount of rum into his own glass in a manner which suggested that he had had several of them already, added a cursory splash of coke and made his unsteady way back to the chair. “How was she then?” he asked once he’d landed back into the seat.
George raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips. Then he moved his head to back and forth in the signal that meant something like ‘nothing special’. “Ok.” He paused for a moment and thought. “Interesting,” he added.
John perked up. “Was it?”
“Sort of.” George smiled. “She had some interesting ideas.”
“Oh well.” John relaxed back into his chair again. “’Interesting’. Not too ‘interesting’, I hope.”
“Whatcha mean?”
“She didn’t chew your cock off or anything.”
“Not that I noticed.”
“S’alright then.”
The two lapsed into a comfortable silence; comfortable with each other, that is. Yet they had been together for around four years, closer together than most spouses, and their impenetrable shared guard against intrusions and invasions from outside their inner sanctum had rendered them all highly tuned in to the others’ feelings and moods. So that now, in the quiet after the frenetic scramble to the Hall, the insane hysteria of the show, the virtual debauchery of the party back at the hotel, and the physical release offered by whichever girl was first in the queue, each of the young men sitting slumped in their hotel suite was aware on some level or another that all was not well with the other.
George fetched another drink.
John broke the silence first. “Wassup?” he said. George looked up from his drink to see that John’s eyes were trained on him. He met his gaze, and gave one of his slight, crooked smiles. He shrugged.
“It’s too far.”
“Yer what?”
“Too far from home.” He paused to take a sip of his rum. “It’s the other side of the fucking world, for fuck’s sake.”
“Not for the Australians. It’s the right side for them.”
George chuckled. “True.” He smiled again. “Weirdos. Shows how much they know.”
“It must be all those boomerangs”, John commented.
“And digeridoos.”
“And wallabies.”
“And cricketers.” John burst out laughing at that last one, and George smiled comfortably at him. “Yeah,” he said, for no reason in particular.
John waved his glass at him to emphasise the fact that he was speaking. “Pattie?” he asked.
George looked at him, and smiled ruefully and nodded. “Yeah, he said again, very softly.
“It’s shit,” said John. It was a succinct summary of the situation and George appreciated its brevity and accuracy. He nodded. “D’ya trust her?”
George looked up sharply. He knew there was no mischief intended in the question; it was simply a straightforward enquiry, and he needed only a second or two to reflect on it and then to answer. “Yeah,” he said. “Oh yeah. I do.”
“Why?”
George smiled again. “I know her.”
“Already?”
George nodded again.
John finished his drink and lurched across the room for another. George laughed. “How many have you had?”
“Fuck knows.” John sat down heavily again and made himself comfortable. Each was very aware that the other showed no signs of wanting to break up the evening and clear off to bed. John wrapped his legs over the arm of the chair again. George stretched his long legs out in front of him and crossed them at the ankles. Silence fell once more.
“Where are the others?”
John shook his head. “Dunno.” He gestured with his head towards the other bedroom doors. “In there somewhere. In it for the duration I guess.”
George nodded, and watched his drink as he sloshed it gently to and fro. Then he looked up again. “And what about you?”
“What d’ya mean?”
George stared at him. “Wassup?” he asked, deliberated echoing John’s previous question to him.
John stared at him. He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. George waited for him. He knew this John. He’d seen him many times before. He’d seen him standing, bereft, in Stuart’s studio in Hamburg, he’d seen him staring at a blank wall and swallowing with nerves before their first recording session for Love Me do, he’d seen him waiting to say the first line of their first film, swallowing compulsively again. George knew this John. There was a chance he’d just get the usual throwaway witticism, the casual insult; but George didn’t think so. He waited him out. He finished his drink.
“I’m lost,” said John Lennon.
George shifted to one side in his chair and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He withdrew one, held it up and then tossed it across the small but important space between the two chairs. John caught it, picked up a lighter from the table next to him and lit the cigarette, held up the lighter and threw it over to his friend. George lit his own cigarette, took a long drag, and then stared.
“I am,” said John. Was he waiting for a denial? He didn’t get one. George got up and crossed the room to refill his glass and this time he brought one back for John. John looked thoughtfully at the glass for a moment, and then back up at George, who was settling down opposite again. “George,” he said. “When did you grow up?”
George gave a small smile, one corner of his mouth quirking up. “About ten years ago,” he retorted. “You were too up yourself to notice.”
John found the grace to laugh briefly. The two young men sat, smoked, drank, rested. A brief high pitched squeal sounded from one of the bedrooms, soon cut off, and both John and George laughed. They didn’t know who was with the excitable female, didn’t care either. “I envy you,” John declared.
George frowned. “Why?”
“What you’ve got.”
“Whatcha mean?”
“I saw you on that boat in Tahiti.”
George raised his eyebrows. “Pervert,” he commented mildly.
“You saw me too.”
“Couldn’t really miss you, could I.” He took a pull at his cigarette. “That was a good holiday.”
“Yeah.” John sounded mournful. George sighed very softly, because he knew John very well and he could see where this was going.
“You and Cyn were good,” he offered.
“Yeah.” John took another slug of rum. George waited him out. “On holiday. We can’t be on a paradise holiday all the time.”
“No. Most people aren’t.”
John glared. “You know what I mean,” and for the first time in the conversation his voice began to turn harsh. “Shit George. I don’t know what any of it’s about. Marriage. The Beatles. Any of it.”
George’s left ankle was propped on his right knee, his elbow on the arm of the chair and with the hand that wasn’t holding the cigarette he was running the edge of his forefinger to and fro across this lips. He looked across at John, silently. John glared back; and then broke into a chuckle. “You look like a fucking interviewer!”
George smiled, warmth in his dark eyes.
“Am I being stupid, Geo?”
George nodded, still smiling with his eyes.
“Well? I’m allowed to be, aren’t I!”
“Definitely,” agreed his baby friend whom John had just noticed had grown up.
One of the bedroom doors burst open. Mal must have been waiting, as he materialised as if on cue and guided the latest lady to the door. Paul wandered over towards his two Beatle buddies. “What’s happening? Anything to eat?”
George waved an arm in the direction of the table on the other side of the room. “Might be something left there.” He shifted position again, curled both legs under him, and looked across at John, his head slightly on one side. John looked back; he gave the briefest of nods.
It was all the acknowledgement George would have expected.
And then, it all went wrong, and the tears started.
EMI Studios, October 1968
George placed his guitar carefully in its case. He wanted to slam it in, like he wanted to slam everything and everything around him, but he couldn’t harm his guitar, however lousy he felt at that moment. But, once the instrument was safely ensconced in its velvet casing, he knew without further reflection that it was safe to slam down the lid and snap the clasps shut viciously and everyone looked round.
“George?” Paul McCartney was turned towards him, puppy-dog eyes wide. “George, listen…”
George didn’t bother to look up, which was reasonable as Paul didn’t continue so George wouldn’t have known what he was supposed to listen to.
“Ooo, wassup den?” John’s voice cut across the studio.
George straightened, and turned to look at John and John’s face clearly reflected every drop of the scorn and derision in the voice. His grin held no humour, it was a leer, tight-lipped, eyes closed to slits. George stood and faced him.
It was a John he had seen many times in the past. He’d seen it in the Liverpool Art College when George had followed his good mate Paul in to play rock; John was surrounded by his arty acolytes and he was playing the game to the hilt. He’d seen it in their earlier music practises, before John had forgotten to sneer. He’d seen that look in Hamburg when John was too far gone on prellies and drink to even know who he was looking at. And he’d seen it many times directed at others, those unfortunate hangers-on who forgot their place when in the presence of a Beatle and stepped that bit too close. But, George had not seen it directed at himself for a long time. And here it was now. George straightened unconsciously, and faced his old friend.
The sneer broadened. “Wassup?” said John again. “Oh I know! Georgie wants his little song on the album but, oh dear, there just isn’t room.” John took a drag of his cigarette. “Maybe next time, eh?”
“George!” There had been two voices chorusing his name. Paul, and Ringo, and Ringo was stepping towards him from behind his drum screen, hand outstretched. Paul’s eyes were no longer puppy-dog. And George realised that he himself had halved the distance between himself and John and he realised that his fists were clenched.
“My little song?” His voice was a hiss.
John laughed.
“George!” Just Paul that time. He too was reaching out. George Martin had appeared from his control hidey-hole; George could see him out of the corner of his eye.
“Isn’t it a pity it’s bollocks,” said John. ”Good name for it really.” And the next minute John Lennon was flat on his back on the floor next to the piano. The sneer had gone, replaced by a look of sheer surprise. The woman next to him leapt to her feet; John waved her back with one hand. Ringo stood in front of George, trying to form a barrier between the two men, and grasped George’s arms.
“Geo! Come on!! George!”
George tried to focus on Ringo’s face, tried to breathe. He’d have moved forward, he’d have finished the job but Ringo was there and that reminded him that he shouldn’t do that. He felt an arm around his shoulders, and his head turned and looked at Paul. “Geo! Hey. No!”
The words were meaningless but it didn’t matter. George knew what they were saying. Fair enough. You shouldn’t beat up your bandmates. But…
He took a deep breath trying to free his voice to speak. Another deep breath.
“You bastard,” he said through uncomfortably gritted teeth. “You fucking bastard. That song is good. You fucking know it’s good.”
John was sitting up now but was still on the floor. Having to look up at his adversary lost him quite a bit of advantage. He opened his mouth to speak. “It’s…”
“It’s a good tune and you know it. You don’t want my stuff on there, you don’t want…” George took another deep breath and almost reeled from the onslaught of his own thoughts. “You don’t care about this any more, you don’t care about anything any more except her, and that shit gear you take. You know this song is better than your stuff right now, you can’t even…”
“Better than mine?” John’ interjection was almost a howl. “You have to be fucking kidding! You! You…”
“Yeah, me. And you’re so wrapped up in your own shit you wouldn’t even recognise a good song any more if it came and smashed you in the face.”
John clambered to his feet. He too turned to face his old friend. “Like you just did,” he said, quietly.
George licked his lips, mouth so dry he could barely speak or swallow. There was too much, too much he wanted to say, too much grief and fury and frustration to even start to express it. He could only shake his head. He closed his eyes briefly, and then turned away and stalked back to his guitar. He grasped the handle of the case, and then turned, half facing John, half facing away. “Fuck you, Lennon.” It was all he could manage.
He spun away and marched out of the studio away from the Beatles.
Henley on Thames, 10th December 1980 (3)
George brushed tears away with the heel of his hand. Stupid fucking git Lennon, why did he act like that when he wasn’t like that.
Except that he was like that. But he wasn’t. But he was, all of it, all at the same time.
George looked up at the high ceiling of his grand room, tears drying on his face. His right hand groped on the sofa next to him and found the packet of cigarettes. He drew one out, found the lighter, lit the cigarette, breathed smoke in and continued to stare at his ceiling. Stupid, he declared in his mind. Stupid, to cry. The old bastard’s only in the next room, he knew that. It was just the shock. And the fucking stupid way he went. Of all the things…
Tears pricked at his eyes. Again. Stupid. It was just late. Too much wine. Some mad shit just took his friend away…
Fuck’s sake. Why cry at a memory of when he was a bastard. Why not cry at the good times. There were tons of them. He didn’t want to sit and wallow in them. That’s not what this was about, that’s not what he’s about, he knows John hasn’t gone anywhere. And even if he had, it was years since he’d been a real part of his life so what’s the difference.
George took another drag of his cigarette. It was like watching pictures in his mind, no order, and each picture carrying the essence and image of the man. There were huge loud noisy times, there were the small quiet private times, there were the angry and frustrated times. There was John’s face, on stage at Carnegie Hall, it was an experience none of them could ever have imagined happening to anyone, and it was happening to them. The centre of that huge arena and fans all around them and such energy that was like the old days in Hamburg and Liverpool. And George looked over at John, and John at that moment was looking back across the stage at him, and George saw the triumph and the joy in his face – we’ve done it, we’ve done it. The toppermost of the poppermost. And the joy sang between them.
Even bigger than Carnegie Hall; could they have ever thought there could be anything bigger but there was Shea Stadium and John lost it, completely lost it while Paul let rip on I’m Down. The whole thing was so crazy, George could see that John simply leapt into the chance to be just as crazy himself, and George joined him in the spirit of that moment and laughed so much he couldn’t even sing. And then Paul saw what was happening from the other side of the stage and he too spun around laughing at the madness and in the madness.
Paul didn’t like it when John went into his cripple act on stage, but there was nothing you could do about it, he was going to do it. Paul had talked to him about it once but never bothered to try again. And Brian tried once too but he didn’t get even a sentence out, and instead withered in the face of John’s derision. John could be the very spirit of cruelty.
And another scene imposed itself into the kaleidoscope, on a coach, on a tour, in England, and lots of other acts in the coach travelling with them because The Beatles were right down low on the bill and Helen Shapiro was right at the top. But Helen had just read an article in a music paper that said she was finished, washed up, her day was gone and the Beatles were heading the new wave. And she was crying. And John had his arm around her and John was telling her not to pay any attention to the crap they printed in papers, that she was the business and she had nothing to worry about. Her tears stopped and she ended up laughing along with John; kind and caring John.
Hamburg John, crazy John, Prellies and booze John, John who was far from home and free to finally let loose and he did. And there were a hundred scenes on stage and around the streets of madness and daring and near-atrocities – but there were also the times when they sat around the bar tables in the small hours of the mornings, drinking and talking and laughing together as a unit –
George took a deep breath, and another sip of wine. He was thinking about that unit, that impenetrable and near psychic unity which existed between the four of them and which was so palpable that outsiders could see it, like a force field around them that no-one could get through and that was the way they wanted it and needed it. Not even Neil and Mal, not even the wives and girlfriends, no-one. It had eroded, in time, it couldn’t last, but while it was there it was a gift from God and it had without any doubt saved them from insanity. The four who were one. Within the force field yes, they were four people with four separate spirits and they sometimes clashed but they still blended. The cruel and harsh and frightened and loving John was a part of the unit and helped make it what it was.
George drained his wine and as he put the glass back on the table another memory sneaked in and wrapped tightly around his heart. A postcard arriving on his doormat with just one line: “Sorry about your ma.” From the other side of the world and the other side of all the viciousness and despair, John had reached out to him to sympathise with something he understood only too well, the death of a much loved mother.
George took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. He swallowed. He closed his eyes, and for a moment he spoke to his old friend. Then he got to his feet, checked that the fire was low enough to be safe, and he slowly and tiredly made his way to the door, and up the stairs, to bed, to bring an end to that endless and terrible day.
END