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It was quiet along the coast. The beach itself was rather noisy, what with wind and waves and rocks crunching underfoot and the occasional gull overhead, but the sounds were hardly raucous. They melted into the background of grey early morning fog and afternoon cloud cover, of muted green pasture land and settled marshes. And there was always a hint of blue as well, not quite robin’s egg, but blue all the same. It peeked through the clouds from time to time or smiled from the channel when one looked out from the cliffs, knowing that somewhere beyond the horizon was a coastline staring back.
There was blue in the cottage, too. The curtains and cupboards were a cheerful shade that reminded one of a soft winter sky. There were other colours in the cottage, too. Greens in the paintings of the landscape and the parlor nook’s furniture, white in the linens and the kitchen, red in the kettle on the stove and the set of child-sized coats hanging on the hooks, yellow in the old knit throw blanket on the armchair and the matching Wellingtons by the door.
The Wellingtons contained a medley of other colours now, filled with small oranges and nuts and a few wrapped sweets, but the boots’ owners wouldn’t find this rainbow until morning. Late morning, at any rate. 2:30 was hardly a time for small minds to be consciously aware of very much. That was why Julian, bleary eyed and half-asleep, missed the boots — and their contents — entirely when he stumbled from the smaller bedroom and into his parents’, dragging a small quilt and his stuffed panda with him.
He climbed up onto the trunk at the end of the bed, pulled up the large blanket, and wriggled himself under it, slowly crawling to the head of the bed and the protective arms of his fathers. The comfort of their pillows would be welcomed as well. Perhaps a minute or so after his journey under the blanket had begun, he managed to poke his mess of auburn hair out at the top of the blanket, right between John and Paul, but he kept the rest of his face buried underneath.
Both men were very much awake at this point — how could they not be, what with a toddler having wriggled under their quilt in a sloppy commando crawl? — but without even discussing it, they decided to humour their son.
“Hmm, love, do you smell that?” Paul asked, pretending to sniff the air.
“Mm, well I do smell something,” John said, copying him. “Do you think it’s a hedgehog?”
Julian did his best to swallow a giggle.
“Maybe… Does it have any spines?”
“Let’s see, shall we?” John took a hand from beneath the blanket and found Julian’s head, ruffling his hair. “Not a hedgehog, I don’t think. It’s got some fur.”
A small snort escaped Julian’s nose, and he quickly covered it with a hand.
“I heard a snuffle!” Paul exclaimed quietly. “Could it be a badger?”
“Badgers do like to burrow, don’t they?” John winked at Paul. “Reckon this one came in from outside?”
“It could have! How short is its fur?”
John ruffled Julian’s hair again, pretending not to hear his son’s hidden laughter. “I dunno darling, its fur is pretty long. You give it a ruffle.”
Paul reached out a hand of his own and gave Julian’s head a gentle scritch. “It does feel pretty long, doesn’t it? Reckon it’s a fox?”
“Maybe a large squirrel?” John posed. “With an extra fluffy set of fur for the winter?”
Finally Julian couldn’t suppress his giggling and he burst out from the quilt, face in a wide smile. “I’m not a squirrel! I’m me!”
Paul feigned shock and John gathered Julian into his arms with a proper laugh. “So that’s who it is! Paul love, we have a wild Julian in our bed!”
“A wild Julian? Those are pretty rare, aren’t they?” Paul played along, his face in as big a smile as his son’s.
“They are!” John agreed, peppering Julian’s face with kisses. “In fact there’s only one in the whole world!”
“We must be pretty lucky then, haven’t we?”
“The luckiest in the world, I think,” John sighed with contentment, giving Julian a final squeeze before he reached out for Paul, wanting the same reassurances of joy from his other parent.
Paul glady acquiesced, bestowing the same kisses and hugs onto Julian that John had. Then they helped settle him down between them, wrapping him in his small quilt and making sure he had Charles the panda with him. Paul prompted him to talk a bit about the bad dream that led him to leave his own bed and curl up in theirs, and both parents gave him reassurances about the dream’s true nature as just that: a dream.
After a few more minutes of reassurances and a few more forehead kisses, Julian was drifting off to sleep, one arm latched around John’s wrist.
“He sleeps like you,” Paul chuckled, pointing to the firm hold Julian had on John.
“Har har,” John returned with a sardonic tone. Still, his eyes were smiling.
“Don’t be sore about it,” Paul tutted gently. “I found it rather lovely. Still do. I remember waking up Mendips when you and I would have sleepovers and you’d just be wrapped around me like an octopus.”
“Good thing Mimi didn’t walk in,” John laughed lightly. “Not that we were together then, were we?”
“Nah, this was a while before then. Pretty sure I was starting to fancy you, though, even if I didn’t know what it meant to be queer.”
John hummed in acknowledgement. “I guess that sounds about right for me, too. Not sure what was going on in my head exactly. I know I was pretty shocked you wanted to hang around with someone like me, though. You were so…”
“Stuck up?” Paul offered with a laugh.
“You’ve never been stuck up Paulie, come on now.” John swatted at Paul with his free hand. “You were just, sophisticated, maybe? More proper and well behaved and, I mean, you were polite, I guess. I was a bit of a steam roller when it came to dealing with other people.”
“Only a slight bit,” Paul admitted. “But you always cleaned up pretty nice for my dad. At least after the first time.”
John cringed. “Let’s not bring that to mind, shall we?”
“Ah, my mistake,” Paul grinned. He leaned across Julian to give John a cheerful apology kiss. Then, he sat himself up against the headboard.
“You not feeling tired?” John asked, cocking an eyebrow.
“Not really, I guess. Mary’s due for a bottle in a bit anyway.”
“What time is it?” John squinted at his watch, but even with the luminescent dials, his eyes were out of their league.
“Just nearing three. Don’t strain your eyes now.”
John delivered another swat, still in good humor. “I can detach our little squirrel from me if you want help with the bottle when it’s time.”
“It’s alright, love,” Paul assured. “You should get some rest. We head back to London tomorrow.”
John nodded, settling against the pillows as best he could and drawing Julian a little closer to him. He closed his eyes, willing soft words to float through his mind and quiet the noise that always seemed to be there. But even as the sounds settled down inside and his eyelids relaxed against his eyes, the tiredness didn’t come.
Maybe playing with Julian had woken him up too much. Maybe the childlike glee of knowing it was St. Nicholas’s Day and that Christmas wasn’t far behind was getting to him. Maybe he just wasn’t tired. Or maybe it was Paul’s comment about them going back to London tomorrow. Something about that didn’t seem so appealing.
Despite the reason for their recent, and frequent, trips to the seaside — Mary’s illness — it was becoming something John genuinely looked forward to. He loved the ocean, of course. He always had. He liked the rhythm of the sounds and the feeling of the water against his skin, and there was something freeing in watching the world go on without his direct involvement all the time.
But there was something else about being here, in a little cottage with merely a kitchen, a parlor, two bedrooms, and a loo, that John couldn’t ignore. His whole family fit between these four walls and under this small roof and the only thing they had to be was a family.
Maybe that was it. This small cottage was within a short walk to the sea, and when they were here, he and Paul were just parents and their children were just children. He wasn’t half of a world-famous song writing duo, a fourth of an even more acclaimed band, a public figure hounded by the press. Neither was Paul. And the kids weren’t the kids of celebrities and legends. They were free to live messily and tiredly and sometimes even grumpily, just as all kids should.
Mary stirred in her cot beside the bed, beginning to cry, and Paul slid out from under the blankets, scooping her up and taking her into the kitchen. It was time to warm up a bottle for her. John remembered when they first fed Julian, still in their private hospital room and after his first light therapy session for jaundice. Paul had held him in the crook of his arm, bottle tilted to help Julian latch onto it easier. It seemed that the more John watched, the more he forgot what he was aside from a father. When John had fed Julian later that day, Paul helping him guide the bottle correctly, he realized that he’d be perfectly content to do it for the rest of his life.
Paul slipped back into the bedroom just as John’s eyes began to turn misty. He watched Paul sit down on the bed, Mary in his arms and bottle in her mouth. Just like with Julian. She gurgled like he used to, too. But she was a messier eater than Julian was, spilling a little on her chin every so often, and suddenly John almost sobbed.
What if Julian had been just as messy and he and Paul had never noticed? What if they hadn’t noticed other details from his infancy? They’d been so busy with album promotion after he was born. And what about Heather? How many small, fragile moments had they missed with her, when they were recording at the studio? It hurt to think about. It hurt to consider that maybe they’d gotten it wrong.
And then something like a sob really did slip out, a coughed gasp.
“Johnny? You alright, love?” Paul asked, looking up from Mary.
“Just couldn’t sleep.”
“Are you alright, though?” Paul’s voice was cautious. “It sounded like you were about to start crying.”
“Just… some unwelcome thoughts. Brain won’t quiet down. I thought it had, but it’s proving me wrong.”
“I’m sorry darling. I can brew you some tea if you like. Miss Moo is almost finished with her bottle.”
“I’ll manage, love. You’ve been out of bed already, anyway.” John patted Paul’s arm in thanks.
“Well let me know if that beautiful mind of yours changes, alright?”
“Promise,” John smiled with a yawn.
“Now, what else is going on up there? Those trespassing thoughts you mentioned.”
“I was just thinking about the past few weeks,” John said, surprising himself with the ease it came out. “Even though we’re here for Mary’s health, it’s so nice being out of the city, and living quietly, getting to have every day with the kids. We can just be a family, y’know?”
Paul nodded along, helping Mary finish the bottle and switching her up to his shoulder for burping, bib over his back.
“And I guess I just got to thinking how nice it would be to keep having this every day. Everything calm and normal. It makes me feel that maybe we got it a bit wrong.”
“Got what wrong, love?” Paul prodded gently. He knew John well enough to know that their relationship or family wasn’t being questioned. But John wasn’t exactly the most confident in his own fathering abilities. “This like what we talked about on Father’s day?”
“I don’t think so,” John sighed. “It’s more about how we’re functioning as a family, I guess. Maybe we should have packed it in when Jules was born, dedicated ourselves to parenting full time. We missed so many little bits of his first months, first years.”
Paul finished burping Mary and brought her back down to his lap. She was growing tired again, and Paul automatically began to fix the swaddle to lay her back in the cot. He seemed to be thinking, though, so John didn’t interrupt. Paul was a deep thinker at times, and John was used to waiting patiently for him to be ready. A few minutes after Paul set her down in the cot, he spoke:
“I regret not having that time with Julian, and I feel the same about not having that time with Heather... But I don't regret the music and memories we made as a band during that time.” He paused, making sure Mary was comfortable in her cot. “Maybe that makes me, I dunno, wrong somehow, and if it does I'd like to go back and redo it a better way for our family. I remember talking to Ringo about this last year, Christmas Eve I think it was. He said he thought we were good parents, though. Raising good kids. He wouldn’t have lied to us, either, especially not about kids. … And I think we’re good parents,” Paul finished quietly.
“I think we’re good parents, too,” John hurried to explain. “And I never think you’ve been a bad father, and when you reassure me, I know I’m pretty good, too. I wasn’t thinking about us being a better family, necessarily. Maybe saying that we ‘got it wrong’ wasn’t exactly correct. I guess mostly I think it would be nice, nicer than now, for us to be away from the city and all the rubbish that comes with it.”
“So you want to move?” Paul asked, rather curious but still calm in tone.
It was John’s turn to lapse into thought. His first instinct was to answer in the negative — he’d merely been entertaining the thought of having more time as a family, not about moving house — and the next was to ask why Paul had jumped to that topic of discussion. But the third thought sat with him: the promise that moving actually held for them.
Suddenly random snippets of musings and remembrances from the past year flitted back to him. The ease he felt in the countryside of both Friar Park and the farm, his and Paul’s joking sincerity that they should have a fourth child, the melancholy at the realization that the kids wouldn’t really have local accents, his dislike of raising the family in London, the steady improvement of Mary’s lungs from being near the sea. It was so nice to be by the sea. The waves on the beach and the wind over the countryside, so strong and soothing all the same. So soothing…
“John love?”
“What?”
“You were falling asleep, ” Paul reached across Julian and stroked John’s hair. “Do you want to set this aside until morning?”
“Talking about moving, you mean?” John blinked his eyes.
“Well we weren’t exactly talking about it,” Paul chuckled. “But I had breached the idea.”
“Mm,” John hummed, stifling a yawn. “I hadn’t thought about it until you brought it up. Have you been thinking on it?”
“Not really.” Paul shrugged, settling fully down under the quilt again. “But it makes sense. I’m rather strongly for it, really, if we’re on the matter.”
“What? Just like that?” John had to swallow a squawk of surprise. Paul was hardly a split-second decider on anything. Even in the early days, when they all had wardrobe guidelines, Paul had dithered about what shade of dark grey tie to wear. Now, here he was declaring he’d be alright with moving their family from London, and less than 15 minutes after mentioning it for the first time, too.
“Some things just make sense once they come up, y’know,” Paul returned plainly. He sounded perfectly at ease with the idea. “It’s like how it was when you proposed. Saying yes was the most natural response in the world.”
“But we’d talked about that before!” John spluttered, forgetting Julian was dozing between them.
“Shh, darling,” Paul tutted kindly. He smoothed Julian’s creased forehead, a subconscious reaction to his father’s incredulity. “We talked abstractly about how it would be nice to be able to have a marriage of sorts, yes, but I hardly recall us discussing the matter in detail.” Paul smiled fondly. “Besides, we’re not nailing out the plans for this here and now. You asked if I’d been thinking about moving and I said no but gave my opinion on whether we should or not. That’s not exactly putting the house up for sale and making an offer on a farm out here, is it?”
“No, no I suppose not,” John admitted. He couldn’t help smiling a little. Paul always had a way of making things simpler for him, and he was more grateful than he knew how to convey. “I guess it just caught me a little off guard. I suppose I’d be in favor, too, but there’s so much to think about. I mean, even when we moved into the flat back in Liverpool with George and into the house in London with all four of us…”
“Then let’s give ourselves some good time to think about it, shall we? Because if you think we’re getting this taken care of before Christmas, you’re daft.” Paul kissed John’s forehead with finality, signaling a return to sleep. “Just give yourself time to think about it, to see what the right decision is. I’ll do the same.”
John returned the kiss with a peck to the lips and a nod of loving assent, turning Julian slightly so the three of them could share the pillows more evenly, and let sleep calm his surprised synapses. Time to think about it. Time to see what they should do. That would help.
And it did. When Heather raced into the master bedroom in the morning, eagerly tugging on the quilt and chattering about looking in their boots for presents from Saint Nicholas, John saw it. When Julian played on the floor with Mary and she rolled from her stomach to her back for the first time, lungs and muscles strong enough to allow it, he saw it.
He saw it when Paul zipped up the kids into their thick coats and slipped Mary into his own jacket, keeping her tucked against his chest when they set off on their morning walk to the beach. He saw it when Julian and Heather hurried ahead on the path without fear of encroaching crowds, and when Paul turned to look at him, a wide smile and windswept hair framing his face, set against a gray yet promising sky, not a bit afraid to be every inch the father and husband he was.
And to be entirely honest with himself, John saw it in Paul’s eyes when they stole a moment during the kids’ naptime, a much-earned collection of minutes that allowed the men to be close to each other without fear of some uninvited person inviting themselves in. They lay skin to skin, breath heavy in their chests and hair tangled together and hushed voices promising their love over and over again with the same sincerity they’d had since the first time, that time they sat on Paul’s couch in the middle of the night, the radio on low, when John nearly cried as Paul said it back.
When they tucked the kids in that night, Julian in his own bed but the quiet suspicion that he’d join his parents just past midnight, everything in John’s mind was easy. They’d have more of these days, and soon.