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"Well," Paul says, cradling the phone against his ear, "what did you think?"
There's a moment of silence on the other end of the line, long enough that Paul, just for a moment, wonders whether Ringo's accidentally hung up with his cheek again. Then Ringo laughs, half-apologetic, and says, "Really wanna know?"
Paul's chest pulls a bit, but he can't back out now, can he? "Course I do."
Ringo inhales, then says, in that warm voice so unchanged by the years and the distance, "We were bloody gorgeous."
It's not at all what Paul was expecting. It makes him laugh; Ringo's always made him laugh. He can see his face now, the slow curl of his grin, and he wishes, suddenly and fiercely, that they were in the same room. He can still picture Ringo in Hamburg, twenty-one with a white streak and a vicious left hook. Ringo was always bloody gorgeous. He says, "That a revelation to you, then? I'll let you in on a secret: that's why we wanted you in the first place, son."
Ringo laughs, the sound of it still smoky though he hasn't smoked in years. "Thought it was me car you were after?"
"Well, we liked the car."
"I know you did."
Paul bites his lip on a smile. He sounds different these days, he knows that. He absorbs accents like clothes drink in the scent of a room, and two American wives have taken their toll. But Ringo's still just Ringo, his voice like an echo of a Dingle accent that doesn't exist any more. He sounds LA, oddly, on the ands and the ands only. Paul says, "I always fancied you, anyway. Can't speak for the other two."
It's oddly anticlimactic, saying it now. Everything's less important the older you get, and this is just a fact, something Paul's known about himself since he was a teenager and been able to accept since he finally gave into the concept of therapy. What does it matter if Ringo knows? It's obvious, watching the tape. They both are and aren't those beautiful kids these days. It doesn't matter.
Still, his chest heats pleasantly when Ringo laughs again and says "oh yeah? I fancied you."
Paul puts his thumb in his mouth, worries at the nail and grins around it. "Didn't think you swung that way."
"Special cases. You were my special girl, Bambi eyes."
Paul glows. It's ridiculous. He's a hair's breadth from eighty, and he knows he doesn't have anything like the effect he once had. On men, anyway. Women, he can still melt with a smile and a well-placed, inept wink, but something in him misses the way men's eyes used to slide over him on the street. He misses Ringo's arm around his shoulder, the way he was always, always, so casually protective. The adult scent of his aftershave. Paul says, "I liked it."
"I know," Ringo retorts, "or I'd've stopped. I didn't think we were so obvious, though."
"We were all obvious," Paul says. "God. How did anyone ever put up with us? Get a room."
"Hey," Ringo says, "we knew when to get a room, sometimes. Remember all those hotel bathrooms?"
Paul giggles. He really oughtn't giggle at seventy-nine, but it's Ringo's fault. "Remember wanking on our film set? Poor Vic didn't know what to think."
"We were idiots," Ringo agrees. "We fuckin' loved each other."
"Yeah."
"Yeah."
A slow pause. Paul can hear the question building in it before Ringo asks it.
"You and John…"
Paul sighs. "Yeah."
"Were you…?"
Paul bites his lip. "I was in love with him, yeah." He's never said it aloud. Ringo is the only person he could ever have said it to. "I didn't put it like that in my mind then, obviously. But I've had a lot of therapy, you know, Ritch."
Ringo makes an indulgent noise. "And?"
Paul shrugs, then realises Ringo can't see him. He'll have to make words. "There's only so much of your life you can spend obsessed with another bloke -- who's been dead forty years -- before a therapist makes you look it in the face. They're all bastards."
Ringo laughs, but he doesn't say anything. He's just waiting. Good old Ringo.
"So, I'm bisexual," Paul says. "Obviously. I've never, y'know, but they're very keen to point out it doesn't matter. The Young."
"All right," Ringo says gently.
Paul swallows. "Are you?"
"Not really." Ringo sounds as if he's conscious of letting Paul down, just a bit. "A little bit, maybe. Only really pretty boys, though. You. I'd've snogged you up one side and down the other, but I dunno about the rest of it."
"And John?"
"Did I fancy John, or do I think John was into blokes?"
Paul wavers. "Either. Both."
"No I didn't, and yes he was. Paul, I can tell you to a dead cert that Johnny was in love with you."
Paul's chest clenches. He knows it, of course he knows it. Most of the time he's certain of it. But if Ringo knows -- well, it's different. More. Better and worse. A real chance missed.
“You sound pretty sure,” he hedges.
“I am,” Ringo says easily. “He told me.”
Paul’s heart — and with it, his entire sense of self — lurches. “What?”
“Oh, yeah. One night with Harry, we were off our faces but I’ll never forget it. Harry asked, y’see. I’d never have just asked. But I think he had the wrong end of the stick, from what John had said before, I don’t know.”
“What did he say?” Paul asks weakly. Lovely Harry, another one gone too soon. Paul finds he’s clutching the phone very tightly in his hand. He can’t begin to imagine what could’ve prompted Harry to just — ask.
Ringo sighs gently. “Look, I didn’t mean to get you all in your head about this. Promise me you won’t do that, if I tell you.”
“I never do that!”
“You do, always,” Ringo says firmly. “I know you, don’t forget. The real you, not Him. That rich bastard Paul McCartney.”
Paul laughs despite himself. It’s true. Ringo knows him as very few people have ever done. He makes a soft noise of agreement, then says, “All right, fine. I promise. So what did he say?”
“Well…” Ringo’s drawing it out, which strikes Paul as utterly unnecessary. “He asked Johnny what made him fall for you. And John said, ‘Harry, I don’t know how anyone manages not to.’ Just like that.”
Something swells painfully in Paul’s chest. His stomach flips. It’s impossible to tell whether the feeling is good or bad, but it’s certainly overwhelming. He suddenly wants to be sick. He manages, “And Harry said…?”
“Agreed,” Ringo says, “and moved on. It wasn’t a long thing. But I thought they might’ve talked about it before, and Harry didn’t know I — hadn’t been told.”
Paul notes he doesn’t say didn’t know. He asks, “Were you surprised?”
“That he’d said it,” Ringo admits, “maybe. But not that it was true, Paul. I’d seen you together for years, remember. And none of it made any sense — it was a bit less mad if you’d been…well. You know.”
Paul stares down at the telephone table in front of him. “He loved me.”
“Yeah.”
Paul exhales, shaky. “I wish I’d said something to him.”
“When?” Ringo demands. “It was illegal, and he was married, and then you were. There was the band, there was Brian, there was — the way everything was. When would’ve been a good time?”
He sounds vehement about it, convinced. It’s something Paul has considered himself, but he’s never quite approached it the way Ringo does now. He’s wished John had known; he’s never really thought about what might have happened if he had. That it might have been worse.
Ringo waits for a moment, as if listening to Paul’s thoughts rattle around his head. Then he says, “Paul. He loved you. He knew you loved him, really, he couldn’t’ve been dense enough not to. And everyone who sees Peter’s film, they’ll know it as well.”
Paul blinks. At heart, he knows it’s true. Seeing John smile at him like that again was like a gift he’d never dreamed of being given. He says, “I’m glad I’ve still got you.”
Even down the long miles of the phone line, he can hear Ringo’s smile. “Sentimental git,” he says. “As if you’re ever getting rid of me.”