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Paul wandered about the study looking to see that everything was just right for the interview. They’d originally planned for him to go to the studio for this but he was recovering from a nasty bout of the flu and Nancy had insisted he stay at home and rest, so the interviewer would be coming here.
He was oddly nervous about this. It was the first interview since Yoko’d died of course, which meant she was bound to bring up all that old stuff about a feud between them. He really just wanted all that to go away but it seemed it wouldn’t. John had been dead for nearly fifty years and every interview still revolved around him.
He paused in his tour of the room to gaze at the photos on the desk in the corner. There were a bunch of new ones of course, children and grandchildren, weddings and graduations, Nancy, but there were others as well. A portrait of Linda, those honest loving eyes staring straight at him, still able to read his soul. Casual shots of Ringo and Barbara from last year when they’d taken the family to Monaco for a holiday. An old one of George and Olivia, relaxing in the garden. Dhani. He and John in India, laughing together. He shook his head a little ruefully as he realized there were no pictures of Yoko here, wondering what the journalist would make of that.
The interview started out casually enough. How was he after his illness. Rumour was he was going back into the studio. Would he ever perform live again? What did he think of his wife’s new business venture? What did he think of the new cover of ‘Yesterday’ being at the top of the charts?
Then it came.
“Now that Yoko has passed on, will you be changing the credits on your songs to McCartney-Lennon?”
“Oh, I don’t think so. There was a time that seemed important to me, a time when it seemed everyone was giving John all the credit for the Beatles and, you know, at the time, it seemed important that they know I’d done more than just book the studio time. But I’m past that all, really. People know I wrote ‘Yesterday’.”
“Why did Yoko object so vehemently?”
“Well, she was just trying to protect John.”
“From you?”
“Yeah, well, I guess she thought she needed to. She didn’t, you know, I mean I loved the guy, I’d never want to hurt him. I was just looking out for myself.”
“You and Yoko never did seem to settle your differences, did you?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I think we managed in the last few years. It was hard for us. She was a very strong woman and I think I felt threatened by her, by her and John, by how close they were. I felt left out and didn’t really know how to express it so it came out as frustration. Looking back on it I can see it for what it really was, but at the time, you know, when you’re in the middle of all the emotions, you don’t know what it is, you’re just reacting to things. Maybe I didn’t react the best way, or even just as well as I could have, but what can you do?”
“It sounds as if you and she were fighting over John.”
“Well, we were, really. We both loved him. He loved both of us. He made a choice and chose Yoko and that was really hard. Really hard. I almost didn’t make it out of that. Thank God for Linda.”
“John always spoke of his parting from the Beatles as a divorce…”
“Yeah. That’s what it was, really. We’d had this great marriage, this great love for each other, this partnership, and it all fell apart, and it was like a divorce. In a divorce you kind of have to get really away from each other, you have to almost hate each other for a while to get past the crying, and then, maybe, you can settle into being friends.”
“Did John and the other Beatles get to the friends stage?”
“We all did, yes. I’m glad, really, we managed to become friends again before he died. It would have been terrible to have gone through life knowing that I hadn’t had a chance to tell him I loved him before he died, but it just worked out that we got all that settled in time. Something to be grateful for, I guess.”
“Forgive me, but when you talk about John, it’s almost as if you’re talking about an old girlfriend or something.”
“Well, we were close. Nobody closer. We went through this whole mania thing, and only the four of us really knew what it was like, plus most of it fell on John and me because we wrote the music, we were the frontmen. So, yeah, we got really tight. Plus being on tour for so many years. Yeah. Yeah, we were…I loved him, you know? It’s a long time ago now, and things have changed so much in the world, and maybe if it was all happening today it’d be easier to talk about…but, yeah, I loved him.”
“Did he love you?”
“Yeah.”
“Your face lit up when you said that.”
“Well, love is a special thing. I’ve learned not to take it lightly. And John and I…well, it was special, different from anything else. We were in our own world in the Beatles, and kind of wrapped up in what we were doing, and that made everything just more intense than it might have been otherwise.”
“While I was doing research for this interview I was looking at old Beatles photographs…”
“Ah…back when we were young and beautiful!”
“Just so…and I came across some photos from the David Bailey shoot…”
“Oh those! I love those pictures! John did too. He had one up in his studio at home. Said it gave him inspiration.”
“Well, the thing that struck me about them was how intimate the two of you seemed. I’m surprised they didn’t start rumours about your relationship.”
“Oh they did, you know. We got a terrible lot of teasing from friends when those came out. You’re right, they’re very sexy. I look at them now and think, you know, ‘Ooh! Wonder what’s going on there?’ and I was there! So I’ve got nothing to wonder about. But still, yes, very suggestive aren’t they?”
“So, I guess the question that needs to be asked…”
“Are you going to ask it? Really? How exciting!”
“I’m a little afraid to, but yes, I’ll ask…”
“You’ll get a Pulitzer for this, you know…”
“Were you and John Lennon lovers?”
“Hah! You really did ask! Good for you!”
“Are you going to answer it?”
“Well, I’m trying to think what John would want me to say. He tried, for a bit, you know, to put it about that he was gay but nobody ever believed him. Well, except for that whole thing with Brian. People seemed to think John had an affair with Brian! Can you imagine? I don’t see Brian as John’s type at all! Too smooth. Too posh. Good old Johnny, working class hero, no way he was going to have it off with someone posh like Brian. All it did, though, John putting it about that he was gay, was have people think I was! Me! A wife and two children by that time. People just don’t think, do they? But, like I said, I loved Johnny, and he loved me, and, well, it was unique, wasn’t it? The mania and everything. We clung to each other, I’d guess you’d say, hung on to keep from drowning in the madness all around us. And what are lovers but people who love? We loved, no question about it. We hated pretty good too, but we loved.”
“That answer leaves an awful lot to the imagination.”
Paul just smiled at her, and went and started fiddling about on the piano, showing off the new songs he’d been working on. She let it drop, albeit reluctantly, and when it aired the next week nobody really seemed to know what to do with it. Debate raged for a while, were they or weren’t they, and then it all died down again. Paul, meanwhile, spent a lot of time digging through his old photographs, finally finding his copy of the David Bailey shoot. He got the series properly framed and hung them over his piano. They seemed fitting there. He always felt John sitting over his shoulder as he wrote anyway.
Nobody ever asked that question again, but when Paul eventually passed on Nancy made sure that that photo of John and Paul was there next to the pictures of their wedding day and his favourite shot of Linda. When asked, she merely smiled and said it was what he would have wanted.