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Things had been tough for Ringo for some time. The booze, the drugs and the occasional fling with some bird, but it was the tension in the group that made everything worse.
He knew the Beatles were over, as much as he hated it, he knew it. George had quit a few times, John had too. Ringo hoped to hold on to their friendships even if the group fell apart.
Still there was Maureen and Zak, and Zak was at a fun age.
He’d have Zak at the drums while he gave him some tips on drumming. It was fun.
Maureen was sitting on the couch with a bunch of cards. She was personalizing Valentine cards for each person in their little ‘family.’
All of them were funny and kind of sweet. Ringo would sometimes glance over to see what she was doing.
“Hey, watch that glitter!” he called, jokingly. “You know you can never get it out of the carpet.”
He didn’t know who’s card it was, he didn’t really care, but Maureen had almost the whole front covered in it.
“I’m catching it on this paper,” she told him.
They laughed. Seeing his parents laughing, Zak hit the drums even harder.
Ringo put his attention back on his son.
“Well,” Maureen said. She stood up and dusted her hands over the card making. “It's time for you to go to bed,” she told Zak.
Like any normal four year old, Zak protested. Maureen didn’t take no for an answer. As she shooed him out, she looked back at Ringo. “No peeking until I get back, but warm up your signing hand!” she laughed.
Before he sat down, Ringo double checked the drum set. These were his practice drums, really Zak’s these days, but he habitually checked to make sure there wasn’t any damage. He then put the drum sticks safely away.
Finally he sat down and looked at the cards. Some were really nice, all the silly normal stuff. There was one that was all covered in white glitter. There seemed to be some kind of tab, but he didn’t touch it. Not just because Maureen told him not to touch things, but he didn’t want to get glitter on his hands. It was a pain to get off his hands just like it was to get out of the carpet.
He remembered more than one party where he woke up with glitter all over, it had been hard to get out of his hair, it wasn’t something he wanted to relive.
He finally flipped on the telly just to pass time until Maureen got back.
He was smoking a joint when Maureen came back. He offered it to her, but she shook her head. “Not now,” she told him.
She showed him each card, then had him sign it along with her. The totally covered in white glitter card, she said, had the tab to be pulled off and it was for Yoko. The glittered covered thing would just have a simple white heart with a black frame on the front. Inside it was also all white, with the words “Happy Valentine’s Day” in simple black print. Ringo thought it was pretty on mark for Yoko. He also hoped she got glitter all over herself then tried to bite back the thought.
John’s was also pretty simple, but with more colors and no glitter. Paul’s had a bass guitar shaped like a heart, Ringo knew it was a bass because it only had 4 strings. Linda’s was sweet, had a dog that was trying to look like a sheep dog and a small child holding a heart between them. George’s card had a heart with an arrow trying to look like a sitar shot through it, but Ringo thought it looked more like a banjo. Patty’s card was also simple, Maureen didn’t claim to be much of an artist, but these cards were well within her abilities.
They sat together and signed each one.
“That’s very sweet of you,” Ringo told her. She just smiled, then leaned over and kissed him.
“I’ll have these in envelopes for you to take to the studio in the morning.”
Of course, morning was probably going to be after twelve, but he didn’t mind.
Ringo went over and fixed the two of them more drinks.
Ringo hadn’t wanted to go to the studio, but knew he must. He had Maureen’s Valentine cards tucked in a pocket on the inside of his coat. He had seen all of them, he had signed them all. He had fallen asleep on the couch while Maureen had finished, stuffing them in envelopes.
* * * * *
The tension was thick in the studio when he arrived. Paul was sitting with his back to John and Yoko. Ringo knew how much Paul resented John’s romance. Paul really wasn’t trying to accommodate Yoko at all.
Ringo pulled the cards out when he took off his coat. He greeted the rest as he came in. Everyone greeted him back. Ringo knew that he and George had been trying hard to stay out of the other two’s fights.
“Here,” he said to John and Yoko. He handed them their cards.
He handed George both of the cards for him and Pattie. He exchanged a rather pained smile with him.
Finally he went over to Paul with his and Linda’s cards.
He looked over at where John and Yoko were sitting, like they were Siamese twins connected at the hip.
They were looking at their cards. Yoko pulled the small tab and a small amount of glitter popped into the air. She laughed, not noticing a grimace from John, or the guys up in the sound booth. Then John laughed with her, he was trying to dust some of the glitter off,
Ringo knew the cleaning staff would be less amused.
Paul had opened his card as well. He laughed at the silly drawing.
“Thanks Ringo!” he said. He put Linda’s card down and then his on top. “I wonder if I could get one of those made…” He laughed. “It would’ve been fun on tour.”
“It’d probably been stolen,” Ringo replied. He joined Paul laughing.
He looked over at George. He was smiling at the card, then he closed it.
“What’d you get George?” John asked.
George looked up, he had been putting the card back in the envelope.
He seemed to fumble a bit before he got it pulled out again. He walked over to show it to John.
Ringo had noticed George’s card was nearly as heavy as Yoko’s glitter encrusted one. He had wondered about it, but George, showing his to John looked the same as the other ones.
It was odd, he thought, but then decided to walk up to the sound booth with the one Maureen had made for all of the other personnel. He gave it to the guy on the board, but the team were all just standing around, drinking coffee waiting for someone to actually get them started down below.
Ringo looked down at his mates. George had gone over to Paul to share his card with him. Ringo frowned, it looked sort of like something extra in George’s envelope. Ringo shook his head, must just be the way George was holding it.
“Well, let us know if we’re going to start, or I’m going home,” he told the guys and headed back down to the studio.
* * * * *
Olivia Harrison called Ringo about a year after George’s death. She told him that there was a box they had found in the attic with his name on it.
Puzzled, Ringo called her back and asked if she had opened it. He was told she had not. So, he asked her to messenger it over to his place. He wasn’t home right then, but he’d look at it when he got back.
When he did get home, he found it sitting on a table.
He noted the box wasn’t very big, but besides his name the word “Personal” was written in red ink.
“I guess I should look at this first before anyone else does,” he told Barbara. She shrugged, gave him another kiss before heading out of the room and shutting the door behind her.
Ringo cut open the yellowed tape and took the lid off.
Inside there were notes.
Ringo picked one up, it was from Maureen to George. There wasn’t a date on it, but he knew it was before he had discovered the two of them having the affair.
He shut his eyes, even though he had since repaired the friendship with George, and Maureen, the affair had hurt really bad.
He didn’t really want to read the notes. But he did glance through each page before setting them aside, noting they were getting older the further down he went. Some started with ‘Dearest George’ others with even more intimate terms of endearment.
Then, at the very bottom was an envelope. All the other letters hadn’t been in envelopes. He wondered why this one was.
He pulled the contents out of it. He looked at the card, and remembered the day at the studio. How Maureen had given him cards for each of the others and their wives. But now he saw a folded note fall out of the card.
He carefully opened the long folded piece of paper.
On it was a heart with the words “I love you” written. There was a lipsticked kiss as well.
Ringo dropped the note like he’d been burned.
He had always blamed George for the affair, but now it seemed to have been Maureen who started it.
Unlike George, he decided nobody ever needed to see this. He started a fire in the fireplace and fed each letter into it, leaving the first one for last.