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The light in the little Chelsea trattoria was the color of honey, pooled in tiny glass jars on red-checked cloths. George, a dark column in the corner booth, had been tracing the whorls in the wood grain for twenty minutes. Nervous was an understatement; he was terrified. Terrified of the date and terrified of Pattie. She was everything he was not. When he moved through the world like something dredged from deep water, she stood in the open, warmed by it. She didn’t just bask in sunlight— she was sunlight, and he could only wonder how long it would take before she noticed the dark clinging to him
When she arrived, the air changed. It wasn’t just the whisper of her pale blue dress or the click of her heels, but something deeper. A sensory shift he felt before he understood it. She carried the scent of the chilly night air, a powdery perfume, and beneath it all, the vibrant scent of a happy, healthy life. It didn’t make his hunger snarl; it made it go quiet, as if listening to a more beautiful song.
“Sorry I’m late!” she said, sliding into the booth, her cheeks flushed. “The cab driver got fantastically lost. He thought I meant the other Italian place by the river, the one that does the terrible veal…”
“S’alright,” George replied, relieved to hear his voice come out steadier than he’d expected. “I was just thinking.”
“About the meaning of life, I hope,” she muttered, grinning as she unwound her scarf. “It’s a very thinking sort of corner you’ve picked.”
“Something like that.”
The menu was a single, cream-coloured card, its edges softened by years of handling. George held it like a foreign document, his eyes skimming past the dishes to the descriptions beneath, searching for the least offensive pantomime of eating.
Pattie, across from him, absorbed herself. “Ooh, they have osso buco. My father would approve. Very robust.” Her finger trailed down the list. “Or the branzino… but fish is so risky, isn’t it? Sometimes it’s sublime, sometimes it tastes of the pier.” She looked up, her blue eyes bright. “What are you thinking?”
His gaze was stuck on the antipasto section. Prosciutto e melone. Bruschetta al pomodoro. Vivid, fleshy, living things. The world seemed to pulse on the page. He could almost smell the salty fat of the prosciutto, the acidic burst of tomato. His stomach didn’t growl, but clenched, a hard fist of revulsion.
“The minestrone,” he replied, his voice flat. He tapped at the zuppe section with a cold finger. “It’s… simple.”
“Minestrone!” Pattie’s nose wrinkled in that adorable, playful way he was already cataloguing. “On a first date? George, that’s practically monastic. This is a celebration! You survived a movie, a world tour. You’re a Beatle, live a little!” She leaned forward, conspiratorial. “This restaurant does a saltimbocca alla romana that’s supposed to make you see God. Veal, sage, prosciutto, it jumps in the mouth. That’s what saltimbocca means.”
Veal. A baby animal. Prosciutto. Cured flesh. The words were bullets. He managed a weak smile. “Sounds it. But the ulcers… Doctor’s orders. Bland, boring, beige. That’s me.” He tried to inject a note of wry humor into it, unsure if it fell flat on its face.
Pattie’s face softened instantly, the teasing replaced by concern. “Oh, you poor thing. Of course. My uncle Bertie had an ulcer. Lived on white toast and misery for a year.” She reached across the table and patted his hand where it rested on the menu. Her hand was warm. “We’ll get you soup and maybe some plain bread. And I’ll order something so decadent and describe every bite to you. Make you jealous.”
The waiter came over. Pattie ordered the Saltimbocca with a confident flourish. George, when prompted, said, “Just the minestrone, please. And a side of bread. No butter.”
As the waiter moved away, Pattie shook her head. “I feel like a brute, tucking into a feast while you’re on rations.” She tilted her head, smiling. “Next time, we’ll go for a walk. No menus involved.”
Next time. The words hung between them, a promise he hadn’t dared hope for. He looked down at the menu again, at the list of vibrant, impossible foods. For a moment, he didn’t see a list of things he couldn’t have. He saw a list of things she loved, a map to her pleasures. And that, somehow, was almost enough.
The waiter returned with the wine: a Chianti glowing like a garnet in the low light. Pattie accepted a glass with a soft thank you, cradling it easily, as though this were an evening she’d done a hundred times before.
George declined with the slightest shake of his head. The gesture was so practiced that it was almost imperceptible. Still, his eyes followed the wine for a beat too long, registering its color and the grace of her hand around the stem. His hunger coiled within him like a living thing, but he folded it away, burying it beneath the careful calm of his posture. It was not just desire, but a gnawing ache of what he could not take. There was a strange intimacy in it: sitting across from her, feeling the pull of what he must deny, wanting it anyway, and ultimately choosing not to reach.
“Still off the sauce?” She asked, not unkindly.
“Part of the prescription,” he lied smoothly, the half-truth tasting more bitter than any wine. “Mixes poorly with the medication.”
She nodded, taking a sip. “Probably wise. Brian would approve.”
George watched her. The way her throat moved as she swallowed, the faint, happy sigh that escaped her lips. It wasn’t hunger he felt, not in the gnawing, animalistic way he always knew. It was a different kind of ache. A longing to be part of that simple, human ritual, to taste the wine, to feel its warmth, to share that moment of pleasure with her. Instead, he felt like a curator in a museum of living experiences, observing them through thick glass.
Their food arrived. Pattie’s saltimbocca was a masterpiece of aroma. Prosciutto and sage layered the sizzling veal, and a tantalizing cloud of butter and white wine scent rose in the air. George’s minestrone was a beige sea of broth, soft vegetables, and pasta shells, steaming innocuously.
“Go on, then,” Pattie urged, gesturing with her fork. “Don’t let it get cold.”
He dipped a spoon into the soup and brought it to his lips. It was warm yet flavorless. Texture without taste. He swallowed, a purely mechanical act. His body wouldn’t violently reject it, but it would sit in his stomach like a lump of clay, a useless, foreign mass he would later have to quietly expel.
“Good?” she asked, already cutting into her veal.
“Lovely.” A lie.
Pattie took a bite of her food, and her eyes drifted closed for a second. “Oh, George. It’s sinful.” She opened her eyes, sparkling. “The veal is like butter. The prosciutto is salty and crisp, and the sage… it’s earthy, but bright. It really does jump.” She laughed, a sound that seemed to make the candle flame between them waver. “Here, at least have a sniff. The aroma’s half the experience.”
She speared a small piece on her fork and held it out, not across the table, but just toward the center, an offering to the air between them. The scent intensified. Rich meat, savory cured ham, fragrant herbs. It was the most profoundly alive thing he’d been near all evening. His senses, always dialed too high, zeroed in on it. He could hear the faint sizzle of its residual heat, see the precise grain of the meat fibers.
And beneath it all, as always, was her. The scent of her skin, the pulse in her wrist as she held the fork. The vibrant, singing vitality that was Pattie Boyd. It was more intoxicating, more devastating than any food could ever be.
He leaned in slightly, pretending to appreciate the bouquet. “Smells incredible,” he murmured, and it was the truth. It smelled like her world. A world of warmth and taste and shared meals.
He pulled back, taking another spoonful of his bland soup.
Pattie studied him for a moment as she ate. Not with suspicion, but with a soft, curious focus. “You know,” she said after a moment, “you’re different than I expected.”
His spoon stilled. “Oh?”
“Mmm. From the telly, from the records… even on the film set, you all were a bit larger than life. A unit. But here? Hm, I don't quite know how to describe it. You live in the moment, I suppose.” She smiled. “It's nice, it makes me want to talk more, but part of me just wants to sit in the quiet with you."
“I like listening to you talk,” he crooned, and it was the most genuine thing he’d said all night. “Tell me more about the terrible veal at the other place.”
She launched into a story, arms waving, impressions of the outraged manager. George let her voice wash over him. He ate his tasteless soup, spoonful by spoonful, and watched her live. She painted pictures with her words— of her family dinners, of disastrous cooking attempts with her sister, of a childhood picnic where the chicken had gone off and they’d survived on strawberries and laughter.
He was, he realized, feeding. Not in the way his body screamed for, but in some deeper, more desperate way. He was drinking in her laughter, her expressions, the cadence of her stories. He was storing away the light in her eyes against the endless internal night. It satiated something the butcher’s scraps in Liverpool never could.
When the waiter came to clear the plates, Pattie’s plate was clean. George’s soup bowl was half-full, the contents now a lukewarm, congealing mess.
“No good?” the waiter asked, concerned.
“It was perfect,” George answered, looking straight at Pattie. “Just perfect.”
They stepped out into the Chelsea night. The air was crisp, chasing away the restaurant’s warmth. George automatically steered them into the deeper shadows of the building’s facade. It was a silent, ingrained habit.
Pattie shivered slightly, and without thinking, he shrugged off his jacket, a heavy, military-style thing, and draped it over her shoulders. She looked up at him, surprised, then snuggled into it. “Aren’t you cold?”
“I run hot,” he explained, which was also technically true.
They walked in comfortable silence for a block. The dread from earlier had melted away, replaced by a fragile, humming peace.
“I had a really nice time, George,” Pattie professed softly.
“Me too.”
“Even with the monastic soup?”
“Especially because of it.”
She laughed and bumped her shoulder gently against his arm. A simple human touch. It didn’t burn. It felt like an anchor.
“Next time,” Pattie grinned, echoing her promise from inside, “we’ll do that walk. Maybe by the river. No restaurants in sight.”
“I’d like that,” he replied, and he meant it. He could already picture it: the dark water, the city lights, her beside him. No menus, no pantomimes. Just the night, and the quiet, and the sound of her breathing mixing with the wind. It was a future he could almost believe in.
He walked her to her door, a discreet flat in a pretty, ivy-clad building. She handed back his jacket, her fingers brushing his.
“Goodnight, George Harrison,” she beamed, smiling.
“Goodnight, Pattie Boyd.”
She rose on her toes and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. It was cool and soft, her lips a fleeting brush of warmth. While brief, it left an imprint on him that lingered far longer than the moment itself. He could still feel the slight pressure of her lips and the way her scent reached him in an instant. She didn’t seem to notice the unusual coolness of his skin, or if she did, she didn’t care.
She then turned and walked toward her door. The hallway light caught in her golden hair as she fumbled for her keys, humming softly to herself, unaware of the way he watched her like something precious and fleeting. She glanced back at George once, a small, almost shy smile over her shoulder, before slipping inside.
He waited as the warm yellow light of her flat spilled into the corridor, then disappeared as the door clicked shut. He stood there for a long moment in the dark, the scent of her perfume still lingering on his jacket.
He felt full, and empty, and terribly, wonderfully human. For the first time in a long time, the hunger felt secondary. There was something else in its place. Something that, for now, felt a lot like hope.