Too Much Rain, Chapter 132
So here is the next chapter. Our lads come to their senses, at least for the next little while... :)
WARNING: THIS IS FICTION. That's the only warning here. :)
Hope you enjoy.
Chapter 132
The Day After the Fight
Fiona’s Office
John called Fiona that morning in a terrible panic. She found room for him in her schedule for him to come see her immediately. Clearly, the interaction she had persuaded John to initiate had gone terribly wrong. He was huddled on the edge of the sofa now, his face covered in tissues. He had been unable to speak for the first five minutes, sobbing the whole time instead. When he finally stopped, Fiona asked, “What happened?”
“We had a fight,” John answered glumly.
“What was the fight about?” She asked.
“He won’t give up women for me.” John said bluntly, despairingly.
“He told you that?” Fiona asked, surprised. She had thought that Paul would have been receptive to a monogamous relationship after years of the sharing arrangement.
“That was the gist of it,” John stated.
Fiona had her suspicions: especially with the ‘gist’ part. “Tell me exactly what you said to him, and then exactly what he said to you.”
John tried to think back. He had told himself, after Paul had stormed out of the kitchen, that he shouldn’t have used the word ‘faithful.’ Apparently that triggered a bad reaction in Paul. And John could sort of see why. He looked at Fiona sulkily. Should he tell her the exact truth? What point would there be in not doing so? John said,
“I could have said it better.” The admission appeared to be a hard one for John to make.
“Yes?” Fiona asked, obviously waiting for John to elucidate.
“I was so fucking nervous, you know? The words came out, ‘are you going to be faithful to me from now on.’ I think those were the words.” Fiona couldn’t help herself; she visibly winced. John saw the wince and said shamefully, “Yeah, I know.”
“And Paul said what in response? Exactly.” Fiona persevered.
John became indignant again as he thought of it. “He looked at me as if I were crazy, and he shouted, ‘You want me to give up women forever?’”
Now Fiona groaned. “Oh my god, the two of you...”
“What?” John asked her angrily.
“I despair of you both.”
“He’s the one who refuses to be faithful to me!” John declared, unhappy to see his therapist half-blaming him.
“John, stop using that word ‘faithful.’ From what I’ve gathered over the years, Paul is a very loyal guy who prides himself in living up to his promises. To imply he wasn’t faithful would be a huge insult to him. And was he ever unfaithful to you?”
“His whole life!” John declared dramatically. “He fucked anything that moved until he married Linda! And then he was faithful to her. He was never faithful to me.”
“But he never promised he would be faithful to anyone, did he, until he married Linda?” Fiona asked quietly. “And then he kept his promise to her until you came back in his life. I’m sure he feels if he was unfaithful to anyone, it was to Linda.”
John had a short grip on his temper. This wasn’t turning out the way he had hoped it would. He had felt he was the truly wronged party.
Fiona could see that stubborn line around John’s jaw. She decided to move forward. “So how did it end?” She asked wearily.
“He stormed up to the attic room, and he slept there all night! And he’d gone off somewhere before I woke up. I haven’t seen him since!”
*****
Another Therapist’s Office
Later That Same Day
“So I slept in the music room,” Paul was saying, “and I haven’t seen John since.”
Marc said, “Not even this morning?”
“I was at the gym, and when I got back, he was gone. I have no idea where he went. I decided to go to my office, because I had no intention of waiting around the house acting like I was worried.”
Marc had to suppress a smile at that teenaged concern. “Were you worried?” He asked with a soft smile in his eyes.
Paul smiled a little sheepishly, “A little,” he admitted.
“Well, I don’t think this is going to be a hard one to resolve,” Marc said. “Clearly, John wanted to talk about your future and wants a monogamous relationship, and you weren’t ready to consider the question. Is that a fair statement?”
Paul nodded.
“What bothers you about him wanting a monogamous relationship?” Marc asked, reverting to his disinterested mien, studying his pad.
“Forever is a long time.”
“You have a hard time visualizing the rest of your life spent with John? Or is it contemplating a life without a woman or women in it that most bothers you?” Marc asked. Again, the question was so dry as to strip it of all judgment or emotion.
“Yes. Maybe. I don’t know.” Paul looked frustrated. “He’s asking me to deny part of who I am,” he finally managed to say.
“You mean, the way he has had to deny part of who he is for you all these years?”
*****
Fiona’s Office
“Obviously, Paul was taken by surprise by your question. We did discuss how you could bring it up in a less stressful way,” Fiona was saying gently, as John wiped his face of more tears.
John said, “I fucked it up. I didn’t want to sound vulnerable, like I was begging him.”
“It isn’t ‘begging’ to ask him to be your lover and no one else’s. You have every right to ask for that given all that has passed between the two of you.” Fiona had leaned so close to John, that now her forehead was almost touching his, and her knees were almost touching his, and her hands were almost touching his; almost, but not quite.
“He doesn’t want me that way,” John said, weeping again. The words were spit out between sobs. “He never has. I always wanted and needed him more than he wanted or needed me.”
“John, John, stop,” Fiona crooned. “You know that isn’t true. You know that Paul has great difficulty in expressing his emotions in words. But he has expressed how much he loves you in so many ways. Remember the whole Brad thing?”
John shuddered.
“And before that - the Nigel thing?” Fiona added.
John said, “Paul told me that! He said I was the one who was unfaithful to him, so basically who was I to call him unfaithful.”
“I told you that word - ‘unfaithful’ - it is a trigger word for him. Don’t use that word. You need to phrase it as a new way of being - an adventure - ‘let’s try to be each other’s one and only, and see how it works.’ Entice him, don’t bully him.”
“It’s too late now. I know he doesn’t want me that way, and how do we put that back in the fucking box?”
“I suspect that Paul is going to be very sorry about what he said. If you can force yourself not to make a full meal out of how it hurt you, I think you will find that he will want to walk back what he said, and maybe he will even tell you what he is really afraid of. Don’t you want to know why he was so fearful about your question?”
John - for the first time in fifteen hours - felt hopeful. “I want very much for him to tell me what he is afraid of. It’s just that he so rarely does.”
“Maybe this time you can persuade him to open up.”
*****
Marc’s Office
There were sunken dark caverns under Paul’s eyes. He was listless and sad. “I didn’t mean to hurt John. I never wanted to hurt him. But he was always demanding things of me that I wasn’t ready for.”
“Like he did last night?” Marc asked.
“Exactly like that! Why can’t be let things play out, and see how they happen? Why does he need to have a fucking playbook open all the time?”
Marc realized Paul was very upset, because he wasn’t a frequent swear word user, but this evening the air around his patient was positively blue. Marc allowed Paul’s words to echo a bit, and then he said softly (although he was fully aware that Paul already knew what he was going to say), “Because that is how John is made. He needs the boundaries, and the rulebook, and the referees. Life is too chaotic for him without those things. I only know John through your words, but these facts are patently obvious to me.”
Paul nodded his acceptance of this indictment. He said, “I feel terrible about what I said. I keep saying the wrong things.”
Marc turned a page of his pad, and said, “Let’s think of what you could have said instead. Do you want to try that?”
Paul looked hopefully at Marc. “Like what?”
Marc said, “Well, perhaps you could have said you’d be willing to give it a try. You could say that there are no guarantees in life, and, as you mentioned earlier, ‘forever is a long time.’ But if he is willing to be patient, maybe you’ll find that you are comfortable with the kind of life he wants. How about something like that?”
Paul looked at Marc wistfully. “I wish I could take you with me, and have you tell John that stuff. It sounds so obvious and right the way you say it, but I’m sure I’ll fuck it up somehow.”
Marc smiled. “I have complete faith in you, Paul,” he said.
*****
Cavendish
John had gotten back from Fiona’s office in late morning. The house was silent, and it felt cold and scary to John. He walked through the rooms: the sitting room, dining room, powder room and formal living room - all rooms that he had managed to redecorate thus far. The kitchen was still Linda’s, as was the ‘real’ master suite upstairs. The house was a hodge-podge of Paul, Linda, and John. There wasn’t much cohesiveness in the design. John longed to make it all Paul’s and his, and have it be a reflection of their commitment to each other: but how to get there from here? John had no idea where Paul was, and every time the phone rang he rushed to answer, only to hear someone other than Paul on the other end. Each person who called was a grave disappointment to John, and he wasn’t able to mask his irritation. They each quickly hung up, realizing they had caught John at a bad time. Around and around the rooms John paced, getting more worried with each round.
When it got to be 2 p.m., and the sky was already getting gloomy, he started to feel real anxiety. What if Paul had left for good? John realized that he was making himself crazy again, so he called Mary, who had a way of grounding him when he was starting to float.
Mary and Stella had been sitting around in Mary’s kitchen playing with Arthur and gossiping. When her phone rang, Mary looked down at the number on her screen and said to Stella, “Cavendish.” She answered the phone.
“Mary? It’s John.”
“Hi, John. What’s up?”
John heard the words ‘what’s up’ and it reminded him so much of Paul he nearly burst into tears. “I’m pretty down,” he admitted.
“What’s wrong?” Mary asked sharply. “Where’s Daddy?”
“I don’t know,” John said, his voice small and scared.
Mary turned to her sister and whispered, “It sounds like the dads had a bad fight.”
Stella grabbed Mary’s phone out of her hand and said, “John, Mary and I are on our way. We’re bringing Arthur.”
Arthur: their grandson, John thought. Or was he only just Paul’s grandson now? Another reason to break down and cry.
It took them 30 minutes because of the amount of logistics and supplies it took to get a baby out on the road. Mary and Stella didn’t think of how their parents didn’t worry about such things, and just sort of slung them on their hips and took them everywhere without bothering with baby paraphernalia. Once they got to Cavendish, and saw John’s face, they knew it was bad.
“What happened?” Mary asked John sweetly, as she put her arm around his shoulder. Stella was holding a restless Arthur, and shifting from one foot to the other to keep him settled.
“We had a fight,” John said.
“A bad one,” Mary finished for him.
“We figured that much out already, John,” Stella said. “So what was it about?”
John said, “I don’t like to talk about your dad to you this way. I said something badly, and then he said something badly, and now I have no idea where the fuck he is.”
Mary looked at the clock. “It’s not even 3 p.m., you know. He’s probably at the office. When he and mum had a fight, he always either went to the studio or the office.”
John looked up, surprised. “He had fights with your mother?”
Stella snorted.
Mary smiled and said, “Not often. But they had some. All people who live together have arguments. It’s not the end of the world.”
“But what if he doesn’t come back?” John asked.
Stella said, “That’s not gonna happen. For one thing, this is his house.”
John looked up sharply and saw the grin on Stella’s face and then he laughed. “That’s true,” he agreed. “Maybe I’ll be moving back across the mews.”
“It can’t have been that bad,” Mary said comfortingly. “And one thing about Daddy - this is absolutely true. He can’t stay mad, and he doesn’t hold grudges. He was always the first one to apologize when he got mad at mum or one of us kids.”
“It was pretty bad,” John said. “We said some pretty hurtful things to each other.”
Stella was looking at John from across the room, where she bounced from heel to heel with the baby, and finally couldn’t hold it back. “As bad as the things you said about him in the ‘70s?”
John stared at her, stung.
Stella said, “If he forgave that, I don’t see how he can’t forgive whatever this is.”
John couldn’t explain the real problem to the girls, because they were Paul’s daughters. It just felt wrong to share his fears about their father’s level of commitment to him with them. They would naturally be on their father’s side, and this thought made him feel abandoned again.
Mary said, “Have you had anything to eat today, John?”
John looked around as if his surroundings could answer the question.
“That means no,” Mary interpreted. “I’m gonna make you something to eat.” She went off in the direction of the kitchen, and Stella plopped down on the sofa next to John, and passed Arthur over to him
“Your turn,” she said simply.
John took the baby, and bounced him on a knee. The baby looked like a mini-Paul. It was an exquisite kind of pain.
“You know, John,” Stella said, serious now. “Daddy adores you. Whatever your argument was about, it isn’t going to be bad enough to make him stop loving you.”
John met Stella’s eyes. He said, with much sadness, “Sometimes love isn’t enough.”
An hour later, after John had finished the food Mary had made for him, and was holding the baby and teasing him with a plastic set of keys, Stella joined Mary in the kitchen, and they quietly washed up the dishes. “There is something really serious going on between them,” Stella told Mary. “John told me that sometimes love isn’t enough.”
Mary looked at Stella and said, “I wonder what that means.”
“I think maybe it’s about that flirting stuff that happened last summer,” Stella guessed. “John was really shaken up by that. Do you think Daddy is considering dating again?”
Mary felt a chill go down her spine. “Oh dear god, no. If it’s true I’ll box Dad’s ears! Poor John!”
While Stella and Mary were talking in the kitchen, the clock had moved forward to 5:30 p.m. John heard the front door being unlocked, and his heart did a tap dance. Thank god! He’s come home!
A moment later Paul showed up in the sitting room, and he stared uncertainly at John. “Is that Arthur?” He finally asked, his momentary confusion banishing his shyness.
“Mary and Stella are in the kitchen,” John rasped. His throat was dry.
“You called them?” Paul asked.
“I was lonely. I needed company.” John’s voice was flat, but stopped short of being judgmental.
Paul moved in John’s direction, and reached out for Arthur. For a moment, John had thought Paul was going to embrace him. But he handed the baby over to Paul, who cuddled and cooed at him a little, and then, still holding the baby, sat down on the sofa not far from John. As he took a turn bouncing the baby on his knee, Paul said (looking at the floor), “I’m sorry about last night.”
John was holding his breath. “Me too.” He said. His heart was now in his mouth. This was unbearable.
Into this tense atmosphere sailed Mary and Stella.
“Daddy! You’re home!” Mary chirped lightly. “Just in time. Stella has a dinner date, and Arthur and I have to get home to Alistair. We’ve left a vegetable casserole in the fridge for dinner. It’s about 40 minutes at 120 degrees C.” Paul got up to accept hugs and kisses, John took his share too, and Paul walked the girls to the door.
On the doorstep, Stella turned to face her father and said, “I don’t know what you said or did to John, but don’t be an ass.”
Paul smiled and said, “Thanks much for the vote of confidence.” He closed the door after Stella had disappeared into the darkness. Reluctantly, he turned around and headed back to the sitting room, where John was seated slouched deep into the sofa, one leg slung over the knee of the other. He looked both exhausted and nervous. Paul felt bad at the sight of John. Why was it so hard to tell that man his true feelings? He supposed it had to do with all the times John had betrayed him: with other teenaged friends, with Stu Sutcliffe, with Brian Epstein, with Yoko Ono, with Allen Klein, and even with George and Ringo; and then there had been Nigel, and Brad...
He sat down next to John and said, “I reacted badly to what you said last night. I wasn’t expecting it, and I thought you were saying I haven’t been faithful to you.”
“I used the wrong word. I shouldn’t have used that word. I was just too afraid to use the word I really meant.”
This surprised Paul. He turned to John. “What word did you really mean?”
John sighed. “I meant to ask you if you were open to a monogamous relationship from now on. But it came out badly.”
Paul’s expression softened. “You don’t have to be tough around me, you know. You can lose the armor. I don’t judge you, you know.”
“I know,” John said softly. “But what you said - about not giving up women. That really hurt like hell.”
Paul leaned back in his seat and said, “It is a scary thought for me, John - the idea of never holding a woman again; never having that kind of sex. I like the feel and the smell of women. But it doesn’t mean I’m not willing to try.”
John had been feeling scared by Paul’s words, but heard the word ‘try’ as a kind of hopeful sign. “Try how?” He asked.
“Can we take it one increment at a time? Can we say we will be monogamous for, say, six months? To see how it works?” Paul was walking on eggshells and he knew it. It had been a few years since he’d had sex with a woman (given Linda’s illness, they had not been intimate for months before her death), and he couldn’t deny the fact that part of him was aching for it.
John was stolidly quiet for a long moment, and then he said shrewdly, “Give me one year to start, and we’ll see what happens after that. You really have to put your heart in it, though.”
Paul’s breath escaped in one long ‘phew’ sound, and then he laughed. “Done. I think I forgot to breathe there for a moment.”
John pulled Paul closer to him, until his arm was around Paul’s shoulder. “I never was unfaithful to you, Paul,” he said in a low, gruff voice. “I did stupid stuff to get your attention or out of revenge, and I was unfaithful to just about everyone else, but I was never unfaithful to you. My love for you always remained above it all and apart from everyone else.”
Paul heard this, and of course, he knew this. He had spent a good deal of time trying to explain this phenomenon to Marc less than a week earlier. What troubled him was that he’d never wanted that kind of love - the kind that stood apart and remained untouched. It made him feel like an ideal and desired object, rather than a flesh and blood human being. He wanted to be part of someone’s love, and he wanted to be touched by it. But most of all, he wanted to be able to trust it.
This was not the time or place to say these things; John and he were still aching from the previous evening’s ‘honest exchange.’ This latest experience only fed into Paul’s deep disinclination to spill out his most raw feelings. He didn’t think it was fair to make other people have to deal with his messy feelings.
*****
Boxing Day 1999
Chrissie Hynde’s London Home
The party was well attended, and it was a first class vegetarian blast. Many of the lights and shadows of the London music world were there. John and Paul had arrived a few hours into it. They had debated about going at all, since John had been feeling a little under the weather, but he rallied after dinner, and so they showed up at about 9:30 p.m. The guests were delighted to see them.
John wandered over to where Elton John was seated with his boyfriend David Furnish. John liked to make a beeline to where Elton was, because Elton was always so bitchy about the other guests, and it made John laugh.
“Well, if it isn’t Elton!” John said theatrically, as he gestured to an empty chair. Both Elton and David eagerly indicated that John was most welcome to sit there. “What are you two up to over here?” John asked.
Elton said, “We’re just taking a little rest. The evening’s only just getting started, so we need to pace ourselves.”
“So who’s here who we don’t like?” John asked naughtily, leaning closer to the two men. He wanted to start the gossip right away.
Elton’s face lit up with delight. He adored John Lennon. He knew that he was out of John’s league when it came to physical appearance, and so he’d never really entertained the fantasy that John could have been his lover. In fact, Elton would have been too intimated, given what he knew of John’s alleged sexual prowess, not to mention - how the fuck do you compete with Paul McCartney? It wasn’t at all fair. Realistically, too, Elton knew he wanted to be the enfant terrible in his own life; in John he saw another such one, and he figured they’d have whacked each other over the head with their respective tiaras in no time if they had tried to be lovers. But John was the most delicious friend.
“Well,” said Elton, settling in, “that crazy Icelandic girl is here. At least she isn’t dressed like a molting swan...”
David interrupted. “No, she’s dressed like a geisha girl wearing a manhole cover on her head.”
John laughed out loud. This was going to be fun...
*****
Paul had wandered off in another direction. He was searching for Chrissie to say ‘hello’. She had been such a wonderful friend to Linda. As he made his way through the crowd, he was repeatedly stopped by people, and spent a few moments chatting with each of them, and then continued on his way. Suddenly one of the people in front of him was a rather glitzy blond. He sighed heavily. He could see the cupidity in her eyes and quickly looked around for salvation. Where were your friends when you fucking needed them?
“Hi, Paul,” the woman said to him. “Remember me?”
Paul did not remember her. Didn’t she know that he met hundreds of people every month? And all of them thought he should remember them! He said politely, “I’m afraid I’m having a senior moment.”
The woman giggled. “You’re not old - don’t be silly. I’m Imogen - a friend of Chrissie’s. We met at your home after the concert for Linda.”
Paul still couldn’t place the woman, although he certainly remembered the party after the concert for Linda. He nodded pleasantly. The nod was neither an acknowledgement that he remembered, nor an admission that he didn’t. He figured what she didn’t know couldn’t hurt her.
“I’m so glad to run into you again. I have wanted so much to sit and talk with you. I’m sure you have some fascinating memories.” The woman’s attempt at subtlety was completely undone by the fact she almost had to shout into his ear to be heard over the crowd.
Paul felt uneasy. He didn’t want to be rude, but he didn’t want the woman getting the wrong idea. He had learned the hard way that ‘harmless flirting’ was an oxymoron. He wasn’t going down that road again.
The woman put her hand on his upper arm, and pulled him down closer to her so she could speak directly in his ear. “Come with me. I know a quiet spot.”
Paul had to put a stop to this. “I’d love to, really, but I’ve only just arrived, and I haven’t said hello to Chrissie yet. Maybe later on...”
“Oh I know where Chrissie is!” Imogen crowed happily. “I’ll take you to her!”
Paul could hardly object to this, and reluctantly allowed himself to be pulled by the woman (who had a death grip on his arm) through the crowd.
*****
“Who’s that man-eater who has her clutches on your man, John?” Elton asked coolly.
“What?” John asked, alarmed.
Elton indicated a direction with a nod of his head. John turned to look.
“Oh for Chrissakes!” John swore. “I can’t let him out of my sight for one moment, or some fucking woman will just snatch him up!”
Elton and David laughed. David said, “You’d better go rescue him. He looks absolutely miserable.”
“Ta,” John said, pushing back his chair and heading in Paul’s direction.
Elton turned to David and said, “Poor John. He’s spent his entire life chasing after that man; he’s always beating off people - men and women - with sticks. I’ve always said that Paul has far too many blessings and gifts for one human being. He attracts people like flies.”
*****
Paul was beginning to doubt that Imogen was bringing him to Chrissie. They’d already wandered around the house for over five minutes. Just as he was about to try to escape from her clutches, John popped up in front of them. “John!” Paul cried in relief.
John laughed at him. He turned to Imogen and said, “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to steal him away from you. There are some friends of ours who are dying to see him.” He grabbed Paul’s other arm, and yanked him out of Imogen’s grasp.
“Ow!” Paul mumbled to himself, as he rubbed the arm so recently liberated from Imogen’s claw. He suspected the woman’s fingernails had made marks on his skin below. Meanwhile, John was dragging him off in the opposite direction until they were in a relatively quiet area.
“Who was that bitch?” John asked indignantly.
“Someone who claims to be a friend of Chrissie’s. She was at that party we gave after the concert for Linda.”
John remembered her now. “Oh, her!” There was a world of contempt in the way he said it. “Well, you owe me now, ‘cause I saved you from her.”
“I am extremely grateful, John,” Paul twinkled. “I’m sure I can find a way to make it up to you.”
John’s face lit up and so did Paul’s. They exchanged very intimate grins.
“Here you both are!” Chrissie cried. “I was afraid you weren’t coming!”
*****
WARNING: THIS IS FICTION. That's the only warning here. :)
Hope you enjoy.
Chapter 132
The Day After the Fight
Fiona’s Office
John called Fiona that morning in a terrible panic. She found room for him in her schedule for him to come see her immediately. Clearly, the interaction she had persuaded John to initiate had gone terribly wrong. He was huddled on the edge of the sofa now, his face covered in tissues. He had been unable to speak for the first five minutes, sobbing the whole time instead. When he finally stopped, Fiona asked, “What happened?”
“We had a fight,” John answered glumly.
“What was the fight about?” She asked.
“He won’t give up women for me.” John said bluntly, despairingly.
“He told you that?” Fiona asked, surprised. She had thought that Paul would have been receptive to a monogamous relationship after years of the sharing arrangement.
“That was the gist of it,” John stated.
Fiona had her suspicions: especially with the ‘gist’ part. “Tell me exactly what you said to him, and then exactly what he said to you.”
John tried to think back. He had told himself, after Paul had stormed out of the kitchen, that he shouldn’t have used the word ‘faithful.’ Apparently that triggered a bad reaction in Paul. And John could sort of see why. He looked at Fiona sulkily. Should he tell her the exact truth? What point would there be in not doing so? John said,
“I could have said it better.” The admission appeared to be a hard one for John to make.
“Yes?” Fiona asked, obviously waiting for John to elucidate.
“I was so fucking nervous, you know? The words came out, ‘are you going to be faithful to me from now on.’ I think those were the words.” Fiona couldn’t help herself; she visibly winced. John saw the wince and said shamefully, “Yeah, I know.”
“And Paul said what in response? Exactly.” Fiona persevered.
John became indignant again as he thought of it. “He looked at me as if I were crazy, and he shouted, ‘You want me to give up women forever?’”
Now Fiona groaned. “Oh my god, the two of you...”
“What?” John asked her angrily.
“I despair of you both.”
“He’s the one who refuses to be faithful to me!” John declared, unhappy to see his therapist half-blaming him.
“John, stop using that word ‘faithful.’ From what I’ve gathered over the years, Paul is a very loyal guy who prides himself in living up to his promises. To imply he wasn’t faithful would be a huge insult to him. And was he ever unfaithful to you?”
“His whole life!” John declared dramatically. “He fucked anything that moved until he married Linda! And then he was faithful to her. He was never faithful to me.”
“But he never promised he would be faithful to anyone, did he, until he married Linda?” Fiona asked quietly. “And then he kept his promise to her until you came back in his life. I’m sure he feels if he was unfaithful to anyone, it was to Linda.”
John had a short grip on his temper. This wasn’t turning out the way he had hoped it would. He had felt he was the truly wronged party.
Fiona could see that stubborn line around John’s jaw. She decided to move forward. “So how did it end?” She asked wearily.
“He stormed up to the attic room, and he slept there all night! And he’d gone off somewhere before I woke up. I haven’t seen him since!”
*****
Another Therapist’s Office
Later That Same Day
“So I slept in the music room,” Paul was saying, “and I haven’t seen John since.”
Marc said, “Not even this morning?”
“I was at the gym, and when I got back, he was gone. I have no idea where he went. I decided to go to my office, because I had no intention of waiting around the house acting like I was worried.”
Marc had to suppress a smile at that teenaged concern. “Were you worried?” He asked with a soft smile in his eyes.
Paul smiled a little sheepishly, “A little,” he admitted.
“Well, I don’t think this is going to be a hard one to resolve,” Marc said. “Clearly, John wanted to talk about your future and wants a monogamous relationship, and you weren’t ready to consider the question. Is that a fair statement?”
Paul nodded.
“What bothers you about him wanting a monogamous relationship?” Marc asked, reverting to his disinterested mien, studying his pad.
“Forever is a long time.”
“You have a hard time visualizing the rest of your life spent with John? Or is it contemplating a life without a woman or women in it that most bothers you?” Marc asked. Again, the question was so dry as to strip it of all judgment or emotion.
“Yes. Maybe. I don’t know.” Paul looked frustrated. “He’s asking me to deny part of who I am,” he finally managed to say.
“You mean, the way he has had to deny part of who he is for you all these years?”
*****
Fiona’s Office
“Obviously, Paul was taken by surprise by your question. We did discuss how you could bring it up in a less stressful way,” Fiona was saying gently, as John wiped his face of more tears.
John said, “I fucked it up. I didn’t want to sound vulnerable, like I was begging him.”
“It isn’t ‘begging’ to ask him to be your lover and no one else’s. You have every right to ask for that given all that has passed between the two of you.” Fiona had leaned so close to John, that now her forehead was almost touching his, and her knees were almost touching his, and her hands were almost touching his; almost, but not quite.
“He doesn’t want me that way,” John said, weeping again. The words were spit out between sobs. “He never has. I always wanted and needed him more than he wanted or needed me.”
“John, John, stop,” Fiona crooned. “You know that isn’t true. You know that Paul has great difficulty in expressing his emotions in words. But he has expressed how much he loves you in so many ways. Remember the whole Brad thing?”
John shuddered.
“And before that - the Nigel thing?” Fiona added.
John said, “Paul told me that! He said I was the one who was unfaithful to him, so basically who was I to call him unfaithful.”
“I told you that word - ‘unfaithful’ - it is a trigger word for him. Don’t use that word. You need to phrase it as a new way of being - an adventure - ‘let’s try to be each other’s one and only, and see how it works.’ Entice him, don’t bully him.”
“It’s too late now. I know he doesn’t want me that way, and how do we put that back in the fucking box?”
“I suspect that Paul is going to be very sorry about what he said. If you can force yourself not to make a full meal out of how it hurt you, I think you will find that he will want to walk back what he said, and maybe he will even tell you what he is really afraid of. Don’t you want to know why he was so fearful about your question?”
John - for the first time in fifteen hours - felt hopeful. “I want very much for him to tell me what he is afraid of. It’s just that he so rarely does.”
“Maybe this time you can persuade him to open up.”
*****
Marc’s Office
There were sunken dark caverns under Paul’s eyes. He was listless and sad. “I didn’t mean to hurt John. I never wanted to hurt him. But he was always demanding things of me that I wasn’t ready for.”
“Like he did last night?” Marc asked.
“Exactly like that! Why can’t be let things play out, and see how they happen? Why does he need to have a fucking playbook open all the time?”
Marc realized Paul was very upset, because he wasn’t a frequent swear word user, but this evening the air around his patient was positively blue. Marc allowed Paul’s words to echo a bit, and then he said softly (although he was fully aware that Paul already knew what he was going to say), “Because that is how John is made. He needs the boundaries, and the rulebook, and the referees. Life is too chaotic for him without those things. I only know John through your words, but these facts are patently obvious to me.”
Paul nodded his acceptance of this indictment. He said, “I feel terrible about what I said. I keep saying the wrong things.”
Marc turned a page of his pad, and said, “Let’s think of what you could have said instead. Do you want to try that?”
Paul looked hopefully at Marc. “Like what?”
Marc said, “Well, perhaps you could have said you’d be willing to give it a try. You could say that there are no guarantees in life, and, as you mentioned earlier, ‘forever is a long time.’ But if he is willing to be patient, maybe you’ll find that you are comfortable with the kind of life he wants. How about something like that?”
Paul looked at Marc wistfully. “I wish I could take you with me, and have you tell John that stuff. It sounds so obvious and right the way you say it, but I’m sure I’ll fuck it up somehow.”
Marc smiled. “I have complete faith in you, Paul,” he said.
*****
Cavendish
John had gotten back from Fiona’s office in late morning. The house was silent, and it felt cold and scary to John. He walked through the rooms: the sitting room, dining room, powder room and formal living room - all rooms that he had managed to redecorate thus far. The kitchen was still Linda’s, as was the ‘real’ master suite upstairs. The house was a hodge-podge of Paul, Linda, and John. There wasn’t much cohesiveness in the design. John longed to make it all Paul’s and his, and have it be a reflection of their commitment to each other: but how to get there from here? John had no idea where Paul was, and every time the phone rang he rushed to answer, only to hear someone other than Paul on the other end. Each person who called was a grave disappointment to John, and he wasn’t able to mask his irritation. They each quickly hung up, realizing they had caught John at a bad time. Around and around the rooms John paced, getting more worried with each round.
When it got to be 2 p.m., and the sky was already getting gloomy, he started to feel real anxiety. What if Paul had left for good? John realized that he was making himself crazy again, so he called Mary, who had a way of grounding him when he was starting to float.
Mary and Stella had been sitting around in Mary’s kitchen playing with Arthur and gossiping. When her phone rang, Mary looked down at the number on her screen and said to Stella, “Cavendish.” She answered the phone.
“Mary? It’s John.”
“Hi, John. What’s up?”
John heard the words ‘what’s up’ and it reminded him so much of Paul he nearly burst into tears. “I’m pretty down,” he admitted.
“What’s wrong?” Mary asked sharply. “Where’s Daddy?”
“I don’t know,” John said, his voice small and scared.
Mary turned to her sister and whispered, “It sounds like the dads had a bad fight.”
Stella grabbed Mary’s phone out of her hand and said, “John, Mary and I are on our way. We’re bringing Arthur.”
Arthur: their grandson, John thought. Or was he only just Paul’s grandson now? Another reason to break down and cry.
It took them 30 minutes because of the amount of logistics and supplies it took to get a baby out on the road. Mary and Stella didn’t think of how their parents didn’t worry about such things, and just sort of slung them on their hips and took them everywhere without bothering with baby paraphernalia. Once they got to Cavendish, and saw John’s face, they knew it was bad.
“What happened?” Mary asked John sweetly, as she put her arm around his shoulder. Stella was holding a restless Arthur, and shifting from one foot to the other to keep him settled.
“We had a fight,” John said.
“A bad one,” Mary finished for him.
“We figured that much out already, John,” Stella said. “So what was it about?”
John said, “I don’t like to talk about your dad to you this way. I said something badly, and then he said something badly, and now I have no idea where the fuck he is.”
Mary looked at the clock. “It’s not even 3 p.m., you know. He’s probably at the office. When he and mum had a fight, he always either went to the studio or the office.”
John looked up, surprised. “He had fights with your mother?”
Stella snorted.
Mary smiled and said, “Not often. But they had some. All people who live together have arguments. It’s not the end of the world.”
“But what if he doesn’t come back?” John asked.
Stella said, “That’s not gonna happen. For one thing, this is his house.”
John looked up sharply and saw the grin on Stella’s face and then he laughed. “That’s true,” he agreed. “Maybe I’ll be moving back across the mews.”
“It can’t have been that bad,” Mary said comfortingly. “And one thing about Daddy - this is absolutely true. He can’t stay mad, and he doesn’t hold grudges. He was always the first one to apologize when he got mad at mum or one of us kids.”
“It was pretty bad,” John said. “We said some pretty hurtful things to each other.”
Stella was looking at John from across the room, where she bounced from heel to heel with the baby, and finally couldn’t hold it back. “As bad as the things you said about him in the ‘70s?”
John stared at her, stung.
Stella said, “If he forgave that, I don’t see how he can’t forgive whatever this is.”
John couldn’t explain the real problem to the girls, because they were Paul’s daughters. It just felt wrong to share his fears about their father’s level of commitment to him with them. They would naturally be on their father’s side, and this thought made him feel abandoned again.
Mary said, “Have you had anything to eat today, John?”
John looked around as if his surroundings could answer the question.
“That means no,” Mary interpreted. “I’m gonna make you something to eat.” She went off in the direction of the kitchen, and Stella plopped down on the sofa next to John, and passed Arthur over to him
“Your turn,” she said simply.
John took the baby, and bounced him on a knee. The baby looked like a mini-Paul. It was an exquisite kind of pain.
“You know, John,” Stella said, serious now. “Daddy adores you. Whatever your argument was about, it isn’t going to be bad enough to make him stop loving you.”
John met Stella’s eyes. He said, with much sadness, “Sometimes love isn’t enough.”
An hour later, after John had finished the food Mary had made for him, and was holding the baby and teasing him with a plastic set of keys, Stella joined Mary in the kitchen, and they quietly washed up the dishes. “There is something really serious going on between them,” Stella told Mary. “John told me that sometimes love isn’t enough.”
Mary looked at Stella and said, “I wonder what that means.”
“I think maybe it’s about that flirting stuff that happened last summer,” Stella guessed. “John was really shaken up by that. Do you think Daddy is considering dating again?”
Mary felt a chill go down her spine. “Oh dear god, no. If it’s true I’ll box Dad’s ears! Poor John!”
While Stella and Mary were talking in the kitchen, the clock had moved forward to 5:30 p.m. John heard the front door being unlocked, and his heart did a tap dance. Thank god! He’s come home!
A moment later Paul showed up in the sitting room, and he stared uncertainly at John. “Is that Arthur?” He finally asked, his momentary confusion banishing his shyness.
“Mary and Stella are in the kitchen,” John rasped. His throat was dry.
“You called them?” Paul asked.
“I was lonely. I needed company.” John’s voice was flat, but stopped short of being judgmental.
Paul moved in John’s direction, and reached out for Arthur. For a moment, John had thought Paul was going to embrace him. But he handed the baby over to Paul, who cuddled and cooed at him a little, and then, still holding the baby, sat down on the sofa not far from John. As he took a turn bouncing the baby on his knee, Paul said (looking at the floor), “I’m sorry about last night.”
John was holding his breath. “Me too.” He said. His heart was now in his mouth. This was unbearable.
Into this tense atmosphere sailed Mary and Stella.
“Daddy! You’re home!” Mary chirped lightly. “Just in time. Stella has a dinner date, and Arthur and I have to get home to Alistair. We’ve left a vegetable casserole in the fridge for dinner. It’s about 40 minutes at 120 degrees C.” Paul got up to accept hugs and kisses, John took his share too, and Paul walked the girls to the door.
On the doorstep, Stella turned to face her father and said, “I don’t know what you said or did to John, but don’t be an ass.”
Paul smiled and said, “Thanks much for the vote of confidence.” He closed the door after Stella had disappeared into the darkness. Reluctantly, he turned around and headed back to the sitting room, where John was seated slouched deep into the sofa, one leg slung over the knee of the other. He looked both exhausted and nervous. Paul felt bad at the sight of John. Why was it so hard to tell that man his true feelings? He supposed it had to do with all the times John had betrayed him: with other teenaged friends, with Stu Sutcliffe, with Brian Epstein, with Yoko Ono, with Allen Klein, and even with George and Ringo; and then there had been Nigel, and Brad...
He sat down next to John and said, “I reacted badly to what you said last night. I wasn’t expecting it, and I thought you were saying I haven’t been faithful to you.”
“I used the wrong word. I shouldn’t have used that word. I was just too afraid to use the word I really meant.”
This surprised Paul. He turned to John. “What word did you really mean?”
John sighed. “I meant to ask you if you were open to a monogamous relationship from now on. But it came out badly.”
Paul’s expression softened. “You don’t have to be tough around me, you know. You can lose the armor. I don’t judge you, you know.”
“I know,” John said softly. “But what you said - about not giving up women. That really hurt like hell.”
Paul leaned back in his seat and said, “It is a scary thought for me, John - the idea of never holding a woman again; never having that kind of sex. I like the feel and the smell of women. But it doesn’t mean I’m not willing to try.”
John had been feeling scared by Paul’s words, but heard the word ‘try’ as a kind of hopeful sign. “Try how?” He asked.
“Can we take it one increment at a time? Can we say we will be monogamous for, say, six months? To see how it works?” Paul was walking on eggshells and he knew it. It had been a few years since he’d had sex with a woman (given Linda’s illness, they had not been intimate for months before her death), and he couldn’t deny the fact that part of him was aching for it.
John was stolidly quiet for a long moment, and then he said shrewdly, “Give me one year to start, and we’ll see what happens after that. You really have to put your heart in it, though.”
Paul’s breath escaped in one long ‘phew’ sound, and then he laughed. “Done. I think I forgot to breathe there for a moment.”
John pulled Paul closer to him, until his arm was around Paul’s shoulder. “I never was unfaithful to you, Paul,” he said in a low, gruff voice. “I did stupid stuff to get your attention or out of revenge, and I was unfaithful to just about everyone else, but I was never unfaithful to you. My love for you always remained above it all and apart from everyone else.”
Paul heard this, and of course, he knew this. He had spent a good deal of time trying to explain this phenomenon to Marc less than a week earlier. What troubled him was that he’d never wanted that kind of love - the kind that stood apart and remained untouched. It made him feel like an ideal and desired object, rather than a flesh and blood human being. He wanted to be part of someone’s love, and he wanted to be touched by it. But most of all, he wanted to be able to trust it.
This was not the time or place to say these things; John and he were still aching from the previous evening’s ‘honest exchange.’ This latest experience only fed into Paul’s deep disinclination to spill out his most raw feelings. He didn’t think it was fair to make other people have to deal with his messy feelings.
*****
Boxing Day 1999
Chrissie Hynde’s London Home
The party was well attended, and it was a first class vegetarian blast. Many of the lights and shadows of the London music world were there. John and Paul had arrived a few hours into it. They had debated about going at all, since John had been feeling a little under the weather, but he rallied after dinner, and so they showed up at about 9:30 p.m. The guests were delighted to see them.
John wandered over to where Elton John was seated with his boyfriend David Furnish. John liked to make a beeline to where Elton was, because Elton was always so bitchy about the other guests, and it made John laugh.
“Well, if it isn’t Elton!” John said theatrically, as he gestured to an empty chair. Both Elton and David eagerly indicated that John was most welcome to sit there. “What are you two up to over here?” John asked.
Elton said, “We’re just taking a little rest. The evening’s only just getting started, so we need to pace ourselves.”
“So who’s here who we don’t like?” John asked naughtily, leaning closer to the two men. He wanted to start the gossip right away.
Elton’s face lit up with delight. He adored John Lennon. He knew that he was out of John’s league when it came to physical appearance, and so he’d never really entertained the fantasy that John could have been his lover. In fact, Elton would have been too intimated, given what he knew of John’s alleged sexual prowess, not to mention - how the fuck do you compete with Paul McCartney? It wasn’t at all fair. Realistically, too, Elton knew he wanted to be the enfant terrible in his own life; in John he saw another such one, and he figured they’d have whacked each other over the head with their respective tiaras in no time if they had tried to be lovers. But John was the most delicious friend.
“Well,” said Elton, settling in, “that crazy Icelandic girl is here. At least she isn’t dressed like a molting swan...”
David interrupted. “No, she’s dressed like a geisha girl wearing a manhole cover on her head.”
John laughed out loud. This was going to be fun...
*****
Paul had wandered off in another direction. He was searching for Chrissie to say ‘hello’. She had been such a wonderful friend to Linda. As he made his way through the crowd, he was repeatedly stopped by people, and spent a few moments chatting with each of them, and then continued on his way. Suddenly one of the people in front of him was a rather glitzy blond. He sighed heavily. He could see the cupidity in her eyes and quickly looked around for salvation. Where were your friends when you fucking needed them?
“Hi, Paul,” the woman said to him. “Remember me?”
Paul did not remember her. Didn’t she know that he met hundreds of people every month? And all of them thought he should remember them! He said politely, “I’m afraid I’m having a senior moment.”
The woman giggled. “You’re not old - don’t be silly. I’m Imogen - a friend of Chrissie’s. We met at your home after the concert for Linda.”
Paul still couldn’t place the woman, although he certainly remembered the party after the concert for Linda. He nodded pleasantly. The nod was neither an acknowledgement that he remembered, nor an admission that he didn’t. He figured what she didn’t know couldn’t hurt her.
“I’m so glad to run into you again. I have wanted so much to sit and talk with you. I’m sure you have some fascinating memories.” The woman’s attempt at subtlety was completely undone by the fact she almost had to shout into his ear to be heard over the crowd.
Paul felt uneasy. He didn’t want to be rude, but he didn’t want the woman getting the wrong idea. He had learned the hard way that ‘harmless flirting’ was an oxymoron. He wasn’t going down that road again.
The woman put her hand on his upper arm, and pulled him down closer to her so she could speak directly in his ear. “Come with me. I know a quiet spot.”
Paul had to put a stop to this. “I’d love to, really, but I’ve only just arrived, and I haven’t said hello to Chrissie yet. Maybe later on...”
“Oh I know where Chrissie is!” Imogen crowed happily. “I’ll take you to her!”
Paul could hardly object to this, and reluctantly allowed himself to be pulled by the woman (who had a death grip on his arm) through the crowd.
*****
“Who’s that man-eater who has her clutches on your man, John?” Elton asked coolly.
“What?” John asked, alarmed.
Elton indicated a direction with a nod of his head. John turned to look.
“Oh for Chrissakes!” John swore. “I can’t let him out of my sight for one moment, or some fucking woman will just snatch him up!”
Elton and David laughed. David said, “You’d better go rescue him. He looks absolutely miserable.”
“Ta,” John said, pushing back his chair and heading in Paul’s direction.
Elton turned to David and said, “Poor John. He’s spent his entire life chasing after that man; he’s always beating off people - men and women - with sticks. I’ve always said that Paul has far too many blessings and gifts for one human being. He attracts people like flies.”
*****
Paul was beginning to doubt that Imogen was bringing him to Chrissie. They’d already wandered around the house for over five minutes. Just as he was about to try to escape from her clutches, John popped up in front of them. “John!” Paul cried in relief.
John laughed at him. He turned to Imogen and said, “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to steal him away from you. There are some friends of ours who are dying to see him.” He grabbed Paul’s other arm, and yanked him out of Imogen’s grasp.
“Ow!” Paul mumbled to himself, as he rubbed the arm so recently liberated from Imogen’s claw. He suspected the woman’s fingernails had made marks on his skin below. Meanwhile, John was dragging him off in the opposite direction until they were in a relatively quiet area.
“Who was that bitch?” John asked indignantly.
“Someone who claims to be a friend of Chrissie’s. She was at that party we gave after the concert for Linda.”
John remembered her now. “Oh, her!” There was a world of contempt in the way he said it. “Well, you owe me now, ‘cause I saved you from her.”
“I am extremely grateful, John,” Paul twinkled. “I’m sure I can find a way to make it up to you.”
John’s face lit up and so did Paul’s. They exchanged very intimate grins.
“Here you both are!” Chrissie cried. “I was afraid you weren’t coming!”
*****