Chapter Text
If Paul had thought that the year he first met John was one whirlwind, then the following few months were a fucking hurricane.
It was actually before October that John, Paul and George had decided to try to reform a band. Johnny and the Moondogs, as they became known, were older, more experienced, and just generally better than the Quarrymen – they were getting gigs easier than ever (little ones, but gigs nonetheless), even without a manager – Hell, without a drummer. Just three boys and three guitars, and that’s all they felt as though they needed.
Their confidence had tremendously improved, Paul had noticed, and he loved that. He loved that they were willing to flaunt the fact that they believed they were worth something; he didn’t see any shame in it, and why should he? Modesty wouldn’t get them anywhere – that much he knew.
The regional final of the TV Star Search was an example of their confidence flourishing. They managed a train and then a bus into Manchester town, almost an hour’s journey including the many stop-offs, with hardly any money on them. It was a bit risky, and Paul only started getting the full hit of the problem as they reached the dimming streets of Manchester city centre, making their way down the A56.
“No, lads, I’m serious,” he panicked, his eyes wide and alarmed. “I’m not going to have enough money to get back home.”
John laughed heartily from the seat behind Paul and George, leaning over the back of the chair to peer down at his love mischievously. “Don’t worry, Mac; we’ll strap ye’ to the top a’ the bus if needs be,” he chuckled, George repeating the sound like an echo.
“Fuck off, John,” he hissed, frowning deeply. Although the two of them were almost as close as they used to be by this point, John still got on Paul’s nerves, and Paul on his too. “This is serious.”
Suddenly, the bus rattled violently and came to a stop. Paul stared out of the door and gnawed at his lip uncertainly. His mind was racing, and nobody cared that he might not even be able to get home. A scouser staying a night on the streets of Manchester? Fucking imagine, he thought, I’d be dead in a minute.
Then he felt something cold and metal being pressed into his palm.
He snapped his neck upwards and rested his eyes on an ageing man with a fancy looking black felt hat on. He was pressing little over five shillings into Paul’s open palm.
Before Paul could say anything, the man walked away off the bus and stood on the pavement outside.
Paul glanced to George, then to John, to find the both of them staring wide eyed and seemingly awestruck. Suddenly, Paul realised that he hadn’t even said a simple thank you to the stranger. He pondered, what would a real star do?
He stood up and bellowed loudly, “I love you!” down the bus. As the door closed, he smiled to himself as the man waved him off, sitting back down in his seat as the bus started to move again.
Apparently, John had calmed down and had sat back in his own seat, behind Paul’s, so Paul turned to George beside him, nudging him softly.
“Are you nervous?” He asked his younger friend, frowning at him. “About tonight?”
George shrugged his shoulders. “A little bit,” he admitted. “But I guess that’s normal. I mean, it’s a pretty big thing, innit? Regional finals and that.”
Paul sighed and nodded his head. “Yeah, I guess so.”
George frowned and stared at him, his mouth twisted in curiosity. “Why, are you nervous?”
Paul shrugged, an echo of George’s previous response. “Honestly… no, not really.”
“Why not?” George inquired, shifting in his seat, looking at Paul like he’d gone completely insane.
“I’m not sure,” Paul sighed and then let himself have a rather lengthy moment to think about it. “I think… I think it might be because I’m not too bothered about it. I’m a bit more relaxed, now, about the music. It just comes to me,” he paused and smiled slightly at his friend. “So, I think I have a bit more faith in us. I don’t think this is our only chance.”
Paul was pleased to find George nodding his head slowly, like he was still travelling through the process of comprehension, but getting there nonetheless. “Right… but this is still a good chance for us, y’know.”
“Yeah, yeah, o’course I know that,” Paul reassured, rolling his eyes. “I just meant, if we don’t succeed, then we’re still gonna’ be okay…” he paused when he realised how emotive he was coming across, then changed his general posture to look as nonchalant as he could manage. “D’ya get me?”
George chuckled. “Yeah, Paul. I get you.”
Paul felt as though he hadn’t said enough to reassure his friend, but they were silent for the rest of the journey, and he let the rattles of the bus relax him further.
Needless to say, Johnny and the Moondogs did not win the competition that day.
John wasn’t too happy. He went ranting and raging out of the changing rooms, started parading off down the street swearing all sorts, before Paul and George ran after him to stop him. Paul told George to head off back to the changing rooms as he held John against a wall, restraining him and keeping him still, physically preventing him from escaping.
Once George was out of sight, Paul loosened his grip on John, shoved his back against the wall harshly and then took a step away from him, leaving the older boy to slide down the wall onto the pavement.
“What the fuck are you playing at, Johnny?” Paul growled, his arms folded over his chest. “What, you wanna’ shout at the judges till they give us our trophy, eh? Wanna’ get Aunt Mimi to ring ‘em up, have a shout at them? Well that wouldn’t be fair, John. Learn some fuckin’ respect.”
“Respect?” John spat at him, frowning angrily. “What the fuck do you know about ‘respect’, Paul? You’ve never respected anybody but yourself!”
Paul was slightly taken aback by the comment. His eyes widened and he faltered for words, opening and closing his mouth in a fast sequence.
When John stood up, something clicked in Paul’s head.
He lowered his voice to barely even a whisper. “Is this because you haven’t fucking topped yet?” Paul hissed harshly, cornering up to John.
When John tried to force his way away from him, Paul knew he had been right yet again.
“You fuckin’ prick, John! Jesus Christ, where’s the fucking ‘respect’ in that, you utter cunt?!”
“Will you shut the fuck up, Paul?” John growled quietly.
Paul shook his head in disbelief. He had to momentarily subside the aching in his chest that must have been his heart breaking at the knowledge he now harnessed from John. Lennon was in a shit mood because he’d still never fucked Paul up the arse.
Paul didn’t know if he should have been flattered or frightened.
“Paul,” John whispered, suddenly conscious that they were still in public. “I didn’t mean that. I just meant we’ve barely spent any time together – y’know, together together. I miss you. I miss the way you feel. I’m… excited, Macca. Over you. I wanna’… pick up where we left off sort a’ thing.”
Paul swallowed and he felt his cheeks shallow. He was still scared – scared of what it would make him, even though what they did that Christmas that felt so long ago by then did not change John at all. Paul’s ego would be damaged, and he wasn’t ready yet.
Or was he?
Paul couldn’t deny that he had thought about it – John taking him, John inside him, John finding that spot that Paul had managed to find inside of him. And since Paul’s admittance at the docks, he had known that all the possibilities he would bear in mind were all back to being possible again. It was just like John said; he was excited.
Paul rolled his eyes. He was getting too far ahead of himself. “It’s beside the point,” he said, starting to step away from his lover. “Sort your fucking temper out and pour yer’ deprived heart out to me another time, yeah?”
He walked away, but his heart was fluttering like a caged dove in his chest.
Possibilities were still in reach.
***
Paul’s confidence started turning to carelessness.
He kept on putting off gigs or competitions after Manchester; he didn’t feel like it mattered yet. Not all that long ago he had been showing off how old he was now that he was seventeen; but all of a sudden, he felt young again, like a past version of himself had travelled forward and taken his place. There was so much time again. They had so little to lose.
He and John went back to truanting off school, hiding away at Paul’s house. Paul had exams over the next few months, but he just couldn’t find it in him to care. He was with John and as he had explained at the docks, John was his life, or all that he could see his life consisting of foreseeably. What did it matter what he got in an exam about how to find the areas of a few circles, honestly?
Thing is, he knew it wasn’t all-around positive. He knew George was getting bored. He knew his dad was getting sick to death of him going nowhere, being a nobody-in-particular sort of guy. And John, well…
“Are you, like, not into music anymore or somethin’?”
John and Paul were curled up together beneath the bed sheets of John’s bed. They’d been out the night before, had a bit much to drink. It was slightly reckless of them because, yet again, Paul’s father had decided to lock him out. Of course, John’s bed was his favourite sanctuary next to his own. They’d just lie there together in perfect, tranquil silence until the birds started chirping outside and the blackness morphed into a dark blue.
Paul frowned at John’s question, lifting his heavy head to gaze at him questioningly. “Don’t be stupid, John.”
John sighed and moved his eyes off Paul, looking at the shadowy ceiling above them both. “I’m not bein’ stupid. It’s just, you’re different all of a sudden. It’s March and we’ve not done anything since November; I’ve known you for three years and never once have you been this…unproductive. What’s the matter with ye’, Macca?”
Paul licked his lips in thought. “I reckon we can do better than our older stuff, that’s all,” he reassured, not taking his eyes off John even though John was no longer looking at him. “We’ve been doin’ the same venues for the last three years, and we’ve gotten better, so why are we makin’ no effort to change anythin’?”
There was a pause as John exhaled loudly.
“Well, yeah, that makes sense. But… I don’t exactly see you makin’ any ‘efforts’, Paul. You just put everythin’ off… is it… is it ‘cause of that bird you’re seein’ now; Dot? Is she makin’ you… different?”
Paul laughed and lifted his hand to comb through a few strands of John’s scruffy, slightly curly hair. He smiled when he saw the corner of John’s lips twitch into a soft grin. “No, Johnny,” he chuckled, shaking his head against John’s chest. “No, she isn’t.”
“Hmm,” John hummed. “Good. Nothin’s gonna’ change my world.”
Paul frowned suddenly. He didn’t know if John meant literally the whole world, or if he meant Paul. “Nobody but you.”
John chuckled huskily, rubbing his hand over Paul’s arm. “Exactly.”
“Then let’s do something,” the younger boy sighed into the darkness.
“What, right now?”
“No, shut up. I meant soon. Let’s sort something proper; how about that Allan Williams bloke? Owns the Jacaranda, where you and Stu go? Yeah. Ask him about something for us, and we’ll see if it’s worth it.”
“Alright, Princess Paulie,” John droned. “But what do you mean by ‘something’?”
Paul grinned. “Something that sets the future.”
***
It didn’t take much for Paul’s plan to be taken into full action.
They didn’t start off with asking Allan Williams to give them something to work with, though. The next thing closest to a gig was John and Paul playing as the ‘Nerk Twins’ at Paul’s cousin’s pub that April of what Paul truly felt was the start of the rest of forever - 1960.
The small show they did at the Fox and Hounds pub in Caversham wasn’t insignificant because it wasn’t as big as the two of them may have preferred, though. Paul’s cousin-in-law had been an Entertainment Manager, so as the two younger lads tried to sort out their line-up, he helped a lot with tips and suggestions. Paul never forgot them.
“No good starting with Be-Bop-A-Lula,” he ordered, shaking his head and stamping his foot as Betty giggled from behind the bar she was scrubbing at with a wet cloth. John and Paul were sat on stools with their guitars, ready to be told what to do, waiting eagerly. “You need to open with something fast and… instrumental. Show off what you can do without straining your voices straight away. This is a pub – a Saturday night. What else have you got?”
Paul’s mouth dropped open slightly as he turned to look at John, struggling to think of what they could put forward without sounding like an ignorant fool.
“Uh, well…” He faltered when John didn’t say anything before he could. “We do ‘The World is Waiting for the Sunrise’…?”
When Mike (the name of Betty’s husband – Paul always had to distinguish between the name of Betty’s Mike and ‘our Mike’ in conversations with family members to avoid confusion) waved his hand towards John and Paul’s instruments, they played the song for him, Paul on melody and John on rhythm.
When they finished, they looked up at Mike expectantly.
“Perfect,” Mike said, and Paul couldn’t seem to hide the beam in his grin. “Start with that, then do Be-Bop-A-Lula.”
Mike was good like that. He actually made an effort to help; he advised, not instructed – he only ordered for certain approaches to certain scenarios, like a pub on a Saturday night. He taught a lot; Paul would remember his words plenty of times in the future, he knew. But the rest was up to them.
So they did two shows at the pub – only got paid in minimal spends by Betty, but Paul didn’t mind. He was overjoyed when John seemed content with everything that went on, too.
They lay in bed on the last night staying with Betty in Caversham – they were sharing a bed anyway, because Betty didn’t have many rooms in the upstairs living area of the pub. The door was locked, so they were both being themselves. The best way to be.
John shifted to look at Paul beside him, rubbing his rough thumb over Paul’s smooth cheek. “So,” he started tiredly as he closed his eyelids. “How do we make history now, Macca?”
Paul grinned and found John’s hand, twiddling John’s fingers almost mindlessly. “We work more. We work harder. We work together.”
“That’s a lot of working,” John chuckled silently. His voice was close to a whisper, and every word he spoke was soothing to Paul’s ears. “Will we ever have any time for just us?”
Paul smiled. “It’s always been just us, ya’ numpty.”
“It hasn’t – we have George, too. But that isn’t what I meant; you know what I mean.”
“Oh,” Paul chuckled, kissing the back of John’s hand softly. “We’ll always have time for that, Johnny – in the grand scale of things, I don’t think it’s that important… but we’ll find ways. We’ll always find ways for us.”
The only reply Paul received was a rustling of pillows and a muffled ‘Mmmm’ of agreement.
Paul fell asleep with a smile on his face.
***
Arms around his waist; lips pressing firmly, wetly yet warmly, against his neck; the darkness engulfing him, pulling him into unfamiliar, cold bed sheets.
Never has such an assumedly insignificant place felt so much like a home on that evening; the last evening of their first journey, one of their major premier milestones within what could be their true careers.
Paul opened his eyes and peered through the blackness of the room to see a shadow where he knew John’s head was, buried in the crook of his neck, kissing him and nipping playfully at the skin.
Paul just smiled, and daydreamed.
It was barely two weeks ago that they had turned up for the Larry Parnes’ audition. Paul, John and George with Stuart Sutcliffe on bass and Tommy Moore on drums – frankly, it felt like a big deal. It was the big deal that Paul felt they needed. They’d tour more of Northern England and some parts of Scotland backing some singer called Johnny Gentle.
After the audition at the Blue Angel, one of Allan Williams’ places.
It all went a bit raucously. They weren’t the best, by any means. But after the audition, they all – slightly drunkenly – stumbled up towards where Allan leaned against the bar, watching Cass and the Casanovas with a fond, smug half-grin on his face for setting the whole dig up.
Paul almost laughed aloud at the memory of John spilling his drink on Allan’s shoes, shimmying up to Larry Parnes, who watched from a distance. Paul spotted Parnes’ smirk at some point, like he was choking back a laugh.
Thing is, it was another matter of Paul not wholeheartedly minding that their performance could have been a lot better. He saw the laughter, he felt the music – he was confident without any back-up, and it felt wonderful.
So although he yelped and jumped and laughed and hugged everybody he could reach when the news came around from Allan that they were going on tour, he wasn’t all too surprised. It just felt right.
John had kissed his hand after he walked Paul home – he pecked his lips up Paul’s arm and everywhere he could touch, and Paul felt like the most important human being in the world.
He felt that way now.
He couldn’t seem to force his lips down into a neutral expression. He was stuck smiling; stuck feeling like a bird permanently caught in flight, atop the world.
It had been their final tour date and after a week of sleeping in the back of a van, all six of them decided to treat themselves to a nights’ sleep in a proper bed.
When John insisted he didn’t have enough money for his own room, nobody questioned the idea of him sharing a room with Paul.
And for the first time, Paul didn’t even question it when John implied what he wanted to do. Paul knew he wanted it too, if only a bit. Fear does not cloud out what a person wants.
“Hang on,” Paul whispered eventually and gently shoved John back off him. He had to bite down to extinguish the slightly nervous smirk that was creeping its way onto his features. He leaned over the side of the bed to John’s still packed bag and returned to sitting up straight, handing John his tub of Vaseline like it was nothing.
John’s eyes widened until they almost looked like they could escape from their sockets.
“Is it… which one of us is...?”
“Me,” Paul interrupted, twiddling his thumbs. “As in, y’know - you can… you can do me, if… if you’d like…”
No verbal answer came for Paul, though. Just a rough movement so that he was lay on his back again, with John kissing him with more force and passion in a kiss than they had done since their first.
He felt John’s hands on his hips, tugging and pushing him from side to side, and it dawned upon him that John was trying to flip him over.
“No,” Paul whispered. John did not respond. “No, Johnny,” he tried again, this time grabbing John’s arm hard until the older boy stilled completely.
“I want to face you,” Paul whispered. “I don’t wanna’ hide.”
John stared at Paul like he was waiting for the punch-line to a bad joke; when Paul stared up at him with widened, expectant hazel eyes, John accepted Paul’s request, and all too soon, it was over.
Paul didn’t come. After a while, John only hit that mystery spot about three times, and it wasn’t enough for Paul to reach the release he would normally be yearning for, but he wasn’t bothered when John came inside him and was too tired to finish Paul separately.
It didn’t matter. And it wasn’t surprising.
It hurt, as Paul knew it would. But a lot of things hurt – loss hurts, hatred hurts – love hurts, he knew.
But he felt whole with John inside him, somehow. Like a puzzle piece had quite literally slotted into place.
It was beautiful.
They were beautiful.
***
It’s only two in the afternoon, but the Jacaranda coffee bar is buzzing with youths back in the heart of Liverpool.
Most of them should be at school, or college, or work, or something. A few were mindless wanderers – no place to go, no place to be.
Others had more plans.
John was wriggling his way over towards the bar, leaning over the counter on his stomach, lifting his feet off the ground so that he was rocking himself over the counter. Paul sat on a leather sofa, wedged between Stu and somebody called Wanda from the Art College. On the stool opposite the sofa sat Cynthia Powell, John’s (almost long-term) girlfriend.
Paul chuckled and sipped his coke. John wasn’t drunk or anything, but he was giddy – was being his natural, slightly extrovert, self. He was whining like a child at Allan Williams, who sat behind the bar, appearing to be focusing very intently on a cross-word in a newspaper.
Paul smirked as he eavesdropped on John’s wailing tones.
“Oh, come on, Al! You can get us somethin’ else, I fuckin’ know you can! You’re just bein’ a whiny little prat about it! Personally, I think it’s something to do with your lack of business recently… I think you’re slackin’, our kid – I think you’re loosin’ out big time.”
Allan looked up at John through his readers and folded the newspaper in half over his hand to peer up at him. “You shouldn’t be worrying about that stuff,” he said, sounding completely unamused and slightly patronising with his high-pitched Welsh accent. “You should still be in school, son. Get yourself a damn job, like the rest of us.”
“Well if you want me to get a job so much, you could help us out a bit more! Aw, don’t be a dick about it, Al–”
“Oi! Language, Lennon.”
Paul chuckled over the sound of a jiving tune coming from the jukebox and strained his ears in order to continue listening in.
“-sorry, right, but, like, I mean it! Johnny Gentle said that we were gettin’ noticed more than he was up in Scotland, and that was only seven days! Imagine what we could do long-term! You could… You could manage us and all sorts!”
Although Paul couldn’t see John’s face, he could picture it almost perfectly. Slightly red cheeks, slippery lips; ted hair-do bunched up in thick curls at the top of his head, auburn with a twinge of brown where the grease was more dense – John’s hair was fluffier than Paul’s, Paul knew. Better washed, thanks to Mimi. Paul’s own hair was slick with grease and forced into a position, often without being washed out for a few days because of how long it took to manufacture.
But Paul smiled at the thought of John peering down over the counter at Allan, beaming excitedly, a spark of hope urging him on, his mind starting to think, yeah, he could help us this time – he has no reason to decline us again.
There was a lengthy pause (or so Paul assumed, judging that it was not just a fault of his own hearing abilities in that moment).
Eventually, he picked up something from Allan that sounded a lot like “…we can try, but…”
He felt Stuart nudging his ribs harshly.
Paul jerked and frowned, agitated. He didn’t like Stu any more now than what he used to; he’d just adjusted to his company. “What?”
“Did you hear that?” He whispered, leering over his black sunglasses, revealing two wide, pale eyes that looked frighteningly ghostly to Paul.
“Hear what?” Paul hissed.
Stu pushed the glasses up his nose slightly and licked his lips. “I think John’s got you something there,” he uttered, like it was top-secret government information. “Ask him when he comes back.”
Paul rolled his eyes.
But when John came back, he didn’t ask. He waited. He saw the grin on John’s face when he sat back down on the seat next to Cynthia, and Paul knew.
Something big was coming their way.
***
“Oi, dick ‘ead! Let us in!”
Paul could see the silhouette of John through the curtains in the morning room at Mendips. It was raining, it was nine in the morning, and Paul was far from in the mood for fucking about. He’d been stood in the front garden for over an hour now, watching John’s shadow shuffling about and swaying – he could feel the smirk on John’s face, like he was winning a battle that Paul was unaware he had even got himself into.
His fist hit the door with one final slam, and Paul was about to turn away.
Then John opened the door. Smiling.
Fucking. Smiling.
Paul could have swung for his smug little face right there.
“Do come in, Macca dear,” John chimed, standing aside and waving Paul in.
“I fucking hate you,” Paul growled, storming past and shoving John in the chest as he shook his currently drenched mop-like hair, turned completely black by the density of the rain, before flinging his soaking shoes off and abandoning them in the porch.
Paul noticed that John was wearing a jumper and his Y-fronts along with a pair of thick, warm looking socks. He glanced towards John’s hand, where a steaming cup of tea was being held, practically flaunting it in front of Paul’s face.
Suddenly, Paul couldn’t wait to be a massive cunt about the mood John had put him in.
“What brings you here so early?” John inquired, his tone deliberately set high-pitched and taunting. He stepped into the hallway and shut the door with a click, watching as Paul shook his coat off and hung it in the cupboard under the staircase.
“To give you some news, actually,” Paul spat, folding his arms over his chest. His face must have been bright red, because he was freezing and felt horrible and damp – his lips were numb, and he could feel his nose start to sting a bit from how often he had rubbed at it as he waited for John to let him in, like the frost had quite literally been biting at his flesh. Fuck being apologetic. “I can’t come to the gig tonight.”
Paul watched as John’s face morphed from snarky arrogance, to dismay, to rage. It worried Paul how satisfying it was to see that affect occur right before his very eyes.
“What the fuck do you mean, you can’t come? What’s stoppin’ ya?” John yelled. He spilt a bit of his hot tea as he waved his hand about, and then put the cup down on the windowsill of the porch behind him.
Paul almost lost his nerve. He found it again soon enough.
“Dad’s makin’ me go job centre,” Paul announced, shrugging like it was nothing.
For a second, John looked like he couldn’t argue with it. They weren’t earning enough money and Paul had just missed most of his exams to disappear on a tour of Scotland. His father’s hopes of a future teaching career were essentially blown away the second he got himself into music, and that wasn’t due to be changing any time soon. Some sort of income was necessary, unfortunately. John couldn’t argue with Paul because he was finally earning something for himself.
But then a scowl took over John’s features like a plague spreading throughout a community.
“This isn’t the first time your da’s done this when he knew you had a show to do with me,” he muttered, frowning harshly at the floor.
“And I still don’t have a job, John,” Paul slurred, trying to sound patronising. “He won’t just give up, will he?”
“Before you came here, what did he say to you?” John snapped, glaring straight at him now. “Did he hurt you?”
“John!” Paul yelled, his eyes wide and alarmed. “I’m eighteen, for fuck’s sake; you think I still take a slap from him every now and again? Seriously?”
“Yes, I do!” John shouted. The empty house vibrated slightly with the echoes. “Or you might aswell do, the way he controls you!”
“Look, Johnny, he isn’t controlling me, really,” Paul droned, rolling his eyes. Truthfully, he had not expected such a colossal explosion from his lover. “He’s my fucking dad! He’s just… he’s…” Paul frowned for a moment. “…Guiding me!”
“We were guiding ourselves a few weeks ago, Paul. You don’t want a steady career on the fucking docks, or in a shop; you’re a musician, you dick. You’re better than that shite.”
“Even if I am, I need money to survive for the time being,” Paul sighed and lowered his voice. “You know how stuff’s goin’ at home at the minute, Johnny – money’s tight. I have ta’ do somethin’.”
John’s face was truly a mask in that moment. He gazed right past Paul and seemed to have already come to his own conclusion in his head. Paul’s curiosity was momentarily piqued to its capacity, but when John spoke, his heart sunk down to his stomach.
“Choose.” John said, looking more solemn than Paul had truly ever seen him look before.
“Wha-”
“Oh, you know what,” John spat, rolling his eyes haughtily with his arms folded. “You wanted this music business to be taken seriously and to get us somewhere, yet now you’re the one copping out on us,” John’s voice had begun to rise in intonation again, so Paul sighed loudly. “Choose. Me or your dad.”
“Oh, John, don’t be so ridiculous-”
“I’m not being!”
“I can’t abandon my dad for you!”
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” John complained. Paul’s chest crippled slightly in embarrassment as it dawned upon him that his plan of winding John up with the news had failed miserably and turned back on him immensely. “You can choose your future – my future for you or your dad’s future for you.”
“What happened to choosing my own future?!”
“Well,” John sighed, suddenly calm. “It will be your future. We’re just… ‘guiding’ you.”
The way John smirked as he left Paul in the hall of Mendips made Paul want to scream, but he knew he had to handle his ultimatum with maturity.
So, in all his mature wisdom – he put his flooded shoes and jacket back on, and stormed out of the house, back into the rain.
After a lengthy few hours of pure pondering, Paul thought deeply about his decision.
He sat on the sofa at home, his long legs sprawled out across the floor as he slumped in the seat, arms covering his stomach like he was in agony.
Which, in a sense, he was.
Frustration was a kind of agony – anger was agonising to go through generally anyway and every time John said daring things regarding “choosing”, Paul always wonders how he can be so risky with what they have; every single time it happens, a small rebellious part of Paul wants to choose his dad, or his girlfriend at the time, or his fucking school work, over the older boy who he might aswell have devoted his damn soul to. Anything that wasn’t John, he sort of dared himself to choose it over him – choose something that would be his own entirely over the boy from the Woolton Fête who had whisked him away with the stars, with the warmth in his eyes and the desperation of his fragile soul.
Paul felt the couch bounce slightly as the weight of another person was added to the piece of furniture. He turned his head to the side slowly until it was clear that it was in fact Mike who had jumped down. He looked at his younger brother for a moment, and Mike stared back, one slightly bushy eyebrow quirked as he stared at Paul inquisitively.
Paul sighed exasperatedly. “What do you want, Mikey?”
Mike shrugged. “Dad’s going to be home soon you know.”
“Yeah, I know,” Paul moaned. “So what?”
“Just… you’re in a bit of a mood today, s’all…”
Paul rolled his eyes. “Aye, fuckin’ Einstein you are. What does that have to do with da’?”
Mike sighed and turned to face Paul completely, curling his leg and sprawling out on his side of the couch. “Look…” he sighed. “I know Dad’s pushin’ you pretty hard with all this job bullshit. I know it really isn’t what you want to do and I know you’re just takin’ it all because you think you don’t have a choice…” Paul frowned deeply and pondered over where this was going. “But you do,” Mike continued, looking at Paul with wide, sympathetic eyes. “You’ll always have a choice, and you should choose what you want… You’ve always taught me that. Prove it to me.”
Paul chuckled with no real sense of humour in the sound. It was a dry sound, he noticed – barely even human. He needed a cigarette and he needed to sleep a bit, he needed music and he needed…. He needed John.
Suddenly, Mike’s words began to make sense to him, like the clockwork in his mind had started spinning once again.
Clocks. Ticking away every second, every minute, every hour, every day.
Time will always run out.
Paul smiled broadly at his little brother and in the back of his mind, he wondered what had happened to the boy who had grinned and teased him for coming back from the Woolton Fête too late – too late because of John, because John, somehow, had always been there.
“Y’know somethin’, Mike?” He quipped, grinning crookedly and childishly. “I think you’re onto somethin’ there.” Paul hopped up from his seat and stood tall, stretching himself to look into the mirror above the mantel piece. He grinned wolfishly and turned to his brother once again. “For once.” He joked as he swerved his arm inwards and playfully flicked the top of Michael’s rather neat-looking hair.
“Oi,” Mike chuckled, swatting Paul’s hand away. “Piss off and don’t forget your guitar, yeah?”
Paul grinned. “Thanks, Mikey,” he said, his voice soft.
He was out of the house before he could bother to listen to a reply.
The Casbah Coffee Club was empty when Paul got there, much to his relief. The house was tall, dark and it always seemed to Paul as though it was on a slight slant, like it was fragile and permanently on the verge of crumbling, but it never was. It was strong; it was, as far as he could tell, a permanent physical fixture, as faithful as the waves slamming against seashore.
It was a cloudy day. It reminded Paul of being a child; when most memories were of holidays – were of sunshine and his mother and the sweet innocence and obliviousness of childhood – every now and again he received glimpses of car journeys across long motorways, himself and Mike slumped on one another’s shoulders, dozing off as their father drove them to Auntie Jin’s house in blissful silence, their mother resting her hand on Jim’s over the gearstick; when the sky is white, the birds flying high above are clear in contrast to the blankness of the blanket of clouds. Paul used to watch them in awe. Once, Michael said, “I bet hunters love it when the weather’s like this.”
Paul shifted away from Mike and looked at him in alarm. “Why on Earth would you say that?”
“Because they’re dead noticeable against all that white,” Mike announced matter-of-factedly, clearly proud of his use of logic. “Good targets. Photographers must like it too, because it doesn’t mess about with the shot; if they want a picture of the birds, they get a picture of the birds, not blinding rays of sunlight.”
Paul frowned in thought. At this time, Michael had been about eleven, Paul thirteen. He wasn’t looking for an argument with his brother, though, not this time. “They always looked so free to me,” Paul announced, staring up at the creatures in the sky, which looked no bigger than a cluster of dots. “I always thought it would be lush to be a bird, because they’re so free.”
Then it was Mike’s turn to frown, his young face scrunching up in confusion. “Isn’t every animal free?”
Paul frowned and thought deeply about it. “Well, no,” he answered, thoughtfully. “No, because… some people don’t let animals be free, and some people don’t let other people be free for being different. But everybody’s different, so… really, nobody can be truly free.”
“Oh,” Mike mumbled, nodding his head like he understood.
Paul chuckled. “Oh,” he mimicked.
Almost a man grown now, Paul walked up the steps to the Casbah Club, the image of his father filled his head; the disappointment he would wear upon his face when Mike explained that Paul had abandoned their plan to search for a steady job for the eighteen-year-old, and had chosen John instead.
Freedom or John? Paul found himself questioning.
When he started to walk down the steps to the basement, where Mrs Best had explained the band were situated, he scoffed at himself and shook his head at the blatant answer to the question.
John, he thought. It will always be John.
When Paul reached the bottom of the wooden steps, his eyes were immediately drawn to the centre of the room where a lamp was lit in the middle of a table and the familiar figures of George and Stuart were leaning over the table, smiling.
The third figure turned around to see who had just entered the room with them.
Paul’s heart leapt into his throat.
He made himself remember something for life, in that moment. Making somebody happy, somebody you love, somebody you know, anybody who deserves it – it’s a better achievement than anything; better than money, better than fame, better, even, than being in love in the first place.
John’s smile was exuberant, taking away the light from the lamp, his eyes glimmering like the hope of a child’s heart. Paul smiled in return, shrugging so that his guitar case strap fell off his shoulder and into the crook of his arm so that he could lay it on the floor.
He walked over to the three boys; he glanced at George, who was wearing a coat far too big for his body – Paul smiled fondly at the grinning lad; the boy from the bus. Paul had never been wrong; George truly was ever faithful.
When he caught Stuart’s eye, he was shocked, because for once, Stuart was not hiding behind his sunglasses; he was smiling softly, leaning on the table smoothly. Paul frowned then. Something was up.
“We have news,” George announced first, as his grin widened to show his teeth. He seemed chuffed that he was the first one of the three to mention it, so Paul raised his eyebrows in interest at his friend and took a seat opposite John, not really wanting to lose him out of the corner of his eye.
“Oh?” Paul chimed, looking around the table at the three of them before settling his gaze on John. “What is it?”
Paul leaned forward at the same time John leaned over the table, as if to tell Paul a secret, and Paul almost got carried away. It felt important, but he felt like he wanted to lean forward and claim John there, for both of them to be free again; why not in front of their friends? Why not in the open, like they had on the beach all that time ago back in Durness?
But the consequences caught up with Paul, so he stopped himself, and was glad of it. He let John stop moving forward too, and they locked eyes for a precious moment. Paul’s chest flipped in anticipation.
“We’re going to Germany,” John shared, barely able to keep his smirk under control. His eyes turned darker, like they were shadowing over the inner joy that Paul wanted to see, his suave hair-do curling at the front of his head in beautiful, precious auburn locks. Paul sighed silently in awe.
Then the words John had said gained his attention.
Before Paul could ask any questions, George picked up talking. “Allan’s sorted it, apparently,” he said, grinning wildly now. “All of it, just gotta’ tell parents n’ get passports and a drummer, and we’re good to go.”
“Is it just us going?” Paul pecked. “Or has Allan booked any other groups?”
“Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, I heard he’s thinking of sendin' over too,” George answered.
“Not bad,” Stuart declared, shrugging. “I’ve heard their drummer’s a good fella’.”
“We were considerin' havin' Pete Best - Mona’s boy - for our drummer,” Stu continued, nodding his head. “But John reckons you should have a say in that.”
Paul grinned and gave John a knowing glance. You knew I’d choose you, it said.
John’s look replied without words, too.
I knew.
“When abouts are we supposed to be leaving then?” Paul asked.
“Mid-August, Allan thinks,” John informed, smiling.
Paul’s mouth dropped open. “That’s far too soon!”
He was immediately soothed by John’s familiar wolfish grin. “Just like running away.”
“And Mrs Best says she’s cancelling tonight’s show,” George told Paul. “So we can tell our parents about it all. I’m headin’ off soon, getting the next bus. Come with us and I’ll help you break the news to yer’ old man,” George chuckled.
Paul was about to protest, because his heart twinged at the thought of leaving John so soon, but when he looked at him, and John shook his head, smiling that soft comfortingly smile, Paul felt a feeling that he hadn’t felt since before the dream about the golden, beautifully intricate patterned fob watch; before, even, their first kiss.
We have all the time in the world.
Paul nodded at George, “Okay,” he agreed, smiling.
George stood up, ready to head back outside into the white skies, expecting Paul to follow. So Paul stood up too, and then John, and then Stuart, all ready to head home, all ready for the rest of the immediate future.
John hadn’t taken his eyes off Paul yet, and Paul couldn’t help but feel whole – like he was protected, always.
When they all started to wander back up the steps to leave the basement, John tugged on Paul’s guitar-strap and pulled him back down into the empty club.
Paul yelped a little bit as he stumbled, his long legs flailing slightly as John held him against the wall, out of sight from the others.
But any acts of defiance were lost as John pressed his lips against Paul’s.
And this time, it was not angry, and it didn’t feel like a kiss goodbye.
It felt like a kiss of hope; a kiss of life; a kiss of love.
True love; the love and sanctuary that Paul had found with John when they were barely anything more than just young and oblivious, when it was nothing more than the music that tied them in this knot they had somehow wound themselves into.
And it was not a knot that Paul never intended to undo.
When John pulled off Paul’s lips, his hand bunched in Paul’s coat, Paul smiled softly and smoothly slid away, about to continue walking up the stairs to leave the house and get the bus home, oddly looking forward to being sat on the vehicle again, to drive through Penny Lane and back up home, George beside him, just like how things used to be.
But he felt John’s warm, strong hands on his hips, pulling him towards him, holding him from behind, and John whispered in a tune so familiar to Paul that it didn’t feel like a song anymore – it felt like a promise.
“So, Paulie,” John chuckled down Paul’s ear, breathing over him warmly and lovingly, like they had done as the light of the morning sun scintillated off him like he was the light of life, the eye of Paul’s storm. “Come and go with me…?”
Paul snorted and laughed along with John once the lyrics from the song escaped his mouth, and they acted as though it was nothing more than an insignificant private joke between the two lads from Liverpool who did nothing more than listen to the radio on a rainy Sunday afternoon, tug at acoustic guitars like they were the true Eddie Cochrans, and imagine that the world was already at their feet, like they could trample all over it as though it was nothing more than a welcome mat.
But Paul knew they still were those same boys. They still shared the same goal, and they still shared the same love; so long as that love provided them with the power needed to sing, to speak, to light up a world still so dark, then they would be fine. They had their sanctuary. They had each other, like they had unknowingly promised themselves the moment they first met.
When the boys were finally outside, George chimed from ahead of them: “Aw, bless – the sun’s come out for us!”
And it had.
It really had.
So that’s the story of how they started. That remarkable day on the 6th of July, 1957 – up to where this story ends.
But, of course, it wasn’t truly over there.
Where we leave John and Paul in this adventure, it is summer once again; a new adventure awaits warmly within each characters grasps – they were half-way through the year 1960; forever was just around the corner, for each and every person.
And the rest, as they say - was history.