August 1968
Paul

A few days later, John and Yoko moved in.

They'd gotten bored of Weybridge and decamped to Ringo's flat in Montagu Square. But then there was a catastrophic leak that would take several weeks to fully repair. And it was only sensible to crash with me because I lived closest to the studio.

Sure, great, I told them. Mi casa es tu casa.

John had practically lived at Cavendish while we recorded Pepper, so I was used to him knocking around the place. But I wasn't accustomed to being greeted by both John and Yoko each morning, both of them awake and surprisingly cheerful.

And it was always them, plural. Did one wake up, then awaken the other? Or if they were just so goddamn attuned to each other that their circadian rhythms had merged? Was there not a morning when one fancied a lie-in, but the other was hungry for breakfast, so they had to separate for an hour?

So many questions.

That particular morning, they were seated at the long oak dining table beneath the enormous clock on the wall. John was hunched over a bowl of cornflakes in his dressing gown, reading the Daily Mail. Yoko sipped a cup of green tea at the other end of the table, looking mildly queasy. She was several months pregnant and still had trouble holding down solid food until the late afternoon.

Still half-asleep and bleary-eyed, I threw myself into the nearest chair and winced as the lower half of my back spasmed. It had been three weeks since I'd thrown it out at the Vesuvio, and it was only marginally better.

"Morning', Macca," John drawled, peering at me over the rim of his specs. He overpronounced my name so that it came out like MACK-a in a slightly Scottish-sounding way.

"Morning," I mumbled as I extended an arm toward the ceiling and shifted my waist in the opposite direction in an attempt to stretch the muscle.

"Are you feeling alright, Paul?" Yoko asked solicitously as I squirmed awkwardly, trying to relieve the pain.

"It's just me back," I replied gruffly. "It's been a bit wonky ever since Martha jumped up on me a few weeks ago."

John made a scoffing sound, pushing his specs higher onto his nose. He'd been a mardy bastard for the past week, ever since Cynthia had countersued him for divorce on the grounds of adultery. George had made the mistake of delicately pointing out that he had, in fact, been adulterous. We'd all looked at Yoko... since she was in the family way... and... well... then all hell had broken loose.

I raised my eyes defiantly to meet John's. "Martha nearly knocked me over, don't you remember? It was on Primrose Hill. Because the bird startled her."

We stared at each other across the table, a silent conversation ping-ponging back and forth between us.

He smirked. I think you'll find that your back is fucked because you fucked someone on the floor of a cloakroom.

I tilted my head. It was a closet, and I've no idea what you're referring to.

He tilted his head to mirror the precise angle at which mine rested in the air. You're lucky it didn't end up in the papers, you twat. Everyone knows that if you're going to shag on the floor, you don't want to be on the bottom.

I raised an eyebrow. Still have no idea what you're on about.

Yoko cleared her throat as if she was uncomfortable with the intense eye contact that was happening. I wiggled my arse a bit, trying to find a more comfortable position in the chair, and made a mental note to ask Mrs. Andrews to affix plush cushions to each one.

"How is the Viscountess, by the way?" John asked as if the silent conversation had been aloud all along. I eyed the newspaper on the table. Virginia Takes It All! announced the headline, accompanied by a photograph of a young woman dressed in all whites, her tennis racquet outstretched as she lunged for the ball.

"Did she win the tournament, then?" I asked, nodding toward the photograph and hoping to change the subject. 

John nodded, his eyes flitting to the paper and then back to me. "She did, yeah. Scored 8 - 3 against Billie Jean King."

"Bloody hell," I said admiringly. John once again smirked and looked at me as if to say that I was avoiding his question, and he fucking well knew it.

And I was.

I wasn't ready to talk to anyone about Alice. Mostly because I wasn't quite sure what was going on... but also because I had this daft notion that to speak of it might ruin everything. Obviously, I'd begun to write a song about the situation, but I'd buried the true subject under so many layers of symbolism that no one would ever be the wiser.

Dinner.

The word had been filled with hope and promise, and, I'll admit, at first, I thought she meant we'd "have dinner" on a bed, against a wall, perhaps once again on the floor. But we'd had actual dinners. Plural, like John and Yoko.

We'd gone to dinner three times, tucked away in tiny restaurants on the outskirts of London, where we huddled over half-melted candles and talked for hours about everything except the state of our relationship. Then, at the end, she would ring a taxi and give me that half-smile before fucking off back to Belgravia.

And even though I was going out of my mind with sexual frustration, those dinners were the only thing keeping me sane. Because everything else was shit. The studio sessions were getting increasingly awkward. My songs weren't as good as they could be because I felt uncomfortable writing with John in the present circumstances. Something was just off. 

But the cherry on top was that Ringo had quit the band. He told me he felt like an outsider, so he fled to Sardinia to hole up on Peter Seller's yacht. "The magic is gone," he'd said.

Fucking hell. If I had a shilling for every time I'd felt like an outsider in the past six months, I could buy myself a yacht, couldn't I? But you didn't see me quitting the band. And it wasn't "magic" that kept us going; it was hard work and a healthy dose of luck.

"Is it true that she hired a fan to work for her?" Yoko asked from the other end of the table.

"Who, Alice?" I squinted her way, wishing I'd had less of the Isfahan grass the previous night. It was possible that I was still stoned, and not in a great way.

"I believe that the young lady in question prefers the term 'Gate Bird,'" John corrected with his mouth half full of cereal. "Paul's girls had some sort of... what would you call it, a turf war?"

I nodded, wishing that some of the '67 birds would come back. They used to bring hand-knitted scarves and baked goods... the girls now just wore half a skirt and tried to chat me up. Again, not in a great way.

"Yeah," John continued. "So the Americans started calling themselves the Gate Birds, and the English girls were... well, I don't fucking know what they called themselves."

Hearing it all said aloud made me realize how daft it all sounded. This really wasn't normal. What I needed was a good dose of normalcy. 

"And now you have Apple Scruffs," Yoko said, something about her voice making it seem like we were absolutely crackers, the whole fucking Beatles as an entity.

"Better than Banana Scruffs," I pointed out as Mrs. Andrews brought out my fry-up. "Or Watermelon Scruffs.... Aubergine Scruffs wouldn't be half-bad as a name, though, would it? Can we change it, or are we limited to fruits?"

Yeah, I was definitely still a little stoned.

I plunged my fork into the sausage, feeling like I could eat a horse, and the three of us ate in companionable silence for a while. The only sounds were Yoko's occasional sips of tea, John flipping the newsprint, and the clock's loud ticking.

"I always wondered...." I trailed off, swallowing the bite. "Is it possible, do you think, that Suzie told Alice everything? About Maggie, I mean. Suppose she was the one who spilled the beans."

John shot Yoko a look that I couldn't decipher. And, for the briefest of moments, it occurred that trading cryptic glances was meant to be our thing. Just like Lennon-McCartney was supposed to be our thing, not the "creative dyad" that John had labeled his relationship with Yoko.

"Isn't Suzie the one who threw yourself on you?" John asked, still munching. "'Oh, Paul! I love you, Paul! I love you so much that I won't let you take another step forward! Not another centimeter!"

"Yeah, that was her," I replied, feeling my anger rise, which it did every time I thought of Suzie. "I dunno, man, every time Alice mentions her, I want to ask, you know? Which one of those little vixens told her?!"

"Ah," John said, leaning back in his chair. "So you are seeing the Viscountess."

It occurred to me that I hadn't heard John refer to Alice by her given name in months.

I shook my head. "I never said that."

He scratched his head. "No, you did; you just said--"

"I have an idea for your back problems, Paul," Yoko interrupted. "I have just the man for you."

"An osteopath?" I perked up, momentarily forgetting about my rage against Suzie the American Gate Bird.

She shook her head. "What you need is an assessment of your karma."

"...an assessment of my... karma?"

She nodded. "John and I just went to a nature-mystic on Farblin Road. He's incredible."

"What has karma got to do with my back?"

John choked back a laugh, nearly spitting out his cornflakes. He glanced at Yoko, who smiled beatifically as she replied.

"You're right. Maybe a good osteopath, then."

I was saved from replying by three short rings on the buzzer. We all paused momentarily, listening to determine how excited the girls were by whoever was there. They were relatively quiet, which meant that it wasn't anyone the girls deemed important.

A few moments later, Derek was in the foyer dressed like a West Coast dandy. I loved the look, really I did, and I wondered if I could pinch his herringbone jacket off him. Before I could politely inquire, he jammed an issue of the New Musical Express into my chest.

"The interview's out already?" I asked, looking at the cover. At Home with Monkee Davey Jones! Dave Dee's Instant Hits! NME Exclusive Interview with Beatles Single Sensation!

Derek grunted as he walked further into the house, greeting John and Yoko. I stood by the front door, flipping through the paper until I arrived at a large black-and-white photograph of myself looking slightly disgruntled.

"Derek," I called after scanning the first few sentences. "Why does he refer to me as 'P. Mac Cee'?"

"Dunno," he called back. "Why'd you say that starvation in India doesn't bother you one bit?"

My eyes widened. "Oh, for fuck's sake, that's not what I...."

I hurriedly skimmed through the rest of the interview.

"Well, that's not what I meant-- I was making a point about, y'know, how people just pretend to care about the big issues just so they feel better about their own lives. I didn't mean that I literally don't care about starvation, obviously-- it was a metaphor. ...Anyway, you're the one who told Alan Smith that he's in good shape. What, were you trying to pull him? How does Janet feel about that?"

I sensed John behind me, reading over my shoulder. What started out as a chuckle slowly turned into a loud laugh.

"What were you on when you did this interview, man?"

The interview occurred approximately 12 hours after the shagging situation at Vesuvio, and I'd been entirely off-kilter. Obviously, because why else would I go on record with this shit? It had seemed so brilliant at the time: I was the truth-teller pointing out the Western world's hypocrisy to Mr. Alan Smith of New Musical Express, otherwise known as The Enemy. A truth-teller!

A truth-teller with some very ill-advised on-the-record statements.

But I wasn't about to admit any of that.

"Notice that I managed not to bring up Jesus," I retorted.

He gave me a look, and I gave him one right back.

We eventually stopped taking the piss, and Derek rolled an enormous joint with grass that he'd gotten off Brian Jones. George popped by to listen to a few records, and we were all off our faces when we arrived at the studio at 7.

"Oh, bloody Christ," Mal muttered as soon as we walked in. He looked over at Neil like he was silently pleading for help. Neil's eyes darted to the control room, wondering if someone up there could make it all better.

"Mally Mal Mal!" I crooned, slinging an arm around his neck. "Lovely of ya to join us, mate. Will you be playing the flute tonight? I've just the track for it! It's swimming in me head right now. Shall I fish it out for ya?"

"What a dish for this filet of fish," John sang to the tune of an old Elvis song. "My little miss, you make my mind swish, you make my knob--"

"Twitch," I continued in a falsetto, deepening my voice in a sort of Vegas showman style. "Oh baby, let's get hitched."

I looked at Mal. "That's when the flute bit comes in."

He rolled his eyes, and I wondered if he was due for a pay raise.

We finally focused long enough to make a backing track for Prudence. Since Ringo was off on a boat, I was on drums, which suited me just fine anyway.

And a flugelhorn. Maybe we needed a flugelhorn. A bloody flugelhorn!

"We need a flugelhorn," I announced at the end of the sixth take.

"Sounds German," George noted.

"I reckon it is," I replied cheerfully. "Mal, can you see about getting a flugelhorn?"

"It's sort of like a regular horn, right?" John asked, looking at me and then at George. "What makes it different?"

"It's more conical at the bottom," Yoko explained.

"I've no idea what it looks like," I admitted.

We were so high and pleasantly jamming, and it could have gone all night, except there were some tremendous shouts from outside the studio. Several girls were yelling, and it wasn't the 'Oh, I need to marry one of you!' sort. Mal hurried out of the room and returned a few moments later, looking pale.

"What's happened?" I asked.

"It's the gate birds--"

"Apple scruffs," George corrected him.

"Someone was knifed over at Saint Anne's Court," he said. "The girls wanted my help calling an ambulance."

I sat up straighter behind the kit, wincing as my back protested. "Well, is everyone alright?"

He shrugged. "Dunno. The ambulance is on the way."

It felt a bit macabre to continue while someone was potentially dying outside, so we called it quits. After ensuring that the ambulance had come to take away the injured party, Mal drove John, Yoko and me home. From the sounds of it, they weren't too stoned to shag, and I made a mental note to do something to fortify the walls.

Then, I crashed.

**

I spent most of the next day at Apple filming a segment with Mary Hopkin for a children's television program. Derek had left his groovy herringbone jacket at my place, which clearly meant that he wanted me to wear it around town. Mary told me that it was a shame that the film wouldn't be in color since no one would realize what a lovely shade of lemony yellow my shirt was. To this day, I've no idea if she was being genuine or taking the piss.

I knocked off at 5 and had Mal drive me to the outskirts of Hackney, where I met Alice in a tiny Italian restaurant. The tablecloths were red-and-white checkered, reminding me of the decor at Dizzy's and making me wonder if we'd ever manage to go back into polite society together.

Alice wore a short red dress with large poppies printed across it. It bordered on being mod and thus hopelessly outdated but was saved by the high, ruffly neck that had just come (back) into style. She wore black-rimmed specs and a short, platinum-blonde wig, a combination that made me want to bend her over and fuck her.

"You look lovely," I said, bending down to kiss her cheek before sitting across from her.

"Are you going to wear a disguise every time?" I asked with a smirk, pulling out a cigarette.

She arched an eyebrow. "This way if you're recognized, the papers will say that Beatle Paul was seen with a blonde."

"Ah, but you were a ginger last time."

"Even better," Alice replied lightly. "They'll say Beatle Paul has been seen with a gaggle of women, none of whom are former flame Alice Edwards."

Her lips curved into a smile, taking the bite out of her sentence. She leaned back into her chair, her eyes trained on me. That look always made me feel like I was the only bloke in the room, and it was so fucking intoxicating... except I had the unsettled feeling that she looked at other fellows like that too.

The tired-looking waiter took our order, seeming not to notice that The Daily Mail's wet dream of a scoop was sitting in his restaurant. After he walked away, Alice leaned forward with her elbows on the table.

"Hi."

I reached across the table to take one of her hands in mine. She stared at our hands before meeting my eyes.

"How was your day, love?" I asked softly.

She rested her chin on an upturned palm. "It was alright, I suppose. My diary is out of control at the moment... so many meetings about the winter collection."

"But it's only the end of summer."

She sighed as if to say, tell me about it.

The waiter returned, forcing us to release our hands so that he could put down a basket of the driest-looking bread in the Commonwealth and a little saucer of olive oil.

"When are you due at the studio?" she asked.

I shrugged. "Dunno, really. With Ritch gone, it's a bit of a mess, you know?"

She nodded, her eyes on mine. "Do you think he'll come back?"

I ran a hand over my face. "Yeah, I suppose so. It's our job, isn't it? This is what we do; it's who we are. There's only so long he can sit on a boat. He sent a telegram last week-- something about octopuses... octopi? What's the plural of octopus?"

"And your housemates? How are you all faring under one roof?" Alice asked, tearing off a piece of bread and nibbling at it. She grimaced and put the morsel on the table.

I leaned closer and lowered my voice even more. "Maybe next time we can go somewhere that's not in the middle of nowhere. I know a lot of places in London that are discreet, y'know."

She rolled her eyes. "You know a lot of places where everyone looks the other way... that's not the same as no one seeing you in the first place."

I widened my eyes comically and did a little sort of growl, making her chuckle.

"Yeah, so my housemates... depends. Are you asking because Cynthia has you doing reconnaissance?"

Alice shook her head. "I'm asking because you sounded a bit put out about it last time."

"Oh, y'know, it's just...." I ran a hand through my hair. "I'm not sure my house was designed for three people, is all. The other day, for example, I went up to the music room, and they were at the piano doing some sort of song that involved lots of bass notes and high-pitched wailing. And I'm like, I just want to work on my carnival song, but they're here.... and now I have to jam with them."

The waiter returned with two plates of pasta, and I couldn't decide which looked more inedible. Alice smiled at the man like he'd just served her the most incredible high-end meal before turning to me with a shit-eating grin on her face.

As soon as he walked away, we stared at the plates for a long moment.

"Liss," I said, shaking my head. "No, baby, we're not doing this."

Her eyes widened as I pulled out a wad of cash and threw it on the table, pulling her out of her seat.

"Unexpected family crisis," I said to the surprised waiter as we ran past. "Lovely establishment, but we must be off!"

"Paul, what're you--" she cried as I pulled her out the door and pressed her against the wall. The street was nearly deserted, and, anyway, it was 1968.

"Sod going to the studio; The Nice is playing at Marquee in an hour," I murmured, running a hand over her cheekbone. Her eyes never left mine as she stepped closer so our lips were nearly touching.

"Is that the band they banned from The Royal Albert Hall?" she whispered.

I nodded, explaining they'd burned an American flag on stage as part of the act. So they'd been kicked out and banned for life. Alice's eyes never left mine, and I swear she was about to kiss me when something behind me caught her attention.

She took a step back, her back hitting the wall. "Is that Mal?"

I didn't have to look to know that he was waiting in a car across the street, probably having a smoke and reading the spy novel Mr. Martin had lent him.

"Yeah," I nodded. "I figured you'd ring a taxi to go home, so I asked him to wait."

"Paul!" she said, swatting my arm. "You should've invited him to join. You can't just leave him sitting in the car while you--"

I cut her off with a soft kiss, and she melted into me. This was as far as we'd taken things since the Closet Incident, but it was better than nothing.

"So... The Nice," I murmured between kisses. "If we leave now, we'll be able to make it. The Glass Menagerie is opening for them."

She shook her head. "It'll be mobbed. You'll be mobbed."

I looked over my shoulder to squint at Mal, who was wearing his usual specs and a derby-style hat that he'd nicked from Ringo at some point.

"Nah," I replied. "I think we'll be alright."

Which is how we ended up at the back of the queue outside Marquee. We huddled together, pleasantly high from the joint we'd shared in the car but also slightly paranoid because of it. I wasn't worried about Alice being recognized, though she garnered quite a few looks of longing from quite a few blokes. But I knew Mal's specs and cap would only get me so far if anyone bothered to look closely.

Putting my arm around Alice, I pulled her into my side. "We could've just gone into the side door, y'know."

She rolled her eyes and wrapped her arm around my waist. "No, Malcolm, that wouldn't be right."

Half of London seemed to swarm around us on the pavement, and my head felt a bit heavy. I still had the weightless sensation of being high, but there was just a twinge of unbridled happiness. Low-key, chemical euphoria, one might say.

Alice must've felt it too.

"Where did you get the joint we smoked?" she whispered as a teenage boy brushed past her in his haste to get past.

I thought about it; my executive functioning working at three-quarter speed. "Derek's coat pocket."

There was a pause and a sigh.

"Why, what's in it?" I asked, suddenly worried. Derek was a bit more adventurous than I was in that regard, which I clearly hadn't considered when I nicked his spliff.

Alice lay her head on my shoulder and offered a lazy smile. "If I had to put money on it, I'd say it was laced with opium."

"Opium?" I whispered.

She furrowed her brow, looking slightly bewildered. "Haven't you ever been to Morocco?"

I shook my head.

"Well," she replied as the queue began to move forward. "Here we go, Malcolm."

The bouncer at the door barely gave us a second glance, and we were herded inside the tiny club. Diagonal green-and-white striped covered the ceiling, and you could practically cut through the smoke in the air. I found us a spot in a corner, and we stood there, eyeing each other as if silently asking if the other felt the same weightlessness and pervasive, almost unwelcome sense of belonging.

"How long does it last?" I asked, and Alice shrugged.

"I've only had it once."

"Didn't like giving up control?"

She nodded and leaned against me, staring up at the stripes on the ceiling.

The club got increasingly crowded and was absolutely heaving by the time The Nice came on. I leaned against the wall and pulled Alice's back against me, putting my arms around her. I tucked a short lock of platinum blonde hair behind her ear.

"Admit it," I said. "This was a brilliant idea."

Instead of replying, she closed her eyes and leaned further back into me, her arse next to my cock as the band began to play. Maybe it was the pot-opium combo, but all I could process was the weight of Alice's body against mine and the fact that this band was where music was headed. It was chaotic and loud, yet soft and subtle at the same time.

"Bloody hell," Alice said at one point. "It's overwhelming, isn't it?"

"The music or the drugs or this?" I asked, trusting that she'd know what I meant.

"All of it."

She looked upwards, her heavily-lined eyes feeling like they were boring into my soul. Then, she turned to face me, her eyes darting between mine as she leaned in to kiss me.

Maybe it was the disguises or the opium or the false anonymity that came with being in a roomful of strangers. Because I didn't do this sort of thing. Alice didn't do this sort of thing. And yet here we were, once again. Perhaps we were in a stage of our relationship where naked affection was only possible in public places, nevermind that we both had homes with beds and many other fuckable surfaces.

I don't know how long it went on, but between the kiss and the music and the fact that we were both high, it was fucking fabulous.

Until the moment that I heard it.

Is that Paul McCartney?

As I pulled back, it felt like a bucket of freezing cold water had been thrown at me. Alice looked at me, surprised and then mildly panicked.

It's Paul McCartney!

"Go, love," I murmured. She shook her head reflexively like she wouldn't leave me to the wolves. But then we both seemed to realize that whatever this was was fragile, and our relationship wouldn't yet survive public scrutiny.

"Go, Liss," I said, turning away from her to flash my chipper-yet-annoyed Beatle smile at the girl who had said my name so loudly that it was easily heard above the music.

"It's a groove, isn't it?" I said to her, nodding toward the stage.

As she began to hyperventilate, I glanced over my shoulder, but Alice was gone. The girl reached out to touch my forearm, and I forced myself not to take a step back.

"What's your name?" I asked over the music, knowing the longer we spoke, the more attention I'd get.

"Keeley," she replied.

"Nice to meet you, Keeley. Enjoy the show, yeah?"

I turned to get the fuck out, but Keeley wasn't keen on me leaving so quickly.

"It's bloody Paul McCartney!" she yelled loudly, causing every head to turn my way. Quickly, I whipped off the specs and tried to look like this was all cool with me. Yeah, just hanging around enjoying a show, just an ordinary fellow who does everyday things, right?

"Hi-- hello-- pleasure to meet you-- Yeah, sure I'll sign it... Yeah, I'm quite keen on them too... You didn't like what I said about...? Well, I didn't quite mean it that way; of course, I'm concerned about starvation in any country.... Hi, how are ya? Ta, that's kind of you to say... yeah, we're in the studio now... no, we didn't break up, don't worry... lovely of you to say."

My presence caused such a commotion that the band paused to see what was happening. I somehow ended up on stage behind the drum kit to play a few Elvis covers and had to refuse to help burn a flag before I was finally hustled out the back door by the band's manager.

Fucking hell, man.

I trudged over to the high street and managed to catch a taxi. When we arrived on Alice's picturesque street, I got out but stood there for a long while staring at her door. Would she even want me there? Would she misinterpret why I showed up? Was I breaking some sort of unspoken rule? What were the rules, anyway?

Just as I was about to walk to the door, it opened, and Mike Caine appeared. He was more dressed up than usual, like he'd just come from a press event, and he wore a grave expression. I watched him walk down the street before approaching the door and pressing the buzzer.

Alice appeared and poked her head out. She'd removed the wig, and her mascara was slightly smeared at the corner, making her look dark and mysterious.

"Paul," she said, surprised. Then her smile widened. "You managed to escape."

I didn't reply, just stared at her. What the fuck was Mike doing here? At her bloody house?

"...Do you want to come in?" she asked, looking over my shoulder like she was ensuring the paps weren't waiting in the hedges.

I nodded and walked inside the foyer, again noting how grand of a house it was. Is this what she wanted? Some sort of posh house where you couldn't even smell the food cooking in the kitchen?

"Were you absolutely mobbed?" she asked, running her hands down my arms to grasp my hands. "I hated to leave you like that."

"Why was Mike here?" I asked curtly. She dropped my hands and stepped back, the light in her eyes dimming.

"That's none of your business."

We stared at each other for a long moment until she finally relented.

"We're just friends, Paul."

"Friends who shag?"

She shook her head but declined to say more.

There was another long pause as I considered my reaction. I could rant and rave about her being with another man. I could ask her if Suzie was the one who told her about Maggie. I could tell her that it was bloody killing me, not knowing what was going on with us.

But I never got the opportunity to say any of it.

"I'm exhausted," Alice said. "And you look knackered."

"Cream crackered," I agreed. "I ended up playing half a set with the band."

Alice smirked. "Did you really?"

Before I could answer, she reached out for my hand. I looked at her quizzically, once again wondering what the fuck it all meant. Her smile widened slightly as she pulled me through a very happening sitting room and up a staircase to what could only be her bedroom. We stopped at the doorway.

"This doesn't mean whatever you think it means," she said quietly, her eyes darting between mine. What is this!? I wanted to shout, but instead, I just nodded.

Alice pulled me forward, our legs moving in sync until they hit the edge of the bed, and we fell onto it. I kicked off my shoes as Alice leaned down to pull a lightweight blanket over us. Then she turned toward me, burrowing her face into my chest.

"I liked the concert," she said.

"Yeah, they're good," I replied, feeling like I could sleep for about 500 years.

"No," she said. "I liked being there with you. Just doing something normal, you know? Everything got so mad at the end, before...."

She trailed off, and I suppose what she had been about to say was something along the lines of: before you fucked your ex-girlfriend and dragged my heart through the mud, Beatle Paul.

"I felt like I was in a fishbowl," she continued. "Do you ever feel like that?"

I considered it for a few minutes, turning onto my back and bringing her with me so that her cheek was on my chest.

"I suppose I've been living in a fishbowl for years," I finally replied. "It seems normal enough now."

She raised her head slightly so she could look me in the eyes. "It's not normal, though."

"It's not," I agreed. "But I dunno what is anymore."

The drugs were beginning to wear off, but they were still in my system, making me feel much more honest than I was keen to be. It was like the darkness was once again a confessional.

"I'm worried I'll lose John."

The words slipped out of my mouth before I could stop them. I felt Alice momentarily still against me, and I realized she was the only person in the world to whom I could say those words.

"I don't think that could ever happen," she replied quietly, sounding more confident than I felt.

"In the partnership," I clarified, feeling like there was a need to do so. Why was I saying any of this out loud? "The creative partnership, I mean. The dyad."

She raised her head again to look at me.

"The dyad?"

"Yeah, I dunno."

A car passed below and sent a beam of light across the room, momentarily lighting up her face that looked up at me. Then we were shrouded in darkness once again.

"What happened in India, Paul?"

I felt her lay her head on my chest again, her hand resting against my waist.

"I'm not really sure," I admitted. "I'm still not sure which way is up."

Another long pause, and I wondered if I was dreaming all of this.

"You're the only thing I'm sure of," I said into the darkness, figuring that I'd take a chance that this was real. I felt her hand tighten around my waist, the only acknowledgment that she heard me.

When I awoke the following day, she was already gone.