November 1969
Paul

Day 1.

Tin cans and strings, tin cans and strings, tin cans and strings.

That's what George always said whenever anyone asked how the gate birds knew where we'd be. It's all I could think of as I navigated the Land Rover onto Cavendish Avenue and saw the heaving mass of people in front of our gates. At least 50 girls of all ages milled about holding LPs and autograph books, along with a dozen reporters ready to confirm that I was, indeed, alive.

"They always know," Alice said, bewildered. "Did someone in Liverpool tip them off, do you think?"

"Cousin Andy must've needed a few quid," I joked as I ran a hand through my hair. Except it was genuinely irritating that so many bloody people were at my house, clearly expecting our arrival. Especially since the reason we'd done the long, miserable drive from Scotland was to avoid the circus at the airport.

One of the girls spotted the Land Rover and began to point excitedly. Another next to her began to scream and the pressmen raised their cameras. Another girl shrieked, and then another, and I felt vaguely nauseous as I remembered something that Ringo once said about us being zoo animals on display.

Alice shifted nervously in the seat next to me and then glanced to the back seat where both Louise and Martha were having a kip. She glanced at me, and then reached over to squeeze just above my knee.

"You okay?"

I glanced over at her briefly. "Yeah, I mean... it's not like we can do a runner at this point. They've seen us. We're committed."

She pushed her fringe off her face and shifted again, running a hand over the hem of her short yellow-and-black houndstooth skirt. She'd gone to the shops in Liverpool to buy a new outfit and had taken more care than usual getting dressed that morning, so perhaps she'd also been nervous about being on display. You'd think we'd be used to it, but something about the isolation of Scotland and turned that part of my brain off. I hadn't even realized it until we were back in the madness.

"The fucking daft part," I continued as I took my foot off the pedal so we'd have a few more seconds to ourselves. "Is that they're going to think it's not really me anyway. 'Cause I'm dead. I've been bamboozling you since '66, baby."

"Maybe you have been," she countered as I steered the car turned toward the gate and wondered why we hadn't asked Mal to be there to open it. Or we could've had him install the electronic thing that would automatically open it. Surely someone could have foreseen that the McCartneys arriving home would be like the second coming of Christ?

"Maybe you've been brainwashed and you don't even know it," she replied teasingly, obviously trying to lighten the heaviness that suddenly permeated the car. "Your real name is Peter Periwinkle and you only think you're Paul McCartney."

"I bloody wish I was Peter Periwinkle most days, though," I muttered, putting the car in neutral and pulling up the parking brake just outside the gate.

I froze, knowing that the hordes would descend. Alice leaned toward me and reached out to put a hand on my wrist. Our eyes met and I sighed. The previous night I'd thought that maybe she was right, it was time to go home, but something about this felt all wrong. I was like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon with a damaged wing and antennae that were no longer useful.

IloveyousomuchPaaaaaaaul. Alice, is that a new haircut?  Mr. McCartney, any comment on the rumors? Mrs. McCartney, is that a new haircut? Paaaaaauuuuulllllllllll.

We held eye contact for another few seconds before we both looked away at the girls surrounding the car. My mouth twisted into a sardonic yet cheerful Beatles smile and Alice lowered her gaze a bit, assuming a pleasantly neutral expression. The screams of the girls blended together, reminding me of the sheep bleating at the farm. There was a pang of claustrophobia, which I hadn't felt in years.

"Fucking hell," I muttered under my breath, keeping the smile on my face. "Have they always been this loud?"

Alice nodded and made a humming noise, looking slightly annoyed like I was only now realizing something obvious.

"I'm sure it was more sedate," I insisted, turning toward her. "Maybe this is, y'know, a new batch of gate birds. A bit louder than the others that used to be here."

One of the girls smooshed her face into the window, her lips distorted grotesquely against the glass. Another girl -- Vanessa from Athens whose favorite album was Beatles For Sale -- pulled her away and began to tell her off while a photographer's flash went off, causing me to blink rapidly.

"Get on with it, Peter," Alice commented drily. "Before they eat us alive."

I took a fortifying breath and hopped out of the car, jogging over to the gate door. I'd learned long ago that the trick was to not make eye contact and never stop moving. The lock was still a bit wonky from when Liss had gotten the key stuck, but it finally turned and I pushed the door slightly ajar. Two girls shoved their autograph books in my face and I glanced back at the half-open gate, wondering why none of them ever made a run for it. I'd fucking do it, if I were in their shoes, but apparently that was against whatever code of honor they operated under.

I could hear Louise's cries as I approached the car and swung open the door.

"I'll come sign later, girls," I called. Mr. McCartney, could you comment on the rumors of your death? Oh, Paul, I just adore you. The door slammed shut as I gunned the engine, all of the commotion causing Martha to bark wildly from the backseat. Paul, care to comment about John returning his MBE? Alice, what does Lord Edwards think about it?

Alice twisted toward me, her expression perplexed. I shrugged because who knew, it's not as if I'd spoken with John in ages. Yes, he'd threatened to return the medal from time to time, but what was the point in it, really? It's not like he'd rung me to ask my opinion. Apparently my opinion was useless.

"Home sweet home," Alice said as I maneuvered into the parking spot. I couldn't tell if she meant it in a hokey sort of way, or if she was being ironic. She'd looked absolutely bereft the day she told me she wanted to come back to London, but surely she didn't realize that the gate birds had gotten so loud.

"What a fucking nuthouse," I muttered as I flung open the door again and walked around to the boot. We hadn't properly packed, just sort of shoved shopping bags full of clothes and crockery into the back of the car. In retrospect, I wasn't sure we'd need any of these half-pink clothes or second-hand plates, nor why we'd thought we might.

A girl's head popped up over the top of the gate and I heard an excited gasp as she watched me balance three bags and Alice take Louise out of the car.

"Pack it in, girls," I called over my shoulder, not even bothering to look back.

"Mr. McCartney!" a reporter called out unseen. "Sir! About Mr. Lennon's MBE!"

Mrs. Bennington opened the door and beckoned us in, and something about the gesture made me feel an intense sense of belonging, like truly we were home except there was also a part of me that felt like a fish out of water.

It only took us 20 minutes to realize that we needed to feed the beast, or else they'd never leave us alone. Alice handed Louise off and glanced into a mirror, ensuring her fringe was lying just so. We walked through the courtyard like we were preparing for battle, stopping in front of the gate. We paused, assessing each other.

"Yeah, we'll do," I said with a decisive nod like I was the arbiter of all things hip. But, truly, Alice looked good. Really good. The same probably couldn't be said of me, but they thought I was dead anyway. In fact, maybe I could get away with some light wordplay about that -- what rhymes with dead? Bed, dread, fled--

"Do not joke about being dead," Alice hissed as she reached for the lock and unlatched the gate. Apparently, word had spread that the McCartneys were home because the crowd was even larger than before and it felt like we would be swallowed whole. It reminded me a bit of when us lads had gone to Buckingham Palace, full of hope and and fucking loyalty to one another. The girls had gone mad that day and had even tried to climb the palace gates to get to us.

I was immediately pulled into a group of girls, some of whom were new and some I'd seen before. One of them put a hand to my head and pulled lightly, probably to see if Peter Periwinkle was wearing a wig. Camera bulbs flashed, immortalizing the moment.

"Oi!" I said, narrowing my eyes at her half-jokingly, but also seriously because it bloody hurt. She looked mildly terrified, so I course-corrected and used my remaining energy to put on my Jolly Beatle persona. Of course, I'll sign... is that true, love?... Oh, don't say that... George is my favorite too.

Alice hung back, watching me do my thing until a pressman sidled up to her left. "Mrs. McCartney," I heard him say, making me grin because it still made me a bit giddy that she was my wife.

"What brought you back to London?" he asked, his voice nearly drowned out by the Swedish girl telling me that her cousin's best friend had been miraculously cured of an incurable case of the mumps when Rubber Soul had been released.

"It's our home," Alice said simply, making it sound like it was the daftest question she'd ever been asked. As if there were nothing to the fact that we'd fled to Scotland for nearly two months. Alice had accused me of hiding there, but really it was that I couldn't keep up with the public charade of being me for any longer.

"Is Paul working on anything new?" the reporter asked, and I turned my head slightly to see how she'd respond because, no, I wasn't working on anything new. Mostly because I wasn't sure if I was still able to write songs or if something had cracked inside me like the goddamn Liberty Bell. Or perhaps my theory of inertia had been right all along, and once I slowed down, it all went away.

Alice offered him a half-smile -- the same one she'd given the reporter at the airport when she'd said, aren't you clever? -- and lifted one shoulder in a lazy shrug.

"Paul's always working on something, isn't he?"

Her voice carried over to me, making me wonder if she'd raised it on purpose so I'd hear it. A wave of contentment washed over me because Liss would always believe in me, followed quickly by resentment because I was basically unemployed and uninspired. The man asked about John and Yoko's new record, which Alice said she hadn't had a chance to listen to. Also a lie, because I'd listened to it a few times in between my Simon & Garfunkel song loops and there was no way she hadn't overheard.

On and on it went, the interviews and the photos and the smiles so wide that it made my face hurt. Finally, I decided that enough was enough and we were private citizens and thus deserved privacy even if we weren't surrounded by miles of farmland and nothingness.

Day 2.

I spent most of the day in bed staring at the shadows on the ceiling and listening to the gate birds chatter. The phone rang off the hook and the buzzer never stopped until finally Alice threw something at the intercom panel and broke it, which Mal then had to pop by to sort out.

She was meant to make an appearance at Zarby but kept making excuses about Louise not being used to being apart from her and needing to organize some files. But really, I knew that it was because I couldn't force myself to get out of bed and she was terrified that this was just the new me and I was well and truly broken.

Day 3.

It was the first time in months that I hadn't awoken hungover or still stoned, and the mental clarity felt both familiar and strange at the same time. It was nearly noon when I finally appeared downstairs. There was already a stack of messages by the phone inviting us to every happening imaginable in London:  Jimi Hendrix playing at the Bag, cocktails at the Speak, and a jam session with Serge Gainsbourg, who happened to be in town. Half of me wanted to jump back into it all, but the other half felt like going back into seclusion.

Stupid fucking broken antenna.

The buzzer chimed loudly as I thumbed through a stack of the day's papers. Our faces were on the front page of most of them, half proclaiming that Beatle Paul Is Alive! and the others wondering if Alice's haircut would be the new look for 1970.

I heard John's voice -- tinny and slightly distorted through the radio waves -- and followed the sound to the living room where Alice was smoking a cigarette by the window.

"Thought it mucked up your chakras," I said, looking pointedly at the cigarette in her hands. "Anyway, weren't you meant to go to Zarby today?"

She shrugged as I focused my attention on the wireless, which was the source of John's voice. It was slightly crackly like it hadn't been tuned quite properly. For a moment, I reflected on how odd it was that his voice on the radio didn't sound like him at all -- and I wondered if the same were true about mine.

"Why did you accept the MBE in the first place?" the interviewer asked.

"I suppose it was hypocritical," John said. "I was convinced by Brian Epstein... and a few others... that it would be a good idea for all the Beatles to accept it. One of us couldn't say, no thanks... it's not done, I suppose. It had to be the entire group, didn't it?"

I ran a hand through my hair and fumbled around in my pockets for a cigarette, reaching for the lighter in Alice's outstretched hand.

"Why does he make it sound like it was me who convinced him?" I asked. "Like I was the one who said, oh, Johnny Boy, you simply must. This is bollocks... he was chuffed to get the medal, we all were."

"You may be reading into what he said," Alice said, blowing another plume of smoke outside.

"Oh, don't side with him," I said, earning a semi-withering look that was also mixed with compassion and bit of pity.

John's crackly voice went on to talk about his and Yoko's peace movement and a harmonica he got for Christmas when he was younger. The buzzer rang, making me jump, and I heard the gate birds start to chatter in a way that signified that they didn't care about the person at the gate, but they very much cared that I might show up to let them in. Alice walked over to the living room window and peeked out the curtain.

"It's Barry Miles," she said. I hesitated, visibly wondering what to do.

"Answer the bloody door, Paul," Alice said as she walked toward the staircase. "You know the girls out there make him feel inadequate."

Miles appeared a few minutes later with the harried expression he usually had after interacting with the girls. His blonde hair was longer than I remembered and his black specs were as clunky as ever. My first thought was that I hoped he'd brought some of Sue's hash brownies. My second was that he was here to ask for an interview, or worse, money.

"Hey, man," I said as we silently assessed each other. He'd been in California doing stuff for Zapple before it went tits up and, while he was there, had gotten involved with Richard Brautigan's girlfriend. I'd heard it had all ended very dramatically, which perhaps is why he looked so weary.

I offered to roll a spliff, but he explained that he'd decided as a rule not to smoke before 4pm, so instead I poured us a whisky. We made small talk -- something we'd never really done in all the years I'd known him -- for at least a quarter-hour before he got down to it.

"Fucking Klein, man," he said.

I winced a bit because it was Klein who had pulled the plug on Zapple. He'd pulled the plug on most things, really. And, yes, I should have done more to stop it — or, at least protect the people who deserved protecting, but I'd been worried about my fucking band crumbling to pieces, hadn't I?

"Yeah, sorry about that," I said, even though, upon second thought, I sort of wasn't since apparently the whole thing had been a money pit and we would've looked like arseholes if we'd shut it down ourselves. "That guy-- he's--"

"I was almost done with the thing with Lenny" -- Lenny Bruce, the American comedian -- "but I'm trying to release it elsewhere. You all would sign over the rights, wouldn't you? Otherwise, it'll just languish and, well, it's Lenny, you know? He's brilliant."

Ah, so that's why he was there. Money.

I shrugged and slumped down in the chair a bit, wishing it was 4pm so we could have a smoke. "Yeah, sure. Tell 'em I said you can have it all. Tell 'em Paul Mc Cee personally told you the recordings are all yours. They might not fucking listen to you... or me, as it were... but that's another story entirely, isn't it?"

I felt exhausted and depleted and it occurred to me that I hadn't had an extended conversation with anyone other than Alice for longer than I'd care to admit.

Miles gave me a strange look. "You alright, man?"

I nodded. "Sure, yeah, why?"

He shrugged. "Well, it must've been a trip to have everything think you're dead... what's that about, right? I read that students in America held a mock funeral for you, did you see that?"

I nodded. "Yeah, a trip. A fucking bizarre trip, but a trip at that."

I decided that it was 4 o'clock somewhere and the joint wasn't going to smoke itself, so I hauled myself up and wandered over to the chest with a million little drawers. Miles let the silence hang -- he always was comfortable with silence -- for a bit before he continued.

"You working on anything?"

Ah, the million-dollar question. I wondered if he was asking if John and I were writing together, or if the rumors were true. Or perhaps he was wondering if my ability to pull hit songs out of thin air had disappeared. What was everyone really asking? Or perhaps I'd perfected the Beatle mask so well that it really wasn't apparent to anyone that no, I wasn't alright. I was fucking pissed off and miserable and a feeling a wee bit vengeful.

I sat down and put the loose grass and rolling papers on the table in front of me, debating whether it would be rude to ask if this was on the record. Finally, I decided that I didn't bloody care.

"No, not really working on much. I'm tired, man. Bloody exhausted. I've been going going going for a decade, you know. It's been madness for years. I just needed to stop for a bit."

I made note of the fact that I'd phrased it all in the past tense, as if there had been a temporary and purposeful halt to songwriting but now it was back in full force. I didn't correct myself, just in case I was on the record. You never knew with Miles. Usually, you could tell which hat he was wearing, but every now and then I got the sense he was storing everything away for a memoir or a tell-all or something.

"This MBE thing is wild," he said, changing subjects. "You spoken to John about it?"

The buzzer rang several times in succession, saving me from having to admit that I hadn't spoken to John for ages. It was the longest we'd ever gone without speaking and it was both a relief from the madness at Apple but also like there was a fucking hole in my soul. So, instead of replying, I looked toward the window like I was bursting with curiosity about who was popping by.

"So what's he saying about it?" Miles asked again once it was clear the buzzer was just the gate birds being gate birds.

"Dunno," I said with a shrug. "Haven't thought much about it."

Day 4.

I think I got out of bed, but cannot say so with confidence.

Day 5.

I'd always had a policy that people could pop by my place for a drink or a smoke or a chat or whatever. Most of the time, we'd decamp elsewhere afterward, whether it be to the studio or a club or whatever. It was a point of pride for me -- I wasn't holed up in seclusion like the others in Weybridge -- I was a city man! The Urban Beatle! Anytime, anywhere, Paul McCartney was ready for a good time.

Except in November '69, I didn't want anyone popping by. But I couldn't quite say that aloud, so everyone just... popped by.

"It's Ringo, Maureen and... Carl Wilson? I think?" Alice called from the other room where she had a better vantage point of the gate.

I hadn't seen any of the Beatles since the meeting in September, nor did I have an inkling to do so. I mean, sure, yeah, I missed them. I missed us. But it was more the idea of us -- an us that no longer existed outside of the narrow confines of the studio, and even then it was tenuous. Besides, I couldn't get the memory of sitting in the Apple conference room and having John say what he said and no one coming to my defense, including Ringo.

I stood there a moment, debating sending Mrs. B out to say that we weren't in, even though the gate birds would loudly contradict her. If it had been George or John, I probably would have. But it was Ringo and Mo and, besides, I'd heard that Carl was dodging the American war draft and that seemed exciting enough.

They appeared a few moments later. Ringo wore a paisley shirt that he'd gotten years ago at Granny's and the lines on his forehead were a bit more pronounced than I remembered. Maureen's hair was still dyed blonde and she wore a short skirt similar to one that I'd seen Alice wear. She air-kissed me and then went off in search of Alice and Louise.

"How are ya, man?" Ringo asked, clapping me on the back as I ushered them into the living room. "Haven't seen you in a bit."

"Alright, man, quite alright," I replied as I automatically reached for the rolling papers on the table. "Alright, Carl?"

The Beach Boy had one of those faces where he always looked younger than his actual age, though he'd recently grown an enormous beard. It was really something. And that's coming from someone who had grown a fuck-off beard and lived to tell the tale.

We chitchatted about nothing and everything for a while, the conversation flowing easily enough. Once again, I felt exhausted by the effort of keeping the mask up and I wished Alice were with me. Ringo seemed slightly ill at ease like he couldn't sort out if it was all an act or if I really was this chipper despite everything.

If Carl noticed that something was slightly off, he didn't mention it. Just like with Miles, I wondered if rumors of the Beatles' demise had already begun to swirl around the music industry. Put another way, did the whole fucking world know that John told me in front of all my mates that he wanted to a divorce from me? And how excited telling me made him feel? Because that would make the bloody headlines, wouldn't it. McCartney Made to Feel Like a Useless Twat.

"You guys recording much these days?" Carl asked as the girls came into the room. Alice perched on the arm of the settee next to me and Maureen sat in the overstuffed armchair across the room near her husband.

"Weren't you just in the studio?" I asked Ringo. "Heard you were recording at Wessex."

He nodded and pulled out a packet of cigarettes, looking around for matches until Alice handed him an enameled lighter that was sitting on the table. He talked a bit about his project and the orchestration that Mr. Martin had put together for him. I barely heard a word because I was too busy trying to sort out why Ringo had decided to pop by. Had he been dispatched to test the waters? But he must not have really wanted to know the score because otherwise, he wouldn't have come with Mo and Carl. He would've come alone.

"What about the band?" Carl asked, turning to me. "Heard you have a record already in the hopper."

I realized he meant the Let It Be sessions and quickly nodded, explaining that our engineer was putting together a second mix because the first had been shit.

"It's been a long year," I replied, leaning back and stretching my arms upwards. "You know how it is. Everyone is off doing their own thing, spending time with family, all that. Haven't had time to go back to the studio."

Ringo looked mildly relieved at my version of events.

"I like to think of it as a trial separation," I continued, earning winces from both Ringo and Maureen. Alice shifted nervously next to me, and I knew she would be ready to effortlessly fill the empty space if I was willing to leave it.

"Separation?" Carl asked, looking slightly alarmed as his eyes darted between me and Ringo.

"We're on holiday," Ringo explained. "Paul's got the new baby, John's got--"

"A wife," I interjected.

"I should ring Yoko," Alice said as if the two women chatted regularly and she wasn't trying to save my side of the conversation. "It's been ages. Have you seen her, Maureen?"

Mo looked surprised and slightly terrified of being brought into the conversation. "Oh-- well, we ran into them a few weeks ago. It was at the pub in Hammersmith... the new one with the nautical theme... I'm forgetting the name..."

Ringo quickly supplied that it had been Jeff Beck's birthday party at The Admiralty and it had been quite a knees-up and the McCartneys had been missed. He looked like he very much regretted popping by and I wondered to whom he would be reporting this all to. Derek? Neil? Fucking John and Yoko?

"Far out," Carl said, running a hand over his face like he wasn't sure what to do about the very obvious tension in the room.

"Yeah," I replied. "Far out."

Alice stood and clapped her hands together. "Well... it's been grand having you stop by..."

"We should split," Ringo said, standing a bit too quickly. "I'm sure you're getting settled back in."

"Mmm, yes," I said. "From our holiday."

Alice somehow managed to shepherd them out of the house gracefully and, before I knew it, was standing in front of me.

"Trial separation?" she asked, one eyebrow raised.

I shrugged. "It's what it fucking is. That's what you do when someone says they want a divorce."

This was, surprisingly, the first time we'd spoken plainly about the September meeting since the day it had happened. Alice sighed and walked towards me, curling up on my lap and resting her forehead against my neck.

"Paul--"

"It's fine," I said, shifting slightly to move her off me, but she held on.

"It's not fine," she said, sighing again. "It's really not, love."

A million responses came to mind, all of them argumentative, but, after a moment, my body sagged and I pulled her tighter against me as a girl outside yelled and the buzzer buzzed.

"Yeah," I murmured finally. "Yeah, I know it's not."