Day 6.

Hangovers really were a bitch.

I'd thought myself above this level of pain and dehydration after several months of drinking myself silly, but apparently, I could no longer drink on an empty stomach, which is what I'd done the previous night after Ringo & Co. had departed.

The buzzer rang six or seven times, making my headache intensify so much that the room looked vaguely yellow. I wondered if this was what Hayes felt when he heard music. It was called synesthesia -- specifically chromesthesia -- and I'd once had a psychologist at a cocktail party explain it to me. It sounded grand, being able to see colors floating in the air when one heard a song. So grand that I was a bit jealous of him, though I'd never admit it.

But this wasn't synesthesia. This was a fucking terrible hangover.

"Can you unplug it?" I called when the buzzer buzzed again, not sure if I was speaking to Alice or Mrs B or perhaps even Louise. "Destroy it if you have to."

"But then how will you adoring fans make their love for you known?" Alice called from down the corridor. "If they can't disrupt your personal life, then what good are they?"

I stared at the shadows on the ceiling for a moment before forcing my legs over the bed. Wincing at the chill of the hardwood floor, I sat there for a moment as my stomach settled from the sudden movement. Once I felt up to it, I stood rather unsteadily and pulled a dressing down while padding down the corridor. I stopped in front of the spare bedroom and leaned against the door frame, both because I wanted to look at Alice and also because it felt like I might vom.

Alice was sorting through clothes and throwing all the half-pink items into a large metal bucket, presumably destined for a junkyard. She wore a long silk paisley dress with a matching strip of silk holding her hair back. She was oddly overdressed for the task at hand, and I wondered if she'd dressed up to celebrate the fact that we'd finally found someone to watch Lou for a few hours each day while waiting for the nanny to return.

"Should we go out tonight?" I asked, even though I had zero interest in doing so. But perhaps her looking like that meant that she was itching to show her face in public?

She half-turned towards me and smirked. "Oh, hullo, Paul. Fancy seeing you out of bed. Wasn't sure you'd make it."

I ignored the bait. "Or maybe invite some people over? Maybe Twiggy and Justin? Or I heard Stevie Wonder is in town."

She shook her head. "Michael's coming by this afternoon."

I looked at her with a raised eyebrow, annoyed despite myself. Why was Mike always showing up unannounced? Couldn't he leave us alone? Sure, I suppose they were mates -- and he was an investor in Zarby -- but, still. Word was that he was that he was seeing a model so why couldn't he fuck off?

Alice saw something in my facial expression that caused her to roll her eyes.

"What?" I asked a little too defensively like she'd called me out on being naughty.

"Don't do that thing," she said. "It's for work."

"What thing?" I asked even more defensively. "I'm not doing a thing."

"You always act like I'm about to run off with him."

I gave her a look. "Well, you're fucking married to me, aren't you?"

She rolled her eyes again. "Yes, yes, Paul. You got the girl. Anyway, it's about Zarby, not a meeting to plan our next sexual rendez-vous."

I raised an eyebrow. "Sexual rendez-vous? Is that what they're calling it these days?"

Before she could reply, the buzzer buzzed again and the downstairs phone rang and one of the girls shouted something unintelligible. My headache, which had quieted at the sight of my wife, came back with a vengeance and I clutched the doorway in a desperate bid to settle my stomach.

Alice groaned as she threw a pink t-shirt into the large metal bin next to her. "I forgot what it was like," she admitted, waving a hand in the air. "All this."

"Are you admitting you were wrong about coming back? Because we can skip town anytime you want."

She shook her head. "Not at all. I'm saying your fans have an overblown sense of your importance."

I scoffed, fighting back a smile. "Ha, ha. Aren't you bloody clever?"

She turned, giving me a saccharine smile. "That's what all the boys say."

There was another succession of buzzes as the girls outside went properly mad. For a split second, I worried that John was at the gate and I would have to deal with all that. Then I wondered if they had stood there the two months we were gone, or if they'd made the trek out to the other lads' houses. A fucking long trek, that, so perhaps they'd just gone to Apple.

Mrs. B appeared a moment later. "Mr. Caine is in the foyer. He says he's expected."

Alice's eyes lit up but there was an undercurrent of something else there -- Hesitation? Trepidation? Before I could ask, she abandoned the pile of half-pink clothes and walked over to kiss my cheek.

"I'll just put on proper clothes and join you?" I called as she walked down the corridor toward the staircase, her mind clearly focused elsewhere. I looked at Mrs B, who was watching me bemusedly.

"I'll just put on proper clothes and join her," I said to her and she nodded like I'd had a jolly good idea.

I rummaged through my closet until I found the groovy striped shirt that Alice had commissioned from a one-woman shop in California, which I paired with grey trousers. I stared in the mirror, alternately pushing down parts of my hair and fluffing up other parts until I was satisfied that I didn't look like a hungover hobo.

Alice and Mike were seated in the living room chatting about his 13-year-old daughter, Dominique, who he'd once told me was named after a character in The Fountainhead. He wore a tan suit and a black polo neck jumper, black sunglasses pushed up atop his blonde hair which gleamed under the light. I felt mildly frumpy in comparison, which wasn't something I was even remotely used to feeling. No, but really, why couldn't he go make a film and fuck off?

He jumped up as soon as I entered the room, clapping me on the back as Alice went to see what was taking Mrs B so long with the tea. A few minutes later, she reappeared with a tray filled with a teapot, several chipped tea cups, and assorted biscuits. I debated rolling a joint, but then remembered that Mike wasn't partial to drugs and, besides, it seemed like too much effort. Instead, I flopped down on the settee next to Alice.

"I was just asking Alice how Scotland was," Mike said as he poured himself a cup of tea.

"It was grand," Alice replied, handing me a cup. "A bit cold, though, so we decided to come home."

"Sure," Mike said that he didn't believe a word she was saying. "Sounds like it was grand."

"It was fine," she repeated. "Paul has been working non-stop, we both needed a break."

He scoffed. "A break where you were totally cut off from everything? Not like you, Dutch. Or you either, McCartney, so what gives?"

I winced because the isolation had been my fault. No, I hadn't engineered the rain storms, but I also hadn't been overly keen to get the telephone fixed because every time the bloody thing rang it was someone who wanted something from me. And every time it rang, I felt another wave of despair that my best mates couldn't be bothered to call me and see how I was coping. It seemed more sensible to cut ourselves off and figure out how to weather the storm. Pun intended.

"The telephone lines are more delicate up there," I said, earning an eyebrow raise.

"Delicate?" he asked. "What, like the entire country of Scotland has lines that are on the blink and no one can communicate?"

I shrugged helplessly as if perhaps, yeah, that was exactly it.

"Michael, I saw in the papers that you were in New York City recently," Alice interrupted smoothly. "Get up to anything fun?"

They chatted about how he had decided to invest in Elaine's, a restaurant on the Upper East Side. Alice countered that it was a short-sighted investment and that instead, he should invest in Bo Bo, a spot in Chinatown owned by Esther Eng. She said they had the best chow gai kew and, besides, the egg roll stuffed with lobster wasn't half bad. They went back and forth for quite some time, and I wondered if this was the sort of thing they always talked about. But, if I focused on the undercurrent between them, it was almost like both of them were stalling and another, more serious conversation was inevitable.

Finally, Liss must've tired of it. "Well, I suppose you're here about Zarby."

"Yeah," he replied, shifting in his seat and looking slightly pained. "The board met last week... surely you must know, delicate phone lines or not."

She nodded resignedly and stared down at the biscuit on her plate like she didn't want to make eye contact with either of us.

It was around this time that I realized that Alice had been keeping things from me. Important things. Because there had been absolute fucking radio silence about Zarby for weeks. She'd barely mentioned her shop the entire time we were in Scotland, so I'd assumed the whole mess had been sorted when clearly it hadn't.

And, look, it made sense. I'd been depressed, nearly crippled with self-doubt, and, let's admit it, fragile, so surely she hadn't wanted to burden me with anything more. I would've done the same.

But that didn't make it feel less shitty.

Mike glanced my way and I quickly smoothed over my expression to project that yeah, of course, I knew about whatever they were talking about. Of course, my wife had told me! Of course, I was up-to-date with it all! Most well-informed husband in the Commonwealth!

Alice lifted a hand to scratch the base of her neck. "I suppose I've been avoiding it... Suzie keeps calling, the board chair keeps calling, I have a stack of telegrams..."

"Yeah, that's called avoiding it," Mike said, looking slightly peeved at the hole that apparently Alice had dug herself.

She looked up at the ceiling for a moment and then leveled her gaze toward him. Neither of them said anything, just stared at each other and I had the urge to cough loudly to remind them I was in the room. Was this what it was like being around me and John? What was this fucking eye contact and the silent conversations?

"Well, what did they decide?" she finally asked, finally looking away.

It was so quiet for a few seconds that I could hear the clock ticking from the dining room. Then Mike glanced down at his lap for a moment, then back at Alice. He shook his head brusquely, apparently unable to deliver whatever the decision had been.

Alice blinked several times and glanced quickly at me. I couldn't quite read her expression, and I wondered what else she had kept from me.

"Bloody hell," she muttered. "Do they want to keep me on as a figurehead or am I out altogether?"

Another long pause before Mike spoke.

"Alice, of course, they're bloody delighted to have you be the public-facing... whatever... you're... well, you're you. And you're a Beatle wife to boot. But I don't think you should, really I don't. You started Zarby, it was your brainchild and now they're yanking it away from you? It's not right. Anyway, I've pulled my investment and I think you should pull yours."

"Sorry," I said, holding up a hand in the air. "Could one of you explain what this all means?"

Mike looked at me with what could only be called derision. I wondered if it was because I'd gotten the girl or the fact that he'd become mates with John last year at Cannes. Apparently, they'd been absolutely trolleyed and bonded over the stupidity of celebrity. God knows what John had been whispering in his ears about me these past months.

"There was a vote," Alice said, staring down at the Oriental carpet beneath us. Her fingers tapped lightly on her knee. "The board of directors... is moving in a different direction."

She looked at me and, for a moment, I saw all of her emotions flash across her face before she schooled her expression. Embarrassment, anger, relief, and contriteness for not telling me any of this.

"Can Zarby survive without our capital?" she asked, turning back to Mike. "If I pulled mine, that is."

He shrugged. "Do you care?"

He looked at her with an almost tender expression like he cared less about what happened to Zarby and more about what this would do to her. I was so busy scowling at him that it took me a moment to realize that Alice had begun to cry.

I swore softly under my breath and moved toward her, curling around her so she was mostly hidden from view. She hated people to see her cry. Said it made her look splotchy and despondent. I buried my face in the top of her head as she began to sob -- loud, ugly sobs that I knew she would say were unladylike -- as I heard the door to the living room click shut.

Mike had finally fucked off.

As soon as we were alone, she curled up in a little ball on the settee with her head on my lap. I wrapped my arms around her as her body shook with sobs to the point where I worried she might start to hyperventilate. Finally, the urgency of the tears lessened and her heaving chest began to settle.

"I'm so sorry, Liss," I murmured, still not entirely sure what had happened or why, but I suppose the fact that I didn't know was part of the problem.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked even though I knew the answer. Shit with Zarby had been rough since the beginning of the year when I'd been wrapped up in the Let It Be sessions and then we'd been back in the studio with Abbey Road and the thing with Klein and the thing with John and escaping to Scotland so I didn't lose the last shred of myself before it was too late.

She began to cry harder, her breath coming out as gasps. I ran my hand over her hair and shushed her in what I hoped was a soothing way. It used to work back in the mid-'60s when fans would start to freak out, but perhaps I'd lost my touch.

"I'm so sorry, Liss," I repeated, wondering what either of us had done to deserve the universe yanking away the one thing that made us feel like ourselves. For her, Zarby and for me, The Beatles. We were all fucked.

The front door shut loudly and I heard the tell-tale cries of Louise. I looked at the clock and realized that the babysitter had returned.

"I'll be right back," I said, running a hand over her hair.

"Don't let her see me like this," she said, her voice breaking on the last word. "Louise, I mean."

By the time I had changed Lou's nappy, fed her dinner, and put her to bed the living room was nearly dark. I crept in and saw that Alice was asleep, her face puffy and tear-stained against the chenille cushion. With a pang of guilt, I unfolded a thin blanket that Michelle Philipps had given us and covered her with it.

A girl at the gate called my name, followed by six buzzer rings.

"Fuckers," I muttered as I stared down at Alice, hoping the commotion wouldn't wake her. But she must've been used to it because she stayed asleep.

But I didn't sleep. I sat in the living room with the lights off, listening to Alice's inhales and exhales mixed with the low chattering of the gate birds. Around 2am, the last of them left, apparently satisfied that I wasn't coming out and no more film stars would be coming in. Alice groaned in her sleep and turned to face the back of the settee, her dark hair streaming over the cushion.

Pressing a kiss on the top of her head, I walked softly upstairs and lay on the bed. Tucking my hands behind my hair, I stared up at the ceiling just like I had that morning, albeit less headachy and nauseous.

God, this was partially my fault. I'd been so close to a breakdown but Alice had remained steady just like she always did. She'd been my anchor from the moment I'd met her, but I'd pulled her down with me. And she'd married a goddamn Beatle -- she'd said yes to a Beatle -- and now what was she left with?

I heard Louise's startled cry from the nursery and turned my head toward the sound. We'd been told one must wait a few minutes before rushing in, but wasn't she also in a sleep regression? It seemed like she was always in a sleep regression, which made me wonder if she just wasn't a great sleeper and people had made up these "regressions" to make us feel better about the fact.

After a moment, I stood and shuffled down the corridor, realizing I was still fully dressed from before. Louise was lying in her crib and looked at me accusingly when I picked her up and shushed her. There was a particular sort of rocking that she liked -- it took a very specific sway of the hips and shifting weight back and forth -- and it quickly calmed her. But instead of falling asleep, she just looked at me curiously.

"We're both meant to be asleep," I said. "Your mum is asleep. She's the clever one."

Louise made a noise that was several vowels incomprehensibly strung together and reached out to grasp a piece of my hair and pull it.

"The thing is," I said, trying to keep my voice low and calm to soothe her. "The thing is, Lou, things are a bit of a mess right now. By the time you're a bit older, they probably won't be... well, I hope not anyway... but they most definitely are now."

She didn't reply, obviously, just lay her head against my shoulder. Maybe if I just kept talking, the rumble of my voice would put her to sleep.

"I've gotta get back to work. I'm not even sure what that means at the moment, but I can't let things go on like this forever, can I? But, well... I'm not sure I have it in me anymore. I haven't said that out loud, not even to your mum, but it's all I've thought about. And I don't mean that I don't have the energy or the stamina or whatever, because that's just mind over matter.

"What I mean is that I don't know if I can write songs anymore. Usually, they just come to me from nowhere, and now... well, it's like an empty box. I have loads of fragments from before, but most of them are pretty shit... sorry, Lou... and, besides I'm not sure if they're considered Lennon-McCartney. Or if we're even doing Lennon-McCartney anymore. John's said it's a myth, whatever that means, so maybe it's going to be Lennon-Ono from now on and I can use all my fragments however I want.

"But I really should be writing proper songs, not stringing medleys together... though you'd be amazed how a good drum fill or some pivot chords can help mesh together two bits that shouldn't belong together. But you know, Lou, the importance of having an overtly catchy tune of overrated. It's best to start blocking stuff out dummy lyrics... or even just sounds... and eventually they morph into words and then you follow that trail.

"So I can hear the melodies in my head... and I can sit down and write down some lyrics in my notebook, but I haven't been able to make it all come together. But I've got to, Lou. Your mum has given up a lot to be here with us, and I can't let her down. Not that she would care if I quit it all tomorrow -- she'd probably be happy that we could move somewhere without all the birds flocking around -- but I think she wants me to do something."

He looked down to see if she was sleeping. She wasn't, but her eyelids looked heavy like every time she blinked it was a real struggle.

"Right after John told me that it was over, I thought he was just being John, you know? So I figured, alright, we'll take a little break, cool our heels, bitch about each other for a few weeks, and then he'd come back to us. 'It's just me, Paul.' But he didn't and I got tired of waiting for the phone to ring and then I realized it's not normal walking on eggshells around a friend. That's all we've done for the past six months, maybe even a year. It was the drugs and then Yoko hanging around all the time and now it's his desire to get a fucking divorce... sorry again, Lou.

"So it's not that I don't think I can do it on my own, I'm just not sure how. I don't know where to start, you know? I've gotta find that kernel, that little piece of something inside me that can bring something unseen into the world so that it's seen. Or something, I dunno, maybe this is all bollocks and I've been watching too much American television."

I looked down again, and she was still staring at him. Her eyes looked just like Alice's, whereas her nose and lips were all me.

"I love you and your mum more than anything," I whispered.

She let out a string of vowels and consonants that sounded vaguely like "maybe" and then lay her cheek contentedly against me and closed her eyes. A moment later, her breaths lengthened and her eyelids fluttered as she transitioned into deeper sleep.

Day 7.

By the time Alice woke the next morning, I'd rummaged through the kitchen and carried every pot and pan upstairs. She appeared at the bedroom door and eyed the array of cookware surrounding me, along with my acoustic and an electric keyboard that Billy Preston had sent me a few months prior.

"Hi," she said, sounding slightly confused and still a little sleepy. "Where's Lou?"

"Still asleep," I replied while tapping a soup pot with a wooden spoon to see if I could approximate the sound of a bass drum, with a smaller skillet serving as a tom. "She was up a while last night... sleep regression, I guess."

Alice was quiet long enough that I paused and looked up. She was wearing her silk dressing gown -- thank God she'd binned the awful one from Scotland -- and looked lovely in that sort of blurry early morning way. We stared at each other for a moment, silently asking if we were going to acknowledge what had happened the prior day before deciding, no, not quite yet.

She walked over to peer down at my makeshift drum kit. "What're you doing?"

I shrugged. "Dunno... well, there's this song... fucking annoying, really. It's in C... and I think the bridge will have a I-vi-ii-V chord progression--" I hummed a bit of it -- "and then the chorus, will, y'know, be a bit brighter and really lift it all up."

I began to sing the melody with dummy lyrics, which, to my credit, managed to rhyme so perhaps I hadn't totally lost my touch. And to her credit, Alice managed not to show her delight that perhaps her husband could keep his job. Instead, she eyed the pile of crockery.

"So you thought you'd raid the kitchen?"

I grinned. "Sorta, yeah."

She sort of hummed like any sort of enthusiasm might spook me which, to be fair, may have. Instead, she walked into the ensuite.

I stared at the pots and pans and realized that this wouldn't do, I needed a real piano and this song absolutely needed an incendiary guitar solo, so I needed an amp. For the first time since I'd walked out of Apple months ago, my brain was totally focused and I felt my creativity explode inside of me.

Thank fucking Christ, it wasn't gone.

"I think I might get Mal to sort me out some equipment," I called out, still tapping a beat on the soup pot. "Just to play around... a mixer, a microphone, that sort of thing."

I heard a cabinet shut and then the water faucet turned on. "He needs a pay rise," she called.

When she walked back into the room, I looked up and we observed each other almost carefully. She could tell that I was vibing with the music and I could tell that she was hurting but didn't want to talk about it, but it seemed like something one should talk about.

"Liss--" I started.

"You should get it on tape," she replied lightly. "So you don't forget."

"If I can't remember it, it's no good," I scoffed.

"You can barely remember what happened last night," she countered.

Louise finally awoke in the next room and must've been famished because she began to really howl.

Alice looked at me, bemused. "Your daughter has very big emotions."

"My daughter? You're the dramatic one," I countered.

"I'm as cool as a cucumber," she said with a half-smile as she walked out of the room. "Can't faze me."

I watched her go, wondering what she was thinking.

"And remember Mal's raise," she called back over her shoulder as the buzzer buzzed and the phone rang and I scribbled furiously in my notebook to get the song down because Liss was right, I never fucking remembered anything.