November 1969
Alice

I moped around Cavendish for days after Michael's visit, leaving only for lunch with Suzie. It was the first time I'd been seen in public since the news about Zarby broke, so I dressed carefully in wide leg trousers and a long mauve velvet blazer that Anita Pallenberg had lent me years before. My hair was starting to grow out, and I couldn't decide whether to keep it short or brave the awkward growing-out phase that would inevitably ensue.

Suzie and I met at Il Giorno, a lovely little restaurant in Mayfair that was known for being discreet. We spent two hours at lunch, but managed not to talk about Zarby at all. I was dying to find out if the flared men's trousers and the women's crochet vests were selling, but decided it was best not to know. If they were, it was proof that I had deserved my job. If they weren't, it was evidence that I'd been too distracted to properly forecast the trends.

I felt restless afterwards and couldn't bear the thought of dealing with the gate birds at home, so I took a taxi to my old house in Belgravia to see Cynthia. She was the perfect person to see at moments like this because she'd seen it all when it came to The Beatles. Plus, she was the only person whom I could safely talk to about any of this: the ultimate insider, only now on the outside.

She answered the door with a wide grin, tucking a lock of blonde hair behind her ear as she ushered me in. She'd taken to wearing clear plastic glasses similar to John's, which suited her face in a way that his didn't.

"This is a pleasant surprise," she exclaimed, leaning in to kiss my cheek. "Haven't heard from you since you got back."

After the divorce, the boys and their wives had rapidly distanced themselves from her and Julian. It was sickening to watch, really. Paul had tried to stay in touch but even he'd admitted later that he'd felt like it maybe hadn't been worth risking John's wrath, especially when he was so moody and unpredictable on a good day. And then, once Yoko was properly introduced to the gang, it was like Cynthia had never existed in the first place. I'd tried to visit her at least once a fortnight, but by the time we reached Scotland and I was too busy trying to keep us all in one piece, even replying to her letters seemed overwhelming.

"You look nice," she said, eyeing my outfit. "Not that you don't always look nice, but you seem extra dressed up today."

"Lunch at Il Giornio," I explained. "Sorry to drop by with such short notice."

"Don't be ridiculous," she said. "Julian and Roberto are just out learning to ride his bicycle... I tried teaching him, but I'm absolute rubbish at riding them myself, so wasn't of much use."

Roberto was Cynthia's Italian boyfriend whom she'd met on holiday whilst she was still married. In a plot twist that one couldn't make up, John had accused her of shagging Roberto and tried to sue for divorce on those grounds. Cynthia countered with the fact that Yoko was pregnant, won the case, and then fucked off to Italy and started shagging Roberto. Now he was living with her and they were happy as clams. Julian seemed to adore him, which made me like him even though he seemed a bit soppy.

"Cuppa?" she asked as we walked through the house to the kitchen. She'd kept all my furnishings, purchased at the same time I was planning the Zarby decor. They were all muted gem tones and unexpected textures that didn't work at all at Cavendish, so I'd left most of them here.

We settled on tall stools next to the kitchen counter and she offered me homemade Italian tea cookies, which were Roberto's grandmother's recipe. There was a slight pause, not long enough to be awkward but lengthy enough that we both noticed it. She likely suspected that everything was shit, but wasn't going to bring it up unless I did.

"I went to the hairdresser last week," she said, rubbing a long lock of blonde hair between her thumb and forefinger. "Do you see how damaged the ends are? She said there's nothing to do but let it grow out... or cut it all off, but do I have the facial features to make a pixie cut work?"

She eyed my short hair as I took a sip of tea and shook her head sadly. "No, I'll just have to wait for it to grow out. It'll take ages. I can't believe I bleached it so light for all so many years just because John fancied Brigitte Bardot."

"What I don't understand," I said, "Is that all four of the boys were obsessed with her and that whole look, and yet none of them ended up with someone who looks remotely like her. I certainly don't."

She scoffed. "Oh, yes, you're awful. Difficult to look at, really."

"You know what I mean," I laughed, reaching for a cigarette because, well, needs must. She helped me light it and then leaned back on the stool, smoothing out her paisley skirt.

"Mo's ruining her hair too," she continued. "I told her ages ago not to bleach it... not with the amount of maintenance it'll require. And she doesn't have the complexion for it anyway."

"Not sure any natural brunette does," I said, frowning at the memory of when I'd dyed my hair blonde whilst living in California when I'd fled Paul and London. "It washes me out. I look sickly."

"Pattie's lucky that she doesn't have to do much with her hair... she used to lighten it more, but lately it's been more highlights. They look nice... in the photos anyway, I haven't seen her in ages."

I leaned forward conspiratorially. "Paul says things aren't great between Pattie and George. He thinks they're both having affairs. Well, maybe not anymore... Paul hasn't spoken to any of the others in two months, so I don't know the latest."

Cynthia sat up straighter and frowned, the mood shifting from a gossipy tete-a-tete to something more serious.

"Two months? He's not spoken to any of them in two months? Even John?"

I shook my head. "Especially John. They only communicate about business through Neil and Mal."

She took a drag of her cigarette. "It's really that serious?"

"Every time the phone rings or someone turns up at the gate, I can tell he's a bit stressed that it might be John," I replied wearily. "It's like they need to have a conversation that's unavoidable but they're both trying to avoid it. It's gotten so awkward that Paul feels awful having Mal being the go-between and says he may need to cut him loose."

"Cut him loose?"

"Well, not make him choose sides between him and the others."

Cynthia frowned and her forehead scrunched in a way that my mum would warn would cause unbecoming wrinkles.

"I can't remember Paul and John going more than a week without talking," she said. "Even when we were in Spain, one of them would find an excuse to ring the other... and whenever they would row, oh, that was the worst. John would become incredibly mardy -- one of those what-does-it-all-mean sort of things. But one of them would always crack and reach out to the other. Two months? Really?"

I nodded.

Cynthia reached for the cigarette again, which I surrendered and reached for another. Sod the chakras.

"How is he?" she asked after a few minutes of silence. "Paul, I mean. Not John, I couldn't give two shits about John."

Something about the way she said it had a bit too much bravado, making me wonder if she was still in love with her ex-husband. Surely one didn't just fall out of love with someone they'd been with for years, although John was doing a good impression of it. He and Yoko were in each other's pockets in a way I'd never seen before. Honestly, I'd never in my life had the urge to spend that much time with one person, no matter how good the sex was or how much I loved them.

I considered the question -- how is Paul? -- as I inhaled deeply, wishing we were smoking a joint instead. That was the downside of spending time with Cynthia, she didn't partake in grass.

Finally, I shrugged. "I'm not sure. Better than he was in Scotland, that's for certain. Scotland was bloody terrible. Do you know that Derek Taylor popped by totally unannounced? Just showed up at the door. Anyway, I could tell that he was a bit shaken to see that Paul wasn't himself."

"Who was he if not himself?"

I shrugged again. "You know how Paul's always glass-half-full? Well, that's all done and he's glass-half-empty. It got a bit mad in Scotland. Paul started talking to the ewes. Full-on conversations."

She gave me a look. "The ewes?"

"Female sheep."

"Bloody aristocrats," she replied with a grin.

"And the maddest part," I continued, "was that he barely talked about any of the other three. He practically didn't mention what had happened until one day he said he no longer wanted to be a part of it. Les Beatles, c'est fini. So now he's talking about making a record of his own... right now he's banging around on a homemade drum kit but he said he wants Mal to bring over some proper recording equipment. I've tried to talk him into going to the studio, but he doesn't want the others to know what he's doing."

"Bloody hell," Cynthia said, looking a bit depressed by the thought of Paul playing a makeshift drum kit in our spare room.

"Oh, it gets better," I said, taking a drag of the cigarette. "After all this --yesterday Neil called asking if Paul could pop by the studio to help George record a backing track for the new record. And he went right over!"

Cynthia shook her head and reached for yet another cigarette. "What's John doing during all of this?"

I shrugged. "Freda told me that they're filming some sort of documentary... it's called 'The World of John and Yoko'."

She shot me a withering look. "Please tell me you're having a laugh."

"I'm not," I said with a rueful grin. "They're filming them for five days at their new house. It's all white, did you know? The house. Everything is white, I've never seen anything like it. But the odd part is that on one of the days, they're also filming a documentary for ATV... so I suppose the BBC cameras are filming them doing that as well? It's a bit too meta for me."

Cynthia shook her head again. "They're mad. They're all mad as hatters. All four of them."

I hummed in agreement and stubbed my cigarette into the ashtray. Alright, enough, surely I needed to preserve at least a bit of my chakra alignment.

She was about to say more when the front door slammed shut and Julian ran into the room, throwing himself into my lap. We chatted for a few minutes while Robert and Cynthia murmured in the corner. Finally, Roberto collected Julian to take him up for a bath.

"How's that going?" I asked, nodding my head toward the staircase once they'd left. "Seems good?"

She nodded and pulled her hair back into a ponytail for a moment before letting it fall back to her shoulders. She shifted in her seat, running a hand over her skirt. I watched her fidget with a smile.

"Yeah, it's good," she replied. "Julian's over the moon. I think he really needed a father figure, you know? ...Not that Paul hasn't done his bit, of course. You know he loves Paul more than anyone, possibly even more than me."

I nodded. "He has a way with kids, doesn't he? Louise adores him even though I was the one holding everything together for months. We were attached to the hip -- literally -- for months and yet she's mad for her dad. Only has eyes for him, really."

Something in my voice caused Cynthia to furrow her brow again and lean forward.

"How're you, Alice? How're you getting along?"

She didn't have to say that she'd read in the papers that I'd been ousted from Zarby. It had been dressed up in officious language -- it's not like they said I'd been sacked -- but it had been plain to the world that my own company had been wrested away from me. Worse yet, all the articles featured photographs of me with Paul, as if our relationship had anything to do with any of it.

I sighed and looked down at my trousers, clenching and unclenching my fist for a moment before I looked up.

"I suppose it was time for a change," I said. "I wasn't managing it all very well."

Cynthia scoffed. "Well, how could you? You have a baby, your face is in every newspaper on the planet, and Paul..."

She trailed off, apparently unwilling to admit that The Cute One had come dangerously close to a mental breakdown.

"I can imagine how difficult it's been for all of you," she said diplomatically. "Do you have any idea what you'll do next?"

I shrugged and rummaged around for another cigarette, chakras be damned!

I'd thought a lot about the question, of course I had. In fact, it was all I thought about most days. What next? What now? What am I meant to do with my life? I tried to force myself to be content with what I had: a child, a husband, a home that smelled vaguely like the cabbage cooked there several years prior. A farm filled with ewes and a mother who worried about me and a father who thought I was a disappointment to the family bloodline.

But, looking at Cynthia, I couldn't say any of that to her. She had been happy with what she had with John. She loved being a housewife and never seemed to have minded being left behind while John was out on the town. Don't get me wrong, she would have preferred that he spend more time with her and Julian but I never got the impression that she thought she was destined for more than motherhood.

And I loved that about her.

I just couldn't make myself share that emotion. And I'd really, really tried.

"I've no idea," I finally said. "It'll come to me, I suppose."

**

When I got home, Paul was holed up in the music room watching black-and-white reels projected onto the wall. His face was giant on the wallpaper, his eyebrows competing with the olive leaf print.

"Which do you prefer, mods or rockers?" a young girl asked 21-year-old Paul who still sported a bit of a baby face.

"Er, I dunno," he replied. "I like any of them..." He looked at the camera with faux-seriousness. "Mockers, I like... I think they're the best."

I leaned against the door frame. "What're you doing, love?"

He looked up, startled, like his mind had been elsewhere. He looked away, staring at the image for a moment longer -- is it true that you're engaged to Jane Asher? -- before hitting a button on the projector and the image flickered away.

"Oh, hey," he replied. "Didn't hear you come up... yeah, I dunno, Derek sent these reels over a few weeks ago and I'm just getting around to look through them."

I walked over and peered down at the box full of film canisters. "It's all old Beatles footage?"

He shrugged. "I think so, yeah. Do you reckon he sent them to all four of us? Like we're meant to re-live our glory days." He smirked and spoke in a falsetto. "Paul, which do you like more: chicken or ham?"

I walked over and leaned down to kiss the top of his head. "Do you still fancy going to Pattie's do tonight?"

Each December, Pattie rented out a cinema for a private screening for all her friends. Paul had wanted to decline the invitation this year -- fuck 'em all, Liss -- but Teagan had convinced me that we needed to show up looking fabulous. Really put on a show. I wasn't quite sure what we were proving, but I supposed it would provide further evidence that Beatle Paul was alive and Lady Alice may have been publicly humiliated, but she could still cut a pretty figure in a dress.

Paul looked up at me with weary eyes and I noticed that the lines on his forehead were more pronounced than they'd been a few months prior.

"Yeah, we should," he replied. "It'll be good to go out, yeah? Though I hope the film is better than the last one. Christ, that was awful. Can't believe we sat through it... though John did get a song out of it, I suppose."

Pattie's last soiree had been centered around a screening of The Valley of the Dolls, which has been rubbish. I adored the book -- it had kept me and many other stewardesses company during transatlantic flights -- and couldn't understand how the concept had gone so horribly awry on film. So we'd all gotten pissed and ended up cackling at the entire second half of the film.

"Nothing could be as awful as that, don't worry," I said, leaning down to kiss his lips.

"The bar is low," he agreed.

"I'm going to get Lou sorted," I said finally, breaking away from him. He made a show of grumbling then said he was off to take a bath, shooing me away to do Louise's dinner and bedtime.

When I entered the bedroom an hour later, Paul was in the ensuite singing to himself. I pulled out a flowy blue kaftan designed by Zandra Rhodes, a textile designer who had recently debuted her first solo collection called Knitted Circles. I'd been impressed by the collection, which managed to incorporate the textures of the hippie style into high fashion. So I'd snapped it up for Zarby and everything had sold out in hours.

I was trying to tame my hair into something chic when Paul opened the door and let out a low whistle.

"My wife is fucking fit," he said, his eyes roving over me appreciatively. "Sometimes I forget, y'know, when you're lounging around wearing the ratty old t-shirts--"

"Hey!" I exclaimed, shooting him a look.

He started to sing a song, rhyming sexy with put a hex on me and stunning with so cunning as he hastily put on a charcoal gray suit and a white Indian-style tunic. He left the top button undone, giving the whole thing a rakish feel, and carefully arranged his hair so he looked more Beatle-y. When he turned around to face me, he looked very much a pop star and not the man I'd been living with for the past few months.

I turned away to put on long, dangly earrings and, when I turned back, Paul was staring at himself in the long mirror next to the closet. Walking over, I wrapped both arms around his torso and stood on my tiptoes so my chin rested on his shoulder. We stared at each other -- a Beatle and a Lady -- each of us in our finest, most sparkly personas ready to be deployed. We stood like that for a few minutes, each of us perhaps willing up the reserves we'd need to pretend for the world like everything was fab.

"Ready, milady?" he asked finally in a posh voice, turning to offer me a hand.

The taxi dropped us outside of the Granada Theatre, one of my favorite places in all of London. The outside was done in a Spanish Moorish style and it felt like walking into another world. There was a pack of photographers at the door, which normally would be annoying but suited our purposes that night. The flashes exploded against the night sky as I trained my eyes slightly downwards so I wouldn't be blinded.

Paul paused in front of the entrance and pulled me against him, both of us giving our public-facing smiles. You didn't break us. We're still here.

"Paul, what do you think about the rumors from America about you being dead?"

He shrugged and gave a charming laugh. "It's all mad, isn't it? As far as I know, I'm still alive."

"Alice, how is married life?"

"Divine," I cooed, leaning my head against his shoulder and placing a hand on his lapel like this was an engagement photograph. "Couldn't ask for anything more."

"Paul, we've heard rumors that The Beatles are breaking up," another reporter said.

He smirked. "Why're you lot always asking about rumors but never about facts?"

"What do you think about John and Yoko's bed-in?"

Paul shrugged. "Just like my dad used to say, a bed's a nice place to be."

"Alice, did you choose to leave Zarby?"

I smiled and tilted my head. "I'm working on a new project and unfortunately didn't have time for them both. But Zarby will always be a part of me."

We gave a final wave to the photographers while ignoring questions about my new project, the bulbs flashing again. I accidentally looked directly at one of them and was momentarily blinded as Paul put a hand on the small of my back and steered me inside.

The huge foyer was decorated in a Spanish baroque style, all mirrors and gilding. Hundreds of strands of fairy lights had been strung across the ceiling, creating a decadent and slightly disorienting effect. Everyone seemed to watch us enter -- likely because the snappers were going mad behind us -- so Paul gave a little wave and made a beeline to where Donovan was standing nearby chatting with Peter Sellers and one of the lads from Herman's Hermits.

Jenny Boyd squealed when she saw me, throwing an arm around my shoulder. She wore a long dress in a psychedelic print and long earrings brushed against my cheek as she air-kissed my cheek.

"I haven't seen you in ages!" she exclaimed. "Really, ages. Where have you been? You look bloody fabulous, as always. Is that a Zandra Rhodes? I've heard that Natalie Woods is doing a spread in American Vogue wearing her kaftans."

I leaned over to kiss her cheek and grinned. "I've heard the same."

I spied Mick Fleetwood across the room talking to Pattie and George. He was a bit underdressed for the event, clad in jeans, a grey jumper, and a long brown suede coat. He laughed at something Pattie said before glancing over at Jenny with a covert wink.

"Are things on again?" I asked, bemused as I accepted a glass of champagne from a passing waiter. Jenny and Mick famously had an on-and-off relationship that had been the subject of much speculation by Paul. He couldn't figure out why they didn't sort things out, since Jenny was such a great girl and Mick was mostly great too.

"I think so? For now, anyway." she said, taking a sip of champagne. "He's just so focused on the band, though... it's stifling sometimes. So, I suppose we're back together for now, but, really, I wonder if I should cut my ties now and find someone who can properly commit."

Then she turned to me, putting a hand lightly on my arm. Her eyes were full of concern as she lowered her voice so no one could overhear.

"I heard about Zarby. How awful. How are you coping?"

I shrugged in an effort to appear casual. "It was time for me to move on."

She shook her head slightly and pressed her lips together like she was stopping herself from saying more. Then she looked over at Paul, who was leaning against the bar and gesturing wildly to a man and a woman. She looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn't place where I'd seen her. He looked so at ease and it reminded me about the first time I'd seen him at the Bag o Nails where he'd been totally in his element, like he was the master of the universe.

"He's looking quite dishy," Jenny said with a smirk. "I'd hear he was really in the doldrums, but I suppose not."

I took a sip of champagne. "Oh, he's much too glass-half-full for that."

She shot me an appraising look, like she suspected we were both putting on a show. At that moment, Paul saw us watching and lifted a hand to beckon me over. I took a few steps away when Jenny grabbed my hand and tugged gently.

"The thing is," she said, stepping closer and looking much more sober than a minute prior. "When we lose our creative outlet... well, you musn't lose it, Alice. If not Zarby, then it needs to be something else. With these artists..." she glanced over at Mick Fleetwood, who had a cigarette dangling from one hand as he spoke with the actress Elaine Taylor. "They're... it's too easy for us to become locked out, you know? Locked out of their creative process... made to be an extension of their dream, you know?"

I did know.

"Liss," Paul called over the din of the party, cupping his hands around his mouth. "C'mere."

I turned back to Jenny. "Let's get lunch soon?"

Weaving through the room toward Paul, I tried to recall where I'd seen the woman. She was perhaps a decade older than us and wore a very glam dress with a fitted bodice that transformed to a silky, flowy skirt. Her lips were a bit too big for her face and something about the way they moved as she spoke made me think she was French.

Just before I reached them, it hit me: she was Anouk Aimee, the actress who had starred in so many of the Fellini films. And yes, of course she was here, since we were watching her new film, Justine.

"Hey, baby," Paul said, pulling me close. "This is Anouk and her boyfriend Albert."

"Hello," I gushed, offering an air kiss to both of them. "I'm so excited about the film. I've heard so much about it."

Anouk looked at me and then at Paul before smiling. "I've heard a lot about you. Vous parlez français, non?"

We chattered away in French for a few moments while Paul and Albert talked about his new film, Scrooge, and something about the production of the Let It Be film. There was a loud gong from the corner, which prompted everyone to get a refill on their drinks and slowly wander their way into the theatre. Paul and I lingered at the bar for a moment, watching everyone we knew file in. It occurred to me that we hadn't said hello to Pattie or George, though perhaps that was by Paul's design.

Once the lobby was clear aside from the staff, the barman asked if we wanted another drink. He looked at me, one eyebrow raised.

"Wanna split?" he asked.

"We can't just leave!" I exclaimed. "What about the film?"

He laughed. "Right, like we're the first to come to the interesting bit and scram before the film starts. You think we sat through the premiere of A Hard Day's Night? They trotted us out at the beginning, then we sat in an empty room taking the piss and smoking until they trotted us back at the end. It's the way things are done, Liss."

I gave him a look. "You've just exhausted your social capital."

"Fuck yeah I have. But c'mon, it's a good idea, admit it."

Without waiting for a response, he leaned over the bar. "Tell me there's another way outta here, mate," he said to the barman, who pointed us in the direction of a dingy back entrance that led to an even dingier courtyard and, finally, a quiet side street. We caught a taxi home, sharing a spliff and gossiping about why Jenny and Mitch couldn't make a proper go of things.

The next day, the papers were full of photographs from the event. One of the more prominent ones was of me looking upward at Paul, who was grinning down at me with his arm around my waist. The McCartneys Hit The Town, the headline screamed. We looked glamorous and happy, free-spirited in a way that we were no longer allowed to be. I hoped that the new creative director of Zarby would remember that it had been me who discovered Zandra Rhodes. And I hoped that, holed up at Tittenhurst, John would see the photographs and feel a twinge of regret at the unbearable pain he'd caused his friend.