Too Much Rain, Chapter 144
So here I come, slinking back. Let's forget that it has been almost 5 months since I last posted. And let's forget that I have been working on this one chapter since then! I think I have been newly re-energized after a series of obstacles in my personal life. I won't bore you with the details.
It looks like the place has been jumping with all kinds of fan fics, which is great, but I hope you have room for my offering. You may want to read Chapter 143 over before you read this one, since it has been such a long time. In this chapter, a series of vignettes that lead us inexorably to the year 2001: the annis horribilus for Too Much Rain.
As you may recall, we last left our heroes in the late fall of 2000. We pick up here...
WARNINGS: THIS IS FICTION, and there are some PG-13 rated passages as well. I hope you enjoy. I've missed you all, and hope to be a more faithful correspondent in the months ahead.
Chapter 144
Paris, France
The Next Morning
The morning sun was shining through the gauze curtains, and Paul, who had awakened a few moments earlier, was gazing at the windows in a state of relaxation. Next to him John was cuddled up, breathing heavily through what seemed like a pleasant dream. Paul smiled, and allowed himself to stretch his limbs a bit. A nice lie-in after a night of energetic sex in a romantic location: could it get much better than that? Most likely not. He turned to see the clock by the bed. It was almost 9 a.m., and Paul groaned, knowing that he would have to get up now, and find the hotel gym and do his workout. It seemed unfair that John could maintain his ‘girlish’ figure without working out. But then, John denied himself all kinds of food that Paul chose to eat. Stuff like pizza, and pasta... He forced himself to get up, and as he struggled out of the soft bed, John stirred. As Paul was tiptoeing to the bathroom, John’s arch voice broke the silence.
“Where do you think you’re going?” He croaked.
“The bathroom?” Paul responded, surprised by the surliness of John’s tone.
“Ok, but come right back,” John ordered.
Paul said, “I had planned to go to the gym...”
“I have a different kind of exercise in mind,” John responded suggestively.
Paul actually blushed a little. With all the sex lately, they were behaving like guys in their twenties’, not men in their late fifties’/early sixties’. He said, “I’ll blow up like a balloon if I don’t do my cardio.”
“Did you know how hard your heart works during sex? I think you’ll be fine,” John said flatly, propping his head up on his elbow, and patting the mattress peremptorily for emphasis.
Paul sighed theatrically, as though he was being asked to make a huge sacrifice. “Well...if you insist...’ He said, turning on his heel, and sashaying into the bathroom.
John chuckled and lay back on the mattress, facing the ceiling. “Round Two,” he whispered.
*****
A Week Later
Berlin
“Why don’t you give longer interviews? Twenty minutes is over before it begins,” the German journalist complained. He was sitting in a hotel room setup, with a half dozen other journalists waiting outside, going through the press squeeze with Lennon & McCartney.
Those two gentlemen were seated in matching chairs, facing the aggrieved journalist. He was a print journalist, so the cameras weren’t rolling.
John and Paul exchanged a quick look, and silently decided who should respond. They then both faced the journalist again in a simultaneous motion. John said, “That’s how we like interviews - over before they begin!” He said it with a smile, and Paul chuckled. One could always count on John to say just the right thing at times like these.
“It is impossible to have a meaningful conversation in this short a time,” the journalist continued. “It is a waste of your time and mine too.”
John said amiably, “If you’re bored, you can leave. We’re not holding a gun to your head.”
The journalist shook his head vehemently. “No! I don’t mean it that way. My English is not very... What I mean to say is, I have questions about the songs on your new album. And I have questions about your plans for the future. But these questions require thoughtful answers.” The reporter’s frustration was writ large on his face.
“We’ll do our best to answer your questions in the time available,” Paul said gently, smiling to show the reporter that while he understood the frustration, the rules of engagement would stand.
The reporter sighed. Wasted 5 minutes already. “Your songs seem almost... weary ... this time out,” the reporter said.
“Weary???” This was John. He had an expression of comical indignation on his face. Paul laughed, but in a confused way.
“It is not the music that is weary,” the reporter struggled. “It is the - how do you say - ambience of the songs that seems weary. As if you were in a grey place when you wrote the songs.”
Paul’s interest was piqued. This was a new and different question. He had a sense of what the reporter meant, and he was impressed the young man had asked the question. “A grey place?” Paul asked, hoping for a better description.
“Not white, not black. Grey.” The reporter shrugged and raised his hands up in a kind of symbolic surrender. Grautone, we say in German.”
“Grey tones... do you mean like shades of grey?” Paul asked. “The nuanced shades between black and white?”
“Yes. That is how it sounds to me. Was that what you were going for?”
John had been listening closely, his head tilted to one side. He, too, had been intrigued by the unusual line of questioning. He leaned forward and said, “I know what you mean. We seemed both to be writing in a kind of numb never-land, where we were seeing and hearing emotions, but not really feeling them.”
The reporter was enthused. He had connected with his idols despite the language barrier. “The French say ‘désengagé,” he offered.
“Yes - I see what you mean,” Paul jumped in. “And to answer your question, I don’t try to ‘go for’ anything when I write. Whatever comes into my head is what I work on. But I think as you get older, your feelings are more...detached. You’ve been through the ringer with emotions so many times, that you can stand back a little, and see them with a little bit of distance.”
John had been listening to Paul’s comment, and was struck again about how much fun it was to talk to Paul. Maybe no one else would see it, but it was like listening to the other side of his own brain - the quiet side. John added, “What you picked up, I think, is what happens when you’re viewing the same life events through older, wearier eyes. ‘Been there, done that.’”
“So, yes, back to weary,” the reporter said, smiling triumphantly. John and Paul laughed and clapped, and the reporter blushed a little.
“And after this tour is finished, next year, do you know what you are going to do next?” He asked.
“No!” John declared emphatically. He turned to Paul with amusement dancing in his eyes, “And you better not have any plans, boy-o!”
Paul’s eyes danced right back. “Who me?” He asked John, looking improbably innocent. He turned back to the reporter and told him, “I never have any of those.”
Now John turned to the reporter. “He just lied right there. Could you tell?”
The reporter was entranced by his heroes and their teasing interactions, but he had no intention of taking sides. “It is best that I do not understand your language so well, I think,” the reporter said.
*****
Madrid, Late November
In Spain, based on endless clamoring and numerous complaints from the worldwide press, Harvey begrudgingly scheduled a press conference. The press was fed up with the spoon fed 15 minute soundbites, and wanted a crack at John and Paul. Harvey’s thinking was Madrid was a bit off the beaten path, so maybe the attendance at such a press conference would be smaller, and less aggressive. It was a vain hope.
In September 2000, before they had left on tour, Paul and Youth had released the electronica album Liverpool Sound Collage with Super Furry Animals, they had worked on over the summer, using the sound collage and musique concrète techniques that had fascinated Paul in the mid-1960s. This was an underground release, which took the press time to trace back to Paul. This connection was discovered while John and Paul were touring, and it prompted some particularly tricky questions at their press conference in Madrid. A number of English reporters had flown there specifically to question Lennon & McCartney about Paul’s solo flight with another composer.
“Paul, what does it mean that you are collaborating with someone other than John? Is this an indication that you might be working separately in the future?” One of them asked.
Paul had expected someone to ask the question (once he’d been warned by the press agent that his involvement in that album had become known in the underground rock world). He smiled and said, “All it means is that I messed around in the studio for a few days with Martin Glover, who I admire very much. It doesn’t mean anything more than that.”
John added, “I was invited but said ‘no’.”
The reporter then turned to John. “Why ‘no’? Do you not respect electronica?”
“No, no, of course I do. I enjoy listening to it. But there isn’t much I can contribute to it. It’s really not my métier.” John was a little upset, but was not showing it. He had worried that Paul’s extracurricular activities with another pop music artist would cause this kind of trouble. But he’d be damned if he was going to let the press figure that out. “I do stuff on my own, too. I write poetry. Paul does classical music. And we both do artwork on our own. Not every waking, breathing moment do we have to be working on the same projects.”
Paul was smiling placidly, but he could tell from John’s tense posture that he was going to be ‘getting it’ when they got back to the hotel. John hated when any other person - other than him - was linked to Paul. He was very possessive and territorial that way. Still, Paul felt he was entitled to his music experimentation. He enjoyed collaborating very much, and if John didn’t want to do it, then why not someone else who was equally interested in it? Of course, John was unlikely to see it that way, now that the press was making hay out of it.
“It’s one thing to do solo projects,” one particularly annoying reporter pointed out, “but this is different. This is a collaboration with another artist!”
Gee thanks asshole, Paul was thinking. This was going to wind John up.
“It’s not a big deal,” Paul said softly, smiling a little to reduce the tension. “Martin is a friend of ours. It was just a fun diversion.”
“But aren’t you busy enough with all your other projects, Paul? Why this now?” Another reporter had gotten in to the act.
“It is something that interests me - fascinates me even. It didn’t take an enormous amount of time. The classical composing I do takes far more time than the electronica.” Paul’s voice was patient and even, but he was hoping that the reporters would soon lose interest.
“Do you see yourself doing this more often, Paul? Working with other composers and artists? Or you, John?” A reporter asked.
John’s response was blunt and immediate: “No! It’s a one-off!” John had been silently simmering at Paul’s side as the reporters had leant in on their questioning.
Paul was a little surprised by John’s hostile tone. He had been thinking he’d want to make more recordings like these with Youth in the future. But he did not show his surprise to the ravenous pack salivating before him. He coached his face into the bland, nothing-bothers-me mien that John resented so much.
John could see Paul’s expression out of the periphery of his eye, and thought to himself, ‘Paul’s gonna kill me for that later.’
“Do you agree with that Paul?”
“I have no plans to work with any other composers or artists,” he said truthfully. He might work with Youth again, but not with any other people!
The reporters finally ran out of questions about Paul’s electronica album. But then they doubled down.
“So, which one of you is going to comment on all the rumors about your personal relationship?”
John said wearily, “You know very well that we don’t comment on our personal lives. Next question.”
Three reporters jumped up.
“But John!” The loudest one shouted. “You can’t continue to refuse to address these rumors! They’re everywhere!”
“I can, and I will,” John growled, looking seriously pissed off.
Paul knew it was time to jump in. “We came here to discuss our album and our tour. Questions related to our professional lives are welcome. But how we individually spend our private time is not up for grabs. In the past we were far too open about our private lives, and we lived to regret it.”
“How so?” One of the reporters demanded, frustrated by Paul’s softly reasoned response.
“Like speaking too much about our individual marriages, or other personal issues,” John answered flatly. “There were repercussions. And I said things in interviews in the ‘70s that really hurt people I love, like my ex-wife Cynthia, and my son Julian. I was just shooting off my mouth, and I wasn’t thinking about the consequences. We just don’t see the point in making that kind of mistake again.”
“Well, you don’t have to discuss your private lives,” one reporter reasoned (irrationally), “You just have to say if the rumors are true or not true.”
Paul laughed, but not in a nice way, and John allowed his face to fall into his hands. John said, “That would be commenting on our private lives, and we have already said we won’t do it.” He turned around with irritation, looking for his press agent. Where the fuck was he?
Harvey realized that his clients expected him to extricate them from this debacle, so he said, “Well, since you have no further questions about the tour or the album, the press conference is over now. Thanks everyone!”
John immediately stood up and peeled off his lapel mic. His body language was sharp and irritated. Paul, more casually, removed his mic and got up more slowly, looking more relaxed. He even leaned over to say a few words to a female reporter who had approached the table, answering one of her quiet questions about the tour, and then sauntered out of the room. John had already stalked out angrily.
When Paul reached the back room, John was already tearing into Henry. “I told you it was going to happen! Why did we have to do a fucking press conference any way! You told us there wouldn’t be any English reporters there!”
“I said, there might not be any English reporters there, and I said that before the news of Paul’s involvement in the Sound Collage recording was leaked,” Henry clarified.
Paul said, “Gee, thanks, Henry, for throwing me under the bus,” but his face was alight with amusement. Henry looked in that sane direction for support. Paul obliged.
“My only comment is, when you see they’re all gathering for a kill, that’s the time to get us out of there. The first question, okay, we answered it. The follow up question, okay. But when they all started jumping in, that is when you should have pulled the plug. Lesson learned for the future,” Paul added, to show no hard feelings.
“There will be no ‘future’ when it comes to press conferences!” John declared loudly and angrily. “It’s embarrassing to sit there being called out like that. They know the rumors are true, and they know we can’t comment on them, so they are taunting us! I’ll not go through that again!” John was angry that he had been put in a position where he looked stupid, because he would not admit an obvious truth.
Paul knew there was going to be a major argument back in the hotel room, and he could only hope John would hold out until all third parties were gone. He stood quietly in the elevator heading up to their floor (the press conference had been held in a conference room in the hotel basement), praying that John would control his temper until they were safely behind locked doors, and alone together. Henry had left them in the lobby, so the ride up the elevator was just John and Paul and a handful of people going back to their rooms. To say the ride was awkward is an understatement. All of the elevator’s occupants recognized John and Paul, of course, and those two men were pointedly not talking, staring straight ahead, trying to look cool. They were last off the elevator, since they were in the penthouse suite, and John (thankfully) waited for their room door to slam behind them before he spoke.
“That’s all on you,” he told Paul. “All of it.”
“How do you figure that?” Paul asked, stung. He’d expected John to be mad about the Sound Collage stuff, but how was the other stuff ‘on’ him? He was sincerely surprised by John’s full frontal attack.
“You had to know that damn electronica album was going to cause controversy, so why the hell did you insist on releasing it just as we were going on tour? I have to sit there and have them ask all these insinuating questions about how you basically dumped me to work with some other musician?”
Paul sighed in aggravation. “I didn’t ‘dump’ you - that’s ridiculous. You didn’t want to participate.”
“And that should have ended it for you! You should have dropped the idea!” John said, stridently. He wasn’t shouting. Yet. “You’re not doing that again,” John added forcefully, as he turned on his heel and headed for the bedroom door.
“Excuse me?” Paul responded, following right on John’s heels. Now they were in the bedroom, and John was starting to strip off his clothes. Paul was too pissed off to follow suit, so he stood there, arms akimbo on hips, glaring at John and awaiting a clarification.
“I’m saying,” John said, exaggerating the word ‘saying’ in his aggravation, “that you won’t be moonlighting with other musicians or composers without me in the future. That’s a deal breaker for me.”
“A deal-breaker?” Paul’s voice occasionally went up an octave when he was angry. This was one of those times. “What does that mean, John?”
“It means that I’m not giving you permission to do that again.”
“Or else what?” Paul demanded.
John paused for a long moment, pondering his impotence. “Or else you are going to seriously hurt my feelings!” He finally said, weakly.
This response was something of a letdown. Paul stopped in mid-huff and had to hold back his involuntary laughter. He paused, took a deep breath, and said, “I don’t like being ordered about, John. You know I don’t, and it gets me going. If you really don’t want me to do something, you should tell me. We’ll worry about any differences we might have at that point. Silly to argue about it in the hypothetical, don’t you think?”
John had already backed off his pugnacious attitude once he realized he didn’t really have any comeback to Paul’s question of ‘or else what?’ He was grateful Paul had stepped away from the argument, and found a way for them both to save face. But Paul wasn’t finished yet. He asked,
“But you haven’t explained how it was my fault when they asked about our private business? Why is that my fault?”
John said, “You’re the one who wants to keep the whole thing quiet. I’ve not liked having to dodge around and not answer questions - it makes me look like a fool.”
“Well, I think you handled yourself very well,” Paul said calmly, his voice placating, “and you didn’t look like a fool at all.”
“I felt like one!” John declared stubbornly.
“John, what do you want me to do about it?” Paul asked, holding on to his patience by the hair on his chin.
By now John had removed all his clothing, and in a moment of extravagant frustration he eloquently waved his limp cock at Paul and gave him a cock-eyed grin as a response. Then he turned and headed for the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.
Paul sighed, and slowly began to undress. Why did life with John have to resemble so much a Monty Python sketch?
*****
Although the two of them ‘made it up’ in the bed that night, they both knew that this problem of not answering “the usual question” (as they had begun calling it) was not going to go away. It was only going to get worse and the reporters more insistent as time went by. John felt that he was ready to just answer the damn question honestly and be done with it. He was telling himself, with his usual magical thinking, that if they would only just answer that one question, people would then leave them alone about it.
Paul knew better. He knew it was a slippery slope. So the press pushed you into admitting the truth of the relationship. Then they’d be pushing more, not less. When did they become lovers? How did they become lovers? Why did they become lovers? And why didn’t they admit it sooner? And why did they drag their poor wives into it? And - yes, this would happen, too - who’s on top and who’s on the bottom? There would be no end to the questions, and no question would be one too far. It was a Pandora’s Box - answering that question - and he also truly believed John would implode if he were confronted with such personal, embarrassing and intrusive questions. There was no sating the appetite of the press when it came to the subject of celebrity gossip. It was a shark feeding frenzy, in fact.
But Paul also knew that John would not think the problem through to its logical conclusion. He knew that John always wanted to do the expedient thing - the thing that would get him out of the hot spot in this moment. He wouldn’t consider the numerous other, hotter spots that would follow on if he gave in to the provocation. Yet again, Paul felt as though he was the one having to be the grown up. It was just an additional headache and burden to have John beat him up about it.
*****
Meanwhile, Back in England...
Early December 2000
George was lying on the sofa in his favorite receiving room at Friar Park. He was feeling very, very tired. It had been a difficult few weeks. He had come down with flu, and it seemed that he was unable to fight it off. He just kept feeling low energy and uninspired. He was getting nudges from the Traveling Wilbury members to go on tour with them, but the mere idea of a tour exhausted George. He had not had good experiences on tour since the Beatles. The mass audience did not appreciate his reverence for Indian music, nor did they seem to tolerate his one octave voice (singing always in the minor key) for long. He could have added a harmony singer to enhance his sound, but this reminded him too much of Paul - who had, by the sheer transcendence of his musical talent - often helped to transform George’s music from the atonal style to something more melodic. George preferred the atonal. Unfortunately, as he had found out the hard way, it was difficult for him to find large audiences who could listen to his more obscure work, although they always enjoyed his top ten hits, most of which came during the Beatles years. That was not satisfying for George, who wanted to put his Beatles years behind him. He had therefore experienced enough audience disappointment for one lifetime and had no desire to risk more. And, truth be told, he did not relish life on the road. He had worked his ass off during the Epstein years, and one thing he had learned about himself was that the Death March style of touring was not for him. He also obsessed about his physical safety, even more so since he had been attacked in his own home by a deranged fan.
Olivia walked in to the room and asked if there was anything she could get for him. George asked for some hot Earl Grey tea. After this had been produced for him, and Olivia was sitting quietly beside him, George said, “I have no energy anymore. Do you think it’s coming back?”
Olivia knew what he meant. “You should make an appointment with your doctor.”
George stared bleakly at the ceiling. He finally grunted, but Olivia knew that this meant he agreed with her. A silence descended, save for the sound of the timber crackling in the fireplace.
*****
The Week Before
Christmas, 2000
John and Paul had flown back to Cavendish for the Christmas holidays, hoping to spend time with their respective children. The big to-do was going to take place at Cavendish, so in the days leading up to the holiday, Mary and Stella could be seen coming in and out of the house bringing groceries, supplies and items for the dinner party. The stalking paparazzi noticed the activity, and a small group of them gathered on the sidewalk opposite to Cavendish and took pictures of the activity. In turn, a certain British tabloid ran some of the pictures and wondered out loud.
“A Celebration in the Works?”
The story leaned on virtually no facts and some particularly grainy photos of Mary and Stella that were taken at such an obscured distance that it was barely possible to recognize them. From these meager strands the tabloid editor asked his readers if it were possible that John and Paul were planning some kind of celebration about their relationship. It was truly a pitiful effort. Stella saw the photos in a vendor’s booth, as she was walking down the Kensington High Street, and stood there shaking her head and laughing in disbelief. She then immediately phoned her sister and told her the news. “Don’t they know its fucking Christmas?” she asked her chuckling sister.
This was only one of a number of little non-story articles that had been popping up in British and American tabloids since the tour began. The pair’s avoidance of any real exposure to journalists, followed by the free-for-all in Madrid, naturally aroused the suspicion of editors and reporters alike, who felt as though they were the center of the universe, and if someone was avoiding them then they obviously had something naughty or nefarious to hide.
Two days before Christmas, Stella found Mary in the kitchen at Cavendish, where they were scheduled to begin the Christmas baking. “Paps all over the place out there, of course, howling for blood,” she said, “Shouting all sorts of nonsense at me over the wall.”
“It is very worrying, how aggressive they’re all getting. It’s like they are in some kind of competition to be the one to break us,” Mary responded. “I’m thinking the dads have to put us all out of our misery and just admit defeat. You can’t fight the whole world.”
“Mary, I would agree with you in principal because I think they should be open about it for social reasons. But damn it, I don’t want those gasbags to win! If they’d back off and be more respectful, I think I’d be encouraging Daddy to answer the damn question and be done with it.”
Mary smiled but said nothing. That was an interesting proposition: who would break first, her father or her sister? She would take odds on her father, but she wasn’t about to tell Stella that.
*****
Christmas that year was just a lovely family event. All of the McCartney and Lennon children made it on the day itself. This was largely due to the detailed planning and patience of one Mary McCartney Donald. She had cooed, she had cajoled, she had charmed, and they all eventually agreed to eschew their significant others’ families, and to meet at Cavendish in a show of solidarity for their fathers.
Mary and her husband were hosting her sister Heather. Stella was hosting Sean and his girlfriend. At Cavendish, James was settling in, along with Julian and his girlfriend. Mary had meticulously planned it all, working with Stella and John as her point persons. She had made some other pronouncements - each person had one person to give a gift to, that she had arbitrarily assigned by pulling names out of a hat (she was giving a gift to her son, Arthur, but everyone else was a Secret Santa), and that gift had to be hand made or created - not purchased. It could be funny, but not ribald. And it could not cost, all in, more than 25 pounds. They would have to produce receipts to Mary, who was the sole arbitrar of whether they had complied with the rules. Everyone would vote on the best and most creative present, and the winner of that contest would be given a special present selected by Mary (and to which each family member other than Arthur contributed 25 pounds). No other presents were permitted. Thus, no one would be spending more than 50 pounds in gifts this Christmas.
Of course, the Donalds celebrated their tiny family Christmas on Christmas Eve, so that they could shower their baby with attention and gifts. Everyone had been permitted to give Arthur a gift, so he had a plethora of presents under the tree. He was now 21 months old, and for the first time had an understanding of what all those presents met. He had quite the night, opening all those presents! John and Paul were there, of course, along with Stella.
Christmas Day did dawn, and by noon all the daughters of the family were already at Cavendish. James and Julian were already hanging out in the sitting room with their fathers when Mary and Heather arrived, followed not long after by Stella. Sean and his girlfriend rolled in by 3 p.m. When they arrived, all the girls headed straight for the kitchen because the blokes were all watching the telly.
The dinner was wonderful, but the very fun part was the presents-distribution after dinner. The Secret Santa had worked out like this:
John had drawn Sean’s girlfriend Charlotte, and had made a cartoon of her with Julian, sitting at a dinner table with John on the other side, blabbing away, and them just looking at each other with big hearts in the bubbles over their heads.
Julian had drawn Stella, and had hand-made her a wrist bracelet with a leather thong and beads, with each bead having it’s own meaning. The beads Julian had chosen were for strength, integrity, artistic vision, and loyalty.
Julian’s girlfriend Lucy had drawn Heather, and, since she had been taught this skill by her grandmother, had embroidered a linen handkerchief with small animals, with a blond woman bending over her garden - an homage to Linda.
Sean had drawn Julian’s girlfriend Lucy, and had given her a blank diary with a hand made, hand-designed book cover.
And Sean’s girlfriend Charlotte had drawn James. She had made him a little avant-garde painting.
Paul, meanwhile, had drawn Julian, and he had composed a piece of music, which he offered to Julian to add lyrics for his next album. “A new Lennon/McCartney original,” he had joked.
Heather had drawn John, and had made him a beautiful ceramic vase in the colors of sea foam and soft orange, for his New York apartment living room.
Mary’s husband Alistair had drawn Sean, and, as he was a video director, he had made a video out of one of Sean’s songs. Sean was extremely chuffed.
Stella had drawn her father Paul, and had hand made a beautiful but warm scarf for him to wear in the wintertime.
James had drawn Mary’s husband Alistair, and had made a sculpture - it was a modern take on what looked like a father figure, reaching out for a baby figure.
And, finally, Mary had taken a self-photo of herself with Arthur, and had mounted and framed it for her son’s nursery. In exchange, Arthur had given his mum some hugs and kisses.
The vote was taken, and everyone agreed Arthur’s gift was the best, so the prize - a brand new stereo set worth 300 pounds - was awarded to the baby, who had no clue what it was. But his mother and father had a few ideas...
In this quiet way, the year 2000 bowed out. The year 2001 was about to start, and there would be a torrent of rain to face that year. Luckily, the families Lennon and McCartney did not know this as they all dispersed for their New Year celebrations. Stella was off with some girlfriends to the Spanish Costa del Sol. James and Heather both buried themselves back in the woods of Peasmarsh. Sean and Charlotte headed back to New York to spend the New Year with Sean’s mother, and Julian headed to Spain, where he was to spend the New Year with his mother. Mary, Alistair and Arthur were promised to Alistair’s family for the New Year.
None of this was not distressing to John and Paul, because they were spending the New Year and the whole month of January at El Nido.
It looks like the place has been jumping with all kinds of fan fics, which is great, but I hope you have room for my offering. You may want to read Chapter 143 over before you read this one, since it has been such a long time. In this chapter, a series of vignettes that lead us inexorably to the year 2001: the annis horribilus for Too Much Rain.
As you may recall, we last left our heroes in the late fall of 2000. We pick up here...
WARNINGS: THIS IS FICTION, and there are some PG-13 rated passages as well. I hope you enjoy. I've missed you all, and hope to be a more faithful correspondent in the months ahead.
Chapter 144
Paris, France
The Next Morning
The morning sun was shining through the gauze curtains, and Paul, who had awakened a few moments earlier, was gazing at the windows in a state of relaxation. Next to him John was cuddled up, breathing heavily through what seemed like a pleasant dream. Paul smiled, and allowed himself to stretch his limbs a bit. A nice lie-in after a night of energetic sex in a romantic location: could it get much better than that? Most likely not. He turned to see the clock by the bed. It was almost 9 a.m., and Paul groaned, knowing that he would have to get up now, and find the hotel gym and do his workout. It seemed unfair that John could maintain his ‘girlish’ figure without working out. But then, John denied himself all kinds of food that Paul chose to eat. Stuff like pizza, and pasta... He forced himself to get up, and as he struggled out of the soft bed, John stirred. As Paul was tiptoeing to the bathroom, John’s arch voice broke the silence.
“Where do you think you’re going?” He croaked.
“The bathroom?” Paul responded, surprised by the surliness of John’s tone.
“Ok, but come right back,” John ordered.
Paul said, “I had planned to go to the gym...”
“I have a different kind of exercise in mind,” John responded suggestively.
Paul actually blushed a little. With all the sex lately, they were behaving like guys in their twenties’, not men in their late fifties’/early sixties’. He said, “I’ll blow up like a balloon if I don’t do my cardio.”
“Did you know how hard your heart works during sex? I think you’ll be fine,” John said flatly, propping his head up on his elbow, and patting the mattress peremptorily for emphasis.
Paul sighed theatrically, as though he was being asked to make a huge sacrifice. “Well...if you insist...’ He said, turning on his heel, and sashaying into the bathroom.
John chuckled and lay back on the mattress, facing the ceiling. “Round Two,” he whispered.
*****
A Week Later
Berlin
“Why don’t you give longer interviews? Twenty minutes is over before it begins,” the German journalist complained. He was sitting in a hotel room setup, with a half dozen other journalists waiting outside, going through the press squeeze with Lennon & McCartney.
Those two gentlemen were seated in matching chairs, facing the aggrieved journalist. He was a print journalist, so the cameras weren’t rolling.
John and Paul exchanged a quick look, and silently decided who should respond. They then both faced the journalist again in a simultaneous motion. John said, “That’s how we like interviews - over before they begin!” He said it with a smile, and Paul chuckled. One could always count on John to say just the right thing at times like these.
“It is impossible to have a meaningful conversation in this short a time,” the journalist continued. “It is a waste of your time and mine too.”
John said amiably, “If you’re bored, you can leave. We’re not holding a gun to your head.”
The journalist shook his head vehemently. “No! I don’t mean it that way. My English is not very... What I mean to say is, I have questions about the songs on your new album. And I have questions about your plans for the future. But these questions require thoughtful answers.” The reporter’s frustration was writ large on his face.
“We’ll do our best to answer your questions in the time available,” Paul said gently, smiling to show the reporter that while he understood the frustration, the rules of engagement would stand.
The reporter sighed. Wasted 5 minutes already. “Your songs seem almost... weary ... this time out,” the reporter said.
“Weary???” This was John. He had an expression of comical indignation on his face. Paul laughed, but in a confused way.
“It is not the music that is weary,” the reporter struggled. “It is the - how do you say - ambience of the songs that seems weary. As if you were in a grey place when you wrote the songs.”
Paul’s interest was piqued. This was a new and different question. He had a sense of what the reporter meant, and he was impressed the young man had asked the question. “A grey place?” Paul asked, hoping for a better description.
“Not white, not black. Grey.” The reporter shrugged and raised his hands up in a kind of symbolic surrender. Grautone, we say in German.”
“Grey tones... do you mean like shades of grey?” Paul asked. “The nuanced shades between black and white?”
“Yes. That is how it sounds to me. Was that what you were going for?”
John had been listening closely, his head tilted to one side. He, too, had been intrigued by the unusual line of questioning. He leaned forward and said, “I know what you mean. We seemed both to be writing in a kind of numb never-land, where we were seeing and hearing emotions, but not really feeling them.”
The reporter was enthused. He had connected with his idols despite the language barrier. “The French say ‘désengagé,” he offered.
“Yes - I see what you mean,” Paul jumped in. “And to answer your question, I don’t try to ‘go for’ anything when I write. Whatever comes into my head is what I work on. But I think as you get older, your feelings are more...detached. You’ve been through the ringer with emotions so many times, that you can stand back a little, and see them with a little bit of distance.”
John had been listening to Paul’s comment, and was struck again about how much fun it was to talk to Paul. Maybe no one else would see it, but it was like listening to the other side of his own brain - the quiet side. John added, “What you picked up, I think, is what happens when you’re viewing the same life events through older, wearier eyes. ‘Been there, done that.’”
“So, yes, back to weary,” the reporter said, smiling triumphantly. John and Paul laughed and clapped, and the reporter blushed a little.
“And after this tour is finished, next year, do you know what you are going to do next?” He asked.
“No!” John declared emphatically. He turned to Paul with amusement dancing in his eyes, “And you better not have any plans, boy-o!”
Paul’s eyes danced right back. “Who me?” He asked John, looking improbably innocent. He turned back to the reporter and told him, “I never have any of those.”
Now John turned to the reporter. “He just lied right there. Could you tell?”
The reporter was entranced by his heroes and their teasing interactions, but he had no intention of taking sides. “It is best that I do not understand your language so well, I think,” the reporter said.
*****
Madrid, Late November
In Spain, based on endless clamoring and numerous complaints from the worldwide press, Harvey begrudgingly scheduled a press conference. The press was fed up with the spoon fed 15 minute soundbites, and wanted a crack at John and Paul. Harvey’s thinking was Madrid was a bit off the beaten path, so maybe the attendance at such a press conference would be smaller, and less aggressive. It was a vain hope.
In September 2000, before they had left on tour, Paul and Youth had released the electronica album Liverpool Sound Collage with Super Furry Animals, they had worked on over the summer, using the sound collage and musique concrète techniques that had fascinated Paul in the mid-1960s. This was an underground release, which took the press time to trace back to Paul. This connection was discovered while John and Paul were touring, and it prompted some particularly tricky questions at their press conference in Madrid. A number of English reporters had flown there specifically to question Lennon & McCartney about Paul’s solo flight with another composer.
“Paul, what does it mean that you are collaborating with someone other than John? Is this an indication that you might be working separately in the future?” One of them asked.
Paul had expected someone to ask the question (once he’d been warned by the press agent that his involvement in that album had become known in the underground rock world). He smiled and said, “All it means is that I messed around in the studio for a few days with Martin Glover, who I admire very much. It doesn’t mean anything more than that.”
John added, “I was invited but said ‘no’.”
The reporter then turned to John. “Why ‘no’? Do you not respect electronica?”
“No, no, of course I do. I enjoy listening to it. But there isn’t much I can contribute to it. It’s really not my métier.” John was a little upset, but was not showing it. He had worried that Paul’s extracurricular activities with another pop music artist would cause this kind of trouble. But he’d be damned if he was going to let the press figure that out. “I do stuff on my own, too. I write poetry. Paul does classical music. And we both do artwork on our own. Not every waking, breathing moment do we have to be working on the same projects.”
Paul was smiling placidly, but he could tell from John’s tense posture that he was going to be ‘getting it’ when they got back to the hotel. John hated when any other person - other than him - was linked to Paul. He was very possessive and territorial that way. Still, Paul felt he was entitled to his music experimentation. He enjoyed collaborating very much, and if John didn’t want to do it, then why not someone else who was equally interested in it? Of course, John was unlikely to see it that way, now that the press was making hay out of it.
“It’s one thing to do solo projects,” one particularly annoying reporter pointed out, “but this is different. This is a collaboration with another artist!”
Gee thanks asshole, Paul was thinking. This was going to wind John up.
“It’s not a big deal,” Paul said softly, smiling a little to reduce the tension. “Martin is a friend of ours. It was just a fun diversion.”
“But aren’t you busy enough with all your other projects, Paul? Why this now?” Another reporter had gotten in to the act.
“It is something that interests me - fascinates me even. It didn’t take an enormous amount of time. The classical composing I do takes far more time than the electronica.” Paul’s voice was patient and even, but he was hoping that the reporters would soon lose interest.
“Do you see yourself doing this more often, Paul? Working with other composers and artists? Or you, John?” A reporter asked.
John’s response was blunt and immediate: “No! It’s a one-off!” John had been silently simmering at Paul’s side as the reporters had leant in on their questioning.
Paul was a little surprised by John’s hostile tone. He had been thinking he’d want to make more recordings like these with Youth in the future. But he did not show his surprise to the ravenous pack salivating before him. He coached his face into the bland, nothing-bothers-me mien that John resented so much.
John could see Paul’s expression out of the periphery of his eye, and thought to himself, ‘Paul’s gonna kill me for that later.’
“Do you agree with that Paul?”
“I have no plans to work with any other composers or artists,” he said truthfully. He might work with Youth again, but not with any other people!
The reporters finally ran out of questions about Paul’s electronica album. But then they doubled down.
“So, which one of you is going to comment on all the rumors about your personal relationship?”
John said wearily, “You know very well that we don’t comment on our personal lives. Next question.”
Three reporters jumped up.
“But John!” The loudest one shouted. “You can’t continue to refuse to address these rumors! They’re everywhere!”
“I can, and I will,” John growled, looking seriously pissed off.
Paul knew it was time to jump in. “We came here to discuss our album and our tour. Questions related to our professional lives are welcome. But how we individually spend our private time is not up for grabs. In the past we were far too open about our private lives, and we lived to regret it.”
“How so?” One of the reporters demanded, frustrated by Paul’s softly reasoned response.
“Like speaking too much about our individual marriages, or other personal issues,” John answered flatly. “There were repercussions. And I said things in interviews in the ‘70s that really hurt people I love, like my ex-wife Cynthia, and my son Julian. I was just shooting off my mouth, and I wasn’t thinking about the consequences. We just don’t see the point in making that kind of mistake again.”
“Well, you don’t have to discuss your private lives,” one reporter reasoned (irrationally), “You just have to say if the rumors are true or not true.”
Paul laughed, but not in a nice way, and John allowed his face to fall into his hands. John said, “That would be commenting on our private lives, and we have already said we won’t do it.” He turned around with irritation, looking for his press agent. Where the fuck was he?
Harvey realized that his clients expected him to extricate them from this debacle, so he said, “Well, since you have no further questions about the tour or the album, the press conference is over now. Thanks everyone!”
John immediately stood up and peeled off his lapel mic. His body language was sharp and irritated. Paul, more casually, removed his mic and got up more slowly, looking more relaxed. He even leaned over to say a few words to a female reporter who had approached the table, answering one of her quiet questions about the tour, and then sauntered out of the room. John had already stalked out angrily.
When Paul reached the back room, John was already tearing into Henry. “I told you it was going to happen! Why did we have to do a fucking press conference any way! You told us there wouldn’t be any English reporters there!”
“I said, there might not be any English reporters there, and I said that before the news of Paul’s involvement in the Sound Collage recording was leaked,” Henry clarified.
Paul said, “Gee, thanks, Henry, for throwing me under the bus,” but his face was alight with amusement. Henry looked in that sane direction for support. Paul obliged.
“My only comment is, when you see they’re all gathering for a kill, that’s the time to get us out of there. The first question, okay, we answered it. The follow up question, okay. But when they all started jumping in, that is when you should have pulled the plug. Lesson learned for the future,” Paul added, to show no hard feelings.
“There will be no ‘future’ when it comes to press conferences!” John declared loudly and angrily. “It’s embarrassing to sit there being called out like that. They know the rumors are true, and they know we can’t comment on them, so they are taunting us! I’ll not go through that again!” John was angry that he had been put in a position where he looked stupid, because he would not admit an obvious truth.
Paul knew there was going to be a major argument back in the hotel room, and he could only hope John would hold out until all third parties were gone. He stood quietly in the elevator heading up to their floor (the press conference had been held in a conference room in the hotel basement), praying that John would control his temper until they were safely behind locked doors, and alone together. Henry had left them in the lobby, so the ride up the elevator was just John and Paul and a handful of people going back to their rooms. To say the ride was awkward is an understatement. All of the elevator’s occupants recognized John and Paul, of course, and those two men were pointedly not talking, staring straight ahead, trying to look cool. They were last off the elevator, since they were in the penthouse suite, and John (thankfully) waited for their room door to slam behind them before he spoke.
“That’s all on you,” he told Paul. “All of it.”
“How do you figure that?” Paul asked, stung. He’d expected John to be mad about the Sound Collage stuff, but how was the other stuff ‘on’ him? He was sincerely surprised by John’s full frontal attack.
“You had to know that damn electronica album was going to cause controversy, so why the hell did you insist on releasing it just as we were going on tour? I have to sit there and have them ask all these insinuating questions about how you basically dumped me to work with some other musician?”
Paul sighed in aggravation. “I didn’t ‘dump’ you - that’s ridiculous. You didn’t want to participate.”
“And that should have ended it for you! You should have dropped the idea!” John said, stridently. He wasn’t shouting. Yet. “You’re not doing that again,” John added forcefully, as he turned on his heel and headed for the bedroom door.
“Excuse me?” Paul responded, following right on John’s heels. Now they were in the bedroom, and John was starting to strip off his clothes. Paul was too pissed off to follow suit, so he stood there, arms akimbo on hips, glaring at John and awaiting a clarification.
“I’m saying,” John said, exaggerating the word ‘saying’ in his aggravation, “that you won’t be moonlighting with other musicians or composers without me in the future. That’s a deal breaker for me.”
“A deal-breaker?” Paul’s voice occasionally went up an octave when he was angry. This was one of those times. “What does that mean, John?”
“It means that I’m not giving you permission to do that again.”
“Or else what?” Paul demanded.
John paused for a long moment, pondering his impotence. “Or else you are going to seriously hurt my feelings!” He finally said, weakly.
This response was something of a letdown. Paul stopped in mid-huff and had to hold back his involuntary laughter. He paused, took a deep breath, and said, “I don’t like being ordered about, John. You know I don’t, and it gets me going. If you really don’t want me to do something, you should tell me. We’ll worry about any differences we might have at that point. Silly to argue about it in the hypothetical, don’t you think?”
John had already backed off his pugnacious attitude once he realized he didn’t really have any comeback to Paul’s question of ‘or else what?’ He was grateful Paul had stepped away from the argument, and found a way for them both to save face. But Paul wasn’t finished yet. He asked,
“But you haven’t explained how it was my fault when they asked about our private business? Why is that my fault?”
John said, “You’re the one who wants to keep the whole thing quiet. I’ve not liked having to dodge around and not answer questions - it makes me look like a fool.”
“Well, I think you handled yourself very well,” Paul said calmly, his voice placating, “and you didn’t look like a fool at all.”
“I felt like one!” John declared stubbornly.
“John, what do you want me to do about it?” Paul asked, holding on to his patience by the hair on his chin.
By now John had removed all his clothing, and in a moment of extravagant frustration he eloquently waved his limp cock at Paul and gave him a cock-eyed grin as a response. Then he turned and headed for the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.
Paul sighed, and slowly began to undress. Why did life with John have to resemble so much a Monty Python sketch?
*****
Although the two of them ‘made it up’ in the bed that night, they both knew that this problem of not answering “the usual question” (as they had begun calling it) was not going to go away. It was only going to get worse and the reporters more insistent as time went by. John felt that he was ready to just answer the damn question honestly and be done with it. He was telling himself, with his usual magical thinking, that if they would only just answer that one question, people would then leave them alone about it.
Paul knew better. He knew it was a slippery slope. So the press pushed you into admitting the truth of the relationship. Then they’d be pushing more, not less. When did they become lovers? How did they become lovers? Why did they become lovers? And why didn’t they admit it sooner? And why did they drag their poor wives into it? And - yes, this would happen, too - who’s on top and who’s on the bottom? There would be no end to the questions, and no question would be one too far. It was a Pandora’s Box - answering that question - and he also truly believed John would implode if he were confronted with such personal, embarrassing and intrusive questions. There was no sating the appetite of the press when it came to the subject of celebrity gossip. It was a shark feeding frenzy, in fact.
But Paul also knew that John would not think the problem through to its logical conclusion. He knew that John always wanted to do the expedient thing - the thing that would get him out of the hot spot in this moment. He wouldn’t consider the numerous other, hotter spots that would follow on if he gave in to the provocation. Yet again, Paul felt as though he was the one having to be the grown up. It was just an additional headache and burden to have John beat him up about it.
*****
Meanwhile, Back in England...
Early December 2000
George was lying on the sofa in his favorite receiving room at Friar Park. He was feeling very, very tired. It had been a difficult few weeks. He had come down with flu, and it seemed that he was unable to fight it off. He just kept feeling low energy and uninspired. He was getting nudges from the Traveling Wilbury members to go on tour with them, but the mere idea of a tour exhausted George. He had not had good experiences on tour since the Beatles. The mass audience did not appreciate his reverence for Indian music, nor did they seem to tolerate his one octave voice (singing always in the minor key) for long. He could have added a harmony singer to enhance his sound, but this reminded him too much of Paul - who had, by the sheer transcendence of his musical talent - often helped to transform George’s music from the atonal style to something more melodic. George preferred the atonal. Unfortunately, as he had found out the hard way, it was difficult for him to find large audiences who could listen to his more obscure work, although they always enjoyed his top ten hits, most of which came during the Beatles years. That was not satisfying for George, who wanted to put his Beatles years behind him. He had therefore experienced enough audience disappointment for one lifetime and had no desire to risk more. And, truth be told, he did not relish life on the road. He had worked his ass off during the Epstein years, and one thing he had learned about himself was that the Death March style of touring was not for him. He also obsessed about his physical safety, even more so since he had been attacked in his own home by a deranged fan.
Olivia walked in to the room and asked if there was anything she could get for him. George asked for some hot Earl Grey tea. After this had been produced for him, and Olivia was sitting quietly beside him, George said, “I have no energy anymore. Do you think it’s coming back?”
Olivia knew what he meant. “You should make an appointment with your doctor.”
George stared bleakly at the ceiling. He finally grunted, but Olivia knew that this meant he agreed with her. A silence descended, save for the sound of the timber crackling in the fireplace.
*****
The Week Before
Christmas, 2000
John and Paul had flown back to Cavendish for the Christmas holidays, hoping to spend time with their respective children. The big to-do was going to take place at Cavendish, so in the days leading up to the holiday, Mary and Stella could be seen coming in and out of the house bringing groceries, supplies and items for the dinner party. The stalking paparazzi noticed the activity, and a small group of them gathered on the sidewalk opposite to Cavendish and took pictures of the activity. In turn, a certain British tabloid ran some of the pictures and wondered out loud.
“A Celebration in the Works?”
The story leaned on virtually no facts and some particularly grainy photos of Mary and Stella that were taken at such an obscured distance that it was barely possible to recognize them. From these meager strands the tabloid editor asked his readers if it were possible that John and Paul were planning some kind of celebration about their relationship. It was truly a pitiful effort. Stella saw the photos in a vendor’s booth, as she was walking down the Kensington High Street, and stood there shaking her head and laughing in disbelief. She then immediately phoned her sister and told her the news. “Don’t they know its fucking Christmas?” she asked her chuckling sister.
This was only one of a number of little non-story articles that had been popping up in British and American tabloids since the tour began. The pair’s avoidance of any real exposure to journalists, followed by the free-for-all in Madrid, naturally aroused the suspicion of editors and reporters alike, who felt as though they were the center of the universe, and if someone was avoiding them then they obviously had something naughty or nefarious to hide.
Two days before Christmas, Stella found Mary in the kitchen at Cavendish, where they were scheduled to begin the Christmas baking. “Paps all over the place out there, of course, howling for blood,” she said, “Shouting all sorts of nonsense at me over the wall.”
“It is very worrying, how aggressive they’re all getting. It’s like they are in some kind of competition to be the one to break us,” Mary responded. “I’m thinking the dads have to put us all out of our misery and just admit defeat. You can’t fight the whole world.”
“Mary, I would agree with you in principal because I think they should be open about it for social reasons. But damn it, I don’t want those gasbags to win! If they’d back off and be more respectful, I think I’d be encouraging Daddy to answer the damn question and be done with it.”
Mary smiled but said nothing. That was an interesting proposition: who would break first, her father or her sister? She would take odds on her father, but she wasn’t about to tell Stella that.
*****
Christmas that year was just a lovely family event. All of the McCartney and Lennon children made it on the day itself. This was largely due to the detailed planning and patience of one Mary McCartney Donald. She had cooed, she had cajoled, she had charmed, and they all eventually agreed to eschew their significant others’ families, and to meet at Cavendish in a show of solidarity for their fathers.
Mary and her husband were hosting her sister Heather. Stella was hosting Sean and his girlfriend. At Cavendish, James was settling in, along with Julian and his girlfriend. Mary had meticulously planned it all, working with Stella and John as her point persons. She had made some other pronouncements - each person had one person to give a gift to, that she had arbitrarily assigned by pulling names out of a hat (she was giving a gift to her son, Arthur, but everyone else was a Secret Santa), and that gift had to be hand made or created - not purchased. It could be funny, but not ribald. And it could not cost, all in, more than 25 pounds. They would have to produce receipts to Mary, who was the sole arbitrar of whether they had complied with the rules. Everyone would vote on the best and most creative present, and the winner of that contest would be given a special present selected by Mary (and to which each family member other than Arthur contributed 25 pounds). No other presents were permitted. Thus, no one would be spending more than 50 pounds in gifts this Christmas.
Of course, the Donalds celebrated their tiny family Christmas on Christmas Eve, so that they could shower their baby with attention and gifts. Everyone had been permitted to give Arthur a gift, so he had a plethora of presents under the tree. He was now 21 months old, and for the first time had an understanding of what all those presents met. He had quite the night, opening all those presents! John and Paul were there, of course, along with Stella.
Christmas Day did dawn, and by noon all the daughters of the family were already at Cavendish. James and Julian were already hanging out in the sitting room with their fathers when Mary and Heather arrived, followed not long after by Stella. Sean and his girlfriend rolled in by 3 p.m. When they arrived, all the girls headed straight for the kitchen because the blokes were all watching the telly.
The dinner was wonderful, but the very fun part was the presents-distribution after dinner. The Secret Santa had worked out like this:
John had drawn Sean’s girlfriend Charlotte, and had made a cartoon of her with Julian, sitting at a dinner table with John on the other side, blabbing away, and them just looking at each other with big hearts in the bubbles over their heads.
Julian had drawn Stella, and had hand-made her a wrist bracelet with a leather thong and beads, with each bead having it’s own meaning. The beads Julian had chosen were for strength, integrity, artistic vision, and loyalty.
Julian’s girlfriend Lucy had drawn Heather, and, since she had been taught this skill by her grandmother, had embroidered a linen handkerchief with small animals, with a blond woman bending over her garden - an homage to Linda.
Sean had drawn Julian’s girlfriend Lucy, and had given her a blank diary with a hand made, hand-designed book cover.
And Sean’s girlfriend Charlotte had drawn James. She had made him a little avant-garde painting.
Paul, meanwhile, had drawn Julian, and he had composed a piece of music, which he offered to Julian to add lyrics for his next album. “A new Lennon/McCartney original,” he had joked.
Heather had drawn John, and had made him a beautiful ceramic vase in the colors of sea foam and soft orange, for his New York apartment living room.
Mary’s husband Alistair had drawn Sean, and, as he was a video director, he had made a video out of one of Sean’s songs. Sean was extremely chuffed.
Stella had drawn her father Paul, and had hand made a beautiful but warm scarf for him to wear in the wintertime.
James had drawn Mary’s husband Alistair, and had made a sculpture - it was a modern take on what looked like a father figure, reaching out for a baby figure.
And, finally, Mary had taken a self-photo of herself with Arthur, and had mounted and framed it for her son’s nursery. In exchange, Arthur had given his mum some hugs and kisses.
The vote was taken, and everyone agreed Arthur’s gift was the best, so the prize - a brand new stereo set worth 300 pounds - was awarded to the baby, who had no clue what it was. But his mother and father had a few ideas...
In this quiet way, the year 2000 bowed out. The year 2001 was about to start, and there would be a torrent of rain to face that year. Luckily, the families Lennon and McCartney did not know this as they all dispersed for their New Year celebrations. Stella was off with some girlfriends to the Spanish Costa del Sol. James and Heather both buried themselves back in the woods of Peasmarsh. Sean and Charlotte headed back to New York to spend the New Year with Sean’s mother, and Julian headed to Spain, where he was to spend the New Year with his mother. Mary, Alistair and Arthur were promised to Alistair’s family for the New Year.
None of this was not distressing to John and Paul, because they were spending the New Year and the whole month of January at El Nido.