Chapter Text
April, 1968.
Rishikesh, India.
There’s a song brewing somewhere in Paul’s head and it keeps him from getting to sleep. There are insects and birds outside that he tries to focus on instead, but nothing seems to work. He knows full-well that a good sleep won’t happen until he bats this one out. Sighing, he throws his feet out over the side of the bed, the thick wood floors cool against his bare skin, sending a chill up his spine.
The bedsprings groan underneath as he gets to his feet and heads straight to his guitar. He glances at his watch and decides it’s too late to call on John. He’ll have to figure this one out on his own. He folds himself down cross-legged on the floor, his guitar in his lap, and he finds the chords deftly. It comes easily, the way all of his songs have in Rishikesh. He thinks it must be the trees, the fresh air, and the running River Ganges somewhere nearby. He’s a nature boy, always has been, it brings out something good in him. Something he likes.
He closes his eyes, listens to the sound of his own voice and realizes that he likes it. He can’t remember the last time he’s listened to himself this freely. There’s something light about him. There’s something light about them all here. He wishes Richie had stuck around, so he could feel this lightness too.
The song comes to a close and it makes Paul sigh. He’s felt something physically leave him, a bit of him, out of his chest and down into something that he could share. It warms him from the inside and then warms him from the outside. It exists, so he exists. It makes him feel real and human and loveable in a way that music always has.
He realizes that all semblance of sleep has left him. The song had made him come alive, open his eyes wide, and he thinks he’d thrum out of his skin if he tried to lie still against a soft mattress. He checks his watch again, does the math for the time in England, and decides that Robert Fraser would still be awake. So, he picks himself up off the floor and heads out to the main building.
The breeze is fresh and cool; it makes Paul think of his farm in Scotland. He takes a deep breath and realizes that dewy grass smells the same, no matter where you are in the world. It’s a comforting thought. He realizes that midnight grass smells the same in Liverpool too. Always had and always would. It’s something constant, like the moon, the same moon now that he’d looked up at with his mother when they’d gone out to the country when he was a boy. The same moon that he and John had stared at from their hotel balcony in Paris.
He steps into the compound’s main building and hears someone already on the telephone. As he gets closer, he realizes it’s Brian. He smiles, listens to the way his voice drawls. He’s quite calm, Paul can pick that up from his tone. He sees Brian huddled up against the body of the telephone, his chin resting in one of his hands.
“That’s marvellous,” he says down the line, then turns, startled by the sound of Paul’s sandals against the hardwood floors. Paul mouths a ‘sorry’ and means to turn back around to give him some privacy, but Brian holds a finger out to him, making him wait. Paul lowers himself down onto the sofa in the room and just waits .
“No, no,” Brian says to the person on the other line. “It’s wonderful news. I’ll let the boys know,” he adds, then offers Paul a spirited smile. It makes Paul immediately smile back at him, an eyebrow cocked in question. “Yes, yes,” Brian continues. He turns his back on Paul and speaks quietly. “Yes, I’m sure I’ll be back in London soon. I’ll call you, Peter, yes, good night, love.” He nods placatingly and Paul thinks he’s gone soft. “Sleep well.”
Brian lays the handset back in the bed of the telephone, turns to Paul, and smiles warmly. He crosses his arms over his chest and Paul doesn’t know why, but his cheeks have gone pink with something.
“What have you got to tell us, Bri?” Paul asks coyly.
Brian’s smile grows, then he saunters over to the sofa to join Paul. He sits down on it and Paul feels like they’re back in Brian’s flat on Montagu Square. They sit quite close to one another, always have, but they’ve gotten closer the last few years. So, it’s easy and comfortable when Brian reaches out and picks at a bit of lint on the front of Paul’s kurta.
“They’ve finished with one of the villas on Lesbos,” Brian tells him, looking proud and excited all at once. Something grows in Paul’s chest too but he isn’t sure if it’s just the way Brian’s smile has made him feel. He realizes it’s Brian’s smile, but it’s John’s too. The way he’d smiled all day on the bow of their rented yacht in Greece, sailing towards something freeing and magical.
Paul had thought he would hate it: the sun, the island, the concept. He wasn’t sure that he’d ever be able to hold still long enough to exist on some sunny island somewhere. And maybe he can’t, not forever, but he knows he’d feel like a nature boy. He knows he’d feel good . About himself, about his mates, about music, about the love that they all shared for one another.
“Finished?” Paul asks, his voice gone soft and clear. “As in…”
“As in running water,” Brian says. He leans back against the sofa, pulls out a silver cigarette case and lights one for himself. He offers one to Paul too. “A generator for some lights.” He takes a long drag from his cigarette and Paul realizes he must be imagining the sort of man he’d be on a Greek island as well. “Painted walls and furniture.”
“A proper home,” Paul supplies for him.
Brian shuts his eyes and lets his smile grow. He nods and Paul knows he looks happy, but it makes him sad to think about what Brian thinks of Montagu Square. Does he think of that as a proper home too? “Something of that sort,” Brian mumbles. When he opens his eyes back up, he shifts even closer to Paul. “Peter wants me to see it. Approve it, officially.”
“Not much to approve when the thing’s already finished,” Paul answers, and it makes Brian laugh in a way that Paul feels proud about.
“No, I suppose not,” he allows. “But I’d still like to see it.”
“You should go,” Paul decides. “You’ve done a lot of work on it. You deserve it.”
Brian sighs. He opens his chest and Paul knows he’s satisfied. He’s put the work in and now he gets to reap the fruits of his labour. He nods; Paul realizes he believes him. It feels good to say and have it mean something. He realizes he wants to say that to John and have it mean something, have him believe him.
“It might be nice,” Brian says, exhaling a mouthful of smoke languidly.
Paul likes the way Brian looks when he’s happy; soft and relaxed, confident in a way that will always make Paul dizzy. It’s the sort of confidence of a man eight years his senior; it’s something otherworldly, something in his future. “You’re still happy with us,” Paul observes before he means to say it.
Brian regards him carefully; there’s the threat of a frown and Paul hates that he’s changed his face that way. “Of course I’m still happy with you,” he tells him.
Paul nods because he knows Brian cares about them, he knows he gets something strong and significant from the work and success he’s given all four of them. “I don’t think we told you enough that we need you more than just as a tour manager,” he says and he watches Brian go stoic in front of him. Stoic, then soft. And Paul can’t quite believe how accustomed he’s become to the opposite with John. Stoicism was always followed by anger. But here, with Brian in front of him, it was followed by gratitude.
“You don’t have to,” Brian says. Paul thinks he might be blushing. “I’m a big boy,” he adds and Paul knows he’d needed to hear it at least once more.
“I’m just saying --” Paul starts and he’s feeling a blush of his own reaching up to match Brian’s.
“ Thank you ,” Brian says over him and Paul realizes that he’s flown halfway across the world just for this conversation, and hopefully, hundreds more like it. He’s flown halfway across the world to watch his friends find peace. He hopes that Brian sees the same sort of serenity on his face too. He realizes that that’s all they’ll see when they’re all alone together on Lesbos. They keep their eyes on one another, longer than he might with John or George or Rings, or hell, even Jane. They keep their eyes on one another for so long that Paul thinks he sees something of himself in Brian, and he thinks Brian feels that part of Paul somewhere beneath his skin, too.
“Anyway,” Brian suddenly says, pressing his fingertips to Paul’s knee. “You were going to make a call,” he says, lifting himself up off the sofa. Paul misses his weight on the cushion next to him immediately. “I didn’t mean to keep you.” Paul finds himself shaking his head, wanting Brian to stay. Brian pauses. He looks down at Paul as if he might want to touch his hair, but he stops himself. “Good night, Paul.”
“Okay,” Paul says back. “You too, Eppy.”
Brian nods, puts out his cigarette and Paul listens to his footsteps retreat until they’re outside and he can’t hear them anymore. Sighing, still feeling light, Paul heads towards the telephone. He dials up Bob and listens to the ringtone.
“Bob, hi,” Paul says as soon as he hears his friend’s voice. “It’s Paul,” he says, and something shifts between them. Even halfway across the world, over a telephone, Paul can feel the way it’s all changed. His smile falters and he wishes it hadn’t.
“Paul,” Bob says, trying to catch himself. “I wasn’t expecting your call.”
“I couldn’t sleep and I knew you’d be up,” Paul answers, trying to keep it all light, afloat. Bob hums in response and Paul can’t take it. “Have I missed something? Was I meant to call you earlier and you’ve gone cross with me?”
“No, no,” Bob immediately presses. “I just --...” He takes a deep breath and Paul finds himself holding his own in tandem. “Have you been hearing from anyone in London?”
“Not really,” he allows. “All my mates are here.” He shrugs, then amends: “Jane, maybe. A few times.”
“Jane, right,” he mutters. “Look,” he says, clearing something out of his throat. “I’ve been hearing a bit of a rumour,” he says.
“We aren’t engaged,” Paul finishes for him, rolling his eyes.
“No, it’s…”
“What?” Paul demands. “Will you spit it out, Bob?”
“There’s been a book written,” Bob says and Paul doesn’t give him anything else to work off of. He just waits, his silence demanding an answer to what that has got to do with anything. “Well, and you’re mentioned in it, you see.”
“What, like a novel?” Paul asks. “That’s not bad, is it?”
“No, not a novel, it’s…” Paul sighs pointedly and Bob must know he’s painted into a corner. “It’s called The Homosexual’s Handbook.” Again, Paul doesn’t say anything. He feels something go tight in his chest and he realizes he couldn’t speak, even if he’d wanted to. “And there’s a bit that lists some celebrity homosexuals.”
“Are you on it?” Paul hears himself ask bitterly.
And he knows that’s all it is: bitter venom. Bob must know it too because he doesn’t entertain the question, he just finishes with: “You’ve made the list, Paul.”
He balks out a laugh, but Bob must hear that it’s frightened him, because he doesn’t laugh back. “Well, I’m not a homosexual,” Paul says, as if that matters; all that matters is that it’s been written. Paul knows that better than just about anyone.
“No, of course not,” Bob assauges. “Of course you aren’t.”
“Then what’s the problem?” Paul asserts.
“Well, there isn’t one,” Bob stammers. “I suppose there isn’t one. I just thought you should know --”
“Have you seen the book?” Paul asks, which lets them both know that there is a problem here, even if Paul doesn’t want to call it one.
“I haven’t,” Bob concedes. They hang still; there are too many things Paul wants to ask, too many answers that Bob won’t even have for him. His heart is beating wildly in his chest. He suddenly wishes that Brian had stayed. He wants someone here, he wants someone to touch him, to hold his hand, anything, to make this wave of anxiety coursing through him go away. “I don’t think it’s getting much circulation,” Bob tries. “Certainly not outside of specific circles.”
“Do people believe it?” Paul asks and he hates the sound of his own voice. On the same night, he’d realized he’d fallen in love with his own voice, now he can’t stand it.
Bob pauses; it’s something meaningful and terrible. It’s something fundamental: Bob believes it.
“I don’t know,” Bob says because he must realize that the longer he stays quiet, the more of himself he’s given away.
Paul tries to remember the last time he’d felt this afraid. He realizes it was when his father had told him that his mother was dead. He feels cold and sick with it. Something like a sob works its way up his throat, but remembers what he’d told himself then: be brave .
“What can I do about it?” he asks, masking his words, making them sound stronger than they are. He’s giving his friend the television treatment, he realizes, but it’s the only way he knows how to survive. “Aye, what can I do, Bob?” He means to laugh, but he isn’t sure what it comes out as. “So, I --”
“Paul --”
“I appreciate the concern,” he says over him. “But it’ll all blow over. Things have a way of working themselves out.”
There’s silence on the other line, and Paul wishes that Bob would just learn his lesson: silence gets them nowhere. Silence gets them a quick heartbeat, a bead of sweat down the back of your neck. Silence gets you fear and shame and horrible memories. Keep it loud, and keep it moving.
“Right,” Bob eventually says. Paul hears him inhale deeply. “How are the lessons, then?” he says, meaning to go elsewhere, but Paul realizes he can’t take Bob’s silence, but he can’t take his pity either, and every word is laced with it.
“They’re fine,” he answers, and before Bob can ask anything else, he tells him: “Look, I should try to get some sleep. I’ve got to be up early in the morning. That’s enough of a distraction for one night.”
“Okay,” Bob tells him, because he knows the last thing Paul needs is a fight. “Call me tomorrow, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Paul says, but he doesn’t mean it. He hardly realizes he’s said it because all he can think is: I need Brian .
He feels stuck in a vacuum; as he goes, he feels nothing, but can only hear his own ragged breathing and the way his sandals chew deep into the loose gravel. His hands and arms are starting to go numb, like they’re things that don’t even belong to him anymore. Distantly, he knows he’s meant to get a hold of his breathing, center himself on something, let his mind go blank and transcend this wave of anxiety, but he can’t. He doesn’t need transcendental meditation, he doesn’t even need a psychiatrist’s help, he just needs a friend in front of him.
Brian’s still dressed when he answers the door. He’s smiling; it makes Paul wonder if he hadn’t been totally finished with their conversation when they’d parted either. Paul knows that should make him feel alive and loved, but he mostly just feels afraid. And Brian sees it, because his smile falters and then disappears completely and it’s replaced with an anger Paul’s only seen a few times before. An anger that demands an answer to the question: who hurt you?
Paul realizes he must tell Brian that something’s happened, but he doesn’t recall the words he’d used to tell him. It happens in a whirlwind: Brian tugs him inside, sits him down on the settee and there is water and some biscuits in front of him. He’s instructed to eat, but he doesn’t have the space between all that fear and anger and shame that’s spilling out from behind his teeth as he lays down exactly what Robert Fraser’s just told him.
And there’s that stoicism again. But this time, Paul wonders what it will be followed by. Would it still be Brian’s love and gratitude, or would it be something closer to John’s anger and defensiveness. It’s neither, Paul realizes, when Brian offers him a clipped smile that means all business. He reaches out and sets his hand on Paul’s shoulder. His fingers fall perfectly into the curve of the base of his neck. It’s the touch of a friend, finally, and Paul feels himself melt into it, burrow deep inside of it and keep there.
“Nothing will come of this,” Brian promises. “You’ll see. It will shrink and disappear.”
“Yeah?” Paul asks.
Brian smiles again and this one actually reaches his eyes and Paul’s glad for it. He needs him as so much more than a manager now. He nods reassuringly and then he leans forward and places a soft kiss to Paul’s forehead.
He’s done that before, Paul realizes. On a night they both thought Paul would forget. George’s wedding: he’d been full of joy and full of champagne, an adorably deadly mix on the happiest day of his best mate’s life. Brian had taken him home in a taxi; Cavendish had been big and empty and dark and he’d wanted Brian to stay. He’d kissed him, hard and clumsy, on the lips, and it must have been horrible, because Brian had immediately pushed them apart, muttering soft commands about getting into bed, the way a mother might to a sick child.
Paul knows he must have said something, but he’d been too drunk to remember what. He hopes it had been something kind, rather than cruel. He supposes it had to be somewhere in the middle because Brian had set him down in his big bed and kissed his forehead, just as he had now. Paul couldn’t remember what they’d said to one another, the alcohol in his system at the time wouldn’t allow for it, but he would always remember the way Brian’s lips felt against his, and that sweet kiss the left him before snuffing the lights and watching Paul pass out before he’d even had the chance to leave the bedroom.
It hadn’t been the first time Paul had thought about kissing Brian. He’d thought about it when John had told them all Brian was a queer. He’d thought about it in Tenerife when Brian had flown John out to Barcelona. He’d thought about it the night The Who played The Saville Theatre and Brian had taken them all out to Ad Lib.
He realizes he’s thought about kissing John too. A lot.
He sighs, something heavy with recognition. A practicing homosexual, he was not. But he supposes the book must have gotten it half-right. He decides to keep that revelation to himself, though he supposes he knows he shouldn’t. Any information Brian had to combat this would be helpful, but he just doesn’t feel ready to let go of that yet. Brian smiles again, something different, still. Something protective and intuitive and Paul supposes that Brian already knows, anyway.
“Go to bed, Paul,” Brian tells him in a soft, even tone. It reminds Paul of the voices of the gurus in their lessons. He shuts his eyes and can feel something like sleep chasing after him. He nods, filling his lungs up with fresh air and feels new. Brian has made him feel brand new. “We’ll fix this,” Brian adds, before Paul feels Brian’s hands around his own.
He sleeps soundly, caught in a meditation.
--
“Will you pass us the salt there, Macca?” John asks over breakfast the following morning, but Paul doesn’t hear him. His eyes are down somewhere on the food in front of him. There’s still something fuzzy coursing through him, something like serenity, but maybe a little darker, too. “Oy, Paul,” John tries again. Before Paul can process that that’s his name being called, an arm reaches in front of him. “Christ, gotta do everything meself around here,” John mumbles, grabbing the salt shaker for himself.
Across the table, George snickers and Paul feels his cheeks go hot with embarrassment.
“Sorry,” he mutters. “Miles away.”
“You lost on the astral plane, or something?” John gripes, shaking some salt into his palm and then dropping it down on his plate. Paul sees George roll his eyes at John then turn to Pattie next to him. Paul knows he ought to make a joke, make this into something lighter, but before he can think of the right thing to say, John asks: “Is it a song, then?” He stops spreading some jam on toast, looks up at Paul questioningly. There’s something behind his eyes, something sparkling, something that hopes it’s a song that he can join in on too.
Paul smiles, hoping to match that spark, too. It isn’t a song that’s grabbed a hold of him, but he suddenly remembers the tune he’d banked out last night. He leans forward, John does too. They’re both smiling as though this is some giant conspiracy. “I started one last night,” Paul allows. “It came so easy.”
“I did too,” John tells him. He shrugs, smiling wider. “You know, I bet it’s the nature, you know. The big open spaces. It’s opened a door or something.”
“You’re expanding your mind,” George suddenly tells them both. He might be glowering, and it makes Paul feel like he’s been caught whispering with a mate at school. “You think you could use that for something other than writing songs?”
“Oh, aye, George,” John immediately answers. He leans away from Paul, returns to his meal. “I use it for record sleeve design ideas, fashion choices, I’m sure --”
“I just wish you’d take it more seriously --”
“Writing songs is serious,” John pokes back. George sighs, minutely shakes his head, and Paul realizes that they’ve hit a bypass. “If I can’t use this for that, then what’s the point?”
“Lots of things,” George insists.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know,” George says, glancing at Pattie for some sort of answer, but she has nothing to say. “Peace --”
“ Peace ?” John balks. He shakes his head, smiling cruelly. Paul knows he ought to intervene, but he hates to be the scapegoat John gets to take this anger out on. “You wanna talk about peace now, do you?” George rolls his eyes again, he must know what’s coming, same as Paul. “Where was that with all those reporters asking about Vietnam, I stuck my neck out for what I thought was right, nobody else did anything,” John hisses, even throwing a glance at Paul so he knows he’s included in this.
“Sod it, John, honestly,” George mutters, looking away from him, shaking his head, intimating that this is over, but nothing’s over until John says it is, or until Paul convinces him that it is.
So, Paul does what he does best: “Alright, chaps,” he mitigates. “It isn’t even --” he throws a glance down at his wristwatch, “ -- half-eight, yet. Can we save the rows for at least ten in the morning, please?”
“Yeah, alright, Brian ,” John mumbles. He sighs, then throws a glance across the table to George. It’s something of a peace offering, but George doesn’t look back at him. It must make him feel guilty because he decides to change the subject. “Where is Eppy, anyway?” He sits up a little straighter, looks out over the tables to find their manager’s face, but he comes up empty. “He’s not really the lie-in type.”
Something goes cold in Paul’s chest. Brian isn’t the lie-in type. He takes a look around himself too, also coming up empty. He swallows hard, tries to imagine Brian relaxing out front of his ashram, or down by the banks of the small river running through the camp. He tries to imagine him anywhere other than the telephone in the main building, on the line with London, unable to put out a fire in a homosexual’s handbook.
“Dunno,” George offers with an idle shrug. Now, it’s his turn to throw a glance across the table to John and things fall back into something easy and steady between them. And Paul can’t stand it. He can’t stand being on the outside of it.
“I’m finished,” Paul suddenly announces. He’s standing before John can even take a look at his still half-full plate, then up at him with concern. “I’ll find him.”
“You don’t have to,” John tries, but it’s said mostly to the back of Paul’s head as he leaves the communal dining tables. “I’m sure he’s fine!” John calls after him, but Paul doesn’t listen.
It isn’t about Brian anyway.
The breeze is still fresh and still cool, but it’s all gone wrong. Paul tries to think of his farm in Scotland, or the vacation homes he’d gone to with his family up in the country. He tries to zero in on the smell of early-morning, dew-covered grass. It had been such a comfort last night to know that that same smell could find him anywhere. Now, the thought just made him sick.
He knocks on Brian’s ashram, sees the way his own hand’s shaking, and can’t wait: he pushes the door open, steps inside, and… the ashram’s nearly packed. And there’s Brian, at the foot of the bed, shoving the last few of his things into a suitcase. He glances at Paul, then must realize who it is, because he freezes. And they just stand there, looking at one another. Paul feels his chest start to heave up and down, his breath sticking in his throat, not making its way out through his nose. It’s just stuck there, filling him up, making it harder and harder to find any oxygen.
“Paul,” Brian mutters, his voice soft and apologetic. “I didn’t hear you knocking, I’m sorry --”
“Where you going, Bri?” Paul asks.
Brian sighs, Paul can see his shoulders drop. He shuts his case carefully, running a finger along the zip because, Paul realizes, he can’t look at him. “I’ve got to be in London,” he says, keeping his eyes down on the deep brown leathers of his travelling case.
Paul takes a deep breath, already feeling himself chewing a hole through his bottom lip. “What for?” he asks, though they both know full-well what for.
Brian sighs; the truth pains him, so he avoids until the last possible moment. Instead of giving Paul a proper answer, he approaches him, sets his hands on both of Paul’s shoulders, then lets himself rub down Paul’s arms -- his bicep, then his forearm -- until they’re holding hands. “It’s more serious than I thought,” Brian says to him gently. Paul feels him squeeze his hands and he’s glad for it because he thinks he could fall away if he didn’t have somebody to hold onto. “I’ve got to be there and make this go away myself.” Paul nods, and again, Brian squeezes his hands, but this time, it’s something a little more urgent. It’s demanding Paul to look at him, so he does. “Before I go, I need you to tell me something,” he says. Paul shrugs, meaning anything , I’ll tell you anything . Brian inhales deeply and Paul suddenly doesn’t want to hear what he has to say: “Is there anyone who I need to ask for their discretion ?”
Paul feels his knee buckle under the weight of it. For such a business-as-usual question, it sure has a hell of a lot to say: Brian believes this could be true, Brian believes there may be men out there that Paul’s kissed or slept with, Brian believes he has to pay these men for their silence. “It isn’t true ,” Paul insists, before he realizes he hasn’t answered the question. And Brian knows he hasn’t. They catch one another’s eye, something passes between them, Paul suddenly remembers how it feels to have Brian’s lips against his own, so he amends: “You.” He shakes his head. “If you want to get technical, just you.”
A smile tugs at the corner of Brian’s mouth, but he must know it isn’t appropriate, because he looks away from Paul and nods. “If that kiss is the only homosexual act you’re guilty of, then that secret’s certainly safe with me.”
Paul feels himself laugh and it makes Brian look back at him and smile. He reaches out and pushes some hair off of Paul’s forehead, then seems to go a bit more serious: something protective passes over him and Paul realizes it’s because Brian sees something of himself in him. He’s staunchly aware of the truth: just because Paul hasn’t kissed any other men, doesn’t mean he hasn’t wanted to.
“Should I come with you?” Paul asks, suddenly aware how out of his hands this whole thing will be if he stays.
Brian immediately shakes his head, meaning to look unconcerned, but Paul can’t see him as anything but the opposite. But, he supposes Brian knows best. “I think you should carry on here,” Brian explains to him. “It may appear we’re working too hard if you come with me.”
“Right,” Paul manages. “Should I tell the lads?”
Brian shrugs plaintively. “I suppose that’s up to you.” Paul nods, but Brian must know that that prospect frightens him because he tugs at Paul’s sleeve and when Paul can actually look at him, he smiles. “We’ve been dealt worse.”
Paul nods again, then hugs himself against Brian before he can convince himself not to. Brian holds him right back, then, just like his father might, he unfurls Paul from his chest carefully and smiles down at him reassuringly. “You’re alright,” he tells him and Paul thinks he might learn to believe him.
He isn’t able to clear his mind during the day’s lessons. He thinks of Brian on the plane back to London. He thinks of Robert Fraser, his ear to the ground, listening for anything that might be amiss. He thinks of… Jane. He prays to whatever newfound belief system he has that the rumour hasn’t reached her. He’s only ten minutes into a meditation when he realizes that Brian and Bob have something in common: their queerness. Their circles had to be similar. If Bob was hearing things and Brian was hearing things, it didn’t necessarily mean that it was circulating beyond them: other men who liked men.
He supposes he could call Jane and feel out if she’s heard any strange rumblings about them and their relationship, but that seems too risky. He realizes Rich has been back in London for over a month now and decides that he’d be the one that Paul would ask. If the press were under the impression one of the Beatles might be participating in some rather illicit affairs, who else might they ask but another Beatle?
He slinks back to the main building as the others file off for some lunch and he rings London.
“Rich!” he says as soon as he hears his friend’s voice. He’s just glad to have caught him. “You’re home, great.”
“Of course I’m home,” Rings says back. “It’s nine in the morning.”
Paul glances back down at his watch and realizes he hadn’t considered the time difference. “Shit,” he mutters. “I didn’t wake you, did I? Or the kids?”
“No, no,” Rich answers. He sighs, must be getting himself comfortable in a chair somewhere. Paul can hear him munching on some breakfast. “They’re always up at the crack of dawn.”
“No rest for the wicked?”
“That’s the truth,” Rich hums. “You bored, or something?” he asks. “Haven’t you got lessons?”
“We stopped for lunch,” Paul explains. Then, he shrugs. “I am a bit bored, I suppose. It’s all a bit serious, isn’t it?”
“Is it?” Ringo asks with a sarcastic laugh. “Still? They haven’t gone off it yet?”
Paul laughs back. “I think John might have,” he muses. “Or will quite shortly. George is still keen.”
“That sounds right,” Rich says, and Paul realizes that this is easy. There isn’t any tension between them, no secret that Ringo is holding back; it feels nothing like his phone call with Robert Fraser. He supposes he could safely assume that Rich hasn’t heard anything about the bloody book. But, for his own peace of mind, he still feels he has to ask.
“How’s London, then?” he tries. “What rumours have the press come up with while we’ve been away?”
“Well,” Rich answers. “You and Jane are married,” he teases. “Or was it divorced? I can’t remember. John’s been thrown in prison, last I heard.” Paul laughs again and feels himself relax.
“Right,” he says. “So, just the regular shite.”
“Just the regular shite,” Ringo confirms. “You think you’ll be coming home soon?” He misses them, Paul realizes. It makes him want to leave right now.
“Yeah, I reckon,” he answers and he can hear the way it makes Ringo smile.
“We’ll have you and Jane over for dinner, then,” Ringo concludes.
“Yeah,” Paul says, though he’s had a hard time imagining what he and Jane’s relationship might look like after this trip. They’d fought before they’d flown out here and spent a lot of time bickering in their ashram. It was all a bit stilted. Homosexual rumour or no homosexual rumour, he often wondered if it was something they could salvage.
“You’ve been out all day,” John tells him that night, when they’re back in John’s ashram with two guitars between them. Paul glances up at him, hums a noise that’s asking for more of an explanation. Keeping his eyes down, afraid that Paul might reject his invitation to open up, John just shrugs. “You’re just not all here, is all. Not during the lesson and not now.” Finally, John looks up at him. His eyes are openly concerned and vulnerable behind his glasses. He gets like that when they’re alone in a room together.
“Oh,” Paul answers dumbly.
“Is everything alright?” John asks, deciding to bite the bullet.
Paul feels himself go still and John doesn’t look away from him. Paul shrugs, thinks he’d like to tell John everything, but there’s something inside of him that is begging him to keep his bloody mouth shut. “Well, everything’s fine, innit?” he mumbles.
“Is it?” John counters. He shrugs, then returns his focus down to the guitar in his lap. He picks at a few strings, something of a song building somewhere behind his eyes. Paul watches him; watches start to go a hundred miles away, and he realizes he’s just pushed him to do so. And he wants John close. Whatever’s waiting for him in London, he wants John close for it.
“I suppose I --...” He stops short and it gives John pause. His fingers slow to nothing on the guitar, then his eyes flicker up to Paul’s and he just waits . “I suppose I’m just nervous about going home.”
John narrows his eyes at him. He hugs the body of his guitar to his chest and leans forward, watching Paul carefully over the rim of his glasses. “Why would you be nervous to go home?” Paul shrugs and now it’s his turn to look back down at his guitar and tinker at a few notes. “I might be buzzing to get home, actually.”
“Are you?”
John smiles and shrugs. “Dunno,” he mumbles. “That English countryside, you know,” he drawls on sarcastically. “Better landscapes than here, don’t you reckon?”
Paul laughs. “Ya daft, mate.”
“No, no,” John amends. “I miss the kid, I think.” It isn’t what Paul had been expecting; it makes him go warm. “The studio,” he adds, to soften the vulnerability he’s just offered. “We’ve got more than an album here, you know.”
“Yeah,” Paul agrees, counting off the songs he’s got in his head. He knows John’s got a similar number.
“You’re nervous? Really ?” John presses.
Paul shrugs and he realizes that John’s brought up Julian to clear the floor for something stark from Paul too, and Paul knows what John should hear, but he can’t manage it. He can’t manage it forthright, so he tiptoes around it instead. He inhales deeply and says: “We’ll just be different, I suppose.” John nods, urging Paul to continue. “Some people don’t like it when you’re not something they thought you were.” John scoffs, but it isn’t something cruel. It isn’t even directed at Paul; it’s directed at the truth of the statement. He looks away and Paul wishes he wouldn’t. He wants John to look directly at him, see everything, so Paul doesn’t have to tell him.
Looking at John, watching his hands, seeing the slope of his nose, he realizes that both he and Brian had been right in their revelation: just because Paul hadn’t kissed any other men, never meant he didn’t want to. He wants to kiss John, always has. He wants to tell him , but he’s too afraid. He wonders if it was the other way around between them, would John tell him? Would John just kiss him, without having to tell him?
“Well, sod ‘em, Macca. Right?”
“Right,” Paul allows, but he can tell he hasn’t convinced his mate. “I just --... What if it’s just something big, you know? A difference you can’t come back from, maybe.”
“What are you on about?” John asks, meaning to sound casual, but Paul can see it for what it is: uncertainty, concern, care -- you name it, John’s felt it for him.
Paul feels himself start to blush. He doesn’t know how to explain what he means without giving himself away. He suddenly wishes he hadn’t said anything at all. “You wouldn’t hate someone just because you found out something about them had changed?”
John shrugs, gives Paul a pointedly annoyed look. “I think that’s a vague question,” he says. “It depends.”
“On what?”
“On what had changed, I don’t know,” John says, shrugging helplessly. It’s been a long time since Paul’s felt younger than John, but he feels that way now: inarticulate, unconfident, and stupid. “You know, you can’t just ask me that and expect an answer,” John rants. “Say I’d found you had killed somebody, cold-blooded, you know. That might change a few things --”
He balks a laugh, so Paul interrupts him with: “That isn’t what I mean --”
“Then say what you mean, Paul,” John urges him. Paul sighs heavily, annoyed with himself more than he is with John, and John must realize it, because then he shrugs. “There aren’t many things that would make me turn away from somebody.”
And that sounds hopeful, so Paul says: “Yeah?”
“Well, yeah,” John answers. “I mean, I think we’re all changing all the time. I think we learn things about ourselves every day,” he continues, and he means it as much about himself as he does whatever he thinks Paul might mean. “We’re just trying to better ourselves, aren’t we, Paulie?” He offers Paul a smile and Paul finally feels like he can breathe. “And if there are people who don’t like us for trying something new or being someone new , then they can fuck right off, aye?” His smile brightens up a few notches, so Paul feels his own doing the same.
“They can fuck right off,” Paul agrees, and where he’d thought he might feel alone, he feels protected and loved, and it fills him up with something good and warm. It makes an ashram in Rishikesh, India feel like home.
“I’m knackered,” John suddenly decides, his words punctuated by a yawn. He sets his guitar down on the bed next to him and stretches his palms up towards the ceiling. “You finished with these?” he asks, tapping the wood body of Paul’s guitar.
“Yes,” Paul answers quietly.
Nodding, John stands and heads over to his wardrobe. He pulls open the top drawer, finds himself a t-shirt to sleep in, then he pauses, looks over his shoulder back at Paul and holds it out to him. “You wanna stay here?” he asks. The breath catches in Paul’s throat because he doesn’t want to be alone and John’s seen it. He’s seen it and he’s doing something about it. “You find it quiet now that Jane’s gone?”
“Sort of,” Paul allows.
John nods, then fishes out a second t-shirt for himself. He saunters back towards the bed and drops himself down on the edge. He tosses the thin shirt at Paul, smiling when it hits him in the nose. “I feel like I haven’t slept in a bed by meself since I was eighteen,” he says with a bemused smile; then, it quietly falters and Paul suddenly sees the way a broken marriage is hitting him. Hitting Cynthia and Julian . “I don’t like it,” he concludes.
“I don’t like it either,” Paul reassures him.
John smiles at him; it’s small, but Paul sees the graciousness in it. He nods, then turns away from Paul and peels out of his kurta. Paul catches the smattering of freckles across John’s back and shoulders before he realizes that he ought to look away and give him some privacy. He turns away; they’re mirror images of one another as they both slip into their sleep clothes.
Then, the lights are flicked off and John’s under the covers first, tugging the blanket up to his chin. It gets cooler at night than either of them expected. Paul climbs in next to him; they both shift closer to one another feigning an attempt at getting comfortable. John rolls onto his side, his back to Paul, and Paul listens to him sigh contentedly. It makes him smile, so he shuts his eyes, and actually thinks sleep might reach him. He hadn’t thought that would happen the way his morning had gone.
Somewhere, Paul isn’t sure if he’s half-asleep, or fully awake, he isn’t sure of the same about John either, but he feels John kick his foot out towards him, knocking their ankles together. He holds there, his foot pressed up against Paul. He’s there . If Paul knows nothing else in this world, he knows that John is there .