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It hadn’t been so bad, rooming with the new fella, Ringo. Paul preferred to call him Ritchie. Yeah, he snored a bit, but so did Lennon. So did Georgie for that matter. Probably, so do I, if I’m tired enough, he thought.
Paul had actually been surprised that John and George made such a fuss about rooming with Ringo, particularly since Georgie probably knew him best. But after thinking it through, Macca believed he understood. As a kid, John had never shared a bedroom with anyone, except for those times Paul or Pete or one of his other friends slept over. Mostly, that would be me.
And George had been the fussed-over baby of the family, who kept his own room while his brothers double-bunked… but then again he and Paul had shared beds loads of times – ever since we were kids!
But, he supposed, neither John nor George had ever really shared a room, or a bed, with a stranger who wasn’t also a bird or a prossie, and while these days they were sleeping in better quarters than the god-awful, slummy, windowless ‘rooms’ behind the cinema screens of the ‘Kino, sleep time was still a pretty intimate thing, particularly on the road. Sometimes they’d be given one room with two double beds, or two rooms with one double bed each, or two singles. Either way, it meant sleeping close, and Ritchie – good guy he seemed – was still a stranger, in that sense. In that bedroomy, sometimes-you-wake-up-hard-from-snuggling-just-because-it-happens, sense.
Paul was a little more adaptable that way, he supposed, given the times he’d had to unexpectedly share a room with complete strangers. So, yeah, when his mates tensed up about who would sleep where, and Ritchie looked down at the floor, all awkward, Macca had simply smiled and tossed his luggage in one of the rooms, declaring, “Don’t get afraid if I start to spoon you, son.”
“Aye, Paul’s a right octopus,” Hazza laughed after sighing with relief. “But he won’t suffocate you.”
“He’s a furnace, is what he is,” John Lennon piped up, managing to look both relieved and mildly annoyed by Paul’s action, which meant they would not be together. “The lad puts out 10,000 British Thermal Units an hour. You’ll be sweatin’ like a pig once he leans into you.”
But it hadn’t been that bad. On their first night rooming together, Ritchie had been a bit tentative, offering to sleep on the floor, since there was only the one bed. “Naw, don’t be daft,” the younger lad had waved him over and patted the mattress. “We can top and tail if you like but honestly, I don’t care either way. And besides you’re little. You’ll take up a lot less room than John or Geo.”
“Alright,” Ritchie had agreed, as he changed into pajamas. “I hope you can sleep with me snorin’ though. I’ll apologize in advance for that, too.”
“I’m getting’ bored, now” Macca said as he lit a cigarette. “You play cards? How ‘bout a few hands of rummy, then, afore we sleep?”
The sleeping arrangement had actually worked out better for Paul and Ringo than for the others, largely because they were both men with peaceable instincts. They both liked to get along with others, liked to be liked, and actually did like other people, and to be around them. John Lennon and George Harrison were each a bit more volatile and so their room-sharing was rowdier and more tempestuous. They were lads who could be fine with company, if they were in the mood for company, but also impatient and temperamental. Both of them were capable of suddenly declaring “a little of you goes a long way…” at some point and either storming off or throwing you out.
Although they’d never done that to Macca, he knew there was always a first time, and that either of them would do it to Ringo in a heartbeat, until they got to know him better.
Still, there was a night, early on, where Paul shot awake, the hair on his arms nearly standing on end as Ringo tossed and turned beside him, bawling outright in a haunted, high-pitched wail that sounded like it was coming from the depths of his heart.
Macca nudged him. Nothing. The lad seemed like he was in a state of right terror as he dreamt.
“Ritchie, Ritchie,” Paul murmured, placing his whole hand on the drummer’s shoulder and shaking him. “Ritchie, mate! It’s alright, it’s just a nightmare. Ritch!”
Ringo shivered as he finally came to wakefulness, out of that deep, dark place he’d been inhabiting. “Wha-What?” He found Paul hovering over him, his big eyes round with concern. “Are y’allright, then, Ritch?”
“Yeah…yeah,” the lad wiped his eyes, blushing at the face full of tears he was showing this weirdly overconfident lad. “I’m good. I’m sorry, lad. Just a bad dream.”
“Sure sounds it,” Macca agreed, giving his shoulder a few reassuring pats while holding one hand to his own chest. “My heart’s still poundin’, son, it’s that loud you were.”
“I’m sorry,” Ringo apologized again, his chest still heaving and shuddering as he sat up. He breathed deeply and then huffed it out, shaking it all off. “I’m sorry I woke you, Paul.”
“Nah, nothing for it, Rich. And I don’t think the others heard you. But what the dickens was chasin’ at you? Because you sounded terrified.”
“Nothin’” Ritchie said, finding a handkerchief and wiping his eyes before clearing his nose. “Just an old thing…” He sighed again, and gave Paul a soft, resigned look, his sloping eyes shining from the moonlight sneaking in. “From when I was a kid, you know,” he shrugged. “Spent a lot of time in hospital and sometimes when me mum or uncle would say goodbye it didn’t feel too great. I’d…I’d clutch, like, I guess. Get scared down to me balls, tell the truth.”
“Oh, it's scary to be left behind in a hospital, yeah,” Paul nodded his head, seeming to comprehend him perfectly as he lit two cigarettes and handed one off to the drummer. “I know a little about that.”
“Do ye, then?” Ringo peered at him through the smoke, looking skeptical. He liked this kid well enough, but didn’t believe life had ever laid a glove on his beautiful, nearly perfect person.
“Oh, aye. Spent nearly eight weeks in hospital when I was kid. Had a rheumatic fever, you know.”
Ritchie’s eyebrows went up. “No, I didn’t.”
“Yeah, high fever, and a rash that went all over me body, chest, and bum, my balls and even into my hair. Itched like a bastard, and the nuns were forever dabbin’ at me with water and vinegar.”
“Oh God, eight weeks with nursing nuns? The horror!”
“They weren’t so bad,” Paul chuckled. “One of ‘em would sneak cups of tea in, for me.”
“How old were you,” Ringo began to relax, leaning against the headboard, his arms folded. He realized, with a sense of amusement, that he was enjoying the cigarette, and the company.
Macca frowned. “Think ten years old, I was? About then. I remember first I was in isolation, and then in a room with two or three other boys, because there was a whaddycallit --”
“An epidemic?”
“Don’t know if I’d use that word, but they had a run on rheumatic fever, for sure,” the younger lad smiled. “And then once the fever lifted, I was isolated again for two weeks so’s I wouldn’t relapse.”
“I bet you hated that,” Ringo’s sloped blue eyes seemed to radiate sympathy. Without knowing him long, the drummer already sensed that Macca liked company.
“Aye, I did. I might have hated sharin’ a room, too, but I probably was too sick then to care, or to remember.” Paul nodded his head toward the drummer. “What about you? How long?”
“Over a year, actually.”
“Cor! A year in hospital? Whatever for?”
“Appendix burst when I was six. Got septic and went into a coma, and all. Then, it was just one infection after another. Took a long time to get better.”
“Holy Shite,” Paul gasped, a very real look of compassion leaping into his eyes. “Poor little bugger!”
Ringo laughed out loud at that, but this mate seemed genuinely horrified. “Ah, well, what can I say? And then I was in again, for another long stay, when I was around thirteen, you know.”
Paul McCartney’s whole face seemed drawn back in horror. “I’m almost afraid to ask. What was it? Cancer? Torn up guts? TB?”
“Bingo,” the older lad touched his nose. “Had tuberculosis.”
“Christ in a manger, you’re lucky to be alive, ain’t ya?”
“Came up in the Dingle, you know,” he shrugged. “We were poor. When you’re poor it’s easy to be sickly.”
“I’m sorry,” Macca said, lighting up another ciggy. “I really am. We were poor, too, but me mum was a nurse. Kept us pretty healthy, I guess.” He looked down for a moment, looking like he was tucking away a bad memory. “All-in-all, I mean. But yeah, it’s hard bein’ left. Especially when you’re there so long -- or you’re in-and-out of hospital so often -- that people don’t think they need to come every day, anymore.”
Ringo lit another ciggy of his own and gave a pensive nod. He noticed Paul biting his lip and playing with his fingertips – signs he had early-on come to recognize as Macca coming to grips with an anxious thought. “Wanna see me scars?” He offered brightly.
Paul looked surprised, but managed a ghostly sort of smile. “Sure. You show me yours; I’ll show you mine.”
“Now, now, lad, none of that. Never show off my bits and pieces you know. Fellas get jealous.”
“Come off it, git,” Macca laughed, giving a shove. He snapped on the bedside lamp. “Go on, then, let’s see it.”
It was hideous. Ringo’s emergency surgery had been a rushed and ragged affair, and as he had grown into manhood the childhood scar had stretched wide and shiny over his abdomen. Paul, all without thinking, reached out and ran one finger along it. He made a face, wrinkling his nose. “Well bugger me sideways.”
“Ha! No, thank you, love, never was tempted.”
“No. Oh, sorry!” He pulled his hand away, blushing. “But that must have taken a lot to get over.”
“Aye,” Ringo’s tone was rueful. “A whole lifetime, in some ways.”
“Yeah,” Macca had nodded, once again with that distant look, as though wresting a memory. Ringo rearranged his bed clothes and directed his chin Paul-ward. “Let’s see yours’n, then,” he reminded. “Hopefully you don’t have to undress for it. Got scars from the fever rash?”
“Mmph,” the younger man fit the ciggy between his lips and pulled the lamp closer, tilting the shade up so the light shone brightly on the left side of his face. “You’ve probably seen ‘em already and not realized. But then we don’t spend a lot of time in daylight, playin' all night as we do.”
“You mean this one,” Ritchie said, “by your mouth?" As Paul had done earlier, he reached out to touch it, but just barely, his fingertip tracing a large and obvious scar he’d never really thought about before, because people get scars on their faces, don’t they? “Got into a scrape did you, as a young’un?” As he looked more closely, the older man realized just how deep the injury must have been. “Hey, there, laddie,” he murmured, catching Paul’s eye. “That looks…that was a bad one, weren’t it? Looks like your lip got it, too.”
“Aye,” Paul agreed softly. “T’was bad.” Seeming like he wanted to change the subject, he moved on. “And then, other scars up my face, see here?” He pointed to what looked almost like an X further up his cheek. “For a while I liked to tell the birds I was like a treasure map, and if they just looked, they’d find me golden nuggets!” He chuckled and then went wistful. “Hadn’t really thought that bit through, though. Too many of them figured all I wanted was a kiss on the cheek!”
At the lad’s woeful tone, Ritchie laughed out loud. “Aye, birds can be unimaginative like that. You should have told ‘em you had rash scars, then! You could have had them undressing you, button-by-button, to find them all!”
“Well, shit, I never thought of that! And I do have some scars from then!” Macca opened his pajama top and showed Ringo a thin, barely-there scar on the right side of his torso, and another near his nipple. Ringo noticed what looked like an almost pyramid-shaped mark, much deeper, just below his rib cage. “That don’t look like no fever scar,” he pointed out.
“Nah, that was… that was a… I guess we’ll call that one a souvenir of a street brawl.”
The older man gave him a look that seemed almost solemn, his blue eyes still and serious. “You don’t strike me as a much of a brawler, son.”
Despite himself, Paul laughed, “Aye, well... I’ve finished a few fights John's started, but no, that day my hands were a bit full. That one's a workboot to the gut, that is.”
“Jaysus! I’d never guess it of you, Paulie. Me mum calls you ‘a sweetheart’ you know. Who’d ever want to hurt you?”
“No, does she, really?” Paul seemed pleased to hear Ringo’s mum liked him. “Well, it’s good to know someone thinks I’m sweet!”
Ritchie’s grin faded as he nodded back toward Paul’s chin. “Well, someone clearly didn’t for that one, eh? That’s not your mam giving you the back of her hand a few times, or even your Pa.”
“Ah, well… they both had their moments, you know,” Paul leaned over Ringo, centering the lamp properly on its table. “And I’m sure I earned ‘em.”
“But not that,” Ritchie stayed him, once more fingering the scar, and the edge of Macca’s lower lip. “How’d it happen?”
Paul became a bit circumspect, pulling out of the older man’s grip. He settled back against the headboard, lighting another cigarette. “Don’t remember, actually.”
“Don’t remember? Son, it looks like someone was out to give you a Glasgow smile and got caught before he could finish the job.”
Paul gave his bedmate a pointed look and repeated Ringo's earlier action, laying a finger on his nose.
“No," Ringo breathed.
“Like I said, I don’t remember it. Sometimes I have an image, you know, like a vision – or maybe it’s just part of a dream that’s stayed with me. A broken bottle comin’ at me. I see green glass, anyhow. But then…nothing. Docs said I’ve blanked it out.”
“Was it someone you knew?”
Paul shrugged again. “Don’t know. Never caught the fella, did they?” He looked down, where he was playing with his fingers. “Me Dad seemed to blame himself, sometimes, you know? But… I’ll never know.”
“A gamblin’ debt, maybe?”
The younger lad was silent, shrugging and staring at his hands in response. After a minute, Ringo heard him sigh. “He liked to play the ponies, sometimes. Don’t think he ever did again, after that.”
“Oh, son,” the drummer took his hand, lacing his fingers with Paul’s. “They’re awful, those blokes – the sharks and moneymongers. But to go after a kid for someone else’s owings…” He looked up at the lad, whose face had become a blank; he wore no expression at all. “How old were you, then?”
“About 12.” He looked up, finally, stoic except for the darkness of his eyes, which had gone eerily cold. “Was in hospital for a long while, and then in and out. Had four surgeries in a year, you know, for whadtheycalled it, ‘reconstruction.’ Fixing it all.”
“Well, they did a bloody great job of it. You’re beautiful, Paulie,” Ritchie wasn’t teasing, “and there’s no one could ever say otherwise. But four surgeries, cor! That’s a lot to go through.”
“That was just the first year,” Paul tamped out his ciggy, letting go of his mate’s hand and wrapping his arms around himself. “And then I had to learn how to use my lips again. That’s why I push ‘em out so much when I sing. Had to relearn how to use my face a little bit after each surgery.”
Ringo could think of nothing to say. The story this ridiculously good-looking kid was laying out was an unthinkable horror. Whoever would have expected it?
“There were other surgeries, you know,” Paul had continued in that quite voice. “Smaller ones. Had one when I was eighteen to adjust my chin a bit. They think that’s the last of it unless someone gives me a good knockabout and breaks me jaw or something.”
“Ah, so that’s why you’re so agreeable, then.” Ringo tried to lighten the mood. “I’d be sweet to everyone, too, after goin’ through all that.”
“You’re already agreeable, ya daft git.”
“Well, it’s what you learn, ain’t it,” the drummer mused, more seriously. “When you've been sick and sort of shuffled to the sidelines, you learn how to smile when you don’t feel like it; how to blank your face out so no one can see you’re hurtin’; how to get along and take your friends where you can find them.”
“Aye,” Paul agreed, but it was a soft, nearly whispered assent. “And how to keep your real friends close.” He glanced at Ringo, a quick and passing look of shame showing in his eyes. “I lost most of mine, you know. After the… my face. Was hard for folks to look at it, and too, you know how kids are. When you’re different – disfigured -- you’re scary, or a freak. And when your face is going through a thing – sometimes I couldn’t smile right, you know, or my lips were frozen in a weird position while m’nerves were repairing. Sometimes I couldn’t help droolin’ a little. People don’t know how to take you, so they just look away, and stop inviting you around.”
“It’s true,” the drummer agreed, his own voice low, "and that gets lonely real fast." He sighed deeply, rubbing his thumb against Macca’s own and squeezing his hand. “I’m sorry, son.”
“Georgie, he’s a good lad, a good friend,” Macca told him. “He knew me then, and never changed. We don’t talk about it. At all. But he’s a good fella, just so you know, because I see you’re friendly. He won’t let you down.”
“Yeah, I get that. And John,” Ritchie wondered. “He knows, too, of course?”
Paul shook his head back and forth. “No.” He shrugged. “John…” Paul took a breath.
“John’s a lot softer lad than he seems. If he knew he’d…” Another shrug, this time he looked at Ringo with the fond smile he nearly always wore when he discussed his partner. “He’d spend half his time plotting ways to kill me dad – which wouldn’t be fair because I really don’t now what it was all about – and the other half weepin’ over me every time he looked my way. He’s a weeper, John is, though you'd never guess it. Bad enough he knows about my heart.”
Ritchie, who had been reaching up to turn off the lamp, stayed his hand. He gave the young man a look of alarm. “What’s the matter with your heart, then?”
“Nothin’, really,” the bassist chuckled. “Just a murmur – a little leftover from the fever, you know.”
“You certainly seem to collect weird souvenirs, son.”
“I do, I suppose.” Paul settled down into the mattress, pulling the blankets up to his chin. “John’s forever worryin’ I’m gonna keel over while I’m bouncin’ around the stage. Doesn’t realize it keeps me alive, all that screamin’ and jumpin’ around. I love it.”
“Anyone could tell,” Ritchie agreed.
“But the other, the scarring,” he gave Ringo a pointed look. “John just thinks I got into a bad fight and lost.” Paul held his mate’s gaze. “And we’ll let him keep thinkin' that, yeah?”
“Of course. I get it." The drummer tamped down his own ciggie and made to settle back into bed. "He must mean a lot to you if you'd let him think you lost a fight." For a moment, he leaned on one elbow, looking down at Paul, who blushed under his close scrutiny.
“What,” Paul squinted his eyes, trying to seem menacing.
“Nothing, love,” Ringo answered. “Just… until now I hadn’t realized what a tough bastard you are, in your own way. You’d do a Dingle lad proud.”
“Thanks,” Macca let out a chuckle, smiling up at him. “I guess you and me, we know the great secret, don’t we?”
“Which one’s that, son,” the older man frowned.
“That life shoves its boot up your arse and sends you flyin' far out from where you thought you’d be, and all you can do is ride it out, hold the best of your mates close, and everyone else far enough away so you can see the knives coming.”
“Oh.” A pause. “Thought you were gonna say 'life is short and scars are forever. Best to just roll with it'.”
“That's another perspective, I guess,” Paul mused.
“Aye,” Ritchie said. He surprised Paul then, leaning down and kissing his face precisely on the X-shaped scar near his cheekbone. “And what’s the story about that one, anyhow,” he asked.
“Told you,” Paul smiled. He clammed up, suddenly, making room as the drummer settled in for sleep. “I’m a treasure, ain’t I?”
“Heh. I begin to think you might be. A bright chest of mystery, and all.” Ringo reached up and snapped off the lamp, and the two young men lay together in silence, the room illuminated only by the light of the passing moon.
“Hey,” the smaller man turned on his side, looking at his bedmate. “Hey, Paulie, thank you for trustin’ me enough to tell me your story, lad. And for sleepin’ with me when no one else wanted to. Me mum’s right. You’re a dear one.”
He felt Paul turn to face him, chucking him on the shoulders. “Aye, well, we sickly poor boys, we have to stick together, don’t we, against those two dark beautiful bastards we play with, yeah?”
Hours later, when the sun’s glare replaced the moon’s soft light, Ringo – always an early riser – realized the younger lad had wrapped himself around him, his beautiful head resting on his shoulder, the unmarked right side of his face untroubled and lovely in repose.
Well, who’da thunk it, he marveled to himself with a sense of something like joy. After a whole lifetime alone, seems I've found my brother.