Chapter Text
So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. Galatians 5:16-17
1967, In A Small Town Somewhere Near Liverpool
Paul has just finished listening to old lady Haddon’s admittance of using the Lord’s name in vain, assuring her sugar-sweet of God’s forgiveness, when a man enters the confession booth afterwards.
The day is somewhere between ‘noon and evening, and Paul can feel his attention slipping to warmer places; the glow of his kitchen with the oven on, his cat lazing by his feet. The confession booth encases him in a mahogany night. Incense clings to the walls, spooling musky around his feet.
There’s a cough from the other side, a strangely boyish sound that skips through the wall. Paul reads an uncertainty in it, a sliver of discomfort. Someone who hasn’t been here before, probably, second guessing.
‘Start by making the sign of the cross,’ Paul says calmly.
‘Oh, ‘ight?’ The voice is from the east of London, gravel and smoke, though there’s a Liverpool twang underneath, something familiar and singing in the annunciation.
A surrate of movement from the other side. Paul eases his back against the hard wall, eyes fluttering with the mix of darkness and smoke.
‘Okay,’ the man continues. ‘Right, well, I’ve not done this ever, so excuse me bad manners an’ all. I guess I wanted to confess how fuckin’ sick I am of grief. Wish it were a limb I could chop off and be done with.’
There’s a shift in the air, the wisps of smoke stilling, solidifying. Paul opens his eyes. Feels a tautness somewhere over his shoulder.
‘People die- so what? Death is made into a ceremony, a big deal, but it ain’t, is it? Not when it happens every day, not when it happens without worry or… death is careless, yeah? There’s no profound meanin’ behind it, so why do we pretend there is? Tears and flowers, pretending to sooth ourselves. There’s nothin’ sad about death. I mean, what’s so fuckin’ great about being alive? Sometimes I think they’re the lucky buggers, getting an early exit from this dirty pile of shite.’
‘You mean, you feel that grief is performative?’ Paul says. This stranger isn’t seeking advice or comfort. His words seem carefully chosen and delivered with a certainty Paul sometimes struggles to find preaching
‘Nah, not that,’ that nasally voice says. ‘I don’t get the fuss. Don’t get the sadness of it.’
‘You don’t feel sad when someone dies?’
A beat. ‘No, not that. I mean, I did. I mostly got angry, mostly got… crazy, y’know. But now I think I’ve got a hold on it. It’s like, this world isn’t anything special, no matter what those ballads sing about. So death is really an escape from it. And if that’s the case, then why kick up a fuss?’
‘Some people miss the person,’ Paul says carefully. ‘The absence of them, even if they know they’re in a better place-’
‘Ack! I never said better place. It ain’t, y’know, anything . It’s not better. It just can’t be worse than this, can it? It can’t be worse than whatever is going on down here. It’s nothing, that’s the catch. That’s the relief. Death is nothing to the dead, but ‘ts a cruel bit of suffering for the living. What death does- and I’m speakin’ metaphorically ‘ere- is it wealds this great dirty knife, and then it slashes, fucking cuts into you, and then you have to bleed politely everywhere. ‘Ave to pretend you’re sad over them, and not screaming and angry. Everyone grieves like an opera, all hushed voices and dabbing tears, and it’s shite. You’re bleeding . And it doesn’t heal over- the more it happens the worse those cuts become. The dead got it easy. I envy that, y’know, the snap of unconsciousness. What did Wilde say, that death is beautiful with the grass and brown earth? To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forget life. ’
His voice slips, smokey smooth when it quotes Wilde, some unwinding of dark velvet, like each word means something.
‘You can’t know what God has planned for us,’ Paul says, affecting the calm of his voice. ‘Why he works the way he does. Those feelings of pain aren’t bad or unusual. All death is grass , so to die is to return, a cycle-’
‘Aye, but that’s shite as well, isn’t it? I mean, the God’s plan part. What, God plans for people to die at different points? God plans for kids and lovers and family to die, for people to be hacked up by murders, or pass away in hospitals? God’s plan is suffering, that’s all it fuckin’ is. It’s like a line of dominos, and when one is pushed- when someone dies- another one follows after, and then it’s just everywhere. There’s no corner or shade of your life which doesn’t have death in it, the imprint of it. I guess that’s my question - how can God stand it, to watch all his creation suffer and die, all the fuckin’ time? How can he create this and then slam a fist into it? He can’t, is what.
‘Anyway, that’s mainly what I was thinkin’ about. I hope this weren’t too blasphemous, but you gotta understand that I don’t really give a shite. Very God-like of me, actually.’
There’s the ghostly sound of the curtains being drawn back, and then an echoing staccato of footsteps, each one sharp.
Paul jumps up suddenly, moving before he can think. He grips the curtains and draws the fabric back, but all he sees of the man is a elegant swish of tailends as he leaves the Church, the silence left in the absence of his nasal voice and hard shoes like a gaping hole.
Paul brings his hand up to his mouth and worries his thumbnail between his teeth. He feels inadequate, faced with this strange, forceful man with his effusive pain and anger, spilling out into that little confessional box. The man sounded unemotional, Paul thinks, speaking as though retelling a story. Paul usually provides comfort and reassurance, but the man didn’t want any of that. Paul gets the strong impression he wanted to shock.
He bites hard enough that a pinprick of blood appears by his nail, ruby red. Paul drops his hand away from his mouth and tries to think of nothing.
-
Annoyingly, the man takes up an unwilling residence in Paul’s thoughts. He thinks about that odd paradox in space they’ve named on the telly recently, a black hole . How they distorted matter, puncture the fabric of time and space with a roaring Nothing. Paul thinks that’s what the stranger did to him; used a well-aimed pin to nick at the fabric of Paul’s world, and now things are hovering around the edge, readying to fall into that endless nothing.
‘God’s plan is suffering ’ warps the clean parts of Paul’s brain relentlessly. He thinks of his Ma, and that’s unusual because he never, ever thinks of his Ma, ‘ts the whole point. But he’s thinking of her now, seeing little eddies of her in the dusty corners of rooms, a shimmer of her face in refractions of life. A ghost, not alive but not as put to rest as Paul had thought.
The man can’t be right, is the thing. One man with a nasal lilt that reminds Paul of the mersey and a disregard for proper etiquette can’t be right, not in the face of bibles and churches and faith , but he’s dug the points of two fingers under Paul’s and is ready to flip it upside down. He falls asleep and wonders if God is aiming a fist at the gauzy blue of His earth. Why He’d do that, when everything he’s ever loved is here.
Paul wakes on Sunday feeling bright as the liquid sun spilling in through his small window. He’s being tested, is the thing. His Faith (big, glowing word) is being tested, and all Paul needs to do is remain stronger than it. He could laugh- that was the whole deal, faith and it being tested. How the testing will, in turn, make you closer to God. It’s an opportunity, that’s all.
He makes his way jovially around his kitchen, spreading marmalade on toast and pouring a cup of tea, feeling the warm flush of it in the cold air. Feeds his cat, who slinks around his feet like black mercury. Whistles a tune, then stops when he starts thinking too hard about the bars of it.
He arrives at Church confident in himself. Like catching a spill in the pipes early on, before the leak becomes big and rusts the whole system unusable.
He sets up for service with a lazy candour, thumbing the thin pages of his bible to the verses he’s planned, setting out the altar, lighting the white points of candles. He thinks of nothing the whole time, except the bible verses he’s remembered for mass, the jokes he’s planning to pepper in, and what it would feel like to be asleep under the loam of the earth, if it would be like a hug from the Mother he won’t remember.
People begin arriving like clockwork, guided in by the resounding church bells (ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky - was that Tennyson?) and the respectful shuffling of feet. Paul greets them at the door, his white robes fitting perfectly. He knows how to mould his face to its best, and when he shakes the hands of people, he knows they appreciate it in him- a young priest, showing the youth that God is still important.
Paul stands at the front, the gentle sea of faces watching him, listening. He loves this- knowing that he’s right and everyone knows it too. Each glossy word he says spooling across the sunlit church, evaporating easy-like. He never trips over words, not like other people who he trained with- his voice releases the curlicue of letters, ringing of truth. Each time he does, he feels something wash home, dislodge the heavy sitting stones inside of him.
‘Lord we have sinned, Lord have mercy’ he says. Lord have mercy, the sea echoes back.
Paul’s starting the liturgy when his gaze stumbles onto the man at the back.
He’s familiar with the church goers, mostly families with their children and the elderly, dressed conservatively in unoffending jumpers and long-sleeved dresses, mary jane shoes rippling across the high roof. The man at the back breaks the sea of navy and red, a craggy rock for waves to beat themselves upon.
He’s sitting on the pew at the very back, alone, spread out loose-limbed and cocky with it. The light from the stained-glass window slices through the air, cutting him off. He’s dressed like he’s never stepped foot in this little Liverpool town before, long trench coat spilling from his willowy body, flared pants spread wide and some thin, gauzy button up shirt worn thin. His face is slaked with the sunlight, but Paul can make out the strong lines of it, hair that burns like a camera flash going off, round glasses reflecting discs of light. His arms are reclined along the back of the pew like he might kick his feet up on the one in front and Paul understands absolutely that this is the same man from the Confession the other day.
‘Uh-’ Paul’s voice gets caught in the back of his larynx. The air ripples, uncertain. At the back of the Church, he catches sight of the painting of Jesus’ body weeping on the cross. God’s plan is suffering…
Paul coughs, smiles down, Sorry folks, wine dries out the throat, and plunges forward. He continues the grove of what he’s used to, not letting his eyes catch on the strange man at the back as he preaches. When it’s time for the Liturgy of the Eucharist, Paul watches as the sea of people mingle, blurring those blocks of colours to shake hands, Peace be with you . The man in the back slouches up, slicing through the wall of light. Leans bodily forward, over the pew in front of him, and extends his hand to shake. Face split open into a toothy grin, all very friendly, all very proper. And with your spirit.
Paul cuts his eyes away. Blesses the bread and wine. ‘Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof ’.This is the part he likes almost the most. Placing the white bread onto lips, feeling the weighty chalice as he passes it along. The younger ‘uns who haven't had communion yet crossing their arms over themselves in an X as Paul blesses them. Feeling something pass from him to them.
The man is last. Paul stands on the steps leading to the platform, taller for a reason, yanno, but this man pivots one foot onto the bottom step, cocks out a hip. His two arms are held beneath his back, a mockery of submission. There’s something performative about the way he holds his body, exaggerating the angles of himself to make ‘em hard and unignorable. Juts up his chin, like a dare.
‘The body of Christ,’ Paul says. He places the wafer in this man's mouth, between two chapped lips. The man looks at Paul as he does this- most avert their gaze- his eyes intense beneath his specs. There’s another ripple, a stint in time where they’re frozen like that. Then the man cocks an eyebrow, draws the bread into his mouth and says ‘Amen’ with a cheeky grin, poking his tongue into his corner of his mouth. Paul passes him the chalice, watches the suggestion of something on the man's face. He holds the silver in long, knobbly fingers. Takes a sip and exaggerates a lip smack, then winks at Paul before walking back.
At the end of service, he stands by the doors, sending people off into the dark green of a winter day, umbrellas popping up as people pass through the door. He shakes hands, affects his easy smile as people wash out.
He knows he’s waiting for the man before he stops in front of him. Everyone else has left, the smell of rain and fresh earth whispering through the airy doors.
‘Hello,’ Paul says carefully. ‘I haven’t seen you at service before.’
‘Well, you wouldn't ‘ave. I’m passing through, one could say.’
Paul takes the man in with an unexpected hunger. He has the sort of face that looks like it was moulded by trained hands, fingers sculpting the high ridge of cheekbones, the firm melt of a jaw. A strong, roman nose holds up national health specs, ones which would beg to be overlooked on most but make a statement on this man’s face. Unkempt hair, a similar autumnal colour to his eyes, matched with a moustache and sideboards. Willowy figure draped in clothes that both show off and conceal.
Paul often thinks of himself as a person not meant to be painted, features odd and hard to define. Eyes which drooped like sleep, hair dark enough to vanish. Thinks of himself as vague and dreamy, a polaroid still developing, something hard to catch between hands. There is nothing vague or languide about this man- a baroque face of hard lines and slopes, the sort of person Paul would expect to see on stage, acting out the tragedies of Shakespeare each night.
‘Staying for long?’ Paul asks mildly. The man’s gaze on Paul is like the heavy light from cathedral windows, blazing and sort of heart stopping. Paul felt the drag of his eyes like fingertips, pressing into the soft, unset parts of himself.
‘Nah,’ the man said, his gaze dropping away like nothing. His hands snap forward- a shake of his sleeves- then drop to his sides, long, slender fingers crawling into a deep pocket to withdraw a carton of cigarettes. He swaps these to his other hand for no reason Paul can see.
‘You’re young for a priest, ain’t ya?’ the man says while Paul’s been staring, his nasal lilt resounding along the stone floor.
‘I suppose I am,’ Paul says, pitching his voice low, into trusty RP. He does this when he’s uncertain, withdrawing parts of himself like cards from a table. Falls back on those dark, Irish looks of his, surrounded by paintings of those cherubic saints. ‘Guess I didn’t see a point in waiting, as it’s my calling.’
The man grunts, slotting a cigarette between thin lips, blurred with a dripping ‘tache. ‘So how long ‘ave yer been speaking to-‘ he glances up, affected the tilt of his head- ‘the big man in our skies?’
‘I started training instead of A levels,’ Paul answers, reticent. ‘Became a priest earlier this year.’
‘And yer how old?’
‘Twenty-five.’
The man hisses an amused sound between his teeth. His long fingers snap a flame from a silver lighter, once, twice, then catch cherry red on his ciggie. ‘Long training time, eh?’
‘Seven years,’ Paul replies. The end of the cigarette glows red, an ember of light in an endless sky. Paul feels his eyes helplessly drawn to it.
‘And I suppose God-’ the man’s eyes latch into him again, stormed with some dark, inscrutable meaning. ‘Regularly chooses 18 year olds to become messengers for him, then.’
‘I suppose he does,’ Paul replies evenly. ‘Did for me.’
‘And you’ve never regretted that?’ the man asks. The fag dangles carelessly from his lips, a curlice of smoke dispersing into the air.
‘No,’ Paul says, matching those depthless amber eyes. ‘No, I don’t.’
A quirk by his mouth, quick as lightning, and then the stranger drops his arms, digging his spidery hands into miles of pockets.
‘Lucky you,’ he says, something astringent in his smoky syllables. Paul feels his sternum dip, trying to gather footing in this rocky man in front of him. Nothing like he’s ever seen before.
‘What’s your name?’ Paul says, trying for smoothness.
‘John Lennon,’ he says, a hitch in volume that tips Paul off that he’s used to announcing it, not saying. Another tip- Lennon - and:
‘The writer?’ Paul hazards. Another grin like a razor, slow sinking.
‘Oh, so ya read outside of the sermons?’
‘I haven’t read your work, y’know, but I’ve heard of you.’
‘Aye, they all have.’
‘What brings you here then?’ Paul says, trying for buttery smoothness.
‘Dead father,’ John says. ‘Bummer.’
‘A drag,’ Paul says before he can think otherwise. Another grin, this one tangible, something that Paul feels beneath his ribcage.
‘ ‘S that a bible verse, then?’ John asks.
‘A paraphrasing,’ Paul says. He thinks he’s getting the hang of this- not a denying, but an allowing, being dragged into Lennon’s blunt wit and strange voice. Paul finds the cadence is there already.
‘Must ‘ave missed that one,’ John says. He huffs out a plume of blue-grey smoke and it occurs to Paul that John shouldn’t be smoking in Church.
‘It was you in Confession the other day,’ Paul says instead. He’s coy, but not shy or apologetic. John raises one of those bushy eyebrows.
‘Well done. Missed a trick with Scotland Yard.’
‘You’ve got a distinctive voice,’ Paul says. ‘Are you from Liverpool, originally?’
‘Very good, Father,’ John says. ‘Raised there, ‘s why. Do I have to call yer Father, by the way, do ya have a name? Or does God collect ‘em as well?’
Paul isn’t sure what else God is collecting but isn’t totally convinced of Lennon's catholic knowledge. ‘Paul,’ he says instead. Never mentions the aforementioned James now, not since he dropped his Fathers name ‘round the same time he dropped his Father.
‘Well, hello Paul,’ John says. He sticks out a hand, twiggy fingers tipped with smudged ink. Paul takes it.
‘You must live in London,’ Paul says as their hands drop.
‘Yep,’ John says. ‘A failed artist's dream.’
‘You’re not a failed artist though,’ Paul says. He’s trying to dig into the crescents of John’s long cheekbones, the curve of skin around his mouth, but never gets anything conclusive. Like staring at the ceiling paintings at church, squinting out details that are too far up to reach.
‘All artists are failed, yanno. ‘S why we make art.’
‘Right,’ Paul says. That feeling again, a black hole plucking at the corners of his mind, ready to warp and spin. The temptation to fall in.
John grins again, toothy and surprisingly boyish. ‘I don’t want to keep ya. Just thought I oughta to introduce meself, seeing as you’ll probably be here for me Dad’s burial.’
Paul raises the curve of one brow. ‘I take it you weren’t close with a man whose death is a limb to be chopped off.’
John exhales smoke. ‘Didn’t think a priest would appreciate that one.’
‘Didn’t think you believed it as much as you wanted to,’ Paul says.
John cants his head aside, gaze a bit animalish. A cat circling another. It’s like he’s suddenly engaged Paul in a debate he wants to hear Paul’s side in.
‘The last time I saw him was when I robbed him,’ Johns says eventually. He sticks those long hands into his pockets and gives Paul a theatrical nod. ‘See you in mass, Father.’
And then he’s gone, the billow of his trench coat sliding through the Church doors and into the rain.
-
Paul does not see John Lennon next at mass, but rather at another Confession. That nasal lilt, shockingly familiar to Paul:
‘Forgive me Father, for I will sin. It will be years and years before my next confession.’
‘Hello, John.’
‘Thought these were anonymous.’
‘They’re not.’
‘Oh.’
‘But go on.’
‘’Ight. I guess I was just thinkin’ about my purpose on earth. If I have one.’
‘God has a plan for all of us.’
‘Mm, sure. But what if me purpose is wrong.’
‘God doesn’t make mistakes-’
‘Ha . I mean, yeah sure. But what if ‘e did it with me? What if I’m made cravin’ dark, awful sins?’
‘Temptations, you mean?’
‘Do you have temptations, Father?’
‘Everyone has temptations. We must resist them.’
‘I don’t believe ya, y’know. Bet you woke up perfect and all Godly.’
‘That isn’t true. I had to sacrifice plenty.’
‘Aye?’
‘To join the priesthood, you have to dedicate your whole life to God.’
‘Yeah, but you don’t regret it.’
‘No-’
‘So you must not face very hard temptations.’
‘That’s not-’
‘Or ‘ave made very many sacrifices.’
‘There are things I had to give up.’
‘Yeah?’
‘I miss…I-’
‘What do you miss, then? Come on, what?’
‘Nothing. I miss nothing. I’m living the life I want.’
‘Livin’ a life your 16 year old self would want?’
‘John-’
‘Well, that was very helpful, Father. I’ll be thinkin’ of you before I resist the sins of drink and drugs. Goodday.’
The shudder of the curtains being yanked back, and then Lennon’s walking away unseen, while Paul sits in the small confession booth. He sees, for a second, his childhood bedroom, the guitar propped in a corner and his old mate George Harrison perched on his bed and working his fingers skilfully across a fretboard. Then he hears the Church door slam and Paul begins trying to forget the whole thing.
-
John Lennon may not be a stage actor, but he does a good job of setting up production in Paul’s mind for the following days. Paul feels a strange inclination towards things he hasn’t thought about in years; the descending scales in songs, the ghostly words of 17th century poets, the simple lines in painting. There are new colours Paul keeps catching in the world. The sleepy sway of willows outside his house seems to snap to alertness. Layers of green and brown of the forests seem to wink in the moonlight, asking to be parsed in words. Paul wonders how Lennon does it, holds these ineffable crests of the world and put them into something meaningful. Not that Paul agreed with what he had said. John was just… interesting. A proper bohemian. Paul felt something wondrous in their conversations, how there was never a script to it.
Infuriating and enchanting, what Lennon’s done to his brain. Paul tries to piece together what he knows about him, but it’s not much. He’s heard that he’s part of the underground beatnik types of London’s smokey edges, or claims to be, that he’s a writer who isn’t afraid to shock, and, according to what he told Paul at mass, that he once robbed his deceased Father. That he has thoughts on death and God that Paul resists but also, strangely-
Their next meeting is accidental. Paul winds up at the local pub one Saturday, prepared to slink into conversations with men he gets along with, maybe have a laugh with a woman or two which won’t go beyond just that. Let his vague edges dissolve into the yellow smoke of the pub until his presence is unoffending and easy.
The pub is full and lit up like a flame in a jar, orange smearing the lines of things soft. Paul has the first button of his shirt undone and is winding through the scattered shapes of people, beer in hand, when he sees him.
Lennon is reclined lazily in a booth, a lime green shirt that hangs on his twiggy body like paper. His hair is tousled, easy with the scrapped shape of him. He’s wearing that grin, cat-like and impossibly enticing, as he talks to a young couple next to him.
Paul finds his way over before he can think better of it.
‘Oh, hello Father,’ the girl says- Marge, a first year college student who shows to mass on-and-off, depending, Paul supposes, if she and her boyfriend can be asked to go.
‘Hello,’ Paul says, friendly. He meets John’s eyes, ambivalent in the light glinting from his specs.
‘Paul,’ John greets, voice dark and smokey.
‘John,’ Paul says back.
‘We were just talking to John about his work!’ Marge says. She turns, young body tangling with her boyfriends. ‘It’s so contentious, but that’s what we really need right now. I think it’s brilliant.’
She smiles at John and her boyfriend tightens an arm around her slim waist.
‘We’d better be off,’ he says, tugging her along the booth. ‘Didn’t want to keep you.’
‘Not a problem,’ John says. The couple give a final wave before stumbling off into the fog of people.
‘Well,’ John says to Paul. He twists a hip up, spreading further along the booth, limbs thin and unwieldy like a fawn. Even his unended sentences seem loaded and ready to fire, and Paul finds himself drawn in again, sitting down opposite him.
‘I suppose you’re sort of a celebrity here,’ Paul says.
‘No,’ John clams down quickly. ‘I ain’t a celebrity at all.’
Paul raises an eyebrow. ‘No? You’re a famous author.’
‘Don’t make me a celebrity. Doesn’t make me anythin’. Didn’t realise priests could drink booze.’
‘We can, yeah,’ Paul says.
‘Not a very godly pleasure, hm?’
‘Doesn’t deter my faith,’ Paul says, taking a sip. ‘You come to Church a lot, for a lad who doesn’t believe in God.’
‘Ah, never said I didn’t believe, did I? Just said I don’t believe he was good. Besides, I might not be coming to Church for God.’
‘Why are you coming to Church, then?’
‘Why are you talking to me right now?’
‘I don’t think you understand how Confession works,’ Paul says, refusing to be bulldozed by Lennon and his silky words. Answering one question while he’s tricking you into another.
John grins, shaking a ciggie from his pack and lighting it. ‘I knew you wouldn’t stop thinking about it. Like a stain you can’t rub out.’
‘Didn’t know you were a psychologist.’
‘All writers are psychologists, darlin’. ’S part of the gig.’
‘Is that why you do what you do, then? To show people the truth of human nature?’
‘In a way,’ John says shrewdly.
‘What ways?’
John sucks the damp end of his ciggie. ‘It’s important,’ he says, suddenly slow and meaningful. ‘To not sugar coat. There are parts of the world that are, not facts , but deeper, slimy things. Crevices, yeah? Some people can see ‘em, from an early age. Messes them up a bit. I think it’s me duty to get those dark crevices into words. Turn ‘em into somethin’ verbal, ‘cause not everyone can.’
‘Shining a light?’ Paul says, raising an eyebrow as he takes a swing of his drink.
John cocks his head, considering. ‘I guess I focus on presenin’ the truth over lies. And the truth is often a dark, dirty thing.’
‘I disagree,’ Paul says. The drink is warm and strong, as strong as he thinks words could be. ‘You’re focusing on the dark, dirty things. Not every truth is, necessarily.’
‘ You don’t focus on any of the truth. Just cover it up with fairytales.’
‘God, you mean?’ Paul says slyly. John affects a shrug, the fabric of his shirt dripping from the points of his shoulders.
‘I don’t think people have to believe in it all, not factually,’ Paul says carefully. ‘I think, probably, most of ‘em don’t. Y’know, don’t think the Earth actually came about in seven days, or that Eve was born from Adam’s rib. I think they see it more poetically. Do a bit of what you do, words used to convey some aspect of truth.’
‘Truth, aye?’
‘Yeah. I think the morals there, mostly, they’re good, y’know. Necessary for society. And I think religion like this, mass and prayers, I think it’s hopeful. Maybe people need hope, to accept truth. Maybe that’s the only way we can do anything about it.’
John sucks in a drag and lets the smoke trail out, dragon-like, from his nose. There’s a curious lilt to his expression, blanketed with the oblique plume of smoke. Paul gets the feeling he’s being studied again by Lennon’s careful eyes, the irises of them pressing into Paul’s face. Paul looks back, meets his gaze. Lets it rest there.
‘What do you believe then, Paul?’ Lennon says, quiet. ‘Anything at all?’
Paul feels something warm shiver up his back. John’s eyes, dark, and depthless, and asking.
Paul takes another drink, feeling the orange of it fill him up.
‘God,’ he says finally.
‘Right,’ John says slowly. He swoops forward suddenly, the points of his elbows balanced on the table. ‘Let me buy you a drink, eh? Can tell my friends back in Lundun I got a priest a drink.’
Paul opens his mouth, but John barrels forward:
‘London is very un-christian, you know. Could probably convince ‘em you’re the Pope.’
Paul laughs, unexpected at the sound of it. John grins again, that wide, boyish one that makes Paul feel like a live wire.
‘Alright, sure. Be good to tell people that an infamous author bought me a drink.’
‘That’s the spirit,’ John says, before sliding out of the booth, quick as anything, almost quicker than Paul’s brain can keep up with.
-
The street is swirling its lamps by the time they’re done, the air trembling like the bass of a blues song. John Lennon’s arm is pressed firm into Paul’s side, a warm flush through the dripping black of his trenchcoat. Paul’s let go of the heavy systems of his body somewhere between his third and fourth drink, buzzed with colour and sound.
‘Wheresit you live?’ he asks John, voice slip-and-sliding back into his strong Liddypool drawl.
‘Round by Crescent Way, near the woods.’
‘Oh, aye. ‘S a nice place?’
John snorts. ‘’ts a fucking shithole.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Cause I’m squatting, Father Paul. The Victorian mansions was all taken by the war ghosties, so I got the slums.’
‘You know, if you need a place t’stay-’
‘Me Dad’s old house is mine, I could book a hotel. I don’t need a place t’ stay.’
‘Do you have a house in London?’
John laughs again. ‘I do now, Paul. Don’t go callin’ Scotland Yard on me.’
‘I just-’
‘Nah, I know.’ Whip of a cigarette. Click of a lighter. ‘Author with a bucketload of money choosin’ to squat. ‘E must be as mad as they say.’
‘You don’t feel mad,’ Paul whispers.
‘No?’
‘No. Feels like… feels like you’d go mad, if you saw what you saw and pretended-’
‘Yer getting it Paul. Do ya have a surname, by the way? All writers havet’ ‘ave a good one.’
‘M not a writer.’
‘That a no?’
‘It’s McCartney.’
‘Hmm,’ John pretends to ponder. ‘It will do.’
‘Do what?’
‘You know what Baldwin said,’ John says loudly. Paul plucks the fag from John’s fingers to take a drag.
‘Probably not,’ Paul allows through smoke. John snatches the ciggie back, wagging his hand.
‘Baldwin said,’ John says, leaning heavily into Paul, ‘that we don’t have homes until we leave ‘em, and when we’ve left, we can never go back. That’s the paradox of it. We only have houses after we’ve lived there, and then it’s just the absence of a house. So if I don’t have a house in the first place…’
‘You’ll never have to miss it after,’ Paul finishes for him.
John smiles, sticky as treacle. It lingers there- enigmatic, the precipice of something brilliant- and then he’s off suddenly, whipping around and sprinting down the street.
‘John!’ Paul cries behind him. John cackles, a raven sound that spirals down the cobblestone. Paul feels it tug a grin, and then he’s off too, sprinting after John in a clamber of long legs.
They blur the river that runs down the street, the lamps smearing into yellow, the night a crack in a crystal, glimmering with secret colours. Paul feels it shake his body, the absurdity of it. Feels like when he was a kid, how he could run and run forever, when nothing was real so everything was.
Paul’s sprinting fast enough that his body loses some of its realness. He’s passing through a street, somewhere, anywhere, whooping out to the dark night in hopes it calls back. Overhead the stars listen carefully.
John stops at the mouth of a street, catching Paul bodily with his hands. He’s hacking in breaths, laughing a bit at Paul’s breathless grin ( Ring out the darkness of the land, ring in the Christ that is to be , yes it was Tennyson, he’s sure). They’re by a dilapidated house but it is, to Paul’s relief, still standing, minus a few wooden panels instead of windows.
‘Got a priest to walk me home,’ John says. ‘A good start of a joke maybe.’
‘Maybe,’ Paul says. The spaces around John are tilting and spinning, whirls of colour. Millions of not-so-black-holes.
‘Can ya get home yerself?’ John says. ‘Know it ain’t a five star hotel but ye can stay ‘ere for the night.’
‘’M fine. House isa few minutes away.’ Paul says. ‘Will you come to mass again?’
‘I don’t know,’ John says carelessly, shouldering open the door. ‘Maybe if I feel called to.’
‘Okay,’ Paul says. ‘Listen carefully.’
John grins, a flash of something brilliant, before he ducks into the house.
Paul begins to walk back, slower now, the street beginning to return between its lines. There’s a warm flush on his cheeks despite the cold, and he ducks his head and smiles to himself. Above, the moon watches, silent and inscrutable.