Into My Life

Chapter 7

It was only about six p.m. for us, but it was midnight in London. Heathrow was quiet compared to the airport scenes of the last two days. We were met by a smaller crowd of die-hard fans who wanted to see with their own eyes that John was alright, but there was still a full complement of reporters. They repeated the same questions I had heard so many times in the last week.

Finally, in a private room, Cyn, and Pattie and Maureen were waiting. Pattie laughed and threw herself into George's arms and he picked her up and swung her around, kissing her and laughing. George was glad to be home. Maureen and Ringo just came together in a kiss that seemed destined to set an airport record. Cyn bent to John and he held her awkwardly, his casted arm around her. He kissed her briefly. They looked at each other and she reached out and touched his face. "Let's get you home, then luv," she said. He nodded.

"You must be Terry," she said to me.

"Tess" said John.

"Anything but Theresa," I said.

Cyn laughed. "Thank you, Tess. I feel like I know you already. You were wonderful explaining things on the phone! I was so worried. He didn't want me to come and it was good to know that you were taking care of him."

"I tried," I said.

John grinned up at me. "And I can be very trying."

Cyn and I both laughed. Pattie came over and kissed John. George introduced her to me. She was so cute and definitely looked like a model. I ordinarily disliked such girls immediately just on principal, but she was so open and friendly that I couldn't imagine disliking her. She promised to take me shopping and show me around London. Ringo and Maureen finally surfaced, and there were more introductions. Airport security was ready to move us out to waiting cars. I looked around for Paul, but he was gone. Neil gave me a quick kiss as he helped me into John's car and said he would see me when he got back to London. I left the airport wondering when I would see either of them again.

John's car was a Roll's Royce with a chauffeur. His home was a Tudor style mansion out in the London suburbs, surrounded by a high wall with a huge wrought iron gate with a security system that allowed it to be opened from the car or the house. I didn't see much of the house that night. John greeted his mother-in-law who had stayed with Julian, then sat in the kitchen having a cup of tea and filled Cyn and her mother in on events of the tour. He wound down quickly on that topic. Cyn filled him in on a few household goings-on while he was away which didn't seem of interest to him, and then he sat quietly while Cyn and I talked a little. I thought perhaps he was worn out from the long day and suggested he might want to go to bed. He agreed to that indifferently but said he wanted to look in on Julian first.

I helped him up the stairs and he sat at his little boy's bedside watching him sleep while Cyn and I went back downstairs for the suitcases. She showed me my room and then I helped John to their room. We did his exercises, making Cyn cringe when she saw how they hurt him. After I explained when he could have another pain pill, I helped him get undressed. Cyn started to cry when she saw the bruises. I faded out of the room, closing the door behind me.

Even though it was only early evening for me, by the time I unpacked I was tired enough to go to bed myself and sleep dreamlessly.

The first few days I was in a fog of jet lag. John slept for nearly two days straight and spent the next few days dozing on and off on the sofa in the sun room. Cyn told me that was short. He often slept for three or four days after a tour, then laid around for a week. I slept a lot the first day, but after that I wasn't so much tired as just all turned around. Hungry at the wrong time, sleepy at noon and wide awake at midnight.

My fears about Cyn not liking me were ungrounded. She was a shy but warm person and after the first day we spent hours in girl talk. Nothing deep, nothing terribly personal, but it seemed that we would have gotten to be good friends if I weren't going to be just a temporary intrusion into their lives. She proudly showed me the house. It was really impressive and she was slowly finding the furnishings she wanted. "It's hard to fill such a big house," she laughed. "I can't bring myself to spend all that money." She said John wasn't particularly interested. "Once the pool was in, he was satisfied. Now he just buys gadgets. Like this." She pointed out a suit of armor whose chest opened to reveal a telephone.

We spent a lot of time in the kitchen, finally finished after nearly a year of remodeling. John complained that it had cost twice what it should have. They had run into all kinds of "problems" with the work simply because he had money. It was Cyn's favorite room and she did most of the cooking even though a housekeeper was there every weekday.

John's favorite room was the sunroom overlooking the pool and he seldom ventured into the huge living room. The sunroom was kind of what was to be named "the family room" in years to come. The TV, a stereo, Julian's toys, Cyn's knitting, John's books and newspapers were all there. In that huge house, it was where they lived. More noticeably, it was one of only two rooms in that huge house that "felt" like John. With the exception of the presence of a lot of television sets throughout the house and the occasional gadget like the suit of armor and a big layout of toy cars on a racetrack, the house reflected little of John's personality. I wasn't sure any of it was Cyn either. It was probably more of the decorator's ideas than hers: An elaborately wallpapered formal dining room for a couple who would never invite guests to a sit down dinner; a big living room with high priced designer chairs for visitors who preferred bean bags and throw pillows on the floor. But the sunroom was a mix of unusual furniture, posters, photos and mementos on the walls, overflowing book shelves, newspapers, records. I wasn't sure what I expected John's home to look like inside, but this room was the one where John seemed most at home. The other room that fit my image of "John at home" was on the third floor. With his bad leg he didn't go up there then, but it was a room full of John's recording and musical equipment. Huge speakers, reel to reel tape machines, microphones, a piano (bet the movers loved hauling that up there!) guitars, some sort of electrical organ thing and gizmos I didn't recognize. John gave me a copy of Revolver which was just about to be released, but since he didn't go up to the music room, I didn't go up there often either. Instead I spent hours in the sunroom playing it over and over.

So many things that happened in the weeks to come were encoded in my memory to the accompaniment of the music of Revolver. When things happened, a song or a line or phrase would run through my mind. Sometimes a whole song fit, sometimes it was just a line taken out of context. It was years before I could really listen to the album and hear it as it was written, not as I heard it through the events of that summer. One of the songs, "I'm Only Sleeping," took on a new, different and special meaning from the way I had heard it on Yesterday and Today because now as I listened the artist was demonstrating the song on the sofa across the room.

I spent a lot of my time making friends with Julian while Yellow Submarine played in the background. He loved the song, and he had no idea that John had anything to do with it. Julian was adorable. Just past three, shy, serious at first, but in a few days we were good buddies.

John's Aunt Mimi came to send a couple of days with us and she was an amazement to me. She was proper and very upper middle class. John prided himself on being improper and would never admit to being anything but working class. He absolutely refused to take any advice from her, delighted in shocking her, and if she said the sky was blue, he would insist that it was orange. But she fussed over him, nagged him, advised him, argued with him, and the love on his face was plain to see.

Besides John, Cyn and Julian, the Lennon household included a rather grouchy chauffeur named Les Anthony, a gardener who was seen and not heard, a housekeeper named Dot who obviously adored John, three cats who also adored him as much as any cat will let on they like anyone, and, intermittently, a mother-in-law who did not. She was otherwise a perfectly nice lady, but just as Cyn turned a blind eye to John's faults, Mrs. Powell turned one to his virtues. Granted, his faults tended to be major; screwing around, drinking, drugs, absolutely foul language, carefully deleted from his usual speech when Julian was around. He didn't have the same concern for my tender ears, though he toned it down for Cyn's Mom, the housekeeper and any other females. I considered it a sign that he liked me, trusted me, counted me as one of the guys that when we were alone together the words slipped back in.

If his faults were major, so were his virtues. He was warm, honest with everyone except himself, loved Julian, could laugh at himself as easily as he laughed at others, generous (he had bought Mrs. Powell a house nearby and she had a monthly income from him) and amazingly tolerant of her presence even though she stiffened visibly when ever he walked into a room. She was not reluctant to tell him the error of his ways and comment on his character, and when she did, he did not answer. That was incredible, since he was perfectly capable of cutting her and anyone else to shreds. He did it regularly when people pissed him off.  Even though she was very nice and welcoming to me, I  was always relieved when she left, and he sometimes indulged in a muttered comment about her when she was out the door.

Although not part of the household, the girls who hung around at the driveway gate were a constant presence. From the time I got up in the morning until late afternoon when the buses to and from London made their last run, there was always someone there waiting for a glimpse of John. For the first few days, they were joined by an occasional reporter, but for the most part it was just moony-eyed young teenagers. "Gatebirds" John called them.

The second day we were back, a doctor came to the house to check John over. As he examined John's shoulder and knee, I explained what pain pills John was on and how often he took them, described his headaches and the balance problem that, although less severe, were still present. I explained the exercises we had been doing and the doctor said he wanted a physical therapist to see him. He also wanted a whole new series of x-rays. That meant a trip to the hospital the next day. I didn't think either the therapist nor the x-rays were necessary but figured that the doctor was not taking any chances with his most famous patient. John was not at all pleased about all the fuss.

Cyn and I went with him to the hospital to have the x-rays done, only to find ourselves sitting for hours in a hospital cafeteria, hiding in a corner booth, while they redid his entire series of x-rays. Three girls who looked suspiciously like student nurses came into the cafeteria and I couldn't resist -- I really wanted to talk to them. I went over and introduced myself as a nursing student from America on vacation in England. I explained that I wanted to meet some English students just to hear about what nursing school was like in England. They were indeed students. We laughed about the similarities in uniforms and said they would love to get together. We talked for a bit, and they gave me phone numbers. When I went back to Cyn, she surprised me by saying it was fine if I wanted to invite them to the house. She thought it would be a great joke. Show up for an social evening with a new acquaintance and find yourself in John Lennon's living room!

When we finally got back together with John, we sat for another half hour waiting for the doctor. Finally, he arrived and announced that the x-rays were fine and a physical therapist would be in to see him "shortly". An hour later we were on our way with John griping because we now had exercises to do for his knee too.

We went from there to the Beatles offices. John introduced me to all the secretaries, then went upstairs to talk to Brian. The secretaries surprised me. I had expected a crew of sweet young things, but these were real secretaries. All ages, all types. They showed me around the two large rooms that held secretarial pool for correspondence. Behind them was a room for receiving and sorting mail. They showed me some of the information that was recorded about fan mail. Country, age and sex of writer, general topic. All of the mail addressed to any of the Beatles was read and sorted. Some of the more interesting and a sampling of "typical" letters were put into a bin for each of the Beatles. Brian and Tony's mail was not read, just delivered to their offices. There was also a bin for Mal.

"Doesn't Neil get mail?" I asked, thinking it odd that Mal had a bin but not Neil who was at least as well known to fans.

"Some," the woman showing me around said. "But that bin is for Mal."

I looked at her, still not getting it.

"Mal is responsible for security," she said.

"Oh!" I said, the words and the look on her face finally telling me that one held the crank letters. I was chilled to note that there were several letters in it.

There was a separate room for packages. Crammed full of, well, junk. The secretaries said they threw away any food, and they took great delight in showing me a basket of lacy underwear that had accumulated in just a few months. They said that the Beatles had at first stopped in regularly to see what had arrived, but now waited for a secretary to let them know if their was anything really worth looking at among the paintings, sculptures, hand knitted sweaters and oddities that arrived.

George was upstairs too, and when he and John came back down with Brian, he called Pattie and told her to meet us for dinner at a restaurant. As we were leaving the office, Paul came in. I had not seen him since the night we got off the plane, and it was like seeing him for the first time all over again. Same total blackout of the rest of the world. Just his smile, dark hair and eyes. All I knew is that I wanted to touch him. He kissed Cyn and smiled at me. They invited him to join us for dinner and he hesitated, but when he looked at me, he smiled and said he could come with us for a drink but couldn't stay. I was walking on air and my mind was racing ahead, picturing Paul and me spending time together sightseeing, spending time together alone . . . I slammed the door on the images crowding my head, afraid to get my hopes up and yet really believing that something was going to happen between us.

Just after we were seated, I looked at Paul and found him looking intently at me. My heart did a little somersault, but when I smiled at him, he looked away quickly. We ordered drinks, and he asked me what I had been doing and made polite small talk with me, but that was it. It was nothing like the way he had talked to me on the plane. He talked with the others about events in the London music scene that had happened while they were away. I didn't recognize the names of any of the groups he was talking about. Apparently they were part of the London underground/psychedelic movement. When he said he was having a bunch of people in on Friday evening and he hoped we would come, I really wasn't sure if that invitation included me. So much for my daydreams about spending my weeks in England in his company! But then he turned to me and said, "I hope you'll come. You'll get a chance to meet a lot of people. Marianne Faithful is coming and Mick says he will drop by."

"I'd love to come," I said politely. I did want to go. I wanted to be able to say I had met Mick Jagger and all the others but somehow the invitation to come as an opportunity to meet people was not near as appealing as it would have been if he had just said, "I hope you'll come."

Paul left right after that, saying he had a date. He had said nothing about showing me around London and I wondered if he had forgotten that he had ever said he would. I could understand that, but the sinking feeling I had was more than that. He was so warm and friendly on the flight over, had held my hand, had seemed to like me, and now it was as if we had barely met before. I didn't know what to think. By the time he left, I was feeling very confused and more than a little embarrassed at how far my imagination had taken things.

On Thursday, I had an appointment to meet with Nigel Holmes and Tony Barrow to talk about the articles. John, being the central character in the articles, was asked to join us. I showed them a few pages that I had started on, just describing how I found myself at the hotel that day, my reactions to meeting John, -- which had John laughing -- how scared I was that he was seriously hurt and I might miss something, John's concern about the crying fans as he was put in the ambulance. Nigel asked me to outline the rest of the article for him, so we worked on that for several minutes. Tony asked John if there was anything he did not want said. John just looked at me and said "Tess knows." I tried not to show any reaction to that beyond a smile of acknowledgment, but those words, that trust, meant more to me than anything else he could have said.

When I went over the outline with Tony and Nigel, they decided that all the stuff about the hotel and the hospital and Paul trying to decide about the concert would go in one article, and the stay at the hotel in a second. For the third article, my stay in England would be limited to a brief description and used as a way to introduce some information Tony wanted included. I was to interview each of them and talk about touring and why they didn't want to do it anymore, how they wanted to concentrate on the music. I wasn't to say that too directly in the article though. No announcement about stopping touring was going to be made. He just wanted the fans to recognize that the emphasis would be on recording because the music was changing. If they read between the lines so much the better.

I was worried enough about turning out the story of meeting them, and this twist to the assignment was daunting. Tony and Nigel quickly assured me that I would have any help I needed in getting it written. Tony would explain to each of the Beatles the purpose and the direction he wanted the interviews to take, and work with me on it.

When we finished, Tony took me down to the secretarial area and explained to one of them, an older lady named Liz, what I was doing. She got me a tape recorder to use for the interviews and instructed me to bring the first draft to her for typing.

Ringo came in and Tony explained to him that I needed to interview him for the third article and what the intent was. Ringo smiled at me and said "Anything you need, luv. Come over to the house some evening next week and I'll pour my heart out to you. This article will finance a degree in medicine for you if you want!"

We sat and talked for a while as they went through their mail. It was fun to watch the secretaries interact with them. They were just Richie and John to them and they had a good time with each other. The girls asked about Maureen and the baby, and John and Ringo asked about the girl's families and boyfriends, and generally caught up on office gossip. It must have been nice for the Beatles to come into the office and interact with people who treated them almost normally.

We were just talking with the secretaries when Paul breezed in with Martha who dispensed furry, slobbering, "I may be huge but I am really still a puppy" greetings. I didn't know what to expect from Paul, but that didn't keep my pulse from racing. The secretaries fussed over Martha, bringing her water in a big ashtray and scolding Paul for making her walk so far in the summer heat.

"You walked to the office?" I asked in surprise.

"I don't live far," he said as if that explained it.

"But what about the fans?" Within minutes of John's arrival anywhere, a crowd of fans was waiting for him to return to the car.

"I stop and say hello and then walk away." He said it as if it were the simplest thing in the world.

I looked at him in disbelief. He grinned, glanced over at John who was not paying any attention to us, busy going through a huge stack of mail with Cyn. Paul beckoned me over to him and whispered conspiratorially, "Don't tell John, but it is the Rolls Royce that gives him away. If he would travel in an ordinary car, he could go anywhere."

I laughed at the simple truth of that. "Act like a big star and they treat you like one. Act normal and they treat you normal?"

"Yes, that's about it. As long as no one knows we are going to be someplace and we don't stay in one place too long, we can get round quite a bit."

"I'm glad," I said. "From everything I've seen so far you seem to be like . . ." I hesitated, realizing my story of lightening bugs in a mayonnaise jar might not make sense to an Englishman.

"What?"

"Well, lightening bugs."

A few minutes later we were sitting side by side on one of the desks as I told him about summer nights spent catching lightening bugs and how they stopped flashing when they realized they were prisoners. He told me about his summer nights catching frogs and stealing apples, and somehow we were back on track. He wasn't just being polite, a good co-host for my visit to London. He was looking at me with interest and warmth, as tuned into me as I was to him. A half hour later we were still sitting there talking, only vaguely aware of the other people in the room, but then Ringo came over to say he was leaving.

"Just give me a call next week for the interview, Tess," he said.

"What interview?" Paul asked. I looked up at him and the smile was gone.

"I have to interview each of you for one of my articles," I said feeling quicksand under my feet. "Tony asked me to add it to the others."

Paul looked down at me. I wasn't sure what I saw in his eyes. It didn't really look like anger, but his jaw was clenched. "Sorry, Tess. I didn't want you to write for him in the first place," he said with what seemed to be real regret. "No interview." He got up and headed for the door.

"Aw, come on Paul," Ringo said. "It will help explain--"

Paul stopped in the doorway and turned back. "No interview. Tony knew I wouldn't do it. He shouldn't have set it up!" Whatever regrets he had felt, his tone reflected real annoyance now.

"Don't be a pain in the ass, Paul," John said. "Just give her fifteen minutes of your charming bullshit."

"Give her an hour of yours and call it even!" Paul said coldly and walked out.

The room was silent for a long moment. Then Ringo said, "I'll talk to him. Once he understands the purpose he'll come round." He saw the tears in my eyes and put an arm around me. "It's not you, luv. Paul is a bit on the outs with the press these days."

John just said, "Let's go. I'll explain on the way home." Once we were in the Rolls and headed home, he told me that just before they left for the Japanese tour early that summer, Paul had broken up with a woman he had been dating for about two months. Her name was Ellen and she was a very wealthy London socialite. When they came back the gossip columns were full of stuff Ellen had said about Paul.

"Don't even ask what kind of stuff. A pile of lies and exaggerations. She's a first class bitch," he said. "Brian and Tony had the lawyers working overtime to shut her up." He told how she had worked on a deal to publish a tell all article in one of Britain's big magazines and was talking to Playboy about another. The lawyers managed to convince the publisher here that it wasn't in their best interests to go ahead and they backed out. Playboy apparently did a little investigating and decided to back off.

"He has refused to be interviewed since, " John finished. "He's got a sulk on with the press for printing any of it. He's furious with her -- and with himself for getting involved with someone everybody knew was hard as nails."

I didn't know what to say. I sat back and watched London pass by, trying to tell myself it didn't matter. After a bit, John said "I'll talk to him if you like."

I smiled at him gratefully. "No, leave him alone. He's got good reason for feeling like he does. Besides, I came to England to make sure you made it home OK, and to do some sightseeing and to earn money for school. He wasn't part of the deal."

He looked at me but for once elected not to say anything.

I spent most of Friday working on the first two articles. Julian sat next to me at the kitchen table turning out two pages of scribbles for every one of mine. John wandered in and read over my shoulder.

"Where's the bit with you dripping all over my shirt?" he asked.

"Can't have the fans knowing what a bunch of sex maniacs you are!"

Julian clamored for John to read his story, so John sat down and, very seriously, read Julian's manuscript. Much to Julian's surprise it turned out to be a story about a little girl who took a big thorn out of a fierce lion's paw and protected him until he was strong again. The fierce lion became her friend for life. He tried to protect her from the other lions who pretended to like her but really only wanted to have her for lunch. But the girl thought the other lions were cute went out to play with one of them anyway. The big lion worried and worried about her, but she came safely home. She had eaten the lion for lunch!

John proceeded to tell Julian it was very good and he would be a famous writer someday -- like his father. Julian beamed with pride and ran for his crayons to illustrate his book.

"And the moral of the story?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Everybody wants lunch. The trick is to walk away afterward."

Pete Shotton arrived about then, and John introduced him as "his best friend." Pete was the only person I met who had no fear of John. "So you are Winnie's nursemaid," Pete said to me. The fact that Pete dared use his middle name, much less the childish version of it, and got a laugh from John was surprising enough, but then Pete started teasing John about becoming one of the cripples he so delighted in making fun of. I hadn't realized it, but John did seem to have a thing about physical deformities. His cartoon drawings and the characters in his book were often cripples of some sort, and I had seen him do his little "spastic" routine in film clips of concerts. From what Pete was saying John often made hysterically funny but not very nice comments about people's physical problems. Some kind of compensatory mechanism for being nearly blind as a bat, I guessed. Even Paul and George who had known him forever had not teased him about being a cripple himself now, but somehow Pete got by with it and John laughed with him. Within minutes they were headed out the door together.

"Up to no good, as usual," Cyn laughed.

The last words we heard as they went out the door were Pete's: "You are a lousy driver whole! As a cripple it's bloody fuckin' likely I'll let you drive, mate."

I spent the next couple of hours agonizing over what to wear to Paul's house that evening. Dressy? Casual? Real casual? I asked Cyn's advice and she assured me that as long as it was short enough to make bending over impossible, it would fit right in! I settled on Sandy's wine colored mini-skirt as the shortest of the skirts available and the pink Henley style pullover top whose neck edging and button placket was of a wine paisley design fabric.

Pete brought John home about an hour after Cyn had asked them to be back and an hour before she expected them to be back. John was in a good mood, and it struck me that it was the first time since we had been back in London that I had seen him really laughing, really animated.

The party was in full swing when we arrived at Paul's home on Cavendish Avenue. As with John's home, I knew what the house looked like on the outside from pictures in fan mags, but was curious to see what it was like inside. I knew Paul hadn't lived there for more than a year and rather expected to see a sparsely furnished bachelor pad but was startled to be ushered into a rather traditionally furnished house. I caught a glimpse of a lovely cherry dining room set as we went past to the big living room. If John's house had been surprisingly devoid of any mark of his personality, Paul's house was every bit as surprising to me not for the absence of such things but for the range of them. There were eccentric pieces of antique furniture combined with a comfortable looking traditional sofa and chairs, a variety of paintings on the walls, some modern sculpture, a collection of crystal and glass in a cabinet. Dominating the room right at that moment was a big movie screen that was pulled down from its permanent mounting between two bookshelves. The projector was playing from a cabinet across the room, obviouslt not a temporary set up to watch movies but a planned part of the room.

My fleeting impressions of the variety of interests reflected by the decor were abruptly overwhelmed by the movie that was started just a minute after we walked in. The kindest way I could think to label it was "arty". It was weirdly filmed; odd camera angles and lighting, what looked like over-exposure, under-exposure, and double exposure flashing by. There was no dialogue or discernable plot, just people and things moving around disjointedly. The accompanying sound track was just as weird as the film. Odd sounds were amplified and repeated between discordant flashes of music. In short, it was a headache in the making.

I watched with amazement as the short movie played and was even more amazed when someone said "That light dancing ‘round her -- that is fantastic! How did you do that Paul?"

This was something Paul had filmed! If I had been surprised by the decor of the house, I was even more surprised by what I was learning about the man who lived there. Any reflections on that ended abruptly when I realized that there was one more bit of decor I had overlooked even though few of the other guests had. In addition to helping themselves to the food and drinks abundantly available, people were casually going over to the fireplace, helping themselves to something from a big jar on the mantle, picking up some of the papers supplied, and nonchalantly rolling their own "ciggies".

I took one look, grabbed John's arm and said "I've got to get out of here!" I didn't need to inspect the contents of the jar to know it wasn't tobacco.

John was already lighting up and I suspected he and Pete had more than beer under their belts already. "It's all right, luv," he assured me. "No one is going to burst in the door and yell "Hands up!"

I was not reassured and Cyn knew it. She took me aside and explained it to me. The police were well aware of the extent of drug use among the people in the music industry, but only hassled the people behind the scenes -- sessions musicians, struggling newcomers, agents, writers. The authorities would not walk into a house where the top names in the only industry that was currently making a go of it in the depressed economy were all smoking pot. The Beatles did not have to buy off the police, someone up the line in the government was keeping them off. The situation was heating up and someone big was going to get busted one of these days just to warn everyone that they would not continue to look the other way while rock and roll led the country's youth astray. However, when they did, they wouldn't start at the top. It would be someone big enough to make their point but it wouldn't be a Beatle or a Stone. "And," she said, "We'll know when it is about to happen. We have someone who keeps us informed of the mood of the local constabulary."

I decided it made sense, and it was pretty obvious that no one else here was worried about posting bail, but they did crack jokes about it. One of the guys present was one of those newcomers who had gotten busted. He took a bit of razzing about his criminal ways.

For all their joking on the subject, I was still uneasy and glad I wasn't going to be staying late. I was supposed to meet with a couple of the nursing students early the next morning for a tour of the hospital where they were in training, so I had arranged for Les to drive me home at eleven.

In the meantime, this was one fantastic party. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were there, along with a lot of other rock and roll people whose faces weren't familiar, but whose music was. I met the drug fiend in question, a beautiful young man named Donovan whose music was to hit it big in the next couple months. I also met Paul's date. I took one look at her in her Carnaby Street clothes and perfect hair, moving around with these people with the confidence that she belonged, and I felt like "Minnesota Hick Visits the Big City".

John introduced me to a guy named Tara Browne. If the name wasn't surprising enough, John informed me right in front of him that Tara was filthy rich. "At least I come by it honestly," Tara responded. "Family money, not the allowances of thirteen year old nymphets!" John laughed and Tara pulled me away to dance with him.

Cyn introduced me to a few people but most of them seemed to be high on one thing or another and none of them questioned how this American girl got there. They just wanted to party. I danced with a couple of guys I didn't know and even sort of danced with Mick Jagger himself. I was in the middle of a bunch of dancers, and he cruised through, doing his skinny hipped gyrations with me for a few seconds before moving on.

There weren't a huge number of people there but enough that the party expanded up to the music room up on the second floor. Pattie and Maureen pulled me aside. "You have got to see Paul's bathroom," they told me and we ducked through the doorway at the top of the stairs. I was impressed with the stereo system and dimmer lights in the bedroom and the big bed with a velvet headboard, but the bathroom was incredible. A huge bathtub sunken in a big platform was surrounded by candles and incense burners.

"So who is the girl he is with tonight?" Pattie asked Maureen as we headed back to the music room.

"Lord, don't ask me. I can't keep up with him. But didn't he bring her to something out at Brian's earlier this summer?"

"Maybe. She looks a little familiar."

"I wonder just how familiar she is!"

I could have told them. While they were talking I had noticed a woman's robe on the back of the door and matching pink slippers on the floor. Was the girl a date or something more? No one, least of all Paul, had ever mentioned that he was involved with anyone. Well, everyone wants lunch . . . and Paul's lunch was none of my business. But, oh, couldn't I at least be an appetizer?

The evening rocked on and at one point I was downstairs and noticed Martha pawing at the door to go out. I spotted Paul across the room and went to ask him if she could go out. "Let her out in the back garden. Through the kitchen," he said so I took her into the kitchen. When I opened the door, she rushed out. The breath of fresh air and promise of quiet in the garden felt great after the smoke and the noise inside, so I followed her out. It was a warm night with a beautiful full moon. Martha did her thing and then roamed around the garden. I laughed a little at myself for thinking of a yard as a garden, but it felt like an English night, smelled like an English night with roses heavy in the air. Therefore, it was not a yard but a garden. I sat on the back step and watched Martha. The music and laughter escaped out around the door behind me and spilled from the living room windows. It interfered with the mood the moon was creating. I got up and wandered after Martha, looking for the roses. I found a rose bed along one wall of the garden and the line "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may" popped into my head. I was wondering if I could manage to pick one without getting stuck by thorns when I heard the kitchen door open. Martha went bounding back to her master. Paul rough-housed with her for a minute, then walked over to me.

"They are really blooming this year," he said.

"They smell so good. I grew up where summer nights smell like growing corn. This is incredible."

He laughed and reached out a hand. "Come 'ead. Let me show you something." He led me to a corner of the garden where a climbing rose with scarlet blossoms ran wild over the wall. "I was told this rose came from the gardens at Kew. Katharine of Aragon supposedly planted them."

"They are beautiful," I said, very much aware that he was still holding my hand.

"I really should get someone in here to tend them. I get someone to cut the grass, but that's about it. Dad has a fit every time he sees what Martha has dug up."

We walked along the edge of the garden and he talked about his Dad's pride in the little garden he'd had when Paul was young, and we went on to swapping stories of summers spent building tree houses and forts and hide-aways. That was nice but all I could really think about was the fact that he was still holding my hand. Once again my imagination was charging ahead, thinking he hadn't followed me out here for no reason, hadn't led me to the privacy of the far side of the garden for no reason. But we strolled on, now moving back toward the house without stopping for any of the things my imagination was hoping for.

There was a stone table and benches on a small patio near the kitchen door. Paul let go of my hand as he boosted himself up to sit on the table. I stood along side him, leaning back against the table and looking out across the moonlit lawn, feeling silly about misreading his intentions but still glad he was in no hurry to go back into the party.

"How is the writing going, then?" he asked.

"Nearly done." I was surprised he brought it up since he had made it very clear what he thought of the whole idea.

"I was hoping you would think the better of it and just forget the idea." He didn't sound angry now and I took the opportunity to try to explain.

"I can't afford that. I need the money for school. It is more than I could make working two jobs the rest of the summer."

"Tess, forget the article. I'll pay you whatever they were going to not to write it."

I knew when he said it, the way he said it, that it wasn't a sudden thought. This was why he had followed me out here. He wanted to talk me out of writing it. He probably had his checkbook in his back pocket. I had been amused at myself for thinking he had followed me out here for a little romantic dalliance, but this took the humor out of it. That must have shown on my face and he misread my sober look.

"Tess, I am really sorry about messing up your chance to earn money," he said with real regret and concern. "Please, let me help you."

"I can't take your money not to write it," I said. "That's like . . . like some kind of blackmail."

He smiled but there wasn't much humor in it. "No, it's not like that at all," he assured me gently. "I just don't want you to write it."

"Are you really that worried about what I might say?" I asked. He looked away. I hesitated, but he had to hear that I wouldn't write anything personal. "Paul, I know about the stuff Ellen wrote."

"Who told you about that?!"

"John did. You were so angry when you found out what I was doing. I couldn't understand . . . He told me about the lies and rotten things she said."

He sighed. "Tess, it wasn't just that she lied. The lies and stories -- Hell, we've almost gotten used to that. But she took the truth and twisted it round into . . . into lies that had enough truth under them to really hurt." He stopped, looking down at the ground. When he lifted his head, he looked directly into my eyes. "It wasn't just the lies. She wrote about things I had told her. Stuff about when I was a kid, about my mother, my dad . . . Jane. Things I told her when I thought . . .." He stopped. When he went on, he sounded more bewildered than angry. "She just gave it all away."

I moved to stand in front of him and face him. "I am sorry, Paul. I am so sorry. I can't imagine how she could do that."

"It wasn't even for money," he said bitterly. "Attention, I guess."

His hands were gripping the edge of the table on either side of him and without thinking I just reached out and put my hands over his, wanting to somehow reassure him that I wouldn't do that. "Paul, nothing like that is going to be in this article," I said. "You can read it before I show it to Tony. Anything you want taken out, I'll take out. I promise."

"What if I leave little holes all over it?" he asked with a little smile.

"You won't. The hardest thing about writing the article is talking about the little things. I can write about what happened, "Just the facts", but to tell them any more . . . I don't want to share it."

"So where do you draw the line?" he asked.

I laughed a little because I really did have a rule. "I ask myself if it would have been different if someone had been there filming it all. Would John have said that? Would George have done that? Then I file it. One file for the article, another file just for me -- and one file of stuff to tell my grandchildren about some day when I'm old and gray and want my grandchildren to know I wasn't always an old lady with varicose veins!"

He laughed and slipped his hands out from under mine, not to pull away but to take my hands in his. He squeezed my hands and pulled me a little closer to him, between his knees. "And if I kissed you right now, where would you file that?"

I knew it was not "if". He wasn't smiling as he said it, wasn't teasing. He was going to kiss me. I wanted a way to tell him that it would be more than an item to sort and file. Lifting his hand, I held it against my heart. "Here" I said, looking into his eyes.

He leaned forward slowly and touched his lips to mine. Warm mouth, gentle kiss growing harder. He let go of my other hand and put his arm around me, pulling me to him. It was a long kiss, and I could feel my heart hammering against his hand. With our hands locked together between us and him still sitting on the table, we weren't pressed against each other but even so it felt like the most intimate embrace. It closed out the rest of the world. When he finally stopped the kiss, it was only to push himself off the table so he could pull me up against him. He wrapped me in his arms and kissed me again and I kissed him, feeling nothing except the warmth of his mouth, his body and his arms around me. Wanting nothing else, just more. The kiss melted into soft gentle kisses around my mouth, my cheek, my eyes. His arms relaxed and I opened my eyes and looked up at him.

"I knew it." he said softly.

"Knew what?" I asked, amazed that I could manage to say any words at all.

"That when I kissed you, it would be perfect."

Even in my twitterpated state, I knew a line when I heard it. "How could it be anything else?" I laughed shakily. "Moonlight and roses. Perfect setting, perfect kiss!"

He smiled gently and shook his head. "No. Tess. It's not the moonlight or the roses. It's you and me." He pulled me close again, this time for kisses beginning on my neck and traveling to my mouth. I followed him kiss for kiss until our lips touched and then neither of us was following or leading. No thought, no hesitation, just a need to be closer, to let the tip of my tongue touch his lips, to taste him, as he did the same to me. He tipped my head back and I opened my mouth to him. Deep exploring kisses, yet gentle.

Time slipped away, the kisses escalated from gentle to hungry. His hands moved to touch my face, my neck, to slide down my sides to my hips and pull me even closer. I clung to him, unable to pull away even though I felt him growing hard against me. Especially then. That had always been where I backed off. Cool down time. Don't give the wrong message. Anything more was a tease. But now I reached up and put my arms around his neck, stretching up, not to reach his mouth but to fit my body to his.

He held me tightly, my cheek against his and every curve of my body pressed against him. I could feel his heart pounding and I knew it was time to stop. I knew it, but when his hand slipped up from my waist and touched the bare skin where my top had pulled up in back I didn't stop him. Instead, I found his mouth and gently, so gently, kissed him, afraid to take it any further but not wanting to stop. His hand slid up under my blouse and was warm on my back as he held me tightly against him. His kisses were long and slow as his other hand moved to my side, lingering at my waist to hold me tightly to him, then sliding down over my hip. Then lower until his hand was on my bottom, lifting me up against him, locking us together exactly as nature intended. I forgot about cool down time, about the message I was giving and just let the feeling take over. Hungry was escalating to feverish.

If Martha had not decided she had waited for us long enough, I don't think the fact that we were standing out in the garden in moonlight nearly bright enough to read by, or that there was a houseful of his guests -- and his date -- probably wondering where he was by now, would have occurred to me. I wasn't sure if any of that mattered to Paul. Martha was insistent though, moving from an impatient whine directly to a front paws on the chest request.

Paul pushed her down, and she danced and ran around us, woofing happily. He tried to kiss me again but she came right back, insistent on pushing us apart.

"All right, girl," Paul finally said the third time she jumped up to stick her cold nose in between us. We walked back to house in silence.

Pattie was in the kitchen. She glanced up from the table where she was refilling a bowl of chips and her eyes immediately took in the fact that Paul's arm was tight around my waist. "So, you two finally quit talking!" she laughed.

I looked at her, bewildered. "George said that if you two ever shut up, watch out!" she said to my unasked question. I was astonished. George had never given any indication that he was paying any attention to Paul and I.

Paul just smiled at her and hugged me a little tighter.

It was nearly eleven. I told Paul I had to leave, explaining about meeting the other student nurses in the morning. "Les is probably waiting. I have to go."

"I rather think Paul's date will be glad of that," Pattie giggled.

Paul made a face, an "Ooops, forgot about her. How awkward" cringe, and we all laughed.

"I'll walk you to the car," he said. Les was waiting. (Why couldn't he have been late?) A big group of gatebirds had gathered when word got out that Paul was home and having a party. The wooden gate was open so party goers could get in and out, but Mal was there keeping the fans back. With the gate open, the fans quickly spotted Paul in the driveway and a cheer and excited cries started up. "Damn," Paul muttered. Les opened the car door for me, Paul stood back and I got in. He leaned down and gave me a quick kiss and shut the door.

For all the sleep I got that night, I might as well have stayed at the party. I went over and over every minute of the evening, every smile, every kiss, every touch. It was unlike any first kiss I had ever known. No moment of hesitation about whether to let him kiss me, no last second course correction to avoid nose collision, no slightly off target landing. No doubt of whether I wanted him to do it again, whether I should let it become a french kiss. (A prize usually reserved until the second date and used as a bribe to get the third date.) But this . . .

No hesitation, no thought. Just responding to the intoxication of his mouth, his tongue, his touch, and feeling that response coming from something deep inside of me. It was hours later, but just thinking about it brought the feeling back for a too brief, too tantalizing moment. Curled up alone in my bed I trembled, amazed by the feeling and by the ease with which Paul had triggered it.

I had felt something like it at times with other boys, and certainly with Gary, the boy I had dated all summer the year I graduated from high school, but with him it was the end result of a long session of necking in a parked car. With him it was sexual desire due to dogged persistence on his part, but laced with guilt on my part because I knew I wasn't really in love and shouldn't be pretending I was much less taking it any further. With the guys I had met since, it seldom got to that point. I didn't date anyone steadily so makeout sessions were limited and usually the result of an overambitious young man, rather than encouragement on my part. The turn on and temptation to go further just wasn't there. But this was . . . What? What had happened tonight???

Magic. Moonlight and roses and -- Holy Cow! Paul McCartney!!. I had kissed Paul McCartney!!!!! I pulled a pillow over my head to stifle the squeal that accompanied that realization, then collapsed in a giggling fit. Theresa Marie Martin had stood in the moonlight and kissed a guy that a million girls dreamed of kissing! As quickly as the giggles came, they evaporated. I hadn't just kissed him. He had kissed me! Enthusiastically. And tenderly. Heart pounding, I gingerly approached the subject of what it might have meant to him.

"I knew that when I kissed you it would be perfect." The fact that it was a perfect line as well as a perfect kiss did not escape me. And so sincerely delivered. Could it have been as unrehearsed as it sounded? Dream on! "So what if it's a line?", I thought. "It is still the most wonderful thing anyone has ever said to me!"

The voice of common sense, sounding an awful lot like my roommate Brenda, had a few things to say: "He is gorgeous, and you have thought about nothing else since the day you met him, and he kissed you and kissed you good, but if you are hoping that it was anymore than moonlight and opportunity, heaven help you because you are in for a rude awakening!"

But Paul's soft voice was talking to me too. "It's not moonlight and roses, Tess. It's you and me." Not a line -- at least not one he could have planned. But the man was experienced. And good. How long had we spent together in the garden? Or, more to the point, how long did we spend kissing? Two minutes? Five? Ten? I had no idea. All I knew is that he had me as turned on as I had ever been after any hour long, back seat make-out session at the drive in, and definitely more willing to go farther.

Wait a minute. We hadn't "gone" anywhere. He hadn't done anything but kiss me and hold me. Even the fact that his hand was under my blouse was somehow innocent. He hadn't pulled my blouse out of my skirt, it just pulled up when I reached up to put my arms around his neck. He hadn't even tried to take advantage of that opportunity to feel me up. I had certainly been further than that with Gary; heavy petting above the waist. (That term was quite clear to '60's girls. Petting was touching with clothes intact. Heavy petting was under clothing.) Paul had just held me. Granted, the way he held me, the way we fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, every curve locked together, was somehow closer to having sex than any necking session I had ever participated in. But there had been no groping, no calculated moves, and that meant no defensive reaction on my part. Just his mouth and his body telling me what he wanted and making me want it too.

What he wanted or what he expected? Did anyone ever say "No!" to him? Which led to another question. What if Martha had not interrupted? Would I have said no? Of course I would have.

Maybe.

Easy to say now, but at the time . . . No, at some point, common sense would have had to interfere . . . err, intervene. Going all the way was definitely wrong, out of the question. Well, maybe not exactly wrong, but not exactly right. I wasn't sure what I thought about the morality of the situation. It was very clear to me that sex was a basic biological drive and very right, very normal for that reason. Society superimposed a lot of restrictions on it, but they made pretty good sense to me. Keeping sex inside marriage made things neat and tidy. Two parents for any resultant kid in case something happened to one parent. A safey net, sort of like having two kidneys. But somehow society's rules seemed at odds with what nature intended. Nature had made sex such a strong drive and so pleasurable for a reason. Maybe society was wrong about putting a moral judgement on something so basic, necessary, compelling. Society's ways were not always right. There were wrongs such as slavery and the murder of girl babies in China that were condoned by societies for generations.

Well, lying there thinking about Paul, remembering the way I felt with him most definitely had me siding with nature over nurture. Something that felt that good couldn't be wrong! But right or wrong was secondary to the simple fact that it would be stupid. Last semester's OB-Gyn rotation had introduced me to the results of having sex and the shortcomings of most methods of birth control. I read the textbooks and met the knocked up teenagers. The only acceptable level of risk was with the pill and I wasn't on it. So if I found myself with him again? What then?

Common sense answered. "Use your head, Terry. Fun is fun and that is fine, but this is nothing more than a summer fling -- for you and for him. You found someone really exciting to talk to, to laugh with, to kiss in the moonlight. In a few weeks you will get on a plane and go home to your real life. Enjoy it. But don't get carried away."

As I drifted off to sleep and the female equivalent of wet dreams, a thought drifted across my mind. Why would anyone who had spent the last five years with girls literally breaking into his bedroom ever bother to develop a line?

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