***


“We were once having a right slagging session and I remember how he took off his granny glasses. I can still see him. He put them down and said, 'It's only me, Paul.' Then he put them back on again, and we continued slagging...That phrase keeps coming back to me all the time. 'It's only me.' It's become a mantra in my mind."

Once. Once? As in once upon a time, perhaps?

McCartney, you fucking old liar.


***


I know what you all think. That fucking McCartney, so slick, Mr. PR-guy, Mr. Insincere. We ask him about John and he tells us a story. And always the same stories. John taking off his glasses. “Touching is good.” Paris and the prostitutes and the sexy French waitress. Getting high and colouring the lyric sheet to “The Word.” Winking at each other like naughty schoolboys over “I’d love to turn you on.”

I have a lot more stories than that, of course. A lot better ones, too. I just can’t tell them. Not while Yoko’s alive, or Cyn. Or Julian. Don’t think Sean would care, for some reason…for some reason I think Sean might find it amusing and interesting. Sean’s a pretty far-out kid, and I think he might be a little bit intrigued by it, this whole new side to his dad. But Jules would feel betrayed. I know he would, because I’d feel the same way in his shoes.

So these are the stories you get, again and again, carefully hand-selected and sanitized for your protection. Take them or leave them, but that’s all there are. The rest are mine.

And his.


***


Okay, maybe “liar” is a little bit harsh. Does it count as a lie when you’re just holding back a bit? I would say no; John would say yes. Of course. He called those kinds of lies Paul-lies. Yeah, as if I invented them. “Very Macca-vellian,” if he was in a good mood. “You and your two-faced diplomat shitbaggery,” if bad. I’m not sure which category this falls into. I’m not sure what mood John’s in regarding me these days, wherever he is, or what he felt when he died, or how much of this, if any of it, I’m supposed to tell.

Sometimes I do find myself getting careless. The odd answer here or there, just to see if anyone’s paying attention. (They’re not.) And the songs…! I find as I get older, more and more I don’t give a toss.

But most of the time I lie. Or half-lie, or Paul-lie. It was a mantra. That much was true, anyway.

But it was his mantra, not mine.


***


Linda asked me once what it meant. “It’s only me, Paul.” What was John saying there, honey, what do you think he meant by that? Hmm. Ponder, ponder. Look thoughtful. Stall. Truth is, I couldn’t answer her. I wouldn’t have in any case, but even if I’d wanted to, I didn’t have the answer. Truth is, John said those words to me often, and each time they meant something different.


***


The first time was an excuse, I think. We were in my bedroom on Forthlin Road, sagging off school, lying on my bed. I can still picture it, that bed, too narrow and getting too short for me by the minute. A child’s bed, really. We were listening to records and smoking John’s last pack of cigarettes. That was a real mate back in those days, a guy who’d share his last few ciggies with you! We were drinking wine, passing it back and forth in an old jam jar. John had nicked a bottle from Mimi’s small cellar, and it tasted like you’d expect something of hers would taste, dry and fussy, not very sweet. But it made us warm and giggly, and slightly sludgy, which to us meant we were getting pissed. Probably not, we were probably just getting sludgy and dull, but we felt like quite the little rebels, sagging off school and lying around getting pissed all day, just like big grown-up men.

I think it started with tickling. John liked to tickle. Well, he liked to tickle me. I think he just liked to touch me, actually. Didn’t really think that back then, you know, but I do now. He said he did it just to be mean, but now I look back on it, I can see the other was probably always there as well. And I was quite willing to be touched! I was young and randy nearly all the time. When I wasn’t thinking about music, I was thinking about my dick. So I enjoyed John’s hands on me. I didn’t try to stop him. Even John’s hand on my willie wasn’t enough to make me stop him, that’s how randy I was! You know, it felt good, and not so different from my own, so why stop it?

The kiss, though – that threw me. That threw me but good. That was my first real kiss, with tongue and all, and it was John. Try wrapping your fifteen-year-old head around that! But it was gorgeous. The best kiss of my life. His mouth was so soft, I remember being so surprised by that, and the wine tasted sweeter on his tongue than it had from the bottle. It was the first time I ever felt my body react to a kiss. My stomach tightened right up, the way it does just before you get off, my whole body started shaking, and I swear to God I got goosebumps. I think I moaned, and I know John did; never mind his hand on my knob, it was that moan that made me come.

Afterward I lay there feeling guilty, all sorts of questions rushing in. Wondering if this meant I was queer. Wondering if John was. Wondering if this was all a test and I had failed. I was embarrassed, confused, and dead scared. I thought our friendship was over.

I started to stammer out some stupid, fumbling apology. I don’t know what I said. I hate to think what I must have said. What I must have sounded like. But John stopped me before I could make a complete fool of myself.

“Christ, Paul, will you stop babbling?” He sounded absolutely normal, too, the bastard. Just right. A bit irritated, a bit put-out, but warm and affectionate underneath. Very much the big brother I already adored and looked up to. “What are you so upset about? ’S not like I’m some bloody stranger, is it?”

No, I thought. A stranger wouldn’t be lying on top of me half-naked with my come drying on his hand. “No, but…what you…what we…”

“It’s okay, Paul.”

I laughed, a nervous, shaky laugh. “How the hell is this okay?”

He grinned. Shook his head. Took off his glasses.

“It’s me, Paul,” he said, as if that explained everything. “It’s only me.”



***


The second time was an apology. I think.

You all know that story. Anthology. I with my stripper and George in his cap, had just settled ourselves for a long winter’s nap—

Time to knock off the Scotch, McCartney.

But I was with my stripper, that much is true. Gorgeous bird, long black hair, great figure. We were in bed, one of the little bunk-type beds in the front room. Pete and I had the cubbyholes in back, but she didn’t want to go back there because it was pitch-dark. It really was – utterly lightless. At night you literally couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. And all manner of critters around…in fact, I probably shouldn’t think on that too long. It’s amazing I didn’t wake up some morning with the rats sharing my bed, now I think about it. But she thought about it. This girl. She didn’t want to have a shag in the dark with the wildlife joining in, so we used one of the bunks instead. All of which is my roundabout way of saying we were up front when John came in and went a bit crazy.

Did I say a bit?

He called her a whore. He called me a whore. He told her to get her filthy whoring gob off his friend’s cock and her filthy whoring ass out of his bed. He told her to get out of his fucking room, get right the fuck out right the fuck now - then grabbed a pair of scissors and cut her clothes to pieces so she couldn’t get the fuck anywhere any time soon.

Like I said, you know the story.

You don’t know all of it, though. George, God rest him, gave you half, only half. It wasn’t a lie, not even a Paul-lie. Or a George-lie. George had the sense to get out right after John started waving the shears around; he didn’t know the rest.

I wrapped the bird in my last clean shirt and managed to get her out of the room in one piece. It wasn’t easy; she was almost as crazy as John was by that point, scratching and pounding at me and screaming “Schweinehund!” over my shoulder at him as I carried her outside. Perhaps I should have explained a bit about the wisdom of yelling at a crazy drunk with scissors, but with my German, I’d likely have made things worse. With my German I could barely order a sandwich.

When I came back in, John was lying on his bunk, quiet, hands folded on his chest, eyes blinking up at nothing. He turned his head a bit and looked at me. That’s all he did, no smirk or anything, just turned his head, but all of a sudden I was furious with him. That was the same bunk I’d just been lying in, nice and warm, a pretty girl sucking me off—and he had fucking ruined it. He fucking went mental and ruined my night, out of jealousy or spite, I didn’t know what, then flopped out like nothing had happened?

I stepped forward, mouth open to blast him, but getting closer meant I saw his face, and that stopped me cold. He looked miserable. Ashamed, and sort of bewildered, like a little kid who’s gotten up in the middle of the night and doesn’t quite know where he is. The writer in me wants to say fragile, even, but maybe that’s a bit too dramatic, maybe that’s a bit of hindsight talking there. But it feels right.

And then came the words, of course. Yeah. Those words.

I didn’t know what to say to that. I just mumbled something like “I’m going to bed,” but when I leaned over him to get my blanket, John grabbed my arm and pulled me down on top of him. He wrapped his arms around my waist and buried his face in my neck and said it again, “It’s only me” muffled in the hollow of my shoulder. I remember he was trembling, and how much it hurt, feeling that. I hurt for him, and I remember telling myself it was just the pills and not me that was making him shake like that, but I don’t remember if I believed it. Probably I did. In those days I was very good at making myself believe whatever I wanted.

But I couldn’t leave him. I was uncomfortable as hell, I was still half-hard from the stripper and his knee was between my legs, his arms were so tight around me it hurt, and his breath was boozy and hot in my ear. It was like the day we met, the stink of booze all around him, washing over me. But I couldn’t leave him. I was uncomfortable, but he was miserable. Fragile. And he needed me.

So he got me.


***


Later, it became one of our private little jokes. When John would stand behind me during a press conference and tickle or poke and I’d give him a dirty look, he’d look back, all innocence, and I’d see it in his eyes. Why, Macca, what’s the matter? It’s only me. On stage he’d do the same type of thing, the shoulders going and the spastic faces, looking to break me up. He could always make me laugh like no one else could, and he knew it. He’d sidle up doing his little spastic thing and it was great, it’d break the tension and I’d laugh and push him off, and he’d look at me and say it outright, knowing no one could hear him over the screams: “It’s only me, Paul.”

And, every once in a while, it was a very private joke. The times we were sharing a room, and even a few times when we weren’t, I’d wake up in the middle of the night to arms slipping around me, a body pressing to mine, lips brushing my shoulder or my neck, and a soft whisper in my ear. It was always the same whisper, of course; it was always Only John. Our little joke, our secret code.


***


On one occasion, he said it to comfort me.

The trip that had started out so pleasant and lovely was going bad. The connection delighted me at first, the two of us sitting close, just barely touching, staring into each others’ eyes. Our eye-contact thing, but ten times, a hundred times more powerful. I remember at one point thinking I could actually hear John’s thoughts, like a little PA in my head. And when I caressed his face I could see the trail my fingers left on his skin. It was like having that disorder, synesthesia, with all my senses combining in different new ways, and it was fucking amazing. My first trip with Tara wasn’t so amazing, you know. It wasn’t exciting, it was sort of dull – a bit of sharpened perception, a bit of me looking at my sleeve and going ‘Oh, my shirt’s dirty, ho-hum’ and then what felt like hours of boredom. And a sore ass after. But this trip with John was different, it was every bit as exciting and amazing and miraculous as he’d promised, and I never felt closer to him.

But what’s the old saying? There’s close, and then there’s too close? Yeah.

I started getting very paranoid. I was still touching his face, and I started being able to feel it on my own; I’d touch his lips or stroke his cheek and I swear to God I’d feel my own touch on my own skin. So I started getting very paranoid. I was afraid I was losing myself in John. It’s the one thing I can still remember vividly from that trip, that terrible feeling of being lost and struggling, that sort of sweaty panic creeping over me. I remember being terrified. It was like being devoured.

Stop eating me, John. I’m disappearing.

Did I say that out loud? It’s funny, we never talked about it much after, so I don’t know. I talked to Jane about it, raved about it, actually, because the good parts were awfully good and I wanted her to try it, but I never talked about that part. You kidding? I didn’t even want to remember that part. Forty years later, it still scares the shit out of me.

I guess I must have said it out loud.

“Shhhh,” he whispered, as if speaking to a very small child. I had never heard his voice so tender, not with anyone, not even Jules. “Shh, Paul, don’t cry. Don’t be afraid, baby.”

Was I crying? Oh, God. “Stop eating me, John. Give me back, I don’t want—”

“You’re still here, Paul. Shhh. Everything’s fine.”

“I don’t want to die, John.”

“You’re not going to die, Paul.”

“I’m disappearing.”

“You’re not, though. You’re right here. I have your hand. See?”

I saw one hand, palms fused, ten fingers. Alien, monstrous thing.

“I want to go to bed.”

John’s laugh was warm. It sounded warm and it looked warm, floating out of his mouth in a stream of golden bubbles. “You won’t sleep.”

“I don’t care.”

I went up to bed. Did John come with me? I don’t remember, it’s all disjointed flashes and fragments…No. No, I don’t think he did. I was alone. I remember feeling him all over the house, sensing his presence. At one point he became the house and I was just lying there on my bed inside John, the all-mighty John, and me like Jonah in the whale. I think I cried again.

At some other point Mal checked in on me. I didn’t even know Mal was there, and when I saw that hulking shadow in the doorway I damn near pissed myself. Giants? Aliens? God knows what I thought, but I know I breathed easier when he left.

I know I closed my eyes. I don’t think I slept.

Finally, John checked in. I opened my eyes and it was light out and there was John, sitting in my bedside chair.

“I’m so tired, John,” I pleaded. He nodded. His eyes were red behind his glasses, and he was very pale. He looked tired, too, and not really well, and I wondered how long he’d been sitting there watching over me.

No. That’s not exactly right, is it? Not exactly the truth. I wonder now how long he sat there watching over me. At the time I was too fucked up to care.

I said it again. “I’m so tired, John, please, please make this end,” and I started to cry again, without warning, a huge, miserable, soppy flood of tears.

To this day I don’t know what John saw in my face. To this day I don’t know why he didn’t laugh at me, mock me, or walk out in disgust. Those were John’s usual reactions to tears. He hated emotions he couldn’t handle. He never wanted to be seen as soft, absolutely never, even though he could be underneath it all the softest bloke you’d ever want to meet. I had only cried in front of him once before, but even that had been better than this - at least then we were both doing it.

But now he didn’t look at all disgusted. Just sad.

“I can’t do that, love,” he said. “I wish I could – Christ, I wish I’d never started it - but there’s no way to stop something like this. It has to wear off on its own.”

“But you’re the Emperor of All Eternity,” I whispered. Stone cold serious, I was. It’s also to this day I don’t know how he kept a straight face - but I have to tell you, I love him for it.

“Git,” he said, and he got up and sat on the bed and budged up behind me, wrapping his arms around me. I tensed immediately; I think I expected his touch to take me over again, or to feel strange again, to feel like a sound or sound like a color. That synesthesia effect again. But it felt normal, good and comforting, familiar. John’s was always a very homey embrace, and I started to relax. And maybe it wasn’t even him, you know; maybe it was just one of those things, one of those moments of perfect timing, the trip was finally ending and I was coming down anyway.

Sure. Maybe.

I leaned into his welcome weight, what there was of it; John had gotten awfully thin of late. “So what are you saying? You’re not an emperor, then?”

“No emperor,” he agreed, and again there was that tenderness. Warm lips brushed my hair. “Just plain old Lennon, I’m afraid. It’s just me.”

I chuckled. I saw it hit the air in front of me, a faint blue mist, but very faint; the hallucinations were finally stopping. Thank God. I closed my eyes, more exhausted than I’d ever been in my life. “You mean ‘only,’” I mumbled.

“Eh?”

“You said ‘it’s just me.’ You’re supposed to say, ‘It’s only me.’”

A pause. A rumble-snort of laughter. Was it sad laughter, or was that the acid still working on me? “That’s right, Paul. You’re right. It’s only me.”


***


I’m not lying when I tell the official version. I honestly don’t remember what the “right slagging session” was about. I think it was about Apple. I don’t actually remember, but Apple’s as good a bet as any. Half our fights at that point were about Apple, anyway. The way some mums and dads only fight about their kids. But I can’t be sure.

Looking back on it, it feels like we were always fighting at that point in time. Not true, of course, but that’s how it feels sometimes. The bad times. I’m always surprised when I see a picture of us, any of us, but especially John and me, smiling or laughing together from that time, because I don’t remember as many of those moments as I should. Or maybe I just don’t want to.

So, yeah. There’s the official version. We were fighting about Apple. I was right and he was wrong. I was reasonable and he was berserk. And I wasn’t naked and neither was he.

And needless to say, neither one of us was in bed with the other.


***


The last time was a song. And a farewell, I guess, though I certainly didn’t know that then.

Funnily enough, the last time was mine.

John’s “lost weekend.” A Toot and A Snore in ’74 . May Pang, Harry Nilsson, Keith Moon. You all know that one as well, or as much of it as Yoko wants you to. Yoko has her secrets, too, you know. Something else we have in common, the two warring widows, something else besides we both fucked John. I’d say we both loved John, but on that score I can only speak for myself. The best I can ever say for Yoko on that score is I think she believes she loved John, the best she could. Is that enough? I don’t know, I can’t judge. Probably she thinks the same about me, and who knows? Maybe we’re both right.

But not even Yoko knows all of this story.

It wasn’t really a party, but it was more than just some old friends getting together. There was too much booze and too many drugs for that. Too much madness. Linda didn’t like that scene; she was never one for the hard stuff. She liked pot and a little bit of wine, and that was enough for her. She was a nature girl at heart.

Me? I had a toot or two. I’m a little bit ashamed of that, looking back; I didn’t need it, and I knew she wouldn’t like it, but I did it anyway. That was one of the few times I ever caved to the peer pressure, all that drug culture bullshit. But I’d done coke before, so at least I had some experience. Mostly, though, I did it to please John. It felt like we were rebuilding, you know, and I didn’t want to fuck that up in any way.

We were all flopped out in the living room and Ringo was playing DJ when John marched up to him and started poking him hard in the shoulder.

“Excuse me, excuse me, pardon me, pardon! Do you have Band With The Runs? By Sailor Sam or Jailor Man or Toucan Sam or whoever the hell he is?”

Ringo ignored my startled look and flipped through the pile of records. “Yeah, I think I could probably lay my hands on it. But are you sure you want that one? I heard it’s a real piece of shit.”

He looked at me and grinned. I gave him the two-finger salute and grinned back. I don’t ordinarily have much sense of humor about my work; it’s a little bit of a failing of mine, that I’m maybe too sensitive to joke about it, that I’m a little bit precious about my art. Maybe the coke helped a lot, or the booze, or the massive joints Harry kept rolling and passing around at clock-regular intervals - God rest him, Harry Nilsson could roll a joint faster (and fatter) than anyone I ever knew. But it also helped that it was Ringo, and you knew Ringo was never trying to hurt.

“Watch yer tongue there, Mr. Starkey,” John scolded, “and show some respect. That piece of shit has – slowly, eventually, painstakingly, inch-by-screeching-inch – become the number one album in America.”

“Thanks, John.” I blew him a kiss. “You would notice that.”

He caught the kiss and clutched it to his heart. “I may be blind, my dear Macca,” he intoned gravely, “but I’m not blind.”

May spoke up. “It’s number one now, isn’t it?’” She gave me a big smile and John that look that women always give their men when we’re being dopes or assholes. “And that’s what counts.”

“But it should have been number one weeks ago, is all I’m saying.” John pointed his cigarette at her, stabbing the air, like a teacher giving a lecture. “It’s a good album. A damned good album. Too good to be crawling up the fucking charts like a crippled slug.”

I stared at him. Coulda knocked me over with a feather, as they say. John just stared back, that little grin barely-there around his lips.

Ringo dropped the needle on the title track. The opening, that hot, lazy little guitar riff, poured into the room, and I can still remember what a strange moment it was. It’s always an odd feeling to hear yourself like that, anyway; even after years and years of it, it feels strange, just in that first instant. And I hadn’t listened to myself with John and Ringo in a very long time.

“Stuck inside these four walls / Sent inside forever / Never seeing no one / Nice again…”

I leaned back on the couch and let it wash over me, trying to be objective, mulling over John’s words. They made me feel good, I can’t deny that. I was pathetic, really. His words, any little scraps of praise or approval, still meant so fucking much to me.

I stretched out a bit further, my head in Linda’s lap, zoning out to the music and letting the weed take the coke edge off.

“Who did the drumming on this, Macca?”

I opened my eyes and found Keith’s jolly, crazy-ass caveman face about an inch from mine. “That? Oh, that was me, man.”

“No shit!” Mooney looked impressed, and it made me feel good. Well, you know, Keith Moon – he knew a thing or two about drumming himself, didn’t he? So it made me feel very good. Not as good as John’s words, though. Not by half.

About midway through “Let Me Roll It,” Lin pushed my head off her lap and said, “Move it, mister, the lady needs a bathroom break.”

I sat up reluctantly, grumbling and moaning. I have a mild kink for my lovers playing with my hair - Jane once said I should have been born a dog – and I was being a bit of a spoilt brat about it. John listened to about thirty seconds of my bitching before he flopped down next to me and told me to shut the fuck up or he’d tie a knot in my mullet.

Maybe it wasn’t all that funny; probably it wasn’t, probably it was just the drugs and the booze, but still I laughed my ass off. But, then, John could always make me laugh, the way nobody else ever could – I have mentioned that, haven’t I?

John waited for me to calm down, then he lifted his glass toward the stereo. “I meant it, you know,” he said, not quite looking at me. “It’s a great album.”

I considered a cheeky reply, a vulgar one, a silly one. Finally I just settled for, “I’m glad you like it, John.”

We listened in silence for a while.

“That last one, that ‘Let Me Roll It’ – is that what it’s called? ‘Let Me Roll It’?”

“Yeah. What about it?”

“Were you trying to sound like me?”

I snickered. “Jesus, man, what do you think?”

“Well, I don’t know! I mean, why would you…?” He shook his head and started again, adopting a snooty tone. “While I do think the song has a certain undeniable Lennonesque quality, of course, I can’t tell if it was deliberate, or if the student has finally, after all these years, caught up to his master.”

It got my back up. Looking back, maybe I overreacted, but just then it got my back up in a huge way.

“You mean I must have learned something in all those years?”

He blinked.

I got off the couch and went out on to the balcony. I wouldn’t look at him, but I could feel him back there, still sitting, staring after me. I lit a cigarette and looked out over the water and I was furious and miserable, and all I could think was, It was a mistake. Not just coming out here to see John, not just thinking and daring to hope we could ever be close again, but all of it, everything from the day of the fete forward. All those years, all those memories, songs, kisses, looks - what good was any of it if we couldn’t even talk to each other any more?

“Got another one of those?”

Christ. “Here.” I tossed him the pack without looking.

He caught it and shook one out, lit it. He leaned on the railing with me, blowing smoke.

“I wasn't saying that,” he said finally.

I snorted. “You sure about that, John?”

“No.” It shocked me into looking at him, anyway. “But I don’t think I was.”

I looked at my cigarette. “Well, that’s comforting.”

“But I do like ‘Let Me Roll It.’ A lot, and not just because it sounds like me. I especially like the dirty parts.”

I looked up to see him grin. The hopeful grin, kind of cheesy and weak. You’ve all seen it, he used it on me in one of the movies. Hard Day’s Night, I think.

“Trouble is, John, you did say it once. You can’t un-say it; it’s there, you know? It’s in my head. And it’s what I hear whenever you say anything about my music now.”

The grin faded.

“Time was, Paul, I could look at you and tell you a song was vomitous yak shit, and you’d just laugh and say, ‘Okay, asshole, then help me fix it.’” John scratched the side of his nose. “You remember that, Paul?”

“Yeah. That was before you called me Engelbert Humperdinck.”

John threw up his hands and turned away.

Then he turned right back.

“What I started to say, Paul, is that I like ‘Let Me Roll It.’ I like it a lot. And I like the title track and I like ‘Jet,’ even though I don’t know what the almighty fuck it’s supposed to be about, and I even like ‘Bluebird,’ just because you sound so fucking pretty on it and I like Howie’s sax. But this one that’s playing right now? This one’s my favorite.”

I frowned.

“Yeah, did you catch that, Mr. Not Humpledick? I already have a favorite track off your newest fucking most fabulous Number One album. So take that, you no-talent hack.”

May it just be said for the record that Paul McCartney does not often find himself speechless? It may? Thank you.

“Why this one?” I asked him finally. Of course I knew, but I just…I wanted to hear him say it. I’m greedy and I needed to hear it. “Why ‘No Words’?”

John bit his lip – he always did that when he was trying not to smile – and looked around. Then he grabbed my arm and pulled me into the corner behind a huge half-dead palm.

“Listen,” he said.

“John, I don’t have to listen, it’s my—”

“Shh! This part. This is my favorite part.”

And then the man who couldn’t remember the words to his own songs half the time leaned close to me and fucking serenaded me with mine:

You want to turn your head away
But someone’s thinking of you
I wish you’d see
It’s only me
I love you

And then the crazy bastard kissed me.

I know what you’re thinking. It wasn’t a real kiss, not with everyone about and Linda or May apt to walk out any minute and see us. Not a real kiss like that first one, or all the ones after. Couldn’t have been. Not even Lennon was that crazy.

But it was. He was. And I must be just as crazy, because I let him. Let him? I helped him. We stood there locked together, snogging like a couple of LA queers, and I wasn’t what you’d call an innocent bystander. I wasn’t even the one to end it, but when he finally, gently pushed me away, I was the first to recover.

“See,” I whispered. “I guess I did learn something in all those years.”

He flushed. Took off his glasses and stuck them in his pocket. Took my face in his hands and rested his forehead on mine.

“Me, too, Macca,” he laughed softly. “Me, too.”


***


Someone finally did get around to asking me about it, you know.

Q Magazine: Paul, one of my favorite John stories of yours is the one about you and John having a row, and John taking off his glasses right in the middle of it and saying, “It’s only me, Paul.” Now, you’ve said that story probably doesn’t mean anything to anyone but you, so I have to ask: What did it mean to you, John saying, “It’s only me”?

PM: Everything.