***



Ringo made his way carefully down the small slope, wincing. The ground was marshy and soft, and he wished he’d brought his cane. A touch of arthritis was his only concession to age, but on drizzly cold days like this, it was a powerful one.

There were many candles and many flowers, mostly roses and a soft white carpet of Linda’s favorites, lily-of-the-valley. There were gifts, piles of them, bottles of Scotch and Coke, stuffed insects and sheepdogs, pins and keychains and even a lunchbox; there was a “W” pendant sans chain, with three rhinestones missing; there were ticket stubs pressed in thin plastic and concert tee shirts laid out with reverent care. There was music, of course - ancient 45s already warped from the weather, shiny new microdisks still in their wrappers, obviously bought for just this purpose. Music abandoned, music unheard, unshared, left to molder in his name? Ringo reflected that Paul would have been horrified at the thought.

There were photographs, dozens, maybe hundreds. Some were Paul alone, some with the other Beatles, many with Linda or John. Some were very old, an impossibly beautiful Paul frozen forever at eighteen, at twenty-one, at thirty; some were fairly recent, taken no more than a year or two ago. One was only weeks old, and Ringo stared at it for almost a minute, the fact of his friend’s death hitting him all over again, hard, like a stabbing pain. And the absurdity of it, the injustice of it. Rock stars who lived as long as Paul did should get away with it, Ringo thought; why should Paul survive the madness of the sixties and edge so gracefully into his twilight years if his fate was a jet-set glamour death after all?

He looked at the picture, Paul smiling, waving, boarding the plane that was supposed to take him to New York and Stella and her latest success but never did, and he trembled with a powerful urge to rip it to shreds. Instead he tossed it aside, not seeing and not caring where it landed.

There was a little plastic baggie, the kind you’d put a sandwich in (or maybe some weed, Ringo thought with a small smile), with a young girl’s handkerchief folded inside. A lovely little thing, lace-trimmed, a tiny curlicue “BMM” monogrammed in one corner, and the bag was tied off with a hair ribbon. Ringo frowned. “BMM”? Beatrice wouldn’t leave anything here. This wasn’t Paul’s grave, after all, just one of a million similar memorials that had sprung up all over the world. Paul didn’t even have a grave; like John and George and Linda before him, he had been cremated.

Then he saw what else was in the baggie, and he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He found himself doing a little of both.

A guitar pick. A pink guitar pick, no less, unmistakably Bea’s. The whole gesture was Bea - more than any of the other kids, Beatrice had inherited her father’s sense of dry whimsy – but Ringo hoped it was only a gesture...hoped she wasn’t, in her grief, giving it up. She was too damned good to give it up. She was only thirteen, and your basic teenage girly-girl besides, but she was also brilliant. James thought – no, no; he knew; it was clear in the pain and pride on his face every time he watched her play – that she was even better than he was. She played rock and blues and classical and gangsta-grunge; she played at the drop of a hat and for anyone who’d stand still long enough to listen; she played with flash and ease but also with passion. She played like not playing would be the death of her. She played like Paul…in no small part, Ringo suspected, because she so wanted to play like Paul. She was his daughter, but she was also his protégé, his disciple, and his biggest fan.

Small wonder she had left her gift with those of the many strangers her dad had touched and changed.

Sweet Bea. Ringo ached for her; for them, for all of them. He remembered his own kids after Mo’s death, the unexpected depth of their sorrow. And that had been expected; this was a punch in the gut. Ringo wished he had a “Little Willow” in him, or a “Here Today.” Something with which to comfort them.

I should have gone first, Paul, so you could write the tribute.

Paul’s kids. James, pensive and private. Heather, so fragile. Practical Mary – “little mother Mary,” Paul used to tease her - and Stella, who had always been (secretly, of course) Ringo’s favorite, with her guileless baby face and her wicked mouth and her vanilla-pudding heart. Paul’s kids. Good kids, all of them; good people. Real people. For all the music and all the awards and all the rest, they were Paul’s truest gift to the world.

And to think he wouldn’t have ever had them if he and John—

“’Scuse me, sir, can I help you with something?”

Ringo turned. A man, only slightly younger than he (but considerably spryer, judging by the light quick movements), was coming down the slope. He wore clean blue coveralls and a red watchman’s cap. A park groundskeeper, obviously, and paying attention. No wonder this memorial hadn’t been ravaged like so many of the others that had sprung up for Paul since the crash.

Even before he got close enough to Ringo to hear his introduction, recognition lit his face. “Oy, sorry, there, Mr….Mr.—er, sir. Didn’t realize it was you!”

Mr. Starr? Mr. Starkey? Fifty years, and still no one ever knew which one to use. “It’s me. Just Ringo.” Ringo smiled, taking the fellow off the hook. “The other fella said I could come down and have a look.”

“Oh, of course you can, eh? He’d have no problem with you being here, I’d expect.” The caretaker gestured vaguely at the mass of pictures and toys that formed a kind of headstone, and Ringo did not have to ask who “he” was. “Sorry to be so suspicious. We just like to keep a close eye on things. Y’understand.”

“Sure do. You must be doing a helluva job, too. It’s in great shape.”

The man shrugged. “Whole town pretty much keeps watch. Matter of civic pride and all. Well, he was a neighbor, wasn’t he? Don’t stop being a neighbor just ’cause you’ve passed.”

Ringo nodded.

“So we try to keep it nice. Let folks in a few at a time, let ’em leave their tokens and talk to him and cry if that’s their need, and then move ’em on. Gently, of course. And we watch the whole time they’re here. Make sure they’re not nicking something someone left before ’em, or doing any vandalism.”

Ringo was surprised. Souvenir hunters he had expected, but…“Is that a big problem, then? Vandalism?”

“Oh, aye. Especially now, what with all this…other…coming out about him. Him and…” He flushed bright red and trailed off with an uncomfortable shrug. “Well. You know.”

Ringo’s stomach tightened. Yes. He knew. Now. Now, just like everybody else.

He looked at the pictures again. So many of them were Paul with John. Almost as many with John as with Linda. Paul and his two true loves. Which of them was with Paul right now, he wondered? Who was John with, Paul or Yoko? Did you get to choose in the hereafter? What if you couldn’t? Ringo got the briefest flash - the four of them jamming, John and Paul hammering away on harps, Linda banging a misty tambourine, Yoko shrieking happily to the cosmos – and that painful laughing/sobbing thing welled up in him again.

And George, too, don’t forget George, he told himself. Unless he still doesn’t want to play in a band with Paul.

“Did you know?” the man asked suddenly, and blushed again when Ringo looked at him sharply. “Sorry. I just…well, you were one of ’em, weren’t you? They were your mates…You must’ve known something.” His face was nervous, curious, but not malicious. “Did you?”

Ringo didn’t answer. He wasn’t angry, just tired. Three weeks since John’s memoirs had been published, just three, and he was already so very tired of this question.

“I have to go,” he said instead. “Plane to catch.” He fixed a stray flower and stood, brushing awkwardly at his aching knees. Wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave / no one was saved played over and over again, a crazy kind of mantra, in his head.

He wondered if Paul was trying to tell him something.


***


It was all John’s doing, naturally. No surprise there. Paul, for all his teasing and hinting over the years, apparently had had no plans to release his version of The Ballad of John and Macca anytime soon; it was John, who never planned anything beyond what he wanted with his tea, who had set the cultural time bomb ticking. “To be published only upon the deaths of John Winston Ono Lennon, Yoko Ono Lennon, and James Paul McCartney”- an official-sounding addendum to his memoirs that didn’t mean shit, apparently. Or so one of Ringo’s own lawyers had told him.

“That friend of Lennon’s, that Pete Shotton - he didn’t have to abide by that, you know. Those weird little codicils like that – ‘yes, my eldest son can have my fortune, but only if he shaves his nuts and marries a cat’ – they make good plots in bad fiction, but they hardly ever fly in court. This Shotton guy could have made himself a mint. John Lennon’s memoirs? Real, honest-to-Christ, untouched-for-forty-years memoirs? Jesus! And especially with all the stuff about…well…you know…Shit! He could have lived the rest of his life on the movie rights alone.”

“Pete’s not like that,” said Ringo, who didn’t know Pete Shotton much better than did the L.A. sharpie to whom he was speaking – Pete had been John’s friend mainly, and to a lesser extent Paul’s.

His lawyer grunted. “Everybody’s like that.” He shrugged. “But…maybe he didn’t know what he had. He claims he didn’t read them, right? So he couldn’t have known what they were about…” He paused, toying with his pencil, then looked up with that sly, slightly nervous look Ringo was already starting to dread. And despise. “Did you know, Rich? You and George? About…them?”

Ringo forced a smile. “Get those dollar-signs out of your eyes, mate,” he chided. “There’s no books in me.”

“I doubt that.” Tap, tap, tap with the pencil. “And you didn’t answer my question.”

“No,” Ringo said, still smiling. “I didn’t.”


***


Early into the madness, Barbara had suggested he read John’s book - get the whole story, the facts, for himself – and he had shot her down with an immediate and nearly horrified, “God, no!” Even if he had been privy to all that went on between John and Paul, even if this wasn’t news that shocked and upset him to his core, he would hardly have wanted the gory details.

And this shocked and upset him more than he would have ever believed.

He didn’t know why, really. He wasn’t a homophobe, never had been, even when it was the expected thing to be; he wasn’t an anything-phobe, as far as he could honestly tell. Live and let live was pretty much his personal philosophy, and if it had occasionally relegated him to the stereotyped status of doormat or afterthought, it had also made for a relatively peaceful life - more peaceful, certainly, than those of his three brilliant but more volatile friends. After years of being made to feel a fool for them, he was now proud of his tolerance, his adaptability, and his simple, amiable grace.

But the idea of John and Paul...? It was wrong. It felt wrong. It felt dirty, and sneaky, and vaguely incestuous.

Did you know?

Worst of all, it felt like a betrayal.


***


Almost two hundred channels available at his fingertips all hours of the day and night, and still Ringo couldn’t escape it.

The edgy cynic was talking about it on Get To The Point. The blonde bombshell was talking about it on E! Soup. The No-Nonsense Conservative and the Enlightened Liberal were talking about it on Head-To-Head. Howard Stern – Christ, was he ever going to retire? – was talking about it when Ringo woke up (“I asked McCartney point-blank if he’d ever had a gay experience, and he said no, he fucking lied to me right to my face”) and fellow dinosaur Jay Leno was talking about it when Ringo went to bed (“Yeah, this is the biggest literary find since they discovered the Hitler Diaries…and, apparently, he slept with Paul McCartney, too.”)

It made Ringo a little sick. And a lot angry. Paul was hardly cold, for Christ’s sake! How typical of what the world had become, to turn so quickly and easily from the tragedy of a man’s death to cheap water-cooler jokes. And how typical of John, to launch a fucking grenade and not stick around for the explosion.

Come morning, even the lovely ladies of The Vision were talking about it. Ringo heard the topic being batted back and forth as he and Barb sat down to breakfast, and he immediately lost his appetite. He even considered asking her to change the channel or just turn the damned thing off, but in the end he didn’t. Annoying and simplistic as it was, The Vision was Barbara’s one vice.

“I think the kids are handling all of this unbelievably well.”

Ringo dropped his Los Angeles Times a few inches and looked at her. “The kids are a bloody mess,” he said, not unkindly. “How could they not be?”

Barbara shrugged. She looked back, serene and sad and still gorgeous – those cheekbones never got old - even in the unforgiving sunlight pouring into the kitchen. “Well - all things considered.”

“Stella’s blaming herself, James isn’t talking to anyone, and Heather can’t stop crying. Mary’s trying to hold it all together for everybody, and she’s exhausted. She looks like she’s aged ten years in the last month. And Bea...well, last I heard, Bea’s just plain mad. She wants to sue everyone, from the airline to the tabloids to Simon & Schuster.”

“Aren’t they the ones who published John’s...?”

“Yeah.”

Barbara toyed with her fork. “I suppose she’s her mother’s daughter, too,” she ventured at last. A wry wisp of a smile came and went. “Anyway, that’s what teenagers do when something hurts, isn’t it? They get angry.”

Ringo shook his head. “But I think she’s angry at Paul, and that’s not right.”

“Of course it’s not. But it’s what she feels.”

Ringo frowned.

“At least she’s dealing with it. Or trying to.”

Ringo grunted.

“Unlike some of Paul’s other loved ones.”

Ringo dropped his paper completely.

Barbara sighed. “Honey, if you think ignoring this is going to make it all go away, you’re kidding yourself.”

Ringo thought about it. Really thought about it. She was wrong, of course – things like this always did go away, eventually. Overblown things like “we’re bigger than Jesus now” and “I’ve taken LSD four times.” Ugly things like McCartney Sues to Dissolve Beatle Partnership. Sad things like Ex-Beatle Succumbs to Cancer and incomprehensible things like John Lennon Shot Dead. Even magnificently lurid things like the Macca-Mucca divorce debacle (which had been mercifully flanked by the Brad Pitt/Jennifer Aniston and Britney Spears/Kevin Whateverhisnamewas divorce debacles) ran out of steam after awhile. It was only a question of whether or not you’d still be alive and sane and in one piece when you came out the other side.

“It will, though. Someday it’ll be ancient history. Someday sooner than you think.”

“It’s already ancient history, and it’s still major news.”

“It’s rubbish. Gossip and bullshit.”

She didn’t challenge him on that. They both knew she didn’t have to.

“Look, I don’t even know what to say. What these people want to know...who the hell could find an answer for that?”

“George Martin managed it.”

And he had, too, the wily old bastard. Sir George, seemingly ageless at 90 and as smooth and sharp as the day he’d made Ringo sit in the corner and bang a tambourine, had said only, “Of course, I’m as shocked as anyone...and yet I’m not truly surprised at all.” But he was George Martin, after all, benighted wizard of the knobs and dials; plain old Ringo Starr could never get away with a brilliant-sounding non-answer like that.

And he told Barbara as much.

“Honey, with all due respect, that’s crap.”

“What?”

“No one expects you to be the clown prince anymore, okay? You’re way too old for the part. And if George Martin could be honest about it, why can’t you?”

“Honest? How was that honest, an answer like that?”

“I knew exactly what he meant.”

Ringo brooded into his cup. So did he. He guessed.

“And don’t duck the subject.”

“I’m not...I don’t know what to say, Barbara! They ask me and they ask me, all of them, everybody! ‘Did you know?’ Christ! How could I know?”

Barbara shook her head. Her face was tight as she stood, gathering up her cup and plate. She didn’t look angry as much as deeply disappointed.

“What?” Ringo said again, spreading his hands helplessly.

She rinsed her dishes, her back to him. She didn’t answer.

“Barb, I just...I can’t...deal with this right now. I’m still trying to deal with Paul’s...I don’t need the rest of it, not right now.”

She turned from the sink. “You can’t deal with Paul’s death without dealing with his life, Rich! And this is his life. And John’s. And yours! You were there. You can’t sit here and pretend you weren’t, or act like you didn’t know anything. You can’t just stick your head in the sand and act like some, some session guy who hardly knew them, or some reporter who tagged along for a few weeks of a tour! Jesus Christ, honey, they were your best friends. They were your family - don’t you think you owe them something for that?”

He was startled at her vehemence. Barbara had been very fond of Paul, he knew that, and she was still close to the kids, maybe even closer than Ringo himself. But that didn’t account for the intensity of her reaction, the helpless frustration on her face, the tears in her eyes...Or did it? God knew – Ringo knew - grief was a funny business. It made you irrational, emotional, unpredictable. And Barbara was a woman who lived almost entirely through her heart - hell, she had cried for days after John’s death, and she had barely known him. Still... “Why are you so worked up about this?”

The look she gave him was almost pitying. “Because you are,” she said. “Can’t you at least be honest about that?”

Abruptly, she turned back to the sink. Ringo suspected she was crying, a little, and he wanted badly to go to her.

He looked at the TV instead.

“Just forget about the sex, okay?” the honey-coiffed Barbara Walters-type was lecturing the chubby, flamboyant Star Jones-type. “Forget the physical aspect for just a minute, all that titillation factor and all the dirty jokes, and just concentrate on the amazing emotional connection between these two men, and you will love this book. I mean it. This is a love story, and it’s beautiful. It’s moving, and tragic...I defy anyone with an ounce of romance in their soul to read this book and not come away thinking this is a love story of epic proportions!”

Wild applause. Whistles. A hoot here and there.

Ringo grimaced. Pushed “Off.”

And hoped the first thing Paul had done on arrival was give John a good swift kick in the ass.


***


He was in the bedroom, looking through some old picture books, when she came in to apologize. They weren’t the candids in his personal scrapbooks – though Ringo had plenty of those, and he supposed he’d end up hauling them out as well before too long – but slick, glossy, published collections. The Beatles Unseen Archives. Dezo Hoffman’s With The Beatles. Beatles in Rishikesh by Paul Saltzman. Linda McCartney’s Sixties. Signed by the lady herself, that one, and by her fella, too; Ringo traced a tender fingertip over Paul’s signature a moment before flipping through to the page he wanted.

Paul and John, side-by-side, going over the play list for Abbey Road. Sitting close, almost on top of each other, as was their custom. Sharing a laugh at a point when the laughs were hard to come by. Nice picture. Poignant. Painful, especially now. And, yes, honest, as almost all of Linda’s pictures were.

Barb sat down beside him and eased an arm around his shoulders, laying her head against his. “I was a schmuck, wasn’t I?”

He turned his face, buried a smile in her hair. “Yep.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Shouldn’t be. You’re a beautiful schmuck.”

She gave him a squeeze. He turned back to his photos; she turned her head and rested her chin in his shoulder. “Then it’s okay if I do it again?”

Ringo raised an eyebrow. “That depends,” he said warily.

She tapped the picture. “This isn’t the answer.”

“It isn’t?”

“Uh-uh. Neither is this” – David Bailey – “or this” – another Linda – “or this” - John and Paul at a nightclub, heads together, faces startled (caught?), photographer unknown. “I’m still not sure why you need answers to a question John’s already settled, but if you do, these aren’t going to help.”

Ringo struggled with it for a moment; it was Barb, sure, but it was still hard to say.

“They look like a couple, Barbara,” he said at last. “They look like a couple so much it’s fucking ridiculous. I feel like the clown prince when I look at these pictures. Like the dullest, dumbest asshole who ever lived.”

Barbara laughed softly. “But that’s what I mean, baby. Pictures aren’t going to tell you anything. I could find dozens of pictures that make any two of you look like Romeo and Juliet. Hundreds, maybe.”

He drew back to look at her.

“Rich, you guys oozed love. I never saw four men so touchy-feely with each other. And it wasn’t just John and Paul, it was all of you. I’ve seen pictures of you and Paul practically cuddling on a hotel couch. And somewhere out there in internet land is a lovely shot of you kissing the top of his head.” She beamed too sweetly. “And I mean that sincerely, honey; it is lovely.”

Ringo smirked. “You do have a point here?”

“These pictures don’t prove anything except that John and Paul loved each other. And I’m guessing you already knew that.”

He snorted. “Yeah, of course I knew that. I just didn’t know it was...like it was.”

“Even if that’s true” – and her expression said this was a very big if – “you know now.”

He said nothing.

“Do you want to know what I think?”

“I don’t know. Do I?”

“I think you’re looking for something that might make John a liar.”

Ringo turned back to the book. “Why would I do that?”

Barbara narrowed her eyes. “Stop it,” she warned.

“What?”

“Playing dumb.”

“Who says I’m playing?”

She elbowed him. “Okay, Mr. Obvious, I’ll play, too. The idea that John and Paul were lovers bothers you. You have a problem with it. It’s an issue for you.” She cocked her head. “I could break it down a little more, if you need me to, but I’d have to use blocks.”

Ringo flushed. “I don’t love John and Paul any less for this.”

“I know that.”

“I just feel...” He paused, looking for the right word. Stupid? Blind? Left out? “I just wish they would have told me,” he said finally, softly. “Either of them, both of them - they could have told me.”

Barbara didn’t say anything. After a moment she got up and went to the huge closet at the end of the master suite, rummaging through boxes; he could hear her muttering to herself. It didn’t take long. She came back with an armload of albums and dumped them on the bed. Real albums, cardboard sleeves, honest-to-goodness vinyl. Real old albums: Ram, Imagine, Double Fantasy, Tug of War.

“Maybe they did,” she said.


***


Ram was the one he picked up first, automatically, without thinking. He studied the cover, that stupid cover, Paul and his too-tight tee-shirt, showing off his new manly-farmer biceps, taking the bull (okay, sheep) by the horns. John had mocked that cover with a postcard of his own rather bookish-looking self, dutifully sweatered and bespectacled, holding a pig by its ears. In truth, it begged to be mocked, though in hindsight Ringo wondered if the picture wasn’t just another classic case of Paul fucking with everyone’s head and everyone missing the point. Maybe the picture was an afterthought, a cover story, a ruse; maybe there was an entirely different reason this particular album was called Ram. Ram it, cram it, stuff it, shove it – whatever “it” was. Or maybe something even more direct, more personal. Ram it, John. Up yours, John. Fuck you, John.

Speaking of which—

He flipped the record over. The two beetles. The two fucking beetles. Forget “Too Many People” or “3 Legs” or any of the other songs John swore (probably correctly) were McCartnese for “John, I hate you and that shrieking hairball you married” – it was that picture that had really set John off. Personally, Ringo had thought it rather funny, the same way he’d thought Paul’s “limping dog of a news story” letter to Melody Maker was funny, or John’s pig postcard. Funny in an acid, laugh-behind-your-hands, semi-horrified way. But John seemed to take it personally. To him, it wasn’t just the Beatles symbolically fucking each other over; it was two beetles - two Beatles - fucking.

Not hard to guess which two, now.

Was that how Paul had meant it? Ringo wondered suddenly. Was it a sexual taunt? Was it “We’ll never do that again, asshole, so happy memories,” or something simpler and more direct, like “Bend over, bitch?”

He didn’t know. Apparently there was a lot he didn’t know. Had never known.

Imagine’s cover was simpler and stranger, dreamy clouds over John’s terse face, with the lyrics on the back. John had been so proud of that, he remembered now. “Paul doesn’t print his lyrics on the albums,” he’d pointed out to anyone who’d stand still long enough to listen. Ringo had been one of those anyones, and it had occurred to him even then that Paul’s lyrics were all over Sgt. Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour, and the White Album, but he hadn’t mentioned it. At that point in their history, John had seen any defense of Paul – indeed, any mention of Paul’s name without the words “that cunt” immediately preceding it – as tantamount to treason.

Ringo ran his gaze down the song list. There it was, side two, track eight. “How Do You Sleep?” Ringo had been there to witness the carnage firsthand; if Paul had been hurt by the final result, he would have been devastated by what didn’t make the cut. Dick jokes. Fag jokes. Some truly disgusting references to Linda and various parts of her anatomy. By the time John came up with “All you done was ‘Yesterday’, you probably pinched that bitch anyway” (a line that brought the session’s only real moment of humor, an apoplectic Allen Klein flying into the room, screeching, “You can’t say that! He’ll sue the shit out of us!”), even George was looking a bit queasy. And Ringo had heard enough.

John had caught him at the door.

“Where you going, mate? Party’s just getting started.”

Party. Ringo’s belly turned over. Yes, that was how John was treating this, how he was acting – like it was all a party, a game, a laugh. He and Yoko and Klein were having a high old time, trading lines, giggling like naughty children and congratulating each other over the most vicious (and juvenile) bits. They didn’t seem to notice - or care - how irritated and uncomfortable the other musicians were getting each time Yoko ran in with yet another You’re-ugly-and-your-mother-dresses-you-funny type of offering. And nobody seemed to notice, save Ringo and maybe George, how un-funny John’s smile was, how un-laughing his eyes. For all his playacting, John was dead serious in this; for all his grinning and giggling, John was in a quiet rage. Ringo knew it even if John didn’t.

Party? Ringo thought again. This was no party, this was a fucking gang-rape - and he wanted no part of it.

“Not my type of party, John. I’m leaving.”

John’s eyes narrowed.

“It’s too much, John. You’re going too far now. I don’t care what he’s done, Paul doesn’t deserve this.”

“The fuck he doesn’t.”

Ringo looked away.

“And you should care what he’s done. He shit all over you, too. Maybe you’ve forgotten, but I haven’t. I fucking care what he’s done. He went public with this first, he started it, why shouldn’t I finish it?”

“I don’t know!” Ringo admitted, rather crossly. That was the shittiest part of it – that he knew exactly how John felt, and a good chunk of him felt the same way. He was still angry as hell at Paul, too, and terribly hurt by what Paul had done. He just wasn’t sure that justified the lot of them holding Paul down while John took him hard up the ass. “But does it have to be like this?”

For a split-second, no more, John looked uncomfortable. Then he shrugged and popped his gum. “He did it his way, I’ll do it mine.”

Ringo sighed. His way. Paul’s way. Paul’s way or the highway...yes, he knew the pattern as well as anyone. But was it right in this case? Was it even fair? He didn’t know. He had thought about it a lot since the breakup, brooded and pondered and tried, as was his wont, to see all sides, but he still didn’t know the answer to that.

“John...have you ever thought maybe...maybe Paul was just doing what he had to do? Or what he thought he had to do?”

Thunderclouds. “Are you defending him?”

“Well, someone had to do it, right? I mean, the group...the group was history anyway. You asked him for a divorce. And that’s what you do in a divorce, isn’t it? Get a lawyer and off to court you go?”

John gave him that impatient, incredulous, are-you-completely-daft look he could have patented and shook his head. “Fuck’s sake, Ring, you think that’s what this is all about?”

“What else would it be?”

“Haven’t been listening to his so-called music lately, have you?”

“What are you t—?”

“Ram!” John exploded. “I’m talking about Ram , don’t you fucking know? That whole fucking album was about me! One shot right after another at me. And Yoko, too, when he could be bothered.”

Ringo made a face. “Ahh, Christ, Johnny, who told you that?”

“Who told me? Nobody had to fucking tell me, it’s all right there! ‘Too Many People’? ‘Dear Boy’? ‘3 Legs’? Are you kidding? Anyone who fucking knows him knows it was all about me! I know it. You should too. You would too, if you knew half of what went on before—” He stopped abruptly and let out an explosive breath. “Or maybe you wouldn’t. I don’t know. Probably not. There’s a lot in there that’s just for me. A lot of it’s in the code, you know? Fucking Paul-speak. He did it that way on purpose, I know it and he knows it. It’s all shit he knew I’d get and nobody else would, and he could deny it all later.”

The code? Paul-speak? Ringo tried not to look as uneasy as he felt. It’s the heroin, he told himself. Or whatever he’s using now. It’s the drugs, they make you paranoid. “What if you’re wrong?”

“I’m not.”

“But what if you are?” Ringo persisted. “What if none of those songs were about you?” He saw the look on John’s face and continued hastily. “All right, yeah, John, I’m not stupid. ‘Too Many People’ was pretty fucking obvious, I’ll give you that. But the others...Paul even said ‘Dear Boy’ was about Linda’s ex-husband, so how can you—”

“Paul’s a fucking liar.”

“You don’t know that, John! You—”

“I know Paul!” John shrieked. Heads turned from all around the studio, and Ringo tried not to cringe. God, he so badly wanted to be out of here. God, he wished John hadn’t been coming in as he was going out. “I know that lying cunt inside and out, and I know when he’s fucking with me! I know when he’s laughing at me and trying to get me, Ringo, because he’s fucking done it before! More than you even know, in ways you don’t even know, Paul’s fucking hurt me, and every fucking time he stood there with that fucking smile on his face and said he didn’t! It was always me. It’s always my fault. I’m seeing things or I’m possessive or paranoid or I expect too fucking much! Even when we were—”

He stopped again, biting his lip, breathing hard, and again Ringo had the feeling they were having two entirely different conversations. Maybe they were, at that; maybe John was speaking in “the code” now. Whatever the hell that was.

Too bad you didn’t invite Paul to your party, John, he thought, almost giddily. He could translate.

John spoke again, more calmly. “You think those two fucking beetles were about Linda’s ex, Richie?”

After a moment’s incomprehension, Ringo laughed – a mistake, if John’s flush was any indication, but he couldn’t help it. “Oh, Jesus, John, that?”

“You think it’s funny?” John hissed.

“Yeah, John, actually I do. A bit. It’s a joke, man. A bad one, maybe, or a mean one, but...I think Paul’s feeling a bit sorry for himself, is all. He thinks we’re all screwing him, that’s what he was saying.”

“You’re daft,” John sneered. “You don’t know anything if you believe that.”

The tone was an insult as well as the words, and Ringo felt his own temper beginning to rise.

“You know, John, maybe Paul has a point about your imagination.”

John went even redder. “He fucking took me to court, Richie! Me! Was that my fucking imagination, too?”

And Ringo snapped.

“He took us all to court, John!” Ringo shouted, so suddenly that John jumped. Ringo didn’t care; he leaned in hard, putting their faces inches apart, too angry in the moment to give a toss who was watching or not. “It wasn’t just you, or you and Paul, it was all of us! We’re all his mates, we all love him, and he fucked all three of us, so why should you be any different? What makes you so fucking special?”

John’s angry glare vanished. His mouth dropped open; the color drained from his face. He couldn’t have looked more shocked, more stunned and hurt, if Ringo had slapped him - and his voice, when it finally came back, struck Ringo as bewildered, almost childlike, reflective and very sad.

“Nothing, I guess."

Ringo didn’t know what to say to that. His anger was gone, quick as it had come, replaced by that terrible unease again, that sense that he only knew half the story, that he was talking to a stranger behind the familiar face. He looked helplessly around the room. Most everyone was still watching, enthralled by this little side drama to the epic hate-fest already in progress, but when they felt his eyes they hastily turned their attention back to guitars or knobs or sheets of scrawled lyrics. Except for George. George was watching them intently, a strange mix of emotions on his face, eyes grave, lips barely curved in a small tight smile. “John, look, I didn’t mean—”

“I know.”

“I just—”

“It’s all right, Ring.” He sounded perfectly calm again. Reasonable. Almost pleasant. But hollow, hollow and tired. The drugs, Ringo told himself again. Just the drugs. Mood swings and all that. “Go on, take off if you want to. You’re right, you probably shouldn’t be here for this.”

He turned and shuffled back to his guitars and mikes, leaving Ringo standing in the doorway. The music, such as it was, started up again, but the mood had clearly changed. The last thing Ringo heard as he walked out was “Them freaks was right when they said you was dead,” and it seemed more fitting than hateful.

Nothing, I guess.

The party had turned into a funeral.


***


Ringo kept looking. And listening. It was easy, he decided, once you knew what you were looking – and listening - for.

Paul answered “How Do You Sleep?” with “Some People Never Know,” and John countered with “I Know (I Know).” John offered a half-assed olive branch with “Jealous Guy” (on the same album as “Sleep,” no less, and if that wasn’t John’s slap-em/hug-em style to a tee, Ringo didn’t know what was), and Paul eventually accepted with a wink and a nod (“Let Me Roll It”). Back and forth it went, like some inter-album conversation only the two of them could understand. Like a cross-Atlantic game of Marco Polo, only with higher stakes.

There were others, too, in no particular order. “Dear Friend.” “Mind Games.” “No Words.” “I Found Out” (“I’ve seen religions from Jesus to Paul”? Ringo felt like kicking himself for missing that one.) Even with what he knew now, Ringo wasn’t fool enough to think that John and Paul hadn’t loved Yoko and Linda with all their hearts, or that every song they wrote was about JohnandPaulandTheirSecretEpicLove. They both seemed to have saved the grand-scale romance for their ladies (“Maybe I’m Amazed”, “Woman”), and songs like “Oh, Yoko” and “The Lovely Linda” pretty much spoke for themselves. But...damn! Some of the less-obvious stuff was so obvious it was almost a joke. John, especially, seemed fond of throwing Paul’s own lyrics and titles back at him in not-so-obscure ways: “Today I love you more than yesterday.” “And I know it’s getting better all the time.” “It’s time to spread our wings and fly, don't let another day go by, my love.” Ringo recalled now that John had even made a reference to that last one, something about being reluctant to use the word “wings” because everyone would automatically associate it with Paul. Which many people later did - though largely because John had called it to their attention in the first place.

And then he added “Another Day” and “My Love,” Ringo thought, to really throw those crazy fuckers off the track.

He couldn’t stop a small chuckle as he put down Double Fantasy and picked up Tug of War.

The dialogue hadn’t stopped with John’s death, not on Paul’s end of things; John’s death just turned it into a monologue. Or maybe a soliloquy. Tug of War was one of Ringo’s personal favorites, in spite of how painful he had found it, because John was an almost tangible presence - not just on “Here Today” but throughout, in little dabs (“Take It Away”, “Wanderlust”) and huge, glaring chunks. The title cut was obviously about John and Paul; it even sounded like John was singing back-up, though Ringo knew that was impossible, that it was just Paul doing John as only Paul really could. Ringo had always wanted to ask Paul if he had done that subconsciously or not, but somehow he’d never gotten the chance. He hoped it was subconscious; the alternative was much too creepy. And much too sad.

And of course there was “Here Today,” which Ringo couldn’t listen to for months after he got the record, and which Barbara couldn’t listen to at all. It broke them both every time.

He did say it, though, didn’t he? Ringo mused now, looking at the lyrics. He said it right there, right out: I love you. He wondered if Paul had ever said it when John was alive.

A little light went off in Ringo’s head. A memory long-forgotten, or maybe suppressed. A phone call he had received a few months after John’s death. It was Paul. Two things had been immediately clear: he was crying, and he was very, very drunk, and Ringo had steeled himself for a long ordeal. Paul on a happy drunk was great fun, born storyteller, bon vivant, that famous charm laced with the bawdy, wicked wit he hid so carefully from the world; Paul on a bad drunk was hell. Grinding, relentless, obsessive hell. Unless he had changed drastically in the last ten years...

They had exchanged only the barest of greetings before Paul proved he had not.

“What were the two times, Ringo?”

“What, Paul?”

“The two times I hurt you.”

Ringo frowned at the phone. “Paul, what are you talking about?”

“You said at the wedding I hurt you two times. What two times?”

It rang a bell...but an awfully faint one. “Ah, Christ, Paul, I don’t...I was joking. I thought you knew that.”

“You weren’t joking, Ringo, don’t give me that shit. I know when you’re fucking joking. You weren’t joking.”

Grinding, relentless—and redundant. “But I was. I don’t hold on to shit like that, you know that, Paul.”

“But you said it! You must remember if it’s still fucking bothering you enough to say it. You said it. At the wedding, you said two times.” Paul and his maddening, obstinate circularity. Then, softer, almost pleading: “I can’t make it right if you don’t tell me.”

Ringo hesitated. When you threw me out of your house. When you drummed me off of “Back In The USSR.” When you forgot your promise to sing the lead on “Don’t Pass Me by.” When you took us to court. When you drank too much at the NEMS Christmas party and put your hand up Mo’s skirt. Christ, there were a dozen more he could name without even thinking about it, but what was the point? He wasn’t perfect, either, and no doubt Paul had a similar list of his own...why stand here and throw stones at each other? “Paul, I honestly don’t remember.”

Silence. Then: “You’ll remember when some fucking reporter asks you.”

“What?”

“Phillip asshole Norman sticks a tape recorder in your face, you’ll remember all the times that two-faced fucker McCartney screwed you, slagged you off and hurt your fucking feelings.” Flat. Cold. And bitter. Paranoid and bitter. Like John, Ringo remembered thinking, even then. Like John at that fucking recording session. Like John at his absolute worst. “That’s very ‘in’ right now, Ringo, don’t you know? Seems I’ve been hurting people all over the fucking place, leaving a fucking trail of broken hearts scattered behind me all these years. And I never even knew it! That’s how big a prick I am, mate! I hurt people and don’t even know it! I need a backstabbing fuck like Norman or that two-faced cunt to tell me.”

Again, Ringo was lost. Norman? That cunt? Then it clicked. Philip Norman. And Yoko, of course. Oh, Christ. That interview, that fucking interview...that quote: “John always said Paul hurt him more than anyone else.” Ringo winced. Nice timing, Yoko. Kick him in the nads again, why don’t you?

“Paul—”

“He hurt me, you know. How come nobody talks about that? So many fucking times…even you don’t know, Ring. You and George. You saw, but you didn’t see everything.”

“I know, Paul. It hurt me, too, and George. He left all of us, and—"

“I don’t mean the group, the fucking Beatles, Richie, I mean us! He left me, he—and I didn’t hurt him, he hurt me! I even said it then, do you remember? Ringo, you remember, I fucking told the papers ‘he’s in love with her and he’s not in love with us anymore!’ You remember that, don’t you?”

“Yeah, Paul, I remember.” And I didn’t know what the fuck you were talking about then, either.

A long silence.

“I only told him once, man. I think it was the only time. Key West, y’remember? We were so fucking drunk...and I told him and he told me. It was…was good…”

“Paul…there were a lot of good times. Okay? You need to remember that. Forget all the bullshit, forget what everyone’s saying or you think they’re saying. Just remember the good times with John.”

More silence.

“Paul?”

“That night I let him.”

“What? What was that, Paul?”

“All the way...and it wasn’t...wasn’t bad, it was just....Maybe I should have again. You know? Christ, if I’d have known...I’d give him that, I would.”

“Sure you would,” Ringo soothed, again with no idea what Paul was talking about – or why it should make him feel so profoundly uncomfortable. “You loved John, man, we all did. I know you’d give him anything he—”

“I gave him everything!” Paul said suddenly, fiercely. “And it wasn’t enough! Never enough, not for John, that bastard. That fucking rotten...rotten bastard....”

There were other words, fading off too soft to hear, dissolving into sobs. Real sobs now, quiet but unmistakable. And intense - Ringo could almost feel the force of them through the phone. He sat and held the receiver, frozen, startled, a little scared. This wasn’t normal. Whatever Paul was talking about, whatever he was feeling right now, this was not normal grief. This was anguish, and for those few awful moments he sat helpless hostage to it, Ringo hated Yoko (and Philip Norman, and even John) with all his heart.

The sobs grew muffled. A hand over the phone? Then, a woman’s voice. “Ringo?”

“Linda?”

A sigh. “Ringo, I’m sorry. I know it’s early there. He said he might call you, but I thought I’d talked him out of it and he’d gone to bed. I thought he was asleep.”

“Linda... is he okay?”

A pause. “No. But he will be.”

But she didn’t sound very sure.

“Are you okay? I mean…is it...he...always...like this?”

“No. But I think this was coming for awhile, you know?”

“Yeah.”

“And then that interview—” Linda’s voice hardened, and for a flash Ringo heard the same hatred he had felt. “Well, it got him going places he probably shouldn’t go.”

With no idea he was going to say it, Ringo said: “Watch him.”

“You know I will. Ringo, I am really sorry about this. You don’t need this.”

“It’s okay, Linda. Anytime. I mean that.”

“You’re a love.” Ringo smiled, a bit; that was one of Paul’s pet expressions. “Give my best to Barbara, will you?”

“And mine to the kids.”

“I will.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

They had never talked about it again. Either Paul didn’t remember or pretended not to – which amounted to the same thing - and Ringo had never pursued it.

Never.

That night I let him.

Paul had told him.

All the way...and it wasn’t...wasn’t bad, it was just....Maybe I should have again. You know? If I’d have known...I’d give him that, I would.

Paul had fucking told him. John had given him the prologue, maybe, but it was Paul who had finished the story. He had come right out with it, and Ringo had heard it, and he hadn’t wanted to know what it meant...but he had. Of course he had - and still he had let it lie.

You fucking selfish bastard. You let him hurt like that when he needed you so bad, when he needed you to know and understand, all because you didn’t want to hear what he was saying? All because you couldn’t handle it?

And he was unsurprised that the voice berating him sounded not like his own, but like John’s.

“I don’t mean the group, the fucking Beatles, Rich, I mean us! He left me."

Ringo lay back on the bed and put an arm across his eyes, feeling stricken, feeling cowardly, feeling ashamed.

At least, he thought bitterly, I didn’t ask him what made him so fucking special.

For the first time since Paul’s death, he cried.


***


Barb woke him shortly after noon with coffee and a soft shake. And a question. An unavoidable one, given the state of the bed, the room, his face.

“Rough night?”

He sat up, picture books and album covers sliding every which way, and started talking. It all poured out: the quotes he should have taken more seriously, the songs he should have listened to more closely, the signs he should have seen. John’s rage, Paul’s hurt, and then the flip-flop (“They couldn’t even agree on that, the crazy bastards,” Ringo grumbled to Barb. “Couldn’t both of them be pissed off or pouting at the same time, ho, no! - they had to take turns.”) And the confessions, of course, Paul’s in particular. Barbara listened quietly and attentively throughout, with admirably little “I-told-you-so” on her face, though the temptation had to be powerful.

“So maybe an all-day, half-the-night marathon of John and Paul wasn’t such a great idea after all,” she ventured, when he finally dried up and paused for some coffee.

“Au contraire, ma chere,” Ringo teased gently. “Was exactly what the doctor ordered, I think.”

“But it upset you.”

“Some of it, yeah. But most of it....overall, I mean...I think it helped. I feel better, I know that much.”

Barbara smiled knowingly. “You realized they did tell you after all.”

Ringo nibbled on a biscuit. “Yeah, they did. But that didn’t really make me feel better.”

“No? Why?”

“Because I didn’t listen. When I thought of Paul especially, Paul that night he called, how he was trying to tell me, how he did...I felt sick. I felt like shit. Thick and selfish.” He took her hand in his, playing with it, stroking it. “But then I thought – this was what I got right before I dropped off – at least they told each other. That’s more important, right? Fuck all what George or Ringo or anyone else knew or thought - they knew.”

“And that made you feel better.”

“No, not really. Because they didn’t tell each other enough, you know? They did it in songs and jokes, or one night in Key West when they were pissed off their asses...but never...well, I don’t know. Just seems like they still had a lot of doubt, and that made me mad.”

Barbara gave him a very peculiar look. “So what was it - exactly - that made you feel better?"

Ringo shrugged, fighting his own emotions. “It’s all behind them now. You know? Whatever was wrong, whatever they didn’t say or should have said...it doesn’t matter now, none of it. They’re together now."

Barbara’s eyes filled. She hugged him, nearly upsetting his coffee, crying a little and – Ringo realized after a moment - chuckling a little, too.

“What’s this?” he asked, somewhat bemused.

“You.” She clutched him tight, still laughing, still wet-eyed; she kissed him warmly and firmly, taking his face in her hands. “And they all say John was the deep one.”


***


“You’re going to do it, then? You’re going to make an ‘official’ statement?”

“Yeah.”

“Who’s the lucky leech?”

“Rolling Stone. I trust them. They won’t try to twist it or change it ‘round. And they’ll leave it in if I want to say 'fuck.'”

“Do you plan to say ‘fuck’?”

“You never know.”

“What do you plan to say?”

“I don’t know.” He grinned at her. “Something honest, I guess.”


***


RS: Obviously, Ringo, everybody’s been after you to make a statement on the revelations from John Lennon’s memoirs about his...well, for lack of a better word, I guess we’ll say ‘affair’ with Paul McCartney. Do you want to say anything about that?

Starr: Yeah. Yeah, I do. And this is my only statement on it, all right? After this, we can talk about the music and the history and all that. We can talk about Paul, even though that’s still...still pretty hard. But this is the only thing I’m going to say officially about John and Paul being together.

RS: Fair enough.

Starr: “Of course, I’m as shocked as anyone...and yet I’m not truly surprised at all.”

RS: (long pause) But that’s...isn’t that word-for-word what Sir George Martin said?

Starr: Yeah, it is. (smiling) And I know exactly what he meant.</lj-cut>