Yeah Yeah Yeah (Beatles/Paul McCartney)

36. The Middle of Nowhere

May 1967
Shelter Island / London

Paul

The hired limousine dropped us at the edge of a long, slightly dilapidated pier. We were only three hours from New York City, but it felt like the middle of bloody nowhere. Across the bay was a small, pine tree-lines island that appeared to be deserted. The little motorboat approaching us was the only evidence that we weren't at the end of the world.

"Are you planning to murder me and dump the body? Was that the plan all along?"

I looked over at Alice, who grinned. She gave me a saucy wink before picking up her bag and starting down the long pier. After a moment, I grabbed my carryall and guitar case and followed her.

"It's so quiet," she said, reaching for my hand once I'd joined her at the end of the pier. "It's like we're the only people alive."

"Well, except for him," I said, nodding to the man arriving on the boat, who looked at us like we'd just arrived from Mars. I looked down at my snug black trousers and patterned shirt from Granny's, then glanced over at Alice's lavender brocade dress and short white boots. Well, maybe we did look a bit otherworldly outside our usual habitat.

The man secured the boat to the pier and hopped out. He was built like an ox with cropped blonde hair and a ruddy complexion. Pulling out a badly crumpled piece of paper from his pocket, he glanced down at it.

"Mr. and Mrs. Wright? Is that you?"

He looked at us with a furrowed brow as if we couldn't possibly be the Wrights. They were squares who enjoyed playing Parcheesi and arguing about which news programme to listen to at supper. We, on the other hand, were feral drug addicts who dressed like the devil himself.

"Yes, that's us," Alice replied smoothly. "You must be Jake. How do you do?"

She offered him a hand like we were about to sit down for high tea. He looked at it briefly before reaching out to shake it a bit too vigorously. We were about to board the small boat when he paused and glanced at me with a confused frown on his face. I winced slightly, waiting for that moment of recognition: Do I know you from somewhere? We've met before, haven't we? Just as I was starting to worry that he'd rat me out to the local paper, I realized that he wasn't staring at me because I was a Beatle. He was staring at me because he was wondering what sort of self-respecting man would wear a patterned shirt and maroon velvet jacket.

It was a short ride to the island, which, upon second glance, did have a few houses scattered along the shoreline. Alice and I huddled together in the biting wind, her hair hitting me in the face and making us laugh. We were dropped on another semi-dilapidated pier surrounded by pine trees. Alice smiled politely and wished Jake well, after which he and his boat departed.

"Welcome to Antarctica, Mr. Wright," Alice said once we were alone. She threw her hands out and spun around in a circle. "No one knows or cares who you are. It'll be bloody fantastic."

I laughed. "Where are we really?"

"Shelter Island," Alice said as she picked up her suitcase. "It's becoming a bit of a hot spot for those in the know during the summer--"

"--but it's creepy and deserted during the off-season?"

"Precisely," she said with a grin. "And listen-- can you hear that? The sound of silence? No screaming girls, no touchy-feely American debutantes. Tell me, Paul, if a tree falls and there are no gate birds to witness it, does it make a sound?"

"It matters not because the tree has fallen."

She led us to a red Chevrolet Corvair coupe parked in a small field and reached under the chassis to retrieve a set of keys. She tossed them to me, asking if I knew how to drive on the wrong side of the road. I didn't, and neither did she, but we decided it didn't matter much.