Carnival of Light || Paul McCartney/Beatles

06. Enchanting Tripping Glaze: Part 1 (Paul)

Carnival of Light (Part 2)

06.

March 1967

Like his son, Jim McCartney was a sucker for beautiful women, and Paul wasn't the least bit surprised his father was immediately taken with Beatrix. Her pathologically good manners and clever mind hit all of Jim's high notes. He pulled Paul aside to tell him what he thought after dinner on their first night in Liverpool.

"She seems a nice young woman," Jim said. "Very sensible."

Sensible was about the highest compliment Jim McCartney could bestow on anyone.

It was Paul's cousin Vi's birthday that weekend. She looked about ready to pop with her second baby, but a raucous McCartney gathering took place all the same. It was a proper knees up, with Jim and various family members taking a turn on the piano and the Irish whisky flowing.

It started out a bit ropey. Beatrix felt out of her element with the full McCartney clan weighing her up, so she plastered on the debutante smile she used when she was uncomfortable. Paul remedied that by getting three whiskeys and a pint of lager in her fast, which got Beatrix out of her head and loose enough to glide around his Auntie Milly and Uncle Albert's sitting room being her usual lovely smiling self, and it all went swimmingly from there.

Of course Paul's aunties were watching closely and taking notes, and they had to have their say by the end of the night. Auntie Gin pulled Paul off to the side to speak to him on behalf of her fellow blue haired harpies, who loved Paul as much as the gate birds did.

"Are you going to marry this one?" Gin wanted to know.

"It's a bit soon for that, Gin," Paul grinned

"She's living with you, isn't she?" Gin countered. "That's not proper, Paul. You can't have your girlfriends living with you if you've no intention of marrying them."

"People live together without being married, Gin," Paul clapped his auntie on one sturdy arm. "Times they are a changin'."

"What about children," Gin pressed, undeterred. "This one seems to get on with the little ones very well."

That was true, and it had been the greatest revelation of the trip to Liverpool. There were always a million children at McCartney parties, and Beatrix warmly accepted every baby and toddler passed her way like she'd been holding babies and managing toddlers all her life.

At one point, Paul caught a wisp of conversation between Beatrix and Vi and his cousin Kath, who was married to a brilliant Irish bloke.

"I've got three boys," Kath complained. "They're bloody nightmares, always riling each other up. I don't get a moment's peace."

"I can't do another boy," Vi palmed her enormous baby bump. "I love my Tommy, but I hope this one's a girl."

"I'd love a little girl," Beatrix sighed.

Hearing her say that made Paul feel exceptionally broody as he was occasionally (frequently) prone to feeling. Kids were brilliant. You could learn things from them. Having kids was the most ordinary and normal thing in the world, and that wistful I'd love a little girl kicked Paul's overactive imagination into overdrive, making him feel broodier than he could remember feeling in his bloody life.

But they both had a bit much going on at the moment to be thinking about any of that.

***

It was spring. Flowers were in bloom and birds were singing. Summer was on the way and there was something sumptuous and languid in the air that made it feel like this summer was going to be a good one. Or maybe it was all the drugs and joss sticks.