Carnival of Light || Paul McCartney/Beatles

17. The Reluctant Return of Mrs Fitz (Paul)

Carnival of Light (Part 2)

17.

September 1967

London

Paul couldn't face a chat with the gate birds, so he tossed his keys over the gate for George to catch and let himself in.

George was looking especially lithe and underfed in purple satin trousers and a tangerine tunic embroidered with roses, a few strands of rainbow beads hanging around his neck. His colourful clothes were a direct contrast to the deep furrow of his brow as he waved off requests for autographs and turned to look at Paul, who was watching with his thumbs tucked in his trouser pockets, his expression hard to read.

"Like your jumper, man," George nodded to Paul's rather jaunty fair isle sweater vest, which his Auntie Milly had knitted and posted down to London. "It's groovy."

"Cheers, man," Paul said, sounding tired.

"Fucking hell," George wrinkled his nose as he followed Paul into the house. "It smells like shit in here."

"Does it?" Paul asked.

"There's dog shit right there," George pointed to a pile of shit beside the umbrella stand, and shot Paul an incredulous look. "Are you just letting Martha shit all over the house?"

"Got to get a new housekeeper, don't I," Paul shrugged. "There's a bit much going on right now, y'know?"

"Yeah, alright man," George's tone softened. He clapped Paul on the shoulder.

Normally Paul was the brave-faced one keeping the others afloat with his relentless optimism, but he didn't have George's complete faith that Brian was doing just fine in heaven or being born into a new body or about to experience pure bliss or whatever. George didn't need a brave face. As far as Paul knew Brian had been in pain and now he was dead and that was the end of him, and now Paul had to make sure it wasn't the end of the Beatles too.

He followed George down the hall to the sitting room, skirting another pile of shit Martha had left near the foot of the spiral staircase. John and Ringo were waiting there with cooling cups of tea in front of them. They both looked as bad as Paul felt inside. Ringo's emotions ran close to the surface, his grief evident in every quiver of his moustache. John was almost entirely blank-faced like he was when he went "space cadet", but there was a glaze of something like fear there too.

"Hi," George offered, prompting Ringo to look up while John remained fixated on some spot across the room.

George sat beside Ringo on the settee and Paul took the spare armchair so he was facing them. It was just the four of them in the house, no wives or girlfriends, no Mal or Neil or other handlers. Just them. Paul looked around at his bandmates, his best mates. He could feel the fissures in the air between them. They weren't new fissures, some of them were a decade-old, but somehow Brian had been the glue keeping them from growing. Now he was dead and the cracks were starting to show.

Paul exchanged a look with Ringo, who looked back at him morosely. Richie was a perceptive bloke. He could feel the cracks too.

"So," Paul said, looking around at the other Beatles. "What the fuck are we gonna do?"

***

What they were going to do, as Paul prescribed, was be the Beatles and make Magical Mystery Tour together, delay their pilgrimage to India until 1968 and get Apple up and running, and release a new single too.

Paul felt sort of okay at the end of that meeting. Like he had control with the reigns in his hand. Now he just needed a bloody housekeeper to clean up all this dog shit and his life would be back on track.