Paperback Writer // McHarrison

Three

"Are you prepared? Today marks the next five months of hard, gruelling work." George warns the next week as Mr McCartney sits in his office for a second time. His dark eyes meet fearlessly with the author's and, just as fearlessly, he nods in complete understanding.

"I'm more than ready." He replies with certainty dripping from his tone. Mr Harrison nods, second-guessing himself whether he was ready or not, for this was quite possibly the hardest book he would ever publish. The hardest book to ever publish in history more like. His olive skin fell damp with a cold sweat at the mere thought of the public's reaction to Mr McCartney's work, as unpredictable as that reaction may be.

Lighting up a cigarette, Mr Harrison inhaled before blowing away the smoke as well as his constricting thoughts and set his mind to the task at hand. Both men stared at the 300-page manuscript like it was a living, breathing thing about to be dissected. Mr Harrison flipped the first page and started with the first sentence.

"Stop! Listen." He read out, and they waited in silence for a short second as if bending to the word's commands. "Brilliant. That is single-handedly the best opener I have ever seen." Mr Harrison concludes whilst Mr McCartney's cheeks become warm from the comment. 

Mr Harrison stands, aimlessly roaming from one side of his desk to the other. "But first thing's first, I want you to look through the book and circle anything - themes, scenes, characters, words - that you could not possibly stand to see change. Then we will work through them together." He says and stops his pacing for only a short moment to hand Mr McCartney a red pencil. Nodding dutifully, the slightly older man does what is asked of him immediately, his face buried in the manuscript and the pencil perched readily in his left hand. A lefty. George made a small note of that.

Once Mr McCartney had completed his task and Mr harrison had looked over it, the real process begun. Editing a book wasn't simply fixing spelling mistakes and taking out the bad parts - it was a careful production, survival of the fittest. Each sentence, word, letter is the difference between a waste of paper and a classic with legacy. Each step that Mr Harrison took with editing Mr McCartney's work was terrifying but also exhilarating. It was an editor's worst nightmare to take a book with such powerful literary potential and mould into the biggest literary failure. With this story though, Mr Harrison was willing to take the risk.

"This scene? You really want to keep it? I understand the dancing scene, but this...?" Mr Harrison asks, looking up at the author with his eyebrow quirked.

Mr McCartney sighs and gently takes the book from his hands. "This is the most important part!" He exclaims and runs his fingertips over the words. "In the dancing scene, their love is so clear to the reader that the page radiates heat, right? They're in each other's arms, looking into each other's eyes and you can just tell. But the dynamic between them isn't that simple and that's why they need this scene. When they fight and throw things at each other and scream bloody murder, it's a stark contrast to the dancing scene - just like they contrast each other. A juxtaposition." He explains and not a single word that leaves his lips does Mr Harrison disagree with. Utterly, completely and totally stunned, the publisher can't believe the man in front of him.

"You are a genius." He breathes slowly, his tongue barely making the shapes as his throat barely made the sounds. But it was these things that 'barely happened' that made Mr McCartney's insides grow warm and fizz slightly. Ever since he was 15, when he began writing, it had been kept a secret. The only people who knew about his writing were his brother, his best friend and his father. And still, none of them knew the subjects in which his novels were about, the fact he was an aspiring author was more than enough to earn their disapproval.

So when George Harrison uttered those words so lightly on a delicate breath, he felt as though what he spent hours doing hunch over a desk in the night was finally being somewhat appreciated.

Despite all this, he only showed his gratitude in two words: "Thank you."

Together, they moved to the next part in which Mr McCartney had circled.

Mr Harrison read aloud. "Raymond's array of materials was set upon the table in an immaculately neat pattern. With a flowing but practised movement, he placed the horse-hair paintbrush in his hand and dipped it in ebony paint. The first things that were drawn upon the canvas were Edmund's midnight pupils as they were the things about Eddie that could make Raymond feel more afraid than he'd ever felt in his entire life, more loved, more cherished, more guilty, more shameful, more empathetic, more desperate than he knew he was capable of.
Across from the easel where Ray sat, Ed was draped over the couch in a purely Ed way. His arms and legs were spread out but it looked effortless how his muscular and hard-worked arms sat on the back of the couch. His shirt was open to reveal his wife-beater singlet and golden necklace that hung upon it a brass cross. His suspenders were still pulled over his shoulders but loosely, easily. His left leg sat over his right and behind his ear was a silver cigarette. Like this, Edmund Holly was the most exposed man in the world. His demeanour and facade were airborne, and so plainly hang about the room that Ray could see his personality, secrets, fears, thoughts and hopes on display.
It was this that caused the heat to run between them, an energy that simply couldn't be explained. No two men had felt it before and never again - no one would. It was love and trust but the purest, most divine kind. It ran through both their bodies, pooling as a tingling in their toes. As their eyes met from opposite sides of the room, the whole world eroded from around them and all that was left was the feeling of hearts growing twice their size."

That was when Mr Harrison took a deep, deep, astonished breath and looked up from the papers to meet Mr McCartney's eyes from across the table. Right then and there, Mr Harrison knew that that heat that was flowing between Edmond Holly and Raymond Jones wasn't limited to the world of fiction. For he felt it, distinctively, bouncing between him and Mr McCartney.