From NME, August 28^th 1965

 

                        TEARS AND TANTRUMS ON BEATLES TOUR

                        It has been a few hard days night’s over at the Beatle household recently. After manager, Epstein decamped back to the UK, leaving the fab four with new manager, Michael Archer, rumours of fights, arguments and walks outs have abounded, the latest of these stating George is now living separately from the rest of the band, only meeting them on stage.

                        Perhaps, after two years of Beatlemania, the strains are finally showing on the band. Or perhaps the yet unidentified redhead George has been seen with has something to do with it. The girl, pictured with him at the premier of Help! a few months ago, joined the Beatles on tour, reportedly as a costume assistant.

                        Beatle Paul too is rumoured to be staying at alternative hotels occasionally. The Beatles office denies all rumours, but this reporters says, ‘Where there’s smoke…’

                        What we can be sure of, however, is that none of the Beatles will be sad to see the back of this tour as they return back to British shores this week. There is a UK tour on the cards this winter. It may be worth seeing them if you can, because it could easily be their last.

 

September 2nd 1965

 

George hesitated at the door. What if Archer had been wrong? What if Pattie was still living at Kinfauns after all? He didn’t want to find her inside, not least with Grace in tow at three o’clock in the morning.

 

“Haven’t you got the key?” Grace asked, standing behind him, sounding tired.

 

“Yes,” George replied and put it into the lock.

 

After Grace had set her heart on the house there had been no dissuading her. George couldn’t face arranging it himself. He had had Archer sort it out. He hated asking him. It was like accepting him as Brian’s replacement. But Brian had disappeared from the face of the earth, and Mal, true to his word, had been uncharacteristically unhelpful, although he had stuck with them throughout the tour.

 

George had been sure Pattie would still be living here but it appeared she had left not long after George had. George wished he had called her back then instead of waiting for her to contact him. Then, he realised, Grace would have never allowed that.

 

He pushed the front door open. It creaked and stuck a bit, like it hadn’t been opened in a long time. It hadn’t. George switched the hall light on as he stepped inside. The house smelled stuffy and dusty. Grace pushed past him, walking into the lounge, putting lights on.

 

“It’s good to be home, isn’t it?” she said.

 

George nodded.

 

“I’m so sick of hotel rooms, I don’t care if I never see another one!” she disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. “Do you want a cup of tea before bed? I’m parched.”

 

George followed her, carefully, looking around the house like he didn’t recognise it – but he did. It was so familiar it felt like he had never been away. Then he realised, that was because it was exactly as he had left it. There was an abandoned coffee cup on the arm of the chair. The small amount of coffee left in it had grown mould. George had left it there. He had left it there that afternoon in July he had walked out on Pattie. He picked it up.

 

“What’s that?” Grace returned, taking the cup from him.

 

“Nothing. A cup.”

 

She looked inside it and pulled her face. “Urgh. She wasn’t very house proud, your last girlfriend, was she?”

 

Grace walked back to the kitchen. George heard the tap switch on and he nearly yelled for Grace not to wash the cup out. Pattie had made that coffee. She had made it for George. It was the last thing she had done for him, before he had found the shoebox. Before he had dared look inside the shoebox.

 

George stepped towards the kitchen and then stopped as one item caught his eye. One item that hadn’t been there before. A letter. Another letter. George was starting to dread them.

 

A pink, crumpled envelope with one word written on it in blue fountain pen ink. He recognised the handwriting immediately. As if it would belong to any one else.

 

“George?” Grace called.

 

That’s what it said. The one word… George.

 

“George?” Grace came to the door. George snatched the letter up and stuffed it into his pocket. He turned around. “Do you want some tea?”

 

“Er, yeah, okay,” he said, feeling the paper, hoping Grace hadn’t seen it.

 

“Come on then,” she said and turned away.

 

George drew a sigh of relief and followed, feeling the letter in his trouser pocket, thinking it must be glowing or something, something to make Grace find it.

 

He sat down at the kitchen table with Grace. She poured him tea and he drank it. She was speaking. George wasn’t listening.

 

“Don’t you?” Grace said pointedly, and George realised he had missed what she had said.

 

“What?” he said.

 

She sighed, “Don’t you ever listen to me? I said I think we will have to redecorate.”

 

“The house?”

 

“What do you think? Yes, the house.”

 

“Oh,” George said. “If you like.”

 

Grace tutted.

 

“Sorry, I’m tired.” He tried a smile.

 

“Have you thought about what I said?”

 

George blinked.  “I, uh…”

 

“You’ve forgotten?”

 

“Oh,” George said. “Your brother.”

 

Grace smiled. “Yes. I want you to meet him.”

 

“Isn’t he in Africa, or somewhere?”

 

“No. That’s my parents. Mickey lives in London.”

 

George nodded. “Okay.”

 

“I do think you would work well together.”

 

George smiled. “Gracie, we’ve talked about this…”

 

Grace stood and came around the table, leaning on it in front of George. “Yes, but nothing lasts forever, does it?”

 

“No. But I’ve said. There’s contracts and stuff. I don’t even know how long it lasts. I said I’d get Brian to look his band, didn’t I?” He rested his hands on her hips, feeling too tired to argue. “That’s if we ever see Brian again,” he added, only half joking.

 

“You care about him?” Grace asked.

 

“Brian? I… guess. He’s a friend, y’know. He’s the one who made us what we are. We owe it to him, in a way.”

 

“Oh,” Grace said hollowly and lifted George’s hands from her. “I want to look after you, George.”

 

George nodded, resting his head on her stomach.

 

“I want to get you the things you need. Like when I brought you that Mal back.”

 

George closed his eyes, not responding. Not daring to. Grace hated Mal, it had become quickly apparent. As a result George had hardly seen anything of him. Except when he came to make peace with George for John or Paul, or sometimes even Ringo.

 

“He’s only your manager, though, isn’t he?” she continued.

 

“Yeah,” George said, muffled.

 

“Not like me and you. Our relationship.”

 

George lifted his head up. “What?” he asked, smiling. “What are you saying?”

 

“Nothing. He’s just someone who works for you, that’s all.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“I wish you would leave them.”

 

George let go of her hands. “Lets go to bed,” he said.

 

“Georgie, you have so much talent. You’re wasting it.”

 

“I’m not,” he said quietly.

 

“It’s just the John-and-Paul band. If you joined Mickey’s band, you could be the lead man.”

 

“Wouldn’t your brother have something to say about that?” George joked, trying to lighten the conversation.

 

“He thinks it’s a great idea.”

 

“You’ve talked to him about it?”

 

“Well…”

 

“Grace, I don’t want to leave the Beatles. I told you in Los Angeles. And Chicago. And a bunch of other places.”

 

“You don’t know what you want George.”

 

George stood up, taking his mug to the sink.

 

“You were just the same over Pattie. That’s why I had to help you, or you would have never left her.”

 

“What?” he said sharply, turning back. “How did you ‘help’?”

 

“I had to push you, George. Tell you about her affair with Paul. It was for your own good. You see that now, don’t you?”

 

“Oh, I… I thought you meant…”

 

“How you can stand being in the same band as that man is beyond me. After how he betrayed you. And your so-called friends, believing him over you.”

 

“They don’t.”

 

“Oh, yes they do, George. Are you really so stupid?”

 

“It doesn’t matter anyway.”

 

“He’ll have you believing him next.”

 

“Mmm.” George turned away.

 

Grace stood up, “Oh my God, you do already, don’t you?”

 

George brushed the hair off his forehead, it felt sticky. “Well, it’s been weeks and he’s not even wavered from…”

 

“And the letters? How do you explain those?”

 

“I don’t know,” George said, quietly. “Perhaps Pattie was having an affair, just not with Paul.”

 

“She told me, George!” Grace nearly screamed the words. “Are you calling me a liar?!”

 

“No…”

 

He didn’t even see her throw it. He only heard it smash and then he was looking at the fragments of the china cup Grace had been drinking from in the sink and around his feet. “Fuckin’ hell,” George said under his breath and followed her out of the kitchen. As he stepped through the living room door a vase – Pattie’s mother’s glass vase – smashed in to the wall beside him. “Fucking hell!” George said again, but shouting this time.  Grace glared at him, now armed with the copper poker she had retrieved from the fireplace.

 

George crossed the room to her, but hesitated as she lifted it. “Grace,” he said, consciously trying to control the level of his voice. “Calm down.”

 

“Bastard,” Grace said. “You fucking… you don’t love me.” She swiped the poker through the air, a few inches from George. George stepped back. Grace stepped forward. “You don’t, do you?” she was sobbing now, still brandishing the poker.

 

“I do,” George said. “I love you, Grace.”

 

“You don’t, you love her! You fuckin’ bastard! Bastard!”

 

She made another swipe with the poker but George was ready for it this time. He put his hand out and caught it, taking it from her as she tried to hit him. It hit his hand with a dull thwack that nearly made George let go again, but he gripped it and pulled it away from her. Grace collapsed on his chest, clawing at his clothes and face. George dropped the poker and grabbed Grace by her wrists, holding her away from him as she continued to try and scratch him, screaming and crying.

 

“Grace, Grace, stop,” George said, struggling to keep hold of her. Grace screamed. George shoved her, back and down, hard, angling her towards the sofa, but she missed, sliding off the edge of it and onto the floor.

 

George looked at her as she just sat there, crying hysterically, unable to make out her words.

 

George dropped to his knees in front of her. “Grace, stoppit,” he said and tried to hug her. She screamed again and George drew back in shock. “Gracie, please, I believe you, I love you,” he said, although Grace probably couldn’t hear him over her own pitiful wails.

 

“Grace?” George tried again to no avail, and so he slapped her. Not hard, but hard enough to make her stop screaming. She stared at him blankly. “Grace?” George repeated.

 

She stood and half walked, half staggered to where the broken glass from the vase lay on the floor. George watched her and later wished he hadn’t, as she found a large shard and gripping it with her right hand until blood showed through her white fingers, she scraped it up her left arm from her wrist to her elbow.

 

George jumped up and grabbed hold of her wrists again, pulling the glass away from her left arm and shaking her hand until she dropped it. Grace flopped into him and George couldn’t hold her, letting her slump to the floor where she leaned against the wall, sitting among the glass splinters, mumbling intelligible words.

 

A blue light flashed through the living room but George didn’t look up at it. Instead he stared at Grace’s blood on his hands and wondered what the hell just happened.

 

 

I cast a shorter shadow with every passing day

No time to think, I'm just fading away

Some kind of magic in all your hopes and fears

Show me the future through the tracks of your tears