The morning of November 3^rd 1965

 

Grace kissed George’s neck, lying behind him. George shrugged her off with a grunt, not moving from under the covers. Winter was well underway and it was freezing outside, but that was not the main reason George was reticent to get out of bed most mornings now. And least of all today, even less than he had wanted to go to the palace the week before, to receive the MBE. To pose, smiling with the other three when really they could hardly stand to remain in the same room together.

 

Grace tried again, kissing him, snaking her arm around his stomach. George removed it for her.

 

“Georgie,” she cooed in his ear.

 

“I’m tired,” George said.

 

“I’m not surprised, the hour you came home,” Grace replied, sitting up in bed. “Where do you go til three in the morning?”

 

“Nowhere. Recording, I told you.”

 

‘No you weren’t.”

 

“I was at the studio,” George insisted, his back still to her. It was half true. He was there until he couldn’t stand Paul’s looks and John’s sideways comments anymore.

 

“No, you weren’t,” Grace said calmly. “I rang them.”

 

“At what time?”

 

“Eleven.”

 

“Well, I’d gone by then, hadn’t I?” George said, as if it was obvious.

 

“Where did you go?”

 

George sat up, “I can’t live like this Grace,” he said and then wished he hadn’t. He studied her for signs she might suddenly flip again, but she looked calm. It had been two months since that night and George still didn’t know what had happened; what had pushed her over the edge and more worryingly, what might again.

 

But Grace had clicked back into her normal self as quickly as she had lost it, and since then, apart from nagging George about seemingly everything, all had been well.

 

“You have to learn to trust me,” George said quietly.

 

“I do trust you, George,” Grace said, manoeuvring herself in front of him to kiss him. “It’s the rest of those tarts I don’t.”

 

George sighed.

 

“I’ve seen the way they throw themselves at you. They even do it when I’m there, so I dread to think what they do when I’m not.”

 

George put his hand up and stroked her hair. “Even if they do, it doesn’t mean I’m going to do anything, does it?” he said. It was the right answer – for once – and Grace smiled and jumped off the bed, leaving the room.

 

George lay down again. It was a well-practiced lie. So much so, he had nearly believed it. He’d said it to Pattie a couple of times, but the crippling guilt he’d felt when he’d lied to her was strangely absent now.

 

There had been a girl. A fan. George could hardly remember what she looked like, never mind her name. Perhaps he had never asked?

 

She’d been blonde, he suddenly remembered.

 

Grace bounced back into the room with a swath of paper in her hand. She presented it to George.

 

“Wallpaper?” George asked, taking it.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Well, thanks. I would have preferred a cup of tea and piece of toast but…”

 

Grace laughed, “No, for the living room,” she said. “What do you think?”

 

“Oh,” George looked down at the maroon coloured pattern. “Yeah, it’s nice.”

 

“I knew you’d think so,” Grace replied. “I found this wonderful decorator to do it too, but he’s booked up until the middle of November. I said we would wait though. He’s worth it. You don’t mind waiting do you, George?”

 

“No,” George said, not sharing her enthusiasm. “Whatever you want will be fine.”

 

“You’re going to love it when it’s finished.”

 

George nodded, handing her back the wallpaper sample.

 

“You should see it as a new start,” Grace told him, sitting back against the headboard. “A new beginning for both of us. We can put everything behind us and make a new life.”

 

“Yeah,” George said flatly.  They had had this conversation several times, each time George becoming more and more disinterested. Grace didn’t seem to notice however, and the more apathetic George was, the more she made up for it in her eagerness.

 

“Have you told them yet?”

 

“No,” George sighed. “Grace, I might not, and even if I do, it doesn’t mean I’m going to jump straight into another band with your brother.”

 

“You’ll give Mickey a chance though. They’re good, the Moonshadows, George. You’ll love them.”

 

“It’s not that,” George said. “I’m just not sure I want to do any of this anymore. Perhaps not for a while anyway.”

 

“Georgie,” Grace said, seeming genuinely shocked. “You can’t give up playing guitar.”

 

“No, well, I won’t,” George said. “But I might give up bands for a while, and tours and all that madness.”

 

“Yes, perhaps that’s not such a bad idea.” Grace laid her head against George’s chest. “But you will at least meet Mickey?”

 

“Yes, I’ll meet him,” George said wearily.

 

“They’re touring at the moment. I think they’re in Ireland at the moment, but they’ll be back in London soon.”

 

George nodded.

 

“And you should tell the Beatles first.”

 

“Yeah, but nothing’s for definite, Grace, you know. I said I would see how I feel after we’ve done this record.”

 

“Okay,” she said happily, turning her head to nuzzle his neck.

 

“I’ve got to go,” George said, shrugging her off again. “We have a meeting. It’s supposed to be with Brian, though I doubt he’ll be there.” George scrambled out from under Grace and out of the bed, looking around for his clothes. Grace had put them away already, live everything else in the house, filed away, obsessively neatly.

 

An hour later George was sitting in his car, parked down the street from the NEMS offices. He had been sitting for ten minutes. Just finish this fag, he had kidded himself, and as he flicked the dead butt out of the window, he lit the next one.

 

This was not a meeting George particularly wanted to attend. They, well, the other three, had decided to go en masse to NEMS, to demand to see Brian, to find out what the hell was going on.

 

Brian had not resurfaced since abandoning them in America. Instead, they received brief, business like notes every now and then from him, and Archer was making the decisions, seemingly.

 

George was already late. They would be waiting for him. The plan was to go in together. If they came twenty yards down the road they would find him, but so far no one had. George didn’t want to go. He didn’t want to argue about the future of the band he was quickly loosing interest and faith in. Whenever the subject arose, George felt like a phoney even offering an opinion on it, when in essence he didn’t know if he wanted to be part of it anymore.

 

John made snide comments. He said George was under the thumb. He said George ran home to Grace every night, that he was afraid not. George said nothing. He was afraid of her, but not for the reasons John thought. He didn’t go home to Grace – not every night -but he didn’t go out with John, Paul and Ringo either.

 

John had noticed. He had noticed George’s apathy about the records. His arriving late and leaving early. George denied it, but it was true.

 

It wasn’t that he wanted to leave the band. Not like he let Grace think he did. He didn’t want to leave but he wasn’t sure he wanted to stay either, so he remained in this limbo, committed to neither.

 

John was direct, accusing and aggressive, Ringo kept a diplomatic silence, but Paul was the exact opposite. He was George’s defender on every point. George’s ally, no matter how wrong he was. The leader of his own, private fan club. Paul was trying so hard, and George met him with, at best, a flippant comment, when he spoke to him at all.

 

“George, I’ve made you a cuppa.”

 

“Leave George alone, John. What d’you know about it anyway?”

 

“George, I brought you this record. I thought you’d like it.”

 

“Think For Yourself, I love that one George. We’ll do that next, eh?”

 

Think For Yourself, George nearly laughed at the irony. It seemed if there was one thing he couldn’t do at the moment it was that. He still couldn’t decide if Paul had had some sort of affair with Pattie or not. His over the top niceties convinced him more and more of his guilt though.

 

They never mentioned it. Neither Paul nor George. But it was always there, underlying every conversation. Every glance.

 

George flicked the remainder of his cigarette out of the window and restarted the car.