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Paul has just finished playing ‘Whole Lotta Shakin’’ for John on the church hall piano and they’re both noodling around on the keys, Paul seated, John still leaning over him, one arm on Paul’s shoulder to steady himself, watching the movements of Paul’s fingers with interest.
Then John’s bronze gaze darts at him, askew. “I’ve seen you around.”
Paul is surprised at this. He’s seen John around too, on buses and in chip shops, but he didn’t think that he – 15-year-old Paul McCartney, in his school uniform – would be half as interesting to John as John Lennon (“that Lennon”, as he’s known locally) the rough Teddy boy is to him – and, even if he were, he didn’t think that John would mention it like that.
Paul just clears his throat. “Yeah, same. Seen you, too.”
John barks out a laugh. “I know you have, mate. Spent the whole first gig bloody staring at me from two rows back.”
“Huh?”
John turns to look at him fully. They’ve both stopped playing. “The one at Rosebery Street, last month. Empire Day. It was you, on your bike. Scarpered pretty fast when that gang showed up, though – but then so did we all.” He puts on a sardonic look. “Never thought you’d get the courage to come up and say something. When I saw you again today, I thought, I’m going to call him out at the next gig after this, if he doesn’t.” John pauses. “If we ever get a next gig, that is.”
Paul doesn’t like the implication of this, how it casts him as some love-struck baby too afraid to make an approach. He tries to wrestle the conversation back onto the right track and turns to properly meet John’s eyes. “No, I mean… I didn’t go to that gig. I’ve never seen you play before today. Ivan invited me over.” He’s gone through this before, 20 minutes ago. But maybe John is even drunker than he seems. The few swigs that Paul had had, to not seem a complete child, are sitting heavily in his stomach.
John raises an eyebrow. “It was definitely you. Same hair, same white jacket. A right little Elvis.” John squints down at him. “Come to think of it, maybe you had glasses, too? Buddy Holly ones. D’you wear glasses?”
“No,” Paul lies. It wasn’t really a lie. He has some at home, but he didn’t wear them out. He didn’t really need them.
“Weird.” John shrugs and goes back to tinkling the high piano keys deftly. Paul can only see his ridiculous gingery sideboards now. “I’m sure it was you, but then my own eyesight’s pretty shite. Can’t hardly see a thing when I’m up there on stage.”
Paul laughs, relieved. “Yeah, that’ll be it. Case of mistaken identity. Want me to show you some more? Or write out more lyrics?”
John stretches and then stands up straight. “Nah, that’ll do for now. Thanks. We need to get ready for the evening performance.”
Paul gets off the piano stool and they wander back to the others. Before they get there, though, John jogs him with his elbow. They don’t stop walking, but John says, pitched low, “The other lads have noticed you, too. We discussed it. We’ve seen you hanging around in the street, as well – watching us.”
Paul’s brain takes a while to get up to speed with this, but then he’s even more confused. What is happening? He supposes that this explains the nudges and looks they were giving him and each other earlier. He thought it was just because he was younger, and better than all of them put together.
Paul feels very uneasy. “Must have a twin.” He tries to laugh.
John allows it. “Separated at birth?”
“Something like.”
They’re back at the table with the others. Ivan is long gone.
“Fancy another drink?” John asks him, picking up his jacket, even though it’s still sweltering outside. But a Ted isn’t a Ted without the right clothes, Paul supposes.
More drink? Whatever happened to getting ready for the next performance? No wonder they’re all so pissed, and it’s only half 7.
Paul shakes his head. “No, ta. I’d best be getting back.” Got to cook tea for Dad and Mike – not that he’d ever tell cool John Lennon that. He’d rather throw himself off a cliff. He’d probably never get in the pub, anyway, let alone get served.
John nods, doesn’t seem too disappointed at the refusal. He was probably just being polite – though why he would be to someone who he obviously thinks is stalking him is anyone’s guess. He claps Paul on the shoulder. “Good to finally meet you at last, McCartney. Thanks for the performance.” Then he’s already turned away, back to Pete and Colin, to hurry them along. They’ll have less than 20 minutes to get in a couple of beers before the evening show starts.
Paul doesn’t know if John is even listening, but he still speaks, even gives a slight abortive farewell wave. “You, too. Hope tonight’s goes well.” Then he’s out the door, into the hush of an early July evening, and trying to remember where he left his bike.
***
Two weeks later and he’s cycling idly around Woolton, going nowhere – he’s been round to Ivan’s, but Ivan is out – when Pete Shotton accosts him, on his own bike, skidding it sideways across the road to stop Paul in his tracks. Paul recognises him from the fete but can’t quite put a name to the face yet.
Pete looks annoyed. He stands, hands on his hips. “Why didn’t you hang around at the end of the last gig, McCartney? We went looking for you.”
Paul frowns. “What gig?”
“Last week, at the party. Thursday. Don’t know how you got in, but you were there.”
It’s happening again. Paul takes his hands off the handlebars and spreads them, palms up, apologetic. “Sorry, I wasn’t there. Had homework that night.”
Pete laughs. “Don’t fib, I saw you. We all did. John was well annoyed when you ran off. He wanted to talk to you about joining.”
“What?”
Pete rolls his eyes. “He wants you to join the band. He thinks you’re good. We all do. He would have asked you, if you’d stayed.”
“Oh,” Paul says.
When Paul doesn’t say anything more, Pete raises his eyebrows, impatient. “And? What d’you reckon?”
Paul sighs. This is all very strange. “I’ll think about it, alright? Give me a few days.” He looks down, scuffing his shoe on the road.
Pete nods. “Okay.” Then he’s pulling out a scrap of paper and a pen, writing something down. “This is John’s number. Give him a ring, when you’ve decided.” He leans over and passes the paper to Paul, who takes it and puts it in his pocket. He doesn’t know what else to do.
Paul is about to make his way home when Pete says, “If you ring, mind his aunt. She’s a bit of a snob. Doesn’t like lads from Speke, so make sure to put on your best accent.” Pete winks. “Not that you’ll have much difficulty with that, McCartney.” He’s doing the poshest accent Paul has ever heard apart from on the radio.
Paul kicks off harshly, wheeling away, scattering the loose gravel over the tarmac. “Piss off!”
***
Paul does not ring John Lennon or his snobby aunt, in the end. Instead, he goes through Ivan. But he accepts.
He’s not quite sure why. He’s flattered, of course, to be invited, but then he knows that he’s good – better than them, anyway. And he’s never been in a band before. He doesn’t know how it will be. It might be rubbish. Especially with John Lennon as the leader. But then John is the main reason that he joins, really. John is good, yes, and will be better once he’s been taught how to tune his bloody guitar properly and stop using banjo chords. But, beyond that, Paul is intrigued by him, and especially by John’s interest in him. It’s a mutual fascination, drawing them to each other. Paul just cannot let the chance to get to know John better pass by.
He regrets it, though, when John’s first comment when he next sees him, after he’s accepted, is a shove to his shoulder and: “At least now you can stop hanging around at the back mooning over me and actually join us on the stage. You haven’t half been putting me off.”
It’s said with humour, but it still stings. Paul intentionally does not rub his arm, although the shove did hurt. “I’ve told you, mate, it’s not me!” he grins back. “I must have a double.”
John laughs. “We’ll see. If he keeps turning up now, then we’ll know for sure.”
Paul doesn’t get the chance to prove that he’s right, because he’s away at Scout camp on the date of the next gig. It’s not until two months later, halfway through October, that he has his first proper gig as a Quarryman.
Of course, he’s given a guitar solo, which doesn’t bother him at all, it was fine in rehearsal - until it’s actually happening, that is. He fumbles his way through the opening of ‘Guitar Boogie’, aware of all the eyes on him, assessing him. Aware of John’s eyes on him, in particular. Shit. He manages to get back into his stride a bit, hoping that no one noticed too much, when he risks another brief glance at the audience, towards the back, where their cool regard is somehow at a safe enough distance. Or at least he hopes so.
Then Paul sees him.
He does look an awful lot like Paul. Same hair, same clothes. He is wearing Buddy Holly glasses, though.
They make eye contact, only for a second. The pick falls from Paul’s fingers, the music coming to an abrupt stop. The man – boy, really – who looks just like him flees.
Paul isn’t sure how he gets off the stage after that. He thinks that he finishes the song, in a fashion, and then John is ushering him off, gently, into the wings. Paul goes willingly, his fingers still frozen on the frets in a rigor mortis.
Thankfully John doesn’t try to talk to him, just leaves him to cool down and goes back on stage himself to rescue the performance as best he can. There’s still half an hour to go. Paul swears again, under his breath. If they don’t get paid because of this, because of him, he’s never going to live it down.
Bloody hell. What if they let him go? After his first gig?
He yanks the guitar off and abandons it against a wall. He has to know what’s going on.
He runs through the corridors at the back of the stage and finds his way back to the front entrance. There’s no one around, at least no one who could be his twin. Think. Where would he go, if it were him?
Paul finds him in the third alleyway along, skulking down the end in the dingy shadows. When he sees Paul coming, he tries to run past him, but Paul has the advantage of surprise. He grabs the boy and slams him hard up against the brickwork.
“Who the fuck are you?” Paul spits.
The other boy’s eyes – his eyes, it’s far more obvious at close range – are unreadable behind the glasses. “What?”
Paul shakes him, to drive home the point. “I said, who the fuck are you and why do you look like me?”
“I don’t—"
He even sounds like him, for fuck's sake. Paul is shouting now. “You’ve got me in so much trouble with this shit! They almost didn’t let me in the band! They all think I’ve got some double life where I sneak around spying on them and then lying about it! They’ve seen you in the street, even! And now you made me cock up my first solo during my first gig! I’m gonna get fired and it’s all your fault!”
The other boy tilts an eyebrow at him, visible even in the near-dark. Paul knows that expression.
“Fine,” he hisses. “Maybe I cocked it up before I saw you, but you certainly didn’t help matters.”
“I’m sorry,” the other boy says, blankly. All fight has gone out of him.
This just makes Paul angrier. He’s definitely going to hit him if this continues. “I don’t want your apology! I want to know who you are and why you’re doing this!”
He wants the other boy to look frightened, scared, even, but instead the boy just sighs and says, “Look. I’ll tell you, okay? Just, can we go somewhere else first?”
Paul frowns. His anger is dissipating, subsumed by intense curiosity. “Okay. Where?”
“There’s a graveyard just down the road. We can sit in there. No one will find us.”
Paul lets him up and follows him out of the alley. This is fucking weird.
The gate of the graveyard is unsurprisingly locked at this time of night, so they shin up over the low wall and drop down onto the leaf mould. The other boy leads him to a large tomb where they can sit side by side, lit by an outside street light filtering through the autumnal tree branches.
Even then, the boy is quiet. Paul kicks him, not too hard, to wake him up.
“Go on, then.”
The other boy looks up and shoves his glasses back up his nose. “Uh, right.” He pauses. “The reason I look like you is – I am you. From the future.”
Paul is almost knocked back by the force of this. “Piss off.” The anger comes roaring back in, Beaufort 12.
“No, I am!” The boy looks frantic.
Then Paul just feels tired. “This is a crap joke, mate, whoever the fuck you are. Not funny at all.” He gets up to leave.
The boy’s hand darts out to stop him, his hold fierce. “I promise you that I’m telling the truth.”
Paul scowls. “Right,” he says, putting as much sarcasm into it as he can. “Prove it.”
“How?” The boy’s mouth is hanging open like he’s a fish.
Paul shrugs violently. “I don’t fucking know. Tell me something that happens in the future.”
The cocky look is back on the other boy’s face. His face. “That won’t help much now, will it? You’d have to wait until it happened to know whether it’s true.”
Paul exhales, more annoyed than anything else by now. “Fine. Tell me something that only I would know.”
The boy thinks for a while. Paul expects him to try something obscure but easily findable if you bothered trying, like the name of his first kiss or his childhood pet. Something he has told a select few.
But instead, the boy looks him right in the eye and says, “You’ve forgotten Mum’s face. Even though it was only-" He sighs, just a breath. "You try so hard to remember, but there’s just this… blank, whenever you try. Sometimes you cry about it, at night, when you’re in bed. You fall asleep crying, and you hope that you’re going to dream of her, but you never do.”
Paul almost strikes him but he’s vibrating with such unadulterated anger that he can’t even remember how to move. How dare this – person say this to him, mention his mum at all, make guesses as to how Paul feels, things he’s never said to anyone, not even to Mike, or even admitted fully to himself, and fucking judge him for not being able to—
The boy interrupts. He’s smiling slightly, tenderly. “You can remember what she smells like, though. And her voice, singing downstairs, when you wake up in the morning. And that helps, a bit.”
Paul finally falls back onto the mossy gravestone, his eyes never leaving the other boy’s. His eyes, after all. All he can say is, “Fuck.”
The other him is still smiling, but it’s much kinder now. “Yeah. I promise, I’m not lying. I’m you from the future.”
Paul takes a deep breath and looks up at the bright October moon. It’s waning, he reckons. Or maybe this is all a particularly strange dream and in the waking world the moon is full, and he’s one person again, and everything is normal.
When the other him doesn’t speak, just watches him warily, eventually Paul jogs his leg again with his foot.
“So, why did you come back?”
The other him looks genuinely puzzled. “I thought you’d ask how, first.”
Paul shrugs. “Don't see the point. Probably won’t make much sense to me, anyway. It’ll be some futuristic science stuff. But ‘why’ is a better question that I might at least be able to understand.”
The other him is chewing away at his nail. It’s a nervous habit Paul is well aware that he has, and it’s very odd to see it mirrored back at himself. “I’m not so sure about that, I’m not sure I understand it myself. I mean, really, ‘why not’? Wouldn’t you, if you could?” the other him asks, pointedly.
Paul suddenly feels very serious. “You know that I would. I wouldn’t come back to… this, though.” I’d go back to see Mum, he doesn’t say, but he knows that he understands.
The other Paul looks at him levelly, as if weighing him up and judging him worthy. Then he says, “Look. I’m going to tell you this, but you can’t have another strop about it and try to hit me again, okay?”
Paul glowers and looks away.
The other him pokes him on the arm. “Promise?”
“Fine!” Paul snaps back. “I promise I won’t try and hit you again. Go on!”
“I’ve come back to see John.” The other Paul’s face is so naked in its appeal that Paul feels sick until he realises what’s been said and then he’s just confused again.
“John? John Lennon? Why?”
The torn fingernail is back in his mouth again. Paul slaps it away, and the other him sighs, resigned. “This time of your life – our life – is very important. Meeting John is going to change everything, for everyone.”
Paul is shocked, possibly even more so than when he was informed that he was talking to his future self. “That’s insane. I mean, we’re not a bad little band, as they go, and we’re getting better – or we were before tonight – but…”
The other Paul rolls his eyes, clearly humouring him. “Just trust me. I don’t want to say too much and risk everything.”
Paul closes his mouth. And opens it again. “Okay. But even so… why John? Why now? Why can’t you just see him in the future? Why would you come back here, now? Can’t you just talk to him there? And you haven’t even been trying to talk to him here, you’ve just been watching.”
This was the wrong thing to say. The other him seems to curl in on himself, to retreat. Finally, for the avoidance of all possible doubt, he mutters, “There is no John in my future.”
“Bloody hell. Is he dead?” Paul says, before he can think.
The other Paul just stares at him, expressionlessly.
Paul tries to regroup. “Wait a minute, what year exactly are you from? How are you so young?”
The other him is studying the moon now, avoidant. “I can’t tell you that. Just…” He shifts, leans a bit closer to Paul. “I lose John, in the future, and I miss him. I never said half of what I meant to to him. And now I can’t. So, I come back sometimes, just to watch him, and remember. And I'm sorry about tonight. I forgot you'd be there. My memory's a bit fuzzy, now. If it's any consolation, I cocked up the solo last time and John was fine about it.”
Paul’s skin crawls. This is worse than any ghost story he’s ever read or even heard of. Is this his future? Coming back time and again to watch a still-alive John Lennon from a distance and never having the balls to just go up and speak to him?
But then… wouldn’t Paul do the same, with Mum, if he could? He probably wouldn’t go and talk to her or say all the things he wished he had and which echo in his thoughts as he cries himself to sleep, even though he knows that she knew, but it doesn't seem to help. He’d just watch, unobserved, and drink in her face, and remember.
But why does future him feel the same way about John? This is so fucked up.
Paul jumps off the tombstone. “I’ve had enough of this. I’m off.”
The hand is back around his arm, even fiercer than before. “Please, don’t leave like this. And please, don’t tell him, whatever you do.” The sound of his own voice begging so pathetically is making Paul feel physically ill. He doesn’t turn around, he can’t witness that.
Paul shoves himself away. “Wasn’t planning on, mate. He’d never believe me anyway. He'd definitely chuck me out of the band, then. This is mental.”
The other him has given up, collapsing back against the grave. Paul doesn’t know why he stays, but he does, and he hears himself whisper, “I don’t know what it would do to the timestream if he knew. And besides… I couldn’t stand it, if he had any idea of what happens to us.”
To us. Again, that strange possessive quality that sets Paul’s teeth on edge. He needs to get out of here.
But the other Paul calls out one last time. “Can you just… pass on a message, for me?”
“No!” he yells back.
“Please.” Other Paul sounds like he’s actually crying, but Paul doesn’t turn around to check. “It’s not long. And you don’t have to say it’s from me. I just need him to know. That I love him.”
Paul never thought he’d actually come out and say it. He recoils and turns back at the same time, gets up in his other self’s space. “What, are you queer?” he snarls. What he really means, of course, is: Am I queer?
Other Paul smiles sadly and shakes his head. He has been crying, his tears silvery tracks in the combined illumination of the street light and the moon. “I’d forgotten that I was like this. That it was like this. I mean, you think that you remember, but it's not quite the same as being back... It gets better, y'know. In the future.”
Paul stiffens. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“No.” His other self looks so very unhappy. “But you will. Just, please. If you ever feel like saying that to him, ever – not now, not this year, but ever. Please tell him. In exactly those words. That we love him. I promise that he won’t react like you think he will.”
The desperation in his own voice makes Paul want to cry too. It’s the same desperation that he feels when he sobs into his pillow at night, failing to muffle the noise, the shell collapsing down around him, bargaining, or trying to, asking why his mum had to die, and not anyone else’s. Why always him.
Present Paul definitely does not love John Lennon, and he doubts that he ever will, whatever happens in the future, but he takes a choppy breath. “Fine. I’ll… keep it in mind. But no promises, you understand?”
He can’t bear to look while he says this, but the other Paul still squeezes his hand in the dark. “Thank you.”
Paul understands, then, and he’s strangely sad, too. “You’re not coming back, then?”
Other Paul is quiet for a bit but soon says, “No. I’ve done what I needed to. I think I’ll give it up now. It’s been great, though, seeing everyone again, even from afar. We really were something. The music is pretty shite, admittedly. It gets a lot better too.”
Paul shoves him. “Fuck off.”
The other him shoves Paul right back. “Just keep writing, yeah? And show John. He writes too, y’know.”
“Really?” Paul can’t imagine tough Ted John Lennon scribbling away verse upon verse of love songs. But then Paul doesn’t really know John at all, yet.
“Yeah,” the other Paul grins. “And make sure that you get George in the band.”
This whole night is so confusing. “George? The kid on the bus?” George is a fine player, especially for his age, but…
The other him cocks that eyebrow again. “I know you’ve been thinking about it.”
Paul grimaces. “Yeah, I have. Especially after tonight’s performance…”
They both laugh at that, easy, and so Paul dares to say, “By the way, what’s with the glasses?”
His eyes dart away behind them. “Um. A disguise?”
“Shit disguise,” Paul scoffs. “And you could have tried not wearing the exact same outfit. John’s seen right through it, even though he can’t hardly see a foot in front of himself, which is impressive.”
The fond look on the other Paul’s face makes him feel a bit sick again, but that recedes when he hears himself murmur, “I have been taking a lot of stupid risks lately. But I suppose part of me wanted him to see me. To know I was there. Even if he doesn’t know it's me, yet. And it doesn't seem to have hurt.”
It’s time to go. Paul is about to leave, back over the wall, his fingers already searching for purchase among the stones, when he calls the other boy back.
“Paul?”
It’s strange to call yourself by your own name, and even stranger for you to respond to it.
“Yeah?”
But Paul has to know. “Did you ever go back, before? Before this, I mean. To see her.”
The other Paul is very silent. Paul wishes he hadn’t asked. But then his future self speaks, gentle:
“No. I thought about it, of course. It was my first thought, when I found out you could do this. But… I couldn’t bring myself to. I’m sorry, it doesn’t make much sense. It felt like intruding, somehow. I’d rather not know, if you know what I mean. And I thought that... that wasn't fixable, really, in any version, whereas maybe this is. Maybe there can be a better ending. At least I hope so. You get it?”
Paul nods. He doesn’t, quite, but maybe one day he will.
His other self smiles. “That gets better too, y’know. Eventually. And he – no, never mind. I won’t spoil it for you. Just know that it does get better.”
They come together in a hug. Paul blinks back unshed tears. Even in front of his own self, who understands, he can't quite bring himself to let the walls down. But they’re still embracing, not letting each other go.
The other Paul eventually draws away and looks him in the eyes. He’s taken off the glasses now so there’s nothing between them. “Try to forget this, yeah? I think that’s for the best.” Paul gives a watery smile back. “I’ve probably fucked things up beyond repair by doing this. By talking to you. But I think that we deserve another chance. Just the one. And it can’t go much worse than it already did.”
Paul leaves him in the graveyard with the dead and doesn’t look back.
It isn’t until Paul is halfway back to the hall, to collect his guitar and face the music, definitely late by now, if the others haven't already given him up for lost and gone home, that he realises he’s not sure exactly what ‘we’ was being referred to, then.