“Oh, are we? That’s nice. When?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” It was another squeak, but this time she felt it was justified. “What…? But…”

“Pattie!!” This time it was almost a shout. “Brian has booked us into a castle, in Ireland, for Easter.”

“But tomorrow? That’s… tomorrow.” God but that was a stupid thing to say. But he seemed to know what she was getting at, thank goodness.

“Yeah, but that’s when Easter is. We can’t move it. Not even Brian can do that.”

“No I know, but…”

“But what? Don’t you want to go?”

“Of course I do! It’s just… soon.”

“Yeah. Like, tomorrow.”

George surprised her sometimes. Like when a dry sarcasm broke through the sweet young persona. Like, just then. “Well yes! I do want to go. We’re going to… a castle?” Images of cold stone steps and dungeons; Pattie frowned. But of course he couldn’t see that.

“It’s called that. It’s a posh hotel really. President Kennedy stayed there.”

“Oh.” The cold stone and dungeons disappeared. “It sounds lovely. And he’s booked a holiday, just for us!”

“Well…” Had a note of diffidence crept into his voice?

“What?” She paused, and then remembered, their first date. “Oh don’t tell me he’s coming too!”

“No!” George broke in quickly. ”No. He isn’t.”

Pattie didn’t like the emphasis on the work ‘he’. “So, is there someone else coming too?”

The briefest of pauses; but not so brief that Pattie didn’t have time to start to feel anxious. “Ah, yeah,” said George. “We’re going with John and Cynthia.”

There fell a silence.

“Pattie? Is that…? Ah… that’ll be alright, won’t it? I mean…”

“Yes.” This wasn’t a squeak, more like a husk, but at least she had found her voice. “Of course, that’s fine…”

“But?”

Another pause. “John’s…”

“I know what he is,” George broke in. “But he likes you.”

“How do you know?”

“He said so.”

“Oh? When?”

“Lots of times.” Pattie didn’t want to think too closely about that last bit. “So that’s fine, isn’t it.” But Pattie’s mind was still snagged up on doubts, which she found it hard to articulate. “Pattie! What is it? Don’t you want to go?”

“Yes! I do!” And she did; then the doubts crystallised and she blurted out before she could change her mind, “Will Cynthia like me?”

“Cynthia?” George sounded completely astonished. “Why the hell shouldn’t she?”

“I don’t know. I just… she’s just…”

“Pattie, she’s really nice, it’s be fine! They both like you. I like you. And I love you. Will you come?”

Somehow the airing of her nebulous fears made her feel better. She laughed, a genuine laugh. “Yes. Of course I will. Ah, George?”

“What?” There was no doubt; the words ‘what now?’ hovered unspoken over the phone line. Pattie hastened to reassure him.

“I just wondered – why have you only just told me?”

“He’s only just told us.” Obviously, rang another unspoken word. Pattie reflected, not for the first time, that there was a lot to get used to in going out with a Beatle.

“Oh, right. Well… what do I do? When are we going?” And then, “What do I pack??”

“I don’t know.” George was dismissive that that last question. “He’s got a car coming for you tomorrow at 10.00”

“And will it take me to you?” Pattie asked hopefully.

“No.”

“No? So where…?”

“I’ll be in the car!”

“Oh George!” She wished he didn’t do things like that. “When…?

“Pattie, I’ve got to go, we’re on again. I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Love you!”

He was gone. Pattie stared uselessly at the phone receiver in her hand, and then replaced it carefully. Her mind was already buzzing; packing, clothes, Cynthia, clothes, John, aaarrrgh! She turned and headed into her bedroom and pulled the suitcase down from the wardrobe. This was crazy. But, she was reflecting yet again in the space of a few minutes, there was a lot to get used to in being with a Beatle.

The weekend would only start to show her just how much.

 Friday 27th March 1964, morning.

 Pattie scampered after George as he picked up her case and walked with it to the rear of the car. “God, what’ve you got in here?” he muttered as he opened the boot and hefted her case in next to his. Pattie watched; couldn’t help noticing his much smaller case next to hers.

“You haven’t brought much, have you,” she said, a little anxiously. George straightened and turned to her with a grin.

“I don’t need much, do I, for three nights.”

“Well…”

“I decided to leave my make-up at home, and five pairs of shoes. I’ve only brought…”

Pattie hit him playfully on the arm to bring a halt to the derisory comments. “Well, I don’t know, do I. I don’t know what you’re supposed to bring, or what the others are bringing…”

George guided her round to the car door and opened it for her and gestured for her to get in. “I don’t think there’s anything you’re ‘supposed’ to bring,” he said, climbing in after her.

“You know what I mean,” she said, and then looked into his face. “Actually, you probably don’t,” she concluded, and he shook his head in agreement.

“Nope,” he answered cheerfully, and then reached out to circle her shoulders with his arm and draw her close to him. She snuggled against him as the car set off and joined the traffic. She was becoming aware of a low level of anxiety starting to tighten in her stomach, and it was increasing as the car gathered speed and headed towards their next stop. She said nothing, but something of her worry must have communicated itself to George, who twisted his head to look down at her. “You okay?” he said.

“I’m fine.”

That certainly didn’t work, as her voice sounded unconvincing even to her own ears. George straightened up so that he could move away from her slightly and look at her more directly.

“You’re fine.”

She looked up at him, and blinked.

“You do want to go?”

“Oh yes!” That was a bit better, having the advantage of being true. However, even though the two had only been together for about two weeks he knew her well enough to pick up when something was amiss. George thought some more, and then recalled their phone conversation the evening before. He tightened his arm around her again.

“Which one are you more worried about?” He tilted his head slightly as he looked carefully into her eyes. “John or Cyn?”

Pattie looked down at her lap. “I know I’m being silly…” she began, but George stopped her with a shake of his head.

“It’ll be fine,” he said, and gave her a light kiss on the mouth. “They’ll be fine. You’ll be fine.”

“Oh, you mean it’ll be fine!” Pattie smiled, and he hugged her again.

“You’ll see. Oh, we’re there.” And her anxiety roared back into place. She concentrated on quelling her nerves as the driver got out and went over to the door to ring up to the flat. He waited at the door; George lit a cigarette after offering one to Pattie, and she took it thankfully. Her hands weren’t shaking at all…

“Cyn, you get in the back. Bloody hell, how much have you got in here?”

“Well, you never know what you’ll need,” said Cynthia Lennon as she opened the other door and slid into the seat next to Pattie. Pattie turned to George with a smirk of triumph. His only answer was to take another drag of his cigarette and roll his eyes.

“It’s Brigitte Bardot!” John shouted as he got into the front seat.

“Shut up John.” George sounded weary; Pattie deduced, correctly, that this was a favourite joke of John’s, one George hadn’t got round to telling her about. “Cyn,” he said over Pattie’s head, “This is Pattie.”

“I guessed.” The smile she gave Pattie was so warm and friendly that the new girl instantly began to feel better. George’ arm was still around her, safely, reassuringly. John was still nattering nonsense from the front seat, and reached back over his head to offer a cigarette to his patient wife.

The car moved off, and headed west towards Heathrow airport.

…

“Where are we going?” Pattie was puzzled. They weren’t, as she’d expected, dropped off at the front at the main entrance. Instead the smart black car glided along small side roads within the huge Heathrow complex, past storage containers and parked cars and things you didn’t usually see at the airport. “What’s…?”

“We’re going to our plane,” George explained briefly.

“You’ve got a plane??”

“No!” He turned to her with a smile. “We’ve booked one.”

“There it is,” said Cynthia, and Pattie looked out and saw what looked like a toy plane, standing on its own with a man standing next to it.

“That??”

“That,” said John.

The car drove nearer and then pulled up alongside. The man, whoever he was, raised an arm in some sort of greeting as their driver flipped the boot lid and got out of the car to get the luggage. Pattie, seated in the middle of the back seat, had to wait until someone else moved, and she was surprised that it was Cynthia who slithered out first. George sat, motionless, apparently staring at the plane where the door had now opened and steps had rolled down. “George?”

George turned to her and nodded acknowledgement, and then, very slowly, opened his door and stepped out of and away from the car. Pattie followed him out and stood where she was. She saw him lick his lips.

“He’s the worst,” said a voice at her ear, and she turned to see Cynthia standing next to her. “But John’s not far behind.”

Pattie frowned at her, as she raised her hand to hold back her hair which was being tossed and blown by the wind. “What do you mean?” She hoped she didn’t sound too stupid, but she really had no idea what Cynthia was referring to.

“They’re terrified of flying,” said Cynthia simply. “And, in that thing…” She gestured towards the toy plane before she too had to smooth her own hair back from her face. She smiled at Pattie. “Oh dear!”

Pattie looked over at George, who chose that moment to look back at her, and Pattie couldn’t help but notice that his face was pale. It was almost grey. She looked across at John, who looked more subdued than she’d ever seen him. Then she turned back to Cynthia. She found herself grinning broadly. “Oh dear!” she agreed.

“Shall we get in?” Cynthia hoisted her bag over her shoulder and started to walk towards the toy plane. Pattie began to follow, but then thought better of it and decided to go and collect George first, who was still rooted to the spot. She turned back to Cynthia and hissed, “Does it go?”

“Course it does,” Cynthia declared. “They’re Beatles. They’re important.” With this, Pattie reflected, utterly extraordinary remark, she strolled across the blustery tarmac towards the waiting plane. Pattie crossed to George and looped her arm through his.

“Come on then. Let’s get in.”

He took a deep breath and swallowed hard.

“It’ll be alright, really.”

George clearly felt too nervous to even try to reply, and he simply let himself be led by the arm towards the toy plane. Even Pattie allowed herself a moment’s apprehension, as she took in the cramped interior and six not very comfortable seats, but the pilot looked and sounded much more grown up and reassuring than she’d have expected for a toy plane and she decided that she would look on it as an adventure. “Where do you want to sit?” she asked George brightly. He looked at her mournfully. “Window?”

He shuddered and shook his head and so Pattie took the window seat nearest her and George slid in next to her. She looked around at the others and was amused to see that Cynthia had similarly taken charge and deposited John in one of the other seats.

Pattie thought it was hilarious.

She didn’t think that it was all quite so funny once the plane was airborne. She’d been fine whilst they taxied to take off. And she had tried to ignore George’s hands gripping the arm rests so tightly that his knuckles were white, as though he thought that this would help get the plane safely into the air. But, once up and flying, the pressure in her ears built and built and became so painful that she was seriously worried she was going to go deaf for the rest of her life. It was a miserable flight and when the plane touched down at Shannon Airport she sank forward with her head in her hands almost gasping with relief.

“That was good, wasn’t it.”

She looked up at George. His colour had returned. His eyes had softened from the flinty terror of take-off and there was a slight smile hovering on his lips. She burst out laughing, in emotional and physical relief, and leaned over to plant a kiss on his mouth. “Wonderful,” she said, and squeezed his hand.

 Friday 27th March 1964, early afternoon.

The car swept through the gates and along the curving immaculately maintained drive towards the castle. It was a castle, it really was, although it managed not to look forbidding or scary. The car moved gracefully towards the main door and came to a halt, and a besuited man and several uniformed flunkies rushed down the steps and approached the car.

“Doesn’t look like I’ll have to carry your case again,” remarked John. “Thank Christ for that.”

“Wimp,” Cynthia retorted as she slid sideways along the rear seat and climbed out of the car.

Within moments all the cases were out of the car, and two Beatles and their women stood looking up at the imposing frontage of Dromoland Castle.

“Welcome to Dromoland,” oozed the man in the posh suit. “Please come in – a few formalities to check in and I’ll have the pleasure of showing you to your suite.”

George and John cut glances; Pattie noticed, and wondered what was going on there. It often seemed to happen, that there would be glances or words between Beatles and she realised that she hadn’t a clue what they were saying or thinking. Something she’d have to get to understand…

They were moving in. George and John walked in step, together, George clutching Pattie’s hand and Cynthia walking behind them. They passed through the doors and into an echoing and deliberately impressive entrance hall and across to the reception desk. Forms were completed, staff grovelled and the group were finally guided across the unnecessary acres of space in the reception hall to the lifts and then up to their suite.

“Gosh”

“Oooh”

“Yeah.”

“This is us.” John speedily identified the double room and headed straight in, followed by Cynthia. Pattie peered into one of the single rooms and George did the same with the other.

“Which one?”

“I don’t care. You pick.”

So Pattie made the choice between two very similar rooms and George followed her in.  “It’s lovely!” she said, and meant it. After only two weeks in Beatle circles she was still wide-eyed, unused to extreme luxury. “But why did Brian book two…”

“He said he had to. You know.”

She shrugged at him. “I suppose so.”

“Sir?” came a deferentially couched question. The porter wanted to know which case belonged in which room. George pointed to Pattie’s and gestured with his head towards the room they, or rather she, had selected.

“Ta,” he said as the case was placed in the middle of the room. He’d already grabbed his own and put it down next to hers. He nodded at the porter to indicate that his use there was concluded, and the immaculately uniformed flunky backed out of the bedroom.

“D’ya know when lunch is?” John called from the other room, and the flunky was able to oblige.

“Lunch will be served in the blue dining room at one o’clock, sir,” he uttered.

“Good thing it’s the blue one, eh?”

The flunky looked puzzled, and George rolled his eyes. “Thanks! Bye!” George smiled and nodded at the confused porter and managed without being too rude to gesture towards the main doors of the suite. The man left, probably in some relief. George looked at his watch. “See you in half an hour then,” he called out to his fellow guests.

“Okay.” It was Cynthia who confirmed, and George retreated into his own room and shut the door. He quickly crossed the room to Pattie, who had opened the wardrobe door. He moved close behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist and squeezed.

“George!!”

His only answer was to plant a kiss on the back of her neck.

“George, I need to unpack!” She turned around to face him, smiling, and kissed him quickly on the mouth before wriggling away. “My stuff will be creased to smithereens.”

He pecked her quickly on the lips and moved away. “Okay.” He picked up his own bag and hoisted it onto the bed and unzipped it, and began to hunt among the clothes. He paused. He hunted again. He stood. “Shit,” he said, quietly. Pattie turned around with a hanger in her hand.

“What’s wrong?”

George was frowning .He looked up at her and shook his head. “I’ve forgotten my washbag.”

Pattie too frowned, and came over to where he was standing looking rather uselessly into his own case. “You couldn’t have done.”

“I have. Fuck.”

Pattie found a smile creeping across her face. “No toothbrush?”

“No anything.” He looked up at her. “And it’s not funny!”

The smile had become a fairly broad grin. “Well,” she ventured, “maybe that’s why you could bring such a small case? Maybe it’s not just all my make-up and five pairs of shoes…”

“Ha ha,” he interrupted the gloating and she managed to subdue the grin somewhat. “I’ll need to ask at the desk.”

“For a toothbrush? George!!” He was exacting his revenge for her justifiable triumph with a sudden attack of tickling, and the two struggled and yelped and fell on to the bed.

Pattie’s clothes did not get unpacked before lunch.

 Friday 27th March 1964, late afternoon.

Lunch was an extended, relaxed and happy affair. Wine flowed, and the injection into the previously close knit and familiar group of a new face was effected smoothly and seamlessly. Pattie’s nerves gradually evaporated with each course and with each generously poured glass, and the stress of the unpleasant journey lifted. And, John was funny. Pattie had not anticipated this. Not caustic funny, not risqué funny, not scary funny, but just funny. The Lennon persona seemed to soften with each imperiously summoned bottle; Pattie observed this with relief and the other two with astonishment. As Pattie leaned back in her chair howling with laughter at John’s account a recent escape from a theatre George cut glances with Cynthia at the same time as reaching for Pattie’s hand under the table and squeezing.

John didn’t even call her Brigitte Bardot. Not during this lunch anyway.

After lunch they wandered in a mildly intoxicated haze through the Blue Room’s broad French windows and down towards the lake. They explored, played, hunted, sat and chatted. Cynthia bemoaned the fact that she’d left her black comfy shoes behind, Pattie poked George meaningfully, George affected indifference. John asked Pattie whether this place was like her family home where she grew up, Pattie told him not to be an idiot, but then walked with him along the lakeside for a while and told him something of her home in Kenya and he listened with genuine interest and asked if she’d been sad to leave it and she said yes. The evening was approaching, the temperature was dropping and they decided it was time to turn around and go back to the castle. The four strolled back across the neatly kept lawns and, rather than cut back into the blue Blue Room, they skirted around the huge building and went back in through the main reception doors. There they were met by chief flunky, who approached them with the unmistakable air of someone who was going to issue bad news.

“They’re chucking us out,” muttered John.

“I didn’t tell them about you,” said George, equally sotto voce.

“No, it was me. I couldn’t help meself.” John then smiled his beaming most deliberately artificial smile and closed the gap between himself and the hotel manager. Pattie was so fascinated to witness the mercurial speed of the change that she didn’t focus on what was said; but a minute later found herself jolted out of her happy post lunch haze by the strength of the two Beatles’ reactions to the manager’s news.

“Oh fuck no!”

“Fuckin’ ‘ell!”

“John,” Cynthia remonstrated mildly at her husband’s public obscenities. She left George’s unchecked. It was none of her business what George said…

“What’s happened?” Pattie queried in alarm. George turned to her, his face a picture of combined disappointment and anger.

“They’ve found us!”

“Who have??”

“Press!” He spat the word as though it was another obscenity, which at that moment, only hours into their rare and precious private time, it was. “They’re here.”

Pattie looked around as though expecting to see a ring of men with cameras surrounding them. “Where?”

“Some Daily Mirror fuckers have booked in,” said John. “That’s it. It’s blown.”

“Not necessarily,” Cynthia ventured but John was having none of her attempt to lighten the blow.

“They’ll be all around us at dinner…”

“Well, we don’t have to go to dinner.” Cynthia forestalled his interruption and continued with her idea. “We can have it in our suite. Plenty of room. We can have a picnic! They can’t get in there.”

There then fell a pause as the two men digested this idea. It was crystal clear to Pattie that theirs were the opinions which would count; she didn’t consciously formulate the thought, she simply knew. Pattie, Cynthia and the vastly intrigued hotel manager waited to hear the verdict.

Again, George and John glanced at each other. Clearly, that glance had signified assent, though Pattie had no idea how. John turned to the manager. “Will you fix that?”

The manager almost bowed, such was the level of his spirit of cooperation. “Certainly sir. Ah… would you like to take this evening’s menu with you, and you can phone down your orders.”

George and John beamed. Cynthia looked relieved. George reached out and took Pattie’s hand and, when the menu and wine list had been duly presented, the four surged up to their suite, as excited at the idea of a huge picnic as any children on their holidays.

Which in a way they were.

 Friday 27th March 1964, evening.

A blanket was spread on the carpet. A double size blanket from John and Cynthia’s room. In the centre of the blanket was an ice bucket in which chilled a bottle of white wine, and two bottles of red stood nearby. Two more bottles of white stood in the bath in cold water. All around the bottles were dishes of food, all the courses together, as the group had decided that they didn’t want people knocking at the doors all the time to take courses away and bring new ones. The order to bring the entire three courses all at once apparently required repeating to the chief flunky on the phone, who seemed to be a little slow in understanding, but the message was got across in the end and the meal was served as required. It was quite exciting really; the dish of beef bourguignon was next to the sticky toffee pudding and the vegetables were right across the blanket next to the cheese board. You never knew what you were going to come across. The temptation to mix was irresistible. With enough wine it worked very well.

The four were having a delightful time.

Pattie sat cross legged, her plate held underneath her chin so as to avoid custard spills, and George crouched next to her working his way through some tender meat and gravy. The difficulties involved in eating such a meal neatly only added to the hilarity from the word games they were all playing together; they had just finished one where you had to think of a word within a category within ten seconds or you were out, and they were just beginning the one where you had to think of a word that had nothing to do with the word someone had just said. Cynthia proved extremely quick at challenging and finding associations between words, and John managed to make everything obscene but in the context of a private and drunken picnic it didn’t matter to anyone. Pattie was wiping a dribble of custard from her chin as she waited her turn to come round again, John was leaning forward on hands and knees to grab the dish of peas, George was arguing that fireplace had nothing to do with cylinder and…

CRASH.

Something, something that sounded very large, had crashed against one of the windows of their suite, just across the room from where they sprawled with their picnic.

Pattie shrieked in terror; Cynthia’s hands were clamped over her mouth. Both John and George were on their feet, reflexively ready, fists clenched, John already halfway towards the window. George raced ahead of him and wrenched the floor-length curtain aside. There, on the ledge outside, was a man, who looked very cold and very frightened and very alarmed. He stared in, wide eyed.

“Who the fuck…?” was all George could manage.

John continued the question, at closer quarters. He had run to the window and now flung it open. “Who the fuck are you?” he yelled.

If the man had looked frightened before, faced now with a furious and alarmed Lennon in full spate he progressed into full rabbit-in-headlights freeze. “I… I… I…”

“Come on!!”

The frozen invader rallied somewhat, enough to be able to utter more than one word.  “I’m sorry… I didn’t…” He paused, and swallowed. “I nearly fell off.”

“I don’t give a fuck what you nearly did – who are you?”

“And could we close the window? It’s getting really cold.” This calm request was from Cynthia; John turned back to her, looked again at the man and made a decision.

“Who are you? And come in so we can close the window.”

The man nodded, and carefully clambered over the window ledge and dropped down onto the floor. “I’m so sorry…”

“Listen mate,” George’s calm voice joined in as John closed the window behind the intruder. “If you don’t just tell us who you are, and right now, I’ll kill you.”

The intruder’s head whirled round to face George, who, its owner felt, looked every bit as intimidating as John. He swallowed again. “I’m Nigel Bradbury. I’m with the Daily Mirror.”

“A fucking journalist.” John’s voice dripped disgust.

“But what are you doing at the window?” asked Cynthia.

“We’re two floors up,” Pattie pointed out, probably unnecessarily as the unhappy journalist was still shaking with fright. Eight eyes fixed upon the man, and a full explanation was clearly called for.

“I’m sorry…” George took a menacing step towards the man, who hastily continued. “I’d heard that George had a new girlfriend. I wanted to be the first one to see her.”

He paused, and swallowed with nerves. John gestured with mock gallantry with one arm towards Pattie, who had by this time put down her custard and stood up. “And here she is!” Pattie raised one hand and wiggled her fingers in greeting. “Do go on,” said John to the journalist, in a tone which managed to sound both faux polite and very threatening at the same time.

“So I went around every window to see if I could see her. And you.”

“From the outside?” George’s aggression had morphed into incredulity.  Bradbury turned to him.

“Yes. I started at the ground floor and worked up. All the floors have ledges.” There fell a silence, which Bradbury filled with further explanation. “When I got to yours I missed my footing. I nearly fell off but I grabbed the handle and saved myself but crashed into your window. But luckily, it was yours.”

Another silence. And then, “Luckily,” George commented dryly.

John was staring at the man. An unmistakable gleam was replacing the flint of anger; he was beginning to grin. “You’re fucking crazy.”

Bradbury looked at him. “I know,” he replied, ruefully.

“Are you alright?” Cynthia enquired, and he nodded his head.

“Just scared out of my life. I thought I was a goner.”

John was still thinking; cogs were turning, and then he spoke. “Well, yer’d better have a drink then, hadn’t yer.”

It would have taken a full column’s length in Bradbury’s newspaper to properly describe and sum up the changing emotions that crossed the journalist’s face at that moment. Incomprehension at first, relief, joy, suspicion (was it a trap?); and at the end, something bordering on elation. He nodded. “Oh, yes please,” he said, fervently.

“Would you like to sit down?” Pattie indicated a space on the carpet. He sat himself down, wordlessly.

“What would you like?” asked George. “We’ve got scotch, or scotch.”

“Scotch would be lovely, thank you.” Overwhelming astonishment had not made him forget his manners. George poured him a drink and brought it over.

“I figured since you nearly fell to your death you’d want it neat.”

Bradbury nodded and smiled, absurdly grateful. They all noticed that when he reached out for the glass his hand was shaking slightly. “Thank you. Very much.” He glanced around at the group, who watched him with interest, and then raised his glass to his lips.

The drink went down in one. George wordlessly held out his hand for the glass and refilled it. This one disappeared more slowly. Nigel Bradbury sat on the carpet, with the Beatles, and their women, and looked around the group and smiled. “I really am sorry,” he said, and this time George allowed the apology.

“What were you going to do? Before you nearly fell off?”

“When I found you?” John nodded. “I was just going to try and take photos.”

There fell another pause. “That isn’t very nice though, is it.”

Bradbury drained his glass, and met John’s gaze head on. “No,” he said. “I know. It’s horrible. And intrusive.” He looked down into the empty glass and then back at John. “I’m surprised you didn’t just push me back out of the window.”

“Thought about it.”

“Yes.”

“Still could.”

“But not quite so easily?”

“There’s two of us.”

“Four,” Pattie joined in, and George looked at her in surprise.

“I don’t know how you all stand it,” said Bradbury.

“We don’t have much choice.” George’s voice was acid.

“But this was a choice. And you’re being so kind.” Bradbury raised the empty glass in salute. “Thank you. Very much.”

George refilled the glass again. Pattie smiled at the visitor. “Would you like something to eat?”

“All that scotch,” put in Cynthia, wisely.

Bradbury, sitting cross legged on the floor next to two of the most famous men in the world, covered his face with his hand for a moment in a moment of overwhelming gratitude to whatever gods were looking over him at that moment. It could have all gone so horribly wrong…

“We’ve got sticky toffee pudding,” Pattie continued placidly, and Bradbury reflected from the depths of his slightly drunken stupefaction that she just might be the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. No wonder George Harrison…

“Or just cheese and biscuits.”

He laughed weakly. “Cheese and biscuits would be really good.”

“And then you’d better toddle off to your other snoopy friends,” said John. Bradbury nodded as he cut a piece of cheese from the board that had been passed to him by Cynthia Lennon –was this really happening to him?? – “But,” John was continuing, “if you say anything about where we are…”

“I won’t!” Bradbury replied fervently, his mouth full of cheese and cracker. “I promise.” He nodded, emphatically. He looked across at George, who regarded him from below thick dark eyebrows. George, surprisingly, smiled warmly and the smile lit his face.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” he remarked, kindly.

As Bradbury, a little later, shook hands with each one of the party and left the room via the more orthodox route of the door, he decided that never had a truer word been spoken.

 Saturday 27th March 1964, morning.

Pattie woke, disorientated for a while, gradually absorbing the facts of her presence in an Irish castle, remembering bit by bit the events of the day before. She saw that the sun was trying to shine in through the thick floor length curtains, so she wondered what time it was. Her watch was on the night table, but the night table was on the other side of the bed and George was in the way, still fast asleep with his left arm slung across her waist and his hair across his face.

She turned towards him and looked at him for a while; this for her was always a pleasurable way to spend her time, but she did want to know the time and she did really want to start her day on her holiday. She twisted around a little more towards him and reached over him to grab her watch.

“Hmmmph. Wha…”

The watch said 10.15; an intelligible message compared to George’s utterance. Pattie was very aware that, for Beatles, activity before noon was unheard of, but now that she was properly awake she wanted to get going and do something, anything, to take advantage of the lovely place they were staying in. She wriggled away and nearer to the edge of the bed, and George’s arm slid off her. She swung her legs off the bed and sat.

“Whatchadoin?” The voice managed to sound peevish as well as tired. She ignored the peevishness.

“I just want to see out, see what the weather’s doing, have a look at the view. You can stay there.”

“I’m going to.” Still peevish but more awake now, George ran his fingers back through his hair and then rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand. He looked almost conscious. Pattie got to her feet and padded across the carpet to the window. She reached up to grasp the edge of the curtain. At the last minute, a pretty alarming scenario flashed through the still sleep-deadened mind of the Beatle and he called out his warning. “Pattie, put something on…!!”

Too slow. Too late. Pattie had whisked the tall curtains aside. She stood in the window, naked as the day she was born, to be greeted by a roar of questions and shouts and directives from what seemed like every journalist in the whole world and the accumulated sound of what seemed like a thousand cameras clicking at once.

Sometimes ones reaction to shock is to freeze. It is fortunate that this was not Pattie’s reaction at that moment. Within a nanosecond of the start of the noise she had whirled around and crouched herself into a ball below the level of the window, hunched, trembling, blue eyes larger than ever before as she looked back at George in complete horror.

He knew that it wasn’t kind. He actually did sympathise. Nevertheless, he couldn’t help it – the expression on her face was truly the funniest thing he could remember seeing and he laughed so much that his stomach hurt.

…

Pattie was sitting curled up on the sofa in the main suite with a cup of coffee clasped between her hands. Cynthia was sitting next to her, attempting, quite successfully, to project sympathy to the traumatised girl. George and John were pacing around the room, George at a safe distance from Pattie. John was making a commendable effort to keep the twitches of amusement from his face. When George and Pattie had first told their friends what had happened John had let out a raucous hoot of laughter, and Cynthia had hit him. Cynthia had then given Pattie a hug and Pattie had wept for a moment or two. George phoned down for tea and coffee and “breakfast stuff” as he put it. The hotel must have been accustomed to unspecific food orders, as a delicious spread soon appeared. They ate, they drank, and now George and John paced, as they considered their current dilemma. Now and then George looked across the large room at Pattie, but thus far she was still maintaining a frosty carapace. It wasn’t that she was staying chilly in order to punish him, she was in fact still very upset and knew that it would take a while to get over it. Meanwhile, she and Cynthia were doing what Pattie realised was what Beatle women do; they were leaving it to their menfolk to decide what to do.

“It’s over anyway,” said John. George nodded. “No point trying to have a holiday now.” George shook his head. “But how do we get out of this?”

George sighed heavily. “We’re going to have to phone Brian.”

“Oh God.”

“I know, but he’ll have to get the office to book the plane back and all that.”

“How the fuck did it get out?”

“Same as it always does.”

“And how’s that?” Pattie spoke up for the first time; George tried to quell a leap of optimism in his heart.

“Fairies,” said John.

“What?”

“We don’t know,” translated Cynthia. “We never know. It just does.”

“You’d better call Brian,” said George.

“Why me? You do it.”

“He’s scared of you. We’ll get it done quicker with you.”

John sadly acknowledged the truth of this, and picked up the phone and spoke to the receptionist. “We need an outside line.”

John hunched himself down on the small padded chair next to the phone table. George, deprived of his pacing partner, turned reluctantly towards the sofa on which sat the two women. Dark eyes were large and pleading. “Pattie,” he said in a small voice, “I’m really sorry. I really am.”

“I know you are,” she said, voice just as small. Cynthia found it politic to get up and pour herself another cup of tea, and George came and took her place on the sofa. “It was horrible,” she said, unnecessarily.

“The people or me?”

“Both.”

George chewed at his lower lip, and then turned to her and held out his arms. Pattie slid sideways across the sofa and wriggled into his embrace, and George enfolded her tightly. Cynthia found another chair and sat down with her tea.

John replaced the phone. “He can’t send the car until late, around five. The plane will be at Shannon for us.”

“What can we do until then?” asked Pattie from deep within George’s arms.

“Bugger all,” was John’s terse reply.

“Now they’re here we won’t really be able to go out.” Cynthia once again translated her husband’s laconic reply. “They’d follow us everywhere.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. He looked over at George and Pattie. “She’s forgiven you then.”

“Fuck off,” replied George mildly.

“So what do we do?” Pattie was aware that all her questions sounded grossly naïve and possibly irritating, but she found it almost impossible to comprehend that they were at the mercy of a huge crowd of uninvited journalists. It just wasn’t fair!

John planted himself in the centre of the room and addressed the others. “Brian said we have to give them something.”

“Blood?” came George’s sardonic enquiry as he nuzzled at Pattie’s hair.

“Some kind of photo shoot.”

“Oh shit!”

John nodded lugubriously.

“A fucking press conference.” But George saw that John was clearly mulling over an idea. ”What?”

“There were some suits of armour down in the reception.”

“Oh yeah,” said George. “Let’s all dress up in suits of armour and go and stand outside in front of them and clank.”

“No!” John was grinning. “There were swords! We can have a sword fight!”

There was a pause as the other three took in this suggestion. And then -

“Yeah, that’s fab!”

“Are they real?”

“Will you kill each other?” The latter two questions were from Pattie and Cynthia respectively; as they expected, they were completely ignored.

“Let’s go and get the swords!” George jumped to his feet.

“Brian will want you in suits.”

“Eh?” John paused in his rush to the door and turned back to his wife.

“You know he will. You always have to be in suits for anything public. And this is.” She paused. “Even if you do end up killing each other.” Cynthia did not sound amused.

George and John looked at each other briefly, and then disappeared back into their rooms to get changed, before running down the stairs excitedly to tell the chief flunky that they wanted his swords.

 Saturday 27th March 1964, late morning.

 Pattie and Cynthia were stretched out on respective sofas in their suite. A television was on but they weren’t watching it. They were spending the time chatting, an ostensibly casual natter which for Pattie was invaluable as it added more and more detail about the life of a Beatle girl, “If that’s what you want,” Cynthia had added. It sounded ominous.

“Yes, I do.” Pattie had felt alarmed and defensive in equal measure.

Cynthia was reassuring. She wasn’t challenging the other girl, or trying to test her out. “But this will be a lot of it.”

“What will?”

“This,” explained Cynthia, waving an arm in the general direction of the room. “Sitting around in posh places waiting.”

“Pattie nodded. She was beginning to see. “So, this is usual?”

“Oh yes. Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, the press or the fans, or both, will find out and you’ll be surrounded.” She paused to take another drag at her cigarette. “You just have to accept that it’s going to happen.”

“But you were surprised they found us here.”

“Yes. But I shouldn’t have been!”

Pattie lit a cigarette of her own, and the two lapsed into a comfortable silence. As boring as it might have been for Cynthia, for Pattie this was a heaven-sent opportunity to find out more about the life she was joining and about the people in it. She’d forgotten, for example, that she’d been nervous of meeting Cyn, who couldn’t have been nicer, especially after the trauma of literally exposing herself to the world’s press and George’s ensuing hysterics. She was realising more and more that there was a great deal to learn about being George Harrison’s girlfriend, little of which had anything to do with George himself and even less of which George could help her with or even tell her about. He was in the middle of it, he was living it, and as such he couldn’t possibly know what it was like for a newcomer to join in on the periphery of the whirlwind.

When Pattie had wandered too near the window, Cynthia called to her to step back. “They’ll see you.” Cynthia had described her trip to America when the Beatles had performed on the Ed Sullivan show; if it hadn’t been for this morning’s mishap, Pattie might have thought that she was exaggerating. The truth was beginning to dawn.

“It’s a different world,” she said.

Cynthia nodded.

John and George had been emphatic that neither girl would accompany their menfolk to see the swordfight. George in particular had been positively fierce in his insistence that Pattie remain hidden away. “They’ll get you,” he’d said. “You don’t want it.” So they had clattered off excitedly with their weapons and Pattie and Cynthia had hunkered down in their comfortable prison and waited.

The door to the suite burst open. John and George burst in, grinning, excited; very messy. Clearly swordfighting was a highly physical business. They were, surprisingly, followed by the head flunky himself, who walked in with his usual restrained and dignified demeanour, and both girls found themselves automatically taking their feet off the furniture and sitting more upright. Cynthia confessed later that her first thought was, “Oh no, what’s he done now?” However, flunky was not there to return two miscreants to their minders. “He’s had an idea!” proclaimed John, plonking himself on the sofa next to his wife. Cynthia blinked, puzzled.

“What about?”

“How to get you out!”

Pattie frowned. “What do you mean? We can…”

“No,” broke in George, also sitting down. “They’ll go mad when they see you.” He was looking directly at Pattie, who was even more puzzled and looked across at Cyn. George hastened to explain. “They know about Cyn. They’ve seen her. You’re the new story, they want to get at you.”

“Listen!” John demanded. “This is good. He’s the manager, by the way.”

“Oh,” said Pattie, and smiled politely. “I’m sorry, I don’t know your name…”

“Er… Nolan, Miss… ah… Boyd.” Pattie inclined her head graciously. John was visibly impatient with the pleasantries.

“Tell them your idea,” he said. “No, don’t worry, I will.” Mr Nolan, who had opened his mouth to speak, obediently closed it again. “Me and George will walk out the front. You two,” he paused, and looked around at his audience with a grin, “will dress up as hotel maids and get into some laundry baskets and they’ll put the baskets in a van and drive it away!”

There fell a heavy silence. Cynthia broke the silence.

“That’s a joke.”

Mr Nolan uttered a polite cough, and all eyes turned to him. “If I may,” he ventured. He correctly took the ensuing silence as assent. “There will be so much attention on the two gentlemen leaving the hotel,” George chuckled at he and John being referred to as gentlemen, “that even if they see two chambermaids with laundry no-one will pay any attention. The ladies will get out of the grounds, and the van can stop somewhere and let them out of the baskets.”

Another deep silence fell. All eyes were on Cynthia and Pattie, the former suspicious and the latter astounded.

“This really isn’t a joke?” insisted Cynthia.

“Will we fit, in the baskets?” Pattie’s query was practical.

“It isn’t, and you will.” Mr Nolan, the erstwhile head flunky, seemed pleased with himself. The girls looked at each other.

“Well, ok,” Cynthia caved in, and Pattie nodded. There really wasn’t anything else she could do.

“Have you got the uniforms?” she said. Mr Nolan almost smiled.

“I took the liberty…” he said, and stepped outside the room and retrieved two folded chambermaid uniforms and brought them in. “You can try them for size…?”

Pattie burst out laughing. And reflected to herself that, when George had asked her out on the film set and she had said yes, this was not exactly what she had envisaged.

Mr Nolan carefully placed the uniforms on a side table and moved towards the door. “I’ll go and make the arrangements.” George smiled and nodded. The manager paused just as he got back to the door. “Er…”All four guests looked at him questioningly. “I… er.. wonder if I might have your autographs? For my daughter, you understand…” He produced from the depths of his suit a hotel brochure and a pen.

George and John cut glances with each other again, and both stepped forward to oblige.

 Saturday 27th March 1964, early afternoon.

Pattie and Cynthia were by now laughing so hard that they could hardly stand up. On Cynthia the starched dress stood up on her as if it had a will of its own. On Pattie the little apron had to be wound four times around her waist before it could be tied. Cynthia wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes. “Whacha doin’ in there?” bellowed John from the outer room. The two girls looked at each other, stood straighter, and opened the door and marched out of the bed room into which they’d retreated to change into the uniforms.

They were met by a stunned silence.

“Don’t you think I look wonderful?” asked Cynthia, striking a pose. Pattie tried to stifle a snort of laughter. George’s eyes grew wide.

“That’s not bad,” he said. His customary drawled tone was distinctly lascivious. Pattie glared at him. “Can you keep the clothes?”

“Don’t be silly, George,” snapped Pattie. “And anyway,” she went on in a calmer tone, “we’ll have to keep them. We can’t bring them back.”

John’s grin was evil. “John!” Cynthia’s warning tone was identical to Pattie’s.

There came a knock at the door. Even when banging his knuckles against wood the chief flunky, Mr Nolan himself, managed to sound deferential. “Yeah?” called George.

Mr Nolan entered. “Ah… are the ladies ready?”

“I think so.” Pattie realised she was starting to feel very nervous about this plan, which had for a short while sounded fun. She looked across the room at George, who came over and put his arm around her waist.

“Is everyone packed?” The guests all nodded, and Mr Nolan, who seemed to have come into his own in his role as the chief organiser of a giant prank, took control with vigorous efficiency. “Right,” he barked.

“Were you in the army, mister?” enquired John. Cynthia jabbed him with her elbow. Mr Nolan ignored him.

“We will have your car brought round to the front,” he directed. “As soon as it arrives we will have all the cases loaded in. All the journalists will by then be surrounding the car. Once we are sure that their attention is on the car, the ladies will be conducted by our chief housekeeper to the laundry room and will be given the baskets they are to carry to the laundry van. The gentlemen” George giggled again “will leave the hotel via the front entrance. As you, sirs, speak to the journalists to explain that the ladies will be leaving a little later, the ladies themselves will be entering the laundry van and hiding in the basket. The van will set off, leaving the castle grounds through the tradesmen’s entrance. The gentlemen will be driven out through the main gate.” Mr Nolan paused and looked around the group. “Are there any questions?”

Pattie wondered, after that dazzling display of strategic efficiency, whether they would dare voice any questions even if they had any. But Cynthia voiced the query that she herself had thought of. “Where will we meet the car and get out of the van?” she asked, and Pattie nodded.

“And when do they get out of the basket?” Pattie inwardly blessed George for asking the next one of her list of worries.

“Once the van doors are closed the driver will open the basket and let them out,” assured Mr Nolan. “The laundry van will rendezvous with the car at Shannon Airport.”

“At seventeen hundred hours,” John supplied in his best sergeant major accent, and Cynthia jabbed him again.

“Are there any further questions?”

The four looked at each other, and the four all shook their heads. Mr Nolan looked at his watch. “Synchronise…” John began and this time Cynthia slapped him on the head. The hotel manager looked at his watch again, and his expression dared the guests to make fun of him.

“I’ll give the instruction for the car to be brought round,” he said and, with a sharp nod, he turned smartly and left the room.

Pattie wound both arms around George’s waist and leaned her head against his shoulder. She suddenly felt very very anxious.

 Saturday 27th March 1964, late afternoon.

 Shannon Airport was very small, but the staff there still kindly managed to locate a small though unglamorous private room for the four to sit in until their toy plane was ready for take-off. Privacy was essential. Not merely because they were two Beatles and women and therefore phenomenally famous, but also because the women in question could not have contemplated any degree of public viewing from others. Not yet.

John still, now and then, allowed a giggle to erupt, though each one was swiftly stifled. He and Cynthia had been together a long time. And were married. George and Pattie were newly in love and George, despite his youth and despite his inexperience of serious relationships, had become quickly and urgently aware that laughing was not politic and now clamped down ruthlessly on any mirth which struggled to escape. Pattie was hunched in a not very comfortable chair and was dabbing at tear drops which still trickled prettily from her eyes despite her efforts to stop crying. She didn’t even know why she was crying, as she kept saying. It was maybe just the shock. Cynthia was dragging a brush through her long thick hair, every brush stoke leaving the menfolk in no doubt of her anger at her husband’s response. She glared at her husband. “It is not funny,” she said, implacably.

She was met with a silence; there was little more that could be said. The problem had been a simple one. The van driver had forgotten, in his enthusiasm to effect his dare-devil get away, to let the girls out of the laundry basket. Carried away by the drama of the situation, which was without doubt the highlight of his employment at the hotel, he had put his foot down and hurled the van around sharp bends, up and down hills, slamming to a halt at traffic lights and shooting off again when the lights changed, driving like the getaway driver he fancied himself to be, all the way from the castle to the airport. Only when he drove into the airport and saw the limo waiting for him and his cargo did he remember just what he had been supposed to do.

After slithering out of his driver’s seat into the back of the van and undoing the lids of the baskets, he made sure to make himself very, very scarce.

And, in the meantime, during that journey from the hotel to the airport, all eight and a half miles of it, the basket in which Pattie Boyd and Cynthia Lennon had been hidden had thudded from one side of the van to the other, smashing into the sides of the van and ricocheting back to the other side again. In vain had the girls shrieked and yelled to be let out of the basket, as had been the plan. Locked in the van and buried in laundry they went unheard and eventually they gave up shouting. All they could do was try to brace themselves so as not to smash into each other and, occasionally, they succeeded. Most of the time they didn’t. During times when the van was following a straight road they straightened themselves out, moved as far from each other as they could, gripped with their feet at the base of the basket. But, unlike when you’re in the passenger seat and can see what’s happening, they had no warning of the next hairpin bend in this remote and rural area, and they were yet again tossed here, there and all over each other. They were in pain from where there collided with each other; Pattie’s forehead had smashed against Cynthia’s and the sharp pain made her feel sick. As did the rocking to and fro. As did the fear.

The girls were both terrified. There was certainly no opportunity to speak coherently to each other during that nightmare ride, but afterwards they found that both had feared the baskets tipping over altogether and bodies being flung and necks being snapped…

Cynthia’s hairbrush drew crackling static as she brushed and brushed and glared. Pattie’s paper handkerchief was scrunched smaller and smaller in her hand and she sniffed at intervals. George made a judgement call, and pulled up a chair to sit next to her and drew her close into his arms. It turned out to be the correct call; she pressed close to him and buried her face in his shoulder. She didn’t want to cry any more. She’d had enough of that. It was just the shock, she said again…

“Ah, ladies and gentlemen?” came a hesitant voice from the door. “Your flight is ready for boarding.”

Pattie pushed herself upright and looked at George. She remembered that hideous pressure in her ears. He remembered his complete lack of faith that the toy plane was capable of flight. His dark eyes met her tearful blue ones.

“Oh fuck,” he remarked sadly.

 Sunday 28th March 1964, mid morning

 George reached out towards the cup of tea, but Pattie shook her head and put it down on the night table beside the bed. “It’s hot,” she said, and scampered round to her side of the bed with her own cup in her hand, which she carefully put down before clambering into bed herself. Once comfortably in, she retrieved the cup and took a sip. “Mmmm.”

“Ta,” said George.

“S’alright.”

George pushed himself back in the bed so that he was supported by the headboard and pillows and then he too picked up his tea. The couple sat in comfortable silence for a while, drinking, waking up.

After a while, Pattie became aware that the silence was becoming less comfortable. She sipped her tea and tried to work out whether or not it was her imagination, but concluded that it was not. She then, once she’d definitely concluded that there was something not quite right, began to feel worried. She knew she had to ask him about it, to ask if there was anything wrong; but she also wondered whether she actually wanted to know.

If there had been a test which had to be passed during those extraordinary couple of days – had she passed it? Had she failed it? Had she fitted into that uniquely close-knit group, or was she outside? Not right. Not wanted.

Was he…?

“Pattie.” George’s tone was abrupt, almost harsh.

That’s it then. This was it. They’d tried it out, he’d invited her along, but it hadn’t worked out, and John and Cyn had spoken to him and…

“Pattie!”

She turned to him. Feeling slightly sick with anxiety but knowing she had to be adult about it, brave…

“Pattie!! Why aren’t you talking to me?”

She went to take a deep breath to speak, but found that she was already holding her breath and would have been asphyxiated. “I…” she began. She swallowed. “I am talking to you.” She dared look up into his eyes, and was astonished at the expression she found there. Anxious, longing – every bit as worried as she herself felt. “George, what is it?”

He was chewing his lip.

“George!” It was her turn to sound abrupt, and almost harsh.

George looked down at the bedclothes over his lap, and then straight back at her and visibly gathered himself to speak. Pattie braced herself for the blackness, the grief…

“Did it put you off?” he barked at her.

Pattie’s eyes widened in surprise, and she frowned, unable to process what he’d asked. “Did it…?” She trailed off.

“Did all that,” George almost spat out the last word, “put you off? Put you off being with me. Going out with me.” By now he had turned to her, his brown eyes searching hers. Pleading. And, as she gradually began to absorb what was going on here, a massive weight of fear rolled off her and evaporated away. She felt the corner of her mouth begin to twitch into a smile, and the smile broadened into a beam of relief.

“No!” she exclaimed. She twisted around to face him and found that her hands had made their way to cup his face, gently, tenderly. “No! Of course it didn’t!”

“It’s not of course,” he countered gruffly but quite reasonably. “You nearly got killed cos of it.”

Pattie found herself laughing; the memory was still awful but the relief that she wasn’t being unceremoniously dumped overruled it. “No I didn’t.”

“You did.”

“Well, okay, never mind, I don’t care, it hasn’t put me off, nothing would. Please don’t…” She stopped, not even sure what she was going to say. But George picked it up.

“Don’t what?”

Another deep breath, this time it was possible, and she knew she had to be honest. “I was worried you wouldn’t think it worked out. The weekend. All of you.”

“Eh?” It was George’s turn to frown in confusion. “What…? What didn’t work?”

“I thought maybe you and the others wouldn’t think I fitted in. To the group.” She paused, and searched his face again for response. She didn’t have to wait very long. At last, that wonderful toothy grin made its appearance.

“It was great!” he proclaimed, and he reached out and pulled her into his arms. Pattie lay squashed against him as he squeezed her tightly and she felt his chuckle against her cheek. “You were great. You were perfect. And John and Cyn loved you!”

“Did they?” came her muffled plea for extra reassurance.

“Yeah, they did! And Brian said we could have another holiday in May cos we’ve got time off and they want you to come too. But I didn’t know if you’d want to, I didn’t know if you were put off with all the press, and the hiding - and the fucking laundry baskets.”

Pattie wriggled out of his almost frantic clasp and pushed herself upright so that she could properly face him. “George,” she declared. “I don’t care how many laundry baskets I have to travel in, I want to be with you.” She leaned forward and kissed him on the nose. “Always,” she concluded.

George reached for her again, and kissed her lovingly and deeply and endlessly. And at the end they snuggled down together into the bed clothes and wrapped their arms and legs around each other. “Where are we going on holiday?” she asked, dreamily.

“China.”

“China?? Are you sure that’s safe?”

George nuzzled his face against her hair. “They’ve got some good laundries there,” he said.

“You bastard…!!” But he silenced her with another kiss, and not much more was said between them for some time.