Happiness
Is Measured Out In Miles
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
Shortly before Rubber Soul was
realeased, John brought a copy home but left it lying around. i loved (and
still do) Beatles' music very much, so I invited Edu and Eli along to Kenwood
so the three of us could play the record and have a girl's evening.
As soon as they rang the exterior
gates, I becasme tense, as happened so often every time I saw Eli. I didn't
know if she suspected anything. I tried to act normal when Paul and I were with
the rest, and Paul did too. We both knew we were in love with each other, Paul
had whispered 'I love you' thousands of times while we were making love and I
felt I loved him too. I had never told him, just once. I was just wanting to
split up with John. John... Oh, John! He was so different ever since that
bloody dentist had dropped L.S.D. in our coffees in the summer! He really
started to change when Bob Dylan gave the Beatles their first joint. I admit
Edu and I had also been feeling quite funny after our first trip of L.S.D, but
definitely we didn't want to go on having it.
- "Hi, dear!", Edu, as usual, as
glad as can be. Her relationship with george was getting better all the time
and they were even talking about getting married. As for Eli and Paul... Paul
didn't love her and Eli was acting quite strange too, not only with him but
also with me.
- "Hi, girls! Come in!", they
walked in. "Dot has prepared a wonderful dinner for us!"
- "Oh, great!", said Edu. They
left their coats in the closet near the entrance and we all went to the living
room. I turned on the exterior lights to lighten up the beautiful swimming
pool, one of the things I was most proud of. John and I had had so many good
moments out there. I felt really sad that everything was finishing, becasue I
knew John still loved me and I still found him incredibly sexy and
irressitible. OK, I tried to forget that and concentrate on the company of my
friends.
- "OK, Vicky, just put it on! I can
hardly wait to listen to it!", said Edu entusiastically. so I went to put
it on. The first song was called "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has
Flown)". Well, I had to laugh, becasue we had some norwegian wood
furniture at Kenwood. Maybe ha had written it with that in mind, but the line
about the bird... My happiness started to wane while I was listening to the
song. I couldn't believe what I was hearing! If my mind served me right, John
was talking about a girl. I blinked a couple of times and went to turn off the
record player when the song ended. Eli and Edu didn't say a word. They both
were looking at me rather strange.
- "Does any of you know what this
song is about?", I said imagining what it was about but not believeing it
and wanting to hear it from other lips. There was this terrible silence, when
nobody said a word. After what I thought had been a couple of minutes and with
my heart beating fast, Eli spoke:
- "Vicky... I've got something to
tell you", my heart stopped. Yeah and I felt I needed air. I hardly saw
Edu getting up and heading for the door.
- "I'm gonna look for George, Vicky.
I'll be right back", and she went but I hardly noticed it. I was standing
near the record player and Eli kept on sitting down. I was staring at her but
somehow avoided my eye-contact. she finally got up and faced me.
- "Vicky, 'Noregian Wood' is... You
know... You've heard the story, haven't you? John was with a girl, they slept
together...", I started to feel dizzy and I had to hold a chair so as not
to fall over. "And Vicky... That girl was me", and then I felt really
weak in the knees and had to sit down cross-legged on the floor. John had slept
with one of my best friends!! Oh God! I wanted to die!! No! No, Vicky, don't
cry, not in front of her! anyway, you've slept with Paul, haven't you? "I
didn't want tyou to find out by another person. Vicky, please, look at
me", she went on. I lifted my head. She sat down in front of me and was
looking at me with teary eyes.
- "And you consider yourself MY friend? Sleeping with my man!", I was
really furious with her and I wanted her to get out, "go away! Go away of
my home!", I shouted getting up.
- "Vicky, you are sleeping with paul!
John knew and I knew and that's why we slept together! John really loved you
Vicky, but we both were feeling really sad that the people we loved were
sleeping together", I was speechless. They knew my story with paul. how
had they found out? Well, I was too upset to find it out myself so I just
shouted:
- "GO AWAY OF MY HOME!! NOW!! DON'T
WANT YOU NEAR JOHN ANY MORE!!!", Eli was in etars by then and so was I. We
were both so upset that we didn't notice John come in:
- "What the bloody hell is oging on
here??!!", he said. We both turned to him and looked at him as though we
didn't know him. There he was, standing near the door, as sexy as ever, even
sexier I would say, wearing that brown velvet jacket he was wearing on the Rubber
Soul cover, his hair longer:
- "Oh, John!", I said in tears.
"How could you? How?", I was sobbing loudly by then. he then looked
at Eli, then at me, understood and without uttering a word, walked away,
probably to get drunk in some pub with the Rolling Stones. I didn't care, I
just wanted to die. I was in so much pain... I just wanted someone's shoulder
to cry on. Eli went away too and I was left behind at Kenwood, alone, crying
loudly. I phoned Edu and told her everyhting. What she said surprised me a lot:
- "I knew 'Norwegian Wood' was about
Eli, dear. I think everybody knew except you".
- "Did Paul know?"
- "I think so".
How the hell didn't he tell me
anything? He should have, he should have!! Or maybe he didn't want to hurt me.
Edu, being my best friend, could read me like a book. Besides, she was the only
person I had told about Paul and I sleeping together.
- "Vicky, you there?", she was
still waiting for me to say something.
- "Yeah, Edu. Oh, dear! What am I
going to do now? Edu... what?", I heard her sigh on the phone.
- "Vicky, do you want a piece of
advice?", I nodded, not realising she couldn't see me because I was on the
phone. "Talk to John. if you don't love him any more, if you love Paul, he
has a right to know. he loves you so much... He doesn't deserve that. Listen!
he may not be a saint, and everybody knows what happens on tour, but you're
special to him, you really are, dear, and have always been", I was sobbing
loudly again, but in between my sobs I had an idea.
- "Thanks, Edu. I love you", and
I hung up. I went to the bathroom, had a shower and applied some make-up. I put
on some of my sexiest clothes and looked at myself in the mirror. Not bad...
Everybody said I was sexy, although I never believed them. OK, so I grabbed my
things and took the Ferrari John had bought me for my twenty third birthday.
The way was long and I was very upset
but even so I tried to concentrate on the road. the night was very dark and
when I felt the pain, my eyes blurred with tears, but I didn't jump any traffic
lights nor anything. John hadn't come back home. Where would he be? Fucking
Eli? Or fucking any bloody blonde??!
I finally arrived. The lights were on,
so he was home. There were some gatebirds there, but being a cold night they
were wrapped in blankets and hardly said anything when they saw my Ferrari. I
had to get out of it to ring the intercom.
- "Yes?", answered Paul.
- "Paul, it's me!", I didn't
need to say anything else. Paul opened the door immediately. I entered the
Ferrari into the front garden and parked, then I entered the buliding and went
up the satirs. Paul was standing there at the top of them.
- "Are you alone?", I asked him,
thinking that maybe Eli was already there.
- "Yeah, Eli's gone to spend the
night at a friend's or something. Something must have happened. She wouldn't
tell me anything...", I satrted to cry. "Oh, hell! What's wrong,
luv?", he started to go down the satirs and hugged me. Holding me close,
he helped me the few steps left to enter the living room and together we sat on
the sofa. He didn't say anything for a while, and when I finally sobered up, I
looked at him and said:
- "They know, Paul, they know and
they've been getting their own backs at us. They've been sleeping together,
paul!! Eli and John!!", Paul swang me back and forth, kissing my head.
- "Shh, luv! I know... I've known
since the last world tour", I looked at him in amazement.
- "Why didn't you tell me anything,
Paul?"
- "How could I? You would have been
so hurt that I would have lost ya. And I don't want to lose ya, luv. I love
you, UI love you with all my heart and I've loved you ever since the first time
I saw you at my twenty first birthday party. But you were with John. And you
know I couldn't do anything...", Oh, I felt so good in paul's arms. I
didn't want to break apart from them. I lifted my head and Paul kissed me. We
kissed passianotely. He startd to kiss my neck as he always did when he wanted
to make love to me. But we had to sort some things out before. I looked at him.
- "Paul..."
- "Mm...", he said still kissing
my neck.
- "Paul, we have to etll John and
Eli. This can not go on forver. If we want tp be together, we have to tell
them... Becasue we want to be together...?", Paul looked at me with pop
eyes.
- "Of course, luv! I've been waiting
for this moment for years, luv! What you're telling me is that you want to
break up with John", well I hadn't seen it like that, but yes, that was
what I wanted. John wasn't the same man I had fallen in love with. John had
changed. Marihuana first and then L.S.D. had changed him. Yeah, I had taken
L.S.D. but I didn't want to go on taking it. John, on the other hand, had
discovered a new way of life.
- "Yeah, Paul, and we have to tell
them. We can't wait. We have to do it as soon as possible", he nodded.
"But we have to be toegether, and thet have to be together", Paul
didn't say anything but he suddenly got up in a jump and started to swear.
- "Hell, bloody fucking hell!!!
Vicky! John is not going to take this well. he loves you like mad and we've
been friends for so long..."
- "Oh, I don't want this to be the
end of the Beatles...", I asid, and I meant it. What if John decided to
leave the group? After all, John would have to keep on seeing Paul and me if we
finally went together. paul looked at me in visible agony.
- "Do you really think...?", he
didn't finish the sentence. I just shrugged. "No, that's imposible. Look,
luv! This is going to be difficult for the four of us! But he has to
understand, the same Cyn understood he loved you. he's still in love with you,
but he'll have to see now you and I are in love.
Oh, God! That was going yo be the most
difficult part. John could be very very aggressive and I braced myself for the
wrost. Paul saw my distressed face and came to hug me.