In the living room of Mendips on Menlove Avenue in the well-heeled Liverpool suburb of Woolton, Paul yawns and bites into vegan sausage roll. It’s been a long day. Ringo enjoys Christmas Eve peace and love. The décor all around them, heavy with memories, sobers them both. Holly with green spiked leaves garnishes a fireplace grand in the way old furniture so often is. The ceiling is high, but reachable if you try hard enough. When they were young lads, it seemed miles away. The pair sit on the brocade sofa and breathe thoughts, and focus on a freshly baked loaf on the coffee table.
The bread is perfectly proportioned, with careful vertical sides and soft rounded corners.
‘Paul,’ Ringo leans forward and inhales the bread’s yeasty goodness. ‘Did we do the right thing?’
‘It’s what he would have wanted.’
‘D’you reckon? Really?’
A frown shifts Paul’s still boyish features. ‘Yes.’
Ringo taps an uneven rhythm with worried fingertips. Wobbles his head, weighing up.
BANG!
A flash lights up the room and everything in it. A sitar strums, thick dense incense filling nostrils. A face, body, and limbs solidify on the hearth rug. Fit, strong, healthy, George is here. George is beautiful again. He gets to his feet. He glows and wears a white suit. It reminds of-
‘Hello Paul.’
A familiar figure steps forward. Decades go back, get back. Eyes swell warm and damp. Visions blur.
The newcomer recovers first, stands tall, and turns on Ringo. The stabbed greeting ‘How the hell d’you look so young?’ snatches delighted breaths from throats.
‘You’re dead, John,’ comes the shaken reply. ‘And you too, George’ is hastily added.
The clock on the mantlepiece ticks an anxious curious heartbeat.
‘Ghosts visit on Christmas Eve for a reason,’ John spits. What reason is that? is unspoken but well heard. He eyes the loaf of bread – everyone does the same, call and response – and grinds out ‘I did not give consent for my work to be fucked with.’
Paul gathers himself. Breathes. Thinks on.
‘Hang on. After all this time, you come back about THAT? A recipe? Above everything else.’
‘Is that all you can come out with after forty-seven years, and eight months?’
The two men square up to each other.
Paul’s cheeks pinken in shock and coy pleasure, when he realises. ‘You remember our last meeting, then. To the day. 24 April 1976. New York.’
‘So?’
‘“Think about me every now and then, old friend”, you said.”’
‘So?’
‘We’re not here about that. We’re on about you reworking his bread recipe. I wanted it binned,’ George’s tone is sour and dour. ‘I told you it was fucking rubbish. Should’ve let it be.’
‘Look, if you two are Christmas past taking us to our Christmas future, get on with it.’ No laughter meets Ringo’s joke.
‘You don’t want that, Ringo. Not at your age.’ John squints at him. ‘Seriously, you got a portrait in the attic?’
A pale blue Arriva bus swings by the window. Sweet fuzzy memories fall from Paul. ‘Liverpool buses were red in our time,’ he says.
The corners of John’s mouth twitch upwards despite himself. ‘You still get the bus, tight wad?’
‘When I’m home, yeah. I was just thinking…this – is the first time we’ve been home together since…’
‘It’s a Christmas miracle.’ Sarcasm, the unreliable shield.
‘The envelope with the recipe in it, it said “FOR PAUL”.’ Paul’s not letting this one go.
John rolls his eyes. ‘For god’s sake. The envelope was for a Christmas card.’
‘I didn’t get a card from you.’
‘He didn’t send it in the end,’ George says. ‘You know what he’s like-’
‘I was busy. Bringing up my boy. Baking bread,’ is the garbled explanation. ‘My bread. Mine. Not yours.’
‘The recipe felt…unfinished,’ Paul speaks slowly.
‘I was experimenting when I wrote it. Some ideas work, others don’t. You know that. Of all people.’ John hums bagpipes under his breath. ‘Doesn’t mean you should mess with it, Paul. Consent.’
‘It said “FOR PAUL”….’ is repeated.
‘Is there an echo in here or something?’
Silence. Paul’s shoulders slump.
‘It’s alright. Mate,’ Ringo tells him. George coughs.
They both look at John.
He sighs out ‘what’s the bread taste like, anyway’ and perches on the sofa arm inches away, close enough to touch Paul if they could. ‘The state of it. It’s got no personality. Bland.’
‘Better without you interfering.’ Paul bites back. Gazes meet. Click. Lock.
‘It’s not like I can have any myself, is it. Haven’t eaten since 1980.’ John’s laugh is loud. It hurts.
‘It’s artisanal,’ says Paul.
‘Arse.’
Paul smiles suddenly, rubs his stomach as if content and full. ‘It’s delicious, you don’t know what you’re missing.’ This is like it once was. Banter, they call it now. He’s missed it. Holds his thumbs aloft in cheesy finger guns.
‘A bit insensitive under the circumstances, Paul.’ John’s bark slashes the air. Cleanses it. An invisible thread, decades long and strong, thickens and tugs. ‘You know, now and then, I will haunt you.’ A statement, no question. Spoken quietly, gently. Privately.
‘I’ll bank on it. Old friend,’ Paul retorts.
‘Always wanted the last word, you.’ John’s tone turns fond. Admiring. Respectful. A lukewarm calm settles the foursome. Comfortable chatter bounces and bubbles.
This is nice, Paul thinks. A natural flow. His eyelids droop. No one notices, carry on instead.
When Paul wakes up, the room is dark and empty. He neck is stiff. As he stretches one way and the other, he reflects funny things, dreams. Creep up on you, they do. Can’t remember them half the time. The loaf is still here, in front of him. That sausage roll from before was tiny.
He tears a chunk from the bread’s crust, inspects it close up as if for the first time. Slots it in his own mouth. Chews determinedly, swallows it easy down his throat. Licks the inside of his lips. Relives the flavour. Pleasing to the palate. Moorish.
‘Good one,’ he says, and finds himself craving the distinct bitter of salt.
