The Beatles Boxed Set (23 page)

            When
they got inside, it was oddly quiet. Julian was nowhere, as were the
housekeeper and John. Then she heard a muffled sound, like a laugh, from the
kitchen.

            John,
in his bathrobe, was facing her, drinking coffee and holding a cigarette in his
other hand. Yoko was at the kitchen table, her back to the door. Cynthia knew
it was Yoko, then she looked at the kitchen strewn with dirty dishes and
half-eaten meals, as though the housekeeper hadn’t been in for days.

            John
greeted her with “Oh, hi” and didn’t look guilty. He looked stoned as he had
taken drugs all night.

            Finally,
Yoko turned in her chair to face Cynthia. She didn’t look embarrassed, or
guilty, or apologetic. Yoko was already thirty-six and a bit out of shape.
Cynthia knew too well that the woman was presently married with a six-year-old
daughter. And then Cynthia realized that Yoko was wearing
her
bathrobe.
Yoko said, “oh, hi.”

            Cynthia
ran away from the kitchen and gathered her things to pack. She knew that her
marriage to John was over at that moment. The people who mattered to John had
failed him, including her. She recognized that she hadn’t been successful in
helping her husband fight his demons and monsters. She had stood by and watched
as John drowned himself in a sea of drugs. At 28, he was a drug addict. Cynthia
clearly remembered that John was high and drunk almost every day since she
married him.

            At
their home, there was a shelf in the sunroom where John kept a pharmaceutical
mortar and pestle which he used to combine speed, barbiturates and
psychedelics. On some days, he would trip for weeks until all he could see was
black and white. Cynthia said, “As far as I was concerned, the rot began to set
in the moment cannabis and LSD seeped its unhealthy way into our lives.”

            But
it was another woman that finally took John away from Cynthia.

            John
filed for divorce on grounds of adultery. Cynthia felt that John and Yoko
“accused me of something that would make them not look so bad.”

            And
when Cynthia learned that Yoko was pregnant, she began her own divorce
proceedings against John in August 1968. John refused to offer any more than £75,000,
telling her on the phone, “That’s like winning the pools, so what are you moaning
about? You’re not worth any more.”

            The
settlement was raised to £100,000, plus £2,400 annually and custody of Julian.
The decree nisi was granted in November 1968.

            From
May 1968, when John and Yoko began living together, and until September 1973,
when they split for 18 months, the couple had been inseparable. John viewed
them as intense artists who needed each other badly. For their first weeks
together, they lived briefly with friends, including at Paul’s house in St.
John’s wood, then at Peter Asher’s place, then Neil Aspinall’s before settling
into Ringo’s empty Montagu street home in July, and they stayed there
throughout 1968.

            Before
the couple moved out of Kenwood, they filmed experimental movies, including
Two
Virgins
, which debuted at the Chicago Film Festival later that year. John
also mounted his first art show.

            And
then there were still the Beatles albums to finish. John would take Yoko with
him to the studio after Yoko told him one time, “You mustn’t do anything
without me!” The other Beatles didn’t like her, though Yoko would admire Paul
for treating her as an equal. The tensions that surrounded the Beatles as they
went through their last recording sessions were further worsened by Yoko’s
constant presence and participation in their activities.

            John
and Yoko’s first public appearance was at the National Sculpture Exhibition in
Coventry, where they planted acorns for peace. On June 18, John took her to the
opening night of
In His Own Write
at the Old Vic.

            As
John finished recording his part for the
White Album
, he and Ono felt
relieved. However, their public profile was becoming more of a liability,
especially after the British conservatives lashed at them for how they snubbed
marital convention and parenthood. On top of it, Yoko discovered that she was
pregnant by June of July. It meant that John accused Cynthia of adultery in
June while also fathering a child with Yoko.

            More
problems also stemmed from John’s use of drugs. On October 18, soon after John
returned from a
White Album
mixing session, the London Drug Squad, led
by Sergeant Norman Pilcher, swept down on the couple’s home. Yoko answered the
door and was told to allow police dogs in for a drug raid. Yoko and John
refused to let them come in, but eventually relented and opened the doors to them.

            The
two search dogs discovered only 219 grams of cannabis resin and the couple was
taken to Paddington green police station, charged with possession and
“obstructing the police in the execution of a search warrant.” They were
released on bail.

            John
and Yoko further stirred controversy when they announced Yoko’s pregnancy, and
it became clear to everyone that Yoko was pregnant before John left Cynthia.
Yoko was condemned when it showed that she used heroin during this period.

            After
two weeks, Yoko was brought to the hospital as she showed signs that she might
miscarry. At around this time, John’s extramarital affair became public, and
Cynthia was granted a swift divorce and sole custody of Julian.

            Before
the month of November ended, Apple Records released the couple’s first album,
Unfinished
Music No. 1: Two Virgins
, which they recorded the previous May in John’s
attic. The album drew gasps, mainly because of the full frontal and rear naked
photos of John and Yoko holding hands. The photos were considered mortifying.

            John
said of the photos, “Originally, I was going to record Yoko and I thought the
best picture of her for an album would be naked. So after that, when we got
together, it just seemed natural for us both to be naked. Of course, I’ve never
seen my prick out on an album before.”

            EMI
CEO Sir Joseph Lockwood refused to distribute the record, deeming both parties
“ugly.” An independent label offered to distribute the album in the UK while
the Tetragrammaton distributed the album in the US by covering the nudity with
a brown paper sleeve, so that only John and Yoko’s heads could be seen. In New
Jersey, officials deemed the album as “pornographic.”

            John
escaped these problems by staying with Yoko in the hospital for two weeks,
sleeping on the floor until the hospital allowed placing an adjacent cot.
Having suffered miscarriages with her previous marriage, Yoko lost John’s baby
on November 21.

            The
following week, John appeared in court. All charges against Yoko were dropped,
while John pled guilty to cannabis possession. He paid a fine of £150 and an
additional 20 guineas in court costs.

            When
the Beatles’
White Album
was released, it became a success. On the other
hand,
Two Virgins
was released sometime later and flopped.

            John
and Yoko grieved for their lost child by diving back into public appearances.
Not even the scandals surrounding the nude photos in
Two Virgins
or
Yoko’s miscarriage could stop them from promoting their romance as performance
art. In December, they staged a “Celebration in December” art benefit at the
Royal Albert Hall, called “Alchemical Wedding.” John and Yoko were inside a
white bag on the stage. Then the next week, they donned costumes to be Mr. and
Mrs. Santa Claus for the Apple Christmas party.

            John
had also begun leaning to politics as he granted interviews where he expressed
his political views. A conversation with Maurice Hindle and Daniel Wiles turned
into a long talk that dwelt on leftist discontent with “Revolution.” John
insisted that “ruthless destruction” would lead to having “ruthless destroyers”
in power. He claimed that the Soviets were as ambitious as any capitalist
country, and those on the far left were “exclusionary snobs” who are incapable
of leading and organizing a united movement.

            When
Paul married Linda Eastman in March 1969, it pricked John’s competitive nerve.
Thus, he was more determined to marry Yoko as soon as possible. They began
looking for the perfect publicity venue. On March 16, they flew off to the
august Plaza Athenee in Paris for a ceremony, but found out that they couldn’t
marry there unless they stayed in residence longer.

John and Yoko showing their marriage
certificate

            Next,
John and Yoko tried to get married on the cross-channel ferry, but failed to
board
The Dragon
at Southampton because of “inconsistencies in their
passports.” A friend, Peter Brown, discovered that the couple could get married
in Gibraltar off Spain. The couple, along with Brown and a photographer, flew
to Gibraltar and was married on March 20, 1969. After an hour, they flew back
to Paris. They then headed toward Amsterdam to stage their honeymoon in a way
that people would remember.

            In
Amsterdam, John and Yoko campaigned with a week-long Bed-In for peace, the
first in their Amsterdam Hilton suite. They booked a room, posted homemade
posters on the wall, and summoned reporters. John and Yoko were on bed propped
up on their pillows, sitting angelically and looking peeved as though the
reporters expected something more than just sitting there.

For their honeymoon, John and Yoko staged
a bed-in protest for peace in a room at Amsterdam Hotel

            John
told their baffled audience, “We’re staying in bed for a week, to register our
protest against all the suffering and violence in the world. Can you think of a
better way to spend seven days? It’s the best idea we’ve had.”

            John
proved just how much Yoko meant so much to him by adding her name to his. On
April 22, 1969, dressed in black leather, the couple climbed up to Apple’s
rooftop where the Beatles had staged their last concert. Señor Bueno de
Mesquita, the local commissioner for oaths, took over a ceremony called a
“deeds poll” and had John sign some paperwork. John, christened John Winston
Lennon by his mother Judy, became John Ono Lennon. Though he dropped his second
name, Winston, informally, it stayed attached legally.

            John
said about the ceremony, “Yoko changed hers for me, I’ve changed mine for her.
One for both, both for each other. She has a ring. I have a ring. It gives us
nine ‘O’s’ between us, which is good luck. Ten would not be good luck. Three
names is enough for anyone. Four would be greedy.”

            After
posing for some photos, they raced down into the basement for an all-night
recording session. What came out of that recording session was what some people
would label as weird. Over a tape of their heartbeats and that of their dead
child, John called out to Yoko, and Yoko answered “John” for the entire first
side of their
Wedding Album
. Released on November 2, 1969, it did not
make the British charts, though it peaked at number 178 in the US.

            John’s
name change didn’t appear in the Beatles’ history,
The Beatles Anthology
(2000).
To his fans, adding Yoko’s name was just another of his multimedia romance and
eccentric behavior. But that was overshadowed by a second bed-in in Montreal, where
they stayed for seven days at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. At around this time,
The
Ballad of John and Yoko
was released by the Beatles as a single,
chronicling the events surrounding John’s marriage to Yoko. It was the Beatles’
17
^th
and final UK number one single.