The Beatles (73 page)

The attention left the Beatles in such a state of euphoria that they refused another lucrative offer to join yet a fourth package tour that would
leave from London at the end of April. They were exhausted from the months of touring, let alone the spinning of their four heads. Records… tours… television interviews… screams… money… fame… It was too much to absorb at once. They had worked so hard for this—and for so long. And yet, they were running too hard, worn out. There was an urgent need for some breathing room. Fast.

Earlier in the year Brian had set aside a block of time at the end of April, specifically for a vacation, and recommended the Beatles get away, too: visit a place where they could unload all the incremental tension that had accumulated during the past year—and where nobody knew who they were. At the same time, Brian mentioned to John that he was going to Spain during the hiatus and invited him to go along.

It is not known what prompted Brian to make such a bold—and potentially dangerous—offer. So far, all his experiences with the Beatles had been strictly professional, and to a large extent protective, leading observers to view their relationship “
more like that of a father
and his sons” than manager and artist. Only once had Brian stepped over a line, and even then it was more a matter of appearances than of any intent.

It had occurred on an afternoon almost a year earlier, in Liverpool, after a lunch session at the Cavern. Headed toward his car, Brian offered George Harrison a lift home and somehow they wound up driving through the leafy environs of Childwall. This, in and of itself, wasn’t unusual. Childwall, where Brian grew up, was en route to Speke, and George thought nothing more of it when his manager stopped to show him around the lovely house at Queen’s Drive. According to an account that George later gave Bob Wooler, it was an entirely innocent gesture. Proud of the estate and aware of the impression it was making on this council-house lad, Brian glided rather imperiously through the lavishly appointed rooms, annotating as though a curator at Versailles. It was only when his brother, Clive, showed up unexpectedly that anything untoward was insinuated. “
Clive took one look
at the scene and exploded,” says Wooler. “The family anguished over Brian’s vulnerability, and here he was, alone in an empty house, with this quite adorable boy.” With George standing there, smoking a cigarette, befuddled by the commotion, screaming broke out as the brothers, their faces white with fury, disappeared behind closed doors to hurl and deny accusations.

Afterward, in the car, Brian was visibly “flustered.” The remainder of the drive to Speke was uncomfortable, silent. It still wasn’t clear to George
what had occurred. The whole baffling incident seemed to have come out of—and to—nothing, and George, who had never seen Brian so debased, couldn’t think of anything to say. Finally, he broke the awkward silence. “Clive’s younger than you, isn’t he?” George wondered. Brian, seized with self-loathing, could only nod. “Well, he shouldn’t talk to you like that.”

George’s naïveté served to shade the undertones and rescue Brian from complete humiliation. But with John, it was another matter altogether. Lennon was catnip; no young man could have filled Brian’s sexual fantasies more perfectly. Like other encounters Epstein had responded to, John was young, studly, foul-mouthed, dangerous, alternately caring and cruel—and off-limits. For two years Brian had pushed all lascivious thoughts of John as far out of his mind as humanly possible. But it was difficult. He was always around, spotlighted onstage, standing splay-legged with the guitar, or lounging in dressing rooms. (Or sulking, which proved to be another turn-on.) That John sensed this and teased, perhaps even tormented, Brian is undeniable. His attentions, according to Paul, may have been intended to flatter Brian and assert his power, but it had a pitiable effect. It was a constant temptation—all those longings and forbidden looks, the persistent infatuation—but through it all Brian remained creditably aloof.

It was only a matter of time, however, before the desperate fantasy that had first drawn Brian to the Beatles proved too overwhelming. There is no record of what emboldened him to act on it—whether it was that he’d become successful in his own right, that he was feeling more confident, or that he was just reckless. Certainly, his relationship with John had changed. But since the beginning of the year, he’d begun to construct in his imagination the plans for an inevitable liaison. He just had to bide his time.

Finally, after the Beatles announced they’d be spending the break at a beach house belonging to Klaus Voormann’s parents, in the Canary Islands, Brian made his move. It must have taken all of his courage to pop the question. The recruiting phase, in fact, lasted several weeks. In between shows, he would entertain John on end with amiable stories about several enchanting visits to Spain: witnessing his first bullfight at a time when few gringos ventured into the arena; eating paella at midnight from a
paellera
the size of a Ford, hopping from café to café and from nightclub to nightclub where the energy seemed to run on a different—furious—current. As nonchalantly as possible, he described his romance with the mysterious country and wondered if John might want to consider coming along. Whether there was any discussion up front about accommodations is unknown.
Certainly John recognized Brian’s attraction to him. “
He was in love with me
,” John later admitted, with characteristic bluntness.

How John responded to this brazen offer is not recorded, except that he said yes. Doubly surprising, perhaps, is that he didn’t cancel the trip, following, as it did, so closely on the heels of Julian’s birth. According to an account that Cynthia later gave, while she was still recovering in the hospital John told her about the planned trip and “
wanted to know if [she] objected
” to his going. The news, she recalled, hit her “like a bolt out of the blue,” which must be a terrific understatement in light of the circumstances. After all, John had been gone throughout her pregnancy and was absent for Julian’s birth. She’d half expected him to pitch in and help out now that he was back. If the Beatles had obligations, that was one thing. But a
vacation
wasn’t anything she’d contemplated—or understood. Cynthia tried to maintain her composure in the face of such gall.
She was “hurt
,” to say nothing of envious. And even John knew “
what a bastard
[he] was,” while acknowledging he “wasn’t going to break the holiday for a baby.”

On April 28, George, Paul, and Ringo shuttled to the striking black-sand beaches of Tenerife, which provided some welcome relaxation but little comfort. The Voormanns’ tiny cottage, like most of those that dotted the hillside, was an amusing, rustic affair, without electricity, that overlooked the festive coast, where the last ripples of tidewater spilled into the Atlantic Ocean. From each window was a Matisse-like view of paradise. The land sweeping down to the sea radiated a dizzying canvas of color: patches of blue and yellow foxglove bloomed in the chalky brush, pale pink finches and red admiral butterflies rustled among natural tones of saffron and berries and olives and flax. Orange groves lined the ridges above the town. The light on the land was so strong, the colors so intense, that the scenery often resembled a montage of overexposed snapshots.

Embracing the torrid island stillness, though without much forethought, the trio of Beatles “
stayed in the sun too long
and got incredibly sunburnt.” With Klaus, they tooled around the briny port in his Austin Healy Sprite and drove up the jagged mountain slopes to Teide Peak, an idle volcano, where they explored the craterlike rim that George likened to “the surface of the moon.” Local teenagers had no idea who they were—or knew their records. It came as no small relief that they could blend in with other vacationers. Every day after lunch, when the sun was at its highest,
the Beatles would change into their suits and join the resident sunbirds at the beach for a swim. Occasionally Paul would drift off by himself, notebook in hand, to find a quiet place in which to work on an unfinished lyric. He’d spend hours nesting in the sand, gazing intently at a slightly crumpled page while all around him bathers screamed and splashed in the rugged surf. Despite bouts of sunstroke and a swimming mishap in which Paul nearly drowned in the swift current, the boys considered the getaway “a real good holiday”; nevertheless, they were eager to get back to the music—and to John.

If only they suspected what he was up to.

The friends who knew John best—who knew how single-minded he was, how “
nothing would stand in his way
of stardom, not friendship, not love, absolutely nothing”—had felt upon hearing of his vacation with Brian, as Paul had, that John was “
a smart cookie
… [who] saw his opportunity to impress upon Mr. Epstein who was the boss of his group.” In 1963 very few straight men in their twenties would have gone away with a homosexual, no matter how much influence he might wield. None of that fazed John. An hour after the other Beatles left for Tenerife, he and Brian boarded a plane for Barcelona, “the
Paris of Spain
,” where they checked into a suite at the Manila Hotel. Brian had been there before. In November 1960 he kicked off his lifelong love affair with Spain from a room in this “superb” hotel with its view of the eastern hills. “
Where else may I have a gin
and guests in my room at 4:00
A.M.
?” he wrote in his journal the next day. There is evidence to indicate that Brian entertained a series of men in his room, although in typical fashion, he “behaved foolishly and irresponsibly,” and things eventually turned rough. “Last night I suffered, for I was robbed and it was not pleasant. In many ways fortunate [sic], for in England I would not have been left so lightly.”

With John in tow, everything was straightforward and aboveboard. The two spent several days shopping and sightseeing along the historic cobblestone promenades that twined through the city center. John was particularly delighted by the ornate Gaudi architecture, those inventive distortions incorporated into the medieval skyline, which no doubt appealed to his wacky aesthetic. In the late afternoons they dug in at a café in the Ramblas, Barcelona’s most famous promenade, where they could watch the smartly dressed Catalans nose around the stalls and kiosks heaped with
books, flowers, and even pets. Then, after a few drinks, they took dinner at one of the stylish local restaurants that Brian knew or toured the nightclubs in search of entertainment.

A few days later, on the recommendation of a friend, Brian rented a car and drove south along the coastal roads that led to Torremolinos and Sitges, on the Costa Brava. Between the heat, the beach, and the familiarity that had been developing since they left Liverpool, souls were bared. Sitting around the outdoor seaside cafés, wandering along the spit of sandy coastline—walking and talking without any inhibitions—Brian and John shared intimate information about themselves, much of it long-suppressed and often traumatic memories of their past, their fears, their frustrations. One can only imagine the loose range of subjects they covered: John’s fractured boyhood, his absent father, Julia’s tragic death, his sudden marriage and fatherhood, perhaps his rivalry with Paul, money, the allure—and pitfalls—of fame.

Sexuality. John was almost as unsparing about gays as he was about cripples and the retarded. “
My God, how he ranted
about ‘fucking queers’ and ‘fucking fags!’ ” says Bob Wooler, who was privy to many of John’s backstage outbursts. “He was very outspoken, indifferent to anyone’s feelings. He didn’t give a shite about anyone, really—but he was especially intolerant of gays.” But there is every reason to believe that as they became more relaxed, John was drawn further and further into Brian’s guarded confidence. Gradually, Brian unburdened himself of the decisive role homosexuality played in his life, its captive grip and stigma. Certainly he explained its permissive appeal. It must have surprised both men how easy it was to talk so openly about this thorny emotional issue, how therapeutic, in light of their often complicated relationship. No doubt John encouraged the direction of the conversation, but Brian did most of the talking, regaling John with details about the life, sometimes with rapturous descriptions of encounters and taboos. In the provocative Spanish sun, Brian became bold enough to behave with John as he might naturally around other gay men, pointing out “all the boys” he found attractive, even daring to act on his desires. “
I watched Brian picking up boys
,” John recalled, “and I liked playing it a bit faggy—it’s enjoyable.”