Towards the end of the set Nancy started to feel tired; the irregular bolts of hunger pains in her stomach charging her eyes open for another couple of bars.
As familiar as the encore’s fireworks were, the loud bangs and bright flashes stirred up enough attention for her to wave and applause as Paul wished the crowd a goodnight and looked to the side of the stage where she stood weakly, leaning back on a tower of speakers for support.
‘Right baby, let me shower and change and we’ll hit the VIP lounge for a quick meet and greet. Did you see that banner on the front row? Ha!’ said Paul as he approached, passed and walked into the backstage area away from Nancy. A member of Management appeared with her coat and bag, ushering her along in the same direction, but now fifty meters behind.
‘It would be great to grab a quick bite to eat and some water. I’m overcome with exhaustion. I’ve barely had a minute to rest’ said Nancy to Management, her hands on her empty, rumbling stomach.
The manager saw the hunger in her eyes as he tuned in to instructions being given through his ear piece and gave her a faint half smile of sympathy, encouraging her to pick up her pace with a gentle push of her back.
‘Did you like the show? I hope we didn’t miss any of your favourites!’ said Paul to Eamon Holmes and his wife in the middle of the VIP lounge.
’Oh no, Paul. The entire Beatles and Wings catalogues plus your solo material and orchestral scores really covered it all! Don’t get me started on that amazing Gaga collaboration. Is she still here?’ replied Eamon.
The busy, noisy room was packed full of TV presenters, journalists, movie stars and politicians.
Gary Barlow stood eating a handful of unsalted cashew nuts whilst Sporty Spice told him how nicely their voices might blend on a charity single for her Trackies For Turrets Foundation.
An ex-husband of Big Brother season two winner Brian Dowling and now Love Island contestant told Maureen Rees from Driving School that without her, reality television and his entire life would never have been possible.
Cornered on the other side of the room from a table of healthy nuts and bowls of quinoa salad, Nancy nodded and smiled as Bruce Forsyth told her that the only thing he loved as much as his work was golf and that he’d never give it up, for else what would he do.
Even weaker and fainter now, Nancy stood nodding and smiling, not really listening to his words. Colourful, almost edible trails of food related thoughts blurred her vision to the point she couldn’t be sure which national treasure she was talking to, the Strictly Come Dancing or Dance Tonight star. She knew it couldn’t be true, but my God this man’s head resembled a giant, golden Scotch egg, she thought.
‘There she is, the love of my life. Isn’t she great!’ said Paul loudly to either the dictionary corner girl from Countdown or the business reporter from BBC Breakfast News. Nancy wasn’t sure. ‘Lady love, come over here!’ he shouted, encouraging her past Bruce, Gary Lineker, Little Mix, June Sarong and now to his current conversation.
‘Is it true the vinyl in the next series of re-releases comes in different edible shapes Sir Paul?’ asked Mark Ronson in his strange half New Yorker, half cockney accent.
‘That’s a great question Mark and yes, you’re right my man. The White Album’s wax is actually going to be apple shaped and you can guess what the 7” of Strawberry Fields will be shaped as!’ replied Paul.
‘Ya know, we’ve re-packaged this stuff so many times now but the fans still eat it up. The records won’t actually spin on the turntables or play, but what can you do?’ he continued.
Nancy looked over to the goodie bags desk by the exit, hoping there’d be some advanced copies of Sgt. Pepper to feast on, but the only thing laid out were signed copies of the sheet music to Paul’s new Compositions For Gardeners project.
The night drew on and the crowd slowly thinned out; every single attendee having had a personal twenty minutes with the star of the night and his starving wife, now stood by a cleared catering table, subtly trying to see if James Cordon had missed any of the pistachios he’d dropped and got down on his knees to retrieve and eat. He hadn’t.
‘Right, babe. What a night. I’m beat. Let’s call the driver and get back to the hotel. I need a few hours kip before tomorrow’s schedule’ instructed Paul to Nancy, who rubbed her eyes in disbelief as her husband’s head appeared to her as a giant, cartoon beef burger.
The married couple sat back in their blacked out, stretched limousine and almost instantly fell asleep, Paul exhausted after ten encores of Hey Jude, Nancy passing out trying to recall the last time she had eaten a decent meal.
As the stars walked across the reception area of their hotel, they were greeted by a full team of concierge staff, all working late for a glimpse of rock n roll royalty. Paul signed a few autographs, whistled the full fifteen minutes of Carnival Of Light, told the story about writing Yesterday and then gestured for the lift to be called, pointing to a lamp he said John’s Aunt Mimi would have simply loved.
‘Can we have any food prepared and sent to your floor Sir Paul?’ asked a member of staff as Nancy’s eyes somehow widened and glowed with the little energy she had left. With all the force she could muster from her weak, tired body she opened her jaw a little, desperately trying to respond that she’d love some, but the words were too heavy for her to say fast enough.
‘Oh no, that’s fine. I know I’m a Beatle and all that but I’m not one to bang on about it. We’ll eat like normal people at breakfast tomorrow. Besides, it’s 4am. You should be getting home yourselves kids’ replied Paul.
Up at their room, Nancy didn’t bother undressing or getting into bed, instead surrendering her body to it in one resigned backwards flop, Paul telling her how beautiful she looked with chords on the guitar he’d picked up to sing her a goodnight melody with.
The couple were woken up the next morning by a loud knocking on their door by Management, there to get them on their way to the airport for a flight to Manchester and another show.
Nancy looked over at the clock on the wall, thinking to herself it didn’t feel like she’d actually slept at all. The minute hand resembled a pork chop and the second, a Peperami. Paul was already out of bed by the time she could yawn, strumming out a new riff on his guitar that had come to him in those few hours of sleep.
‘It’s got this kind of, ya know, train track rhythm to it, this one. It sounds so familiar. I might have ripped it off someone. Have you heard it before?’ asked Paul. Nancy shrugged her shoulders as she changed into fresh clothes and gathered her belongings.
‘When Prince died I read that he used to fast as a way of focusing the mind and encouraging creativity. It kind of, ya know, seems to be working.’ said Paul, strumming the riff over and over and over again.
Management led the pair through reception, declining their breakfast along the way, and before Nancy could ask that they stop at the airport’s McDonalds, they’d boarded the plane, completed the journey and were arriving at another venue for another sound check performance. These were pre-concert concerts attended by around 500 very rich, very strange super fans – the sort you see dressed up in Union Jacks outside hospitals when another Royal Lizard’s hatched.
By the time the night’s main show was underway Nancy was on the brink of collapsing, her hunger now a fierce stabbing sensation in her stomach and beyond. She could barely concentrate on a sound or sight, visions and sensations of food overtaking her every sense. The endless crowds of screaming fans resembled not the black silhouettes of music lovers but dark, round, shining balls of caviar. The band’s drums looked like ovens, opening every time they were hit to release the delicious thick steam of an almost baked steak and ale pie, mince beef lasagne or bacon sandwich.
As was customary, Management checked in on Nancy halfway through Paul’s performance of a more recent song, one of several in the set where the whole arena usually headed to the toilets and bars, making it unnecessary for Paul to actually finish them. Instead he used the breaks to Snapchat Ringo using the Rocky Raccoon filter.
‘Thank God you’re here. I really, really need some food. I haven’t eaten anything all tour and I’m literally about to die. Can you get me something? Anything?’ pleaded Nancy to the Manager who looked down at her like she was asking for too much, for the world.
In a few minutes, Paul was back to the old numbers, the crowd back in their seats sipping organic beer and eating vegetable chips. Management was nowhere to be seen, no doubt busy taking 360 degree photos of the adoring crowd for Paul’s Facebook page rather than doing as they’d been asked and finally fetching some food, Nancy thought.
As Paul recalled the time George was dying and gifted him a ukulele, Nancy felt a tap on her shoulder and then the blissful sound of a white, polystyrene catering box moving towards her. Everything suddenly became suspended in time as the heat of whatever food inside it warmed her lap. The box’s steam drifted up towards her nose as her eyes watered in joy that she was finally about to eat.
Overcome with excitement she wondered if it would be a delicious, gravy drenched bed of sausage casserole and mash, meat balls and spaghetti, a heavenly sea of lamb curry or slice after slice of greasy, gorgeous kebab?
Nancy detached the top of the box to open and access its contents, her heart thumping and mouth filling with saliva. Too eager to wait for cutlery, she took a hand from her rumbling stomach and scooped whatever the food was into her mouth in the dark shadows of the arena, almost pitch black besides the one spotlight on Paul’s performance of Blackbird. As Nancy began to chew, to rejoice in finally eating, a new, less than ideal reality gradually unfolded.
The first chew was powered by her vivid imagination of fried chicken but it couldn’t have been that. The texture wasn’t right. On her next chew she thought she might be eating an onion and ketchup coated hotdog but that wouldn’t have been so rubbery. And then it all became clear. 5 countries, 10 cities and 20 shows in as many days later, Management had finally brought her something to eat; one plain, half cooked Linda McCartney sausage.
Nancy finished her vegetarian banger quicker than Paul could reel off an anecdote about the time he wrote Here Today for John. As a projected vignette of old tour footage lit up the area, she looked down at her now empty food box and felt a surge of anger and desperation bolt from her stomach, down each leg and arm and take a hold of her mind. As she stood up to furiously break through the barrier of Management into the general admissions catering area, she suddenly realised a blinding spotlight focused on her and 100,000 faces looking her way.
‘A great friend of mine once sang Isn’t She Lovely? How about we have her come up here on stage everyone?’ asked Paul to the audience. Within half a minute Nancy found herself sat on a stool in the middle of the stage, immersed in blinding lights and deafening screaming from the crowd as Paul sat at a piano, singing her a recent single, My Valentine.
This time the crowd didn’t disperse for a toilet break or refill of drinks, for what started to unfold on stage would fuel the next fifty years of message board threads, Daily Mirror front page puns, Channel 5 re-enactment documentaries and a forest worth of updated biographies on Paul.
Nancy’s brief sausage had fooled her body into thinking food was finally upon it, multiplying her hunger threefold when nothing else came. As she sat unstably trying to balance on the stool as Paul sang the song’s first verse, his thin crinkly fingers pressing on piano keys appeared as rows of turkey twizzlers, making her tongue start licking her lips feverishly. Paul’s arms transformed into salmon and his torso a huge crispy duck.
Paul, lost in the music with his eyes closed, launched into the song’s chorus as Nancy stood from her stool, moving towards where he sat, saliva now running from the corners of her mouth down her face. Management watched on, assuming the couple were playing out a piece of choreographed affection, a declaration of their love for all the fans to rejoice in. As Nancy reached into her handbag for what they expected would be a ring or red rose for her husband, a plastic knife and fork appeared from within.
A key change and final chorus to go, Nancy was steps from Paul, still seated, lost in the music beneath his trademark brown died hair which she saw as a lake of the nation’s favourite instant gravy, Bisto. Paul’s face, a bronzed, shining thigh of moist chicken drew Nancy’s cutlery clenching arms towards it with a magnetic force. So tenderly, the chicken came away from its bone, each succulent slice calmly being forked into her mouth, her body growing in strength by the minute, her stomach no longer cramping but filling with deliciously slow cooked meat.
Nancy finished her final bite and took a napkin from her bag, delicately wiping her mouth clean. She hadn’t felt this alive and well since 2007, she thought, as her vision became clearer and attention refocused on her surroundings. She looked around to see an ocean of stunned, silent faces looking at her as silence filled the arena. Her fingers loosened their grip around the knife and fork that fell to the floor in a clink. She took a step back from the piano seat and slightly lowered her gaze.
‘Oh my God! I’ve eaten a Beatle!’ she cried.
Paul’s body, now headless, sat motionless on the stall, his arms no longer salmon and fingers no longer turkey twizzlers. Suddenly, a twitch of Paul’s fingers pressed down on a note that pierced the arena’s shock and disbelief ridden silence. One by one more notes started to be played, until Paul’s arms were fully animated again, giving the crowd his first ever live performance of I Am The Walrus as fans slowly started nodding their heads, moving their feet and dancing once more.
‘I am the chicken thigh head man, they are the chicken thigh head man, I am the walrus! Goo, goo g’ joob!’ he sang, Nancy by his side with one arm on his shoulder and the other waving around in the air in time with the music, relieved that by only partially eating her husband, he could still live and perform on.
Backstage, after the show, headless Paul stood in the centre of the VIP room again, surrounded by countless Northern celebrities.
Heather Small of M People was helping untangle Mick Hucknall’s ginger locks from a fire extinguisher he had jokingly got down on his knees to pretend to drink from for a selfie. Nobody was very impressed.
Liam Gallagher and Steve Coogan were deep in conversation about their favourite bread recipes.
Judy Finnigan was knocking back any glass of red wine she could find whilst Richard Madely was stealing any bottle of red wine he could fit into a Tesco bag for life.
‘Get Nancy some food, Management. We don’t want her turning this meet and greet into a meat and eat!’ joked Paul to the cast of Coronation Street; Kym Marsh, Shane Ward and Les Dennis seeing who could out-laugh each other the loudest to win his attention.
That night at the hotel, Paul ordered the usual army of hotel staff to cook Nancy whatever she desired, even meat. Nancy ate through to the morning and again every remaining day of the tour.
The following month’s music press had a field day with their headlines, ranging from She Really Got A Hold Of Him and Maxwell’s Silver Platter to Mean Mrs. Mustard, I Eat Mine and All You Need Is Grub.
Nor Paul or Management ever disregarded Nancy’s requests for food again. Paul retained his remaining body parts for five Off My Head world tours, three ‘The Headless Demos’ box sets, two volumes of Shoulder To Shoulder Blues poetry anthologies and counting. Nancy no longer attended every date of every tour, instead staying at one of their homes to enjoy gardening, without a portable stereo.
