Questions you'd ask Paul if you could interview him | Page 33 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

To be clear, I don’t think Paul is an angel either. I think he probably did depend on alcohol during the breakdown of his marriage, because we know that there’s a precedence for him turning to booze when he’s depressed. Do I believe for a second that he laid hands on her? No.

 He is no shrinking violet, and I don’t think he ever would have tolerated abusive behavior in a mate if he hadn’t been in such bad shape after Linda died. Still having crying jags every day, 18 months after losing a spouse, goes beyond normal grief, or even normal depression — he was terribly vulnerable when they met.

I know Paul said he felt better after a year but I agree with you. Again, the judge even called him out on that a bit in the divorce case, noting that Paul still wore his ring to Linda right up until the night before he married Mills and implying that Paul was not ready emotionally to get remarried.

I’ve always thought the most telling comment Paul ever made about the whole Mills situation was before they even got married, in a 2002 interview/profile with The Telegraph:

“Heather has made me feel more at ease with things. After two full years of horror and doctor’s offices and scares and diagnoses. . .” He trails off.

“In truth when you have been through that and come out at the end. . .” He trails off again.

“I’m just grateful not to have to spend my days doing that any more.”

It was just one of several interesting interviews from around this time (he was promoting his paintings) if you like analyzing Paul. He was then engaged to Mills. In the same interview, he talks about his kids’ reception to her and says, “‘No matter who it is: people in my position are told not to worry, that time will heal. But it’s very difficult. It’s difficult for all of us.” He and the interviewer are looking at his paintings and Paul singles out a nude portrait he did of Linda and the writer asks if he’s painted her since she died. Paul replies, “No, I haven’t painted too
much in the past couple of years. Well, I’ve done one or two and they are a bit disturbing. But they would be, wouldn’t they? I was disturbed.” Linda seemed very much on his mind, but when he talked about Mills it was about his physical attraction to her. 

Paul also spent a lot of time in interviews around his time insisting he was over his grief, which not all writers bought. I’m thinking of Simon Hattenstone’s profile in the Guardian where you can practically see Hattenstone with an eyebrow raised in an “oh really?” gesture when Paul insists about what an awesome place he’s in now:

We’re still looking at the painting of Linda. Why hasn’t he included his most recent paintings of her in the book? “I haven’t done many later paintings.” I thought he had continued painting her since she died. “They’re not of Linda. They’re just of turmoil.” 

Has the pain eased? “That’s the trouble. [My comment: note that’s not a “no!”] People say time is a healer, and time heals by erasing. That is a sad fact. I love my mum, but I’m not so sure I’ve got a very clear picture of her face in my mind. I’m not saying I could ever forget my mum or my dad or Linda or John. In some ways you remember them more, but the details… When she died all of us in the family expected her to walk in the door, and we don’t now.” 

He says he feels bad about the fact that it becomes more difficult to conjure up her face. “This is life, this is guilt. If we’re lucky we let ourselves off a little bit more, that’s what I’m trying to do.” It is surprising to hear McCartney talk of guilt. He always came across as the great, easy optimist. “I am, pretty…” And for a second he sounds thoroughly miserable. 

“It was so traumatic losing Linda that I had to say, ‘OK, I don’t know how I’m going to get through this.’ ” It took him a year to feel better. He says it felt like a cyclical thing, passing through the seasons, reawakening. He still talks to Linda, looks to her for advice. “It is the weirdest thing to say because she’s not here, but I think most people who’ve lost someone know what I’m talking about.”

When Paul finally mentions Heather Mills, Hattenstone writes that “it sounds like a formal announcement.” When he asks Paul if he’s talked to Linda about Heather he says yes, and thinks they share the same toughness of spirit. “I think they would have got on great actually. But I want to feel comfortable that she somehow wouldn’t hate the thought of me continuing in the world with a new woman.“

Hattenstone would actually feel at home in this thread. He always asks pretty intriguing questions of Paul and is unafraid to offend. Here’s how he ends his profile:

I ask him whether he feels Linda’s death has liberated him, and judder at the insensitivity of my question. “Prrrr.” He makes a strange noise as if he is suddenly freezing, as if his soul has frozen over. “I would have preferred it if it hadn’t happened, you know, but it has changed me. I don’t know about liberated me. It has changed me. And having been through a fire of having to deal with it, it’s nice to come out the other end.”

He did another profile with Paul in 2007 to promote Memory Almost Full , during the divorce, and it’s the only time I’ve seen that a journalist successfully asked Paul about Mills. Paul of course sidestepped a bunch of stuff but with him it’s also a matter of what he doesn’t say as much as what he does in interviews.

To keep with the spirit of this thread, if I were to analyze Paul and be really nosy, I would ask him,

• Do you think that you mistook Heather’s abrasiveness and personality disorder early on for ‘toughness’ because she was disabled?
• Do you think, having spent the previous few years in a “horror” where your life was doctor’s visits and hospitals and being immersed in a medical nightmare with a wife who was disabled by illness, was there some subconscious attraction to seeing Heather Mills, a young blonde woman who’d overcome her disability? Like deep down in your mind, there was an element of a “do over” rescue fantasy?