Mal, being lowest on the pay role and the hardest to get mad at, was assigned to wake up hungover George. It was bad enough trying to get George out of bed when he was just sleeping, let along hung over and clutching onto a half dressed girl.
“George,” Mal hissed, pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his nose and testily poking George in the back.
The lead guitarist whined and pulled his girl friend closer, his hand moving over her back as he clutched her closer, his face half hidden by her dark hair.
Mal hadn’t known Gabby back in Liverpool but he’d seen her when he worked at the Cavern. She was hard to miss; he thought she might just be the prettiest girl he’d ever seen. *Everyone* knew of Gabby. She was The Beatles’ Cheerleader.
Mal and Neil had been informed in a short meeting last night that she was ‘not going to be any trouble’ and if anyone asked, she was George’s cousin. Mal thought it funny that Brian didn’t know she was sleeping with George. Or at least that’s what it looked like. Oh sure, best friends. That’s what the band would keep on saying. Neil had mentioned George getting sick once in the really early days, and calling Paul Gab while being semi- unconscious.
“George,” he said a bit louder.
This time Gabrielle started awake. She looked up at him and then over at the unmade bed on the other side of the room and then at George and finally down at her own chest--which was pressed up quite a bit against George’s nearly concave frame.
For a moment she looked nearly frightened and then it faded slowly out of her eyes. One of her hands was threaded in his hair, she lifted it and shook it to get the circulation going and then placed it back on George’s cheek. And then she forgot that Mal was there and stared, stroking George lovingly.
“Will you wake him up?” Mal whispered finally.
She slowly dragged her gaze back to him. Mal swallowed. “Um…I mean Brian asked me to get the lads up. We’re heading up to Liverpool and stopping for a radio show at about one.”
Gabby nodded and then looked back at George. “Hey,” she murmured.
Mal felt this was his queue to get out of there. He stood up and walked to the door trying not to look back at them. He ran into Paul in the hallway.
“How come no one bothers to tell me he’s shagging that Gabby-bird?” Mal whined.
Paul fumed for a moment and then stalked away towards the bathroom where he slammed the door shut and locked it.
Mal decided it was best not to mention this to anybody else.
****
“Georgie worgie, pudding pie,” Gabby mumbled, her eyes feeling unusually heavy. She was craving sleep. Stupid time change.
George stirred but just clamped his arms around her tighter. This was only a problem because she was wearing only a bra, and the tighter he held her the stranger it was.
She sighed, her breath making a tuft of hair waiver softly. She smiled. “I think I’m going to let you guys own me for a while,” she said. “I mean…you feel like I’m *yours* anyway…so why not. I am yours’.”
George grinned, his eyes still kept shut. “Talking to yer self Gab?”
“No, just thinking aloud,” she giggled.
He opened his eyes. Gabby smiled wider and played with his hair.
“We’re supposed to get up,” she said at length.
“No,” George pressed his nose into her shoulder, his lips glancing off her collarbone. “No, I’m staying here. You said you were mine; you’re staying then?”
“Sure I’ll stay,” she whispered. “But you’ve got a radio show to do up somewhere. Then we’re going to Liddypool, and I get to see me old dad.”
“Do you miss him?” George asked, raising his eyes up to meet hers’.
She paused. “Yes…well, I talked to him a whole to more then I talked to you lot. It was only that time I was in California that I didn’t talk to any of you for a whole long time.”
George’s eyes went dark. “What happened then Gab? You disappeared for six months, and no one knew what was going on.”
“I saw Louise,” she ignored the question, ignoring the Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Methamphetamines, drinking till she nearly died story. It was a good story. Anytime you nearly die it’s a good story. But there were two halves to Gabby. There was Beatle-Liverpool-parties Gabby, and there was famous-people-parties Gabby. It didn’t strike her at all that the Beatles, now were quite a bit famous to the whole of England. For the time that they were on stage, was the only time they seemed to be anything but John, Paul, George, and Ritchie.
“Did you?” George asked his eyes big. “How?”
“Um, she was on holiday in California. And I was out there…and she got in touch with me through Art.”
George rested his chin on her shoulder. “I didn’t like that guy.”
“Art’s a good guy, I’ll miss him,” she said quietly. “You probably just don’t like him because he had to tell you I wasn’t around.”
George was quiet or a very long time. “I get the feeling you’re not telling me something.”
“Like what?” she asked hesitantly, feeing like a child about to be reprimanded.
“Like you’re keeping something from me for some reason.” He liked his lips and kept his voice low. His tongue grazed her shoulder. She remembered laying in bed in Hamburg. Oh god.
“Something happened,” she admitted quietly. “I hooked up with some new people who were into stuff. You’d probably like them George. It’s just…I sort of overdid it all. And got into the hospital at one point. But, I’m fine.”
“Shite….” George moaned. “And are you going to tell me that you’ve learned your lesson and aren’t going to do whatever it was you were doing again?”
“Yes.”
It was a lie.
