Brian stood to her left, holding her by the crook of her arm and looking around nervously. George stood to her right, his large sinewy hands encasing hers perhaps a bit to tightly as Gabby could feel the pressure of her ring digging into his palm.
He was decked out in a black non-Beatley-suit with no skinny-Beatley-tie and a black shirt. Gabby fancied he looked rather fetching and just a bit morbid in head to toe black; it rather suited him.
George was also forced to don a bowler hat, pulled down around his eyes, sunglasses, and a false mustache. He’d put up a fight of course--who was going to go chasing a Beatle in the middle of a funeral?
Gabby heard someone come up behind her. She turned her head and George looked too. Gerald Gallagher stood there, a funny _expression on his face as he looked over at the priest and then at his daughter.
She smiled and went to hug him.
It was all very strange. Neither Gabby nor her father particularly liked Auntie Irene, as she was a posh old bag who tried to split the family up and all. Now that she was gone…and had left all that money…it was very strange indeed.
*
“I quite like this place.” George mused. He was sitting in a large overstuffed armchair in the drawing room of the 'Fraser Estate,' because it couldn’t really be called anything but an estate. Perhaps a small country, even. It took up god knows how many acres, spilling across the Windsor country side right up to the Thames. It had seemingly hundreds of rooms, all decked out in old Victorian styles with huge portraits and heavy drapes and chaise lounges that almost looked old enough to have been nicked out of Louis XIV’s Palace.
“Mmm,” Gabby nodded, sipping her tea and leaning against the window. Outside on the sprawling lawn someone’s children were playing an impromptu game of football.
“So,” George pressed. “You’re not going all weird because you’re suddenly rich or anything?”
Gabby ignored him. She set her tea down and pulled off the jacket of her stupefying expensive outfit and set it on George. “I’ll be right back.”
She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but she hurried out of the drawing room, attracting a few stares and George quickly followed, clutching her jacket in his hand. They ran up the long spiraling steps and down a hall that had huge bay windows. Gabby found the door to her Aunt’s bedroom and strode through to the bathroom. George poked his head in and watched her open the cupboards under the sink and rifle through beauty products and cleaning solutions.
“Gab...” he started to say, but she stood up and opened the medicine cabinet. Her eyes scanned it and then she clasped a bottle of pills triumphantly before popping two into her hands.
“What’s that?” George asked making a grab for the bottle while she swallowed the pills.
“Nothing…” she said pushing past him.
It was some big long word he couldn’t properly pronounce but the Chemist’s note said it was to ‘alleviate anxiety or pain.'
He looked at the bottle and then at Gabby who slouched into a wall with her eyes closed. “Quaaludes,” she said calmly. “It’s the opposite of prellies.”
Not wanting to be left out of a getting-out-of-your-head experience, George shook out two and swallowed them as well.
Brian burst into the room just then. “What's going on?” he asked, looking fitful. George stuffed the bottle of pills into his jacket pocket.
“Nothing,” said Gabby. “Can we go home now?”
