Tomorrow Never Knows - Chapter Twenty Four
Authors: lovely_rita_mm, jenny_wren28, & pennylane_fic
Starring: The Beatles and Maggie Sue
Rating: M for language, implied sex (though none of it is explicit) & implied drug use. Characters used in this story are either our creation, or are historically-based (ie, The Beatles).
Disclaimer: We don't own any of the Beatles, this obviously never happened, and is a complete work of fiction.
February 14, 1968
Maggie watched the ground fall away as their plane took off, bound for Delhi. She wondered when she'd see home again. Home. A funny concept really. Home should have been 2006 America, but now it was 1960s London. It had taken a long time to feel like she belonged there, but she finally did. And now she was leaving.
The Beatles weren't sure how long they would be in India. George wanted to stay indefinitely, and John was equally (and unsurprisingly) enthusiastic. Maggie's eyes had widened in panic when George had announced his desire for an extended stay at dinner one night, and Paul had quickly caught her eye in sympathy. He didn't want to stay indefinitely in India either. He had places to go and people to see and albums to write.
Maggie worried about leaving Apple for too long, even though she knew she would be leaving it in capable hands. She'd put Peter Brown in charge in the interim, with orders to call or send a telegram if there were anything urgent. Of course, Maggie had no idea if there were even phones where they were going. She hoped so, but guessed not. For the thousandth time, Maggie wished for the internet and her laptop.
Maggie vaguely remembered from her original timeline that the Beatles had traveled to India in two separate parties, however, after a great deal of discussion, this time they'd decided to go together. Their party was to include the band and their significant others, as well as Pattie's sister Jenny. At the last second, much to Maggie's dismay, Magic Alex had talked his way onto the plane. John was delighted, and Maggie less than. There was no doubt Magic Alex had lost some of his hold on the band, thanks to Maggie's efforts, but they all still liked him. Maggie gritted her teeth and tried to be polite, but his arrival put a damper on her excitement. She didn't want to spend the long trip to India fighting with John, so she ignored him as best as she could.
The band's two roadies were along for the adventure as well. Mal had flown on ahead so that he'd be there to take care of the band when they arrived in Dehli. Neil, on the other hand, had flown with them to be sure their needs on the flight were met. She'd felt bad that he'd had to revert to his roadie role when he'd finally started to take on a real role at Apple, but when she'd brought it up, he'd waved his hands and insisted that he was perfectly happy taking care of the band as he'd done since the beginning. He'd also volunteered to travel back and forth to London if need be, to bring news back and forth, as well as anything else from Apple that needed her attention. That seemed excessive to Maggie, but she did have a company to run, so she thanked him and accepted his offer of help.
The flight to India was long, but there were definite advantages to traveling with the Beatles. Their plane was spacious, and they were also excellent traveling companions. Jokes, card games and naps with her head on John's shoulder filled up the time, and before she knew it, they had landed.
Mal was there to meet them at the airport with flower garlands in hand. Maggie gave him a big hug, glad to see him. Then she saw a bright flash, and realized that there were press and they were snapping pictures. Even in India, they couldn't escape it! The band posed gamely for a few minutes, before moving onwards to the Academy of Transcendental Meditation. The Maharishi's compound was private and the group looked forward to finally having some time to themselves away from the prying eyes of the public.
***
Maggie stared out the window of the stopped jeep. The view was disheartening. The stretch of road they were on looked forbidding and to the left and right were sheer drops, with not a guardrail in sight. It looked like there was no way forward. What now?
Everyone carefully piled out of the vehicles to survey the situation.
"Donkeys!" The guide pointed at a small path, and at which several donkeys were waiting. George went to investigate further while Maggie and Paul looked at each other and groaned. Everyone was exhausted after the long flight and the long drive overland by taxi, jeep, and now apparently, donkey. It was also surprisingly chilly. Wasn't India supposed to be warm? Maggie shivered and wrapped her coat more tightly around herself.
With no other choice, the band mounted up, and after awhile on donkey-back finally came to a large river with a swinging suspension bridge over it. "No camels or elephants," she read the warning from a nearby sign out loud.
"Good thing we've only donkeys then, isn't it?" George smiled at her, before dismounting and following the guide onto the bridge. George was really in his element here and Maggie was slightly annoyed by it. Why wasn't he tired like everyone else?
As it turned out, the donkeys were to be left behind here and the rest of journey was on foot. Their luggage was to follow later by ox-cart. Maggie had no idea how they were going to get the oxcart over the bridge, but she supposed it would be somebody else's problem.
After a steep climb, at last the group arrived at where they would be staying for the foreseeable future. The Maharishi's Academy of Transcendental Meditation sat 150 feet above the Ganges River, surrounded on three sides by jungle-covered mountains.
There was a glass-walled dining area, a terraced lecture hall with gravel pathways, a swimming pool, and lest you think this the middle of nowhere, a heliport for the Maharishi's use. Maggie had an inkling where all the money the Maharashi solicited from his students was going. She was going to keep him from too much of the Beatles' money if it was at all within her power. He looked like he was doing just fine without it.
The central feature of the compound was a courtyard that was surrounded by six concrete lean-tos.
"They look like barracks," grumbled Maggie under her breath.
"They're like little chalets!" George said delightedly upon seeing them.
After some investigation, Maggie was pleased to see that the dorm rooms inside the barracks at least had modern bathrooms, though they were warned the water was not reliable and that the rooms had no heat.
"No heat? Well, I know one way we can stay warm," John said upon seeing where he and Maggie were quartered. He eyed the large four-poster bed eagerly.
"That's all you two are ever concerned about. Bed!" George said disgustedly, poking his head through their door. "I'd better not hear unseemly noises coming from here while I'm trying to meditate next door."
"That sounds like a challenge, mate," John grinned at him. "We'll see if we can oblige – you know, the little woman here can't help screaming the name of her favorite Beatle when we're, you know…"
"Yes, it was very embarrassing the last time, when I started yelling Paul's name," Maggie interrupted, which made John let out an indignant noise and George crack up.
"Paul's your favorite? Since when? Here I thought it was me." George shook his head sadly.
"Ringo's my favorite," offered John.
"I don't very well care which Beatle either of you get off on, just do it quietly," George laughed, and left, pulling the door closed behind him.
"You'd better not let the John/Paul fans in the future know about this." Maggie shook her finger at John. "They will be very disappointed."
"Sorry, luv, but they'll just have to accept that me heart belongs to Ringo."
"As long as it's just your heart!" Maggie laughed.
"Why, you wanton hussy!" John pretended he was horrified by her joke. "I'm shocked, just shock…" His words were cut off by Maggie's lips. John wasted little time in kissing her back, and before Maggie knew it, he had her down on the large bed, and was reaching under her dress.
"Oh, Paul, don't stop! That feels so good!" she shouted, which made John pause momentarily.
With a wicked expression on his face, John yelled, "Oh Ringo, Rrrringo!" in a deep baritone, rolling the R in the drummer's name.
A loud thumping came from the other side of the apparently very thin wall. "You are a sick bastard, John Lennon!" they heard George call from his and Pattie's room. "Sick!"
John and Maggie collapsed into giggles, which made proceeding with what they had been doing difficult, but not impossible.
* * *
After dinner that night, the Maharishi greeted the Beatles and their entourage and explained their schedule. Breakfast was from 7:00 to 11:00 am, which made the band happy, as none of them were particularly early risers. They could expect a communal breakfast, but the rest of the day, they were free to keep their own schedule of meditation, which he expected might be up to twelve hours per day. They would have to work up to that of course, and they would do so with his help.
"Twelve hours?" Maggie mouthed at Paul, who looked about as thrilled by the idea as she did.
The Beatles were three weeks behind in their instruction, so the Maharishi would provide extra classes in the afternoons. He would give lectures at 3:30 and 8:30 pm.
That night Maggie had trouble sleeping. The India she'd read about and seen pictures of had been full of Beatles in loose white outfits, wearing flowers and strumming guitars. That was the India she wanted. She didn't want to meditate for twelve hours a day or listen to lame lectures.
That night, as she gazed around what she was fast considering her cell, Maggie considered scratching marks in the wall to mark the passage of time until her sentence was up and she could go home.
* * *
One week later
Time passed surprisingly fast here in Rishikesh. She'd started keeping a journal to record the minutia of the days in order to amuse herself. Plus someday, she told John, she'd need a big payday, and she'd need material for her tell-all book about life the Beatles. He laughed and said that he'd be happy to illustrate the book for her, and proceeded to draw doodles of naked people from their group all over her notebook.
"You wait, this will fetch a fortune on ebay, someday!" she threatened.
"Oh yeah? How much would this drawing fetch, then?" He grabbed her wrist and drew a tiny naked John Lennon on her arm.
"John!" She pulled her arm back just before he started to draw a tiny naked Maggie next to the tiny naked John.
She was having a surprisingly good time here – she attended only the minimum number of lectures, and sometimes, if the weather was good, they were held in the open air of the flat sun roof.
The food was …interesting. Lunch and dinner were some sort of vegetarian soup, which proved too spicy for Ringo. Mal stockpiled eggs, and while the others drank their soup, Ringo ate the eggs that Mal made him. He still had a suitcase of beans from home, but he was rationing them out carefully.
Though the group was supposed to eat together in the morning and meditate most of the rest of the day with only short breaks, in reality, it went the other way. The Beatles, with their short attention spans could only seem to manage meditating 20 minutes before needing a long break. This excepted George, of course, who was the most serious and therefore, Maggie saw far less of him than she did the others. John, under George's tutelage tried his best to be diligent about meditation. Maggie, on the other hand, did her best to distract him.
When John was sitting on the bed, trying to focus, Maggie would always find a reason why she just had to change her clothes in the room. She made it a game to see how many layers had to come off before John lost interest in his meditation. Usually it only took one.
John had more than one distraction, however. Maggie walked in on John and Paul once. They were on the bed…strumming their guitars, clearly working on a new song.
"What's this?" Maggie demanded. "You're supposed to be meditating! I'm telling George on you!"
"George already knows – he thumped on the wall for a while, and then gave up and went to meditate somewhere else." John grinned at her and Paul shrugged innocently.
There were other people at the compound, some famous, some not. Mia Farrow and her sister Prudence were here. They both initially seemed annoyed that the quiet, religious atmosphere that had permeated the place prior to the Beatles' arrival had been broken. However, Mia later confided in Maggie that though it was distracting, she enjoyed the life that the cheerful chatter and singing brought to the place. Maggie agreed. Tiptoeing around a church-like atmosphere was not what she wanted to be doing for the next few months, so she encouraged it as much as she could.
As it turned out, the group didn't really need her encouragement to break the silence of the compound. There was always music – in addition to the Beatles, Donovan and Mike Love of the Beach Boys were here, and it seemed like someone was playing guitar and singing someplace nearly all of the time. Who it was varied from hour to hour, as everyone did, gamely, try to find time to do a little meditation - even Maggie tried her best. But she got more of a sense of peace from the music than she did from the meditation.
There were other entertainments as well. Sometimes in the evenings, the Maharishi took them on excursions to Dehra Dun, the nearest village. Everyone had loose fitting outfits made for themselves by the local tailors, and the women all bought saris. Besides shopping, the group went to cafés, and Nagoli's, a restaurant that served forbidden and refreshing beakers of wine. Magic Alex even smuggled some back into the compound for later consumption.
The time passed quickly as the group bonded, talking, reading, lazing in the sun, and making music and love. Each couple seemed to be in harmony with each other, and Donovan was doing his best to couple with Jenny Boyd. There were enough people that it was relatively easy to avoid the ones Maggie didn't want to spend time with, namely Magic Alex and Maureen. Maureen was not enjoying herself – she had a phobia of bugs, and there were plenty of large bugs here. Maggie knew Mo and Ringo would be gone before long, and though she'd miss Ringo's cheery presence, she couldn't wait to have Mo out of her hair.
Perhaps most surprising was the bond Maggie was forming with Paul. Like Maggie, Paul always preferred to be on the go. Slowing down for a time was fine, but after two weeks, Paul was ready to go back to work. Paul nearly always had a guitar within reach and paper always nearby so he could jot down song ideas. He had little to no interest in sitting around and staring at the back of his eyelids, so Maggie found him always willing to go on walks, or play guitar, or have long talks. For two people who'd never gotten along particularly well, it was a funny thing to suddenly be dependent on each other for their own sanity. With John starting to become harder to distract, Paul quickly and unexpectedly became her lifeline.
A/N: Thanks for reading! The next update will hopefully be next Sunday! We love comments, so please tell us what you think!