Yeah Yeah Yeah (Beatles/Paul McCartney)

17. Here, There, Sodding Everywhere

March 1966
London

Paul

A dozen or so girls crowded around the entrance to Indica, somehow having known that John and I would show up. He offered a disinterested wave, and I gave an earnest thumbs-up.

"I've never worked out why they don't come in after us," John said as we slipped inside the door and waved to Barry across the room. "They'll shriek on the streets and throw themselves at our moving cars, but an art gallery is a sacred place where we can't be disturbed?"

"One of the mysteries of Indica," I replied. "Let's not jinx it."

We were there for an art opening of an American artist with a Dutch-sounding name who specialized in oversized metal cylinders. Peter Asher had just gotten in a shipment of records from America, which were blasting from a record player.

And the girls. The prettiest girls always came to the openings, lured by the prospect of snagging an arty sort of fellow full of secret angst. So I went in wearing my charm like armor, determined to continue my quest to sleep my way through London in an attempt to forget about Alice.

I was in luck: Maggie was there. She looked divine in a collared shirt tied high on her waist, revealing her tanned midriff. When we entered the smoky basement, she was in the corner having a laugh with Klaus. Our eyes met across the room, and she didn't seem cross that I hadn't rung her since the Klosters debacle.

The gallery downstairs was tiny, so, as always happened, we all ended up taking refuge in the bookshop on the ground floor. John had recently bought a copy of The Psychadelic Experience, and he couldn't stop proselytizing.

"It's all about the complete loss of subjective self-identity," John explained to a blonde-haired fellow who always seemed to turn up at these things.

"Does anyone else not know what all those words mean?" I joked, taking a sip of the red wine. It was overly tannic and tasted like it had cost 4 bobs a bottle, which it probably had.

"It's the fundamental transformation of the psyche," John continued as if he'd cleared it right up for everyone.

"Right, but suppose you're given the wrong dose," I countered. "What then?"

John shoved a hand through his hair in irritation as if he just kept quoting Leary and this Tibetan stuff, then surely I'd be game for the next Beatles trip.

"The whole point is that you're never the same again," he said. We'd had the same debate repeatedly over the past 18 months, ever since the weekend in Los Angeles when Ringo finally caved and I became the Square Beatle.

"Suppose I want to be the same?" I queried, mainly to take the piss. "Suppose I don't want to throw 23 years of ideas and experiences out with the bathwater?"

We were jostled from behind by a man who looked up to apologize and then did a double-take.

"It's the Beatles," he said, slurring his words slightly.

"Half of 'em anyway," John replied, lazily offering his hand as an afterthought.

Someone put on a new record and turned up the volume. We come on the sloop John B / My grandfather and me / Around Nassau town we did roam.

"What's this?" Maggie asked, wrapping her arm around my waist. Old habits die hard, and all that. We all paused for a moment, listening intently. At that moment, Brian Wilson's falsetto soared over the harmonies.

"The Beach Boys," John and I said simultaneously.

"Those traitors, those crooks, those bleedin' beggars!" John cried dramatically. "Always seeing us up one on the harmonies."