*
Walli hardly slept that night. Playing with Plum Nellie, he had felt he belonged, musically, and that he enhanced the group. It had made him so happy that he began to fear it might not last. Had Lenny really meant it when he said: ‘Welcome to the group’?
Next day, Walli went to the cheap boarding-house in the St Pauli district where the group lodged. He arrived at midday, just as they were getting up.
He hung out for a couple of hours with Dave and Buzz, the bass player, going through the group’s repertoire, polishing up beginnings and endings of songs. They seemed to assume he would be playing with them again. He wanted confirmation.
Lenny and Lew surfaced around three in the afternoon. Lenny was direct. ‘Do you definitely want to join this group?’
‘Yes,’ Walli said.
‘That’s it, then,’ said Lenny. ‘You’re in.’
Walli was not convinced. ‘What about Geoff?’
‘I’ll talk to him when he gets up.’
They went to a café called Harald’s on Grosse Freiheit and had coffee and cigarettes for an hour, then they came back and woke Geoff. He looked ill, which was not surprising after drinking so much that he had passed out. He sat on the edge of his bed while Lenny talked to him and the others listened from the doorway. ‘You’re out of the group,’ Lenny said. ‘I’m sorry about it, but you let us down badly last night. You were too drunk to stand up, let alone play. Walli took your place and I’m making him permanent.’
‘He’s just a punk kid,’ Geoff managed.
Lenny said: ‘Not only is he sober, he’s a better guitarist than you.’
‘I need coffee,’ said Geoff.
‘Go to Harald’s.’
They did not see Geoff again before they left for the club.
They were setting up on stage just before eight when Geoff walked in, sober, guitar in hand.
Walli stared at him in consternation. Earlier, he had got the impression Geoff had accepted that he was fired. Maybe he had just been too hung over to argue.
Whatever the reason, he had not packed his bag and left, and Walli became anxious. He had suffered so many setbacks: the police smashing up his guitar so that he could not appear at the Minnes?nger; Karolin withdrawing from the gig at the Europe Hotel; and the proprietor of El Paso pulling the plug halfway through his first song. Surely this would not turn into another disappointment?
They all stopped what they were doing and watched as Geoff climbed on stage and opened his guitar case.
At that point Lenny said: ‘What are you doing, Geoff?’
‘I’m going to show you that I’m the best guitarist you’ve ever heard.’
‘For Pete’s sake! You’re fired and that’s that. Just fuck off to the station and catch a train to Hook.’
Geoff changed his tone and became wheedling. ‘We’ve been playing together for six years, Lenny. That has to count for something. You have to give me one chance.’
This seemed so reasonable that Walli, to his alarm, felt sure Lenny would agree. But Lenny shook his head. ‘You’re an all right guitar player, but you’re no genius, and you’re an awkward bastard too. Since we got here you’ve been playing so badly that we were on the point of being fired last night when Walli joined us.’
Geoff looked around. ‘What do the others think?’ he said.
‘Who told you this group was a democracy?’ Lenny said.
‘Who told you it’s not?’ Geoff turned to Lew, the drummer, who was adjusting a foot pedal. ‘What do you think?’
Lew was Geoff’s cousin. ‘Give him another chance,’ Lew said.
Geoff addressed the bassist. ‘What about you, Buzz?’
Buzz was an easy-going character who would go along with whoever shouted loudest. ‘I’d give him a chance.’
Geoff looked triumphant. ‘That makes three of us against one of you, Lenny.’
Dave put in: ‘No, it doesn’t. In a democracy, you have to be able to count. It’s you three against Lenny, me and Walli – which makes it even.’
Lenny said: ‘Don’t bother about the votes. This is my group and I make the decisions. Geoff is fired. Put your instrument away, Geoff, or I’ll sling it right out the fucking door.’
At this point Geoff seemed to accept that Lenny was serious. He put his guitar back in its case and slammed the lid. Picking it up, he said: ‘I’ll promise you something, you bastards. If I go, you’ll all go.’
Walli wondered what that meant. Perhaps it was just an empty threat. Anyway, there was no time to think about it. A couple of minutes later they started to play.
All Walli’s fears departed. He could tell he was good and the group was good with him in it. Time passed quickly. In the interval, he went back on stage alone and sang Bob Dylan songs. He included a number he had written himself, called ‘Karolin’. The audience seemed to like it. Afterwards he went straight back on stage to open the second set with ‘Dizzy Miss Lizzy’.
While he was playing ‘You Can’t Catch Me’, he saw a couple of uniformed policemen at the back talking to the proprietor, Herr Fluck, but he thought nothing of it.
When they came off at midnight, Herr Fluck was waiting in their dressing room. Without preamble he said to Dave: ‘How old are you?’
‘Twenty-one,’ said Dave.
‘Don’t give me that shit.’
‘What do you care?’
‘In Germany we have laws about employing minors in bars.’
‘I’m eighteen.’
‘The police say you’re fifteen.’
‘What do the police know about it?’
‘They’ve been talking to the guitar player you just fired – Geoff.’
Lenny said: ‘The bastard, he’s shopped us.’
Herr Fluck said: ‘I run a nightclub. Prostitutes come in here, drug dealers, criminals of all kinds. I must constantly prove to the police that I do my best to obey the law. They say I have to send you home – all of you. So, goodbye.’
Lenny said: ‘When do we have to go?’
‘You leave the club now. You leave Germany tomorrow.’
Lenny said: ‘That’s outrageous!’
‘When you’re a club owner, you do as the police tell you.’ He pointed at Walli. ‘He does not have to leave the country, being German.’
‘Fuck it,’ said Lenny. ‘I’ve lost two guitarists in one day.’
‘No, you haven’t,’ said Walli. ‘I’m coming with you.’