Dave Williams was nervous. It was almost five years since Plum Nellie had played to a live audience. Now they were about to face sixty thousand fans at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.
Performing in a studio was not the same at all. The tape recorder was forgiving: if you played a bum note or your voice cracked or you forgot the lyrics, you could just erase the error and try again.
Anything that went wrong here tonight would be heard by everyone in the stadium and never corrected.
Dave told himself not to be silly. He had done this a hundred times. He recalled playing with the Guardsmen in pubs in the East End of London, when he had known only a handful of chords. Looking back, he marveled at his youthful audacity. He remembered the night Geoffrey had passed out, dead drunk, at the Dive in Hamburg, and Walli had come onstage and played lead guitar throughout the set with no rehearsal. Happy-go-lucky days.
Dave now had nine years’ experience. That was longer than the entire career of many pop stars. All the same, as the fans streamed in, buying beer and T-shirts and hot dogs, all trusting Dave to ensure they would have a great evening, he felt shaky.
A young woman from the music company that distributed Nellie Records came into his dressing room to ask if there was anything he needed. She wore loon pants and a crop top, showing off a perfect figure. “No, thanks, darling,” he said. All the dressing rooms had a small bar with beer and liquor, soft drinks and ice, and a carton of cigarettes.
“If you want a little something to relax you, I have supplies,” she said.
He shook his head. He did not want drugs right now. He might smoke a joint afterward.
She persisted. “Or if I can, you know, do anything . . .”
She was offering him sex. She was as gorgeous as a slim California blonde could be, which was very beautiful indeed, but he was not in the mood.
He had not been in the mood since the last time he saw Beep.
“Maybe after the show,” he said. If I get drunk enough, he thought. “I appreciate the offer, but right now I want you to get lost,” he said firmly.
She was not offended. “Let me know if you change your mind!” she said cheerfully, and she went out.
Tonight’s gig was a benefit for George McGovern. His election campaign had succeeded in bringing young people back into politics. In Europe he would have been middle-of-the-road, Dave knew, but here he was considered left-wing. His tough criticism of the Vietnam War delighted liberals, and he spoke with authority because of his combat experience in World War II.
Dave’s sister, Evie, came to his dressing room to wish him luck. She was dressed to avoid recognition, with her hair pinned up under a tweed cap, sunglasses, and a biker jacket. “I’m going back to England,” she said.
That surprised him. “I know you’ve had some bad press since that Hanoi photo, but . . .”
She shook her head. “It’s worse than bad press. I’m hated today as passionately as I was loved a year ago. It’s the phenomenon Oscar Wilde noticed: one turns to the other with bewildering suddenness.”
“I thought you might ride it out.”
“So did I, for a while. But I haven’t been offered a decent part in six months. I could play the plucky girl in a spaghetti western, a stripper in an off-Broadway improvisation, or any part I like in the Australian tour of Jesus Christ Superstar.”
“I’m sorry—I had no idea.”
“It wasn’t exactly spontaneous.”
“What do you mean?”
“A couple of journalists told me they got calls from the White House.”
“This was organized?”
“I think so. Look, I was a popular celebrity who attacked Nixon at every opportunity. It’s not surprising that he stuck the knife in me when I was foolish enough to give him a chance. It isn’t even unfair: I’m doing my best to put him out of a job.”
“That’s pretty big of you.”
“And it might not even be Nixon. Who do we know who works at the White House?”
“Beep’s brother?” Dave was incredulous. “Cam did this to you?”
“He fell for me, all those years ago in London, and I turned him down kind of roughly.”
“And he’s held a grudge all these years?”
“I could never prove it.”
“The bastard!”
“So, I’ve put my swanky Hollywood home on the market, sold my convertible, and packed up my collection of modern art.”
“What will you do?”
“Lady Macbeth, for a start.”
“You’ll be terrifying. Where?”
“Stratford-upon-Avon. I’m joining the Royal Shakespeare Company.”
“One door closes and another opens.”
“I’m so happy to be doing Shakespeare again. It’s ten years since I played Ophelia at school.”
“In the nude.”
Evie smiled ruefully. “What a little show-off I was.”
“You were also a good actor, even then.”
She stood up. “I’ll leave you to get ready. Enjoy yourself tonight, little brother. I’ll be in the audience, bopping.”
“When are you leaving for England?”
“I’m on a plane tomorrow.”
“Let me know when Macbeth opens. I’ll come and see you.”
“That would be nice.”
Dave walked out with Evie. The stage had been built on a temporary scaffold at one end of the pitch. Behind the stage, a crowd of roadies, sound men, record company people, and privileged journalists milled on the grass. The dressing rooms were tents pitched in a roped-off area.
Buzz and Lew had arrived, but there was no sign of Walli. Dave was relying on Beep to get Walli here on time. He wondered anxiously where they were.
Soon after Evie left, Beep’s parents came backstage. Dave was again on good terms with Bella and Woody. He decided not to tell them what Evie had said about Cam stirring up the press against her. Lifelong Democrats, they were already annoyed that their son was working for Nixon.
Dave wanted to know what Woody thought of McGovern’s chances. “George McGovern has a problem,” Woody said. “In order to defeat Hubert Humphrey and get the nomination, he had to break the power of the old Democratic Party barons, the city mayors and the state governors and the union bosses.”
Dave had not followed this closely. “How did he manage that?”
“After the mess of Chicago 1968 the party rewrote the rules, and McGovern chaired the commission that did that.”
“Why’s that a problem?”
“Because the old power brokers won’t work for him. Some detest him so much that they started a movement called Democrats for Nixon.”
“Young people like him.”
“We have to hope that will be enough.”
At last Beep arrived with Walli. The Dewar parents went off to Walli’s dressing room. Dave put on his stage outfit, a red one-piece jumpsuit and engineer boots. He did some exercises to warm up his voice. While he was singing scales, Beep came in.
She gave him a sunny smile and kissed his cheek. As always, she lit up the room just by walking in. I should never have let her go, Dave thought. What kind of an idiot am I?
“How is Walli?” he said worriedly.
“He’s had a hit of dope, just enough to get him through the gig. He’ll shoot up when he comes offstage. He’s all right to play.”
“Thank God.”
She was wearing satin hot pants and a sequined bra top. She had put on a little weight since the recording sessions, Dave saw: her bust seemed bigger and she even had a cute tummy bulge. He offered her a drink. She asked for a Coke. “Help yourself to a cigarette,” he said.
“That’s why you’ve put on weight.”
“No, it’s not.”
“That wasn’t a put-down. You look fabulous.”
“I’m leaving Walli.”
That shocked him. He turned from the bar and stared at her. “Wow,” he said. “Does he know yet?”
“I’m going to tell him after tonight’s show.”
“That’s a relief. But what about all that stuff you told me about being a less selfish person and saving Walli’s life?”
“I have a more important life to save.”
“Your own?”
“My baby’s.”
“Christ.” Dave sat down. “You’re pregnant.”
“Three months.”
“That’s why your shape has changed.”
“And smoking makes me puke. I don’t even use pot anymore.”
The dressing-room PA crackled, and a voice said: “Five minutes to showtime, everybody. All stage technicians should now be in performance positions.”
Dave said: “If you’re pregnant, why are you leaving Walli?”
“I’m not bringing up a child in that environment. It’s one thing to sacrifice myself, something else to do it to a kid. This child is going to have a normal life.”
“Where will you go?”
“I’m moving back in with my mom and dad.” She shook her head in a gesture of wonder. “It’s incredible. For ten years I’ve done everything I could to piss them off, but when I needed their help they just said yes. Fucking amazing.”
The PA said: “One minute, everybody. The band are kindly invited to move to the wings whenever they’re ready.”
Dave was struck by a thought. “Three months . . .”
“I don’t know whose baby it is,” Beep said. “I conceived while you were making the album. I was on the pill, but sometimes I used to forget to take it, especially if I was stoned.”
“But you told me that Walli and you seldom had sex.”
“Seldom isn’t never. I’d say there’s a ten percent chance it’s Walli’s baby.”
“So ninety percent mine.”
Lew looked into Dave’s tent. “Here we go,” he said.
“I’m coming,” Dave said.
Lew went, and Dave said to Beep: “Live with me.”
She stared at him. “Do you mean it?”
“Yes.”
“Even if it’s not your baby?”
“I’m sure I’ll love your baby. I love you. Hell, I love Walli. Live with me, please.”
“Oh, God,” she said, and she started to cry. “I was hoping and praying you’d say this.”
“Does that mean you will?”
“Of course. It’s what I’m longing for.”
Dave felt as if the sun had risen. “Well, then, that’s what we’ll do,” he said.
“What are we going to do about Walli? I don’t want him to die.”
“I have an idea about that,” Dave said. “I’ll tell you after the show.”
“Go onstage, they’re waiting for you.”
“I know.” He kissed her mouth softly. She put her arms around him and hugged him. “I love you,” he said.
“I love you, too, and I was crazy to ever let you go.”
“Don’t do it again.”
“Never.”
Dave went out. He ran across the grass and up the steps to where the rest of the band were waiting in the wings. Then he was struck by a thought. “I forgot something,” he said.
Buzz said irritably: “What? The guitars are onstage.”
Dave did not answer. He ran back to his dressing room. Beep was still there, sitting down, wiping her eyes.
Dave said: “Shall we get married?”
“Okay,” she said.
“Good.”
He ran back to the scaffold.
“Everyone okay?” he said.
Dave led the band onto the stage.
• • •
Claus Krohn asked Rebecca to have a drink after a meeting of the Hamburg parliament.
She was taken aback. It was four years since she had ended their love affair. For the past twelve months, she knew, Claus had been seeing an attractive woman who was the membership officer of a trade union. Claus meanwhile was an increasingly powerful figure in the Free Democratic Party, to which Rebecca also belonged. Claus and his girlfriend were a good match. In fact, Rebecca had heard they were planning to get married.
So she gave him a discouraging look.
“Not at the Yacht Bar,” Claus added hastily. “Somewhere less furtive.”
She laughed, reassured.
They went to a bar in the town center not far from the city hall. For old times’ sake, Rebecca asked for a glass of Sekt. “I’ll come right to the point,” Claus said as soon as they had their drinks. “We want you to stand for election to the national parliament.”
“Oh!” she said. “I would have been less surprised if you’d made a pass at me.”
He smiled. “Don’t be surprised. You’re intelligent and attractive, you speak well, and people like you. You’re respected by men of all parties here in Hamburg. You have almost a decade of experience in politics. You’d be an asset.”
“But it’s so sudden.”
“Elections always seem sudden.”
The chancellor, Willy Brandt, had engineered a snap election, to be held in eight weeks’ time. If Rebecca agreed, she could be a member of parliament before Christmas.
When she got over the surprise, Rebecca felt eager. Her passionate desire was for the reunification of Germany, so that she and thousands more Germans could be reunited with their families. She would never achieve that in local politics—but as a member of the national parliament she might have some influence.
Her party, the FDP, was in a coalition government with the Social Democrats led by Willy Brandt. Rebecca agreed with Brandt’s “Ostpolitik,” trying to have contact with the East despite the Wall. She believed this was the quickest way to undermine the East German regime.
“I’ll have to talk to my husband,” she said.
“I knew you’d say that. Women always do.”
“It will mean leaving him alone a lot.”
“This happens to all spouses of members of parliament.”
“But my husband is special.”
“Indeed.”
“I’ll talk to him this evening.” Rebecca stood up.
Claus stood too. “On a personal note . . .”
“What?”
“We know each other quite well.”
“Yes . . .”
“This is your destiny.” He was serious. “You were meant to be a national politician. Anything less would be a waste of your talents. A criminal waste. I mean it.”
She was surprised by his intensity. “Thank you,” she said.
She felt both elated and dazed as she drove home. A new future had suddenly opened up. She had thought about national politics, but had feared it would be too difficult, as a woman and as the wife of a disabled husband. But now that the prospect was more than a fantasy she felt eager.
On the other hand, what would Bernd do?
She parked the car and hurried into their apartment. Bernd was at the kitchen table in his wheelchair, marking school essays with a sharp red pencil. He was undressed and wearing a bathrobe, which he could manage to put on himself. The most difficult garment, for him, was a pair of trousers.
She told him immediately about Claus’s proposition. “Before you speak, let me say one more thing,” she said. “If you don’t want me to do this, I won’t. No argument, no regrets, no recriminations. We’re a partnership, and that means neither of us has the right to change our life unilaterally.”
“Thank you,” he said. “But let’s talk about the details.”
“The Bundestag sits from Monday to Friday about twenty weeks of the year, and attendance is compulsory.”
“So you’d spend about eighty nights away in an average year. I can cope with that, especially if we get a nurse to come in and help me in the mornings.”
“Would you mind?”
“Of course. But no doubt your nights at home would be all the sweeter.”
“Bernd, you’re so good.”
“You have to do this,” he said. “It’s your destiny.”
She gave a little laugh. “That’s what Claus said.”
“I’m not surprised.”
Her husband and her ex-lover both thought that this was what she should do. She thought so too. She felt apprehensive: she believed she could do it, but it would be a challenge. National politics was tougher and nastier than local government. The press could be vicious.
Her mother would be proud, she thought. Carla ought to have been a leader, and probably would have been if she had not got trapped in the prison of East Germany. She would be thrilled that her daughter was fulfilling her defeated aspiration.
They talked it over for the next three evenings, then, on the fourth, Dave Williams arrived.
They were not expecting him. Rebecca was astonished to see him on the doorstep, wearing a brown suede coat and carrying a small suitcase with a Hamburg airport tag. “You could have called!” she said in English.
“I lost your number,” he replied in German.
She kissed his cheek. “What a wonderful surprise!” She had liked Dave back in the days when Plum Nellie was playing on the Reeperbahn, and the boys had come to this apartment for their only square meal of the week. Dave had been good for Walli, whose talent had flowered in the partnership.
Dave came into the kitchen, set down his suitcase, and shook hands with Bernd. “Have you just flown in from London?” Bernd asked.
“From San Francisco. I’ve been traveling twenty-four hours.” They spoke their usual mixture of English and German.
Rebecca put coffee on. As she got over her surprise, it occurred to her that Dave must have some special reason for this visit, and she felt anxious. Dave was explaining to Bernd about his recording studio, but Rebecca interrupted him. “Why are you here, Dave? Is something wrong?”
“Yes,” said Dave. “It’s Walli.”
Rebecca’s heart missed a beat. “What’s the matter? Tell me! He’s not dead . . .”
“No, he’s alive. But he’s a heroin addict.”
“Oh, no.” Rebecca sat down heavily. “Oh, no.” She buried her face in her hands.
“There’s more,” said Dave. “Beep is leaving him. She’s pregnant, and she doesn’t want to raise a child in the drug scene.”
“Oh, my poor little brother.”
Bernd said: “What is Beep going to do?”
“She’s moving into Daisy Farm with me.”
“Oh.” Rebecca saw that Dave looked embarrassed. He had resumed his romance with Beep, she guessed. That could only make things worse for her brother. “What can we do about Walli?”
“He needs to give up heroin, obviously.”
“Do you think he can?”
“With the right kind of help. There are programs, in the States and here in Europe, that combine therapy with a chemical substitute, usually methadone. But Walli lives in Haight-Ashbury. There’s a dealer on every corner, and if he doesn’t go out and score, one of them will knock on his door. It’s just too easy for him to lapse.”
“So he has to move?”
“I think he has to move here.”
“Oh, my goodness.”
“Living with you, I think he could kick the habit.”
Rebecca looked at Bernd.
“I’m concerned about you,” Bernd said to her. “You have a job and a political career. I’m fond of Walli, not least because you love him. But I don’t want you to sacrifice your life to him.”
“It’s not forever,” Dave put in quickly. “But if you could keep him clean and sober for a year . . .”
Rebecca was still looking at Bernd. “I won’t sacrifice my life. But I might have to put it on hold for a year.”
“If you turn down a Bundestag seat now, the offer might never be renewed.”
“I know.”
Dave said to Rebecca: “I want you to come with me back to San Francisco and persuade Walli.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow would be good. I’ve already made flight reservations.”
“Tomorrow!”
But there was really no choice, Rebecca thought. Walli’s life was at stake. Nothing compared with that. She would put him first; of course she would. She hardly needed to think about it.
All the same, she felt sad about turning down the thrilling prospect that had been so briefly held out to her.
Dave said: “What did you say, a moment ago, about the Bundestag?”
“Nothing,” Rebecca said. “Just something else I was thinking of doing. But I’ll come with you to San Francisco. Of course I will.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you.”
Rebecca stood up. “I’ll pack a bag,” she said.