Her husband, Bernd, helped with the cooking and serving, moving himself around with surprising agility. Dave was struck by how happy Rebecca was, and how much in love with Bernd.

The group tucked into the food eagerly. They all talked in mixed English and German, and the atmosphere was amiable even if they did not understand everything that was said.

After eating they all thanked Rebecca profusely, then got the bus to the Reeperbahn.

Hamburg’s red-light district was like London’s Soho but more open, less discreet. Until he came here, Dave had not known that there were male prostitutes as well as female.

The Dive was a grubby basement. By comparison, the Jump Club was plush. At the Dive the furniture was broken, there was no heating or ventilation, and the toilets were in the backyard.

When they arrived, still full of Rebecca’s food, they found Geoff in the bar, drinking beer.

The group went onstage at eight. With breaks, they would play until three in the morning. Every night they played every song they knew at least once, and their favorites three times. Herr Fluck made them work hard.

Tonight they played worse than ever.

Throughout the first set Geoff was all over the place, playing wrong notes and fumbling his solos; and that put everyone else off. Instead of concentrating on entertaining people, they were struggling to cover Geoff’s mistakes. By the end of the set Lenny was angry.

In the interval, Walli sat on a stool, front of stage, and played the guitar and sang Bob Dylan songs. Dave sat and watched. Walli had a cheap harmonica on a rack that fitted around his neck, so that he could blow and strum at the same time, just as Dylan did. Walli was a good musician, Dave thought, and smart enough to recognize that Dylan was the latest craze. The clientele of the Dive mostly preferred rock and roll, but some listened, and when Walli went offstage he got a round of enthusiastic applause from a table of girls in the corner.

Dave accompanied Walli to the dressing room, and there they discovered a full-scale crisis.

Geoff was on the floor, drunk and incapable of standing upright without assistance. Lenny, kneeling over him, slapped his face hard every now and again. That probably relieved Lenny’s feelings, but it did not bring Geoff round. Dave got a mug of black coffee from the bar, and they forced Geoff to drink some, but that made no difference either.

“We’ll have to go on without no fucking lead guitarist,” said Lenny. “Unless you can play Geoff’s solos, Dave.”

“I can do the Chuck Berry stuff, but that’s all,” said Dave.

“We’ll just have to leave the rest out. This fucking audience probably won’t notice.”

Dave was not sure Lenny was right. Guitar solos were part of the dynamic of good dance music, creating light and shade and preventing the repetitive pop tunes from becoming boring.

Walli said: “I can play Geoff’s part.”