“I can’t go back to school.”

“Why ever not? What are you, sixteen, seventeen?”

“I failed every exam I ever took.”

“Then get a job.”

“Plum Nellie is going to be one of the most successful acts in the world, and I’m going to be a musician for the rest of my life.”

“Keep dreaming, son.”

“I will.” Dave stood up. He was about to leave when he thought of a snag. He had signed a contract with Eric. If the group really did do well, Eric might claim a percentage. He said: “So, Eric, you’re not Plum Nellie’s manager anymore, is that what you’re telling me?”

“Hallelujah! He’s got the message at last.”

“I’ll take back that contract, then.”

Eric suddenly looked suspicious. “What? Why?”

“The contract we signed, the day we recorded ‘Love Is It.’ You don’t want to keep it, do you?”

Eric hesitated. “Why do you want it back?”

“You’ve just told me I have no talent. Of course, if you see a great future for the group—”

“Don’t make me laugh.” Eric picked up the phone. “Cherry, my love, get the Plum Nellie contract out of the file and give it to young Dave on his way out.” He cradled the handset.

Dave picked up the money from the desk. “One of us is a fool, Eric,” he said. “I wonder which?”

• • •

Walli loved London. There was music everywhere: folk clubs, beat clubs, theaters, concert halls, and opera houses. Every night Plum Nellie was not playing he went out to hear music, sometimes with Dave, sometimes alone. Every now and again he went to a classical recital, where he would hear new chords.

The English were strange. When he said he was German, they always started talking about the Second World War. They thought they had won the war, and they got offended if he pointed out that it was actually the Soviets who had defeated the Germans. Sometimes he said he was Polish, just to avoid having the same boring conversation again.

But half the people in London were not English anyway: they were Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Caribbean, Indian, and Chinese. All the drug dealers came from islands: Maltese men sold pep pills, heroin pushers were from Hong Kong, and you could buy marijuana from Jamaicans. Walli liked to go to Caribbean clubs, where they played music with a different beat. He was approached by lots of girls at all these places, but he always told them he was engaged.

One day the phone rang, while Dave was out, and the caller said: “May I speak to Walter Franck?”

Walli almost replied that his grandfather had been dead for more than twenty years. “I am Walli,” he said after a hesitation.

The caller switched to German. “This is Enok Andersen calling from West Berlin.”

Andersen was the Danish accountant who managed Walli’s father’s factory. Walli recalled a bald man with glasses and a ballpoint pen in the breast pocket of his jacket. “Is something wrong?”