If I Fell│John Lennon/Beatles FanFiction

Chapter 15 - 25.Oct.1960

Chapter 15

October 25, 1960

Eighteen. Finally, bloody eighteen years old. Gone were the days of lying about my age or using fake identification to get a job or to stay out past ten at night—no more lying about my age to get a ruddy drink.

I was free of my father and living with my best mates in a shite closet in a foreign city. And I'd never been happier.

I'd somehow secured a job at the Kaiserkeller, and John hated it, which made my job even more enjoyable. I served all kinds of bevvies to bladdered Germans who couldn't understand much of what I said, maybe because they were beyond plastered, but more likely it was my shite German. I'd memorized numbers and anything having to do with money, and I was getting better at understanding their orders, so that was progress. Plus, we usually had something in common. They adored The Beatles, and so did I. They loved watching me sing along to their set, off key and all. I'd been working almost as much as the boys had been playing. I used every break to take photographs of the lads as they did what they did best. But I finally had a day off, and it happened to align with my birthday.

The Kaiserkeller had a nautical theme. All the tables and chairs were located inside pieces of a ship. The tables were barrels, and ropes were hanging in abundance on the walls. The dance floor sat in front of a precarious stage made of planks of wood balanced on top of beer crates. It looked bloody close to breaking in half. The boys and the other band they alternated sets with, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, another top local band from home, had a bet on who could break the stage first.

Astrid Kirchherr sat next to me, her legs crossed and her hands gripping a drink. She stared at the stage with wide, brown eyes. She wore black leather trousers, a tight black shirt, and a black leather jacket. I adored her pixie cut, her hair swept to the side, looking immaculate. She commanded a room, the eyes of men dragging over her as she walked into the club. She was proper lush—at least Stu certainly thought so as he looked at her as if no one else in the world existed.

It was only my second time properly meeting her as I was usually working when she, Klaus, and Jürgen arrived to watch The Beatles night after night, enthralled with how they played music and enthralled with the boys in general. John said she'd been coming round with her mates since they began playing at the Kaiserkeller. When she asked if she could photograph them, they'd agreed, but only if I came along. We took a trip to the local fairground and snapped photos of the group together. She was bloody brilliant, and taking pictures with her was the first time that I'd felt proper confident about my skills again. We bonded instantly over being women in photography.

"They're amazing," Astrid said, her accent thick, her eyes still glued on the boys.

"Yeah, yeah, they really are." It was hard to stop looking, they were so bloody brilliant.

John was right. They'd come a long way since the last show I'd seen in Liverpool. They used to simply stand still when they'd performed back home. But now they were putting on a proper show. Moving, interacting with each other, and many times acting like absolute fools. It was magical, almost impossible to tear my eyes away.

It wasn't just me...the audience loved them, too. They entertained, they played loud, and the bladdered Germans adored them, even when John tried to pick a fight with someone or greet the crowd with a distasteful salute. He lived for pushing the limits. If he was in a really nutty mood, he sometimes sang a song or half a set in some foreign accent.

I yawned and shifted in my seat. It wasn't even that late, but I'd been working almost nonstop for the past week. Astrid eyed me as I struggled to stay awake, taking a sip of my bevvy to perk up. She slipped me a pill under the table.