Utopia Avenue

by David Mitchell

  “Let’s get breakfast,” says Elf. “Better that I murder a bacon sandwich than a producer.”

  Howie appears from the studio door, hoicking up his trousers. “My my. And who’s this delightful young lady?”

  “My sister Bea,” says Elf. “Bea, this is Mr. Stoker, who—”

  “Gave birth to Moonwhale.” Howie encases Bea’s hand in both of his. “Though I keep my fingers in a number of pies.”

  Bea extracts her hand. “How jolly sticky for you.”

  Howie switches his smile to high beam. “And where are you in life’s great adventure, Bea?”

  “Finishing sixth form and aiming at drama school.”

  “Good. I’ve always said that beauty has a duty to be seen by the widest possible audience. You want to work in the movies?”

  Deirdre slams her typewriter carriage back.

  “That might be a possibility in the long run,” says Bea.

  “Funny you should say that,” says Howie. “My old pal Benny Klopp—Benny’s a big cheese at Universal Studios—tasked me to scout for English roses during my London sojourn. And you, Bea—I can call you Bea, right?—are one. You got a headshot on you?”

  Bea frowns. “Do I have a what on me?”

  “Headshot. A picture of your”—Howie draws a frame around Bea’s breasts—“head. Benny’s casting a film about Caligula. The emperor. You’d look a-ma-zing in a toga.”

  “I’m flattered,” says Bea, “but I haven’t even got into drama school yet. I have an A-level exam tomorrow.”

  “It’s never too early to make connections in showbiz. Am I right, Elf?”

  “As long as they’re genuine. Sharks, shysters, and shite-hawks swim in these waters. Am I wrong, Howie?”

  “Your sister,” Howie tells Bea, “has an old head on her solid young shoulders. Do you know Martha’s Vineyard?”

  “No,” says Bea. “Is it one of those pies you have a finger in?”

  “Martha’s Vineyard is a vacation resort in Massachusetts. I have a home there. Private beach, private quay, private yacht. Truman Capote’s a neighbor. I have a fascinating idea. When Utopia Avenue flies over to conquer the US of A”—Howie presses his palms together like an Indian saying Namaste—“you come too, and stay at Martha’s Vineyard as my houseguest. You’ll meet Benny Klopp. Broadway movers and shakers. Phil Spector.” Howie licks the corner of his mouth. “Your life will change, Bea. Trust me. Trust your gut. What’s your gut telling you about me? Right now?”

  * * *

  —

  “GO CASTRATE YOURSELF with a rusty spoon, you crusty pervert were the words that sprang to mind,” Bea looks both ways as they cross Denmark Street, “but then I thought, This is my sister’s boss…So I kept my mouth shut.”

  “Technically,” says Elf, “he’s Levon’s boss, but it’s true, he could still press the ejector button on us. So thanks.”

  A bicycle courier flashes by. Bea asks, “Dad’s lawyer friend’s still checking those contracts, right?”

  “Yes. Hopefully he’s up to the job. I could count the musicians who haven’t been shafted on the fingers of no hands.”

  “Extra, extra!” hollers a raw-throated newspaper vendor in his tiny shack. “Harold Wilson Found Dead in a Coffin with a Stake Through His Heart! Extra, extra!”

  Bea and Elf stop. They both look at the newspaper vendor who tells them, “I like to check if anyone’s listening. Listening’s a dying art. I mean, look at ’em all.”

  People hurry along Denmark Street in the May sunshine.

  “Perhaps they hear you,” suggests Elf, “but just think, Ah well, that’s another Soho eccentric.”

  “Nah,” says the vendor. “Folks only hear what they expect to. Not one in a hundred has ears like you two.”

  * * *

  —

  THREE YOUNG MEN leaving the Gioconda café stand aside to let the sisters pass, and to get a better look at Bea. From their battered art folders and clothes, Elf guesses they are students at Saint Martin’s College of Art, a minute away on Charing Cross Road. Bea breezes by as if the boys don’t exist, and they file out of the café.

  Elf asks, “What can I get you?”

  “Just a coffee. Milk, no sugar.”

  “Not much of a breakfast,” says Elf.

  “I had half a grapefruit before I left.”

  “At the risk of sounding like Dad,” says Elf, “is half a grapefruit enough for an audition? Let me get you a scone.”

  “No, really. I’m full of butterflies as it is.”

  “If you’re sure.” Elf orders a bacon sandwich plus two coffees from Mrs. Biggs, matriarch of the Gioconda, who relays the order through a hatch to a kitchen slave. The sisters take the window table. “What monologue did you settle on for the audition?”

  “Joan of Arc from Henry the Sixth, Part One. And for my song, a pleasing ditty entitled ‘Any Way the Wind Blows’ by English songstress Elf Holloway. I didn’t ask permission. Will she mind?”

  “I’d say that Miss Holloway—whom I happen to know slightly—will be utterly delighted. Why that one?”

  “It’s beautiful unaccompanied, and because I happened to be upstairs while you wrote it—a story I may let slip to the panel, because I’m a shameless name-dropper. Where’s the loo?”

  “Down the steps, under the Mona Lisa picture. Be warned. It’s a bit of a Journey to the Center of the Earth…”

  * * *

  —

  THE KINKS’ “WATERLOO Sunset” comes on the radio. Elf looks out at Denmark Street. Hundreds of people pass by. Reality erases itself as it rerecords itself, Elf thinks. Time is the Great Forgetter. She gets her notebook from her handbag and writes, Memories are unreliable…Art is memory made public. Time wins in the long run. Books turn to dust, negatives decay, records get worn out, civilizations burn. But as long as the art endures, a song or a view or a thought or a feeling someone once thought worth keeping is saved and stays shareable. Others can say, “I feel that too.”

  Across the road in a brick doorway, under a poster for Berkshire stockings, a couple are kissing. Elf’s line of sight, the depth of the doorway, and the speed of the foot traffic are such that, chances are, the lovers are visible to Elf alone. They press their foreheads together and talk. Arrangements, sweet nothings, promises, see-you-laters…He’s averagely good-looking but she’s the first day of spring in a female body, Elf decides. Her poise, her clothes, her tomboyishness, her throat-length dark hair, and, most of all, that wild crooked smile.

  You’re ogling. Elf fumbles in her handbag for her packet of Camels, ferrets about for a lighter, and lights up. I wasn’t ogling, I was just looking. Elf remembers the voice she heard on the 97 bus last January, shunting along Cromwell Road…

  * * *

  —

  THE DOORBELL AT 101 Cromwell Road shrieked like a banshee. Music throbbed. “Sounds like the party’s started,” said Bruce. They had traveled back from Cambridge that day and Elf would have preferred to stay at her flat, but Wotsit was Bruce’s oldest friend from Melbourne and he’d just arrived in London, so Bruce was going, and Elf was afraid that if she didn’t go, he might not be back until the following morning, full of easy-to-believe lies about where he had spent the night. The door of 101 was opened by a gangly man in a peach Afghan coat, beads, and a straggly mustache. “Brucie Fletch! Get inside, it’s freezing out!”

  “Wotsit! How the bugger are you?”

  “Alive. Well. Hydra was Paradise. You have to go.”

  “God, I’d love to. I’m stuck here for now, though.”

  “This,” Wotsit turned to Elf, “must be…uh…”

  Bruce stepped in. “The one, the only, Elf Holloway.”

  Elf shook his bony hand. “Bruce has told me a lot about you.”

  “Of all the gorgeous male Aussies in London,” Wotsit had
a toothy smile, “why pick this shameless larrikin, eh?”

  “Sexual charisma,” said Bruce. “Genius. My vast estate.”

  “That must be it,” said Elf, who paid all the bills and expenses.

  Wotsit ushered them down a hallway, past a mural of an elephant, a jade Buddha in a nook, and an Om prayer flag hanging in the stairwell. The Freak Out! album by the Mothers of Invention boomed through a marshy pong of dope, lentils, and incense. In the long lounge, thirty or forty people were chattering, drinking, smoking, dancing, laughing. “Hey, everyone,” Wotsit announced, “this is Bruce and his good lady Elf.” There was a small chorus of “Hi, Bruce!” and “Hi, Elf!” and someone gave Elf a beer. She had a few sips. A sleek woman in copper and gold with kohl-ringed eyes materialized. “Elf, I’m Vanessa. I adore your records.” Home Counties. “Shepherd’s Crook overwhelms me. I do a bit of modeling, and I was at Mike Anglesey’s studio in Chelsea for a Christmas knees-up, and at some point Mike put your EP on and told us all,” Vanessa does a posh girl’s Cockney imitation, “ ‘Get your shell-likes around this!’ and…wow.”

  “Thanks, Vanessa,” said Bruce. “We’re proud of it.”

  Someone tapped Elf’s shoulder. She turned to find Marc Bolan’s big doggy eyes. “Where’ve you been hiding, Goldilocks?”

  “Marc! Bruce and I have been—”

  “I heard the Shepherd’s Crook EP.” Marc wore mascara, a leather jacket, and a knotted scarf. “Lots there to admire. The best songs reminded me of yours truly’s new work, in fact. I’ve got these new songs that would fit perfectly on your label. It’s an album’s worth, really. Who should I speak to?”

  “At Avebury? Toby Green. But it’s only a small—”

  “Toby Green. Got it. He’ll cream his pants when he hears my idea: a song for each companion in The Fellowship of the Ring—with an interlude for Gollum and a climax for the One Ring itself.”

  Elf guessed she was supposed to be bowled over. She looked around for Bruce for clues but he had vanished. As had Vanessa.

  “You have read The Lord of the Rings?” asked Marc Bolan.

  “Bruce lent me the first volume, but if I’m honest—”

  “I always tell girls: ‘If you want to understand me, read The Lord of the Rings right now.’ It’s that simple.”

  Elf wished she had the nerve to say, “In that case, I’ll avoid it like the plague.” She said, “Good luck with the songs.”

  He kissed his forefinger and planted it between Elf’s eyebrows. “I’ll tell Toby Green you sent me.”

  Elf forced a smile but wanted to wash her face. “Bruce is around. He’ll want to speak with you, too…”

  * * *

  —

  BRUCE WAS NOWHERE. The bodies grew denser. The air grew smokier. The Butterfield Blues Band was on. Half an hour passed. Elf fended off a folk-bore, who took her to task for sullying the purity of the 1765 version of “Sir Patrick Spens” on her Oak, Ash and Thorn EP. Bruce reappeared. “Wombat, let me take you away from all this.”

  “Where were you? I just got cornered by—”

  “The real party’s up in Wotsit’s room. C’mon.” Bruce spoke low. “Everyone’s waiting.”

  “Look, I’m not sure if I’m really in the mood for—”

  “Trust me.” Bruce gave her a conspiratorial wink. “The next few hours could change your life.” He led her through bodies, up steps, up steeper steps, past snoggers, and up even steeper steps to a purple door. He knocked a pattern of knocks. A bolt was unbolted.

  “Aha.” The door was opened by Wotsit. “Sorry for the cloak and dagger”—he rebolted the door behind them—“but if word got out, the hoi-polloi would be kicking my door down.” Wotsit’s room was lit by a paper lamp on a tripod. Its beam revolved like a lighthouse’s, traversing yellow walls, floorboards painted purple and yellow, and a boarded-up fireplace. Black tulips stood in a black vase. The window showed a South Kensington nocturne of chimney pots, TV aerials, and gutters. Six people sat or lay on beanbags, a low bed, and cushions. Vanessa from earlier said, “We thought we’d lost you. Do you know Syd?” Syd Barrett, the singer with Pink Floyd, was strumming a guitar and singing, “Have you got it yet?” over and over. He didn’t appear to notice Elf. A man with an imperial beard, a rose-print shirt, and a shiny pate introduced himself. “Al Ginsberg. Great to meet you, Elf. Bill Graham’s gonna love this.” He held up Fletcher & Holloway’s Shepherd’s Crook EP.

  “Allen Ginsberg the poet?” Elf checked with Bruce. “The Allen Ginsberg?” Bruce had a what-did-I-tell-you face.

  “Don’t believe everything you read about me,” said Allen Ginsberg. “Just most of it. My friend Bill just happens to own the Fillmore Auditorium. You’ve heard of the Fillmore, right?”

  “Of course. It’s the venue in San Francisco, bar none.”

  “You’d fit right in there,” said Ginsberg. “You’re folkier than a lot of the acts, but you’re not just folkie.”

  “We’d be over like a shot,” said Bruce, “if Mr. Graham could sort the flights for us. Right, Elf?”

  Elf was too stunned to do much but nod. “Definitely.”

  “I’m Aphra Booth.” The woman in a denim suit was sitting against the far wall. “This reprobate”—she indicated the guy with a cloudy Afro who lay with his head in her lap and who raised a lazy hand—“is Mick Farren.” Aphra Booth was another Australian. “I’m skeptical on the whole Doors of Perception thing, but in the spirit of scientific inquiry, I’d like to experience what I’m skeptical about.”

  This didn’t make much sense to Elf, but Aphra Booth’s demeanor prompted her to say, “Absolutely.”

  Syd Barrett detuned his guitar, still chanting “Have you got it yet?” in a quiet, demonic round.

  “So, Elf.” Wotsit indicated a shelf of drinks. “What’s your rocket fuel? Brandy? A sugar cube?”

  “Sorry to be square, but just a Coke, please.”

  “If you were square,” said Wotsit, “you wouldn’t be here.”

  “Bags Elf sits next to me.” Vanessa patted a beanbag next to her. “Even if her talent makes me green with envy. Piano and guitar, you play? Isn’t that just showing off?”

  Elf sank into the beanbag, wondering if Vanessa was there with Syd or Allen Ginsberg. She was way above Wotsit’s class. “I’m not that great on the guitar. Bruce calls me ‘The Claw.’ ”

  “Then I think Bruce is perfectly horrid.”

  Wotsit brought her Coke. “Enjoy the trip.”

  Elf guessed the phrase was an Australianism. “Thanks.” She swigged a mouthful of dark sweetness.

  “You’re clearly not a virgin,” observed Aphra Booth.

  Elf guessed this was feminist forthrightness. “Um…neither are you, I guess.”

  Aphra looked confused. “Didn’t you hear me earlier?”

  “So, Elf.” Bruce was doing his naughty-boy smile. “Me and Wotsit have given you an early birthday present.”

  “Oh?” Elf looked around. There was no sign of a gift.

  “We all dropped acid ten minutes ago,” said her boyfriend, “but it wouldn’t be the same without you, so…”

  Elf followed his gaze to her Coke, but dismissed the idea that Bruce would spike her drink with LSD as preposterous—until Wotsit giggled, snaggle-toothed.

  “Sometimes you need a little push, Wombat,” said Bruce.

  Horrified, Elf put the bottle down. Shock trumped anger but anxiety trumped shock: Elf didn’t want to start tripping in front of these strangers. She didn’t want to start tripping at all. Bruce and a few of the Cousins crowd had dropped acid, but Elf was not attracted by the stories of archangels, or fingers turning into penises, or the death of the ego.

  “Am I reading this right?” Aphra asked Bruce. “You put LSD in your girlfriend’s drink without telling her?”

  “Just relax into it,” Bruce
told Elf.

  Elf stopped herself yelling, “You stupid moron, how dare you?” Allen Ginsberg was looking on, and to fail this acid test might be to kiss a gig goodbye at the mythical Fillmore. She looked at her bottle of Coke. She had only drunk about a quarter.

  Bruce pouted on his beanbag. “It’s your birthday present. You’re not this square.” He told Allen Ginsberg, “She’s not.”

  “Have you got it yet?” sang Syd Barrett. “Have you got it yet?”

  “No truly independent mind,” said Allen Ginsberg, “is square. And if Elf isn’t in the mood, a bad trip is far likelier.”

  Elf handed the Coke to Wotsit. “I’ll hear about your adventures in the morning.” Bruce looked sulky. Elf asked Aphra Booth. “Look after him, will you?”

  “Certainly not. Do I look like his mother?”

  * * *

  —

  ON CROMWELL ROAD, night had drawn a curtain of drizzle. A 97 bus groaned up to Elf’s stop. Downstairs was packed, so she went upstairs and took the last free double seat near the front. She leaned her head against the glass and replayed the scene in Wotsit’s room from various angles. Had she just turned down a lysergic acid golden ticket to San Francisco? Had she flunked a rite of passage? Was she a prisoner too afraid to escape from mind-prison? The bus stopped at the Natural History Museum. A tired-looking Caribbean woman appeared at the top of the stairs, making the quick-fire calculations women have to make when choosing a seat: Where am I least likely to get hassled? It must be doubly tricky if you’re black and female, Elf figured, so she made a sisterly feel-free-to-sit-here nod at the seat next to her. The woman took the seat with a silent nod back. Within a minute she had fallen asleep. Elf studied her, sideways. She was Elf’s age, give or take, with smoother skin, fuller lips, and thicker, curlier hair escaping from a headscarf. A silver cross rested on her clavicle behind the collar of a nurse’s uniform…

  * * *