Utopia Avenue

by David Mitchell

  Levon said, “We’re on a tight schedule, I’m afraid—”

  “A sweetener,” Pope patted his jacket pocket, “adds to the sales figure for the chart compilers at Melody Maker. A private audience with Miss Elf Holloway playing ‘Any Way the Wind Blows’ will multiply those figures by a factor of…ten.”

  Elf could smell Peter Pope’s body odor.

  Levon’s face told Elf, It’s your decision.

  Here was a chance to nudge “Darkroom” up the charts to where a DJ might sit up and take notice. “Just one song, then.”

  “We’ll be listening at the keyhole,” half joked Dean.

  “You could,” Peter Pope pinched his lips into a triumphant pucker, “if there was a keyhole. Mmmmmm.”

  Elf told herself not to worry. It was just one song.

  * * *

  —

  THE BACK OFFICE of Allegro Records was beige, tidy, and had a view of dustbins. Filing cabinets lined the walls. A black upright piano stood across from the desk. On the piano sat a framed photograph of a stern woman in buttoned-up clothes. Peter Pope closed the office door and lowered his voice. “Miss Holloway, I must warn you. Your manager, I think he’s a…you know…one of…”

  Elf had no intention of discussing Levon’s homosexuality. “His private business is his private business, Mr. Pope, and—”

  He exhaled egg fumes. “ ‘Business’ is the whole point! It’s all his sort care about. You have read The Merchant of Venice?”

  Elf was baffled. Peter Pope’s blackheads were like sweaty braille bumps. “The Merchant of Venice?”

  “If your manager is one of them”—he stabs his sausage finger at the door—“I very much fear for your career.”

  Elf didn’t understand. Until she suddenly did. “Hang on—are you asking me if Levon’s Jewish?”

  Peter Pope’s nostrils flared. “Of course. Is he?”

  Elf’s first instinct was to say, “No, he’s not Jewish at all!” but then she stumbled; to deny Peter Pope’s accusation would be to validate the gravity of the charge—and what was wrong with being Jewish in the first place?

  By now Peter Pope was smiling at his powers of deduction. “They hide. I seek. I find. Mmmmmm. It’s the noses.”

  “What? Would you be happier if they all embroidered a Star of David on their smocks?”

  “Oh, you hip young things gobble up their propaganda like Jelly Tots. Wake up! CND? Run by Jews. BBC? Ditto. LSD? Invented by Jews. Bob Dylan? A Jew. Brian Epstein? A Jew. Elvis Presley? A Jew. Your counterculture is a Zionist smokescreen.”

  “Do you seriously believe this?” asked Elf.

  “Who do you think ushered Adolf Hitler into power? The Rothschilds. They knew the way to the State of Israel was through the concentration camps. All down history, they’ve been pulling the levers. I described it for The Times but my exposé was censored.”

  “Maybe The Times needed proof,” suggested Elf.

  “Amateurs might leave ‘proof’ lying round, but the Zionists don’t. That’s why we can be sure they’re running things.”

  “So your only proof is your lack of proof?” asked Elf.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Forty days exactly after sending my exposé to The Times, I was invited to join the Slough Masonic Lodge. Oh, I sent the trouser-tuggers packing. Peter Pope is not for sale.” He lit one of Levon’s cigarettes and took a few puffs.

  The sooner I play it, the sooner I’m out of here. Elf sat at the piano and played a quick D scale to wake her fingers…

  * * *

  —

  …IN THE FINAL verse, scissors snipped close to her ear. Elf yanked her head away from the blades. Peter Pope peered at a long lock of Elf’s hair, pinched between his forefinger and thumb. He looked sexually aroused. Elf jumped off the piano stool, banging her knee. She was shaking. “Why—why did you cut my hair off?”

  “A chap’s entitled to a souvenir.” Peter Pope twirled the scissors around his finger. He brushed his cheek with the lock of her hair, savoring Elf’s disgust and liking it. “Your hair’s like Mother’s.”

  Elf hurried over to the door. Nightmarishly, the knob wouldn’t work. She turned it the other way, not daring to look back, and was out, into a record shop on a Friday afternoon in Slough.

  Lulu was singing “Let’s Pretend” on the shop stereo.

  Levon was flicking through the jazz albums.

  Dean was chatting up Pale Becky, by the look of it.

  The shop bell dinged as a customer entered.

  Levon looked up. “That didn’t take long. All well?”

  Elf was about to say, “No, that pervert just snipped off a strand of my hair!” But what could Levon do? Tell Peter Pope to give the lock of hair back? She didn’t want it back. If she reported the manager to the police, the desk sergeant would laugh. What law had the shop manager broken? If the slimy creep told Melody Maker that “Darkroom” had sold eight hundred copies across his three stores instead of eighty, who’s to say that wouldn’t nudge it into the Top Fifty?

  “I’ll treasure the memory of my private audience.” Peter Pope appeared. There was no sign of Elf’s hair. “Till the day I die.”

  Elf didn’t trust herself to answer.

  “So,” said Levon, “Mr. Pope, we can rely on your support?”

  “My word is my bond.” Peter Pope smiled at Elf, opened and closed his fist, like a toddler waving goodbye. “Don’t be a stranger, Nightingale.” His trout’s lips blew her a kiss.

  * * *

  —

  THE TROUT ON Elf’s plate gazes up. Lunchtime chatter fills the Seven Dials restaurant. Elf’s mother, Imogen, and Bea are looking her way. They asked you something. “Sorry, what was that? I was distracted by my trout. It reminded me of a manager. In Slough.”

  “He must have made quite an impression,” says Elf’s mum.

  “Mmmmmm.” Elf sinks her fork through the trout’s eye.

  Bea recites the John Betjeman poem: “Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough! It isn’t fit for humans now. There isn’t grass to graze a cow. Swarm over, Death. Then, of course, bombs really did fall. Betjeman must have felt absolutely dreadful.”

  “I went to Slough for a teaching seminar once.” Imogen dabs her mouth with her napkin. “There are worse places.”

  Bea spears a gherkin. “I can see the roadside signs: ‘Welcome to Slough: There Are Worse Places—Imogen Holloway.’ ”

  “Imogen Sinclair now,” their mother reminds her.

  “Still can’t quite get my head round that,” says Bea. “Mum, there’s un petit goutte left in here. Go on.” She tips the remnants into her mother’s champagne glass. “You’re only fifty once.”

  “Bless you, dear,” says her mother. “Though ‘a drop’ is feminine, ‘une petite goutte.’ You can run into trouble if you guess your genders wrongly.”

  “In French grammar as well as certain Soho clubs,” says Bea. Her mother and sisters give her a look. “So I’m told. By Elf.”

  “Funny.” Elf dismembers the trout with her fork. “Levon said to send you all his best wishes, before I forget.”

  Elf’s mum is pleased. “Send mine back. He was quite the gentleman at Immy’s wedding. Ever so well-presented, and so well-spoken. I imagine he’d be a very fair-minded boss.”

  “We’re lucky,” says Elf. “Most managers in show business are just one step up from the Kray Twins.”

  “Bea’s flying the nest, come September,” Imogen reminds their mother. “Have you thought of going back to work?”

  “Oh, I’m hardly kicking my heels, what with the Rotary Club, the Women’s Institute, the garden…not to mention your father.”

  Bea slices her quiche. “Do you miss teaching, Immy?”

  Imogen hesitates. “I’ve hesitated too long, haven’t I?”

  “Marriag
e takes acclimatization, darling,” says their mother. “For you and Lawrence. But don’t worry. You’ll get there.”

  Imogen squishes peas onto her fork. “It’s what we sign up for, isn’t it? House and home and all that.”

  “In the meantime,” says Bea, “we can live a vicarious rock ’n’ roll life via our jive chart-topping sister.”

  Elf harrumphs. “Not even ‘chart-scraping.’ ”

  “It’s still early days,” says Imogen.

  Elf loads a forkful of fish onto a buttery potato. “Early days is all most bands get. Pop’s not as cottage-industry as folk. Overheads are bigger. Studio fees. Marketing. Forty-nine out of fifty acts fail before they get a sniff of fame and fortune.”

  “You’ll be the one in fifty,” says Imogen. “My friends are still talking about the songs you did at the wedding.”

  “I loved that ‘Mona Lisa’ one,” says their mum. “Goosebumps. Why didn’t you release that as a single, darling?”

  Good question. “Because there are two other songwriters in Utopia Avenue, and we all want a crack of the whip.”

  “How did you decide on the first single?” asks Bea.

  * * *

  —

  THREE MONTHS AGO, the day after the Gravesend gig, Elf’s first thought was, It’s got to be “Mona Lisa.” The problem was, Dean nominated “Abandon Hope” and Jasper voted for “Darkroom.”

  “Pretend I’m Victor French,” Levon suggested. “Pitch me why your song should be the one.”

  “ ‘Abandon Hope’ ’s got a great riff,” said Dean. “It gives us all a chance to shine. Plus, I need the money more than Elf ’n’ Jasper.”

  Elf didn’t smile. “If we release ‘Abandon Hope,’ we’ll get pigeonholed as a blues band. It’s very bloke-y.”

  “And ‘Mona Lisa’ ’s very girlie,” objected Dean.

  “You’re guys,” said Elf, “so guys’ll listen to us anyway. If we release ‘Mona Lisa,’ we’ll get girls buying our records, too.”

  It was Jasper’s turn. “ ‘Darkroom’ has a psychedelic vibe. It’s our song for the British Summer of Love.”

  The clocks above Levon’s desk ticked. “All three could be hits,” said their manager. “It’s a lucky problem. Griff?”

  “I don’t know,” said Griff. “But you’ve got to sort this fairly. By the end of Archie Kinnock’s first band, all Ratner and Kinnock and the others did was squabble over fookin’ royalties.”

  “So what do yer suggest?” asked Dean. “Pool all the songwriting money from the singles, and divvy it up equal?”

  “Or credit all songs to the three of us?” suggests Jasper. “Lennon-McCartney. Jagger-Richards.”

  “I did that with Bruce for the Fletcher and Holloway EP,” said Elf. “It made more problems than it solved. If the EP had sold, the problems would’ve grown even nastier.”

  “We could leave it all up to Ilex,” suggested Levon. “Tell them, ‘You decide and leave us out of it.’ ”

  “No thanks,” said Dean. “Our music, our decision.”

  “We should roll a dice, then,” announced Jasper.

  “You…look like you’re being serious,” guessed Levon.

  “I am. Whoever rolls the highest has the first single. The second highest roll decides the second single. The third, the third.”

  “That’s bloody nuts,” said Dean. “Even for you.”

  “One dice. No blame. No bitching. Why’s that nuts?”

  Elf looked at Dean, who looked at Levon, who looked at Elf.

  Jasper placed a red dice with white spots on the coffee table.

  “You ain’t half a weird fooker sometimes, Zooto,” said Griff.

  “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” asked Jasper.

  Griff shrugged, smiled, and frowned, all at once.

  Dean picked up the dice. “Are we actually doing this?”

  “It’s bizarre,” said Levon, “but I admit, it’s…fair.”

  “It beats having a blazing, inconclusive row,” agreed Elf.

  “Bigger things’ve turned on the toss of a coin,” noted Griff.

  “The answer’s yes, then,” concluded Dean. “We’re doing it.”

  After a pause, the three songwriters nodded.

  Levon held up his palms in resignation. “Fine. But don’t let Ilex know. Or anyone in the press. It’s…eccentric. Who throws first?”

  “I do,” said Jasper. “Clockwise from the dice-owner.”

  “Right,” said Dean, “as if there’s a rulebook.”

  “There is,” replied Jasper. “Rule one: If there’s a draw, only the draw-ers throw again. Rule two: If the dice leaves the table, the thrower re-throws. Rule three: You shake the dice in your cupped hands for five seconds then you throw the dice—you can’t ‘place’ it. Rule four: The result is final. No whinging. No best-ofs.”

  “Blimey,” said Dean. “All right. You go first. Dice-owner.”

  Jasper shook the dice vigorously in his cupped hands; then dropped the dice. It landed on 3.

  “Could be worse.” Dean scooped up the dice. “Could be better.” He kissed his cupped hands, shook the dice, and let it fall. It clattered, skidded, and landed on 2. “Shit.”

  Without fuss or ritual, Elf shook the dice, and threw it. It dropped onto the glass and landed on 6…

  …but skidded off the edge and onto the floor.

  “Throw again!” said Dean. “Second rule. Throw again.”

  “I’m not deaf, Dean.” Elf re-threw. She got a 1.

  * * *

  —

  “WE ROLLED A dice,” admits Elf in the Seven Dials restaurant.

  “A dice?” checks their mother. “A dice?”

  “It seemed better than a shouting match.”

  Bea munches celery. “Does the record company know?”

  “They don’t need to. As it happens, Victor the A&R man wanted ‘Darkroom.’ He may be regretting it now. It’s done nothing.”

  “Nobody can accuse you of slacking, darling.” Her mum sounds indignant. “You’re all working like Trojans.”

  “We are.” Elf finishes her champagne. It’s now fizzless. “And we have nothing to show for it.”

  “Not true.” Imogen reopens this week’s Melody Maker and reads out the review: “Take a prime cut of Pink Floyd, add a dash of Cream, a pinch of Dusty Springfield, marinate overnight and whaddaya get? ‘Darkroom,’ a smashing debut served up by newcomers Utopia Avenue. Could be destined for great things.”

  “A nice thirty-word write-up is better than a nasty one.” Elf squishes her thumb onto breadcrumbs. “But without airplay we’re just four keen beans paying to be in a band.”

  “Don’t get cold feet now,” says Bea.

  “I like recording, when the guys aren’t being”—dicks—“idiots. I love playing live. We’re upping each other’s games as songwriters. But the sharks, creeps, setbacks, the miles and miles in the van, the feeling that nobody’s listening…it wears you down. I can’t say you didn’t warn me, Mum.”

  “Big of you to say so, darling.”

  “I’ll say this too. Having two worried parents is a gift Dean and Jasper don’t have. Gosh, I’m blethering. It’s the champagne.”

  “If you can blame the champagne,” says Elf’s mum, “so can I. When you told us you wanted to swap university for folk-singing, your father and I had our doubts.”

  “Uuuuuunderstatement,” sing-songs Bea.

  “We were afraid you’d be taken advantage of. That you’d—”

  “End up penniless and up the duff,” stage-whispers Bea.

  “Thank you, Bea. But look what you’ve done, Elf. A song on an American LP that went gold. Two EPs. Six hundred people paying to see you at Basingstoke town hall. You’re doing what you want to. Despite all the obstacles. That�
�s why I—we—and Dad too, even if he doesn’t say so, are jolly proud of you.”

  “It won’t get any better than this.” Bea holds up her glass. The four of them clink over the table. “To ‘Darkroom.’ ”

  They drink. Elf records the memory.

  Imogen clears her throat. “Speaking of being up the duff…”

  Elf, Bea, and their mother turn to look at her.

  Their mouths are already starting to droop.

  “I meant to wait until the coffee,” says Imogen, “but the champagne’s gone to my head as well…”

  * * *

  —

  I’M GOING TO be an aunt. Denmark Street is hot as engines and smells of tar. Pigeons row, not flap, through the humid air. Still half aglow from the champagne and buzzing from the coffee, Elf crosses Charing Cross Road. The doors of Foyles bookshop are open to ventilate the shady interior, and Elf feels the pull of its shelved labyrinth…But I need more unread books piling up like I need a bout of thrush. She walks through the ten-yard tunnel at the end of Manette Street under the Pillars of Hercules pub. A midday rent-boy says, “Love the hat, sweetheart.” Elf nods graciously. Greek Street smells of drains. Sleeves and skirts are short. Elf passes two Caribbean-looking women chatting in rapid-fire patois. One is burping a baby girl, who vomits milky gloop down her mum.

  I’m going to be an aunt. Elf hurries down to Bateman Street and round the corner to the continental newsagent. She runs her thumb up the rack of Le Monde, Die Welt, Corriere della Sera, De Volkskrant. She and Bruce used to dream about Paris. He’s there now…while I’m working my arse off to flog a single nobody wants. A dustbin buzzes with flies. A rat noses about. Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” escapes through the open door of Andromeda Records. Elf resists the temptation to go in and see how many copies of “Darkroom”…then succumbs and doubles back. On the New Releases shelf she counts fourteen singles; earlier there were sixteen. Two copies sold in two hours. If that happened at, say, five hundred record shops nationwide, that’s one thousand copies since eleven A.M….or four thousand during an eight-hour day…times six days, that’s twenty-four thousand singles…But who am I kidding? This is Soho, where Utopia Avenue is known. How many “Darkroom”s are the likes of Peter Pope likely to sell? Elf leaves the shop, worried.