Utopia Avenue

by David Mitchell

  “Foggy day,” Dean agreed. He walked into Chetwynd Mews and climbed the five or six steps to his front door. He was safely home. Luck had been on Dean’s side. He fished out his key…

  * * *

  —

  INSIDE, A GIRL’S boots were placed neatly in the porch. Jasper appeared to have returned from Oxford early and with company.

  Dean called, “Jasper?”

  No reply. Probably they were in bed. The air was peaty with dope-smoke. Mr. Kabouter was still on. Dean crossed the lounge to let in some air and light and yelped at the sight of Jude watching him from the armchair. The eggs hit the floor. “Shit, Jude! Yer gave me a heart attack!”

  Jude said nothing.

  The shoes in the porch were hers. “I just popped out to buy some aspirin. A while ago. Everywhere I tried was out. Traipsed halfway across the city. Just for aspirin! Unbelievable. Fancy some eggs?” He opened the box. Three were smashed. “Pre-scrambled eggs. Or d’yer fancy an omelette?”

  Jude stared at him.

  “So, is, uh…Jasper at home?”

  “He arrived the same time I did.” Her voice was off-key. “He let me in. He’s gone out again. I didn’t ask where.”

  “Right. Well. Nice to see yer.”

  “I called you last night to see if your flu was better, but nobody replied. So I thought I’d come up, to take care of you. I took the early train to Victoria. Nobody answered the door.”

  “Yer must’ve just missed me,” said Dean, “before I left.”

  “You’re a crap liar, Dean.”

  Dean acted baffled. “Why would I lie to yer?”

  “Don’t. Please.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t treat me like the mug I am.”

  Dean wished he was safe in the future where this scene was a past mistake and he no longer felt like King Shit.

  Jude rubbed her eye. “Everyone said you’ll think the rules don’t apply to you. I defended you. I said you had your feet on the ground.” She stood up, went to the door, and put on her coat and boots. “I’d like to say, ‘I wish you the best,’ but I don’t want my last words to you to be a lie. So…I hope you’ll find a better version of yourself than the one you are now. For your sake.”

  Dean felt scuzzier than a bag of pond weed.

  Jude closed the door behind her.

  * * *

  —

  “DEAN?”

  Amy’s looking at him. So is everyone else in Levon’s office. Bethany’s phone rings next door: “Good afternoon, Moonwhale?” The international clocks chop up minutes. “Sorry. What was the question?”

  “I was just saying,” says Amy, “if you want to dish me up any final tales of rock ’n’ roll depravity, I won’t turn them away.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Sorry. No. In bed by ten o’clock with a mug o’ cocoa and Golfing Weekly, that’s me.”

  “I can picture it.” Amy packs her handbag and stands up. “Well, I think I have everything, so…I’ll leave you to it.”

  Levon stands and slides the doors open. “When is the piece likely to run, would you say?”

  “Next week’s issue.”

  “And a review of the album?” asks Levon.

  “That, I’ve already written.”

  Dean scrutinizes her face for clues.

  The tip of Amy’s fang indents her lip. “Relax. Why bother writing eight hundred words on a band if I’ve trashed their album?”

  Dean shakes Amy’s hand. She looks him straight in the eye.

  * * *

  —

  DEAN STARED AT the chair Jude had sat in. It still held the faint ghost of her body heat. Lust had caused all this trouble. Hunting girls was a kind of addiction. Sex with these strangers brought him no pleasure. Dean swore to start treating women the way he treated Elf—like people, basically. Dean heard the telephone ring. He turned off the water and went to answer it. “Hello?”

  “Morning, yer dirty stop-out.”

  “Rod. Sorry I…sort o’ disappeared on yer last night.”

  “No explanation necessary, Romeo. Seal the deal?”

  “A gentleman never tells.”

  “Yer naughty rock god. Bit of yer magic dust fell on Kenny.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Oh yes. Last seen heading off for Hammersmith with a witchy maiden. Do the boy good. He’s got cum backed up to his sinuses. Stew slept on my sofa in Camden. He’s just left.”

  “All’s well that ends well, I s’pose.”

  “ ’Xactly. So, after such a brilliant night, it feels rude to talk ’bout money, but will yer be settling up by cash or check?”

  Time brakes sharply, like a train. “For the pills?”

  “Nah. Yer bar tab at the Bag o’ Nails.”

  Dean remembered. “Yeah. ’Course. And it came to…”

  “Ninety-six quid plus a bit o’ change.”

  Time came off the rails like a train crash.

  Dean didn’t have a spare ninety-six pounds.

  Dean didn’t have a spare fiver.

  “Dean?”

  “Uh…yeah.”

  “Oh, good. Thought I’d lost yer. After yer went, I closed yer tab. The Bag o’ Nails isn’t the cheapest bar in London. Yer made a generous gesture, but people take the piss. I hope that was okay?”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  “Is this line all right? Yer sound only half there.”

  As Dean was trying to work out how you tell a friend that you can’t pay them back an unexpectedly enormous drinks bill, his mind was hijacked by a memory of a hook sliding into a maggot’s mouth: Twist the hook out of his arse, said Harry Moffat, just so the point shows. See?

  * * *

  —

  POST-INTERVIEW, ELF AND Jasper are clearing up the coffee cups while Bethany runs through the calls Levon missed. Griff is motionless beneath his cowboy hat. Dean sees a woman’s glove on the arm of the sofa. “Look, Amy left a glove.”

  “Fancy that.” Elf gives Dean a loaded look.

  “I’ll see if I can catch her.”

  “She’ll be streets away by now,” says Jasper.

  “Or,” Elf says airily, “a lot nearer.”

  “When is a glove a lobster pot?” asks Griff.

  Dean hurries out of Levon’s office, out through Moonwhale’s door, and down to the landing of the Duke-Stoker Agency, where Amy is smoking a cigarette.

  Dean dangles the glove. “Lost: one suede glove.”

  “Fancy that.” She takes it. He pinches it more tightly. Her face says, You’re cute, but not that cute. He lets it go.

  “Do I get a reward?” He takes out his packet of Dunhills.

  “You get to give me your telephone number.”

  Yer cheeky, beautiful, slinky, curvy bitch.

  “If I give yer my number, how do I even know yer’ll call?”

  “You don’t.” Amy holds up her lighter.

  Denmark Street washes and ebbs up the stairs.

  Dean holds his cigarette in her flame.

  LAST SUPPER

  Upstairs at the Duke of Argyll, Griff began a headcount while waiting for his next Guinness to appear. Under a halo of Christmas lights, Bethany, her theater-director boyfriend, and Petula Clark were numbers 1, 2, and 3; the well-groomed quartet of Levon, a biochemist called Benjamin, Pavel Z, and the Move’s manager were 17, 18, 19, and 20; Jasper, Heinz Formaggio, and the scientist from Kenya were 36, 37, and 38; DJs John Peel and Bat Segundo were 44 and 45; and Elf and Bruce, sharing a moment in a nook, were 59 and 60. Bruce was pressing his forehead against Elf’s and talking and she was smiling the smile only lovers smile. Griff feared for Elf. A crash was coming. He extracted a Benzedrine from a pillbox in his jacket pocket, faced the window, and popped the bringer of peace and joy to all men. Below in Brewer S
treet, workers hurried home, collars up and hats down. Across the street, above a greengrocer’s, a boy of ten or so watched Griff through a window. Griff held up a hand in greeting. The boy sank away into gloom.

  “Suffering is the one promise life always keeps.”

  Griff turned to find two young women sporting blood-red lips, lethal-looking hatpins, fishnet gloves, fur stoles, and artful cleavage. He wasn’t sure which of them spoke. “Aye.”

  “We’ve never officially met,” said one.

  “But we’ve watched you play,” said the other. “Often.”

  “We’re your biggest fans,” they said together.

  Griff was both spooked and wanted to laugh.

  “I’m Venus,” said one. “As in the goddess.”

  “I’m Mary,” said the other. “As in the virgin.”

  “Here’s yer Guinness, Wild Man o’ Rock.” Dean handed him a pint. “It’s the Battle o’ Waterloo in the bar. Who do we have here?” He gave Griff a sly-old-dog look; Griff fired back a never-met-’em-before look. “This is Venus and Mary,” he replied. “In person.”

  “Hello, Dean.” Venus and Mary spoke in perfect stereo.

  Dean looked from one to the other. “Wow.”

  “We’ve seen you eleven times now,” said Mary.

  “We’ve played Paradise Is the Road to Paradise over two hundred times,” said Venus. “We’re on our third copy.”

  “We’ve memorized the lyrics. We collect your press clippings. Even from the Hull Gazette. We know your birthdays.”

  “Know the colors of our front doors too, do yer?” joked Dean.

  “Your and Jasper’s door is bright red,” said Venus. “Elf’s door down on Livonia Street is bare metal, but the internal one to her apartment is black. Yours used to be creosoted wood.” Venus looked at Griff. “But now it’s mushy-pea green.”

  Before Griff could work out what to think about this, Amy arrived holding a huge martini. “It’s bedlam down there.” She saw the two groupies and read the situation. “My God, I love your look. The lacework on those corsets…”

  “We ransacked our dead grannies’ wardrobes,” said Mary.

  “We thought, Why leave it to the moths?” said Venus.

  “Why indeed?” said Amy. “Are you sisters?”

  “Sisters on Utopia Avenue,” explained Venus. “We enjoyed your feature, Amy. You’re Melody Maker’s best writer.”

  “By a mile,” said Mary. “You never suck up to bands, but you never shit on them. We think you’re good for Dean.”

  Amy glanced at Dean and sipped her drink. “I’m glad you deem me to be worthy of him.”

  “He’s glowing,” said Venus. “More than he did when he was going out with that hairdresser. Just don’t break his heart.”

  “Or we’ll eviscerate you,” they intoned together.

  Amy could only smile. “I have been warned.”

  Mary touched Griff’s pint. “May I wet my whistle, Griff?”

  Griff found himself handing her his stout. She drained off a quarter and passed it to Venus, who drank a similar quantity.

  “Guinness tastes to thirsty people…” began Mary.

  “…how blood tastes to vampires,” said Venus. “It’s the iron.” She handed Griff back his half-empty glass.

  Levon, standing on a chair, was hailing the room through a hand megaphone, “Okay, folks, okay, folks, a few words, IF YOU PLEASE…” The racket subsided. “Thank you, one and all, for being here, at the end of a hectic day, a hectic week, a hectic year. We have a lot to celebrate today. Not only the release of Utopia Avenue’s brand-new single, Dean’s song ‘Abandon Hope’…”

  A cheer went up and Dean raised a hand.

  “…but also Paradise Is the Road to Paradise.” Levon held up the LP to louder cheers. “Only eleven weeks ago, it was a gleam in the band’s eye. Only seven weeks ago, Elf, Jasper, Dean, and Griff finished recording the last song at Fungus Hut. To my mind, the results speak for themselves.”

  A ragged shout of approval; much applause.

  “A few reviewers pissed on our strawberries…” Levon dampened down cries of “Death to Felix Finch!” and “Eunuchs in a harem!” “…but, on the whole, the album earned the reception we’d hoped for. The British music press has no wiser critic than Miss Amy Boxer of Melody Maker—who happens to be with us tonight.”

  Cheers broke out. Amy waved. Dean clapped hard.

  “If Amy doesn’t object,” Levon continued, “I’ll read from her review for Paradise.” The reporter made a be-my-guest gesture, while Levon unrolled a copy of Melody Maker, put on his glasses, and turned to the right page: “Here we go: Question: What do you get if you cross an Angry Young Bassist, a folk-scene doyenne, a Stratocaster demigod and a jazz drummer? Answer: Utopia Avenue, a band like no other. Their debut LP, Paradise Is the Road to Paradise, is one of the Must Own albums of 1967. The range and quality of the songwriting is formidable. Bassist Dean Moss serves up ‘Abandon Hope,’ a slice of mean streets R&B. ‘Smithereens’ is a lonesome howl for broken dreams. ‘Purple Flames’ is a seven-minute epic of riffs, power, soul-searching and maturity.”

  Cries of “Hear, hear” and “Well said, Amy” break out.

  Levon sipped his rum. “Elf Holloway’s ethereal, gutsy voice is well known to her legions of fans. Revelatory on Paradise, however, are her chops as a keyboard player. Listen to her scorching Hammond solo on ‘Purple Flames,’ or the prismatic playing on ‘Darkroom.’ Miss Holloway’s new songs are also top notch. ‘A Raft and a River’ is an electric-folk ode to music, while ‘Unexpectedly’ is a torch song whose torch flares up again.”

  “White hot, baby!” Bruce held his arms aloft like a champion, then kissed Elf. Griff looked at Dean. They rolled their eyes.

  “ ‘Mona Lisa Sings the Blues’ is the mightiest of the three. No wittier exposé of the roles a woman has to navigate in a Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World has ever been etched into vinyl. A future single, surely?” Levon looked up. “I think we would all agree, yes?”

  More applause. Venus and Mary applauded in rhythmic unison, Griff noticed, like a single pair of hands.

  “Which brings us,” Levon continued, “to Jasper de Zoet. Comparisons with Messrs. Clapton and Hendrix are, for once, merited. De Zoet plays acoustic passages, feedback squalls, space-blues with startling alacrity. He wrote Utopia Avenue’s breakout hit, ‘Darkroom,’ the strangest love song ever to grace Top of the Pops. ‘Wedding Presence’ is a dreamy waltz to dance among the chandeliers. De Zoet’s third offering is ‘The Prize,’ about a journey to the brink of stardom. It echoes Dylan’s ‘Desolation Row’ but, like the LP it concludes, it is its own glorious beast.” Applause.

  Griff fished out a Marlboro, put it into his mouth, and patted his pockets to locate a lighter; Mary was ready with a match. Venus blew it out. Their eyes were four full moons.

  “Home lap,” said Levon. “To overlook Griff Griffin’s role in Utopia Avenue would be criminal. Griffin chugs like Charlie Watts, explodes like Keith Moon, swings like Ginger Baker.” Venus and Mary gently squeezed Griff’s right and left biceps. It was both spooky and arousing. “The Moss-Griffin rhythm section is the invisible force that unifies this remarkably diverse album. Paradise Is the Road to Paradise…” Levon swept his gaze around the upstairs room “…has the makings of a classic. Amy, I could not have declared my love for Utopia Avenue so skillfully myself.”

  More applause. It was all getting too lovey-dovey for Griff. He put down his glass on the mantelpiece.

  “Where’re yer off to?” asked Dean.

  “Busting for a wazz.”

  * * *

  —

  GRAFFITI WAS WRITTEN on the calamine-pink wall at eye level above the urinal. Maybe it was witless smut, or maybe it was witty smut, but Griff couldn’t muster the energy to turn the letters into words, so he
let the hieroglyphics be. The plughole gurgled. He sucked the last life out of his Marlboro and dropped the stub into the small yellowish pond. It hissed. The door banged open and Friday night pub noise swilled in. A moment later Dean was unzipping his fly at the adjacent urinal, singing the theme tune to Born Free. “So,” said Dean. “Venus ’n’ Mary.”

  “What about them?”

  “It’s pur-retty clear they want to fondle yer tom-toms.”

  “Groupies are groupies.”

  “Yer point being?”

  “They want a pop star. They don’t want me.”

  “So? Yer still get to do the ravishing. Or ravishings.”

  Griff thought of Elf and Bruce.

  “Just plunge in,” said Dean. “What’re yer ’fraid of?”

  “Pubic lice and five varieties of the clap, for starters.”

  “Yer know what we say about female hygiene in Gravesend.”

  “Why do I suspect,” said Griff, “that the next words out of your mouth’ll put me off my food till next fookin’ Easter?”

  Dean acted wounded. “Wholesome advice for my comrade-in-arms is all I’m offering yer: If it smells like chicken, keep on lickin’. If it smells like trout, get the fuck out.”

  Griff tried not to smile. “You are foul.”

  “It’s a gift.” Dean zipped his zipper. “Seriously, threesomes don’t come along that often, and yer mojo needs a workout. That’s why yer’ve been all pale ’n’ quiet ’n’…hungry-looking.”

  * * *

  —

  TWO WEEKS LATER, standing with his tray of fish and chips and bottle of Coke, Griff looks around the Blue Boar motorway services restaurant. Two tribes occupy the place during the graveyard shift. The truckers have short hair, plaid shirts, bad backs, and swelling bellies. They pore over the Mirror, the Sporting Post, or road atlases and discuss routes, miles per gallon, speed traps, and dangerous bends. The showbiz tribe are musicians and performers, plus managers, roadies, and entourage, if applicable. Male hair tends to be shoulder-length, and costumes this year are paisley, velveteen, and ruffled. They gossip about labels, signings, venues, musical instruments, and which promoter went mysteriously bust before receipts from the last tour were paid. Of Griff’s brother, Steve, there is no sign. Griff isn’t worried. It’s an icy night and traffic is slower than usual. The Beatles’ table is free, so Griff heads over with his tray to claim it. Everybody on the British touring circuit refuels at the twenty-four-hour Blue Boar, located in Watford Gap, a notional border—not near Watford, despite the name—between the north and the south of England. When Jimi Hendrix first came to London, he heard the Blue Boar mentioned so often that he assumed it was a hip club in Knightsbridge or Soho.