Neither Jasper nor Mecca has been to an airport before. It feels futuristic. A man ‘checks in’ Mecca’s luggage, swaps her ticket for ‘a boarding card’ and directs them to a door marked ‘DEPARTURES’. Most of the passengers are dressed as if they’re going to a wedding or a job interview. They arrive at a doorway marked ‘PASSENGERS ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT’.
This is the end. They hug. Ask if you can visit her in Chicago. Ask her to come back to London on her way home. Her eyes drink him in. Drink me up. What to say? Tell her you love her … but how would I know if I did? Dean says, ‘You just know’ … but how do you know that you ‘just know’? ‘I don’t want you to go,’ says Jasper.
‘Same here,’ says Mecca. ‘That’s why I should.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I know.’ She lifts his knuckle to her lips, then the queue shuffles her away. She looks back one last time, the way you’re warned against by myths and fairy tales. She waves from the gateway and she’s going, going … gone. A person is a thing that leaves. Jasper retraces his steps and joins another queue, for a coach back to Victoria. It’s a cold March night. He feels what you feel when you’ve lost something, but before you’ve worked out what it is. Not my wallet, not my keys … In his jacket pocket he finds an envelope stamped ‘Mike Anglesey Studio’. Opening it, he finds a photograph of the shot he took of Mecca in Ho Kwok’s only yesterday, after Jasper asked her to imagine her homecoming in Berlin. For once I don’t have to guess what anybody’s thinking. I know. On the reverse side she has written a message:
Smithereens
For a lost tourist, the door of 13A Mason’s Yard in Mayfair would not merit a second glance. For Dean, it was a magic portal to the land where the in-crowd frolic, frequented by A&R men and producers; by columnists who can make or break you by tomorrow lunchtime; by masters of the realm and their daughters after a bit of exotic rock ’n’ roll rough; by the designers of next year’s fashions, the models who’ll wear them and the photographers who’ll shoot them; and by musicians who no longer dream of success because they have it; by Beatles and Stones, Hollies and Kinks; by visiting Monkees, Byrds and Turtles; by Gerry, with or without a Pacemaker; by Dean’s future peers who’ll tell him, ‘Send me a demo, I’ll give it a play,’ or ‘Our support act just doesn’t cut it – could Utopia Avenue step in?’ Behind the door of 13A Mason’s Yard is the Scotch of St James club. Members only.
Dean told Jasper, ‘I’ll do the talking.’
He pressed the bell and an eye-level door slot snapped open. An all-seeing eye examined the pair. ‘And you gentlemen are?’
‘Friends o’ Brian’s. Said he’d put us on the list.’
The reply came, ‘Brian Jones or Brian Epstein?’
‘Epstein.’
‘Then I’ll just check my list … Ah, right, Brian is expecting … uh … Are you Neil and Ben, by any chance?’
Dean couldn’t believe his luck. ‘That’s us.’
‘Perfect. Let me double-check the surnames … so you’d be Mr Neil Downe and your mate here’s Mr Ben Dover?’
‘That’s us all right,’ said Dean, then got the puns.
The All-Seeing Eye gleamed and the slot shut.
Dean pressed the doorbell again. The slot opened and the All-Seeing Eye peered out. ‘And you gentlemen are?’
‘I was out of order just now. Sorry. But we are musicians. We’re in Utopia Avenue. We’re playing Brighton Poly tomorrow.’
‘Submit a membership application, plus fee, and management will consider the matter. Or get on Top of the Pops and the fee might be waived. Step aside, please.’
A quiff, a nose and a neck-ruff whooshed past Dean. The door of 13A half-opened and a burst of ‘How’ve yer been, Mr Humperdinck?’ escaped before the door closed again.
Dean jabbed the doorbell three times.
The slot snapped open. ‘And you gentlemen are?’
‘Dean Moss. This is Jasper de Zoet. Remember our names. One o’ these days we’re coming in.’ He strode off across Mason’s Yard.
Jasper trotted to keep up. ‘Maybe it’s for the best. Our first gig’s tomorrow. A hangover won’t help.’
‘That smug shit was a shitting ponce.’
‘Was he? I thought he was quite polite.’
Dean stopped. ‘Don’t yer ever get pissed off?’
‘I’ve tried, but I’m unconvincing.’
‘It’s not a matter of “convincing”! It’s a bloody emotion!’
Jasper blinked. ‘Exactly.’
The traffic is sluggish all the way from Waterloo to Croydon, so Dean doesn’t have the chance to take the Beast above 30 m.p.h. The gearstick is clunky as hell and the van keeps stalling at junctions. South of Croydon, they get stuck behind a slow convoy of caravans, so only now, beyond the yawn-and-you-miss-it town of Hooley, where the A23 crests the shoulder of the South Downs, is the road empty enough for Dean to put his foot down.
‘It’s not exactly built for speed,’ says Dean.
‘She’s a “She” not an “It”,’ says Griff in the back. ‘And she’s loaded up with four musicians and their gear.’
When the speedo touches 45 m.p.h., the Beast starts to shudder ominously.
‘That doesn’t sound good,’ says Elf.
Dean drops back down to forty and the shuddering subsides. ‘Griff, did yer actually test-drive this piece of crap?’
‘Never look a gift horse in the mouth.’
Dean had to borrow fifteen pounds from Moonwhale to pay his quarter share of this ‘gift’. More debt … I’m going to have to start serving coffees again, at this rate. ‘Yer should always look a gift horse in its mouth. They’re never gifts.’
‘We needed a van so I got us one,’ said Griff.
‘Yeah – we needed a van. Not a twenty-five-year-old ex-hearse with holes in the floor yer can see the road through.’
‘Didn’t see you putting in the leg-work,’ says Griff.
‘Well, I think the Beast has character,’ says Elf.
‘As long as it gets us from A to B,’ says Jasper.
‘Thanks for yer expert opinions,’ Dean retorts. ‘When the crankshaft shears off at two a.m. on the hard shoulder I’ll let yer fix it with a bit o’ “character”, Elf. And when are you,’ he asks Jasper, ‘getting your driving licence so you can do that A-to-B bit?’
‘I’m not sure I’d trust myself behind the wheel.’
‘How bloody convenient.’
Jasper, predictably, says nothing. Is he pissed off? Cowed? Or does he not give a toss? Dean is still never sure what his flatmate-bandmate’s thinking. Guessing gets tiring.
‘There’s a bloke in Wales,’ says Griff, ‘who’ll sit your test for you. You pay twenty-five quid and a fortnight later your licence arrives. Keith Moon got his that way.’
The anecdote deserves a response, but Dean’s heard it before. ‘Anyone got a ciggie?’ Nobody replies. ‘Please.’
Elf lights a Benson & Hedges and passes it to him.
‘Ta. If this is the Beast’s top speed –’ Dean takes a drag ‘– we’re in for some long bloody drives. Radio’s knackered too.’
‘If someone gave you a million quid,’ says Griff, ‘you’d complain they didn’t fookin’ pack it right.’
‘Comrades,’ says Elf, schoolmarmishly, ‘tonight’s our first gig. We’ll make music history. Let love and peace reign.’
The A23 curves out of the woods and climbs a hill.
Sussex unrolls all the way to the English Channel.
The golden afternoon is threaded by a silver river.
The sky turns dark. Dean sucks a toffee as the Beast passes through Pease Pottage, a village less quaint than its name. ‘If I had to choose one gig, it’d be Little Richard at the Folkestone Odeon. ’Bout ten years ago. Bill Shanks took us. Bill owns the record shop in Gravesend and sold me my first proper guitar. He drove my brother Ray ’n’ me and a few of us down to Folkestone in his van. Little Richard … Jesus, he’s a one-man power station. The
screaming, the energy, the theatrics. The girls. I thought, Well, now I know what I’m doing when I grow up. Then, halfway through “Tutti Frutti”, he was doing his thing, leaping on the piano, howling like a werewolf – when he stopped. Clutched his chest, went into a spasm … and hit the deck like a sack o’ spanners.’
The Beast passes a gypsy encampment in a lay-by.
‘That was part of his act, right?’ asks Elf.
‘So we thought. Little Richard’s such a card, we thought. He’s codding us, we thought. But then the band noticed. They stopped playing. Then, dead silence. Little Richard lay there, twitching … and then stopped. Meanwhile a manager dashed up, tried to find a heartbeat, and shouted, “Mr Richard? Mr Richard?” Yer could hear a pin drop. The manager stood up, dead pale ’n’ sweaty, and asked if there was a doctor in the house. We all looked at each other thinking, Bloody hell, Little Richard’s dying on us … A man called back, “I’m a doctor, let me through, let me through.” He hurried up onto the stage, took Little Richard’s pulse, uncorked a bottle, held it under his nose, and then this –’ Dean overtakes a tractor pulling a load of horse-manure ‘– ear-splitting “Awop-bop-a-loo-bop a-lop-bam-boom!” rang out. Little Richard sprang up – and the band came in bang on the chorus. The whole thing had been a put-on. Even the guys screamed! And it was on with the show.’
Raindrops splatter on the windscreen.
The wiper scree-scraws ineffectually.
Dean drops down to 30 m.p.h. ‘After the show, Shanks ’n’ Ray and the others pissed off down the boozer. I was left to my own devices so I reckoned I’d go for Little Richard’s autograph. Told the bouncer at the Odeon that I was Little Richard’s nephew, and if he didn’t let me in, he’d be in trouble. He told me to piss off. So I went round the back and joined the fans at the stage door. After a bit the manager showed up and said Little Richard’d gone already. They all believed him. The very same geezer who’d given it the whole is-there-a-doctor-in-the-house stunt. I played along but I sneaked back a minute later just as a window opened, three floors up. There he was. Little Richard, large as life. He took a few puffs of his joint, flicked away the butt, then shut the window. I did what any normal twelve-year-old Tarzan fan’d do. Climbed the drainpipes.’ The Beast approaches a bedraggled hitchhiker whose sign reads ‘ANYWHERE’. The ink is running. Dean asks, ‘Can we squeeze that poor bastard in?’
‘Not unless he’ll fit in the fookin’ ashtray,’ says Griff.
‘So you were climbing up the drainpipes,’ says Elf.
The Beast passes the hitchhiker. ‘Got to the third floor, where I shimmied up a diagonal pipe towards Little Richard’s window … and the drainpipe came away from the wall. Fifty feet up! I lunged for the vertical section, grabbed it, and heard the pipe smash on the ground below. It looked like half a mile down. My only hope was to haul myself up to Little Richard’s windowsill and go knock-knock-knock on the glass. It was that cloudy glass you can’t see through. No one answered. I was clinging to the pipe like a koala but my hands were cramping up and my feet couldn’t get any purchase. I knocked again. Nothing. Thought I was a goner – and if the window hadn’t slid upwards on my third knock, I would’ve been. It was Little Richard himself. Shiny quiff, pencil moustache, looking at this kid literally hanging on by his fingernails saying, “Hello, Mr Richard, can I have yer autograph please?”’
A bus flings a spume of spray onto the windscreen.
Dean’s driving blind until the water’s run off.
‘You can’t end on that cliff-hanger,’ says Griff.
‘First, he hauled me inside and gave me an earful ’bout how I’d just nearly killed myself but I was thinking, This is amazing, I’m getting a bollocking off of Little Richard. Then he asked who was in charge of me. I said my brother but he was in the pub. I told him my name and said I was going to be a star too. That softened him up a bit. “Son,” he said, “ain’t no star ever went by the name of Moffat.” I said my mother’s maiden name was “Moss” and he said, “Dean Moss, that’ll work,” and he wrote on a photo, “To Dean Moss, Climber to the Stars – from Little Richard”. Then one of his people escorted me out past the bouncer who hadn’t let me in and my adventure was over. Ray ’n’ the others thought I was making it all up till I showed them my photographic evidence.’
A sign says it’s twenty-seven miles to Brighton.
‘Do you still have it?’ asks Griff. ‘The photo?’
‘Nah.’ Do I tell them? ‘My old man burned it.’
Elf’s horrified. ‘Why would your dad do such a thing?’
The middle classes have no bloody idea.
Dean’s lip-scar throbs. ‘Long story.’
‘Nina Simone at Ronnie Scott’s,’ says Elf. The Beast rattles through a village called Handcross. ‘I was seventeen. My parents would never have let me go into Soho alone, but Imogen and a boy from church chaperoned me into Satan’s Lair. I’d been sneaking off to the Folk Barge at Richmond since I was fifteen but Nina Simone was in a higher league. Way higher. She floated across Ronnie Scott’s like Cleopatra on her barge. A black orchid dress. Pearls the size of pebbles. She sat down and announced “I am Nina Simone”, as if daring you to contradict her. That was it. No “Thank you for coming”, no “I’m honoured to be here.” It was our job to thank her for coming. We were honoured to be there. A drummer, a bassist and a saxophonist, that was it. She played a bluesy, folkie set. “Cotton-eyed Joe”, “Gin House Blues”, “Twelfth Of Never”, “Black Is The Color Of My True Love’s Hair”. No banter. No jokes. No fake heart attack. Once, a couple were whispering too loud. She eyeballed the offenders, and said, “Pardon me, am I singing too loud for y’all?” The couple combusted on the spot.’
A sign says Brighton is twenty miles away.
‘In awe of her as I was, I never wanted to be Nina Simone,’ continues Elf. ‘I’m a white English folk singer. She’s a coloured Juilliard-trained genius. She plays blues with her left hand and Bach with her right. I saw her do it. All I wanted was a few ounces of her self-assurance. I still do. Heckling Nina Simone would be like heckling a mountain. Unthinkable. Pointless. At the end she told the audience, “I will sing one encore, and one only.” It was “The Last Rose Of Summer”. I was by the cloakroom with my sister when she left. One woman held up an album and a pen but Nina just said, “I am here to S-I-N-G, not S-I-G-N.” A minder opened the door and off she departed to her secret London palace. I used to think you became a star by having hits. After that show, I started to think, No – you are a star first, therefore you have the hits.’
The Beast’s wheel thumps into a pothole.
The vehicle jolts but carries on at 40 m.p.h.
‘Which is probably why I’m not a star.’
‘Until tonight,’ says Griff. ‘Until tonight.’
A cherry-red Triumph Spitfire Mark II overtakes the Beast on a downhill stretch lined with orchards. If Utopia Avenue ever makes real money, thinks Dean, I’m getting one o’ them. I’ll drive to Gravesend, and slow down outside Harry Moffat’s flat and I’ll rev the engine once to say, ‘Screw’ and again to say, ‘You’ …
The real Triumph Spitfire drives away, into the future.
The road is patchy with puddles mirroring the sky.
‘What about your best show, then, Zooto?’ asks Griff.
Jasper thinks. ‘Big Bill Broonzy once played “Key To The Highway” just for me. Does that count?’
‘Give over,’ says Griff. ‘He’s been dead donkey’s years.’
‘I was eleven. It was 1956. I was spending the summer in Domburg in the Netherlands. My Dutch grandfather was an old friend of the vicar in the town, and every year I’d stay with the vicar and his wife during the school holidays. That summer I made a model Spitfire out of balsa wood. It flew beautifully. It was the best I’d ever made. One evening, I launched it on my final throw and the breeze carried it over the high wall of the last garden in Domburg you’d want your prize glider to land in. The garden of Captain Verplancke. He had been in
the wartime Resistance and had quite a reputation. The other boys told me I should go and get the vicar. Kids didn’t just knock on Captain Verplancke’s door at eight o’clock at night. But I thought, The worst he’ll do is just say no. So in I went, up to the house and knocked. Nobody answered. I knocked again. Nothing. So I walked around the back and there, on Walcheren Island, a stone’s throw from the North Sea, was a scene off a Mississippi whiskey label. Porch, lantern, rocking chair and a big black man playing a guitar, hoarsely crooning in English and smoking a roll-up. I’d never spoken to a person who wasn’t white before. I hadn’t heard of blues guitar, let alone heard any. He may as well have been a Martian playing Martian music. Yet I was transfixed. What was it? How could music be so sad, so sparse, so dilatory, so jagged, so many things all at once? Pretty soon the guitarist noticed me, but he carried on playing. He played the whole of “Key To The Highway”. At the end, he asked me in English, “So, what’s the verdict, Shorty?” I asked if I could ever learn to play like that. “No,” he told me, “because” – I’ll always remember this – “you haven’t lived my life and the blues is a language you can’t lie in.” But if I wanted it enough, he said, then one day I’d learn to play like me. The vicar arrived at this point to apologise for my intrusion, and my audience with the mystery stranger was over. The next day, Captain Verplancke’s housekeeper dropped by with the Big Bill Broonzy and Washboard Sam LP, signed with the words “Play It Like You”.’
Utopia Avenue : A Novel Page 9