Utopia Avenue : A Novel

by Mitchell, David

  Experience has taught Jasper to be evasive. ‘Only distantly.’

  The changing room at AVRO TV boasts four chairs facing four mirrors lit by four naked lightbulbs, a coat-stand, two squashed cockroaches on a floor of broken tiles and a view of dustbins. ‘We’ve hit the big time now, baby,’ mumbles Dean.

  ‘At least it doesn’t smell of piss and beer,’ says Elf.

  ‘Relax here for twenty minutes,’ says the assistant.

  Jasper looks away from the mirrors. I doubt that.

  ‘Here, you do preparation,’ says the assistant. ‘Two minutes before your slot, I will deliver you to the studio stage. You will perform the songs “The Darkroom” and “Mona Lisa Sings The Blues”. After, Henk will conduct a short interview. Is there anything that you need in addition?’

  ‘A ball of opium as big my head,’ says Dean. ‘Please.’

  ‘This you may buy in the city. After the show.’

  Applause washes down the corridor outside as Shocking Blue, a four-piece psychedelic band from the Hague, start the show.

  ‘I will be back.’ The assistant shuts the door behind him.

  ‘Bloody Nora.’ Dean turns to Jasper. ‘There’s no holding you wild Bohemian swinging Dutch freaks back, is there?’

  Irony, sarcasm or sincere? Jasper does an all-purpose shrug.

  ‘I’d like a quick word with the Hollies’ manager.’ Levon puts on his blue glasses. ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.’

  ‘That gives us plenty of scope,’ says Elf, as tradition dictates.

  Jasper slips his jacket over a hanger, hooks the hanger over the mirror, sits down and gets out his Rothmans.

  ‘But why do mirrors give you the creeps?’ asks Griff. ‘Granted, aye, you’re no oil painting, but you’re not that revolting.’

  ‘They just creep me out.’ Jasper avoids the specifics.

  ‘Oooh, hark at Captain Mysterious,’ says Griff.

  ‘Phobias are irrational,’ says Elf. ‘That’s the point.’

  ‘The things I’m afraid of are all pretty sensible,’ says Dean, ‘Bee-swarms. Atomic war. Surviving an atomic war.’

  ‘The plague,’ says Griff. ‘Elevator shafts. Elf?’

  Elf thinks. ‘Forgetting lines onstage. Fluffing songs.’

  ‘If that happens,’ says Dean, ‘just sing in fake Hungarian and when people say, “What’s that?” say, “It’s avant-garde.”’

  ‘Avant-garde a clue,’ says Griff. ‘I left my sunglasses in the makeup room. I’ll be right back.’ He stands up to go.

  ‘That old trick,’ says Dean. ‘Yer just after Miss Makeup Artist’s number, yer old dog. I’ll come along. Want to cop yer face when she turns yer down.’

  ‘I’d like to see Shocking Blue,’ says Elf. ‘Coming, Jasper?’

  Peace, quiet and a cigarette are inviting. ‘I’ll stay here.’

  There’s a knock-knock-knock on the changing-room door.

  It’s okay, Jasper assures himself. ‘Hello?’

  A face with a square jaw, a restless stare and brown hair. ‘Jasper de Zoet, I presume.’ The visitor has a deep American voice.

  Jasper knows him. He’s formerly of the Byrds. ‘Gene Clark.’

  ‘Hi. Mind if I disturb you?’

  ‘You’re welcome. Just mind the roaches.’

  Gene Clark peers down to examine the squashed bugs. ‘There but for the grace of God.’ Jasper’s unsure what a normal response might be so he shrugs and hopes for the best. The visitor is dressed in a fuchsia shirt, loose mauve string tie, green trousers and gleaming Anello and Davide boots. He pulls a chair out. ‘Just wanted to say, I really dig your LP. Your guitar playing’s out of this world. Did you teach yourself?’

  ‘I had a Brazilian teacher for a while. Mostly, I taught myself. In a long continuum of rooms.’

  The singer looks as if Jasper’s answer was strange. ‘You taught yourself good. When I heard “Darkroom”, I thought, “How in hell did Pink Floyd get Eric Clapton to play with ’em?” It’s great.’

  That’s a compliment, Jasper realises. Give one back. ‘Thank you. The album you made with the Gosdin Brothers is a banquet. “Echoes” is remarkable. That uphill F major seventh is ingenious.’

  ‘So that’s an F major seventh?’ Gene Clark taps ash. ‘I call it “F demented”. I liked how the album turned out. Too bad it sold shit. It came out the same time as my old band released their Younger Than Yesterday LP and it vanished down a hole …’

  Jasper guesses that it’s his turn to speak. ‘Are you touring?’

  ‘Just a few dates, here in Holland and Belgium. They dig me here. Enough for a promoter to fly me over, anyway.’

  ‘I thought you quit the Byrds because of a fear of flying?’

  Gene Clark stubs out his cigarette. ‘I quit the Byrds ’cause I was tired of flying. Tired of that life, of the screams, of the faces, of the fame. So I quit. Fame moulds itself onto your face. Then it moulds your face. Fame brings you immunity from the usual rules. That’s why the law doesn’t like us. If a freak with a guitar doesn’t have to abide by the rules of the great and the good, why should anyone? Problem is, if fame is a drug, it’s hard to kick.’

  ‘But you did kick it, Mr Clark,’ says Jasper. ‘You walked away from the American Beatles.’

  Gene Clark examines the callous on his hand. ‘I did. And guess what? Now it’s gone, I want it back. How do I earn a living, without fame? Playing coffee houses for beer money won’t cut it. I miss being someone. When I had fame, fame was killing me. Now it’s gone, anonymity is killing me.’

  Shocking Blue’s ‘Lucy Brown Is Back In Town’ wafts down the corridor. The saxophone solo’s great. The song itself is not.

  ‘We’ll give you a home in Utopia Avenue,’ says Jasper.

  Gene Clark flashes his smile as if Jasper was joking. ‘Am I life’s greatest fool? Is all pop just a fad? Do we all get replaced by some new Johnny Thunder and the Thunderclaps after X many years? Or could we still be in this game when we’re sixty-four? Who can tell?’

  ‘Time,’ says Jasper.

  The last chords of the recorded ‘Mona Lisa Sings The Blues’ die away and the assistant producer holds up a Dutch sign saying ‘APPLAUS’. The audience obliges. Jasper recognises Sam Verwey, his old busking partner and classmate at the art college. Verwey gives him a double thumbs-up. The band is ushered over to a sofa alongside Henk Teuling. The presenter of Fenklup is a walrus of a man dressed like a civil servant. Addressing the camera, he speaks scholarly Dutch as if to atone for the show’s hippie visuals. ‘The British band Utopia Avenue, playing “The Darkroom” and “Mona Lisa Sings The Blues”. Their guitarist Jasper de Zoet is “half Dutch” – and a scion of the famous de Zoet shipping family. Am I correct?’

  ‘Mostly,’ replies Jasper. ‘Shall we speak in English?’

  ‘Naturally.’ Henk Teuling gives a magnanimous smile and indicates Elf. ‘Why don’t you introduce this lovely lady first?’

  ‘This is Elf,’ says Jasper, ‘who wrote “Mona Lisa”.’

  Elf gives a cool wave at the camera and makes a valiant stab at ‘Goodag, Nederlands.’

  Members of the audience shout, ‘We love you, Elf!’

  ‘So I must ask,’ says the host, ‘why are you in a band with three guys? This is very unconventional. Did you apply to join the band? Or did the band invite you?’

  ‘We … sort of auditioned each other,’ says Elf.

  ‘People suggest you were hired as a gimmick.’

  Elf’s face becomes more complicated. ‘I’m hardly likely to say yes to that, am I? I mean – were you hired as a gimmick?’

  ‘But an elf is a little magic person with pointy ears. Yet you are not little, not magic, and do not have pointy ears.’

  ‘It’s a family nickname. My birth certificate names are “Elizabeth Frances”. “El” plus “F” makes “Elf”.’

  Henk Teuling takes this in. ‘I see. Do you dig Amsterdam?’

  ‘I love it. It’s so … improbable. Yet here
it is.’

  ‘Precisely so.’ Henk Teuling turns to Griff. ‘You are …’

  Griff’s brow furrows. ‘I’m a fookin’ what?’

  ‘You are the drummer of Utopia Avenue.’

  Griff looks over at the drum-kit, astonished. ‘Holy shit. You’re right. I am the drummer …’

  ‘And tonight you make your international debut at the Paradiso, here in Amsterdam. What does this show mean to you?’

  ‘It means I get to be interviewed by Henk Teuling.’

  Henk Teuling nods as if considering a line of Immanuel Kant and turns to Dean. ‘You are Dean Moss. A bass guitarist. You wrote a song we did not hear just now entitled “Abandon Hope”. It was released as a second single. It was a flop. Why?’

  ‘One o’ them mysteries,’ says Dean. ‘Like, who hired yer?’

  Henk Teuling smiles illegibly. ‘The British sense of humour. I am an eminent music critic in the Netherlands, and well qualified to present this programme. Which brings us to Utopia Avenue’s LP, Paradise Is the Road to Paradise.’ He shows the camera a copy of their album. ‘Some people say this LP is schizophrenic. How do you respond? Anyone?’

  ‘How can an LP be schizophrenic?’ asks Dean. ‘That’s like saying, “Your helicopter is manic depressive”.’

  ‘Yet, in fact, on this album we hear acid rock, folk with acid effects, R&B, folk interludes, passages of jazz. So “schizophrenic” is, in fact, an apt adjective for such inconsistency of style.’

  ‘Wouldn’t the adjective “eclectic” be more apt?’ asks Elf.

  ‘But into which category of music,’ Henk Teuling asks the three males, ‘can Utopia Avenue be located? Our viewers at home will be worrying about this question. The category.’

  ‘Locate it in an eclectic category,’ states Dean.

  Jasper’s attention wanders off and finds Sam Verwey, who mimes hanging himself with a noose. A joke. Jasper mimes a smile. He finds he’s looking for Trix.

  ‘You have a view on this issue, Jasper?’ asks the eminent critic.

  ‘You’re like a zoologist asking a platypus, “Are you a duck-like otter? Or an otter-like duck? Or an oviparous mammal?” The platypus doesn’t care. The platypus is digging, swimming, hunting, eating, mating, sleeping. Like the platypus, I don’t care. We make music we like. We hope others like it too. That’s it.’

  The producer is making a time-up gesture. Henk Teuling addresses the camera. ‘We will finish here. Some people will find the music by these four platypuses unfocused, confusing and too loud. Some people may enjoy it. I will prejudice no one. Next up, making their third appearance on Fenklup with their newest hit, “Jennifer Eccles”, I am proud to present a genuine British pop sensation – the Hollies!’

  The black waters of the Singel Canal reflect the street lamps spaced along its curving banks. Pale globes fragment, resolve, fragment, resolve. Jasper crosses the narrow bridge and enters Roomolenstraat, exactly the kind of street that foreigners picture when they think of Amsterdam: brick-paved, with lampposts, tall narrow houses with tall narrow windows, steep gables and flower boxes. Halfway along its modest length, he finds the number he is searching for and a name-plaque atop the brass doorbell: GALAVAZI. Once Jasper’s thumb is on the doorbell, however, his resolve fragments. He’s no master of social etiquette, but he’s pretty sure that normal people telephone before turning up on a doorstep after five years. More than that, if you push this bell, Knock Knock’s return is official. Jasper senses the present bifurcate, right now. Or I could walk away and hope for the best.

  A builder’s van rumbles up Roomolenstraat. Jasper has to stand on the doorstep to let the van pass. The van slows down, and both the driver and the passenger – a son? – give Jasper a lidded stare, as if memorising his face for a police artist. I could have been you, Jasper thinks, looking at the son, easily – it’s all Y-junctions, from Alpha to Omega … His thumb is still on the doorbell. Just a little more pressure, and one future comes into being at the expense of another. No. The door opens anyway. Dr Ignaz Galavazi addresses Jasper in his Frisian-flavoured Dutch. ‘Ah, excellent timing, Jasper. In you come now, out of the cold. Dinner’s ready.’

  Dr Galavazi’s higgledy-piggledy kitchen is spotless and daffodil yellow. ‘My wife’s in Maastricht, visiting her family.’ The doctor ladles stew into Jasper’s bowl. He’s older, his throat is saggier, but his white hair still looks blown backwards as if he’s facing a gale. ‘She’ll be sorry she missed you.’

  ‘Pass on my compliments,’ Jasper remembers to say.

  The herby steam feels good on his cold skin.

  ‘I shall. How are you finding London?’

  ‘Labyrinthine.’

  ‘We both find much to admire in your gramophone record. Naturally, “modern music” to me means Poulenc or Britten, but if culture doesn’t evolve, it dies. I sent a copy to Claudette Dubois too. She’s teaching in Lyon now. She’s “happy as Larry” – as the English say – about you and Utopia Avenue.’

  ‘Pass on my compliments. Please.’

  ‘I shall. Little did I know that when I let her test her newfangled ideas at Rijksdorp, we were hatching “the Dutch Jimi Hendrix”. That’s what De Telegraaf’s calling you, and even I have heard of him. Bon appétit.’

  Jasper’s taste-buds investigate. Calf’s tongue, rosemary, cloves … ‘Were you expecting guests today, Doctor?’

  The doctor breaks open a crusty roll. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘The soup. You made enough to feed a rugby team.’

  Dr Galavazi’s lips twist. ‘It’s a fiddly old Jewish recipe of my mother’s. Collecting the ingredients is quite a quest, so I make a lot to justify the trouble. We have a refrigerator now. It’ll keep for a week. Also, I had a hunch – and hopes – that a former patient might drop by.’ He has a certain look. Amusement?

  Jasper hunts for clues: a former patient … ‘Me?’

  The doctor sips his beer with pleasure. ‘Who else?’

  ‘You must have many former patients.’

  ‘Not many whose name is printed in giant letters outside the Paradiso. Not many perform on Fenklup, either.’

  ‘At Rijksdorp, you used to say that television turns the human brain to cottage cheese.’

  ‘For you, I made an exception. I imposed upon a neighbour. The programme was idiotic, but you all played superbly, I thought. Identical to the gramophone.’

  Jasper bites a soft butterbean. ‘On TV, we mime.’

  ‘Is that so? My, my. More’s the pity Henk Teuling didn’t mime his interview. Have another bowl. It’s good to see you eat.’

  The psychiatrist serves green tea and lights his pipe in his book-lined study. These two aromas remind Jasper of Rijksdorp. Dr Galavazi’s voice lulls. ‘Is this purely a social call, Jasper, or am I correct in thinking there’s a professional aspect to it, as well?’

  ‘How retired are you, Doctor?’

  ‘Us old shrinks never retire. We just vanish in a puff of theory.’ He sips his tea. ‘Seeing you on my doorstep earlier, I guessed you were here to talk business.’ The doctor sips his tea. ‘Was I wrong?’

  Outside a cyclist in a hurry rings a frantic bell.

  Say it. ‘I think I can hear him again.’

  The doctor makes his thinking-growl. ‘Knock Knock? The Mongolian? Another?’

  ‘You still remember my case.’

  The doctor’s pipe-smoke smells of chicory, peat and pepper. ‘Disclosure: your case was good to my career. After Psychiatry Forum published my JZ paper, colleagues from Vancouver to Brasilia, New York to Johannesburg contacted me with reports of the very same phenomenon: of patients with diagnoses of schizophrenia who reported visits by an entity who ameliorates the psychosis. Only last May we held a conference in Boston on “Autonomous Healer Personae” – AHPs. If my zeal seems vampiric, I apologise – but, yes, I remember the facts of your case very well.’

  ‘If psychiatrists weren’t a little vampiric, psychiatry wouldn’t exist and I’d probably be dead.’

>   The doctor doesn’t deny this. ‘I’ll help in any way I can.’

  Things cost money. ‘Thank you, but my grandfather is dead, and I’m not exactly on a steady wage, so—’

  ‘There will be no fees. All I ask is that I can publish my findings.’

  ‘It’s a deal.’ Jasper guesses that a handshake is appropriate.

  Dr Galavazi smiles as he shakes Jasper’s hand, then reaches for his notepad. ‘So. How much time do we have now?’

  ‘Our sound-check at the Paradiso is at eight.’

  The doctor’s clock says six fifty-five. ‘Just the basic facts for now, then. Why do you think Knock Knock is coming back?’

  ‘I’ve heard him over the last few months. He’s still distant and it’s still faint, but he’s awake. I think I first heard him at a nightclub in London, about a year ago.’

  Deep growl. ‘Were you on drugs at the nightclub?’

  ‘An amphetamine. I saw him in a dream, too.’

  ‘The monk in the mirror?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Another growl. ‘Perhaps it would be strange if you didn’t dream about such a traumatic figure in your life.’

  ‘If … an invisible man moved into this house, Doctor, you couldn’t see him, but you’d sense him. I sense Knock Knock, here …’ Jasper touches his temple. ‘It’s like it was at Ely, at Rijksdorp too, before the Mongolian. The Mongolian said I’d have five years. My five years are up.’

  Dr Galavazi’s biro is busy. Jasper thinks of Amy Boxer who has been sleeping over in Dean’s room at Chetwynd Mews a lot since November. ‘Have you ever taken any hallucinogenic drugs?’

  ‘No. I’ve heeded your warning.’

  ‘Have you taken Queludrin or any anti-psychotic drug?’

  ‘No. I don’t have any. I haven’t approached a doctor. The British lock more people up than is generally known.’

  Dr Galavazi puffs his pipe. ‘What happened in this dream about Knock Knock?’

  ‘It was like a film I was watching. A historical film, set a few centuries ago. I saw Knock Knock – a monk or abbot – being poisoned by some kind of governor …’ Jasper gets his journal out of his satchel. ‘It’s on the first page. I’ve written down other dreams I thought were significant too. They’re dated.’