‘Do you feel it too?’ asked Lara.
‘Yeah,’ said Dean. ‘Yeah, I do.’
‘Do you know the name of this feeling?’
‘What?’
‘Revolution.’
He looked at her, sideways.
Lara looked back. ‘We’re marching with the suffragettes, the Durruti Column, the Communards, the Chartists, the Roundheads, the Levellers, Wat Tyler …’
Dean didn’t admit he hadn’t heard of these bands.
‘… with everyone who stuck two fingers up to the bloodsucking Establishment of their age and said: “FUCK YOU.” Causes change, but power is in flux and its ownership is temporary.’
‘What’s yer surname, Lara?’ asked Dean.
‘Why do you ask?’
‘One day yer going to be famous.’
Lara lit a Marlboro. ‘Lara Veroner Gubitosi.’
‘Wow. That’s … long.’
‘Most names on Earth are longer than “Dean Moss”.’
‘S’pose so. Are yer Italian, then?’
‘I’m from many places.’
They turned into North Audley Street, where the march was funnelled south: ‘Hands – off – Vietnam! Hands – off – Vietnam!’ Faces watched from Mayfair townhouses. Two blocks south lay Grosvenor Square. Cordons of police and a defensive line of Black Marias walled off the American Embassy: a squat, modernist five-floor bunker, topped by an eagle.
‘Didn’t the SS have an eagle too?’ asked Floss.
The crush from behind grew as demonstrators ahead filled the road around the square. The big area of grass and trees in the centre of Grosvenor Square was walled off by police, who had badly underestimated the size of the crowd they needed to contain. Exits from the square were blocked, so the thousands of marchers at the front had nowhere to go. The crush grew denser until the barriers around the park in the square gave way, in several places at once. A body fell on top of Dean and a heel pressed his knee into the soft turf. A roar rose up, like at the start of a football game or a battle. If the day had been a summery pop single, it was now flipped over onto its darker, rockier B side …
Dean was lifted up by Lara Veroner Gubitosi, who murmured in his ear, ‘Let the love-in begin,’ and was lost in bodies. Whistles blasted. Smoke stained the air. Kenny and Floss were nowhere to be seen. The sun had dimmed to half-light. ‘Fuck the pigs! Fuck the pigs! Fuck the pigs!’ Officers manning the lines around the square retreated back to the police phalanx in front of the embassy. Who was on whose side? What were the sides? Projectiles rained. A tinkle of glass – a ragged cheer – ‘We got a window!’ Another cheer. ‘Another one!’ Screams. ‘Ho! Ho! Ho Chi Minh! Ho! Ho! Ho Chi Minh!’ An earthquake? In London? Horses charging, a dozen or more, straight at Dean. Mounted officers swung truncheons like Victorian cavalry swinging cutlasses. People ran under the trees, where the branches were too low for the mounted police. Dean fled into the path of another horse and into the path of another and into the path of another, and tripped, saving his skull from a skull-crushing truncheon by a whisker. A hoof slammed the turf inches away from his head. Dean scrambled to his feet, finding a rag of hairy scalp stuck to his hand. A man with an LBJ mask hurled a smoke bomb at the police. Dean ran in the other direction but no longer knew which direction that was. The battle line kept looping in on itself. Louder, louder: ‘Ho! Ho! Ho Chi Minh! Ho! Ho! Ho Chi Minh!’ A gang of coppers caught a man and pounded, pounded, pounded him with truncheons and boots. ‘That enough love an’ peace for yer?’ They dragged him off by his hair. ‘Out of the way!’ A copper was being stretchered past, his face like a butcher’s tray. Dean wanted out of Grosvenor Square. The band was due to fly to Italy in forty-eight hours. Getting arrested would be bad: a trampled hand, disastrous. But where was the exit? Police blocked the Brook Street exit with a wall of Black Marias into which they were slinging protesters indiscriminately. ‘Fuck the pigs! Fuck the pigs! Fuck the pigs!’ A black horse pranced Dean’s way. A hand grabbed Dean’s scruff and pulled him onto a doorstep. ‘Mick Jagger?’
Dean’s rescuer shook his head. ‘Nah, I’m an impersonator. Go thataway, this ain’t no place for a street-fighting man.’ He pointed to the mouth of Carlos Place, where the police were letting people out of the square.
Dean made no eye contact as he passed through the uniformed filter. He remembered the end of the nursery rhyme: Here comes the chopper to chop off your head. He walked down Adam’s Row. Through an archway, he saw a gang of three kicking a hippie on the ground. They had shaved heads, like monks, and one had a Stars and Stripes flag T-shirt. What tribe were these? Not mods, not rockers, not Teds. They worked methodically. Their victim had curled into a shuddering ball. One of the shaved-heads noticed Dean watching. ‘Yeah? Want a taster too, do yer, yer cunt?’
Dean ran through his options. He walked away …
… like a coward. Dean revisits the scene on a bedbug-infested mattress in a police cell in a suburb of Rome. Kenny, he found out the next day, had been arrested and had had his nose broken. And now it’s my turn to spend a night in a cell. If Harry Moffat could see Dean now, banged up in prison, he’d laugh his tits off. ‘I fuckin’ told yer so!’ Or maybe not. He’d had a letter from Ray the day before they left for Italy. A contact at Alcoholics Anonymous had got Harry Moffat a job working nights as a security guard. One slip off the wagon, though, and he’s out. But for now, he’s a nightwatchman. Like Jasper’s song. Ray says he’s changed a lot. Maybe Ray’s right. Maybe I’ve been carrying a hatchet so long I don’t even notice it.
A mosquito flies into Dean’s field of vision.
It settles on the wall by his head.
Dean splats it and inspects the wreckage.
Have yer forgotten how the old bastard used to belt Mum? If that’s not worth a lifelong hatchet, what is?
Lunch arrives. It’s a mug of instant soup. Dean can’t identify the flavour. He can only hope it hasn’t been gobbed into. There’s an apple and three biscuits with the word ‘TARALLUCCI’ baked into it. The biscuits are bland, but the sugar’s welcome. Footsteps approach and a key turns. It’s Big Cop making a beckoning gesture. ‘Vieni.’
Dean’s hopes surge: ‘Are you letting me go?’
‘Hai uno visitatore.’
The windowless interrogation room is lit by a strip light speckled with flies, living and dead. Dean sits at the table, alone. He hears a typist on the other side of the door. Two men are laughing. Minutes limp by. The men are still laughing. The door opens.
‘Mr Moss.’ An Englishman in a pale suit, riffling through papers. He looks over his gold-rimmed glasses. ‘Morton Symonds. Consular Affairs at Her Majesty’s Embassy.’
Ex-military, thinks Dean. ‘Good afternoon, Mr Symonds.’
‘Not for you, it isn’t.’ He sits ramrod straight. He places an Italian newspaper in front of Dean and points to a photograph. ‘This is not the publicity your Mr Frankland was hoping for.’
The photograph shows Dean Moss being frogmarched out of the airport with his hands cuffed. ‘Is this a national paper?’
‘It certainly is.’
Then if I know my Mr Frankland, thinks Dean, he’ll be over the bloody moon. ‘At least they printed my best side.’
A pause. ‘Do you think this is all a lark?’
‘Dunno ’bout “lark”. The way I’ve been treated’s a farce. What’s the story with the others?’
Morton Symonds performs a small huh. ‘Mr de Zoet and Mr Griffin have been released without charge. They’re staying at a pensione near the airport. Mr Frankland is being questioned about tax obligations and monetary control violations.’
‘Which means what?’
A sigh. ‘You can’t just take five thousand dollars out of the country. There are laws against it.’
‘It wasn’t five. It was two. And why not? We earned it.’
‘Immaterial. And, for you, the least of your problems. You’re being charged with common assault –’ Morton Symonds checks a file ‘–assaulting a
police officer, resisting arrest and, most gravely, drug trafficking.’ He looks up. ‘Still a lark, is it?’
‘It’s bullshit is what it is. They punched me. See?’ Dean stood, undid his shirt and showed his bruises. ‘I might’ve kicked a reporter ’cause he shot off a flash in my face but the dope – was – planted.’
‘The authorities beg to differ.’ The consul scans the newspaper article. ‘I quote,“Captain Ferlinghetti of the Polizia Fiscale told reporters, ‘Our handling of these hooligans sends a message to foreign celebrities: if you flout Italian laws, you will regret it.’” Symonds looks up. ‘You’re facing jail, Mr Moss.’
‘But I didn’t do what they said I did.’
‘It’s your word against that of an Italian police captain. You’re facing a minimum sentence of three years, if found guilty.’
It won’t come to that. It won’t come to that. ‘Do I get a lawyer? Or is it trial by witchcraft?’
‘The state will engage a lawyer. Of sorts. But Italian justice is more glacial than British. You’ll be held for at least twelve months.’
Dean pictures his cell. ‘Bail?’
‘No chance. The judge will assume you’re a flight risk.’
‘So why’re yer here, Mr Symonds? To gloat at an oik with girl’s hair? Or d’yer help people who didn’t go to Oxbridge too?’
Symonds is mildly amused. ‘I’ll submit a standard plea for clemency, citing your youth and inexperience.’
‘When’ll I hear if the plea’s worked or not? Today?’
‘Monday’s a slow day in Italy. Wednesday, with luck.’
‘Are there any fast days in Italy?’
‘No. The upcoming election doesn’t help.’
‘How long can they hold me before charging me?’
‘Seventy-two hours, unless a magistrate grants an extension. Which is amply possible in a case like yours.’
‘Can I see my friends?’
‘I’ll ask, but the captain will tell me that he can’t have you orchestrating your stories.’
‘The only story is, “A bent little Mussolini planted drugs on an innocent Brit.” Can I have a toothbrush – or access to my suitcase, for clean clothes? My cell’s a bloody khazi.’
‘It was never going to be the Hilton, Mr Moss.’
Twat. ‘I’m not asking for the Hilton. I’m asking for a mattress that isn’t crawling with bedbugs. Look at these bite marks.’
Symonds looks. ‘I’ll mention your mattress.’
‘Yer wouldn’t have a packet o’ fags on yer, would yer?’
‘It’s against the rules, Mr Moss.’
Hours die slowly back in Dean’s cell. He imagines Ferlinghetti imagining him starting to crack. The prisoner’s only counter-move is not to crack. He imagines his Fender around his neck and works through the bass parts on Paradise Is the Road to Paradise, song by song. He plays ‘Blues Run The Game’ on an imaginary acoustic. He imagines the flat in Chetwynd Mews and surveys it, room by room, searching for details he didn’t know he’d stored away: smells, the feel of the boards through his socks; the spider-plant; the tobacco tin he keeps his weed in; the pirate on that tin; the resistance of the lid as you open it. He imagines having to do this for three years. He senses a crack. Stop it. A jug of water is put through the hatch, with a sliver of soap and a used toothbrush. He drinks half of the water, then uses the remainder to give himself a stand-up wash over the shit-hole. He gives the toothbrush a miss. Through the gridded window, his second evening of captivity fades. The lamp flickers on. Dean hears another mosquito; sees it; tracks it; kills it. Sorry, mate, but it’s you or me. Dean does a hundred sit-ups. His underpants stick to his skin. The light clicks off. What if I don’t get out? What if I don’t see Elf ’n’ Ray ’n’ Jasper ’n’ Griff ’n’ Nan Moss ’n’ Bill again?
Dean lies down on the bed. It squeaks.
But I will see them again. Griff won’t see his brother again. Imogen won’t see her son again. Elf won’t see her nephew again. Those candles’re snuffed out. Mine are still burning …
In a heart of the eternal labyrinth known as Rome, Dean came across a hidden square. A rust-speckled blue sign read ‘Piazza della Nespola’. Old men played chess in the shade of a tree. Women talked. Boys bragged, laughed and kicked a ball about. Girls watched. A dog had three legs. The piazza was warm in a way Gravesend is never warm. Its flagstones and cobbles gave up the stored heat of midday. Dean heard a clarinet, but he couldn’t work out through which window, over which balcony, the melody was calling. He wished he could notate it, like Jasper or Elf. Dean knew it would be gone, later. He knew he should get back to the hotel, over the river, over the bridge, but some spell made him linger. On the offal-pink wall, on crumbling plaster, on terracotta bricks, graffiti read, CHIEDIAMO L’IMPOSSIBILE and LUCREZIA TI AMERÒ PER SEMPRE and OPPRESSIONE = TERRORISMO. Starlings streamed through gaps of sky. A tall narrow gateway drew Dean up a half-dozen steps and into a church. Gold glittered on darkness. Incense hung in the air. People came in, lit candles, knelt, prayed and left like customers in a post office. Dean didn’t believe but here, it didn’t matter. He lit a candle for the dead: for Mum, for Steven Griffin, and for Elf’s baby nephew Mark. He lit another for the living: for Ray, Shirl and Wayne; for Nan Moss and Bill; for Elf, Jasper, Levon and Griff. A small choir sang. Pure vocal stacks rose all the way to the distant roof. Dean had to leave, but a part of him never would. In memory and in dream, he’d revisit this lacuna in time and in space. The place was a part of him now. Every lifetime, every spin of the wheel, holds a few such lacunae. A jetty by an estuary, a single bed under a skylight, a bandstand in a twilit park, a hidden church in a hidden square. The candles at the altar did not burn out.
Day three begins. Tuesday. Elf and Bethany must know by now. Bedbugs have snacked on Dean again. He wonders if Symonds mentioned the mattress to Ferlinghetti. What wouldn’t I give for one cigarette? Rod Dempsey told Dean that a British prison is like a rough hostel. There are tribes and gangs, but if you keep your head down, you get through it. Would an Italian prison be as survivable? He doesn’t speak the language. When he’s out, what then? Johnny Cash managed a career after prison, but Dean’s no Johnny Cash. Jasper and Elf couldn’t be expected to sit around twiddling their thumbs until 1971. Footsteps approach. The hatch in the door slides open. A breakfast tray is pushed through.
‘My friends? My lawyer? Ferlinghetti?’
Everything on the tray is the same as yesterday.
‘New cell?’ Dean asks through the hatch. ‘New mattress? Ambassador? Cigarette? Acknowledge my sodding existence?’
The hatch snaps shut. Dean eats the bread. He scoops off the froth and chances the coffee. He thinks of Nan Moss’s apple pie and battered cod and chips. He puts the vassoio by the hatch. ‘Don’t make an enemy o’ the screws,’ Rod Dempsey told him. ‘The fuckers’ve got the power o’ life ’n’ death over yer …’
Dean wonders if Symonds has lodged that appeal for clemency yet. He wonders if Elf or Bethany believes he was stupid enough to take drugs through an airport. He wonders how things are at Elf’s sister’s. Footsteps approach. Dean’s pretty sure it’s Big Cop. The hatch snaps open. The tray is exchanged for a half-roll of toilet paper. The hatch snaps shut. There’s more paper on the roll than yesterday. Does this mean I’m not going anywhere?
Dean thinks about the thing called ‘freedom’.
All his life he’d had it but didn’t even notice it.
Time passes. Time passes. Time passes.
Footsteps approach. The hatch in the door snaps open.
A tray is pushed through. Bread, a banana and water.
Lunch. The banana’s old and foamy. Dean doesn’t mind.
Symonds said he has to be charged within seventy-two hours.
Ferlinghetti made it clear whose word is the real law.
Dean leaves the tray by the hatch.
Yes, sir, no, sir, three bags full, sir …
Good prisoners might get an extra banana.
Small wonder half the prison population’s on drugs.
It’s not to get high: it’s to kill time before time kills you.
Armed columns of days, weeks, months and years march towards Dean out of the future. A first hearing. Transfer to a real prison. I’ll look back at this boredom when I’m banged up with a psycho cell-mate with sexual frustration and pubic lice and I’ll think, ‘Christ, those were the days …’
Dean sets himself the task of doing a hundred sit-ups.
As if that’ll keep yer safe in a real prison wing.
His underwear feels disgusting. A bag of clean washing is waiting for him at the launderette near Chetwynd Mews. It’ll be clean and smelling of soap powder. It may as well be on the moon.
Gridded moonlight lies on the concrete floor. The whole of Day Three passed with no word from anyone. Dean should be at Fungus Hut this week, recording a demo for ‘Nightwatchman’. Or ‘The Hook’. Dean’s stomach growls. Supper was a jug of water, a stale roll, an inch of salami, a cup of cold rice pudding. A conversation would be nice. No wonder people lose their sanity in prison. People say, ‘Where there’s life there’s hope,’ but every saying has a B side and this one’s is ‘Hope stops you adapting to a new reality.’ Dean is an inmate. Inmates can’t be pop stars. He wonders if his arrest is in Melody Maker. He expects Amy’s line will be ‘Let’s hope the Italians throw away the key.’ Fleet Street will agree, if anyone notices that Utopia Avenue’s lesser songwriter has been detained in Italy. ‘Bravo, Italy! Lock the bleeder up!’ The public won’t believe the cannabis was planted. The public believe what the papers tell them. Nan Moss and the aunts might not, but Harry Moffat will. He’ll want to believe it …
Utopia Avenue : A Novel Page 36