Дэвид Митчелл - Utopia Avenue

Side two of Blonde on Blonde clicks off with a clunk. Tiffany’s thigh is glued to his. He thinks, If I had to get anyone pregnant, why couldn’t it have been you? You five years ago minus husband ’n’ kids, obviously, that is. She says, ‘A penny for your thoughts.’

That phrase was starting to grate. ‘Uh … Bob Dylan.’

‘Close friend of yours, is he?’

‘Nah. Saw him at the Albert Hall a couple o’ years ago.’

‘Tony had tickets for that concert, but Martin had chickenpox, so he took Barbara Windsor instead. I heard the show was stormy.’

‘Half the audience was expecting, “Blowing in the Wind”. They got crash bang wallop! instead. And were not happy.’

‘I never quite grasp Dylan. When he’s singing how “ you fake just like a woman ”, then – what was it? – loving like a woman, and aching like one, but then breaking like a little girl, is he criticising his girl’s fragility in particular? Or is he saying that all women are fragile? Or what? Why isn’t he clearer?’

‘It’s open to interpretation, I s’pose. But I like that.’

She traces a circle around his nipple. ‘I prefer your songs.’

‘Oh, I bet yer say that to all the boys.’

‘Your lyrics are stories. Or a journey. Elf’s too.’

‘Jasper’s?’

‘Jasper’s songs are a bit Dylan-esque, in a way …’

‘Now I’ll have to kill him out o’ sheer jealousy.’

‘Don’t. This flat’s perfect for these liaisons.’

‘I liked the Hyde Park Embassy.’

‘One should vary the scenes of one’s liaisons …’ Sounds like she’s done this before , thinks Dean. ‘The staff are discreet – if you tip them – but it’s a gossipy town, and Tony’s not a nobody.’

‘When’s he due back from Los Angeles?’

‘The end of the month. It keeps changing.’

The phone ring-rings in the hallway.

It’s Ted Silver , thinks Dean, with Mandy Craddock news.

The phone ring-rings in the hallway.

‘Aren’t you going to get it?’ asks Tiffany.

The phone ring-rings in the hallway.

‘Stuff it. I’m enjoying you too much.’

The phone ring-rings in the hallway.

‘Tony would be sprinting down the hall,’ says Tiffany. ‘He’s Pavlov’s dog when the phone goes.’

The phone ring-rings in the hallway.

Dean guesses Pavlov’s some arty Russian filmmaker. The phone stops ringing. Tiffany lets out an odd sigh. ‘It’s been a while since I was valued more than a telephone call.’

They hear the key in the door of the flat. Tiffany tenses. ‘It’s only Jasper,’ says Dean. ‘My DO NOT DISTURB sign’s up.’

She’s still nervy. ‘You said he’d be out all day.’

‘I guess his plans’ve changed. He won’t come in.’

‘Nobody must know about us. I’m serious.’

‘Me too. I don’t want anyone to know either. I’ll go ’n’ tell Jasper I’ve got a coy visitor. When you leave, he’ll hide. He’s the opposite of nosy. It’s fine.’

Dean pulls on his underpants and dressing-gown …

In the kitchen Jasper is drinking a glass of milk.

‘How was the exhibition?’ asks Dean.

‘Impressive, but Luisa had an interview with Mary Quant so she and Elf went off to that, and I came back early.’

‘Elf’s seeing a lot of Luisa.’

Jasper studies him. ‘You’ve had sex.’

‘Why’d yer ask?’

‘Love-bites, underpants and dressing-gown and …’ Jasper sniffs strongly ‘… the smell of overripe Brie.’

Ugh. ‘Look, the young lady’s shy, so if yer’d retreat to yer room when she leaves, I’d be obliged.’

‘Sure. Elf’s coming over at six so your friend ought to be gone before then. I won’t peep, but Elf will.’

Bethany at Moonwhale looked at Dean over her typewriter and said, ‘Good morning, Dean’ – almost as if nothing was the matter at all.

‘Morning, Bethany. So, um …’

‘Ted’s in with Levon now.’ Tappety-tap-tap-tap .

Dean knocked and opened Levon’s sliding doors. His manager and the lawyer sat at the low tables, smoking.

‘Speak of the devil.’ Ted looked amused.

‘Have a seat.’ Levon looked a lot less amused.

Dean propped his Fender against the filing cabinet and sat down. He lit his fifth Marlboro of the morning.

‘So,’ said Ted, ‘to ask one of humanity’s oldest questions, are you the daddy-o?’

‘I dunno. I don’t remember an Amanda. I meet a lot o’ girls. But I don’t keep a desk diary o’ their names or nothing.’

Levon reached for his desk diary and took out a snapshot of a young woman holding a baby. She had dark hair, dark eyes and an ambiguous smile. The baby looked like any baby. Dean would file its mother under ‘Wouldn’t Say No’.

‘Well?’ asks Levon. ‘Jog any memories loose?’

‘Nothing specific.’

‘Miss Craddock is specific,’ says Levon. ‘July the twenty-ninth. The Alexandra Palace Love-in. You played a slot between Blossom Toes and Tomorrow. She says you met backstage during the Crazy World of Arthur Brown’s set, that you went back to her flat, above a launderette, and that nine months later,’ Levon held up the photograph, ‘Arthur Dean Craddock was born.’

Abruptly, Dean’s big vague cloud of doubt dwindled to a little white dot, like the TV at shutdown – and disappeared. Shit shit shit. The launderette. ‘Mandy’ not ‘Amanda’. She’d asked, ‘So do I get to see you again?’ Dean used his ‘Let’s not spoil a beautiful night’ line. Her mother was folding clothes downstairs. She looked at Dean and said nothing. He escaped onto the quiet Sunday road. ‘We slept together.’

‘Which is neither legal nor hereditary proof,’ said Ted Silver, ‘that young Arthur sprang from your loins. Unmarried mothers have been known to lie.’

Dean looked at the baby with fresh hope and fresh guilt. Was there a Moss-ness – or Moffat-ness – about him? He wished he could show the photo to Nan Moss, and feared doing so. She’d be furious. ‘I heard there’s a blood test yer can do …’

The lawyer waggled a hand. ‘The blood group test rules out paternity in thirty per cent of cases. It’s no smoking gun.’

‘So what are my choices?’

Ted Silver picked up a ginger biscuit. ‘You could claim that you never met Miss Craddock. Inadvisable. If it went to court, you’d have to perjure yourself.’ Munch on the ginger biscuit . ‘You could agree that you and Miss Craddock were in concubitus on the night, but refuse to acknowledge paternity of the child.’ Munch munch. ‘You could acknowledge the child as yours and talk turkey.’

‘What’s the price tag on this turkey?’

‘Figures are contingent upon negotiations, naturally.’

‘Naturally. But.’

‘But if I were representing the Craddocks, I’d demand a lump sum equal to what a tabloid newspaper would pay, plus index-linked monthly support payments until the child turns eighteen.’

‘Bloody hell. What year’ll that be?’

‘Nineteen eighty-six.’

The date belonged to an impossibly distant future. ‘All in, then, we’re talking …’

‘North of fifty thousand pounds. Index-linked.’ The office tilted and whirled like a spinning tea-cup at a funfair. Dean shut his eyes to make it stop. ‘Fifty thousand quid for one shag? For a kid who may not even be mine? No way. She can fuck off.’

‘Provisionally, then,’ says Ted, ‘we’re looking at option two. You admit that you and Miss Craddock shared physical intimacies, but you do not acknowledge paternity of the child.’