Дэвид Митчелл - Utopia Avenue

Yet a part of Elf holds out hope that the logical explanation is not the correct one. Surely, surely, Lu would have told me. She wouldn’t have dumped me in this cruel limbo where I don’t know if my heart is broken or not, and have no way to find out.

Would she? What if I didn’t know her as well as I thought I did? It wouldn’t be the first time. Would it, Baby Wombat?

She’s counting days. Like I counted days with Bruce. The cruellest twist is that she has to suffer alone. Not a living soul knows about her and Lu. Not a living soul can know …

At the Hersheys’ Midsummer Ball, Elf and Luisa found a quiet back staircase with a window-seat big enough for them to hide in. The curtain pulled across, and they were hidden from the garden below by a gingko tree in midsummer leaf. It could have been designed for assignations. They talked about music and politics; families and childhood; London, California and New York; dreams and time. They shared a cigarette, using a glass ashtray placed between them. They talked about who they loved now, and why. Elf spoke about Mark, and all the birthday cakes she would never make for him. ‘Bake them anyway,’ said Luisa. ‘With candles. They do in Mexico.’ Footsteps descended, past their hiding place; Luisa made a comic-conspiratorial face; the footsteps carried on. Elf wanted to kiss her new friend, more urgently than she had ever wanted to kiss anyone. One voice in Elf’s head warned her, She’s a girl. Stop it. This is not okay. A stronger voice in Elf’s head replied, I know, and she’s the most beautiful person I’ve ever met; and why should I stop?

Luisa and Elf looked at one another.

‘So this … is happening, isn’t it?’ said Luisa.

Elf’s pulse was fast and hard. ‘Yes. You’re so calm.’

‘I’m guessing I’d be your first,’ said Luisa. ‘If …’

Elf was ashamed and not. ‘That obvious, huh?’

‘I can see your heartbeat. Look.’ Luisa touched a vein in Elf’s left wrist and the left side of her body melted. Luisa spoke softly. ‘I know what you’re feeling. Social conditioning is a radio. It’s blaring, “ It’s wrong! She’s a girl! ”’

Elf nodded, gasped and sighed all at once, messily.

‘Turn off the radio. Click. Like that. Don’t over-analyse. In fact, don’t analyse. I did and there was no need. Don’t fret. You’re not about to step through a one-way looking glass. You won’t grow horns. You’re not swapping the tribe of the Respectable for the tribe of the Perverts. Nobody needs to know. I’m safe. It’s only two people. Only us. Only’ – that smile again – ‘love.’

A whoosh, a rush and they were kissing.

Elf pulled back, flushed and amazed.

Honey, tobacco and Bordeaux wine.

‘Love,’ said Luisa, ‘with a dash of lust.’

Elf stroked Luisa’s face. Like she would a man’s. Luisa stroked hers. Elf’s heart vibrated like a double-bass. Desire, desire, desire and desire.

‘ Don’t forget to breathe ,’ whispered Luisa.

Elf nearly giggled. She took a deep, deep breath.

A door opened up the stairs. Elf and Luisa sat back. Two friends, enjoying a quiet catch-up, away from the party. Light footsteps came down to the window-seat, and a small hand pulled the curtain back. A miniature blond boy with baby blue eyes peered in. He wore a cowboy hat with a sheriff’s star. ‘This is my den.’

‘Correct,’ said Luisa. ‘What’s your name, Sheriff?’

‘Crispin Hershey. What are you doing here?’

‘Actually, we’re not really here,’ said Elf.

Crispin frowned. ‘Oh yes you are.’

‘Oh no we’re not,’ said Elf. ‘You’re dreaming us. Right now. You’re in bed, asleep. We’re not real.’

Crispin thought. ‘You look real.’

‘That’s dreams for you,’ said Luisa. ‘When you’re in one, like you are now, it feels very very real. Doesn’t it?’

Crispin nodded.

‘We’ll prove you’re dreaming,’ said Elf. ‘Go back to your bed, lie down, shut your eyes, then wake up. Then come back, and we won’t be here. Why? Because we never were. Okay?’

Crispin thought. ‘Okay.’

‘Off you go then,’ said Luisa. ‘Back to your room. Chop chop. No time to waste.’

The boy turned and ran back up the stairs. Elf and Luisa climbed out of the window-seat and hurried downstairs. Before they re-entered the party, Luisa asked, ‘What now?’

Elf didn’t analyse. ‘A taxi.’

The band queue at immigration control in LaGuardia Airport for one hour and twenty minutes. Jasper recovers some of his composure, if not his colour. Griff, Dean and Levon run through, and expand upon, the band’s repertoire of time-killing word games devised during sixteen months of driving around the United Kingdom in the Beast. Elf is ushered to the booth of an immigration officer. The official squints at Elf’s passport photo, then at Elf, over his iron-framed glasses. He has sugar on his moustache. ‘Elizabeth – Frances – Holloway.’ His voice drags itself wearily to the end of his sentence. ‘Musician, it says here.’

‘That’s correct.’

‘What kinda music you play?’

Don’t mention rock ’n’ roll, Levon advised, or psychedelia or politics. ‘Folk music, for the most part.’

‘Folk music. Like that Joan Baez.’

‘A little like Joan Baez, yes.’

‘A little like Joan Baez. You do anti-war songs?’

An instinct cautions Elf. ‘Not as such.’

‘My eldest son signed up for Vietnam.’

Thin ice. ‘That must be tough.’

‘Wanna know the worst part?’ The man removes his glasses. ‘Over there , it’s a goddamn slaughterhouse. Over here , goddamn freaks are free to burn draft-cards, rut like rabbits, riot and sing about peace. Who buys them that freedom? Kids like my boy.’

Of the twelve immigration booths , thinks Elf, why did I have to get this one? ‘My own repertoire would be more traditional than in the protest area.’

‘Yeah? Traditionally what?’

‘Traditional folk. English, Scottish, Irish.’

‘I’m Irish. Sing me something Irish.’

Elf assumes she misheard. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Sing me something Irish. A folk song. Or is this –’ he waggles her passport ‘– just so much bull-crap?’

‘You mean … You want me to sing – right here?’

‘Yeah. That’s exactly what I mean.’

There’s no higher authority to appeal to. Okay then, an impromptu gig. Elf leans in, taps out a 4/4 rhythm on the desk, looks through the man’s lenses into his pupils, and takes a breath:

On Raglan Road on an Autumn Day,

I saw her first and knew

That her dark hair would weave a snare

That I may one day rue.

I saw the danger, yet I walked

Along the enchanted way

And I said, Let grief be a falling leaf

At the dawning of the day.

The immigration man’s Adam’s apple bobs. He guides his cigarette to his lips and inhales a lungful of smoke. ‘Pretty.’ He stamps Elf’s passport and hands it back. ‘Yeah.’

‘I hope your son comes home soon.’

‘He worked at a fuel depot. Near the front. An artillery shell came outa nowhere. Whole frickin’ place went up like the Fourth of July. Nothing left of my boy but his dog tag. Nineteen years, he was. A bit of metal. That’s all we’ve got.’

Elf manages to say, ‘I’m so sorry.’

The bereaved father stubs out his cigarette, peers back at the queue and motions at the next supplicating foreigner. ‘ Next! ’

‘Good golly, Miss Molly.’ Max Mulholland, the pink-cheeked, feathery-haired, pomaded A&R man of Gargoyle Records is waiting in Arrivals with a very large card on which ‘WELCOMING THE NAKED GENIUS OF UTOPIA AVENUE’ is written. Luisa Rey, the only person Elf wants to see waiting in Arrivals, is nowhere. Max Mulholland embraces Levon and groans like a lover. ‘Lev, Lev, Lev, Lev, Lev . You’re all skin and bone. Is rationing still a thing in England? What are you living on? Roots? Berries? Solid air?’