Дэвид Митчелл - Utopia Avenue

Dean is cautious. ‘Who isn’t?’

‘Bobby composed “Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands” in Eight twenty-two.’

Dean’s face changes. ‘Yer bloody codding me.’

‘He said it has a special vibe.’ Stanley Bard holds the key by its fob. ‘There might be separate rooms on the third, if you—’

‘Eight twenty-two’ll do nicely, cheers.’ Dean cradles the key in his hand like a believer holding a nail from the Holy Cross.

‘Elf, you’re Nine thirty-nine. Levon, Nine twelve. Jasper, I’m putting you in Seven seventy-seven. A Chinaman assured me it’s the luckiest room in any hotel.’

Jasper takes the key, mumbling ‘Thanks.’ Elf asks in a perfectly natural voice, ‘Are there any messages for me, Stanley?’

‘I’ll check.’ He goes into the back office. The others move to the lifts, except for Dean. ‘Hoping to hear from Luisa?’

Elf answers brightly. ‘Just on the off-chance. She’s dead busy with work right now. A big story.’

Stanley returns. ‘Nothing, Elf. Sorry.’

‘I wasn’t expecting anything.’

Room 939 is stuffy and smells of roast chicken. It is furnished with items not worth stealing: chenille bedspread, a chipped ceramic lamp, a barometer whose needle erroneously claims ‘STORMY’ and a painting of an airship. Elf unpacks, imagining Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde and a survivor of the Titanic unpacking before her in this very room. She puts her framed photograph of the three Holloway sisters and their mother, taken by a waiter last year on the day Imogen announced her pregnancy. Mark’s there too, kind of. Elf washes her face, drinks a cup of New York tap-water, fixes her hair and reapplies her makeup at the cracked mirror above the dressing-table. I bet Jasper covers his mirror with the bedsheet. If Stuff of Life does well and Utopia Avenue has to do more international tours, Jasper will need better medication than Queludrin.

Elf opens the door onto the balcony. A cool night. Nine storeys down, cars, people and shadows flit. London exists horizontally, mostly: New York is a vertical place, enabled by elevators.

America. So it’s a real place, after all.

The band are meeting for dinner downstairs. Elf changes into the black chiffon tunic-top and frayed cream bell-bottoms she bought with Bea in Chelsea, five time zones and two days ago. What to do about Luisa’s seraphinite pendant? If I wear it, I’m a desperate dyke who can’t face reality. lf I don’t wear it, I’m discarding her, and the dying hope that this is all some misunderstanding. Elf wears the pendant.

When the elevator stops at the ninth floor, the busboy who operated the archaic cage on the way up is missing. A well-groomed man of about thirty is the only occupant. Elf tries to open the outer door, but the handle is stiff and awkward. ‘Allow me,’ he says. ‘It’s quite the operation.’ He slides the inner door across, twists the handle of the outer door up and swings it open. ‘Step aboard.’

Elf steps in. ‘Thank you.’

‘Any time.’ The man knows he is tall, dark and handsome. He has a wedding ring and his aftershave smells of tea and oranges. ‘Your final destination this evening, if I may ask?’

‘Ground floor, please.’

‘Keep your thumb pressed on G.’

It’s an odd instruction, but Elf obeys.

The elevator doesn’t move.

‘Huh. Odd. Let me ask Eligius.’

Nobody else is here. ‘Who?’

‘Patron saint of elevators.’ He shuts his eyes and nods. ‘Got it. Eligius says you have to release your thumb …’ Elf realises he’s now talking to her, ‘Now.’ She obeys, and the elevator resumes its slow descent. ‘Good old Eligius.’ says the man.

Elf works out the trick: the lift won’t move until the button is released. ‘Funny. Moderately. Not very.’

His amused eyes have double-folded bags. ‘So are you a new inmate at the asylum, or just visiting?’

The elevator descends through the eighth floor.

‘Visiting.’

‘Who is your fortunate host?’

Elf chooses an unobtainable male to deflect the man’s charm offensive. ‘Jim Morrison.’

‘Why, madam, you are in luck. I am Jim Morrison.’

Elf tries not to find this funny. ‘I’ve seen lollipop ladies in Blackpool who look more like Jim Morrison than you.’

He gestures surrender. ‘You’ve wrestled the truth out of me. Friends call me Lenny. I hope you will too.’

Elf replies with an is-that-so face.

The elevator descends through the seventh floor.

Lenny doesn’t press for her name. His shoes are polished to a high gloss. ‘Be warned, this is the slowest elevator in American hostelry. If you’re in a hurry, walk. It’s quicker.’

‘I’m in no mad rush.’

‘Good for you. The word “faster” is becoming a synonym of “better”. As if the goal of human evolution is to be a sentient bullet.’

The elevator descends through the sixth floor.

He speaks like a writer , thinks Elf . She tries to think of a literary Lenny or Len. ‘Are you a resident here?’

‘Periodically, but I’m an incurable itinerant. Toronto, here, Greece. Is yours what is called a “Home Counties” accent?’

‘Yes. Not bad. Richmond, west London.’

‘I was in London eight years ago on a kind of scholarship.’

The elevator descends through the fifth floor.

‘What kind of scholarship?’

‘The literary kind, I wrote a novel by day and poetry by night.’

‘How very Bohemian. Good memories?’

The elevator descends through the fourth floor.

‘My memories of Bohemia-on-the-Thames,’ says Lenny, ‘are of landladies diddling the gas meters; complaints about the loudness of my typewriter; not seeing the sun for months; and a wisdom-tooth extraction going horribly wrong. I wouldn’t have survived without Soho. The saucy twinkle in Mother London’s eye.’

‘It’s twinkling as saucily as ever. I live there. Livonia Street.’

‘Then I envy you. In part.’

The elevator descends through the third floor.

Elf recalls Bruce’s friend Wotsit. ‘I’ve heard Greece is lovely.’

‘It’s many things. Paradoxical. Governed by a far-right junta, yet out on the islands, it’s live and let live.’

‘How did you end up there?’

‘One day, at the fag end of an English winter, I went to the bank on Charing Cross Road. The teller had a perfect tan. I asked him where he’d been. He told me about Hydra and I thought, I’m off . A fortnight later, the ferry from Piraeus dropped me at the quay. Blue sky, blue sea, cypress trees, whitewashed buildings. Cafés where fifty cents get you a dinner of grilled fish, chilled retsina, olives and tomatoes. No cars. Intermittent electricity. I rented a place for fourteen dollars a month. I own one now.’

‘Sounds like Paradise,’ says Elf, ‘in many ways.’

‘The snag with Paradise is, it’s hard to earn a living there.’

The elevator reaches the ground floor. Elf opens the door.

‘I’m dining with friends at Union Square,’ says Lenny. ‘If you’re heading that way, you’re welcome to ride in my taxi.’

‘Thank you, no. I’m heading’ – Elf points at the door to the El Quijote restaurant – ‘all the way there.’

‘I’m glad we shared this epic voyage, mysterious stranger.’

‘Elf Holloway.’

Lenny repeats it approvingly, lifts his hat like an old-fashioned gentleman and crosses the lobby – before reappearing at Elf’s elbow. ‘Elf, forgive me if I’m overstepping a mark, but sometimes one gets a feeling about a person. My friend Janet is hosting a small gathering on the roof terrace later. Very informal. Just a few fellow misfits. Time and energy allowing, drop by. Or drop up. Companions in your coterie would also be welcome.’